by Ava Stone
“No buts,” Braden interrupted. If his brother said the word ‘vanished’ one more time, he’d thrash him within an inch of his life. “Round up whoever’s inside and we’ll find her, wherever she is.”
It didn’t take long for Quent to hasten back to the castle, leaving Braden alone in the gardens. He stared at the hedge his brother had accused and shook his head at the ridiculousness of the suggestion. Vanished, for God’s sake.
He stepped towards the bush in question, and at once the soft scent of gardenias filled his senses. It was the wrong time of year for gardenias, but… Callie did use gardenia oil or soaps in her bath. It smelled so much like her, right where he was standing. Or he was imagining it, because believing that she’d been there one second but was gone the next was simply not conceivable.
“Callie,” he said softly. “My sweet Callie, where are you?”
A breeze brushed past him, almost like a caress and an unconscious shiver raced down his spine.
Within just a few minutes, the entirety of Marisdùn’s staff as well as Quent, Wolf, Garrick, Thorn, Chetwey (recovered from his sickbed) and Miss Brighid Glace (whom Braden suspected was the reason for Chetwey’s quick recovery) filed out into the gardens.
“All right,” Thorn began, “what’s this about, Braden?”
What, indeed? He didn’t even know if Callie was missing. “Well…” He chanced a glance at his brother. Quent’s brow lifted as though daring Braden to call him a liar. “I’m trying to find Miss Eilbeck. My brother saw her here in the gardens not long ago, but we can’t seem to locate her now.”
“I saw a woman in the gardens this morning,” Wolf said. “From my window. She might have seen Miss Eilbeck.”
“Which woman?” Braden asked.
“I don’t know. All dressed in blue. Spotted her the other day too.”
“You saw the woman in blue?” Mrs. Small, the housekeeper, asked, her brow quite furrowed.
Wolf nodded. “I saw a woman in blue. Does that mean something?”
“The ghost of Mrs. Routledge!” squealed one of the maids, grasping the hand of the footman at her side.
“I do not have the patience for ghost stories this afternoon,” Braden growled. “Miss Eilbeck needs to be located.”
“Braden thought if we all searched the grounds, we could find her,” Quent added, skepticism lacing his voice.
“You don’t sound certain,” Thorn replied, casting Quent a sidelong glance.
“It doesn’t matter what I think,” his brother grumbled. “I’ll start over towards the fountain.”
“If you have something of merit to say, Quent,” Chetwey began, “I’m certain we’d all like to hear it.”
There was a rumbling of sounds through the assembled that seemed to be in agreement with Chetwey. Braden snorted. What a complete waste of time it would be to tell them, but they didn’t seem inclined to dissipate without hearing Quent. “Go on—” he shook his head “—tell them.”
Quent heaved a sigh, stepped slightly away from the group to face them and said, “Braden doesn’t believe me, but she vanished right before my eyes. Right here in this garden.”
“Vanished?” Thorn echoed as everyone else gasped nearly in unison.
“I thought it was my imagination, but then I heard her voice and—”
“What did she say?” Miss Glace asked.
Quent frowned. “Wait,” he replied. “She said, ‘Wait, Mary!’ But I couldn’t tell where the sound was coming from.”
“Mary?” The housekeeper touched a hand to her heart and glanced at Bendle. “Like Mary Routledge, you think?”
Mary Routledge? A relative of some sort?
Before Braden could ask the question, Bendle shook his head. “I hope not,” the butler breathed out.
“Who the devil is Mary Routledge?” Braden finally asked.
The butler’s brow creased with concern as he met Braden’s gaze. “Your great-grandmother, my lord.”
“But she disappeared,” Quent said, stepping closer to Braden. “Our grandfather told us all about it.”
“No.” The housekeeper shook her head. “She didn’t disappear, she was taken by Marisdùn. It’s not the same thing at all.”
Taken by the castle? It was the most ridiculous thing Braden had ever heard, and this nonsense had gone on quite long enough. He looked at his friends, who had to be the most levelheaded of those assembled in the gardens. “Will you help me look for her?”
“Of course,” Garrick replied. “We won’t leave a stone unturned.”
No stone had gone unturned. The entire castle grounds both outside and in had been searched, but there wasn’t any sign of Callie anywhere. Once again, Braden’s fingers found the edges of the note she’d sent him that morning and panic pierced his heart. He was going to have to head to Braewood Manor to see Sir Cyrus, and he prayed that Callie had just been detained, that she’d simply been unable to leave the manor. Because believing that she had vanished into thin air was not something he could bear.
He nodded towards his brother in the great room and said, “I’m headed over to see her brother, but if anything happens while I’m gone…”
“If anything happens while you’re gone, I’ll come for you straight away,” Quent vowed.
Braden started for the corridor, but found the housekeeper, Mrs. Small, blocking his path. “A quick word with you, milord.”
“Of course,” Braden replied. He wasn’t terribly anxious to start for Braewood anyway. If Callie wasn’t there…
“We’re never going to find Miss Eilbeck, milord,” the housekeeper said, sending panic straight to Braden’s heart. “The castle won’t give up its spoils.”
“The castle has not taken Miss Eilbeck,” Braden clipped out. “And I don’t want to hear such ridiculousness again.”
“We can get her back,” the woman pressed forward as though he hadn’t said a thing. “But we have to get her back before midnight on Samhain or she’ll be lost forever. We just need a…witch.”
Braden’s nerves were at their breaking point. “A witch?” he growled. Then he shook his head and said very slowly, “My intended was not taken by the castle, Mrs. Small. We do not need a witch. And if you ever mutter any such nonsense to me ever again, you can pack your bags and find employment elsewhere. Am I perfectly clear?”
The old woman nodded once, but kept her gaze on the ground, which suited Braden just fine. He brushed past the housekeeper into the corridor towards the front foyer.
Bendle quickly opened the front door and Braden strode through, stopping a second later when he spotted a traveling coach in the courtyard. A driver opened the door and the Earl of St. Austell bounded out of the carriage, grinning at Braden.
“Ah! Quite the place you have here, Braden,” the earl called brightly.
What the devil was St. Austell doing here? It was on the tip of Braden’s tongue to ask, when the answer hit him. The masquerade. Londoners were already arriving for the masquerade. Damn it all! The castle grounds would be overrun with friends and acquaintances soon. No way to stop the onslaught at this point.
“Can’t really take credit for it,” Braden returned, striding out towards the earl’s coach.
St. Austell turned back to the carriage and offered his hand to a pretty girl with light brown hair. “You remember my wife,” he said, as the lady in question climbed from the conveyance.
“Yes, yes.” Braden forced a smile to his face. Damn it all. He wasn’t in the mood to be any sort of host. “Very nice to see you again, my lady.”
“And you, Lord Bradenham,” the countess said cheerfully.
“Dropped the boy off with his aunt and uncle in Warwickshire,” the earl continued, completely unaware that Braden’s life had come quite apart at the seams, “and Pippa and I are quite excited to have some time to ourselves and enjoy your eerie masquerade.”
“That’s days away,” Braden replied, not meaning to sound short, though he probably did.
“Yes, well—
” the man frowned slightly “—Quent said to arrive early.”
Then his brother could deal with the St. Austells. Braden nodded quickly. “We are happy to have you, of course. I am just on my over to the magistrate’s, however.” He gestured to the main door and said, “Bendle will see you to your rooms and you can find Quent in the great room just now.”
“Perfect.” St. Austell nodded in thanks. “We will see you soon, then, Braden.”
Braden forced a smile to his face and then started towards the castle gate. He tucked his hand in his coat and ran his fingers over Callie’s note once more. If only he could find her as easily as he could find her note.
Everything was so dark and cold. Callie could barely see her hands in front of her face. She had no idea where she was. Though it felt a bit like a tunnel - a dark, damp tunnel with no way out. Others were with her, she could feel them. Though she couldn’t see anything clearly. They were more like dark shapes and shadows than anything else, and they all seemed to move very quickly. She couldn’t keep up.
She was so very tired from trying to find her way. She wasn’t even certain where she was going. She was supposed to do something today, wasn’t she? She’d been at Braewood and…Oh, her head hurt too badly to think on that.
If Braden…
Braden!
Where was Braden? Her heart started to pound, a chill raced down her spine, and it was difficult to breathe. She tried to call out his name, but no sound came from her mouth.
“Do you really think she vanished?” Blake Chetwey asked Quent in the corner of the great room, where no one else could overhear. “Just like that?” He snapped his fingers.
Quent frowned in response. “I’ve never seen anything like it. She was there one minute and gone the next. Like she was never there.”
“Lord Quentin?” the housekeeper said from behind him.
Quent looked over his shoulder at the portly older woman and said, “Yes, Mrs. Small?”
She glanced from Quent to Chetwey and back, her hands fidgeting in her apron. “I am worried about Miss Eilbeck, and Lord Bradenham won’t listen to me.”
Quent scoffed. “He never listens to me either. Don’t take it personally. Just the way he is.”
“But if we don’t get Miss Eilbeck back before midnight on Samhain, she’ll be lost forever.”
“Midnight on Samhain?” Quent echoed.
“It’s the one night of the year when the veil between the living and dead is at its thinnest. It’s possible to get her back that night.”
“How?” Quent asked. Usually such ramblings would be fodder for much merriment later, but after witnessing Callie Eilbeck vanish before his eyes, Quent was now a most ardent believer.
Mrs. Small gestured towards the corridor. “Follow me.”
Quent glanced at Chetwey who shrugged in response. Then the two of them fell into line behind the housekeeper right over the threshold.
“Quentin Post!” Came the jovial voice of the Earl of St. Austell from the front foyer.
Damn it all. Why did St. Austell have to arrive right this moment? Quite inopportune. Quent gestured for the housekeeper not to leave, then he strode towards his rakish friend and his young wife. “Good to see you made it.”
“Heathfield isn’t here yet, is he?” St. Austell asked.
“You are the first.” Then he gestured towards Chetwey. “With the exception of these fellows. Let Bendle get you settled in and then I’ll see you straight away.”
“Looking forward to it.” The earl nodded.
Quent started back towards the housekeeper, but then turned around once more to face St. Austell. “Uh…” He smiled at the pretty, young countess. “Best keep ahold of her in the meantime. Haunted castle, you know.”
The look St. Austell cast him spoke louder than words how foolish Quent must sound. But after what had happened to Miss Eilbeck, he didn’t need any further guilt on his shoulders.
“Better safe than sorry,” he added before returning to Chetwey and Mrs. Small.
The housekeeper led them down one corridor and then down another. Then she stopped at a darkened arched doorway. “The dungeon,” she said.
“Tell me there aren’t medieval torture devices down there.” Chetwey winced.
“Not anymore.” The housekeeper retrieved a ring of keys from her pocket and unlocked the ancient iron door. She pushed with all of her might and the door creaked open.
It was dark as pitch on the other side of the door.
“We’ll need a candle,” the woman said. “Stay here. I’ll be back in a thrice.” Then she left the two of them by the dungeon door as she hastened down the corridor.
Chetwey peered around the edge of the door into the darkness. “Someone already searched in there, right?”
“Thorn and one of the maids,” Quent replied. The man had complained about the creepiness of the place, but Quent didn’t want to speak the words aloud as he was about to descend into the dungeons himself.
“Thorn?” Chetwey scoffed. “Was he searching the dungeon? Or searching the maid?”
“Probably both,” Quent replied just as Mrs. Small returned with a lit candle.
She led the way into the darkness and lifted her candle up high. “Lord Quentin,” she began, “can you light the torches on the walls as we go?”
Sure enough, there were torches. Quent could barely make them out. But he took the candle from the housekeeper and lit the first along the darkened staircase, and then another a few steps below.
The golden light on the walls helped illuminate the place, though the light didn’t make it appear any less chilling. The walls were made of dark stone that was slightly damp. The staircase was quite long and by the time they reached the bottom, it felt as though they’d descended far beneath the Earth into another realm. The dungeon was smaller than Quent had expected. There were several barred cells attached to a cavernous room, with a large hearth as a centerpiece, but it still was not as large as he had anticipated. Of course, he’d ever visited a set of dungeons before.
“Marisdùn has always been haunted,” Mrs. Small began. “Benign spirits mostly, until Mrs. Routledge opened a portal down here.”
A shiver raced up Quent’s spine. “A portal?”
“Your great-grandmother was a witch, Lord Quentin. Drawn to dark magic.”
“A witch?” Chetwey echoed, and it looked as though the fellow was quite uncomfortable all of a sudden.
“My grandmother was her lady’s maid.” She glanced about the room as though the answers to life’s great mysteries could all be found there. “She was entrusted to find all sorts of things for her mistress. Certain plants or stones for spells…goats or chickens for blood rituals.”
“Good God.” Quent winced at the thought. He could have gone his whole life without hearing those words.
“She sought power and would have stopped at nothing to get it.”
“What do you mean by that?” Chetwey asked.
“She thought she could harness the dead, but they didn’t want to be used for her purposes and they took her instead.”
“They took her?” Quent asked. “That doesn’t make any sense to me.”
“Mary Routledge held a séance in this dungeon,” Mrs. Small explained. “She called all those who’d died on Marisdùn grounds to her.” She shrugged. “A lot of people have died here over the centuries from Roman Centurions to black plague victims to soldiers on either side of the border wars. Marisdùn has been flooded with their souls ever since that séance. They’re not all happy souls. But none are less happy than Mrs. Routledge herself.”
“What does this have to do with Miss Eilbeck?” Quent asked, feeling more uncomfortable the longer he stayed in the dungeon.
Mrs. Small began to walk the perimeter of the dark, cavernous room. “Somewhere in here, Mrs. Routledge opened a portal. A portal we can use as well as the spirits. If we can unlock its secrets.”
Quent and Chetwey both glanced around the room. Nothing looked like
a portal, though who knew what a portal was supposed to look like. “When Miss Eilbeck disappeared, she was in the gardens, not in dungeons,” Quent said, skepticism starting to settle in his mind.
“It’s not Samhain yet, Lord Quentin. She’s here somewhere. A realm invisible to our eyes. If we don’t get her before midnight when the veil is the thinnest, she’ll be lost to us forever.”
Quent would have scoffed, but…Callie Eilbeck had disappeared right in front of him. “How did my great-grandmother disappear? You said the castle took her.”
The housekeeper nodded. “One Samhain, they came for her. The spirits. She was in the dining hall with her husband and he saw her vanish with his own eyes. He fled the castle with his children within the hour.”
His great-grandfather had never returned to Marisdùn. And if the story Mrs. Small told was true, it was a wonder Great-Uncle Cornelius had. “She just vanished like Miss Eilbeck did? Into thin air, without a trace?”
“Her wailing could be heard for hours.”
Another shiver raced down Quent’s spine. A disembodied wail? Like he’d heard Callie Eilbeck’s voice in the gardens? “How do we use this portal?”
“How do we find it?” Chetwey tossed in.
“A witch opened it, my lord. And a witch can use it again.”
“A witch?” Quent scoffed. “Where the devil are we to find a witch?”
Chetwey shifted a bit in his spot. “I might know a witch.”
Tears trailed down Callie’s cheeks. She’d been so relieved when light had spilled into the room. And then Lord Quentin, one of his friends and Marisdùn’s housekeeper had appeared before her.
She’d tried to cry out, but she couldn’t find her voice. She’d tried to get their attention, hitting the walls of her cell, but her banging made no sound at all.
She watched in horror as Lord Quentin started to ascend the staircase, but there was nothing she could do to make him turn back.
Why couldn’t she speak? Why couldn’t he see her? How would she ever get free?
And then the torches went out and she was lost in darkness once more.
