“The name doesn’t sound a bit Irish to me,” Aislinn commented.
“Nope,” Connor answered. “I read that there was a Danish church on the sight. Michan happens to be an old, Danish Saint.”
“I guess that would explain it,” Aislinn muttered uneasily. She didn’t want to go down below where…she shook her head. She didn’t understand why she was feeling so scared. She was actually afraid of going beneath the church as if she were going to be trapped. Biting her lower lip, she tore her gaze away from the foreboding architecture.
Her parents had noticed the change in their daughter. Francine almost suggested that they take a tour at St. Patrick’s Cathedral first, but her husband took a firm hold on her arm, his eyes softening a little when he realized how apprehensive she seemed. “We must go, Francine.” He knew the moment that she had accepted the decision for she gave him a trembling smile letting him lead her forward.
“Ye four will be the last tour for the day.” The guide by the name Paddy smiled at them. He was friendly enough, and full of information of how the church was built and reconstructed. He explained that there was evidence that at one time there was another opening to the underground vaults but for some reason it had been sealed up. “Now if you will follow me outside we will see the most famous feature of St. Michan’s.”
When Aislinn seemed rooted in her spot, Connor pulled on her arm. “Come on.”
“You know, I think I’ll just wait this one out if you don’t mind.” “Uh uh. You’re coming.” He yanked on her arm.
Paddy opened the doors and looked back to the Hennessys. “I will ask y’not to take photographs or video tape while we are down here. Now please watch your heads, when descending the steps.” One by one, Aislinn watched her family disappear below. The guide looked at her with reassuring smile. “Y’are next, lass.”
She knew that she was being silly. What was there to be afraid of? Right? She took a deep breath and descended the rough, ancient stones to the long passageway where burial chambers were on both sides guarded by rod iron gates.
“Each compartment belongs to a single family,” he explained. “There are still a few families that possess a key to the burial chamber. Come closer.” The guide motioned. “If you look into one of the chambers you will see that there are coffins that are heaped upon one another. Does anyone know why this would be like this?”
Connor shrugged. “I don’t know. They wanted to save room?” “Could be.” The guide nodded.
“They were spooked to come down here in the dead of night,” Aislinn spoke. “They tossed the coffins in before they ran.” When she realized all eyes were on her, she awkwardly cleared her throat. “Just a thought.”
“She may have a point,” the guide agreed. “Most burials were done at night and this being Ireland with all its superstitions, most likely they were frightened that the spirits of the dead would greet them.”
“The coffins look brand new.” Francine couldn’t help but notice. “Look, you can see the velvet that covers the wood and the brass nails.”
“That’s right.” The guide was impressed that she had noticed. “You see the vaults are very dry and the only signs of life are the large cobwebs in some of the chambers. The floor is covered with a fine powdery dust and if you will notice the temperature is moderate. It remains the same all the time no matter what the weather is up above. Now, follow me. The last compartment houses what you came down here to see.” He moved on ahead with her family, but Aislinn hung in the back. The whole idea of the mummified bodies sent an eerie chill down her spine. At one time, these bodies were living human beings with a passion for life. They loved, laughed, and cried, but now they were nothing more than a mere withering shell on display for all to see.
The guide came to the end of the passageway pointing as he spoke, “Y’will see in the vault the wooden coffins have fallen away exposing the mummified bodies. There are five in all that have turned brown in color. The bodies are very old and the skin is like leather, but the features can still be distinguished. Lean in.” He motioned to each of them to take a closer look. Aislinn was trying not to be physically ill as she heard the guide continue. “The fingernails are still evident, the knees and the other joints are still pliable. Under the skin y’can see the heart and the lungs.
“Unfortunately, we do not know who these people once were. The one way in the back was a very big man, even to standards nowadays. He probably was well over seven feet tall. They had to break his legs so that he would fit in the coffin. We have estimated that this man probably lived about 800 or so
years ago. It was a privilege to be buried on such sacred ground. The man is believed to have been a Crusader.”
“Near him, you see the remains of a woman and the theory is that she was a nun. The one next to her is thought that he may have been an executed man.” “Why do you think that?” Connor leaned in.
“If you will look closer the man is missing a hand. At one time if you were accused of a crime, let’s say stealing….”
“They would cut off your hand,” Connor finished for him.
Aislinn wasn’t paying attention anymore. She couldn’t tear her gaze away from the last body that was lying there for all to view. Fearful images began to build in her mind, flashes of …him? “And the last body?” She tightly hugged herself.
“Those remains are also a mystery to us. We do know that he did not die of natural causes. We have reason to believe that this man either was in a battle or had been murdered. There are various indications that he suffered multiple wounds, defensive gashes on his forearms and hands. This man had struggled dearly to live.”
Aislinn tried to concentrate on what the guide was saying, but the world seemed to dim and the tour guide’s voice was so far away, almost dream like. Impossible as it should have been, she felt an icy cool breeze in the dry interior. She watched her family follow the guide back down the passageway, but she was paralyzed with fear, unable to call out for help. They weren’t alone. Something was down here.
“I would die for ye,” the baritone voice whispered near her ear as she felt a hand brush against her cheek.
Aislinn’s fragile control unraveled in an instant letting loose a bloodcurdling scream.
After the fiasco at St. Michan’s Cathedral, her parents had made their apologies and had brought her back to the hotel. She was still a little shaken over what had happened as well as embarrassed to have behaved like a raving lunatic. She had scared everyone including the poor tour guide. Of course no one had been there behind her, but it still didn’t make her feel any better. She felt him, heard him, and what made it worse, she was positive that the ghost, apparition, or whatever you wanted to call it, was the unidentified murdered man. She was so sure of it that she would bet her life on it, well maybe not her life. She was convinced that was the reason she had felt such apprehension about going down to the crypt. The man’s spirit was still lingering there.
Now that she had calmed down enough to think about this logically, she knew that the ghost hadn’t meant to harm her. He was only giving her a caress. Maybe she had inadvertently reminded him of someone that he had deeply cared for, loved enough that he would die for her. Maybe he had died for her.
Connor and her parents kept staring at her, as if they were afraid she was going to go spastic on them again. “I’m fine, really. I want to go to dinner.”
“Are you sure, honey?” Francine felt her forehead. “Mom, I’m not sick.”
“Frannie, let the poor girl alone.” Aislinn could have kissed her father at that moment. “I’m starved for one, and if A.J. wants to go out to eat why are we stopping her?” He leaned down and gave her a kiss on top of her head. “We’ll take a quick shower and meet ye downstairs.”
“Thanks, Pop.” She smiled her appreciation.
As soon as they left the room, Connor pounced on her for answers. “So, what was it? What did you see? You can tell your brother.”
She rose from the chair and went over
to her suitcase looking for something that she could change into. “I told you, it was nothing.”
“Yeah. I know what you said to Mom and Pop, but you can tell me the truth. You saw something.” He was at her side, his eyes boring into her.
“You’ll think I’m crazy.”
“Hot dog!” He slapped his knee. “I knew you saw something. A ghost? That crusader guy in the corner? I’d tell you, if I had my legs broken and curled up behind me, dead or not I would haunt the place.”
Aislinn just shook her head. “It wasn’t like I saw something. I felt a presence. I can’t explain it, but it touched me.”
“It touched you?” His hazel eyes widen. “Like bony hands encircling your throat? That kind of touching?”
“I swear, Connor, you are like a twelve-year-old boy.” “Thank you, and you didn’t answer my question.”
“No. The touch was gentle and he whispered….”
“He spoke to you? Boy this just gets better and better.” “Do you want to know what happened or not?”
“Go on. I’ll keep quiet.
“He said, I would die for you.”
“That’s it?” He seemed disappointed.
“Yes. What did you expect a ghost to say?” She was beginning to regret ever mentioning it to him.
“Well, I guess the dude did what he said.”
“What do you mean?”
“He’s dead, isn’t he? Which one do you think it was? You said he, so I can assume we can rule out the nun.”
“The murdered one.”
“You seem awfully sure of that.”
She looked at him. “I can’t explain it, but yeah. I’m pretty sure it was him.” “Spooky. Hey, let’s go back there and see if he’ll speak to you again.” “Are you nuts?”
“Aren’t you the least bit curious why the ghost reached out to you? The man had been murdered. Maybe he was seeking someone out to help him solve the mystery of who done it.”
“Even if it were true, the culprits would be dead. There’s nothing that we can do. It’s not like we can bring them to justice.”
“True or not, the man died violently. Everyone knows that if a person dies a violent death, they always come back to haunt.”
“Who told you that?” She gave him a skeptical look.
“It’s a known fact,” he insisted with such conviction that Aislinn almost believed him. “Come on, you have to be curious.”
“Maybe just a tad, but not enough to go back down in the vault. Besides, with the way I behaved the tour guide probably has me written down as a fruitcake, and if I ever returned, I would be committed on sight.”
“Oh come now. He probably just wrote you off as another crazy American.”
She laughed. “You’re probably right.” She took out her blue-gray sweater and black slacks and headed to the bathroom. “Right now, I would like to forget about ghosts and take a shower.”
“And later? Another visit to the old cathedral?”
“Connor, I thought that you outgrew the Ghost Busters.” “No. I just pretended to.”
Aislinn rolled her eyes. “I’m not going back.” She shut the door, hopefully closing the subject. As much as she was curious, she also had no wish to have a repeat performance of what happened earlier. She turned on the shower faucet and let it run so that the water could warm. Maybe her next novel should be a ghost story. She saw her backpack leaning against the wall and she went over to it. Unzipping it, she noticed the leather-bound journal that the old woman had given her, and she took it out. No wonder she was haunted by ghosts. She had read the entries to a man’s untimely death so many times that she could practically recite it from memory.
She put it on the sink and pulled out her notebook. She jotted down a few lines. She sensed the man, knowing full well that if she turned around no one would be there. She felt the hackles on the back of her neck rise making her turn quickly to see if anyone was behind her. She felt silly, but quite relieved that she was still very much alone.
While Connor waited for his sister to freshen up, he viewed the events of the day on the camcorder. He nearly came unglued with excitement when he realized that he hadn’t turned off the camera when they went down below St. Michan’s Church. It was dark but he could see Aislinn clearly for she had stayed to the back of them. Just seconds before she let out her deafening scream, he thought that he saw something. He stopped the video and rewound
it. Then hit the play button again. “I’ll be damned.” There was no mistaking the swirl of fragmented light that whirled briefly around his sister.
He nearly jumped at her the moment she came out of the bathroom. “Come here, A.J., and take a look at this.”
She couldn’t ignore the excited implication of his words. She went over to him expecting to see anything but what he was showing her. The color drained from her face and she had to sit down to steady herself. “You taped while we were down in the tomb? You know that you weren’t supposed to do that.”
“Will you forget that for a moment, and by the way I didn’t mean to.” He rewound the tape to the spot he wanted her to view. “Do you see it, A.J.?”
She saw, and immediately turned off the camera. “Erase it.”
“I will not. This is proof that something was there. We have to go back now.”
“I won’t go, Connor. So just forget it. The ghost will just have to haunt someone else.”
“But….”
His sister threw him a lethal stare that shut him up immediately. “Drop it. Do you hear me?”
“Fine.” He began putting the camera back in its case. He would drop it for now, but he had every intention of going back to the church with or without her.
Chapter 6
“I don’t see why we had to rent a car,” Donagh was still complaining. “God gave us two feet and we would do well to use them.”
“Pop.” Aislinn laced her arm through his. “It’ll be fun. Think of it as an adventure. We’ll still take the trail as soon as we reach the Glendalough visitor center.”
He still was grumbling when he took the back seat of the rented vehicle beside Francine. Aislinn volunteered to drive while Connor rode shotgun.
It was early morning with a light mist that covered the land making it almost seem unearthly. “It’s beautiful,” Aislinn breathed.
Connor was slouched against the side of the door half asleep. He peek opened one eye at her. “What is?”
She glanced at him for a moment. “Out there silly. You’re missing it.” “Missing what? It’s fog. Just wake me when we arrive.”
“Maybe we should wait until this burns off,” their mother commented from the back seat.
“If we had walked…” Donagh began only to have his children interrupt. “Pop,” both Connor and Aislinn whined at the same time.
“Okay already. I’ll be quiet.”
As the mist thickened, Aislinn began to feel more and more uneasy. Not so much about the visibility, but that she had an eerie feeling that they shouldn’t be here.
To take her mind off it, she began to hum and before long to everyone’s dismay she was singing.
Connor leaned forward to turn on the radio. “Sorry, A.J., I can only take so much of your screeching.”
“I thought I was getting better,” she joked knowing full well that she was tone deaf.
“Take it from me, don’t quit your day job. Hey, that’s strange.” He moved the dials on the radio again. “It’s dead.”
“Here, let me try.” Aislinn took over. She only glanced down for a second. “Hey watch out!” Connor warned.
She looked up in time to see something large, furry…it was a person standing directly in her path. She swerved as he jumped out of the way. They ended up spinning to a stop on the opposite side of the road. “Is everyone all right?” A quick look and she knew that they were shaken but not harmed. “God!” She jumped out of the car and ran across the street. Her brother and parents were close behind her, but the mist drifted in patches making
it hard
to follow.
“A.J., hold on!” Connor shouted to her, but she didn’t stop. Her heart was pounding against her chest. What if she killed someone? She didn’t think she hit him but…she hurried on through the thickening mist.
There was a groan and her eyes scanned the area below. She realized that the side of the road indented to what looked like a ditch. Finally her eyes made out an outline of a man sprawled out on the ground. She didn’t hesitate, but ran toward him. His head rested on the rocks, as if they were soft pillows. At this moment, she was wishing that they were. She knelt down beside him to assess the damage.
He groaned again, his head lolling to the side. “He’s breathing. That’s a good sign.” She brushed his long dark hair out of his eyes. She was startled to find that she was looking at a relatively handsome face that was bronzed by wind and sun. He had a square jaw with a generous mouth and mustache that in her opinion needed to be trimmed back, but still it did not take away the fact that his strong features held a certain sensuality. She then glanced at the man’s strange attire of wool hide and thick mantle, and not far from where he had fallen she caught sight of a large broad sword. She wondered why he was dressed like this, way out here in the middle of nowhere.
She moved the thick cloak aside, her eyes widening in surprise at how his massive shoulders filled out his shirt. She took in the length of him and realized he was tall even for her standards. His legs were bare, muscular and thick, Viking legs. “He’s gorgeous.” She then shook her head, chastising herself for goggling at a poor defenseless man when he could be bleeding to death. She began looking to see where he was injured. That was when she caught the glitter of the amulet before her. It was a spiral of intertwining lines that formed a circle, and in the center was a large stone that looked like dark amber. For a moment, she forgot everything else and reached for the amulet, touching its fineness. She let out a gasp, when the once unconscious man grabbed a hold of her hand with a grip that made her wince.
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