“I’m afraid not,” Randolph said. “I only moved here myself about six or seven years ago. With my wife, God rest her.”
Alex nodded. “Yes, well my granny passed on a few months back and we’ve only gone through her things. She had boxes and boxes of rubbish, mixed in with the odd, interesting thing. Poor dear wasn’t well for the longest time. She was at the senior’s home not far from here and always wandered back to her old house. She was convinced there were ghosts there.”
“Poor dear,” Randolph agreed, offering his condolences for the man’s loss. It seemed he wanted to donate some of his grandmother’s more interesting items. At least, Randolph hoped he wasn’t trying to foist the rubbish off on them. “We’re happy to take any donations that might be historical to the time. I know that ruin dates back at least as far as this castle.”
Alex shook his head. “No, no, believe me, there wasn’t anything worth donating. The reason I’m here is because I found a packet with your name on it. It looks like it’s old or was meant to look old. There’s a wax seal and everything. When I looked up your name and found what you were doing here, I thought it might be relevant to the castle restoration.”
He opened the flap of his messenger bag and pulled out a thick, folded packet of what Randolph could clearly see was parchment. Not tourist shop paper dipped in tea to make it look old. This was clearly ancient. His heart sped up when Alex handed it to him across the desk and he saw his name scrawled across it, just under an undisturbed wax seal. It was amazing the wax had lasted that long.
“Why, this is marvelous,” Randolph said, wishing the man would leave so he could open it. “I appreciate you bringing it …”
“Ah, when I saw that you were trying to renovate this old pile of rocks, I got nostalgic. My brother and I used to play around here when we visited Granny. It’s good work you’re doing, trying to keep the history of the place alive. I’ll be sure to bring my little ones back when it’s all finished.”
Randolph forced a chuckle. “I hope they’re still little when we finally finish. Thank you again for taking the time.” Why wouldn’t the man leave?
He continued to chatter about how much things had changed in the area. Desperate to find out what was in the ancient packet, too fearful to have any hope, Randolph nodded and smiled until Alex finally bid him farewell.
He ran his finger over the wax. Telling himself this was an artifact and he should document its condition with pictures before he … “Oh, to blazes with that,” he cried, cracking open the seal and eagerly sifting through the contents.
It was a treasure trove. Surely, what he saw on his desk made him happier than if he’d found actual gold and jewels. The only thing that could have made him happier was to see her for himself.
Dear Randolph, I hope this finds you well. I hope this finds you at all and that you enjoy the maps and drawings I’m including. I don’t know if you found my first attempt at a painting to show you what the castle actually looked like, but these are much better, I assure you.
Randolph stopped reading and quickly looked over the magnificent drawings, showing not only the outside of the castle, but detailed interiors and even blueprints of the rooms. It was so different than what they’d all imagined, he almost ran to call an emergency meeting with the builders and architects. But the miraculous letter drew him back in.
Fay misses you and speaks of you often. Unfortunately, we disagree on my wanting to try and contact you, so she won’t write to you herself. Yet. Maybe I can convince her one day. She thinks you might try something rash, so please don’t prove her right! She’s married to a wonderful man, Sir Tristan Ballard, and lives in a place called Dernier Keep. Though it’s only a day’s ride from here, there’s no trace of it in your time. But rest assured, she’s happy and healthy. And you have two adorable grandnephews who are sure to follow in their father’s footsteps as a respected knight of the realm, if Fay ever lets them out of her sight.
He had to hold the parchment away as two tears dropped onto the faded ink, causing it to run. Sophie, his favorite student historian, had called the twenty-first century “his time”. It had to mean she was fully at home there and no longer considered this time her own.
As for me, I also married a knight, Sir Leo Zane. He’s even more wonderful than Fay’s husband but, of course, I may be biased. I only have one daughter so far, but she’s enough of a handful for me right now.
As for my idiot brother, at first I admit I couldn’t forgive you for convincing him I wasn’t dead. But he’s as happy as I am. He’s married to the second daughter of Grancourt Castle. He’s doing pretty well as Sir Walter’s chancellor, believe it or not. They have a daughter and a son and another on the way. Don’t worry, I’m including pages and pages of information on everyone, in case you want to look anyone up in the history books. I, for one, hope my little Fay Anne doesn’t cause enough trouble to make it into one, but who knows. Time will tell, right? We miss you, Randolph. Know that we’re content and not only have no regrets, but are grateful we ended up here. Could you please let Jordan’s and my parents know? That’s the only thing I worry about sometimes.
Thank you, be happy, and make sure those smug architects get it right!
xoxo, Sophie.
Randolph put down the letter, wiping away tears of joy. After a few minutes of gazing delightedly at all the information Sophie had found a way to get to him after hundreds of years, he booked a flight to Louisiana so he could ease her parents of their grief. Then he grabbed up the blueprints and paintings and ran to make sure the architects got it right.
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Please enjoy an excerpt from Enchanted.
Chapter 1
“How in the hell do you know who I am?”
Sophie stared in shocked disbelief at the person in front of her. It could only be Fay Driscoll. Or Fay Grancourt now. She looked around at the room, momentarily ignoring the sputtering Fay. It was the same room she’d been in moments before, cataloging items that had been donated from various museums and collections across England for Grancourt Castle’s renovation. Yes, it was the same room, but very, very different. The windows that had been crumbling holes had some sort of odd glass in them, causing the light to waver and give off a pale greenish sheen. The items she’d been painstakingly dusting and itemizing were nowhere to be seen. Instead of boxes and shelving, there was a giant bed with heavy wooden beams and rich hangings. A huge wardrobe took up most of one wall and there was a desk right in front of where she’d found herself in a heap only moments before. There was a table with two chairs pulled up around it near the window. A few candles and a scattering of sewing tools rested on top of the richly-embroidered table cloth as if someone had been working there recently. The adjoining door that led to a tiny, empty compartment was ajar and she could see that there were beds in there now. With a gasp, Sophie hurried to the other door in the room that she knew would have been the bathroom. They would have called it the garderobe.
She swung open the door and stared down the hole in the bench to the ground far below. A pile of folded cloths and a dish of dried herbs on the bench added a lived-in air. Lived in. People were living here. It was all true, then. The words in the ancient booklet Sophie had found, supposedly written by the girl who’d died in this very room a year ago, were true. She turned around to find that very girl, covered in grime and with her hands on her hips, looking as shocked and confused as Sophie felt.
“You’re really Fay Driscoll, aren’t you?” she asked, her voice coming out a choked squeak.
“How do you know that?” Fay wailed, looking anxiously at the door. “And how did you get here? I can tell by your daft hairband you’re from my time. There’s nothing stretchy here, nor is there anything near neon pink.”
Sophie ran her hand over her ponytail, pulling out the offending hair tie. By habit, she slipped it around her wrist, earning her an eye roll. “I read about you,” she said. “I read
what you wrote.” She gained confidence as Fay took a step forward, clearly interested.
“What I wrote?” Fay repeated. “Oh my God, the notes for Uncle Randolph.” She reached out and grabbed a bed post. “Someone actually found them.”
“Oh we found them all right,” Sophie told her, helping her to sit down. “Listen, are you all right? No offense, but you look…”
“I’m sure I look quite awful,” Fay interrupted snippily. “I’ve been trapped in one of the dungeons for five days with no food or water. I should probably be dead.” She shrugged and smiled bitterly. “But, strangely enough, I feel fine. It’s most likely the effects of the curse resetting itself.”
She said this last bit almost to herself and Sophie ran her hands along the sides of the dress she’d put on. It had been only a few moments ago, hadn’t it? Could she possibly be in the year 1398, as Fay had written?
Fay shook herself out of her shocked reverie. “We don’t have much time before they storm in here and try to make us look presentable. If everything is how I think it is, we’ve got guests about to arrive, one of them my fiancé.” She stamped her foot, turning red in the face. “It should have been broken! How is this happening? Tell me everything. From the beginning, as fast as you can.” Fay grabbed her wrist. “Oh goodness, what’s your name? I suppose you’re a sister now as well. God, whoever set this bloody curse could have probably cured all the world’s ails if they’d been good instead of evil. The damnable thing is smarter than all of us, it seems.”
Sophie shook her head, the rattled-off words pinging past her, barely sinking in. She still couldn’t believe everything she’d read was real.
“My name’s Sophie Hester McCurdy,” she said, not knowing how else to start.
Fay frowned. “McCurdy? Scottish? You don’t sound Scottish… you don’t even sound—” Fay shook her head. “Oh God, are you American?”
Sophie started to feel slightly offended by all the calling out to God Fay had been doing in regard to Sophie’s existence. “Yes, I’m from Louisiana. But I’ve been in England for six months on a college grant. Helping restore the castle.” She looked around the room once again. It was pristine now, not a stone out of place. “It didn’t look at all like this a few minutes ago.” She took a deep breath and patted at her sides as if she had something in her nonexistent pockets. Ever since she’d dug out the worn, faded book from one of the many loose stones in the walls, she’d carried it around with her. She’d practically memorized all of it. The few stories that were in it mesmerized her. A perfect recounting of what it might have been like to live in that—no, this—time. And the signature had nearly knocked her off her feet when she first read it. “These accounts taken by the hand of Fay Driscoll, who is living as Fay Grancourt, and was brought here from another year by a cursed gown. I hope someone can read these words and see their true meaning one day,” she recited, watching Fay’s eyes grow as round as melons.
“You really found it,” she said, her face growing red again. “And you still put the bloody dress on?”
“I searched for this dress for months,” Sophie said, ignoring the darkening glare. “And it was nowhere to be found. I swear I thought it was just an odd coincidence that the name in the book was the same as the girl who—”
“Died,” Fay supplied tersely. She looked like she wanted to say more but pressed her lips together.
“Right. Anyway, I’d been over this room with a fine-tooth comb, almost literally. We’ve got historians, archaeologists, all sorts of people helping to renovate this place. Your, uh, death caused quite a stir. Lots of people were suddenly interested in restoring it. They realized it might be a nice tourist draw for the area. Believe me when I say I looked in every nook and cranny. This dress was nowhere to be found.” She paused and looked around. “This next part’s a bit creepy,” she warned.
Fay closed her eyes and sighed. “Are you joking? I’ve been stuck in this time, fighting this bloody curse, for a year. I just got out of a dungeon! You think you can rattle me, Miss Louisiana?”
Sophie slumped but continued, almost wishing she could get a rise out of the snotty Fay Driscoll-Grancourt she’d been dogging after all these months. The person in front of her didn’t seem at all like the winsome fairytale weaver of the small, battered book.
“So, I was cleaning this room and cataloging things.” Sophie pointed to the ground in the vicinity of the desk. “Right there. Someone donated about twenty porcelain vases that weren’t right for the era but were still gorgeous, so I was packing them up for another museum. I got up and put one of the boxes on a shelf.” She pointed out where the tall shelf had been. “I turned around for maybe five seconds and when I got back, the other box of vases was underneath a chest. Oh gosh, I wonder if the chest came back with me.”
They both looked around wildly. Fay groaned when she spied it first. The chest the gown had been in was wedged halfway under the bed.
“This chest?” she asked, kicking it scornfully.
Sophie winced, but realized it wasn’t a rare antique in this time. Just an ordinary storage chest. One that had apparently just changed her life. “That’s it. It appeared right out of the blue. I opened it and…”
Fay let out a long breath and paced before speaking. If she was trying to calm herself down, it didn’t work very well. “You’re telling me you read what I wrote about getting sent here by a cursed dress, then you not only actively looked for said dress, but you actually put it on when you found it?” She put her hand over her mouth and shook her head. “I should leave you to rot. I should knock you out and run away with Tristan, if he even still remembers me.” At this odd proclamation, Fay looked more distressed than she had, and she’d looked plenty distressed up to that point. She looked at the door as if she really might run off, but her shoulders drooped. “Except, Anne’s back…” she said wistfully.
Before Sophie could ask who Anne was, a rosy cheeked, bright-eyed girl burst into the room. “It’s all right,” the girl said breathlessly. “We’ve got a bit of time yet.” She cast her gaze quickly over Sophie without showing a hint of surprise or confusion about her existence. “You’re not so bad, Sophie, but goodness I’ve got my work cut out for me with you, Fay. I know it was unkind of Marjorie to say so, but you do look as if you’ve rolled in the sewage pit.”
Sophie blinked as this brunette ball of energy with bright, doe eyes started whipping Fay’s filthy clothes off. Within minutes, she was given a quick wipe down and reclothed in a clean, pretty gown. Its flowing, gray-blue sleeves beautifully accented the embroidery on the dove gray overdress. She’d never seen any gowns from this era in such perfect repair. She let out an inadvertent gasp as she realized that the gown Fay had on was probably new. For the first time since she’d shivered with excitement over finding the jade green wedding gown, just knowing it had to be the one from Fay’s accounts, she now shivered with fear. How long would she have to be here? A day or a week might be good fun, but Fay had been here a year and hadn’t yet managed to get back.
When Fay’s knotted tangles of hair had been transformed into a luxurious mass of braids on top of her head, the maid turned to Sophie.
“All right. Let’s just get your hair done. That gown should be all right.” She tilted her head to the side and scrunched up her features. “When was the last time I saw that gown? It’s a bit too fine, actually. Anne’s isn’t as nice, and you shouldn’t wear something better than her tonight.” She turned to the giant wardrobe and began rummaging.
Fay gave her a hard look and mimed grabbing her stomach. “I don’t think Sophie feels that well, Batty,” she said through gritted teeth.
Sophie caught on and doubled over in a high school drama class level of feigned agony. “I’ve been feeling poorly all day,” she moaned. “I don’t think I can make it down tonight.”
The maid—Batty, Fay had called her, shook her head and tsked. But she also looked like she might not believe her, so Sophie fell onto the bed and curled into a fetal p
osition.
“I’ll keep Anne from having a conniption about it,” Fay promised, squeezing Batty’s arm. “I’m sure she’s pacing a path in the floor waiting for us, no?”
“I thought steam might start spilling out of her ears,” Batty admitted, still looking skeptically at Sophie. Sophie closed her eyes and moaned some more. “Should I send your uncle?” she asked.
“No, she’ll be fine after some rest,” Fay said in a hurry. “Definitely don’t need Uncle Edgar just yet.”
Who was this uncle that Fay clearly didn’t want sent for? A chill of terror washed over Sophie as she realized she was about to be left alone in a strange time. The one person who might have been able to help her couldn’t wait to get away from her, and she didn’t have a clue who anyone else was. What if someone wandered up here while Fay was gone and started questioning her about why she was there? But Batty hadn’t blinked at her being in the room. And now that she recalled, Batty had known her name as well. She felt like falling down a rabbit hole would have been a less confounding option, and tugged at the now hated dress that was beginning to make her itch.
“Please give my apologies,” she croaked. “I’m sure I’ll be better by tomorrow.” Sophie waved weakly at the two girls, both staring at her with little kindness.
“Yes, rest up, Sister,” Fay said darkly, waving at the desk. “Perhaps do some reading. Though I doubt it will make you feel any better, it will help you pass the time.”
When they were gone, Sophie jumped out of bed and tore off the gown. She looked around for its chest but got sidetracked by a chilly draft. Hurrying to the wardrobe, she pulled out the first dress she could get her hands on and wriggled into its pieces. Having studied this time period extensively, she knew the proper layers and how to lace it up. Once she was clothed again, the scroll and book on the desk caught her eye.
Evermore (Knight Everlasting Book 3) Page 22
