by Lily Silver
Tara asked the housekeeper for some writing implements. She wanted to keep a record of her thoughts and hopefully put together the missing pieces of her past life. The kindly housekeeper surprised Tara by giving her not plain paper but a rather fancy hand tooled leather bound journal with blank, gilded parchment pages. The quill and inkwell had been a shock. Through trial and error Tara was able to figure out how to use the awkward writing instrument. Geez, hadn’t anyone heard of a fountain pen?
So far, she recorded random thoughts and names that came to her mind. She looked at the list: Arwen and Legolias, were at the top. She knew who they were—fairies or elves— she wasn’t sure of the precise label they went by, and yet, their names conjured images of beautiful beings with arched brows and pointed ears. Beings that were intrinsically familiar to her. She also remembered a handsome, rugged fellow with a cloak and a sword, Stryder, also known as Lord Aragorn, a human who visited their realm often and was in love with Arwen. There was also a bearded man known only as The Gnome, and a blond giant who smoked constantly named Lurch. It was a short list, and yet, it was a start. She hoped that as she continued to write things down, more images and names would come to her.
She also made a list of place names as they came to her. They seemed familiar. Tara hoped to be able to look the places up on maps in her husband’s study. She looked down at the long list of place names on the page: Rivendale, Green Bay, Middle Earth, Hogwarts Academy, Peshtigo, then the most perplexing name of all; Marinette. She wasn’t sure if that last one was a place or a woman, it seemed to be both in her mind. It was most confusing. She saw an Indian woman at times when she said the name and at others, she saw a city near a river.
A knock sounded at her door. It was Maggie, her personal maid.
“Come in.” Tara said, patting the bed with her hand to invite the girl to linger. “Sit with me for a time.”
“Yes, Mum.” The girl replied. “I came to see if you needed anything else tonight.”
Maggie had long reddish brown hair that was swept up in a tight braid. Like the other servants here, she wore a white mob cap to hide most of it. She was thin and her youthful face was generously sprinkled with freckles. Her dress was plain cotton, not the traditional black garb Tara imagined servants wore in rich English households. The faded blue material was patched in places and appeared to be handmade. Maggie’s small hands were worn, evidence she was used to scrubbing long hours throughout the days as a scullery maid before she’d been given the task of caring for the new mistress.
Tara requested Maggie to be her personal maid after having her as a constant companion for a week in when she’d been recovering from the shipwreck injuries. “No, I’d just like a little company, if you don’t mind.”
The girl looked at her with surprise. “Why, no, mum.”
“Sit, please.” Tara pleaded. She wanted to chat with someone in a relaxed manner, but it seemed impossible here. The servants treated her with an awkward deference she wasn’t accustomed to. Lady Fiona and Dr. Magnus watched Tara so carefully it made her uneasy, as if they expected her to say or do something outrageous. Adrian was the worst of all. He remained aloof since their erotic kiss, aloof and distracted.
“Tell me about your family.” Tara suggested as the girl sat down at the foot of the bed with a stiffness that betrayed her uneasiness at such an odd request from the mistress. “I don’t understand why you have to work here instead of going to school. A girl your age should be dreaming about boys, not working long hours as a servant.”
“Ach, I’m sixteen, mum, too old for the schoolroom. I went to the hedge school to learn my letters. ‘T’was to prepare me to enter service. My sister works here, you see, in the kitchens, she recommended me as a scullery when I turned twelve. T’was a good arrangement, that. Now we’re both bringing in coin for the family. With me Da gone so much of the time Mama has her hands full with all the little ones to care for.”
Tara thought about Maggie’s reply. “How many brothers and sisters do you have?”
“Eleven.” Maggie answered proudly. “Liam and Angus, they’re married, with wives of their own. They live in Glengarriff. That leaves the nine of us at home.”
“And what does your father do?”
“He’s a fisherman, my lady.” Maggie replied, looking away with guilt in her eyes as she said it, giving the impression it wasn’t the whole truth. “Most men around these parts are fisherman, sailors, or sheep farmers. All of them work for Lord Dillon or Lord White across the Bay.”
“And do you have a boyfriend?”
Maggie gave her a blank expression.
Tara rolled her lips inward, trying to think of the right phrasing for her question. “Let’s see … is there a young man you have taken a fancy to—someone you’d like to spend more time with and perhaps marry one day?”
That was a language any sixteen-year-old girl understood.
With a beatific smile, Maggie told her mistress all about the young man in the stables with laughing blue eyes and a dimpled smile.
Adrian came home each night tired and stiff from his long ride about his estates in the cold January winds. They shared dinner with his mother and Dr. Magnus. The doctor seemed to be a regular at their table. Tara didn’t mind the doctor’s presence. He provided a buffer to Lady Fiona’s odd outbursts and to Adrian’s resentment of his mother’s obvious drinking problem. After dinner, Adrian spent a short time with the family in the salon before withdrawing, claiming extreme weariness.
After Adrian’s retreat, Tara played cards with the older couple for a short time. Lady Fiona and Dr. Magnus were teaching her whist. She enjoyed it. Within an hour she sought the privacy of her own luxury suite, as by that time Lady Fiona’s steady descent into inebriation was beginning to wear on Tara as well.
During the long days, Adrian’s mother was typically shut up in her room or in the red parlor. Either way, she was almost always lost in the bottle and provided little in the way of companionship for Tara.
Left to herself, Tara began to explore the castle. She found every corner of her new home intriguing from the vast kitchen with massive stone hearths at opposite ends of the room where servants bustled about, to dungeons below the castle. Thankfully, there were no rotting corpses that she could see there, yet, she’d only visited the first few chambers down there, as it was too spooky to go further without a light.
She investigated the empty state rooms, the great hall, even the old armory that was well stocked with swords and daggers, muskets and other relics. She loved the suit of armor standing sentry in the great hall. Tara named the armor statue ‘Reggie, and took to greeting him each morning as if he were a real person. She also took to peeking inside the visor each morning, hoping a real knight might be hiding inside of it.
Stranger things had happened to her. She’d left one world full of every kind of convenience a girl could wish for and been transported into a world that was vastly primitive by comparison.
So, the fairies had sent her here to save Lord Dillon, had they?
Save him from what?
Tara meandered through the rooms on the ground floor to find where Lady Fiona was positioned before making her way to the master’s study.
The red parlor was Lady Fiona’s favorite room, a pleasant atmosphere for such a dreary winter day with its bright red wallpaper and warm golden furnishings. It was vacant this morning. Tara rambled down the hall toward the most recent addition at the turn of the century, a ballroom.
She entered the large, empty chamber. A long expanse of polished blue marble flooring was lined with elegant white colonnades. A few arched fan windows marked the outer wall, and heavy, sheet ensconced chandeliers hung from the ceilings. This room was an addition to the castle that was added in the past century, judging by the newer architecture that was in the fluffier Baroque style instead of the stark medieval style of the main rooms at Glengarra.
Tara walked into the center of the room. She imagined what it would be like to have the
room lit up, filled with dancers and guests. There would be musicians in one corner, a few potted plants here and there and a table of refreshments. The candlelight would give the room a warm glow and the richly dressed guests moving about the dance floor would brighten the solemn, empty chamber and make it come alive.
Unable to resist, Tara twirled about the empty dance floor in a pirouette, watching as her loose, long skirts twisted about her in elegant swirls. She closed her eyes, imagining what it must be like to attend a ball with women dressed in rich silks, the air scented with perfumes, hothouse flowers adoring every table near the walls, and men lining up to ask her to dance. She imagined stuffy music playing in the background.
That would never do.
Tara stopped in mid-twirl in the center of the floor. She tried to imagined the right music to accompany her fantasy. Try as she might, the only song that came to mind was one as out of place as she was in this elegant ballroom. It was a ballad she recognized instantly and knew by heart.
“I’d Lie for You (And That’s the Truth) by Meatloaf, from his Welcome to the Neighborhood Album.” Tara spoke aloud. She saw herself speaking into a black microphone and seated at a table before a computer that had little red and blue boxes flashing inside the frame. She shook off the odd impression. Dr. Magnus cautioned her not to force the memories, to just let them come on their own. Tara was coming to the point of not wanting the impressions to come to her. They only brought confusion when she couldn’t understand their meaning.
Tara closed her eyes again. She stood in the middle of the darkened ballroom, her hands outstretched at her sides. The musical intro to the song flooded her mind; a soft piano solo reminding her of gently falling rain. The sound of it captured her heart, compelling Tara to glide about the empty room on light feet as if she were a ballerina, her arms outstretched, spinning and twirling with abandon. The barest hint of a guitar strumming was added to the piano music in her mind. She imagined it as a ghostly male lover slowly stepping across the dance floor to move in time with the seductive feminine piano notes.
Tara surrendered to the music and sang the ballad aloud. “I’d pull the sun from the sky to light your darkest night, I wouldn’t let one drop of rain fall down into your life.” The words came easily. Her heart soared as she glided across the room and sang them aloud. “I’d lie for you and that’s the truth, move mountains if you want me to …”
The door leading to the gardens opened. Lord Dillon, wet and cold, slipped into the room and swiftly ducked behind a marble column as he spotted the beautiful apparition swirling across the floor with her eyes closed as if she were dancing in the mists, singing her song of enchantment. The sunlight streaming in the windows illuminated her peach silk dress and her coppery tresses as she moved across the windowed wall.
“ … Your every wish will be a wish that I will make come true, and if you want the moon, I swear I’ll bring it down for you …”
Adrian watched, utterly fascinated as her true fey nature was revealed. Tara spun slowly across the dance floor, her lyrical voice echoing through the vacant chamber. His fey wife seemed to be lost in another world. From the shadows he watched her float across the room, singing a beautiful ballad about giving everything for true love.
“I’d lie for you and that’s truth … do anything you ask me to … if you’ll just believe in me …”
As he observed her the conviction rose with renewed power. Tara was never on that ship. How could one frail girl survive when the entire crew had been lost? The only answer was obvious: Tara was not of the mortal race, of that he was truly convinced. She could have been plundering that very ship after it was wrecked upon the rocks and been struck by a lightning bolt, which may have stunned her as it sent her flying across the waters and into the soldier’s clutches. Everyone knew fairies gathered the treasures of lost ships. It was theirs for the taking. Tara must have been suddenly plucked from her world and thrust into his. That was why she had no memory of her past life.
The door to the outer hall opened. Tara stopped her musical incantation as the maid came in to announce the housekeeper wished to speak with Lady Dillon. Tara left the ballroom with the maid trailing after her, unaware of his presence in the shadows.
Adrian stepped out to where she had just danced before him. He crouched and touched the floor where her light feet had skimmed the marble, searching for a sprinkling of magic dust. He found none. The scent of moss and roses lingered in the air, tantalizing him. The years faded. He was a boy again, playing in the forbidden glen between the standing stones. His mother always cautioned him not to step inside the stone circle of Urgacht, it was said children who did so were kidnapped by the fey folk and left a changeling child in place of the one they had stolen. Adrian didn’t believe his companions would be so cruel. He trusted them. They were his playmates. They hid under the rocks and ferns in the forest, daring him to find them. Their silvery giggles always gave them away. They surrendered to him after he promised to release them again once their games of hide and seek ended.
“Will you remember us, when you are grown, the master of your own world?” The dainty sprite asked him boldly. “When you are Lord of Glengarra will you uphold the ancient ways of our people?”
“Always.” His young heart had pledged.
“You may be asked to entertain one of our race unawares. You may be called upon to protect an innocent from the snares of mortal men.”
Adrian stiffened as the truth came to him: The barn. The men determined to assault Tara and to interrogate her with the lash.
“We reward those loyal to us.” The fairy had him cautioned long ago. “Will you open Glengarra’s gates to shelter those of our race who have lost their way?”
“Always.” Adrian whispered aloud. So he had pledged as a lad, and so he would carry out till his dying day. “Always.” He repeated wistfully, remembering that night he had rescued Tara from the soldiers.
Mrs. Gray wanted to verify Tara’s orders of earlier that morning, as Lady Fiona was demanding her own wishes be adhered to in the matter of the lunch menu. To her husband’s credit, Tara learned that Adrian instructed the housekeeper to defer to his wife in all matters regarding the running of the household. Still, Lady Fiona’s temper had flared, and things were in a muddle. Would Lady Tara mind dreadfully if they served the soup Lady Fiona demanded today and serve her preference the next day?
Tara didn’t care one wit. The household was in confusion, fearing their positions would be forfeit as Lady Fiona had threatened. Tara gave in to keep the peace. Was this to be her future? Constant bickering over trivial matters as Lady Fiona struggled to hold her position in the household? It was ridiculous. This existence was ridiculous. Surely there had to be some other way of making it through the day instead of being badgered or ignored by the former lady of the household. Lady Fiona needed a hobby or a vocation.
And so do I, Tara realized, as she headed for Adrian’s study.
He was out of the house. It seemed the best time to snoop, when the person being snooped upon was not in residence. She hoped she might find something here that linked her to her husband from the past. A love letter, a crushed flower, a lost glove belonging to her that he had lovingly stowed away to cherish until they were together again.
The master’s inner sanctum was decidedly masculine. Somber paintings graced the walls. The chairs were upholstered in dark wine colored leather. His study was situated in the southwest corner of the castle. The large windows overlooked the Bay of Bantry.
Papers and documents lined his desk, tossed about in a haphazard manner that intrigued Tara. She traced her hand across the edge of the desk as she walked around to the overstuffed chair in front of it. A list had been drawn up of current prices for wool, mutton, butter and beef at the English markets, comparing them to prices in the neighboring countries of France and Spain.
Tara sat down at the desk, and picked up the reports before her. Why did England pay less for Irish goods? Considerably less. And yet t
he document beside this one warned that selling Irish goods to any foreign markets instead of Mother England was illegal.
The newspaper from London was a week old, and warned that Napoleon was threatening British waterways. A map was beneath the newspaper, marked with trade routes to France, Portugal, Spain, and Morocco. Adrian had ear-marked the routes threatened by the French Navy as well as the British naval outposts along those routes.
Was he smuggling goods to other lands to make a fairer profit?
A legal document caught her eye. A marriage license bearing her name and his. Beside it, a tea cup half empty, with a wedge of lemon on the saucer told her he shared his mother’s taste for a twist of lemon in his tea. A more recent paper from Cork hailed the shipwreck a disaster with complete loss of life.
Tara picked it up with an eerie, sinking feeling, her heart hammering in her chest.
She sat down slowly in the overstuffed chair smoothing the paper out as she carefully read the article. An eyewitness claimed he saw lightning strike the mast, igniting it. The fire spread to the main deck and the entire vessel was capsized by the force of the winds. According to the local authorities quoted in the paper, namely Lord Dillon and Baron Bantry, no one aside from herself had survived the wreck, although several bodies were as yet unaccounted for. A search was being conducted for her father, Mr. MacNeill, yet, it was assumed he drowned with the rest of the passengers.
Tara put the paper down slowly. She recalled the brilliant flash of blue and white light, and someone calling her name.
“Wait, Tara—no. Don’t touch … “
An image flashed before her with the burst of lightning. At her feet lay a very large, bearded man with worried blue eyes. That face was dear to her, evoking a feeling of comfort, as did the memory of his deep, baritone voice.
