An Unlikely Match

by Sarah M. Eden

  Nickolas stood in shock, struggling to comprehend what he saw. Cadoc managed to toss his daughter onto the bed, securing her there with ties. Gwen, the ghost, lay captive in the same space occupied by her perfectly preserved body.

  All around him, the physical objects and their ghostly counterparts seemed to melt together, no longer giving the illusion of seeing double. The door, the actual, physical, present-day door, slammed shut, melting into the ghostly door. If the ancient door, made of fog and memories, was locked, was the physical door now locked as well? The phantom furnishings, walls, even the book from which the priest read, melded with their present-day selves. Only the ghosts remained misty whispers.

  “Continue, Arwyn.”

  Nickolas hadn’t even realized the priest had stopped his droning. He knew, felt it in his soul, that if the priest concluded his ceremony, this ghostly Gwen would die once more. And he would be forced to watch with no means of helping her.

  He ran to the window, prepared to shout for the crowd below to save Gwen, hoping they would hear him this time. But they had vanished. Indeed, the ghostly remnants of the castle had vanished, and the fog had dissipated. All that remained of the night’s horrors was concentrated in the room in which he stood, a melding of the physical remnants of that horrible night and their ghostly doubles.

  He rushed back to Gwen’s side, knowing he could do nothing but needing to feel he had at least not abandoned her. But she had changed. Just as the furniture and the door had enveloped their fifteenth-century remnants, the reposed body of Gwen had completely absorbed the ghostly figure of her.

  The sleeping lady was awake, struggling against the very real bonds that held her captive. She was there physically, in living form, not simply as a wisp of spirit.

  “Please, Father.” Her voice sounded in his ears in indiscernible Welsh and echoed in his soul in words he understood.

  “Gwen?” Nickolas whispered, his voice breathy in his confusion and shock. She did not answer, did not acknowledge his words. A barrier yet separated them, one he did not know how to bridge.

  Nickolas reached out and laid his hand on top of hers, fisted as she struggled against the bonds. His fingers met flesh. She was real! Something in her expression changed, as if she had felt his touch as something little more than a whisper.

  He would not leave her so helpless. She might not be completely aware of him, but she was there, physically. She was frightened and very much in danger. Nickolas yanked at the linen bonds, fumbling to untie them. Gwen’s eyes shot to the strips of fabric. So did Cadoc’s.

  Cadoc swore. “They’re untying.”

  “What?” Arwyn jumped, rushing to the bedside and staring.

  Gwen had begun tugging, trying to set herself free, not realizing that she made his task harder. If he could loose her, would she be able to free herself from the rest? Could she get away?

  “Retie her,” Arwyn insisted. “Use more strips. We have only minutes, Cadoc. Minutes. The future of Y Castell depends on this.”

  “You will not hurt her again!” Nickolas shouted as he pulled desperately at the bonds. “I will not allow it!”

  He had one hand free in that moment. Afraid her captors would simply grab it and pull her away, Nickolas took her wrist in his hand, momentarily shocked to feel a pulse thrumming inside, and climbed over her, across the bed to where her other arm was tied down.

  “Only a few moments, Gwen,” Nickolas reassured her, knowing she could not hear him. “I will have you free in a moment.”

  Then he heard Gwen’s tiny voice, choked with emotion and confusion, whispering words that strengthened his own resolve.

  “The Lord is my shepherd,” she began the familiar psalm. “I shall not want.”

  “Stop!” the priest snapped, anxiety written in his features. “You cannot invoke scripture at a time like this.”

  “He maketh me to lie down in green pastures.” Nickolas joined his voice to hers as he pulled determinedly at the strip of cloth keeping her captive yet. His English melded with her Welsh, and yet, the words were the same. Silently, Nickolas pleaded with her to continue. He hoped the words would give her courage the same as they were giving him.

  Both ghostly men grabbed at Gwen’s arm, at the ties Nickolas was unknotting, but their hands of mist were unable to grasp what was real and solid. He kept her free hand tightly locked in his own, attempting to untie the other bond with his remaining hand. He had a horrifying suspicion that if he let go of her arm, those men would somehow be able to take hold of her again.

  “You must finish before she can escape!” Cadoc barked at the priest.

  Arwyn moved quickly back to the lectern, pausing a moment as he searched the open page in front of him for his place in the curse.

  They are going to finish. The terrifying thought rushed through Nickolas’s mind. If he didn’t get her out, they would finish. For only a second, he contemplated leaving Gwen to go after the priest, unsure what he would or could do to stop the man. But her continued recitation of the well-known psalm faltered as fear choked her voice.

  “I am here, Gwen.” If only she could hear him! He turned his attention back to his task. As he was, she at least knew some unseen force was helping her, that she was not alone.

  “Help me!” Nickolas pleaded with the heavens. He could not save her on his own.

  Prayers, he discovered, were sometimes answered with alarming speed and precision. A swift, hard knock on the door was immediately followed by Dafydd’s voice. “Nickolas!” He sounded anxious. “Nickolas, are you all right? I heard you shouting. What—”

  “Help me, Dafydd!” Nickolas bellowed back.

  “The door is locked.” That was Griffith’s voice. They’d both come.

  Nickolas heard them shake the uncooperative barrier.

  The key. Where was—? “I left the key in the door,” Nickolas shouted. It was, no doubt, too dark to see without the eerie glow and ghostly fire that lit the inside of the room.

  Nickolas continued his struggle. What kind of blasted, stupid knot had the man used? Gwen grew unnervingly silent as the priest continued his relentless, dark destruction. She no longer moved, no longer struggled. He couldn’t be certain she even breathed. Was the curse already taking effect? Was she dying all over again?

  “Stay with me, Gwen!”

  The door flew open.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Griffith stumbled inside, clearly having shoved the door open. Dafydd, pale and trembling in the doorway, stared in shocked disbelief at the sight that met his eyes. They’d come through the bone-chilling atmosphere of the stairwell and walked unsuspectingly into this scene of terror.

  “Stop him!” Nickolas barked out, pointing at the priest.

  “That isn’t scripture.” Dafydd stared at the ghostly priest.

  “Get the book!” Nickolas shouted. He nearly had the knot undone but wasn’t entirely sure that simply getting Gwen out would stop the curse. Nor did he know if he had time to even cross the room. “Get the book! He must not be permitted to finish!”

  At a wobbly run, Griffith lunged at the lectern, thrusting his shoulder against it. The entire thing, book and all, crashed to the floor.

  Dafydd grabbed the book.

  “The fire!” Nickolas shouted as he managed to finally untie the bind around Gwen’s wrist.

  He jumped off the bed and scooped Gwen’s limp, unmoving body into his arms. Dafydd lifted the heavy tome and threw it into the roaring ghostly fire with so much force Nickolas half expected it would simply fly through the thick stone wall.

  An anguished cry filled the air as the book exploded in the flames. The fog in the room rose, swirling around them in a wind so stiff Nickolas couldn’t keep his footing. He dropped to his knees, cradling Gwen against him. He inched toward the center of the room, where the wind was calm, like the eye of a storm.

  Nickolas glanced down at Gwen, so still and fragile in his arms and yet so very real. He gently touched her face. How he wished she cou
ld see him, could talk to him, could tell him she was well. But she didn’t move, didn’t open her eyes.

  A sudden gust of downward wind nearly knocked Nickolas flat. He braced himself against it, refusing to release Gwen. Looking up, he watched as what little furniture had escaped the swirling whirlwind divided itself once more into the real and the apparition. All the ghostly elements in the room were fading, and fading quickly.

  Nickolas looked down at Gwen. Would he lose her too? Was she about to fade into nothingness?

  “I love you, Gwen,” Nickolas whispered, holding her fiercely. “I love you.”

  He kissed her gently on her unmoving mouth, pulling her tighter into his embrace. He fought back a stinging in his throat and the threat of tears in his eyes. He knew, somehow, that breaking the cycle of that spell had released the hold it had had on Gwen. She was free. He very much feared it meant she would leave him.

  The fog around him dissipated, the wind died down to stillness. Nickolas remained where he was, holding Gwen to him. Every last evidence of the night’s ordeal had disappeared. Every ghost had faded into nothingness.

  Images of all that had happened, the horror he’d witnessed, flashed mercilessly through his mind. He had to forcibly shut out the reminder that Gwen had lived through the terrifying events of that night hundreds of times. Only during this last experience had she been saved from it. It was his one source of consolation: he had saved her, even if it meant losing her for good.

  He would have to return to the house knowing she would never again haunt its corridors. Her room, he was certain, would feel empty and cold without her presence. The entire house would.

  “This is what they did,” Dafydd whispered from across the room. “Black magic of the worst kind.”

  Nickolas actually jumped. He’d forgotten about Dafydd and Griffith. They both sat across the room, pale and clearly shaken. Griffith rubbed at the shoulder he’d heaved into the thick, wooden lectern. His eyes darted about, shock sitting heavy in his expression. Nickolas pulled himself together enough to speak. “They sacrificed Gwen for the sake of a ‘pile of stone.’”

  “Disregarded the laws of God,” Dafydd said weakly.

  “Disregarded? No. They were violating the laws of God. A pact with the devil.”

  Nickolas stroked Gwen’s hair, trying not to think about the fact that she was gone just as all the others connected to the night’s horrors were gone.

  “It was Latin.” Dafydd rose to his feet with some difficulty; what he’d seen and experienced had obviously deeply affected him. “The priest’s words. They were sacrificing her life for . . . for preservation. Nothing in this room should have remained intact as long as it has. The curse preserved it all.”

  Preserved it all. Including Gwen. Nickolas looked down into her beloved face one last time, determined to memorize it just as she looked then. Her face was rosy and real, not the pale, ghostly imitation he’d only ever seen before. Her hair shone a vivid shade of red.

  So close! He’d come so close!

  “At least now she can be properly buried.” Griffith’s tone indicated he knew the thought was hardly comforting.

  “She deserves that.” Nickolas brushed his fingers once more along her soft cheek and followed the line of her jaw, resting his fingers gently on her neck. “No one, let alone a lady, should have to endure what—”

  He stopped. Immediately.

  “What is it?” Dafydd asked, still leaning against the wall for support.

  Nickolas pressed his fingers harder against the side of her neck. “Gwen?” he asked, anxiously, desperately. He had felt a pulse. “Gwen!”

  “Good heavens! She’s alive?” Dafydd crossed toward them but stopped in shock when Gwen began to move. “How is this possible?”

  Griffith struggled to his feet as well. “She must have still been alive when the curse was broken, her body and soul still united.” He stood leaning against the wall. “You broke the curse in time.”

  “Gwen?” Nickolas tried again.

  She stirred only slightly, as if her limbs were too heavy and stiff to be maneuvered.

  “Oh, Gwen,” Nickolas whispered, hardly able to speak for astonished joy. She lived!

  She was still lying in his arms when her eyes flew open. Deep-brown eyes, Nickolas noted. Brown and beautiful and, he realized with a jolt, completely and utterly terrified.

  He tightened his hold on her to offer support. Was she still reeling from the ordeal with her father?

  She struggled against him, her eyes wide with fear and focused on his face. Unable to tolerate holding her captive when she only just escaped such a situation, Nickolas released her. He could offer reassurance verbally, from a slight distance if necessary.

  There was no softening in her eyes, no relieving recognition. In fact, she scooted across the floor, farther distancing herself from him. She looked like a frightened fox cornered by a pack of hounds. Gwen spoke, but not in English.

  Griffith’s eyes grew wide at whatever it was she’d said.

  “She asked, ‘Who are you?’” Dafydd interpreted, sounding as surprised as Nickolas was by the question.

  “Who am I?” Nickolas gaped. “I am Nickolas, Gwen.”

  “Sais,” she whispered, her tone obviously one of confusion.

  “Englishman,” Dafydd translated again. He spoke directly to Gwen in Welsh. Nickolas knew for certain then that the spell had been broken. Unlike before when he had instinctively understood both Welsh and Latin, he was now completely at a loss.

  Griffith joined in their rushed and frantic conversation. Nickolas’s eyes jumped between them. He had no idea what was being said. Gwen motioned to him more than once, uncertainty and fear in her expression.

  Gwen pulled herself to her feet, but her legs faltered. When Nickolas moved to help her, she darted away from him, the frightened look in her eyes seeming to grow by the minute. She moved anxiously to the window and looked out then turned back to face the room. Her face had gone nearly as white as it had been during her time as a specter.

  Her eyes, those beautiful, haunting eyes, turned to Nickolas, simultaneously pleading and accusing. “Where are your fellow Englishmen?” she asked in heavily accented English. “Where are the soldiers?”

  “There are no soldiers here,” Nickolas answered, baffled.

  Her brows drew closer in a look of overwhelming confusion. She turned back to the window, threw open the heavy leaded glass, and put her head out into the cold, dark night. “It is gone,” she said. “Y Castell is gone.”

  Again, Dafydd spoke to her in the Welsh Nickolas increasingly wished he knew. Gwen turned to look at Dafydd, tears beginning to well up in her eyes. Nickolas had never once seen her cry. He discovered in that moment that the sight was painful for him to watch. He instinctively reached out for her again, needing the reassurance of her in his arms.

  She jerked out of his reach, throwing Welsh words at him, words that did not feel welcoming in the least.

  Griffith spoke to her again. His tone was precisely what one would expect to hear from a person trying to calm another in the face of overwhelming worry.

  She shook her head at whatever Griffith had said. Her eyes shot around the room, and Nickolas saw her shiver. He moved toward her, ready to wrap her in his warm embrace, to whisper words of reassurance, to offer her his strength and support. But again, she moved swiftly away from him. She backed toward the door, her eyes snapping between him and the other two men, her look one of alarm and confusion.

  Gwen turned, her skirts swirling around her, and fled the room. Nickolas was certain he heard her call out for taffy.

  “Taffy?” he asked, perplexed, bewildered, feeling alone and very confused.

  “It is an old Welsh nickname,” Griffith said. “I believe she is searching for her friends.”

  “What?”

  “She doesn’t remember, Nickolas,” Dafydd said. “She doesn’t remember any of it. She thought you were one of King Henry’s soldiers. She thought that
Y Castell still stood. In her mind it is yet four hundred years ago.”

  “She doesn’t remember anything that happened while she was a ghost?” Nickolas asked, his stomach knotting.

  “It doesn’t seem so. She didn’t recognize any of us, nor understand what had happened to the walls of her home. She found our odd style of dress almost as alarming as the rest.”

  “She doesn’t remember me,” Nickolas whispered, the realization painful.

  “I’d best follow her.” Dafydd moved toward the door. “She is frightened and lost. She will need—”

  “I will go after her,” Nickolas insisted.

  “Nickolas.” Griffith stopped him with a firm grip on his arm. “You have a fiancée waiting at the house. A gentleman who is engaged to one young lady cannot go haring off after another. Let Dafydd go after Gwen.”

  It was like a dash of cold water. His love lived, truly lived. And he was promised to another. He could not, with any degree of honor, back out of the engagement. And he could not, without utterly disrespecting his future wife, see to Gwen’s welfare. That would, by necessity, be left to Dafydd.

  “Come along, Nickolas.” Griffith urged him out of the room after Dafydd had gone. “No need to stay here torturing yourself.”

  They took the steps slowly, both of them faltering.

  Griffith kept at Nickolas’s side as they left The Tower behind. The atmosphere, Nickolas noticed, with what little of his brain still functioned, had grown less oppressive, less frigid, less evil. The grip the centuries-old curse had over The Tower was gone. It was over.

  And yet, there wasn’t the happy ending he had wanted. “She didn’t remember me.”

  Griffith had no soothing words to offer as they step-by-step made their way toward the house.

  “And she was afraid of me.” That hurt even more than the lack of recognition. There’d been something like hatred in Gwen’s eyes.

  “You are a Sais, Nickolas. An Englishman. In her time, there was ample reason to fear your countrymen, ample reason to despise them, even.”