The Victorian Gothic Collection: Volumes 1-3

by Bowlin, Chasity

  Pausing to wipe sweat from his brow, he ignored the chill that snaked along his spine. He wasn’t alone. The wind rattled through the trees and whistled over rocks. That was what he heard, he said to himself. “Only the wind.” To entertain the notion that it was anything else in that moment was to run screaming from that accursed place and never return.

  Join us. Stay with us. You must stay.

  The longer he remained, the more clear the words became. What had been simply indistinct whispers in the beginning now sounded like actual words. There was tone and inflection, there was a rhythm to it. It wasn’t one voice, but dozens if not hundreds, and all of them speaking at once. Part of him wanted to drop his spade and simply walk away. He could reach the lane and head for the village and there would be a drink poured for him at the small tavern there without a single question asked about his disheveled state. While no one spoke of it directly, everyone knew he was a drunk. And drunks were frequently disheveled, after all.

  As much to drown out the voices and whispers, as much to ignore the chill wind that coasted over his skin, Warren kept digging. He dug and dug until the hole began to resemble its intense purpose— a grave. With considerable effort, he managed to hoist himself out and he looked around at the gathering mist. It held ominous portent of all that was to come.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  The assault on her senses was not something Adelaide had been prepared for. Igrida was there, shrieking at her, but she was not alone. All of the dead had gathered, all of the ones whose lives she’d taken, whose will she had usurped, whose very souls had been her source of energy for centuries—they were angry, not at the one who had destroyed them but at anyone living.

  It seemed that she could hear Eldren’s voice from a great distance, and Madame Leola’s further away still. But it was another voice in the cacophony of shouts and grunts and ugly, vicious words that penetrated the haze of her mind.

  My sweet darling girl! Find the safe place I showed you.

  Her mother. Somehow, not from within the dank walls of that cellar but from somewhere within herself, her mother spoke to her. An image flashed in her mind of that room draped in silks and littered with cushions covered in exotic fabrics.

  Adelaide forced her eyes closed, concentrated on the sound of her own breathing, of her own heart pounding in her chest and the blood rushing in her ears. That image reappeared, more solid and detailed then before. She struggled to hold it. Focusing on only one point, she found the small altar that her mother had created within that room. Staring at it, the room seemed to build itself around her. The details grew denser, more solid, the fabric was no longer a two dimensional image but so real it was as if she could touch her hand to the silk and feel the raw, nubby texture of it.

  And there was her mother. Young, beautiful, long before her body had been ravaged with a sickness no one could halt. Her dark hair was swept back in the elaborate cascade of curls she’d always preferred and she wore one of the brightly colored silk dresses that had been her hallmark.

  “What do I do? I cannot see anything in the real world. I cannot see to lead them from here!” Adelaide cried.

  Her mother approached her. Igrida would rob you of all your senses, the five possessed by everyone and those that are unique to people such as and your Madame Leola.

  “Why didn’t I know before I came here?”

  I couldn’t let you. Your father forbade me to teach you how to control your gifts. He thought it all nonsense anyway. In order to protect you, I bound your gifts and I placed protection spells all around the house in New York. But they only protected you from the dead, I had no way to protect you from the living.

  “You bound my gifts?”

  I had to. If you had been allowed to walk unprotected into the world with what you could do, it would have destroyed you. But when your father took you to Paris, when he took you far away from the spells and charms I had created to keep you safe, then it all began to unravel.

  “What brought me here to Cysgod Lys, mother?” Adelaide demanded.

  Fate brought you here, my sweet girl. Try as I might to stop it, there was naught I could do.

  “How do I get us out of here?”

  You put one foot in front of the other and walk. Trust fate to lead you where you must go, just as it has brought you here. And I will stay with you till the end this time. I will keep the others from you.

  That promise, so like the words her mother had whispered to her as a child, that she would always keep Adelaide from harm, tugged at her heart. They also spurred her to action. With difficulty, Adelaide pulled one foot free from the muck that had replaced the hard packed soil of the cellar floors. It was Igrida, manipulating the very rocks and soil of Cysgod Lys to try and keep them there, to keep her body within the structure that she drew her power from.

  Still holding the image in her mind of that room, the haven her mother had created to protect her, Adelaide held out her hand. She touched damp stone, covered with dust and cobwebs that had accumulated for ages. Rather than shrinking back from it, she placed her hand more firmly against that hard surface and began inching her way forward. Step by step, her feet sinking and the mire tugging at her, trying to pull her down, she fought on. Her mother didn’t speak again, she didn’t have to. She was simply there, guiding and encouraging. Adelaide needed that, just as she needed the buffer that her mother had somehow created between her and the shadowy wraiths that were shrieking at her in rage at Igrida’s behest.

  One step, one inch, one painstaking foot at a time, they moved ahead, down the maze of tunnels and hopefully toward a safe exit.

  * * *

  Eldren had no notion of what was happening. In truth, with the wind propelling him backwards at least one inch for every two gained, all he and the others could think about was making it out. Between himself and Lord Mortimer, they carried the remains of Igrida’s earthly body. They struggled to ignore shifting shadows, to fight past the aching muscles that developed as a result of every step taking place in a quagmire.

  He had no time to question who Adelaide had been speaking to or what force suddenly had her pushing forward. He could only pray they were going in the right direction.

  After what seemed like ages, walking through that misery and torment, he was about to give up. Then he saw it. There was a faint glimmer of light ahead of them.

  “Do you see that? Is it real?” Mortimer asked.

  “I pray so,” Eldren said breathlessly.

  As if in answer to their question, the wind picked up more tugging at their clothes, pulling and pushing them away from that small promise of hope. The nearer they came the more they felt Igrida’s wrath.

  Finally, they could see the entrance. The tunnel was bringing them out on the far side of the house, close to the beach path. Above the dank and rotting smell of the cellars, was the scent of the sea. It wasn’t a prayer of thanks. It was nothing nearly so eloquent. But Eldren offered up a word in praise that would have sent Father Thomas into an apoplectic fit.

  Beside him, Mortimer grinned. “Precisely! Well said.”

  Madame Leola offered them a quelling glance. “Let us not congratulate ourselves just yet. There is still much to be done before any of us are safe.”

  Eldren said nothing more. He didn’t have to. They had emerged into the bright light of day. Not exactly safe yet, but at least in less imminent danger. Ahead of them, Adelaide opened her eyes and looked back at them. “We have to get to Warren. Now.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Frances walked along the stone fence that bordered the moor, careful not to touch it. That morning, her attendant had simply walked silently into her cell, for she refused to call it a room, and then walked out—leaving the door wide open. It was a gift from Igrida. But like all gifts from the witch, there was a cost.

  Her plan to be born of the babe in Frances’ womb was no more. The child would now serve another purpose. In the pocket of her borrowed cloak, Frances touched the vial. She’d stopped in
to an apothecary shop, one well known to her for just such potions, and procured the cure to her little problem. She had only to drink it and the child would be no more. Of course, it wouldn’t come to that. Warren would stop her. He would stop her and then with him under her control, they would stop the others.

  Frances stepped from the concealment of the trees that bordered the lane and that stone fence. She could see him, just inside the gate to the moor that faced the house.

  “Hello, husband,” she called out softly.

  He whirled immediately, spade in hand, dirt streaking his face and clothes. “Frances? What are you doing here?”

  “Am I late to the party? No… I’m not. I’m right on time. You are about to do something very foolish,” she said and wagged her finger at him warningly.

  “How did you get out?”

  “Igrida wanted me out. She needs an ally, and while I may be a bit of a disappointment to her, I’m prepared to do what must be done to mend our fences so to speak.” Frances halted only feet from him, but still safely outside the moor’s boundary. She would not be foolish enough to cross it. Reaching into her pocket, she lifted the vial out and held it aloft. “Will it matter to you that I am about to kill the child in my belly? Even though it isn’t yours?”

  “Frances, don’t. You cannot do such a thing—.”

  “But I can. And I have. So many times before,” she said with a cold smile. “You were so eager to have a family in the beginning and so despondent when time and again we failed to conceive. But we didn’t, Warren. At least four times you managed to prove yourself a man. And that same number of times you proved yourself a dupe. You thought I was simply having my courses and a particularly difficult time with them. In fact, that wasn’t my monthly flow at all. It was your child. Your children. Poisoned and expelled by me like the worthless vermin they would have been. The world doesn’t need another Llewellyn!”

  His expression was a mask of fury, of anger and resentment and hurt. “Why do you hate us so? What on earth could we have done to you?”

  “You were weak,” she replied. “All of you were weak. You had so much power at your fingertips and you never attempted to use it, never attempted to harness and make it your own!”

  “As you have?” He sneered. “You’ve just escaped from an asylum, wife. You’re a known murderer and if not for our influence would hang for it!”

  “What a rousing moral indictment from the drunken sot,” she snapped back. “You’ll have murder on your soul, as well, Warren. If you don’t step away from that hole, if you do not leave the moor this very instant and join me, I’ll drink this potion and end the miserable existence of this brat in my belly right now.”

  “That is your choice! Not mine! I’m not making you do it—.”

  “No, but you have the power to stop it and you’re choosing not to!” Frances shrieked at him. More calmly and with cold calculation, she added, “And isn’t that really the same thing?”

  Silence stretched between them for a long moment. Finally, with a curse, Warren tossed down the spade and walked toward her. But he didn’t cross the fence as she’d expected. Instead, he grasped her wrist, twisting it painfully until the vial fell from her hand and broke on the stones below.

  “What are you doing?” She screamed.

  “Something I should have done long ago. Being a man instead of drunken cuckold,” he snapped. “We’re ending this now, Frances. And you have a choice to make. You can live a life of relative ease in an asylum for whatever term the courts decide and the family will continue to provide for you….and the child, when it is born, will be surrendered to our care. Or, you can harm this child, and we will surrender you to the courts and let you face their mercy!”

  She didn’t answer immediately. His grip tightened on her wrist, and it forced her to sink to her knees. “Igrida will destroy all of you!”

  He pointed to the grave behind him. “Igrida will be a pile of ancient bones locked forever in that hole!”

  “You think a grave can hold her?” Frances bluffed. Nothing was going as it should have. No one was being as they should have. Warren should have caved to her as he had always done. Where had this strength in him come from?

  “Not just a grave.”

  The quiet reply came from behind her. It was Adelaide. Frances dared to glance back over her shoulder. The four of them stood there, Igrida’s remains rolled up in a rug between Lord Mortimer and Eldren.

  As she looked at the small American whom she detested, Frances allowed her hatred to show plainly on her face. It was one of the few times in her life she’d ever been implicitly honest. “I despise you with all your earnest optimism and your American sensibilities!”

  Adelaide actually smiled at her then. “Well you aren’t exactly likable, Frances. You’re a horrid human being and that cannot be laid at Igrida’s doorstep. She did not make you what you are. You made yourself into what you’ve become. And we will not let you turn the child, this pawn you created to further your own agenda, into the very thing you yourself have become… an instrument of evil.”

  “You cannot force me to give birth to this child,” Frances sneered.

  “No, but we can provide you an incentive to do so,” Eldren interjected. “If you want our assistance, that is the only way to obtain it.” To Warren, he added, “Is it ready?”

  “Yes,” Warren said, “But expect things to get… strange. I think, when you bring her onto this land, it will trigger something we cannot predict.”

  “That seems to be the order of the day,” Lord Mortimer replied drolly. “I’m assuming we will need to restrain Mrs. Llewellyn?”

  “It’s for the best,” Adelaide said.

  “Leola, dearest, loosen my cravat and donate it to the cause,” Mortimer continued.

  Leola did as he asked and pass the bit of cloth to Warren who then bound Frances’ hands with it. He then retrieved his own discarded neckcloth and used that to bind her ankles.

  “You’re not going anywhere until I personally return you to that asylum,” Warren stated emphatically. He rose to his feet and then looked at Eldren, “Let’s get this done.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Adelaide felt the disturbance as soon as they crossed the boundary to the moor. The very instant they stepped through the small gate the whispers became shouts. The anger was palpable. It seethed and frothed in the mist. And in that mist, shapes began to appear. Dark figures drew together, coalescing into something that resembled human forms. But their anger was not directed at her or the others. It was focused entirely upon the makeshift shroud balanced between Eldren and Lord Mortimer as they walked toward the grave that Warren had dug.

  For every step they took, those shapes drew closer, closing in around them, encircling them entirely.

  “Stay back!” Adelaide shouted. “You can have her when we have done what we must to contain her!”

  You have no authority here!

  It was no longer a whisper. They were shouting. All of them in unison, screaming in anger and rage.

  “Get her in the ground. Quickly,” Adelaide said. “We haven’t much time.”

  They complied, carrying the body as fast as they safely could, they deposited her in the grave and then unwrapped the carpet and petticoats to reveal the grim visage of the blackened, leathery corpse.

  Standing beside the grave, Adelaide retrieved the vial of blood from her pocket, as did Madame Leola. Together, they flanked the chasm and poured the blood onto the earthly remains of an evil that had tormented generations of people.

  As the first drop connected with the body, it shuddered. The mouth opened and a horrible shriek escaped it. Igrida was once more bound to her withered flesh, but it would not hold her forever, not if she had a refuge.

  Adelaide looked over her shoulder at the other entities that approached them. They had to go and they had to do it now.

  “You all go. Run,” Warren said. “I’ll finish the job here.”

  “It’s not safe,” Le
ola protested.

  “It doesn’t matter. It has to be done.”

  Leola reached up and withdrew the agate necklace she wore, similar to the one she’d given Eldren. “This will offer some protection, but not enough. Be hasty, not thorough. And if you believe in prayer, now is the time.”

  Warren nodded. “Run. All of you.”

  Adelaide didn’t protest. They were out of time. The dead trapped on that moor had a right to their anger, and after so many centuries, they were not going to be particular in how they meted out what they considered justice.

  * * *

  They moved quickly, fleeing the moor with all the speed they could muster. Eldren feared it might be a waste of their time. The dead were bound to the moor by Igrida, but if her power had been neutralized, even temporarily, that might no longer be the case.

  As they neared the house, the women veered off, heading for the beach as they had planned. Eldren paused long enough to retrieve the remaining sticks of dynamite from the crate he’d hidden. Entering the house, he turned the gas on to all the lamps he passed without lighting any of them. Taking the fuse, he wrapped it around the bundle and placed it dead center in the house. With the explosion from it and the gas, the entire house would be reduced to rubble in a matter of minutes, or so he hoped.

  Retracing his steps, he made his way back outside, unrolling the fuse as he went. He signaled to Warren who was barely visible within the mist that shrouded the moor. Warren seemed to understand, as he immediately tossed down his spade and made for the closest gate. As he neared it, Eldren could hear him murmuring the prayers they had learned as children. Over and over again, he said the words like some sort of mantra.