The Witch of Stonecliff

by Dawn Brown

  His blood turned to liquid ice and the air was sucked from his lungs. His step faltered.

  “Are you alright?”

  Eleri’s soft voice dragged his attention from the rusted gate. The animosity tightening her features since she’d first found him in the kitchen had gone, replaced with concern.

  “Fine.” He drew in a deep breath, squared his shoulders and forced his feet to close the short distance to the gate. His hand shook as he reached for the latch.

  Eleri’s fingers closed around his wrist. Invisible energy fissured up his arm.

  “You don’t have to do this,” she said, voice barely more than a whisper.

  He must look a bloody mess already. She was wrong, though. He did have to do this, no matter how much he didn’t want to.

  “I’m all right,” he lied.

  She released his arm, and he tugged open the sagging gate. Its one good hinge creaked loudly in the quiet. He didn’t give himself a chance to think or change his mind before plunging down the path.

  Eleri’s quick footfalls crunched on the dead leaves behind him. This time she had to hurry to catch up. Trees, green with new buds, closed in on both sides of the path. Birds chirped and flitted between the tangled branches. Damp earth mingled with a faint mossy stink that grew stronger with every step.

  Finally, the trees thinned and the path gave way to a clearing. The Devil’s Eye stretched out before him.

  Every hair on his body stood rigid. Even during the day under blue skies and sunshine the glassy water looked black, fathomless, ready to suck him down into its bottomless depths.

  He shivered.

  “Kyle?” Eleri’s voice was filled with careful compassion. He actually missed her sharp impatience. At least then he didn’t feel like some freak on the verge of mental breakdown.

  He didn’t answer. Instead, he crossed to the bank and followed the water’s edge while keeping his gaze fixed on the weathered dock jutting out from the shore. Once the angle looked right, he stopped and faced Eleri.

  Her delicate brows were drawn together, her eyes—normally narrowed and pinched– were wide, as if she were unsure what he would do next.

  “I was here,” he told her. “This is where they tried to kill me.”

  Chapter Nine

  Eleri watched Kyle as he stood by the water’s edge. His robotic tone sent a chill down her spine, but worse were his eyes darting wildly as if he expected someone to jump out at them from the woods.

  “They held me down.” His scarred throat bobbed. “Someone gripped my feet to stop me from trying to kick free, and someone else grabbed my hair.” His hand drifted to his head. Fingers raked back the brown strands falling across his forehead. “It was shorter then, and he had a hard time getting a grip.”

  All her angry suspicion evaporated. “You don’t have to tell me if this is too much.”

  He blinked as if she’d snapped him out of trance and cocked his head to one side. “You’re worried about me?”

  “You don’t look well.

  “Relax,” he told her. “I’m fine.”

  He didn’t look fine, but she didn’t argue. The sooner they wrapped this up the better. Being here with him after those bodies had been found was tempting fate as far as she was concerned. “So there were two of them?”

  He shook his head, thoughtful frown marring his forehead. “Three. Two holding me and one watching.”

  If he could remember how many maybe he could remember more. “Who were they?”

  “I don’t know. They were wearing dark robes. I couldn’t see their faces. And it was dark.” He frowned. “But not pitch. There was…a fire, I think.”

  Eleri’s brows shot up. “Here?”

  Surely, she’d have noticed a bonfire on her land. She glanced around the clearing, trees hugging the far banks of the bog, blotting out the sun. Maybe not. Depending on how late all of this happened, she could have been in bed, and even if she hadn’t been, the bog was far enough from the house the forest would have hidden the flames, and she wouldn’t have been able to see smoke in the dark.

  She might have smelled it, but there were a number of farms in the area, and more often than not they burned their own refuse.

  “How did they bring you here?”

  “I don’t remember,” he said, gaze following the edge of trees. “Woke tied up and I wasn’t sure where I was or how I got there. I tried to escape, but someone grabbed me and held me down. They tried to strangle me first. I fought the ropes and my wrists started to bleed.” He stared down at the long yellow grass. “I don’t know if they hadn’t tied the rope properly, or my blood made it slippery enough to tug my hand free, maybe both, but I got one hand loose just as the blade broke the skin. I shoved the hand away, but the knife dragged down.”

  His finger ran the length of his scar and her belly squeezed. The pain, the terror must have been unreal. “How were you able to run?”

  Kyle shrugged. “Adrenaline, I suppose. I had no idea how bad the damage was. There’d been no pain. Not until later.”

  Sympathy she didn’t want to feel welled inside her.

  “I hit him, the man with the knife.” Kyle dropped his gaze back to the ground, brow furrowing. His tone sounded thoughtful, far away, as though he wasn’t even really speaking to her, just thinking aloud. “I caught him off guard, managed to knock him into the water.”

  “You know for certain he was a man? Did you see him?”

  “Not his face, but he cursed when he hit the water. His falling in must be why it took them so long to chase me, why I got away. I didn’t know where I was, where I was going.”

  “Maybe they didn’t think you would be able to get far with your injury.”

  “Or that I’d bleed to death before finding my way out of these woods.”

  A distinct possibility. “If the man who helped you knew enough to lie to the police and make it look like you were never here, does he know who these people are?”

  Kyle shook his head. “I don’t think so. He believes you were one of them.”

  Lovely. “Is that what you believe?”

  He met her gaze. “I don’t think you were there that night.”

  “Why did you bring me here now?”

  He looked away from her, over the glassy black water. “I wasn’t sure I could face this place alone.”

  Her chest squeezed. She didn’t know what to say, but he didn’t wait for a response.

  “Last month, when I found you in the snow, I’d been coming here to face this place.”

  “You were right yesterday. If you hadn’t found me, I probably would have frozen to death,” she admitted, grudgingly. “Thank you.”

  “Don’t thank me. It really was the least I could do considering.”

  Maybe, but he’d saved her while still uncertain whether or not she’d tried to kill him.

  “I wish I knew how the hell they managed to get me here,” Kyle said. “I would imagine hauling my unconscious body through the woods might have been awkward even if there had been three of them.”

  “They probably came in from the ruins of the original house.” When Kyle stared blankly, she explained, “The Worthings’ house. The family owned the property before mine, but they died when the house burnt down about a hundred years ago.”

  He nodded. “I remember. The daughter went mad and set fire to the place.”

  “The ruins are through those trees.” She pointed. “That’s how Ruth brought Brynn and me here. The drive is well hidden from the road, they would have only had to drag you about fifty feet or so.”

  “Let’s have a look.”

  Eleri followed Kyle around the edge of the bog and down an overgrown path to a small clearing. On the far side, crumbling stone foundation walls coated in dark green moss poked out from the smothering undergrowth as if the forest were swallowing the last remains of the once great house.

  A shiver crept up Eleri’s back. “I hate this place.”

  If Kyle heard her, he gave no indicat
ion. He walked from the clearing to the narrow gap in the trees that acted as a drive.

  “You’re probably right,” he told her, without looking her way. “Coming in this way makes the most sense. No chance of being spotted from Stonecliff.”

  “Do you remember at all?” she asked.

  He shook his head. “I think I started to come ‘round while they were tying me up, but all I remember is the sensation, not anything useful.”

  “What’s the last thing you do remember?”

  “I was drunk at the pub, and I left with a woman I met that night. She was a tourist, backpacking.” His frown deepened as he struggled to remember. “I think she might have been American. I was too pissed to drive, so we were going to walk back to the inn, but I needed to rest. I sat on the bench out front, and the next thing I remember is The Devil’s Eye.”

  “What was the woman’s name?”

  He stared at her blankly. “I don’t remember. Honestly, I barely remember what she looked like. Police searched for her, but she was long gone. I don’t know if she left me at the pub, or turned me over to the people who tried to kill me.”

  “Could she have been one of them? You said there were three people at The Eye that night.”

  He shrugged. “Anything’s possible I suppose, but I think it’s unlikely. Men have been murdered here for years. No one at the pub had seen her before, or after, for that matter.”

  “So they say,” Eleri, muttered. This woman being with him that night, then just up and vanishing was all too convenient. “The man who helped you—”

  “Saved me,” Kyle cut in.

  Went through a lot of trouble to save himself, too, but she kept the thought to herself. “When he moved your car, did he take your things as well?”

  Kyle frowned. “My things?”

  “Police believe the woman robbed you and left you for dead. I assume your rescuer took anything you had of value—wallet, phone, watch.”

  “I was naked when I woke next to the bog. I have no idea what became of my clothes, wallet, phone,” he chuckled humorlessly, “watch.”

  Cold crept over her. As if nearly being murdered wasn’t enough. God knew what all had been done to him.

  “According to the doctors, there was no evidence of sexual assault.” The rasp in his voice thickened. He cleared his throat before continuing. “Sometimes I’m not sure what’s worse, the things I remember or the things I don’t.”

  A dull ache gripped Eleri’s throat. She wanted to do something, say something, offer some measure of comfort, but couldn’t find the words. Besides, that’s not what they were to each other. They were two people who merely wanted the same thing. Answers.

  “This woman is your best bet for filling in the hours between The Iron Kettle and The Devil’s Eye.”

  He glared. “The thought had crossed my mind a time or two.”

  Eleri let out a frustrated sigh. She was on the brink, so close to proving she had nothing to do with the twelve men, except for this one insurmountable wall. “For God’s sake you met her in a pub. Surely, someone saw you leave, or out in the car park. Didn’t the police question anyone there that night?”

  His mouth twitched. “Stephen Paskin, but he claimed he’d never seen her before that night.”

  Her pulse jumped at the mention of the man. She wanted nothing to do with him. “Do you remember anyone else at the pub?”

  He sighed and shoved his hand through his hair. “The regular punters, I suppose. We could probably go there now and find their arses parked in the same stools.”

  She shot him a wry smirk and crossed her arms over her chest. “I’m afraid you’ll need to be more specific. I’ve only been inside The Iron Kettle twice, and both times during the off hours. I don’t know who’s a regular and who’s not.”

  “I can’t remember their names, I didn’t speak to them much except for one. He used to be the groundskeeper here when you were small.”

  A chill whispered through her. “Thomas Grady.”

  She should have known, she’d read Kyle’s articles all those years ago. Thomas Grady had more than a few screws loose and some rather unflattering theories about his former employer’s daughter. Kyle’s more colorful accounts of her supposed antics no doubt came from him.

  She remembered those weeks Kyle had written about her. One sickening tale after another. The stares and whispers in the village, the name-calling. Her nerves had frayed until she’d felt like she was on the brink of a breakdown.

  “The man’s half-mad,” she snapped. “I can’t believe you put anything he said into print.”

  Kyle took a step toward her. “I’m not him anymore.”

  “Yes, you are. You might not want to be, but you are.”

  “Eleri, I—”

  “We should go see Grady,” she cut in. “He might remember you and the woman you left with. Give us something more to go on, anyway.”

  He opened his mouth as if to say more, but she turned away and started back down the path. She wasn’t interested in Kyle’s apologies or excuses. They wouldn’t change anything.

  * * *

  Afternoon sun spilled over spring fields like liquid gold, casting long shadows through budding tree branches. Overhead, strips of gauzy clouds drifted across the deep blue sky. The scene might have been quite picturesque if not for the mossy stone cottage on the verge of collapse.

  Kyle got out of the car, closed the door and took a few steps toward the dirt footpath. “Are you certain he lives here? Are you certain anyone lives here?”

  He glanced back at Eleri still standing in the V between the car door and the opening for the passenger seat, uncertainty clouding her delicate features. Better than the furious accusation back at The Devil’s Eye, but only marginally.

  He’d been unprepared for the guilt being with her inspired. Seeing firsthand the damage Jack—he—had wrought. He might have given the possibility more consideration had he the slightest inclination that they’d form this unlikely alliance. But how could he have guessed?

  “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  She tucked her hair behind her ear. “It might be better if I wait here. He believes I killed those men. There’s a good chance he won’t speak to you if I’m there.”

  He shook his head. He didn’t like the idea of leaving her out here alone. “I need you with me. If he drops names, they won’t mean a thing.”

  “Fine,” she muttered, slamming the car door. “But when he refuses to talk, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  He smirked. “You’re more than welcome to tell me you told me so.”

  “Believe me, I will.”

  Together, they followed the dirt rut to the front door. Gray paint—which may have started out white—peeled and chipped, exposed the rough wood beneath like festering sores. Shingles lifted from the sagging roof, the wood beneath green and rotted from years of neglect. A thick layer of filth streaked the windows.

  “Is he even home?” Kyle muttered.

  “He’s home.” Dark certainty in Eleri’s voice drew his attention. She shot him a wry smirk. “The pub’s not open yet.”

  She had a point. Kyle banged on the door, but no one answered. “Maybe he is out.”

  “Passed out, more likely.”

  He banged harder. A muffled voice rose from behind the door followed by a series of dull thuds, then the paint chipped oak swung inward and Thomas Grady’s large, slumped frame filled the opening. His red, bleary gaze fixed on Kyle first. Deep frown lines grooved his forehead, and he blinked his nearly colorless eyes as if trying to process why Kyle was standing on his front step. Then his eyes shifted to Eleri and widened. His sallow skin turned pasty.

  “Not me,” he said on a hoarse whisper, holding up one gnarled hand. “Don’t choose me. I’m too old to be any use to you.”

  Kyle’s gaze jumped between Grady and Eleri—who looked nearly as horrified as the man backing away from them.

  “Mr. Grady.” Kyle spoke loudly in an attempt to draw the o
ther man’s attention back to him. Not that it did any good. He could have set himself on fire and Thomas Grady wouldn’t have spared him a glance.

  The man’s terrified gaze stayed locked on Eleri. He shuffled backward, but big, mud-caked boots stumbled over each other and he tipped over like a felled oak tree.

  Kyle leapt forward, grabbing for the bigger man’s arm to keep him from falling, but wasn’t quite fast enough. Grady landed hard on his backside. The floor shook beneath Kyle’s feet, windows rattling in their frames.

  “Are you all right?” he asked, sinking down beside him.

  “Listen to me,” Grady hissed, grasping Kyle’s arm and pulling him closer. Odors of stale booze and unwashed body assaulted his nose. “I’m too old. I’m no good to her. Tell her I’m too old. Tell her…” Grady’s bloodshot gaze fixed on his neck, eyes widening, and his words trailed away.

  A thin prickle crept across his throat, but Kyle ignored the sensation. “Mr. Grady, are you hurt?”

  “I remember you,” he said, soft voice filled with awe.

  Good. Maybe this visit wouldn’t be a complete waste of time after all. “That’s why we’re here, to talk to you. Can I help you up?”

  “Why the devil would you come back here? And with her?”

  Kyle looked up at Eleri, and despite her pale skin and wary gaze, she shot him a saccharine smile. “I told you so.”

  Chapter Ten

  Eleri’s insides churned sickly at the sight of the man sitting on the stained rug before her—big, old and drunk, he cowered like a shivering puppy. She was half his size and weight. The idea that anyone was afraid of her was almost laughable—or would have been were it not her life.

  “Let’s get you up off the floor.” Kyle gripped Grady’s elbow and helped the man to his feet. “Come on into the lounge. Are you all right?”

  “You got away once. She won’t let you escape again,” the man said, letting Kyle lead him into a poky little room off the hall.

  When Eleri made no attempt to follow, Kyle stopped and frowned at her. “I’ll go back to the car.”