Taryn faltered. She hadn’t seen a menu, much less ordered a roast. “Ummm…”
“We have special desserts there on the board, if you’d like,” the server pointed to the door. Taryn turned and looked.
In white chalk someone had clearly written “Sunday Roast” on the blackboard, followed by trifle, apple pie, and chocolate cake.
Damn it, Taryn swore to herself. She’d completely forgotten that it was Sunday. She was probably lucky she’d found anywhere open to eat at all.
“I’ll take some chocolate cake after the, er, roast,” Taryn answered brightly. “And a Coke, if you have it.”
The server smiled, nodded, and scurried off again. Taryn sat back in her chair and sighed. She wasn’t about to give herself away. She’d sit there and pretend that she knew exactly what she was getting and then, so as not to offend, she’d eat it and pretend she liked it whether she actually did or not.
It was the Southern way.
She was looking forward to having a Coke. She’d tried drinking that Squash when she woke up but it was so strong that she’d not managed more than a sip or two. It had nearly turned her mouth inside out.
As she waited, she watched the street from the window. There hadn’t been many people on it when she’d first walked into town but now the crowds were starting to pick up. She thought that perhaps church was letting out or something. She could hear the faint clanging of what sounded like bells.
Taryn could feel the beginnings of a smile. Mothers pushing strollers with babies, elderly couples holding hands and moving on frail hips, teenage boys shunning coats and jackets in favor of showing off graphic T-shirts and loose-fitting pants–they all moved together through the tunnel of Main Street. (Or High Street, as it had said in her guidebook.)
Taryn was a big fan of small towns and downtowns. Back home, most of the stores and businesses in the downtowns she knew had closed up, victims of urban sprawl. People had shunned the hassle of parking and walking for the convenience of enclosed malls. Now they were even starting to ignore those in favor of town centers that, oddly enough, resembled the downtown areas that the malls had been built to replace in the first place. Her grandmother had lived outside of Nashville, close to Franklin, and Taryn had loved it there. Franklin was one of the few small towns that retained its downtown vibrancy, but even that had taken a lot of work and willpower by the local residents.
Even Nashville had struggled. It wasn’t until the popularization of Second Avenue, thanks in part to the line dance craze of the 1990s and the Wild Horse Saloon, that people had started flocking back to the “city.” She could remember a time growing up when nobody had thought it was safe to go downtown. Over the past twenty years it had slowly become the place to be again.
When the server returned with Taryn’s plate of food, she wasn’t sure what to think. There were several different items on the plate, for sure, but thanks to the runny brown gravy over it all, she couldn’t identify a single thing.
“Hmmm,” Taryn whispered, poking at something with her fork. “What might you be?” It flopped over and a peel was revealed. Ah! A potato!
She thought she was also looking at a slab of meat, roast beef she figured, and another vegetable of some kind. A single roll was the only thing not covered by the gravy.
Hailing from the South, gravy was not a foreign concept to Taryn. She’d grown up with biscuits and gravy for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. It was the equal opportunity meal. However, that had been sausage gravy–thick, white, and creamy. This gravy was thin, runny, brown, and (when she tasted it) sweet.
“Not bad,” Taryn spoke to herself.
“What’s that sweetie?”
Taryn hadn’t realized that her server was standing over her again. “Oh, I’m sorry,” she apologized. “Just talking to myself.”
“Oh, that’s all find and good,” she grinned, “just as long as you don’t start answering back.”
Taryn laughed. “Do you have the roast every Sunday?”
For a moment her server looked surprised but then nodded. “It’s our Sunday roast,” she said flatly.
“Ah.” Taryn felt silly. Of course. It was Sunday; it was a roast.
“Are you here for university then?”
Taryn shook her head. “Oh, no. I’ve been out of school for a long time. I’m here for work.”
She briefly filled her in on the job, telling her about the house that was being restored and her small part in the renovation. As she spoke, however, Taryn could see the server’s eyes narrowing. They grew smaller and smaller until they were two tiny slits perched above her cheeks.
“It wouldn’t be the Ceredigion House now, would it?” she asked. Her mouth was set in a firm line. She wasn’t frowning, exactly. She didn’t have an expression at all.
“Yes, that’s the house,” Taryn replied. It was a big house in a small place; she’d expected everyone to know it. Had even hoped to get some inside information on it from local people.
“You be careful there lass.” The voice came from the old man on the other side of the room. He and the woman had risen to their feet and were yanking on coats. His hands shook as bony fingers struggled with the buttons, but his voice was strong and powerful.
“Oh now, don’t scare the girl,” the woman with him laughed.
“I’m not scaring her, just telling her the truth,” he insisted. Leaving the buttons for now, he strode across the floor until he was standing by Taryn’s server.
“It’s a different kind of place you know,” he proclaimed with authority. “Best know how to protect yourself.”
“Now David,” the woman chided him again. She walked up next to him and began the task of buttoning his coat for herself. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I do indeed,” he protested, his cheeks reddening. Leaning forward, he dropped his voice to a whisper. “We around here call it ‘The Cursed’, you know.”
His partner rolled her eyes but the server nodded her head in agreement. “We do indeed,” she agreed.
“Oh now, that’s nonsense,” the old woman laughed. “Every old house has a history. If you’d have been around for three-hundred years, you’d have one as well. You already do, David. You weren’t exactly a saint when we met.” She turned and looked at Taryn. “Well, he wasn’t.”
“But that house has seen more than its fair share of bad things,” David said. “Do you know how many deaths it’s seen?”
Taryn shook her head no. She’d read a number, but had no idea how accurate the estimate was.
“Fifty-five deaths,” he all but shouted. “Fifty five! Now you tell me that doesn’t mean something.”
“Many of those happened around the same time,” the woman (Taryn guessed his wife since they both wore gold bands) said. “Times were harder back then. The influenza took half the town in the early eighteen hundreds. Not to mention the tuberculosis. Lost my own mum to it, I did.”
David was still talking over his shoulder at Taryn as his wife pulled him out the door. When they were alone again, her server pulled out the chair across from Taryn and seated herself.
“It’s true,” she said. Her face was a mask of solemnity. “The house has seen more than its fair share of heartache. It’s true that there’s been lots of sickness around here, but some of those deaths were not of the ordinary kind.”
“You mean people murdered?” Taryn asked.
She nodded. “But not just that, either. Odd deaths. Strange deaths that ought not have happened. A man walking through the field and struck by lightning. I mean, what are the real chances of that? A little girl playing in a tree and breaking her neck when the branch broke. Just a child. Horses dying, one by one, for no reason the doctor could tell. A man playing a harp and just dropping over dead.”
Her eyes were wide as she spoke, affirmation to her belief that the Ceredigion House was much more menacing than David’s wife had protested. To Taryn, these deaths, as horrible as they sounded, were still just accidents. And surely a pla
ce that old really was bound to have a lot of tragedies. But still…
Taryn leaned forward now. “I heard it’s haunted.”
The woman shuddered. “It is at that,” she agreed. “Haunted by things you don’t want to know about.”
“By one person?” Taryn asked. “Or…”
“By many,” she said. “The dead don’t rest any easier than the living there. The ghost of Iona Haycock is the one to look out for. She was miserable in life and worse in death.”
“Yawn-uh?” Taryn asked, repeating the woman’s name.
“Iona,” her server nodded. “She’s the one to watch for. Don’t let her near you. Don’t talk to her or seek her out. Others have and they’ve paid dearly for it.”
“Why is she angry? What does she do?” Taryn asked.
The other woman shuddered dramatically and shook her heard. “She was a witch in life. She’s the one who cursed the house to begin with. Cursed all living things that came to it. And now, in death, she can’t rest so she takes her anger out on the very living she’s jealous of.”
Taryn could feel the skin on her arms popping up in tiny chills. For a moment the room seemed to grow smaller. Cold trickles of sweat rolled down her back and pooled at her waist.
Iona Haycock. Something about the name. It unnerved her, and she wasn’t sure why.
“You’ll be fine, love,” the other woman said as she stood up again. “My name is Miranda and if you need anything, you just ask. I know everything there is to know about this county. Everything.”
Taryn smiled weakly and nodded. She had a lot more Googling to do.
***
The suitcases might have arrived earlier, but Paul hadn’t notified her of their coming. She’d only just happened upon them in a far corner of the foyer when she was exploring earlier. They might have set there for the duration of her stay, lonely and confused.
Taryn was relieved that her suitcases had arrived unharmed and in a reasonable time period. Seeing them, and their contents, felt like catching up with old friends.
As Taryn began unpacking, however, she steadily began growing confused and frustrated. She was confident, for instance, that she’d packed a long-sleeved blue knit top but it was missing. And where were her unicorn hair clips? They’d been a Christmas present from Matt the year before, stuffed in the toe of her stocking. She knew they were really too young for her, but she loved them. She was also missing her hiking socks, her rain boots, and her international plug-in adaptors.
Her items were still neatly folded and organized within their cases. It certainly didn’t look like anyone had gone through them. Still…
Airport security had changed a lot since 9/11, Taryn sighed. Perhaps her bags had been part of a random search and some things just hadn’t made their way back inside.
When she realized that she was missing her grandmother’s framed picture, however, she felt her heart sink. She carried that picture of her Nana with her everywhere. That and the one of Matt were her constant reminders of home, of who she was.
Who would want to take her picture?
Chapter Eight
THERE WERE SEVENTY ROOMS in Ceredigion House. A historical home of both cultural and architectural Welsh significance, it was listed as a Grade One for the main house and Grade Two for its stables and walled garden. If Paul was going to be ornery and shut himself off from her, Taryn would just have to explore them on her own.
She stood in the chilly foyer now and studied the main entrance. Gorgeous Doric columns flanked the dogleg staircase that led up to the second floor. At one time they had been impressive; now their paint was peeling, leaving dirty white flecks on the threadbare area rug covering a beaten floor. The arcade on the second floor landing could have belonged to a palace. With its triple arches held up by marble columns and grad embellishments trailing along the ceiling, she could easily see herself gliding down the stairs in a ball gown. Now, however, the crown moulding was missing in pieces. The golden tones of the paint were dulled by the grime of many years.
Miss Dixie had an empty memory card and a full battery. Taryn carried a backup battery in her back pocket, just in case. Her tennis shoes might have been out of place in Ceredigion House’s heyday but now, in its neglect, they provided comfort across the rotting floorboards and debris left behind by tourists and workers.
The first room she entered was painted a sunny yellow and contained a worn, but comfortable looking, seating arrangement. A small plaque inside the door read “Parlor.” She walked over to a metal folding table and studied the brochures scattered on its surface. An assortment of colorful advertisements for local historical sites and villages were in disarray, like a curious toddler had picked them all up at once and tossed them into the air.
“Damn OCD,” Taryn murmured as she began organizing the brochures and stacking them into neat piles. For all she knew, they’d be tossed into the garbage in an hour but, in the meantime, she couldn’t leave the room looking like that.
She also up-righted a small garbage can overflowing with tissues and cola cans and fluffed a pillow on the settee before taking pictures of the room.
“I hope I don’t have to do this in every room,” she laughed ruefully as she headed on down the hallway. “This is going to take forever.”
She didn’t normally go around cleaning up the messes left in the houses in which she worked, but this one was different. It felt too sad to leave it the way it was. Granted, the majority of the houses she was assigned to were abandoned and falling in on themselves, but even they were often in better condition than Ceredigion House.
Taryn snapped a dozen more shots as she felt her way through a kitchen, day room, pantry, and formal living room. The house, with its period pieces (some of which had been there for more than two hundred years) and soaring ceilings was a museum. It wasn’t an exhibition hall in the Smithsonian sense–it was a time capsule, a relic locked in time. If not for some of the contemporary features such as the electric light switches, metal trash cans, and random bottles of cleaning solution corroding in corners, it might as well have been left alone for the past one-hundred years or so. There was little evidence of modernization or maintenance. Without a single soul milling about, and the hushed oppression of the rooms and corridors, Taryn could almost believe that the ghosts themselves were the ones responsible for what little upkeep she saw.
Taryn knew about some of the rooms she’d encounter on the main floor. She knew, for instance, that the butler and head housekeeper would have had quarters down there. She also knew that she’d find a servants’ hall, pantry and scullery off the kitchen, and a boot and candle room. At one time the first floor would have been a hub of activity.
However, she was disappointed to find that many of the doors on the first floor were locked. Curious by nature, she longed to find a way into them (Taryn had picked a lock or two back in her urban exploring days), but politeness had her backing away. She was about to give up and head upstairs when she turned the corner and entered the music room.
It was, quite possibly, the most beautiful room she’d ever seen.
“Well, I’ll be dammed,” Taryn whispered. Her voice echoed back to her, as though in reply.
“Lavish” didn’t even begin to describe the opulence. Compared to the general deterioration she’d use to describe the rest of the house, the music room was positively enchanting.
The marble Italian fireplace depicted Aesop’s Fables in carvings that looked as though they’d been recently polished. The lavish Rococo-style ceiling, rising more than twenty feet above her head, captivatingly illustrated the four seasons intertwined with violins, harps, and musical notes. One entire wall was covered with floor-to-ceiling mirrors, making the room appear even larger than it was. Taryn’s own reflection gazed back upon herself now and she giggled to see that her mouth was actually open in awe.
Aside from a few stately chairs upholstered in dainty silk and a console table near the door, the only other item was the Broadwood grand
piano parked self-importantly in center of the floor. She walked over to it now, marveling at its gleaming wood, obviously recently polished. A small placard rested on the bench, proclaiming that Wagner himself had once visited the house and played the keys. Taryn itched to touch it, but held back out of reverence. She was a big fan of music, but she couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket or play a single note outside of the plastic recorder she’d had to learn Christmas songs on in grade school.
Taryn was gently tracing over one of the carvings on the fireplace when the footsteps fell in behind her. “The mark’s from a gun.”
Startled by the young female voice, Taryn jumped and turned.
The woman before her was probably in her late twenties or early thirties. She had a cap of auburn hair, a tan face, and a wide smile. She wore high heels, a black leather mini skirt, and a man’s flannel top rolled up to the elbows.
“Didn’t mean to give you a scare,” the other woman apologized. “I thought you heard me walk in.”
“Guess I was lost in my thoughts,” Taryn laughed. “Hi, I’m Taryn. I’m here to paint the house. Well, you know, to do a landscape. I’m not exactly going to pick up a brush and start tackling the walls.”
The woman before her laughed, revealing a beautiful smile and dimple. “They couldn’t pay me enough to do that. I’m Miriam. I do the housecleaning around here.”
It was all Taryn could do not to look surprised at Miriam’s revelation. She had just about convinced herself that the house cleaned itself.
“I know, I know,” Miriam rolled her eyes. “It’s a mess. But it’s not all my fault. Other than Paul, I’m the only other staff person here and they only have me on three hours a day, five days a week. That’s barely enough time to see to the rooms guests leave behind, do the dishes, and give the floors a hoovering. And sometimes I stay longer, without pay, just out of guilt for the poor old sod.”
Taryn nodded her head sympathetically. A place like Ceredigion House would have had a flock of servants in the past. Certainly more than a single person to oversee its upkeep.
Bloody Moor: A Ghost Story (Taryn's Camera Book 8) Page 4
