Taryn filed that information away for future reference. She didn’t know the university had such a place.
“The laws ended up being repealed in 1736,” Nicki continued. “Unfortunately, that was the year before Iona was executed so tensions were still high. Some people still had a hankering to kill the witches but they couldn’t so they were finding other reasons for execution.”
“So how did they do it?” Taryn asked.
Nicki leaned forward, her long hair brushing the table. “They kept her in an awful cell. Rotten food, rats everywhere. Dirty water. Because she was gentry she would’ve had a bed and some comforts that others didn’t, like her own clothes and perhaps some books, but it was by no means a nice place to be.”
Taryn shivered, imagining Iona in a cold, damp cell. Not a friend in the world, no one to stand for her. Scared and alone. Perhaps even wondering where Amlodd was, not knowing he was dead. Or maybe she did know.
“The hanging would’ve been a public one. The would have cut her hair and maybe sold it for souvenirs. She would’ve been put in a white gown and walked through the streets to the gallows. Then a bag would’ve gone over her head and she would’ve hung,” Nicki said sadly. “Unfortunately, most people didn’t break their necks in the fall. That’s what we think from watching the movies but the gallows were put together so quickly that they didn’t always work right. Most people suffocated and that could take as long as five minutes.”
The scene in Taryn’s head was an awful one-Iona dangling from the rope, kicking her legs in a futile attempt to find ground, trying to cry out for help. The people standing around her feet, laughing and jeering at her anguish.
The look on Shawn’s face echoed Taryn’s thoughts. “That’s rough, man,” he said at last.
Nicki nodded miserably. “Can’t say I’m not sorry that public executions ended.”
“What will they do to me?” Taryn asked in a small voice. She’d gotten a call from the officer that evening. She’d been asked not to leave town.
Nicki leaned over and patted her hand. “Don’t worry love. They’ll call the hostel and find out you were there the whole time or they’ll find Miriam. Either way, you’ll be cleared. There’s no evidence, just the words of a man who was standing very far away and might have just seen a shadow.”
“Or a ghost,” Shawn offered.
“Do you think the ghost of Iona killed Paul?” Taryn asked in surprise.
“Maybe not killed him but maybe scared him enough to make him fall,” Shawn reasoned. “It could happen.”
“Hey, enough of this morbid talk,” Nicki said suddenly. “How about we go to the music room? Shawn plays the piano. I can get out my violin. Let’s make some merriment.”
Taryn grinned. That sounded good to her. “Let me just run up and change,” she said. “I was in town earlier and I feel kind of grubby.”
She left them still chatting in the kitchen, their voices cheerful and animated. Sure, she thought grouchily. You two can be happy. Nobody thinks you killed anyone…
Taryn was standing in the middle of her bedroom with her shirt halfway over her head when she heard the scratching inside the wall. She quickly tugged the T-shirt town and cocked her ear in that direction, forcing herself to be as quiet as possible. It came again, this time more urgent.
A rat? A mouse? A raccoon or something?
Tiptoeing across the floor, Taryn walked to the small door in the wall and kneeled before it. She hadn’t had the gumption to open it yet. Now, however, it seemed to be calling to her.
“Hello?” Taryn asked. It was foolish, but it was an instinct.
The scratching stopped.
Thinking she might have run off a rodent, Taryn started to rise again and then she heard the other noise.
There was more despondency in that small sigh than Taryn thought she’d ever felt in her life-and Taryn had felt a lot of grief over the years.
The voice was undoubtedly female. Although the sound came from behind the small door, it filled the entire bedroom, washing over Taryn like a wave of sadness. With it came a scent, something old and bittersweet. She tasted burning chestnuts with it.
Although she was frightened, Taryn felt compelled to open the little door and look inside. Her phone was in her back pocket and she took it out now and flipped on the flashlight. Then, on her hands and knees, she pulled open the door and began crawling through the tiny entrance. It groaned on rusty hinges; the scraping sounded like a gate opening to another world.
The room wasn’t large, only big enough for her to sit up in. She figured it was probably about five feet long and three feet wide. She hoped there weren’t any spiders inside. Taryn didn’t do spiders.
There didn’t appear to be anything inside. She saw only the wooden walls and scratched-up floor under her. Still, using her phone, she moved the flashlight across the walls, looking for anything that might help her figure out where she was.
Over the years, many things had been chiseled into the old walls. Previous guests had carved their names and dates of stay into it. Apparently, Cleveland really did rock and Joey loved Princess. Good for them, Taryn thought.
But there was nothing about the house or Iona. Nothing that might indicate why Taryn’s presence was required.
When she turned to crawl back out, however, the door slammed shut, the creaking loud and shrill enough to have her jumping.
“What the hell!” she cried, losing her balance in fear and falling back against the wall. Her phone flashed and then went off. She was left in total darkness.
The sigh came again, this time not just melancholy but impatient. The sweet breath of air came within an inch of Taryn’s ear; she could feel tendrils of her hair blowing away in response.
Oh God, Taryn though, please don’t let me die in here.
But then her phone flashed again. Taryn looked down in her hand and saw that the flashlight app was no longer on, but her camera was.
“Okay,” Taryn spoke aloud, understanding. “I get it.”
The door slowly creaked back open, flooding the small space with light again.
Turning to her right, Taryn snapped a picture of the wall with her tiny camera phone. The image was blurry but there was nothing in it. She turned again and snapped the wall behind her. Nothing in that one either. When she turned to her left, however, she got something.
Although the space was bare and empty now, at one time there had been a small shelf. On that shelf, surrounded by fried flowers and candles, had been a wooden cup. A wooden cup so worn and used that people had bitten actual chunks from it.
“The Cup,” Taryn breathed in astonishment at seeing it appear on her phone. She knew from the Arthurian legends that sometimes the Holy Grail appeared to people in visions. When this happened, they were filled with such profound awe that they often spent the rest of their lives trying to find it and chase it down again. This was not exactly a vision, since she was seeing the past, but it certainly filled her with awe.
She was in such amazement at seeing the Holy Grail that she nearly missed the other thing, the words scrawled above it. When she looked back at her phone, however, for a better look they popped out as though burning into the wood:
Morgana
Confused, Taryn sat in the middle of the small room and scratched her head. She leaned forward and touched the wall where they appeared in the picture, but there was nothing there. If there had been, then the carving had been worn down over the years from too many hands rubbing at it.
“Morgana,” Taryn whispered.
The sigh returned, as soft as a kiss against her cheek.
Morgana. Morgan le Fey. Morgaine.
One of Arthur’s greatest nemesis. The witch that had helped bring him down. His sister. Perhaps his lover. Mother of his child even.
Where the heck was she?
***
Taryn took the stairs two at a time and raced down the dark corrido, excited to share her news. As she neared the music room, however, she began sl
owing down. The music that spilled out of it was too beautiful to interrupt.
Nicki was playing her violin, the song she’d been playing on her first night. Her sweeping notes that raised and fell reverberated throughout the room, amplified by the acoustics. Shawn joined her on his harmonica, adding a complementary melody that spoke of heartache and despair. Taryn recognized it as the Mazzy Star song, the one Nicki said she’d learned during her “grunge” phase. On and on they played together, their instruments twisting and weaving with one another until they were almost one.
“It’s downloaded,” Shawn spoke at last. “Wanna listen to the real people?”
Taryn, standing in the doorway where they had not yet noticed her, did not want to hear the “real” people. She wanted the two of them to continue playing-maybe forever.
When the single harmonica began on Shawn’s iPod, Taryn started to enter the room but, just then, Shawn held out his hand to Nicki and they began to dance. As he spun her into a slow waltz, Taryn listened to the words of heartache. Of flowers of December. December, when Iona was meant to find such happiness. December, when Andrew had died. The singer sang of sorrow, of bringing heartache to her loved one. Of being heartbroken, giving her love to someone who didn’t want it. The waltz before her was tender and beautiful in its lack of grace. Although Nicki stepped on his toes and he occasionally fumbled, their smiles were bright and real. Taryn watched them spin around and around the opulent room, even as the saddest song she’d ever heard played around them.
And just as the orchestra reached its crescendo, Taryn thought that she might even believe in romance movie love again.
Chapter Thirty-Four
TARYN RODE QUIETLY ON THE PASSENGER SIDE, seated next to a woman she knew only through emails and phone calls.
Joanna Brigham was a middle-aged woman with a ton of energy and little regard to social niceties.
“I’m sorry he died but the man was a pain in the rear,” she’d declared upon learning of Paul’s death.
Nicki and Taryn had gaped at her in shock. “Told you,” Shawn had leaned in and whispered to them. He’d apparently gotten an earful on the drive back from Aberystwyth.
Where Joanna was loud and flamboyant, her husband Joe was quiet and, by comparison, almost demure.
“Well dear, we are a bit saddened by his departure,” he’d added quietly.
She had simply snorted. “Speak for yourself.”
Taryn had spent an hour going over her paintings and sketchings with her. Joanna had been dutifully impressed. “Looks good to me,” she’d bellowed. “Of course, I can’t paint worth a stitch.”
Taryn had also followed the owners around while Shawn gave them a tour of the house, showing them what needed to be fixed immediately and what could wait for a few more months. “Honestly,” he told them, “I don’t think you should even be open right now. Some of these things are real hazards.”
“Dearie,” she’d leaned forward and chortled. “Does it look like we’re open? When’s the last time a single person checked in?”
Fair point.
“The oil-fired boiler that you have heating the whole house?” Shawn pointed out downstairs. “It’s too old and too small for the job.”
“And it costs a thousand pounds a month,” Joe added. It was the first time he’d spoken up in an hour.
Shawn continued. “The crumbling chimneys and external walls definitely need to be repaired soon. The chimneys should also be repointed with lime mortar so that it can breathe.” Joanna nodded her head in agreement. Taryn wondered if she understood what he was about talking. “A stone mason should be brought in to repair the sandstone corbels. They’re eroded almost beyond repair. Of course the windows must be replaced. It’s not just the one in Taryn’s room that was a problem. They should all be re-glazed, at the very least, and the frames reinforced. I would recommend German crown-glass. And then, or course, the missing ceiling cornices should be replaced to give the rooms a more symmetrical look.”
“And is that the worst of it then?” Joanna had inquired, looking sick to her stomach.
Shawn had taken a second to look embarrassed and then forged ahead. “Unfortunately, no. The worst of it is that there is fungus up in the attic. And the plumbing issues. The main water supply that serves the whole house? It’s just a flimsy plastic pipe that runs outside, above ground, and apparently freezes in the winter. I would venture to say that it’s leaking six cubic meters of water a day, at least. Then there’s the fact that the whole place is a fire trap. You’ve got loose wires, uncovered, that are so hot I’m surprised they haven’t caught anything on fire.”
Nicki had taken them outside and talked about the garden and lawn. “I realize that there’s a historical preservation blanket over the beech trees,” she’d told them, “but some of them are dangerously brittle and need to felled or reduced. That is probably going to cost thousands of pounds-perhaps as much so for even one tree.”
Joe had nodded and made a note. So far, he’d gone through three sheets of paper.
“Well this just keeps getting cheerier and cheerier,” Joanna had grumbled. “I’m going to need a bottle of wine.”
When they were finished with the tour, Joanna had turned to Taryn. “I’d like for you to ride to Falcondale Manor with me. I’ve a hankering to see what a real country restoration project looks like.”
It was true that Falcondale, once a mansion and now an upscale hotel and restaurant, was a gorgeous house, but Taryn was stubborn for loyalty to Ceredigion House. Still, Joanna was suitably impressed. “If I’d had a caretaker that knew anything about planning regulations, conservation methodology, or even historical architecture then Ceredigion House might have looked like this by now!”
After their tour, sitting on a bench in their garden, Taryn and Joanna talked about the house and its future. “It’s going to take a lot of money sinking into it to bring it up to shape,” Joanna sighed.
“I think it’s worth it,” Taryn said.
“You like it then do you?”
Taryn nodded. “Are you going to stay here?”
“We have to return to Bristol for a few weeks,” Joanna answered, “and then we’ll be back. This is going to be the project for what I imagine is the rest of my life. But I wanted an English country home and I certainly got one! The house and all its problems.”
And all its ghosts, Taryn wanted to add.
“I imagine you’ll be gone by the time we return,” Joanna said. “But never fear. I shall transfer your sums to your account online.”
Taryn’s heart sank. She knew she’d be finishing up her job in a week or two but she wasn’t ready to leave. Even though Ceredigion House was not her home and this wasn’t her country, she felt like she was truly building something for herself there. She didn’t want to return to Nashville, to her quiet apartment. To her real life.
But what could she do?
***
Joanna and Joe might have owned Ceredigion House, but after Shawn’s rundown of the place, they’d gotten themselves a room at the Falcondale and moved their suitcases there.
“Guess we’re going to tough it out here, aren’t we?” Taryn had smiled at Shawn over dinner.
“Well, we haven’t died yet,” he replied cheerfully.
“Hey, I was thinking about what Nicki said, about the witchcraft stuff at the university. I was thinking I might go over there tomorrow afternoon, after I finish working, and check it out. See if I can come up with anything.”
“I might go with you,” Shawn offered, “if that’s okay.”
“Sure.”
“Have you heard from the police?”
Taryn shook her head. “No, but when I was at Falcondale the owner wouldn’t even look at me. I swear, I’ve been tried in the court of public opinion and they’ve already found me guilty.”
“Dumbasses,” Shawn spat.
“Hey, have you checked on Nicki?”
“She said she wasn’t feeling well,” Taryn said. “To be
honest, I think she’s looked bad for awhile now. “I mentioned that she should go to the doctor.”
“She was down here about an hour ago. I told her to go lay down.”
They were quiet, both lost in their respective thoughts.
“In Iona’s diary, she said that Amlodd felt compelled to return to her at Ceredigion House,” Taryn said suddenly. “Isn’t it weird that it’s the same word we’ve all used? Or a version of it anyway.”
Shawn creased his forehead and nodded. “That is strange. I definitely felt a calling to come here.”
“So did I,” Taryn replied. “So did Nicki. In her first letter to me, Joanna said that she felt like she had to buy the house. I just had this thought…What if everyone that’s here is meant to come here for a reason?”
“Even some of the animals that were here just kind of showed up,” Shawn agreed.
“Miriam can’t leave, even though she didn’t like working with Paul.”
“So you think the house is cursed in a way? That people get drawn to it and die?” Shawn asked.
“I don’t know,” Taryn replied dubiously. “That doesn’t sound right.” She got up and started washing her plate off when she was suddenly struck by another thought.
“Shawn!” she cried. She threw down her plate and ran up to the table, her eyes bright.
“Jesus Christ, you scared the hell out of me,” he complained. “What?”
“Iona was pregnant!”
“What?”
“That’s the secret she wanted to tell him that night and couldn’t,” Taryn said with excitement. “She alluded to them doing something but that it was okay because they were going to get married!”
“So they hung a pregnant woman?” he frowned.
“No, that’s why they waited! Because they knew. They waited until she had the baby,” Taryn said.
“You think that’s why he left? Because he found out she was pregnant? But if they were going to get married anyway…”
“I don’t know,” Taryn grumbled. “I haven’t put it all together. But I know she was. I know it!”
Bloody Moor: A Ghost Story (Taryn's Camera Book 8) Page 19
