“Remember when Aunt Cleo said your house was falling down? When she said that the ground couldn’t be trusted? She even said ‘I may be blind, but you’re the one that cannot see.’ And you know what, she was right. I couldn’t see.” I was almost dressed, shoving my arm into the coat, pulling it tight. I began to run.
“Zara!” called Navarre in such a voice of shock it stopped me dead in my tracks. “What the hell is going on?”
I turned around from my flat-out run to scream back at him. “There’s a sinkhole, Navarre. Beneath your house. They’re all in danger.” Without looking back I ran directly for the mansion.
It was not yet daylight as I approached the house yet I could see that something was very wrong. A black shadow stretched underneath the northern side of the house. When I came close enough to understand what I was looking at, what I saw stopped me cold.
One side of the house thrust dangerously out over the gaping hole in the earth. Vines and roots clung to the foundation. But the ground? The ground was gone. Down deep, deep enough that shadows pooled at the heart of the pit. I was looking at the secret parts of the earth. Parts that our eyes should never see.
It looked impossible. That house extended stiffly over a hole. Rocks and dirt released from the side of the wall, clattering into the pit below and widening the hole.
I looked back and saw Navarre running toward me from the standing stones. If I waited for him it would be too late. That house would crack in two at any moment. And all the Lucians on the doomed side. There was no choice. Every second mattered. I had to go. So, I raced up the stone steps, opened the doors cautiously and stepped inside.
The house creaked loudly. The floors seemed to float and bounce under my steps. I lightened my footfalls, walking soft and surefooted as a ballerina flying up the stairs and down the hall. I knew this was most dangerous, for right where I stood was the heart of the sinkhole. Beneath me there was no foundation. Only certain death. I must be careful and I must also succeed.
I thought quickly and decided to wake the sisters. I flew up the stairs and down the hall soft and light as a ballerina, thinking of a plan. The sisters. They would help. Best of all they had a matronly air of authority. Everyone would follow their orders. I slipped into their room, which was illuminated only by the faintest gray light. I went over to the taller one and shook her shoulder gently, “Esther,” I said.
“What?” she asked in a husky voice, wiping the sleep from her eyes. “Zara?” The surprise in her voice was obvious.
“Esther, remember earlier tonight in the baths when you told me about the prophecy?”
“Of course.”
“You told me you were certain that I was going to save you.” I took her hand in mine. “You were right. I am going to save you. But I need you to follow my directions. Please go throughout the house and wake everyone up. Make sure you are quiet, that no one panics. In an orderly procession take everyone over the bridge.”
I expected her to be angry or question me, but she patted my hand. “I believe in you,” she said.
I ran from her to the room I shared with Aunt Cleo. She wasn’t there.
Navarre stood in the doorway. I would remember the look on his face until my dying day but right at that moment there was no time to spare. “Where is Aunt Cleo?” I asked him.
“I have her in my room. Waiting.”
“I’m going to get her,” I said and began to run past him.
“No,” he said emphatically. “You’ll go with everyone else. I’ll get her.”
I was about to disagree with him but something in his eyes, a look, a need gave me pause.
“Let me do this one thing.”
Trust, I thought to myself. I can do that. “Okay,” I said. “I’ll see you on the other side of the bridge.”
“Wait for me,” he said.
“Of course I will,” I said.
Events blurred after that, the way they often do in an emergency. I remember helping people, guiding them gently from the house, trying to remain calm.
A strange noise came. A kind of low moan that rose in pitch before disappearing. There wasn’t much time. People were already streaming down the stairs, and gauging by the shouts from outside people saw the hole beneath the house. Finally, racing with everyone until we reached the gate. I knew they were safe. But what about my aunt? What about Navarre?
I went back. There was Navarre carrying my aunt in his arms coming down the front steps. Just a little bit more and they would be safe. I watched him and felt almost a pity inside me, to see a man bravely face such devastation. He smiled at me as he passed and I very clearly heard him whisper, “Thank you.”
Before we reached the bridge a loud noise drew our attention back to the house. There, in the soft morning light the mansion slipped into the sinkhole. A soft whoosh as it broke free and a devastating roar as it landed deep underground. A white cloud billowed high into the air, and Navarre and I watched in horror as the tower crumpled.
The bats streamed into the air in a chaotic cloud, their home now destroyed. The white cloud billowed higher, chasing the creatures even higher. As the cloud cleared, only the tip of the belfry was visible. I remembered falling from it, looking into those afternoon blue eyes, and knowing everything would be okay. So, that is what I did right then. I turned to Navarre and even in the midst of all that destruction, I smiled.
I knew that together we would create a new home. For the bats, for everyone, but especially for Navarre and me. I realized that in some strange way the prophecy had been right all along. In my odd way, I had saved them and in the process became their queen.
About the Author
Jen Christie is a writer who has a passion for reading and writing Gothic romances. Jen lives in St. Augustine, Florida, with her husband and three daughters. She has a love of history, and her secret desire is to stop and read every roadside historical marker she drives by.
Also by Jen Christie
Harlequin E Shivers
House of Glass
eISBN: 9781460342701
Harlequin E Shivers Box Set Volume 4
Copyright © 2014 by Harlequin Books S.A.
The publisher acknowledges the copyright holders of the individual works as follows:
The Headmaster
Copyright © 2014 by Tiffany Reisz
Darkness Unchained
Copyright © 2014 by Amanda Anders
Forget Me Not
Copyright © 2014 by Barbara J. Hancock
Queen of Stone
Copyright © 2014 by Jennifer Grannis
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental. This edition published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.
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