Once Upon A Haunted Castle: A Celtic Romance Anthology

by Eliza Knight

  Was it really so?

  “Put him?” Pallas repeated Jamison’s question. Then, he snorted, as if something was funny, perhaps a joke only he understood. “He always threatened to throw me to the waves below. Mayhap that is where he belongs now; in the waves below. There is no other place that would want him. Give him to the sea and let the sea digest his evil.”

  Jamison glanced at Havilland, who seemed to agree completely with the servant. Such a wicked soul didn’t deserve a proper burial and tossing him into the sea, denying him that rite of burial which he had denied his victims, somehow seemed right.

  As Jamison was dragging the host from their small chamber, following Pallas as the man directed him to someplace to store the body until the storm passed, the raven flew out of the shadows and landed on the host, right on his shoulder, and began pecking at the man’s face. Havilland shooed the bird away, helping Jamison put the host’s body near the keep entry, and Pallas ended up throwing a dusty length of wool over the cooling corpse, covering it until it could be removed in the daylight.

  There was no sense of dread or horror any longer, but now a tangible sense of relief. Relief that the evil of Whitecliff Castle was finally over with; the wickedness of a man who had been driven insane by his own jealousy and hatred.

  Perhaps in the end, justice had been served for the dead, after all.

  As they settled the body against the wall, away from the front door that was still emitting wind and lashings of rain, Pallas chased the bird away again who seemed to want to pick the corpse’s eyes out, and the sassy, noisy bird sat in the rafters of the entry chamber all night, watching its latest quarry below, hoping to feast on the flesh of yet another dead body.

  All through the night, the bird waited and watched, preening its feathers, plumes of darkness falling to the floor below and littering the ground near the host’s body. But the bird never had the opportunity for a tasty meal because, in the morning, Jamison cleared the body away and threw it into the sea.

  Finally, the evil was finished.

  A few days after Jamison and Havilland departed to continue on their journey, Pallas went to bed one night and never woke up. He unexpectedly passed away in his sleep, a man without fear and reasonably content for the first time in his life. Unfortunately, he hadn’t yet made it to Cullen to see the priests, so no one knew of the dead in the underground vaults or the tragic story of Lenore and her murdered lover. All of those legends, however, ended up in the lore of the Clan Munro as told by Jamison and Havilland, who had experienced the situation first-hand, and the stories became a very big part of the storytelling that was passed down from generation to generation.

  The story of the lost lady of Findlater.

  Far away from the Clan Munro lands, centuries went by and Findlater deteriorated further and further, the earth taking back the bones of the dead and the elements weathering down the ancient stone of the derelict castle. It was abandoned for centuries until a traveler passing from Cullen to Inverness saw through the fog one night what he thought to be a white, ghostly figure dancing on the ruins, and the story of the lost lady of Findlater found new life.

  Of course, the lady was searching for her lost love – what else could she possibly be looking for? – so it was natural for people to assume that it was verification of the old Clan Munro legend of the lost lady of Findlater. It wasn’t until the Victorian era, with the curiosity so exclusive to the bold Victorians, that someone came up with the name Lenore in an ancient bible in a church in Cullen. No one knew how the Medieval bible from Clan Munro got there, or why Lenore and Findlater were mentioned in the same sentence, but the Victorians decided that the delicate specter witnessed on that foggy night must have been the woman named Lenore.

  Now, the legend had a name.

  A rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore.

  In death, Lenore lived on as she never did in life.

  And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting

  On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;

  And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon’s that is dreaming,

  And the lamp-light o’er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor;

  And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor

  Shall be lifted—nevermore!

  ~ Excerpt from Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven”

  Part Five

  Demon’s that is dreaming….

  Present Day

  Findlater Castle (also known as Whitecliff)

  “So for all of its ghosts and legends, we weren’t actually able to capture the woman in white who is said to roam the grounds looking for her lost love, but we did manage to catch tapping on our EVP recordings.” Heather, dressed in a striking red coat with her dark hair blowing as the wind whipped up from the Firth of Moray, smiled for the camera. “I’m very happy to say that we have not been able to debunk the sounds of the tapping so, in some part, the legends of the mysterious Findlater Castle could be real. Who makes those tapping noises? Why does the lady in white wander the grounds? Is it really Lady Lenore searching for her lost lover? And what about the legend of angry Viking ghosts? Perhaps we’ll never know the truth of any of that, but it’s certainly interesting to speculate. Thank you for watching and until next time, keep that nightlight on, people. You just never know what’s in the dark. I’m Heather Monroe for World’s Best Haunts.”

  There was a long pause before her sound technician, with the big boom mic overhead, lowered the microphone as the director yelled cut. The cameraman stopped rolling the taping and the sound people immediately began to discuss how they could filter out all of the hissing noises and wind-blowing from the finished recording. The lighting people began to fold up the lights and the camera guys, three of them, began to check their equipment to make sure the recording was perfect. Heather and her eleven crewmembers began to wrap it up as Lynn, standing at the back of the production, moved through the group and up to Heather, who was removing her earpiece.

  “So?” Lynn asked, helping Heather with the tiny sound cord. “What do you think?”

  Heather turned to look at the ruins behind her, wind-swept as a storm blew in from the east. “I think this is one of the creepier locations we’ve ever filmed at, but I think this show is one of our best. Especially that creepy tapping. That was wild.”

  Lynn nodded. “Definitely,” she said. “So let’s wrap this up and head back to town. There’s a big ol’ glass of beer at the Three Kings Inn with my name on it.”

  Heather grinned, unwinding the last of the mic cord from her jacket and clutching it in her hand. “Sure,” she said, turning to look at the ruins behind her. “But let me say goodbye to this place. I have to say that I’ve felt a real connection here. Not sure why, or what, but this place has kind of touched me. I’m not sure I’m ready to leave yet.”

  Lynn lifted her eyebrows knowingly. “So the story of Lenore has gotten to you, too?”

  Heather shrugged and, chuckling, turned back for the old ruins on the cliff. The crew was wrapping up behind her, getting ready to make their trek back to the farm about a half a mile away where the cars were parked. Findlater was so remote that they couldn’t park next to it, so they’d had to make a bit of a hike to the filming location. Fortunately, the equipment they carried really wasn’t particularly heavy so it wasn’t a real problem to carry it all back to the car.

  With her crew heading back, Heather entered the ruins of Findlater. The path leading through what had once been the gatehouse was well defined from many, many visitors walking it over the years, and she passed by the pile of stones that used to be part of the gatehouse wall. The promontory that the castle was built on jutted out into the sea but it wasn’t particularly high, having been worn down over the centuries, so she moved on the path with confidence. Oddly enough, she felt as if she’d been there before.

  She knew this place.

  Ahead of her was the uneven area of the bailey
with remnants of buildings still surrounding it, including what had once been a two-story keep. An archaeologist she’d spoken to from the University of Edinburgh had a theory that there were even storage rooms beneath the keep, but it had sunk down so low over the centuries that it was hard to tell. Whatever was down there had long since collapsed.

  Still, it was the keep itself that fascinated her. Heather felt drawn to it as she always did when they investigated historical sites like this. She was a firm believer that every place in the world was haunted with residual energies from those who had lived and loved there. Heather wasn’t exactly psychic but she did get feelings sometimes, or impressions. Right now, she was getting a distinct impression of loneliness as she walked upon the grass that had once been the floor of the entry level of the keep. Now, it was just sod. The once-grand keep was only a faded memory of its former self.

  But there was a doorway on this level that led into a roofless chamber. The remains of a hearth could be seen and Heather wandered in, wondering why she was feeling such sadness. Maybe it was because the show was over and she had to leave, but somehow, it seemed more than that. The sadness seemed to come from everywhere.

  One side of the open-roof chamber was a grassy slope and she went to it, plopping her buttocks on the grass and just sitting for a moment to enjoy the air and the sound of the waves. She had grown quite fond of Findlater in spite of what the old guy had said in the bar the previous week.

  You might not like what you find.

  He had been wrong. She liked it a lot.

  Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary, over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore….

  Heather had become very familiar with that poem over the past week. Now she knew it by heart. Somehow, looking at these old walls and imagining them on a moonless night, she could really see what had inspired Poe to write that poem. This place was definitely dreary, creepy as hell. As she picked up a small rock and tossed it, trying to make it through a ruined window, she heard movement off to her left.

  A raven had slipped down the slope and was now cackling and clicking, waddling over near the path she had just come down from. At the sight of the bird, Heather’s mouth popped open.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” she hissed, looking at the black bird bob about. “No way….”

  The bird stopped and looked at her, squawking. Then it tittered, chirped, and began moving in her direction, bold and curious. Heather could hardly believe what she was seeing.

  “Seriously?” she said to the bird, as if it understood her. “I’m sitting here thinking of passages from The Raven and you show up?”

  The bird continued to walk in her direction, bobbing its head, peering at her with its big black eyes. It seemed to want to be friendly. At the very least, it was curious. Heather gazed back, equally curious of the bird, before finally holding out the earpiece and cord she’d been holding in her hand. It was a little earpiece with a long cord and she dangled it for the bird, just to see its reaction. Maybe she even wanted to tease it. The irony that this bird had shown up at this point in time was unfathomable. Of all the crazy coincidences….

  Snatch!

  The bird suddenly grabbed the earpiece and took off in the opposite direction, half-running and half-flying. Heather leapt to her feet and ran after the bird.

  “Hey!’ she yelled. “Give that back, you thing of evil! What did Poe call you? A devil bird! Give it back, Spawn of Satan!”

  The bird was flying now, but very low to the ground, soaring across the ruined chamber and through the doorway, into the area where the path led down from the cliffs above. The bird ended up on the grass again, squawking and jumping, trying to keep away from Heather, who managed to plant her foot on the trailing cord. They were down below the level of the open-ceilinged chambers now, more on the side of the cliff with the sea about thirty feet below on a steeply-slanted cliff.

  “I swear to God if you make me fall down this cliff, I’ll come back up here and roast you,” she scolded the bird as she got a hold of the end of the cord and pulled. But the bird wouldn’t let go. “Give it, you mangy beast!”

  The bird pulled. Heather pulled in return but then, something odd happened; the ground gave way beneath her feet and, suddenly, her legs were disappearing into the side of the cliff. More than that, her entire body was disappearing. The cord was still in her hand as she tumbled down into a hole of some kind, a windowless and dark cavern. Pebbles and dirt poured in on top of her. She shrieked and covered her head.

  “Holy crap!” she exclaimed, coughing in the dust. “What the –?”

  She hadn’t fallen very far, perhaps just five feet or so. Not really far at all, considering, but as she blinked her eyes and grew accustomed to the weak light, she realized that she was in something man-made.

  Heather could see the stone walls, carefully stacked atop each other, and she looked overhead, seeing that she’d tumbled down through the sod roof of the chamber. She could see roots and sod all over the ceiling and walls. It was most definitely a man-made chamber, even part of the complex of underground storage vaults that the archaeologist had told her about. Somehow, someway, she’d fallen right into it.

  Suddenly, she was far more fascinated than she was frightened.

  “Oh, my God,” she gasped as she stood up gingerly, brushing off her dark pants. “It’s a room! A buried chamber!”

  The journalist in her kicked in; that insatiable curiosity for all things mysterious and new. She wasn’t really worried about disappearing into a hole because she knew Lynn and her camera guys would come looking for her when they realized she hadn’t made it back to the car park, so she looked around in the dark room, fascinated by what she was seeing. It was a long-buried chamber beneath an old, derelict castle.

  But that fascination turned to uneasy curiosity when she focused on something in the darkness. It was difficult to see clearly but she swore she saw chains. Something was glinting and moving in the weak light. Whenever the wind gusted, it moved again and she could hear a sound with the movement.

  Tap, tap, tap….

  The tapping noise from the EVP recording!

  It took Heather a moment to calculate just where they’d been standing when they’d captured the recording and she was fairly certain they’d been standing close to this chamber. Moving towards the chains, she peered closer into the darkness and fixed upon something that could only be described as a ghoulish sight – a skeleton was chained to the wall, long picked clean of any clothing or flesh. It was a full-blown skeleton chained to the rock and Heather’s first reaction was one of fright. It looked like something out of a haunted house but she knew this was no prop.

  This was real.

  Tap, tap, tap….

  A scream of genuine fright escaped her lips.

  “Holy crap!” she cried again, backing away from the skeleton. Quickly, she looked around to see if there were any more skeletons chained up in the darkness but she didn’t see anything, at least not immediately. She did see what looked like a partially collapsed door but she couldn’t really see anything in the darkness beyond. Fact was, she wasn’t sure she wanted to. Right now, she just wanted to get the hell out of there.

  “Hello?”

  A deep male voice came from overhead and Heather looked up to see a big head peering down at her. She couldn’t make out any features because the sun was behind him, but it was definitely a man. She shielded her eyes from the sun that was streaming in around his head.

  “Hi,” she said. “Hey, can you help me out of here? I seemed to have fallen into a house of horrors down here.”

  The man above shifted and she could see rich, red hair, neatly combed, reflecting in the sunlight. “You what?” he asked in a heavy Scots brogue. “What in the hell happened?”

  Heather held up a hand, hoping he would take it and pull her out. She didn’t want to be down here anymore.

  “Get me out of here and I’ll tell you,” she said. “Can you
reach me?”

  A big hand shot out and grasped her by the wrist, hauling her up with little effort. Soon enough, Heather found herself standing on the firm ground again, looking at the hole she had just fallen into. She brushed the dust off her hair and coat, glancing up at the man as she did. The moment she looked at him, everything came to a halt; she’d evidently been rescued by a romance cover model.

  “Are you okay?” he asked. “How’d you fall down there?”

  My God, what a sexy accent, she thought rather lasciviously. “I’m not sure, to be honest,” she said, seriously checking him out. “This big black bird – I think it was a raven – stole something from me and when I chased it, I fell in the hole. It looks like this was some kind of underground room or something.”

  The man, at least five or six inches over six feet and built like a brick shit house, tried to peer into the hole without moving too close to it. With his weight and size, he didn’t want to collapse it further.

  “Is that right?” he said, surprise in his voice. “I’ll be damned. I walk my dog along these cliffs every day and nothing like that has ever happened to me.”

  A dog suddenly ran past Heather, a big black mutt, and she watched it run off happily, chasing something she couldn’t see. But mostly, her attention was on the big Scotsman with the square jaw and gorgeous red hair.

  “Is that what you were doing around here?” she asked. “Walking your dog? Thank God for that.”

  He looked at her, grinning with big white teeth. “You could have probably climbed out,” he said. “It doesn’t look too deep. But that’s really amazing that you fell through. I haven’t heard of anything like that around here and I’ve lived in this area my whole life.”

  Heather grinned. “Lucky for me that you do,” she said, extending her hand. “I’m Heather Monroe and you, sir, are my hero.”

  The man laughed softly, taking her outstretched hand and shaking it firmly but gently. “You and I have something in common,” he said.