The Irish Castle: Ghosts

by Lila Dubois

  They looked at each other for a moment, then both sprang into action. Séan pulled his chair up beside hers. Sorcha grabbed a pen and pad from her purse and took a seat beside Séan.

  “I’ll start at the beginning and read off all the eight-year-old boys, then we’ll do nine-year-olds.”

  Page by page, Séan went through it. Every time they found a boy of appropriate age, Sorcha noted his name, only to cross it off if the boy was still listed at age ten. When they reached the end of the book, there was only one name on the list.

  Henry.

  “One of the boys with no last name,” she said, circling it on her list.

  “He’s in the book until he’s nine. Then there’s nothing.”

  “I wonder why he doesn’t have a last name. There are a few others like that.”

  “It can’t have been that they didn’t know it—it’s clear the boy lived in Glenncailty his whole life.”

  “Maybe the mother wouldn’t say.” Sorcha, already sad at the poor child’s fate, took a deep breath to hold back tears. “It must have been hard, to have no family.”

  “But why wouldn’t he have his mother’s name? Surely even if the child were a bastard he would carry his mother’s family name.”

  “It seems a strange coincidence that there are other children with no name too. I looked at them earlier, while you were sleeping, because I thought it was odd. There’s a year where all three are listed.”

  “It’s this same year.” He turned forward a page and then back. “Charles is eleven, Henry is nine and George is five in this entry.” He went to the next year. “But now none of them are listed.”

  “I know what happened to Charles.”

  “You do?”

  “Look in the parish record—he’s one of the people listed as having died in the uprising.”

  Séan turned to the parish record and compared the entries. “Here it is, Charles with no last name, died age eleven, the same age he disappears from the school records. But the other two aren’t listed as having died in the uprising.”

  “But the ages are right for them to be siblings. None of them are so close in age that they couldn’t be related.”

  “And the lack of last names is too odd and specific to be coincidence.”

  Sorcha’s heart sank. “Maybe they moved away after the oldest died. If they were bastards, life would have been hard in a little town like this. Even I was made uncomfortable by the way people acted when I was pregnant but not married. I can only imagine what it was like over 150 years ago.”

  “If we’re right, and Henry is one of the bones in the castle…”

  Sorcha and Séan looked at each other.

  “Then Charles and George are his brothers, and according to the school records, they must have died the same year.”

  “If that’s the case—” Séan closed the book. “Where is George’s body?”

  Chapter 14

  The Truth May Set Them Free

  Séan felt sick at what they were discussing. Could these three children really have suffered so horribly? One brother dead in an uprising, another entombed in the nursery with his brother, who was too young to be in the records.

  “Séan, how many beds were there in the nursery?”

  He thought about it. “Three or four—I can’t remember.”

  “I know there was a larger bed, like for a nurse or nanny. There was a crib, and I think three other beds.”

  They’d gone from two dead children, which was horrible enough, to two more, one of whose body was missing. “That would fit. A bed for the nanny, then one each for Charles, Henry and George, with the baby in the cradle.”

  Sorcha shook her head. She looked worried and sad. He wanted to wipe that expression from her face, to protect her from all the sadness in the world, but that wasn’t something he could do, especially not when the cause of her distress was so far in the past.

  “I may be wrong about the beds,” she said. “We need to go back to the castle and check.”

  “And we need to tell this scientist of yours that there might be another body somewhere in that room.”

  She nodded grimly, getting to her feet. Séan jumped up and grabbed his wallet, phone and keys. Moving quickly and in silence, they headed out of the house. He followed her to her car.

  She looked up. “Are you riding with me?”

  “Yes.”

  “I have to work later.”

  “That’s fine. I’m going to stay with you until we talk.”

  “Séan…”

  “Now isn’t the time, but you’ll hear me out, Sorcha Kerrigan.”

  The keys rattled as she clenched her fist, and for a moment Séan thought she’d refuse to open the car doors, but then she nodded. They climbed in and drove to the castle where Sorcha parked not by her cottage but in the main lot. Together they walked to the castle, footsteps crunching over the gravel.

  The bones had been there for 150 years, nothing they said or did would change that, but Séan was gripped by a strange sense of urgency. He realized he was walking fast, and with his long legs that meant Sorcha was probably having trouble keeping up, and yet when he looked over she was a little ahead of him, as if she too were anxious to get back to the nursery and check what they’d found.

  She waved at the woman at the front desk but didn’t stop. When they reached the west wing, she dug into her purse and pulled out a large set of keys, flipping through them before she found one that opened the door. They closed but didn’t lock the door behind them and in silence started up the steps.

  Séan’s jaw hurt, and he realized he was clenching his teeth. He rolled his shoulders and tried to relax. Whatever had possessed him was gone, its goal accomplished. He bore no ill will to the soul who’d used him as a tool to complete a grim task. That wall had needed to come down, the children within needed to be found.

  They stopped when they reached the second-floor hallway. Most of the debris had been cleared away, the carpets vacuumed. The odd sense that something was off with the proportions of the hall was gone along with the false wall.

  The nursery door was open, spilling sunlight into the hall. It seemed odd, almost wrong, for anything but darkness to come from that room. He shook off the feeling, telling himself he was being melodramatic.

  Sorcha was beside him, her shoulder nearly brushing his arm. He took her hand and she didn’t pull away. Together they made their way down the hall. He pushed open the door, blinking against the light that filled the room.

  Few things had changed in here. The room still looked like madmen had gone through it, and dust coated most of the surfaces. The floor in front of the fireplace had been cleared and a large sheet of black plastic was spread out there like a rug. A tool bag sat on the corner of the plastic. There were also several plastic bins stacked to one side and a box of large plastic food bags.

  Séan craned his neck, looking for the bodies. They were gone.

  Where they’d been there was a clean expanse of stained wood floor. Leading Sorcha, he took a few more steps in to the room, getting a better look at where they’d been.

  “The bones are gone,” he said.

  “The scientist must have moved them.” Sorcha’s voice reflected how he felt—both relieved and almost disappointed.

  “Where were they taking them?” he asked.

  “I’m not sure. I hoped we’d get to bury them.”

  Séan’s ear started ringing, and he took his hand from Sorcha’s to rub it. The ringing changed to a low buzz that drowned out what she was saying. He squinted against the light, which seemed brighter than a moment ago.

  He needed the bodies. He needed to bury his dead.

  “Where are they?” he asked, the words coming slowly. He couldn’t hear because of the buzzing. Couldn’t see—the lights were too bright. He rubbed his eyes, blinked to focus. There was a woman standing beside him.

  His vision cleared and he could see her. He’d been wrong. Mary wasn’t dead. She was right there, her r
ed hair shining in the sun. It didn’t matter what she’d done. Nothing like that mattered anymore.

  “Deirfiúr?”

  Their sister, Carol, and her husband were dead, as were Carol’s children and Mary’s own boy. Whatever Mary may have done, she did not deserve to lose her child. All he wanted was to bring Mary and the other boys home, to end the silence and the suffering.

  He grabbed her by the arms, shook her, told her that he was sorry that her child was dead. Sorry for what had happened between them. If she would leave this evil place, everything would be okay.

  “Séan? Séan.”

  But it wasn’t Mary. This woman was different, wearing pants and with her hair down and loose around her shoulders. Mary hadn’t worn rough clothing or her hair down since she’d become the mistress of that bastard of an Englishman.

  “Séan!”

  There was a crack and Séan’s head jerked back, his cheek smarting. The ringing in his ears stopped, and the too-bright light faded to a normal afternoon glow.

  Sorcha’s eyes were wide with fear, her lower lip trembling. “Séan?”

  He shook his head, trying to clear it. “I…what happened?” He staggered back, suddenly dizzy. Sorcha helped him to one of the windows, where he sat on the sill. His arms were shaking as if he’d been lifting and carrying for hours. He rubbed a hand over his beard.

  “It happened again?” He didn’t look at her as he asked the question, which was more of a statement.

  “I guess so, but it was different. You grabbed me, were talking to me.”

  He looked her up and down. “Did I hurt you?”

  She looked away, and Séan’s heart clenched, but she shook her head. “No, but you…you said you were sorry.”

  “Sorry, for what?”

  She looked at him. “That my child was dead.”

  A crueler thing he couldn’t have said, considering her past. “Sorcha, I’m so sorry. That wasn’t me.” He took a few deep breaths to calm himself, to find his balance again. When the shaking in his arms was gone, he tried to explain what he’d felt. “It was like there was someone else in my head. The things I was thinking weren’t my thoughts.”

  She nodded but still didn’t look at him. Silence stretched between them before she too took a deep breath. “You were speaking Irish. I didn’t catch it all, but you were asking about Mary.”

  The name sparked a feeling of recognition. “Mary…my sister. Not mine. His, his sister. That’s what I—I mean, he, or whoever’s memory I was picking up—was looking for, his sister, Mary.”

  “What’s the Irish word for sister?”

  The question seemed abrupt, but after thinking for a moment, Séan said, “Deirfiúr.”

  “Of course, I don’t know why I didn’t understand it when you said it. You looked at me and said deirfiúr.”

  The sadness had faded from her face to be replaced by intense concentration. “So the ghost that possessed you is looking for his sister.” She looked over her shoulder at the place where the bodies had been. “I wonder if that was her.”

  “It’s the only thing that makes sense.”

  “And the child he said was dead must have been Charles, who died in the uprising.”

  Together they turned to look at the other side of the room, where the beds were. One large, three smaller and a cradle.

  “A nanny and four children,” Sorcha said.

  “The three boys without last names from the school register. The baby would have been too young.”

  Sorcha made a small noise and he pulled her against his chest, hugging her tight. “Don’t cry.” He kissed the top of her head, though he too was sad enough thinking about the boys who’d slept in the beds.

  “They didn’t even have last names.”

  He jerked as another piece of the puzzle clicked into place. Séan took her by the shoulders and held her away so he could look at her. He’d been given a gift in that he’d had a glimpse into what the man knew.

  “They were the bastard children of the English lord. Their mother was his mistress,” he said. “No last name was probably kinder than giving them their father’s.”

  “What?”

  “I heard it in his thoughts. He was thinking that all he wanted was for his sister to come home.” Séan had to close his eyes to remember exactly what it was he’d “heard.” “It was when I looked at you. For a minute it was him, thinking he was seeing his sister and then thinking that she hadn’t worn her hair down since she’d become the Englishman’s mistress.”

  Sorcha touched her hair, then looked at the corner. “When…when we found the bones, I thought I saw a woman wearing a fancy dress, with her hair up in a bun.”

  “A ghost, you mean, not the memory you told me about earlier?”

  Sorcha nodded.

  “It must have been her. Why didn’t you say anything?” Séan asked.

  “Compared to what I saw when I touched the blood, the ghost wasn’t that bad.”

  “Tell me again what you learned, what you saw?”

  “It was two people, a man and a woman, fighting. They hated each other. He was beating her, but I could feel that she thought she deserved it, and she’d done something to hurt him too. She said that she’d burn in hell and he’d burn with her, and that he’d taken what she loved from her, so she’d taken what he cared about too.

  “After that is when I found the bodies. Once I saw the…saw the baby, nothing else seemed to matter. And what I saw wasn’t like what’s happened to you. I don’t even know if it was real—maybe I imagined it.”

  Séan took her hand and kissed her knuckles. There was a moment of silence while Sorcha gathered herself.

  Séan scratched his beard. “The English Lord of Glenncailty was fighting with his mistress, beating her, but why?”

  “Maybe they were upset because the children had died. It’s…hard. To lose a child.”

  Séan opened his mouth but didn’t know if it was his place to say anything. He couldn’t imagine what it was like to lose a child.

  “It’s possible that they lost their minds from grief, maybe blamed each other,” he said finally. “Or maybe he was angry that one of his children was part of an uprising against him.”

  “It seems strange that the child of the English lord, even if he was a bastard, would rise against the English. Whatever the cause of their anger, their feelings were so strong they remain here as ghosts.” Sorcha shook her head. “I’ve had years to accept that the ghosts were real and yet despite what I heard and saw, even now I sometimes wonder if we’ve all gone mad, talking about ghosts as if they were everyday things.”

  “I’ve never doubted the ghosts that live here.”

  “I wish I’d listened to you sooner, about this place being dangerous.”

  “I…I was wrong.”

  “What?”

  “I was wrong when I said we should close Glenncailty. I never thought that maybe the ghosts truly needed something from the living. I assumed they were bits of leftover memory, or soul, and that they were dangerous. I tried to help once.”

  “That’s right, you told me. The woman in chains.”

  “Maybe she didn’t need my help, but the ghosts in this room did. If the hotel hadn’t opened, they might never have been found, their bones lost in the rubble as the castle crumbled.”

  Séan’s own words surprised him, and from the look on Sorcha’s face, she was equally shocked. Yet now that he’d said them, he knew they were right. He didn’t know why he was the one the ghost needed, but it was clear to him that the ghosts of Glenncailty had needed help.

  “There’s still something I don’t understand,” Sorcha said.

  He smiled. “You’re better than me, because the more we learn, the less I understand.”

  She smiled tightly, as if thanking him for trying to lighten the mood. “If her brother came to find her because one of her children was dead, why are there two children’s bodies here instead of three? She had four children. It’s too much of a coincid
ence that one child died in an uprising while the others were dying in their nursery. And when was she killed?” Sorcha shook her head. “It doesn’t make any sense.”

  Another cold shock of realization went through Séan. “If the brother’s ghost, all these years later, is still looking for his sister, it means—”

  “It means he never found her, so he never found them.” Sorcha’s words tumbled out and she spun to look at the place on the floor where the bodies had been. She took a step back, her legs pressing against his. Séan put a hand on her shoulder. She rested her cheek against his fingers.

  “He came looking for her because one of her children was dead, but if he never made it in this room, he couldn’t have known the others were dead.”

  “So he was talking about Charles or George?” Sorcha asked.

  “It must have been Charles. He’s the only one whose death is recorded, and so probably the only one the uncle knew about.

  “Two died here, one died in the uprising and was found by his uncle.” Sorcha sucked in a breath and looked at Séan, who met her gaze.

  “Leaving one child unaccounted for.” His words fell with gong-like finality.

  There was a low rumble. Séan looked over his shoulder out the window to see dark clouds rolling in. An afternoon storm was coming to water the land. The clouds were swift—the wind must have been strong.

  “I still feel like we’re missing something,” Séan looked around the room. Maybe it was the clouded sky, but he felt uneasy. “Did I say anything else?”

  “You did, but it was in Irish, and after you said what you did about…about my child, I didn’t listen as I should have.” She closed her eyes, a small line forming between her brows. “There was something about Carol and her family.”

  “Carol was the other sister.” Séan was sure of that, though he couldn’t say why.

  In a matter of only minutes, the sun faded, taking the room from bright white light to a shadowy silver. He stood and pulled Sorcha closer to his side.

  “Well, what do we know?” Her tone was pleasant and matter of fact, as if she were talking about hotel business instead of death, but her could feel tension in the lines of her body, where she pressed against him.