Forevermore (3 page)

M
y eyes pop open. I bolt up in bed, confused.

Remembering.

What had happened in the middle of the night? Was it real? I think back.

I’d lain awake in the huge bed for hours, trying to fall asleep. It seemed as though everything hit me at once — memories of Dad, memories of getting suspended from school for cutting class to play violin at a festival two counties over, memories of Callie and other friends — you name it, I thought about it. I’d also listened to every creak and groan coming through the walls of the castle.

Then, just as my eyes had finally drifted shut, I’d heard it. At least, I think I heard it. So soft, I’d nearly missed it. Could I have even dreamed it? I’m pretty sure I didn’t.

“Begone! Leave here at once!”

My eyes had flashed open. It was a deep, scratchy voice — a guy’s voice — with a thick Scottish accent. The words were so clear it was as if someone had spoken them right into my ear. But how could that be? I got up, turned on the lights, and searched the room, not sure of what I was expecting, but certain something unnatural lurked close by. I never found anything, but the feeling never went away, either.

Finally, I’d fallen asleep.

And now it’s morning. Though it’s not as bright and airy as my home in Charleston was, the castle feels much less gloomy in the light of day. Slipping from the bed, I pull on a pair of jeans, my All Stars, and a thick pumpkin-colored sweater. I also drape my coat over my arm, stuffing my knit hat into the pocket. Maybe I’ll take a walk after breakfast.

When I get downstairs, I run right into Elizabeth coming out of her room.

“You’re late,” she says, and her jaw tightens. “I will not tolerate
late
.”

I stare at her, speechless. “For — for breakfast? I … didn’t know there was a specific time —”

“There’s always a specific time,” Elizabeth interrupts. Although she’s petite, in her black heels, we are eye to eye.

So quickly I almost miss it, Elizabeth’s cold eyes change. In color? Or size? Something undefined about them shifts.

Whatever it is, it’s … frightening.

“And you’d best not be late again.” Elizabeth lowers her voice. “Or
else
.”

I recoil, mostly out of shock that she’s being so harsh. The corner of her mouth lifts in a grin that reminds me of one of the gargoyles’, and she turns and struts to the dining room.

Did Elizabeth MacAllister, who might be close to a hundred, just threaten me?

“Lost, miss?”

I jump at this new voice. A young maid stands near me, looking at me with wide, questioning eyes.

“Ah, no,” I respond. “Just headed to the dining room. Thanks, though.”

The maid gives a nod, and I cross the great hall. When I push through the swinging oak doors, everyone is seated. Waiting.

Great
. I slip into my seat. As we eat, Niall and Mom discuss their plans for their day — taking care of things around the house — and Elizabeth is silent. Stone-faced. I make short work of the eggs, sausage, and toast, then announce that I’m stepping outside to go explore the grounds. Mom and Niall wave to me, and I’m relieved to escape Elizabeth’s withering gaze.

The minute my feet crunch against the gravel outside, I startle the peacocks, and their high-pitched screeching pierces the air. The sound rattles me clear to my bones. The birds peer angrily at me from the treetops, and I quickly change my course. Who knows if they’ll charge and peck me to death? I head across the big stretch of grass — the courtyard — until I reach another path that leads to the old rectory I saw from my window.

I button up my coat, and slip in my iPod earbuds, cranking up the volume on an Emilie Autumn song. The cold air makes my breath puff out like white smoke. Behind me, Glenmorrag Castle looms. I can picture the gruesome little gargoyles watching me as I walk.

Soon, the rectory comes into view, and my heart quickens. What clearly used to be a grand arched entrance is now a yawning black mouth, the old gray stone swallowed
up by vines and vines of gnarled, twisted ivy. I think it looks sort of beautiful. I’ve always loved ivy — not least of all because it’s my name.

It’s not until I duck inside and glance up that I notice the roof isn’t really a roof at all. The wood has rotted away, and the entwined ivy has formed a lattice covering. Hazy light and mist filters in between the vines.

“Hello?” I say aloud, and instantly admire the acoustics in the old building. I can’t wait to bring my strings in here. I turn off the music on my iPod, and I try the echo out once more. “Helloooo …”

“
Leave here at once!”

My heart stops. It’s that voice from last night. The one I heard as I was falling asleep. I’m sure of it. Adrenaline races through my body, and I look in every dark, shadowy corner but find nothing. Just me, standing in a cavernous, musty rectory more than two centuries old.

Then the ivy moves.

Slowly, the aged boughs begin to untwine and stretch toward me, like long, knobby witch’s fingers. I’m certain it must just be a play of the dim light.

Until one lifts a piece of my hair.

I scream.

“
Leave this place or you shall die!”
the voice says. It’s real.

I run straight out of the rectory, and nearly collide with another body. I look up, gasping. I realize how hard I’m trembling.

I see a tall gardener in scruffy brown clothes and boots. Crystal-blue eyes set in a weathered face look curiously at me. His hat sits crooked on his head. He’s holding a small shovel, and he has a pair of old gloves stuffed in his pockets.

“What’s the hurry, lass?” he asks in a gruff voice.

“In there,” I say, catching my breath. “Vines.”

Bending his head toward the rectory, he looks inside, and shifts his weight.

“Aye, there’s a heap of them in there. Watch yourself. You dunna know what sort of dangers you might encounter at Glenmorrag.”

And with that, he turns and disappears around the building, his large rubber boots crunching the dead leaves as he goes.

I turn and look behind me, into the rectory. The ivy vines are back as they were, tightly woven and clinging to the beamless rafters. My heart is pounding, and I’m really starting to think I’ve lost my mind. The gardener’s voice
had been too old and deep to be the voice I’d heard moments before.

So
who
is speaking to me? I wonder as I hurry back toward the castle. And why?

Maybe I
should
leave. But where would I go?

There has to be a logical explanation. For a half second I even consider e-mailing Callie about it, but she’d just freak out and insist I keep the webcam on all day, pointed at my room to catch any movement of any sort. She’s a total
Ghost Hunters
fan. I’d never hear the end of it.

Besides, there’s no such thing as ghosts.

Right?

T
hough I’m on tenterhooks all weekend, there are no more strange voices or noises, and by Sunday night, I’m able to sleep fairly well in my new room. Before I know it, it’s Monday morning: my first day of school here in Scotland. I’m not nervous, really — just a little self-conscious.

I stand in front of the mirror in my room, inspecting myself in my new uniform. It consists of a white long-sleeved blouse, a black pullover sweater, a black-and-gray plaid skirt, black tights, and black shoes. Not my style at all.

Mom peeks her head in. “Good morning, sweetie,” she says. “Almost ready for breakfast? Oh,” she cries when she steps all the way in, “look at you!” She claps. “Are you Gryffindor or Slytherin?”

I sigh. “Slytherin for sure.”

Mom laughs. “You look very … Scottish, Ivy. And adorable.”

I frown at her in the mirror.

Mom crosses the room and pulls me into a hug. “Everything will be okay, sweetie. They’ll all love you.” She kisses my temple and glances at me in the mirror. “How can they not?”

I smile and pat Mom’s arm. “It’s okay, Mom. I can handle it if they don’t all love me like you do.”

She grins. “Just be yourself and you’ll be fine.”

If only it were that easy.

Niall and Mom drive me to school. I didn’t want to have to ride a bus filled with strangers, so I’m glad. Glenmorrag High School is average size, brick, and all one story. It has a huge soccer field — “a football pitch,” Niall calls it — that sits off to the side. As Niall comes to a stop in front of the school, I take in the sea of uniformed kids. The boys wear white shirts with black ties and black sweater-vests, and the girls are in outfits like mine, though some wear pants. Mom was right; I feel
like I’ve arrived at Hogwarts. Too bad this school won’t be nearly as fun.

I say good-bye to Mom and Niall and get out of the car. Then I take a deep breath and sling my backpack onto my shoulder, bumping into a girl with long fiery-red curls.

“Och, watch it,” she says with a heavy Highland accent. “You nearly took me bloody head off with that thing.”

Embarrassed, I give a hesitant smile. “Sorry ’bout that.”

Her eyes widen. “Och, an American,” she says, and inclines her head. I’ve come to realize
och
is a standard Scottish exclamation meaning something similar to
oh
. She smiles. “I’m Emma.”

“Ivy,” I reply. “I’m new.”

“Well, Ivy, come on, then. I’ll show you to the front office so Headmistress Worley can give you your schedule.”

I follow Emma inside, careful not to hurt anyone else with my backpack.

“Where do you live anyway?” Emma asks me as we come to a stop in front of an office door.

“Um …” I hesitate a little. “Glenmorrag Castle.”

“No way.” Emma’s eyes again widen. “I’ve heard that —”

“Okay, Emma, you two might want to hurry along now.” A boy our age appears at our side. He’s tall and broad-shouldered, with dark hair, silvery eyes, and very white skin. He glances at his watch and raises a dark brow. “Ye dunna want to be late, aye?” He smiles at me, then a little longer at Emma, then walks off to speak to another group of kids.

“Serrus Munro,” Emma says, looking after him. Her tongue spins all the
r
’s in his name. “One of the prefects. He’s nay too bad.”

I watch the group of younger kids disperse the moment Serrus walks up.

“I think I read about prefects in Harry Potter,” I admit, feeling childish.

Emma grins. “Oh, yeah. Well, they’re kind of like … patrolmen. Serrus is our age, a Sixth Year, and he sort of helps keep the younger ones in hand. But he’s right.” She glances at her watch. “Better go to class. You can go in and see the headmistress. See ya ’round, aye?”

I nod, grateful and relieved. I don’t want to get my hopes up, but Emma seems like she could be a friend.

This gives me the confidence to enter the headmistress’s office. Ms. Worley is a welcoming middle-aged woman with dark brown hair and green eyes. While I sit in a chair across from her desk, she prints out my schedule and hands me a small map of the school hallways.

“So tell me about yourself, Ivy,” she says as she walks me to my first class. She knows all the basics about me — where I’m from, where I’m living now — because Niall enrolled me in the school. “Do you play sports? Music?”

I glance at her. “I play the violin.”

She stops and looks at me. “Is that so?”

Smiling, I nod. “Yes, ma’am. Since I was three.”

Her eyes light up. “That is marvelous! We have extracurricular music on Thursdays in the afternoon. There’s also a grand music festival sponsored by the Strings of the Highlands in the spring. Only the elite are chosen to play, and there’s actually a contest for young violinists. Sir Malcolm Catesby will be judging, and the winner will be given a private lesson with him. ’Twould be a great opportunity for anyone looking to advance their music.”

Excitement vibrates through me at the thought of playing at the festival, especially in front of Malcolm Catesby — a super-famous violinist.

“Thank you, ma’am,” I say. “I look forward to finding out more.”

And I mean it. Back home there weren’t as many opportunities like this. In fact, my violin teacher in Charleston usually chided me for playing music that was too unconventional, too weird. I wonder if here, people might be more open to something a little strange.

My first class is biology, and the teacher, Mr. MacPherson, is pretty cool. But I have to concentrate hard on his accent to catch everything he says about the parts of a cell.

Emma seems to have appointed herself as my personal tour guide, and finds me in the hallway after class. “Lubly jubly,” she says, glancing at my schedule. “We share the next three classes. Come on, then. Off to World History we go.” We move into the class and find seats next to each other near the center of the room. “Time to manage the Aztecs.”

I don’t even mind sitting in class and taking notes — it feels ordinary. Familiar. Like I could almost be back in
my old school back home, far from the spooky castle and its eerie voices.

I’m glad to have Emma close by when lunch rolls around. “Let’s go grab a sandwich and sit in the Common Room,” she suggests. I follow her lead as we make our way to a small, self-serve café. Back in Charleston, Callie and I would be waiting in the long lunch line for mushy mac and cheese. Here, Emma takes a mug of hot tea, an egg-salad sandwich, and a bag of chips. I grab the same, along with some shortbread that looks almost as good as what Jonas brought me the other night. Then we head to the Sixth Years’ Common Room and sit at a small table.

“So, Glenmorrag Castle,” Emma says, tossing her long red curls over one shoulder. She stirs sugar into her tea. “Your mum married a MacAllister, aye? The laird?”

“Yeah,” I answer. I bite into the soft sandwich, which is actually pretty good. “His name is Niall, and he’s … okay. I’ve only been here three days.” I don’t tell her about the spooky goings-on of the weekend. Instead, I tell her about life back in Charleston, and my violin playing. Emma tells me that she has a tin ear when it comes to playing music, but she’s also into retro ’80s stuff. She’s lived in Glenmorrag
all her life, and she’s an only child, too. I already feel at ease with her.

I’m just thinking about how nice and normal our conversation is compared to my life the past few days when Emma casually asks, “So, seen anything weird at the castle?”

I pause midbite. “Um … why do you ask?”

“What’s weird besides you, Emma?” a stocky boy asks as he approaches the table. He’s joined by a girl who looks like a shorter version of him, with the same wavy brown hair and brown eyes.

Emma rolls her eyes. “Right, you’re full of chuckles today, eh, Big D? Ivy, this is Cameron and Derek MacLeod,” Emma announces. “They shared a womb.”

Fraternal twins. Derek, the boy, flicks Emma on the ear, then smiles at me. “You’re the only Yank in the school,” he says. “Nice to meet ya.”

“You must be Laird MacAllister’s stepdaughter,” Cameron, the girl, says. “I hear that place is wicked spooky.”

“We were just getting to that, isn’t that right, Ivy?” Emma urges. “So come on. Anything?”

I squirm, not wanting to sound insane. I can’t tell them about the moving vines or my dancing violin. Or
that voice. “The castle’s … dark,” I answer. “Not too bad, though.”

Now that’s an outright lie. I glance at all of them. “Why? What’ve you heard?”

Emma leans forward, lowering her voice. “My great-auntie, who died many years ago, worked as a maid there once. She swore that rooms turned icy cold, and that things wouldna be where she left them last.”

“As in things moved around?” Cameron asks.

“Aye,” Emma confirms. “She said her cleaning supplies, which she kept in one specific closet, would disappear and turn up in a strange place, like an upstairs bathtub. She could have sworn there was a dark spirit at work. She also says a young man was murdered there, countless years ago. ’Tis his ghost who haunts, I bet.”

I find myself trembling but I try not to let my fear show. I can’t believe we’re having this conversation. “I hadn’t heard anything about that.”

Emma regards me. “Never know, Ivy. Keep your eyes peeled.”

“So
have
you seen anything?” Cameron asks.

“I have heard
some
things,” I answer hesitantly. I’m careful about what I say. I don’t want to come off as freakish
my first day at school. “Could be the wind, though. It whips through that old castle like something out of a horror movie.”

“It’s rare that the wind isna roaring in the Highlands,” Derek says with a grin. “It can play tricks on ya, though. Dunna let your imagination run wild.”

“True,” his sister chimes in. She gives me the exact same smile as her brother. “But the Highlands are full o’ magic, too. No telling what’s going on for real.”

“Aye,” Emma says, but she’s looking at me more seriously than the other two. “No telling at all.”

The bell rings, and the twins gather their stuff. They wave to us and head off. As Emma and I gather our book bags, she looks me pointedly in the eye.

“You can tell me,” she whispers. “What’s really happening in the castle?”

My heart skips a beat. I’m surprised by her insight. “I didn’t want to make a big deal in front of everyone,” I explain.

“You can trust me,” Emma offers. “Swear.”

I look at her for several seconds. I have no one else to confide in. No one my own age. I like Emma already. There’s a blatant honesty about her that I relate to.

“Okay,” I whisper as we walk out of the Common Room. “I know it sounds nuts, but there’s this … voice. Someone keeps telling me to leave the castle. And,” I go on, “there’s a heavy, I don’t know,
presence
in the air. It’s not always there, just sometimes.”

“Like what?” Emma asks. Her face is drawn in concern. No mockery at all.

I think. “It feels like someone is watching me. Also, my new step-grandmother isn’t the sweetest of old ladies,” I add. “I mean, she is in her nineties, but boy, she really doesn’t like me.”

“Do you think it’s her?” Emma asks. “Maybe hissing those things, telling you to leave?” Kids file past us, hurrying to classrooms.

I shake my head. “I’m not sure. It sounds like a guy’s voice.” I stop and look at Emma. “And …” I really hesitate to tell her this.

“Go on,” she urges.

“I swear I saw my violin and bow hovering in midair, playing on their own.”

I expect Emma to laugh at me but she only nods. “Doesna surprise me one bit. Not after what my auntie told me.” She inclines her head. “Doing anything this
weekend?” she asks. “We could hang out. Maybe at your place? We could investigate the situation.”

A sigh of relief escapes me. “So you don’t think I’m crazy?”

“Och,” Emma says, heading into our math class. “Of course I think you’re crazy.” She grins. “But so am I. We’ll check it out together. Two is better than one, aye?”

“Definitely,” I say.

By the end of the day, Emma and I have exchanged cell numbers and she’s urged me to text her if anything else weird happens at the castle. I officially have a friend here. I’m in such a good mood that it takes me a second to notice that it’s just Niall picking me up in the car.