Silver Hollow (15 page)
For her ears alone he leaned over her shoulder and said, “Didn’t you see? You’ve already lost my brownie and I fear ye shall never best me.”
“I would nay count on that
,
Alastair Dearborne,” Rachel grumbled, releasing another three drops from a green
-
tinged vial. Her eyes gleamed as the colors began to blend and swirl into patterns, glinted when she caught Cook’s open
-
mouthed stare.
Shaking his head he remarked, “Ye are truly a wunderkind
,
my love.”
Oh
gill-plucked Loreleis
,
he did nay dare call me love!
He laughed when she suddenly grabbed her bowl and attempted to move round him. When he stuck out an arm to grasp the counter and keep her close, she nearly spilled the mess on both of them.
“Where are your senses?” she hissed, then caught her breath at their close proximity.
Ye will nay have such treacherous thoughts,
Rachel Elisedd
,
she commanded her mind.
“Hey!” Milady called to them, and the intensity in Alastair’s eyes faded. “Are you two going to make eyes at each other or help me finish this stew? My arms are about to fall off.”
Taking the opportunity to duck beneath his arm, Rachel rushed to the cauldron. After dumping her finely tampered liquid into the magenta stew, she darted quickly back. Only after she found safe refuge did she realize she
had
left their Lady behind.
“Oh that’s
just
perfect, Elisedd!” she said to herself.
From the cauldron arose something in the shape of a mini
-
mushroom cloud. Cook threw his arms on either side of Rachel, taking the hint. And she tried for the life of her to forget
the
one foolish afternoon they had spent together four years before.
They had been arguing as usual, over some new invention of his and a medicinal brew of hers, when it happened. His lips were suddenly on hers and that was the end of all sense. She lost herself to him for a very languid, luxurious day. Yet when they met for their duties the next day, a new awkwardness rested betwixt them.
Rachel
had
vowed never to let it happen again, so she did not appreciate his hands on her waist now.
“What did ye slip in me brew, love?” Alastair asked with a hint of well
-
deserving fear in his voice.
Spoon in hand,
Jessamiene
dove after them with a shout as the mini
-
mushroom cloud turned ivory white. Immediately after, the giant cauldron shook and the tremor echoed in pots and pans shuddering overhead. They all jumped when a sharp tiny whistle popped the cloud like a bubble instead.
Frowning, Milady slowly stood and crept towards the exploding stew and saw what appeared to be a perfectly brown brew within. “Huh…” She started to turn back to them, then added, “Guess that wasn’t so bad.”
Boom!
Brown smoke puffed from the cauldron and thoroughly engulfed Lady Wenderdowne’s unsuspecting form.
Rachel
threw her face into her hands and said, “I am thoroughly and rightly
poshumicked
!”
Amie’s dreams
might not have been a problem if they didn’t leave her feeling disjointed the next day. More than once she had awakened screaming, confused by her surroundings and not even recognizing her own mother. It was terrifying, this in-between world of dreaming and waking, so much so
she refused to sleep during the
first spell. Sh
e didn’t like being so confused. T
elling the difference between reality and sleep was almost impossible.
For years the pills had kept her nightmares under control, and once they were kept at bay she learned not to fear darkness. Now she was older, the dreams had changed. Still they played out as tangible and harsh as reality, but they no longer frightened her.
Amie was too weary to dream the night she learned of beasts and the gentry that require
d
such able men in their service. Yet after a warm bath and quick supper by tray she felt her conscience slipping past the veil
sometimes clouding her thoughts
and the story began to unfold.
In her dreams she had always felt happy, but now her happiness was of a different color. Instead of seeing the world in bright gold and silver hues, everything was coming up rose. Could it be because she was allowed to stay up way past her bedtime and allowed to sit with him tonight?
She studied the face of the person she had known all her life. His visits had been her favorites because he always took the time to play with her, and she was saddest when he left. Tonight Mummy had taken Grandfather to bed after a nasty spell. Brushing away her worry away, she looked up into his eyes
,
the man she
had
learned today was her father.
“Why did you not tell me?”
she asked as she
traced the lines in his upturned palms
.
H
e pleaded with her. “It is—complicated. Trouble is coming like a beast to devour us. And there is little time to tell you everything before I must return.”
Panic stunted her breath, pulled her out of her chair and to him. Grasping his much larger palms
,
she said, “No! You mustn’t leave!” She choked on her own tears, amazed she should feel such loss already when she should rightfully be angry.
His calm expression wavered, a rare moment of weakness before he reclaimed his noble mask. Then he pull
ed her closer and said, “Jessie.
”
“You can take me with you!” she exclaimed, already envisioning how they might make their escape attempt. “Or I could fight. I’m stronger every day, Grandfather says so.”
His smile was sad, but then again he was often sad to leave her. She wanted to throw her arms around him and keep him tied to his chair, afraid once he left she could never get him back again.
Finally, he released one of her hands and said, “I wanted to give you this years ago…”
A
nd he dropped the cool metal into her small palm.
She could have squeezed three of her tiny fingers inside it was so big.
F
irelight play
ed
off its surface until it glowed
. Amie met
his eyes
and
clutched it to her chest. “It’s beautiful!” Her heart soared. If she had something of his, it meant he would come back for it.
“It belongs to you, dear one.”
Amie sat upright with a gasp in her bed, drenched by a cold sweat
,
and couldn’t shake the feelings this last dream had left her.
She pulled
the ring from beneath her gown and wished the firelight wasn’t so dim, or that her candles hadn’t been extinguished.
After r
ushing to light the lamps
,
she held her father’s ring to the firelight and felt chills raise the flesh across her skin.
It c
a
n’t be the same ring a
s the dream.
Shaking her head, Amie crossed the floor to the thick bear rug and paced in front of the hearth. “This is crazy…no way those dreams could have been real. They’re
simply
a hashing
-
out of your thoughts, a mental throw
-
up of your subconscious.” Pausing mid-stride, she held her hands out on either side of her and closed her eyes to calm
her heart. “This place is
getting to you. Everyone else h
ere is already crazy. It’s because of
all
Henry’s
stories. It was bound to manifest sometime.”
Except Henry didn’t know she had her father’s ring, and the dreams were of the same vein as the ones from her childhood. The room closed in around her, neither bed nor books tempting her to anything but further angst. With the walls closing in around her, daring her to ask more questions, Amie knew what to do.
Barefooted and hardly noticing the stinging cold, she donned her outer robe, snatched a candlestick and fled her chambers.
Amie smirked and glanced at the clock one last time before turning the silver handle and opening her door.
Even during the brightest light of day the house was dark. But at least the halls were filled with gray shadows among the black instead of night’s pitch.
Amie held the candlestick out before her and glanced both ways. A faint wind moaned through the drafty corridors. Moments after leaving the safety of her threshold her resolve fell. She knew the left side of her path very well. It was always lit with candles
which
would guide her safely to wherever she needed to go without fail. But she didn’t want to see the kitchens or Uncle Henry or the stables right now. She wanted to disappear.
Absently she traced the long white scar hidden beneath her dress while her feet carried her right. The rest of the wing past her suite was darker and older than any part of the house she had seen so far. It was also darker in mood and weight, covered in cobwebs and ash in some places, like a place everyone had forgotten to love. The floor turned from stone
-
covered wood to marble underneath her feet, a cracked and dust-ridden thing. Torches hung on the walls between tapestries too faded to recognize now, yet Amie couldn’t shake the vague impression of eyes watching her lonely path.
Father along, the ceiling drew lower and its thick charred rafters became visible. Parts of broken and burnt wood fell as she approached them. Amie bit back a scream and held her heart as it raced to catch up, forced to cough through the cloud of ancient ash and dust instead. Blinking past the wreckage
,
she saw the long tunnel split here in either direction. She could have gone straight ahead, but something compelled her to turn right and discover what waited down this smaller corridor. Stepping over fallen beams and what looked like the slash and hack of metal weapons marking the wall
s, she couldn’t help but wonder.
What happened here? This doesn’t look like it was done up for decoration or dramatics.
More tapestries had once lined these walls, yet most
had
crumbled to ash
-
heaps ages ago, revealing their alcoves and at times their hidden passages. The golden stain of candlelight broke the rule of shadow like a blinking halo.
She
hardly glanced at the pan
eled walls
surrounding her
, the dusty boards which
seemed to change the moment she walked past them. Amie
had begun to
wonder
over
a few things about the house itself. Like, for instance, why it seemed to change whenever she was around, until she couldn’t tell what was old and what was new.
Only then did it register with her she was wandering around barefoot in a potentially dangerous part of the castle. If she were hurt no one would know where she was. Heart racing
with excitement and more than a little fear, Amie wondered distantly how she was supposed to find her way back now.
You made it this far and nothing has jumped out of the shadows to kill you yet, Wentworth.
And a spark of her childhood tenacity made her walk faster in the velvety dark to meet whatever
had drawn her down here in the first place
.
When she first saw the distant glow of light beneath a door at the end of the passage, she thought her mind was playing tricks with her. But the closer she drew with the darkness pressing so heavily around her, the more inviting the light seemed. Finally, she paused outside the round doorway and said, “This would be so much easier with a flashlight
.
” Shakily she pushed the propped door aside and gasped. Only the sound of her own steps and breath met her ears and she found a room illuminated with
candle
light.
A hundred candles greeted her on the other side. Amie was shocked to learn there was an actual library in this place. What it lacked in height it made up for in rows upon rows of books. It was nearly impossible to judge how deep the room had been carved. Floor to ceiling was covered in colored volumes labeled with ancient gold script. Candlesticks had been placed in every corner of the main room, yet she still glimpsed deeper hidden passages branching off from there. It went
without mention the place was as creepy as the rest of the house. Too many shadows and creaks in the walls kept it from being cozy, as well as the tapestries
reflecting
the manor’s
odd
fixation with mythology, hunts involving creatures like centaurs and satyrs, people with antlers and
angled
features. Most disturbing of all was the hunts ended with these creatures taking vengeance on
humans
.