The Harp and the Fiddle: Glenncailty Castle, Book 1 (23 page)

Icy fear filled Caera. The pale, sad vision had become a monster, a wasted thing that emitted rage and grief the way a stove gave off heat. 

It—for Caera could no longer think of it as she—raised its hands. They were withered and curled into claws, the tips stained black. The scarf fell from its head, revealing a long fall of lush hair, made gruesome by being atop that ragged, monstrous head. 

“No,” Caera gasped. She held up her hands, keeping them close to her body so she wouldn’t touch the terrifying thing. For each retreating footstep she took, the ghost moved forward. The wind ripped through the gardens, but this time it did not dispel the ghost. Caera’s hair lashed around her head. 

For a moment, it covered her face, and in that second the ghost lunged. She felt cold stab into her chest. 

She looked down to see a silvery wrist protruding from her breast. Caera tried to scream, but she couldn’t cry out, couldn’t move.

The stormy night wavered, as if she were looking at it through water. In its place, mud brick walls appeared, their white painted surfaces lit by candles. 

As if from a distance, Caera could hear voices. They were speaking Irish, fast and hard, but Caera could understand. 

“I have money enough for us and your family. Come away from here. You don’t need to serve the English bastard anymore.”

“No. I will not go.”

The speakers appeared as shadows cast on the wall, a man, tall and strong, beside him a slight young woman. He took a step back at her words.

“You’re to be my wife. We can be married now.”

“I will not be your wife and I will not go with you.”

“Why do you say this?” His voice cracked with betrayal and grief.

“I am sorry, but I cannot be what you want.”

“I love you.” He grabbed the woman’s arm, but she drew away, his shadowy hand slipping down her arm. He held her fingers tight for a moment, her arm stretched out between them, but then with a tug, she freed her hand.

“Leave me,” she said.

The man staggered back, his hands rising and falling as he tried to find words. Then he turned and left.

Relief and agony filled Caera, though they were not her own. The shadow of the woman dropped to her knees, rocking back and forth as she wept.

The stone room disappeared, and now there was blue, endless blue water marred by whitecap waves. The ocean. A ship tipped up, its broken mast floating away as it sank, inch by inch, below the water.

Agony ripped through Caera, so deep in her body it felt as if she were being disemboweled.

“No, no, no!” The word was an endless looping scream in her head. “Come back, come back to me.” 

Now there was pressure around her throat, and Caera felt her own hands drawing the knot tight. Before her, she could see stone walls, a dark cross. Her breath cut off, her chest heaving with the need to draw in air. She was afraid, hopeful, and yet her soul was already dead and gone, so the feelings rang hollowly in her chest.

Woof, woof.
The deep barks of a dog rumbled through Caera. The vision of the cross wavered.

“Caera, Caera.” She heard her name, but the speaker was far away, too far away to reach her.

“
Amach leat anois direch, in anim Dé
!” Seamus’s voice boomed in the night, drowning out the moaning trees, the sputter of candles, the howling wind, the clattering of the bench as she kicked it over. 

“
Amach leat anois direch, in anim Dé
!” 

The cross, the stone walls, the smell of candlewax and the sound of creaking rope disappeared. Caera drew in a ragged breath.

She was lying on the grass beside the path, gulping in air. Above her, the storm clouds rolled and swelled. 

A wet tongue touched her cheek, while on her other side a dog whined. Caera pushed herself up. Seamus was squatting at her side, his hounds circling her, pausing occasionally to nudge her legs with their long snouts or to lick her cheek.

She turned hollow eyes on Seamus. His face was set in grim lines, and he shook his head.

“I don’t know you,” he said quietly. “But I’ve seen that ghost more frequently of late, and I’ve seen her follow you between the stable and your cottage. If her story is like your own, then I believe she drew you here, either to warn you or to punish you for making her same mistakes.”

“I—” Caera tried to speak, but her voice was raw. Her throat felt as though she’d swallowed glass.

Seamus pushed her hair to the side. “You’ve a mark there, as if you’d been strangled.”

“I felt it,” Caera said in a hoarse whisper. The shock that was keeping her calm was wearing off. She was starting to shake. “I felt it as she hanged herself. Oh God, oh God.”

How foolish, how terribly foolish the girl had been to reject love, to hurt the one she loved while she tried to protect him. The cost they’d paid had been high, too high.

Caera drew in a shuddered breath. She was starting to sob, but her throat made it hurt to cry, hurt to breathe.

“It’s too late,” she sobbed. “He’s gone.” For a moment, she felt that otherness inside her, as if the words weren’t her own, but those of a long-dead girl who’d made a terrible mistake.

“He’s not—”

But Caera didn’t hear the rest of Seamus’s words. Her sobs had turned to jerky, gasping breaths. Her eyes rolled back in her head, and Caera fainted.

Tim rubbed the back of his head and checked the bedside clock for the hundredth time. It was after 3 A.M., and he was no closer to sleep now than he had been at 10.

Outside, the wind howled on. He wished it would rain, just to stop the wind from howling like that. 

He was back to being angry with himself. He shouldn’t have done what he did, shouldn’t have sprung it on Caera like that. It was clear that she had real issues with what had happened when she tried a music career in the past. He should have been more sensitive to that. He planned to spend the rest of his life with her. There was no need to push her into doing anything right now. They had time.

They’d had time. Now they had nothing.

If the past hours ten hours were anything to go by, any minute now he’d switch from being pissed with himself to being pissed with her. 

Pushing up from the bed, he went to the window.

Sorcha had taken pity on him and given him a room in the hotel. It was nearly full, so he had a room on the first floor of the west wing. She’d said he shouldn’t have any problem, but with the mood he was in, he would have appreciated some distraction. The building hadn’t cooperated. He’d snuck past the barricade on the stairs to the second floor, but even when he touched the wall at the end of the hall, he hadn’t felt anything.

There was a soft tap on his door. Tim frowned, not sure he’d heard it, when the sound came again, louder this time.

He opened the door. A tall man stood outside, carrying…

“
Caera.
” Tim’s world went blurry for a moment. He grabbed her limp body from the man and carried her to the bed. She took a breath, the sound raspy, but he let out a breath of his own in relief. She coughed, her head turning to the side, and he saw her neck. A thick red line marred the pale skin of her throat. 

Tim touched the mark, horror growing within him. She moaned as he brushed the raw flesh.

She’d been strangled.

Rage like he’d never known filled Tim. He turned to the man, who still stood in the doorway.

“Hold your temper, boy, I di—” 

Tim slammed his fist into the man’s face. He’d hurt Caera, and by God, Tim would make him pay. The man staggered back, hitting the doorframe. Tim punched him in the gut, then delivered a solid uppercut to his jaw. He’d kill him with his bare hands.

A low snarl was all the warning Tim got before a wolf leapt at him, knocking him away from the man.

Tim went down under the wolf’s weight. It growled, lips pulling back from his teeth, but Tim didn’t care. He shoved his forearm under the wolf’s jaw and threw it off, ready to jump up.

Another wolf appeared.

Positioning itself between Tim and the man, the wolf crouched, its shoulder blades flexing beneath its shaggy coat. 

“I didn’t hurt her,” the man said. He touched his mouth with the back of his hand, looked at the blood. “I’m not the one you want to hurt.”

“Then who is?” Tim barely recognized his own voice—it was a snarl as deep as the wolves’.

“She’ll have to tell you herself.”

“Why don’t you tell me? You don’t show up here with my woman, hurting and damn near dead, without telling me what you did to her.”

“Your woman? What an American thing to say.”

His light tone enraged Tim. As he took a half step forward, Caera coughed. Tim whirled to her. She coughed again, and Tim lifted her upper body onto his lap, unsure what else to do. 

“I did nothing to her,” the man in the doorway said, “except give her a job in a place that holds many secrets.”

Tim looked up at the man, then at the wolves, which had retreated into the hall. Now that they were in the light, he could see that they were dogs. Really big dogs.

“You’re the owner.”

“Yes. Seamus O’Muircheartaigh.”

Struggling to find patience, Tim asked, “What happened to her?”

“She was strangled.”

Rage blinded Tim, but he fought it down. “Who? Who did it?”

Seamus shook his head. “Not who.
What
.”

Tim looked down at her, then back at Seamus. “I don’t understand.”

Caera coughed again, then moaned, her eyes fluttering.

“It’s no matter,” Seamus said, “because she understands.”

With that, he closed the door, leaving a bewildered, frightened Tim sitting on the bed, clutching Caera as if he’d never let her go.

She hurt. That was Caera’s first thought when she woke from her faint. Her second was
Tim.
She could smell him, feel the heat of his body. She was lying with her head on him, and his arms were wrapped around her. 

“Tim.” Her voice was harsh and scratchy, as if she were sick with the flu.

“Oh God, Caera.”

 He bent over her, his cheek touching hers. Tears sprang to her eyes. It felt so good to be held by him.

“When I saw you, I thought for a moment…”

“I’m okay, I’m okay.” She kissed his cheek, his jaw, reassuringly.

“Your neck looks bad. We should go to the hospital.”

“And tell them what?” Tim helped her sit up. She gratefully accepted the glass of water he offered her. Her throat felt better by the moment, and the water was blessedly cool. “Tell them that I was strangled by a ghost?”

“Uh.” Tim looked at her with an expression on his face that she could only describe as resigned.

Caera laughed. An hour ago, she’d felt like she’d never laugh again, and now here she was, curled up with the man she loved, laughing.

Only one thing stood in their way.

“There’s something I need to tell you,” Caera said. “But first, I’d better explain this.” She touched her neck.

After another few sips of water, Caera told Tim what had happened in the garden. When she described the feeling of tightening the noose around her neck, smelling the wax from the candles in the church and hearing the clatter of the bench as she kicked it out from under her feet to hang herself, Tim hugged her so tight she thought her ribs would break, but she didn’t complain.

In the cheery light of the bedside lamp, her story seemed like a nightmare or hallucination. If not for the fact that Seamus had been there, had seen the ghost and rescued her from it, Caera might have wondered if she’d imagined it.

After she finished her story, Tim sat silently on the edge of the bed. He rubbed the back of his head with the palm of one hand, then got up and paced the room.

“Let me see if I’ve got this.”

Caera lay her head back, content to just watch him.

“That guy Seamus thinks that one of the reasons you came to work here is because this scary ghost girl drew you here, and she drew you here because you remind her of herself.”

“That’s what he said. I don’t know if I believe it.”

“Either way, the ghost chick attacked you, and you ended up living through her breaking up with her boyfriend and then killing herself after her boyfriend died.”

“Yes.”

Tim dropped heavily onto the bed. “That’s…wow.”

“It sounds crazy.”

“No, it sounds scary.” He frowned at her. “Don’t go in the garden by yourself, ever again.”

“I won’t.”

“How does your throat feel now?”

“Much better.”

Tim tipped her chin up, examining her neck. “The marks are almost gone.”

“I’m glad.”

They were silent for a moment, then Tim said, “Listen, Caera, about what I did. I’m s—”

“Tim, wait. There’s something I need to tell you.”

It was time to tell him the full truth about her past and what she’d done. Though only yesterday the idea had terrified her, she now realized that the worst thing would be to punish them both by letting it stand in the way of their happiness.

“I told you some of what I did, when I was seventeen.”

“You ran away with a Spanish musician, thinking you were going to be his opening act, but instead he was just the bass player in a metal band.”

“Yes, but there’s more to it than that. When I left, I didn’t think we were just tour partners. I thought we were in love. I was a virgin until I met him, and I thought that having sex and going to Europe were just the first steps to getting married. I imagined that by the time I came home, I’d be famous, rich and married.”

It hurt to think about the naïve girl she’d been. As a woman grown, Caera ached for that girl.

“I felt so stupid, so betrayed when I found out that he wasn’t the musician, or the man, I’d thought he was.

“It wasn’t long before I hated myself. I realized quickly that I’d made a mistake, but I was too proud to call my parents and ask for help getting away. I thought I could still get what I wanted from him.

“They were like any band. There was lots of alcohol, drugs. I was sleeping with him, and each time I liked it less and less but didn’t say anything. Part of me still thought that maybe he loved me, that he lied to me because he wanted me close.”