CHAPTER FOUR

All good things must come to an end, as they say. My first night, I am disturbed by the house and yet I sleep like a baby. This second night, I am not at all afraid, but this is when my nightmares return.

It begins with vague disquiet, more emotions than experiences. I sense a gray pallor and hear mournful voices. Sometimes I recognize the voices and sometimes they’re unfamiliar to me.

Then, brief scenes flicker across my mind. My mother's flat expression when Annie burns herself on our stove. Elizabeth Carlton's cry of jealousy when she catches her lover trying to kiss her own mother. The fear in Sean's eyes when he pulls me from a raging tide. Tears running down Celeste Holloway's face when her father is discovered missing.

All memories of intense emotion that I’ve either experienced or witnessed. Yet I don’t feel them really. It’s as though I’m watching my life play before my eyes.

It’s not until the final dream that things become seriously frightening.

I open my eyes, and I am alone in a green field. The grass is bright, emerald bright, far brighter than any natural color could be. I look around and see that the field extends to the horizon in all directions. It is broken only by a door standing alone some thirty yards ahead of me.

I know immediately that if I enter that door, something terrible will happen. I don’t need a vision or an impression to know it. It’s the only thing present in a false-color field. One doesn’t need to understand dreams to know that anything that waits behind a single door in such a scenario must be frightening.

However, I am unable to stop myself. My body moves of its own accord, dragging me inexorably toward the door.

Oddly, the most intense emotion I feel isn’t fear but frustration. I know I shouldn’t open this door. I know I’ll find only pain and terror behind it, but I can’t stop. I am compelled to open it while being fully aware that I will only hurt myself.

In the earlier days of our association, Sean would often ask why I had to solve every mystery I came across. I would answer that I enjoyed helping people and that I believed it was only right that victims should receive justice and that the guilty should not be allowed to hide behind their wealth. I still believe this, but the truth is that aside from the first mystery I solved—that of Johnathan Ashford’s murder—I am reluctant to involve myself. I know that doing so only puts me at risk.

But I still involve myself. I am compelled to uncover the truth. It’s not until I find an answer to my sister’s disappearance that I finally accept that some mysteries are better left unsolved. This dream frustrates me because I fear it’s a sign that I’m not truly ready to mind my own business. I worry what my curiosity will compel me to do when I wake.

I open the door. Inside, a woman kneels. She’s tall and statuesque with long, flowing blonde hair that cascades over her shoulders and falls to the middle of her back. I don’t need to see her face to know her features are excellent, and her eyes are a brilliant blue, blue like the sky, not the ocean.

I stare at the image of my long-lost sister as she was when I last saw her, and again, the emotion that fills me is frustration.

“What do you want?” I demand. “Do you want me to leave you alone, or do you want me to find you? Can you just be clear for once, please?”

Annie turns around, and my blood chills. Her face is frozen in a mask of sheer terror. The frustration I feel vanishes as ice grips my heart.

She takes a deep breath and shrieks, "Help me! Oh God! Help me!"

I take a step backward, then another. My hand fumbles behind me for the door, and my heart beats rapidly. I try to reply, but all that comes out is a jumbled moan.

She stands and runs toward me, hands extended like claws, eyes rolling with fright, screaming, “Help me!”

***

I sit up with a gasp and just barely stifle the curse that forms on my lips. Once more, I thought I’d beaten my nightmares, and once more, they’ve overcome me.

The room around me is dark and cold, but now that the danger is passed, frustration overcomes my fear once more, and I am only angry at the gray stone walls and not fearful of them. How did people live here before? How did so many cultures look at a lifeless slab of granite and say to themselves, “Oh yes, this is an excellent material to live inside of forever”?

I sigh heavily and throw the covers off. I know from experience that I'll be lucky to get any more sleep tonight, so I might as well shower to take the edge off of my nightmare.

It’s just so frustrating! I spent years looking for answers about my sister, and finally came to terms with the fact that my sister left of her own accord and didn’t wish to be found. I was even ready to move into my old house, or at least clean it out and make it presentable enough to sell. I was moving on, damn it!

“What do you want?” I cry in frustration to the empty room. “Why won’t you leave me alone?”

“Help me!”

Ice grips my heart once more. I freeze and listen intently. I am awake now. I'm not dreaming. Surely, I didn't just hear my sister cry for help.

“Help!”

The cry comes again. It’s faint, barely audible, but it’s the only noise in the house, and it’s unmistakable. I’m not so superstitious as to think that my sister is crying for my help in this castle thirty years after she runs away, but there is no doubt that someone is calling for help.

I dress hurriedly, throwing on my slippers and a shawl, then rushing from the room. If I hesitate, I won’t have the courage, so I move quickly, not allowing myself a chance to lose my courage.

I rush down the stairs, and when I reach the first floor, I hear it again. It’s quieter this time and punctuated by a sob, but it’s just as clear as before.

I hesitate before descending to the basement. I may not be superstitious, but real dangers lurk in the hidden places of the world. Am I really sure that I want to discover what dangers might lurk below?

“Help! Please!”

It doesn't matter what I want. Someone is in danger down there. I take a breath and continue. It occurs to me that I should call for help or at least call to ask where the owner of the voice is. I don't, though. I tell myself it's because I've had too many experiences where the criminals were residents of the same house in which I work, but the truth is that a part of me fears that this is some lingering effect of my dream and that I haven’t really heard anything. It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve imagined things that aren’t there.

With that uncomfortable thought in my head, I open the door to the basement. It’s pitch black, and the moment I open the door, a wave of cold malevolence swallows me. I shiver, and a soft moan escapes my lips.

Pull yourself together, Mary. There must be a light switch somewhere. Find it.

I reach for the wall, and my skin crawls. I am certain somehow that my fingers will land on something slimy and wet, like an open wound or the offal of some hideous monster.

I find only a stone wall, and after several seconds of tapping, I find the light switch. I take another deep breath and flip it on.

It's empty. The basement, I mean. It's a large room, perhaps twelve hundred square feet, and it's empty. I see nothing but bare stone walls and a bare stone floor. Clearly, Lord Edmund sees no need for the extra storage space.

I enter the room anyway, thinking that I might find some hidden door or some sign that someone was dragged away. The fear I feel a moment ago is gone, however, so I don’t believe I actually expect to find anything. I’m just reassuring myself that it really was all in my head.

When a cursory inspection reveals nothing out of the ordinary and the time spent making that inspection brings no repeat of the cry that draws me downstairs in the first place, I sigh. I’m going to be very unhappy if my dreams begin to linger into my waking hours.

I head back upstairs, flipping off the basement lights and hoping I won’t encounter anyone come to investigate what the nutty governess is doing snooping through the house in the middle of the night. I reach my room, but just before I enter, I hear a small voice ask, “Mary? What’s wrong?”

I turn to see Oliver rubbing sleep from his eyes. He wears his night clothes and in one hand, he holds a stuffed dinosaur. I smile at him and say, “Nothing. I thought I heard a noise is all.”

“That wasn’t you screaming?”

My smile fades. “N-no. That wasn’t me. You heard screaming too?”

He nods. “It was quiet, like it was from far away. I thought maybe you were having a nightmare.”

I try to sound reassuring, but I fear my voice betrays the liewhen I reply, “No, honey. I wasn’t having a nightmare.”

“Then what was it?”

Jibakurei. “It was only the wind, or perhaps a dog howling at the moon.”

“Do dogs really howl at the moon?”

“They really howl,” I reply. “Whether at the moon or at annoying noises that wake sensible people up in the middle of the night, I’m not sure.”

He laughs at that, and my fear subsides somewhat. It may be that there really was a noise, but I can’t believe that it was a cry for help. That was only my mind interpreting an innocuous sound through the lens of my nightmare.

“Will you sit with me a little?” Oliver asks. “Until I fall asleep?”

“Of course, dear. I could use some company myself if I’m being honest.”

I close the door to my own room and follow him back to his. His room is smaller than I would expect for the heir to the Earl, but his bed is comfortable, and he has a large closet filled with all sorts of toys imaginable. The tv on his dresser is even bigger than mind, and I see the video game system Lord Edmund speaks of earlier.

The room is exactly what a young boy’s room should be, and I’m encouraged to see it. Children should be allowed to hold onto their childhood for as long as possible. The world grows so cold when you become an adult.

Oliver curls up in bed and lays a hand over mine for a moment. “Good night, Mary.”

I brush a lock of hair out of his eye and reply, “Good night, Oliver.”

Almost immediately, he is fast asleep. I will not be so lucky.

Someone cried out in the middle of the night. I don’t believe the lie I told Oliver earlier, or the lie I told myself.

Someone cried out for help and was then silenced. I hope desperately that I’m wrong, but deep inside, I know that once more, I’m being compelled to solve another mystery.