The Witch of Stonecliff (12 page)

“You’re a foolish man seeking her out. I don’t know what it is you’re after, but you should leave her be. For your own safety.”

He dropped into one of the wooden chairs, irritation prickling the back of his neck. He didn’t know why. He had doubts about Eleri himself. “So certain she’s guilty?”

“She’s not right, you know? She can appear normal, but only for so long. Last night she threw a fit in the stairway, claiming she was locked in. I had to let her out.” She leveled her stare with his. “There’s no lock on that door.”

Kyle’s pulse kicked up. The housekeeper must be making it up. Another rumor to spread around the village.

“Does she do things like that often?”

“Often enough. She sees people that aren’t there, lights, hears voices, since she was a child. There’s something wrong with her up here.” She tapped her forehead. “Like her mother.”

“Good morning, Mrs. Voyle.” At the sound of Eleri’s voice, the housekeeper jumped.

Eleri stood in the doorway, her skin pale and her features drawn, but her eyes shone like black glass.

Mrs. Voyle returned her attention to the oatmeal. “Breakfast is ready.”

Eleri rolled her eyes. “I’d sooner eat my own feet. Is there tea?”

“Isn’t there always?” Mrs. Voyle replied, each word clipped.

Without so much as a glance his way, Eleri crossed to the bank of cupboards behind the housekeeper, took down a mug and poured from the silver teapot on the counter. She scowled into the cup’s contents.

“You know, Mrs. Voyle, if you spent a little less time disparaging me, you might be able to make a pot of tea that didn’t look like something dredged up from the bottom of the bog.” She blinked as if her own words gave her pause.

“I’m not the cook,” Mrs. Voyle told her, tartly.

“A fact you make a point of daily.” She turned her attention on him, eyes still bright and furious, a little color leaking into her face. “Did you want some?”

“After such a ringing endorsement? No thank you.”

“Fine. Are we doing this?”

By
this
he could only assume she meant trekking to The Devil’s Eye. Nerves hummed beneath his skin, but he nodded. “Whenever you’re ready.”

Without another word, she walked past him and into the utility room. Kyle scrambled from his chair, shot the housekeeper a nod and followed. Outside, Eleri had already started for the woods. Kyle had to jog to catch up.

“Enjoy your chat with Mrs. Voyle?” Eleri asked, once he’d fallen into step beside her.

He shrugged. “She certainly had a great deal to say about you.”

“She always does. Should I look forward to reading whatever she said in your next article?”

Kyle looked at her sharply, but she kept her gaze forward, mouth pressed in a hard, flat line. Was that why she was angry? Not her housekeeper’s less than flattering impression of her mental state, but that he might put the details in print? “There are no more articles.”

“For Jamison or Kyle?”

“Both. I haven’t worked for the magazine in two years. Not since that night.”

“What else are you going to say?”

“You’re welcome to confirm with my old editor.”

She snorted. “I’m sure he’d lie for you.”

“I’m sure he would. In this case, however, he has no need to.” Irritation prickled at the base of his skull. “If you’re so certain I’m lying, why are you coming with me?”

She stopped walking and faced him, her expression bleak. “I’m out of options. If there’s even a slim chance you’re telling the truth, it’s all I have just now.”

Eleri turned away and continued trudging along the path.

Again, Kyle jogged to catch up. “So what did happen last night?”

“Mrs. Voyle did a fine job explaining, I’m sure.” She took another swig from her cup, wrinkled her nose and dumped the rest into the ferns at the side of the path.

“She said you were locked in the stairwell.”

“There you have it then.” Eleri set her empty mug on a dead stump amongst the trees. “I’ll pick it up on the way back. Saves me from carrying it around.”

As if he cared what she did with her mug. He sighed, heavily. “Was she telling the truth?”

Eleri finally turned and looked at him, eyes as dark and hard as granite. “Which part? Was I locked in the dark stairwell screaming my head off like a crazy woman? When she opened the door, was there really no lock and were the lights working just fine? Or does this sort of thing happen often, me seeing things that aren’t really there? Or am I some mad cow making it all up for attention?”

Fury hummed in her voice, but her hand shook as she tucked her hair behind her ear.

“All of it.”

“Yes, I was locked in the stairwell. Yes, there was no lock on the door when Mrs. Voyle let me out. Yes, things like this happen all the time—though, I’ve learned to be proactive in avoiding situations like the one I found myself in last night. And no, I’m not making any of it up because I’m mad or starved for attention.” She turned sharply and started marching down the path once more. “I’m not the only one who’s seen things either.”

Kyle smirked at the defensiveness in her tone and hurried to catch up. “No?”

“Brynn saw things and so did Reece.”

“But not your housekeeper or anyone else in the house?” Were her sister and Conway humoring her? Concerned she might be folding under the pressure of the investigation, maybe.

“Reece is certain that someone else in the house knows about the…presence.”

“Is he?”

She must have heard the doubt in his tone because she turned and shot him a hard scowl. “Why are you even asking? I thought this trip was about you.”

He hadn’t meant to sound so flippant, but he knew from firsthand experience: there was evil here, but it was the result of men.

“Curious, I guess,” he replied.

“Having doubts?” Her voice rose, a nasty sort of teasing creeping into her tone. “Second thoughts about going to The Devil’s Eye with The Witch of Stonecliff?”

Guilt nibbled at his conscience hearing the name he’d created on her lips. He opened his mouth, not sure what exactly he was going to say, but his gaze fell on stone gateposts, a rusted gate sagging between them, and he snapped it shut again.

His blood turned to liquid ice and the air was sucked from his lungs. His step faltered.

“Are you alright?”

Eleri’s soft voice dragged his attention from the rusted gate. The animosity tightening her features since she’d first found him in the kitchen had gone, replaced with concern.

“Fine.” He drew in a deep breath, squared his shoulders and forced his feet to close the short distance to the gate. His hand shook as he reached for the latch.

Eleri’s fingers closed around his wrist. Invisible energy fissured up his arm.

“You don’t have to do this,” she said, voice barely more than a whisper.

He must look a bloody mess already. She was wrong, though. He did have to do this, no matter how much he didn’t want to.

“I’m all right,” he lied.

She released his arm, and he tugged open the sagging gate. Its one good hinge creaked loudly in the quiet. He didn’t give himself a chance to think or change his mind before plunging down the path.

Eleri’s quick footfalls crunched on the dead leaves behind him. This time she had to hurry to catch up. Trees, green with new buds, closed in on both sides of the path. Birds chirped and flitted between the tangled branches. Damp earth mingled with a faint mossy stink that grew stronger with every step.

Finally, the trees thinned and the path gave way to a clearing. The Devil’s Eye stretched out before him.

Every hair on his body stood rigid. Even during the day under blue skies and sunshine the glassy water looked black, fathomless, ready to suck him down into its bottomless depths.

He shivered.

“Kyle?” Eleri’s voice was filled with careful compassion. He actually missed her sharp impatience. At least then he didn’t feel like some freak on the verge of mental breakdown.

He didn’t answer. Instead, he crossed to the bank and followed the water’s edge while keeping his gaze fixed on the weathered dock jutting out from the shore. Once the angle looked right, he stopped and faced Eleri.

Her delicate brows were drawn together, her eyes—normally narrowed and pinched– were wide, as if she were unsure what he would do next.

“I was here,” he told her. “This is where they tried to kill me.”

Chapter Nine

Eleri watched Kyle as he stood by the water’s edge. His robotic tone sent a chill down her spine, but worse were his eyes darting wildly as if he expected someone to jump out at them from the woods.

“They held me down.” His scarred throat bobbed. “Someone gripped my feet to stop me from trying to kick free, and someone else grabbed my hair.” His hand drifted to his head. Fingers raked back the brown strands falling across his forehead. “It was shorter then, and he had a hard time getting a grip.”

All her angry suspicion evaporated. “You don’t have to tell me if this is too much.”

He blinked as if she’d snapped him out of trance and cocked his head to one side. “You’re worried about me?”

“You don’t look well.

“Relax,” he told her. “I’m fine.”

He didn’t look fine, but she didn’t argue. The sooner they wrapped this up the better. Being here with him after those bodies had been found was tempting fate as far as she was concerned. “So there were two of them?”

He shook his head, thoughtful frown marring his forehead. “Three. Two holding me and one watching.”

If he could remember how many maybe he could remember more. “Who were they?”

“I don’t know. They were wearing dark robes. I couldn’t see their faces. And it was dark.” He frowned. “But not pitch. There was…a fire, I think.”

Eleri’s brows shot up. “Here?”

Surely, she’d have noticed a bonfire on her land. She glanced around the clearing, trees hugging the far banks of the bog, blotting out the sun. Maybe not. Depending on how late all of this happened, she could have been in bed, and even if she hadn’t been, the bog was far enough from the house the forest would have hidden the flames, and she wouldn’t have been able to see smoke in the dark.

She might have smelled it, but there were a number of farms in the area, and more often than not they burned their own refuse.

“How did they bring you here?”

“I don’t remember,” he said, gaze following the edge of trees. “Woke tied up and I wasn’t sure where I was or how I got there. I tried to escape, but someone grabbed me and held me down. They tried to strangle me first. I fought the ropes and my wrists started to bleed.” He stared down at the long yellow grass. “I don’t know if they hadn’t tied the rope properly, or my blood made it slippery enough to tug my hand free, maybe both, but I got one hand loose just as the blade broke the skin. I shoved the hand away, but the knife dragged down.”

His finger ran the length of his scar and her belly squeezed. The pain, the terror must have been unreal. “How were you able to run?”

Kyle shrugged. “Adrenaline, I suppose. I had no idea how bad the damage was. There’d been no pain. Not until later.”

Sympathy she didn’t want to feel welled inside her.

“I hit him, the man with the knife.” Kyle dropped his gaze back to the ground, brow furrowing. His tone sounded thoughtful, far away, as though he wasn’t even really speaking to her, just thinking aloud. “I caught him off guard, managed to knock him into the water.”

“You know for certain he was a man? Did you see him?”

“Not his face, but he cursed when he hit the water. His falling in must be why it took them so long to chase me, why I got away. I didn’t know where I was, where I was going.”

“Maybe they didn’t think you would be able to get far with your injury.”

“Or that I’d bleed to death before finding my way out of these woods.”

A distinct possibility. “If the man who helped you knew enough to lie to the police and make it look like you were never here, does he know who these people are?”

Kyle shook his head. “I don’t think so. He believes you were one of them.”

Lovely
. “Is that what you believe?”

He met her gaze. “I don’t think you were there that night.”

“Why did you bring me here now?”

He looked away from her, over the glassy black water. “I wasn’t sure I could face this place alone.”

Her chest squeezed. She didn’t know what to say, but he didn’t wait for a response.

“Last month, when I found you in the snow, I’d been coming here to face this place.”

“You were right yesterday. If you hadn’t found me, I probably would have frozen to death,” she admitted, grudgingly. “Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me. It really was the least I could do considering.”

Maybe, but he’d saved her while still uncertain whether or not she’d tried to kill him.

“I wish I knew how the hell they managed to get me here,” Kyle said. “I would imagine hauling my unconscious body through the woods might have been awkward even if there had been three of them.”

“They probably came in from the ruins of the original house.” When Kyle stared blankly, she explained, “The Worthings’ house. The family owned the property before mine, but they died when the house burnt down about a hundred years ago.”

He nodded. “I remember. The daughter went mad and set fire to the place.”

“The ruins are through those trees.” She pointed. “That’s how Ruth brought Brynn and me here. The drive is well hidden from the road, they would have only had to drag you about fifty feet or so.”

“Let’s have a look.”

Eleri followed Kyle around the edge of the bog and down an overgrown path to a small clearing. On the far side, crumbling stone foundation walls coated in dark green moss poked out from the smothering undergrowth as if the forest were swallowing the last remains of the once great house.

A shiver crept up Eleri’s back. “I hate this place.”

If Kyle heard her, he gave no indication. He walked from the clearing to the narrow gap in the trees that acted as a drive.

“You’re probably right,” he told her, without looking her way. “Coming in this way makes the most sense. No chance of being spotted from Stonecliff.”