Murder by Twilight Page 9

  The fading memory of my dream twisted my stomach. Even though I did not believe in the future predicting power of dreams, I couldn’t help but feel like I’d expected to see this smoke. And more than that, like I should discover what was causing it.

  There was no danger of the fire spreading and overtaking the house. The ground was wet enough from the recent rain that the fire didn’t stand a chance of spreading, which begged the question of how it had started in the first place.

  I looked back and could see the very top of my sister’s house through the trees. It was further away than I would have liked, and I didn’t have much time before full dark set in. Yet, I couldn’t bring myself to turn and walk back the way I’d come.

  With a deep sense of urgency, I turned back around and walked straight for the smoke.

  The ground was uneven, rising and falling hills that made it difficult to see too far ahead. Every time I crested a hill, I felt certain the source of the smoke would be revealed, but it was always just behind the next crest. And the next.

  As I climbed up them, my legs burning with the effort, my lungs straining in my chest, a distant ringing began in my ears.

  With every step, it grew louder and louder. Until I could tell it wasn’t a ringing at all. But chanting.

  A consistent humming noise not unlike a heartbeat.

  Hum-drum. Hum-drum. Hum-drum.

  The hair on my arms raised beneath my coat, and I fought off a sudden chill, forcing myself to keep moving even when my instincts screamed for me to retreat.

  Finally, after several hills, I struggled up the last one, my boots slipping in the mud so that I had to catch myself on my hands. I climbed to the top and immediately froze.

  I froze outwardly and inwardly.

  My body did not move, and I was cold through my entire core.

  I could see a fire burning in the center of a circle of trees, and around it, a shadow danced.

  Or shadows.

  Through the small glimpses through tree trunks, I couldn’t tell how many there were or…what they were. Black dripped from them, pooling on the ground at their feet.

  Catherine spoke of robes when she told me of her attack. She recalled seeing flashes of robes and movement before she was struck on the head.

  Was this what she saw?

  I crouched down on the hilltop and narrowed my eyes, trying to better make out the shapes to see if they were spectral or human, but I’d lost even more light during my trek to get here, and it was too dark to see much. The fire in the center of the grove illuminated the surroundings, but consequently, cast everything into silhouette.

  If Catherine had truly been attacked—had truly encountered something strange or otherworldly—I owed it to her to find out what it was. Right now, she was locked away in her room under the constant care of a nurse because her husband believed her to be ill, but what if that wasn’t true? What if her story had been accurate from the start and everyone had simply chosen not to believe it, myself included?

  Guilt rippled through me, and the sensation was powerful enough to override my sense of self-preservation. I took a deep breath and began descending the other side of the hill.

  I’d taken no more than three steps, however, when a flash of movement at the base of the hill caught my eye.

  My heart leapt in my chest, momentarily stealing my breath, and I stopped to examine what it was.

  Aside from the distant chanting, all was quiet. Until a violent shrieking tore through the evening air.

  The sound was accompanied by hurried movement only thirty paces away from me. It was a robed figure—the same one from the fire or another one, I couldn’t say—and it drew nearer to me and then away, repeating the movement several times, growing closer with each pass.

  Horror gripped my soul and consciousness, and I turned and ran as hard and fast as I could in the opposite direction.

  My curiosity had fled from me the moment the being had begun to scream, and now all I cared about was getting back to my sister’s house in one piece.

  The ground was wet and pocked with footfalls that sent me sprawling face first into the mud again and again. Yet, every time, I dragged myself to my feet and continued my retreat.

  I didn’t turn to see if the figure was pursuing me, I simply ran as though it was.

  I ran back over the hills, through the trees, and up the path that led to the back door of the house, and I didn’t realize I’d been screaming until the back door opened.

  Light shone out around the figure standing there, and I didn’t care who it was so long as they weren’t wearing a robe. I hurtled up the stairs and threw myself, mud and all, into the arms of the stranger.

  Distantly, I heard Camellia Cresswell shout back into the house for her brother, but I couldn’t remember much else. Overcome with exhaustion and fear, I closed my eyes and slipped into darkness.

  10

  There was smoke. So much smoke I couldn’t see or think or breathe.

  I blinked against the burning in my eyes and could make out human-like shapes moving around me, but I couldn’t see their faces.

  I called out for them again and again, begging them to identify themselves, but they refused to say anything beyond their constant chant: hum-drum, hum-drum.

  When I opened my mouth to scream again, something cool poured through my lips. It was bitter tasting, and I wasn’t sure where it came from. If it had anything to do with the shadows dancing around me, I didn’t want it, no matter how good it felt in my dry mouth. So, I spit it out.

  She won’t keep anything down. I’ve been trying for half an hour.

  The voice was familiar. Faint but familiar.

  Try again, another voice said. The last thing Catherine needs is for her sister to take ill, as well.

  Charles. I knew that voice was Charles, and once that information came to me, I could remember the first voice belonged to Nurse Gray.

  I strained to open my eyes, trying to wake up, and I heard the voice remark on my movement. It encouraged me to try harder, to press beyond the exhaustion that weighed me down. I needed to tell them what I’d seen, what had happened.

  When my eyelids finally fluttered open, I saw Nurse Gray and Charles standing near my bedside. The nurse was standing the closest, with Charles just behind her. When I opened my eyes, he didn’t move or rush to my bedside, but looked to the nurse.

  “Miss Beckingham?” Nurse Gray asked, lightly touching my shoulder. “You are safe and well. Do not panic.”

  Those words were rarely uttered to people with no reason to panic, so they did little to comfort me.

  “You are in your room,” she continued. “Charles and Camellia are here. You’re safe.”

  I blinked several more times, my vision clearing, and then tried to sit myself up in bed. Immediately, my joints protested, and I groaned.

  “You fell,” Nurse Gray said, not sounding entirely certain. “You have a lot of scrapes and bruises, but no breaks as far as I can see. It would be best for you to stay still and rest. I have this medicine here that should help you—”

  “No.” My voice was dry and hoarse, but sharp. I shook my head even though the effort made my brain crash against my skull. “No, I’m fine.”

  “Hardly,” Camellia said, finally stepping into view. Her brow was creased with concern, but she looked almost annoyed with me. “I’m covered in enough blood and mud to prove it. You are not fine at all.”

  The memory of crashing into the arms of the person standing in the doorway came back to me, and I remembered Camellia’s voice. She must have been the person unlucky enough to catch me fresh from my sprint across the moors. I looked down and saw the dried mud on her dress, and despite everything I’d just endured, the sight of it nearly made me laugh.

  That feeling, if nothing else, brought me back to myself. It cleared my head and helped me remember what was important.

  The truth.

  “I saw something. I saw—”

  “Shadows,” Charles fini
shed.

  I turned to him and frowned. “How did you—”

  “You were talking in your sleep,” Nurse Gray said. “Ramblings and nonsense. You didn’t know what you were saying.”

  She spoke authoritatively, as if she knew what was in my head better than I did. I didn’t appreciate it.

  Ignoring her earlier warning, I used my weak, bruised arms to lift myself to sitting. My muscles agonized over the movement, and I didn’t want to think about how much worse I’d feel in the morning.

  “Well, I know what I am saying now, and I saw shadows. On the moors.”

  Camellia rolled her eyes and crossed her arms, not bothering to hide her disbelief. Charles, however, looked stricken. His eyes were wide and sad, turned down at the corners, and his hands twisted in uncertainty in front of him.

  “You were screaming when Camellia found you,” he said. “You barely made it into the house before you collapsed. I’m not sure now is the time to talk about what you think you saw.”

  “What I know I saw,” I corrected him. “I was delirious when I made it to the house because I’d run so far. I was exhausted. But I remember very clearly the reason I ran.”

  Camellia leaned in to her brother, but did not bother to lower her voice or whisper. “This is exactly what happened with Catherine. Perhaps, whatever affliction this is, runs in the family.”

  Anger reddened my cheeks, and I turned on Camellia, my eyes narrowed. “What affliction would that be, Camellia? Because as far as I’m aware, no one has quite cured whatever it is my sister has come down with. Could that be because there is nothing to cure?”

  Charles extended a hand to calm me. “No one meant anything hurtful, Alice. We are just trying to make sense of this.”

  “Then let me help you.” I slammed my fists into the mattress and met each of the three nervous sets of eyes in the room. “Listen to me. Hear my story. When I’m done, you can decide whatever you want, but I won’t allow you to discuss what could be happening without listening to what I experienced first.”

  Once again, Camellia looked bored and annoyed, but Charles nodded. “That is fair, Alice. What did you see?”

  “I took a nap this afternoon, and when I woke up, I needed some fresh air. So, I went for a walk before dinner. I followed the trail that you, Charles, marked as being safe, but it was more difficult than I anticipated.”

  “Could we please move on to the part that made you run screaming into the house?” Camellia asked impatiently.

  “Camellia,” Charles warned her.

  She shrugged. “I’m sorry, but we don’t need her to recount her entire day. Just the part that is necessary for the story.”

  I ignored her to the best of my ability and carried on, telling them about the smoke and the chanting. I told them about the dark figures I saw through the trees.

  “This sounds like a children’s frightening story,” Camellia said, clearly exasperated. She turned to me, hands pressed together. “I’m sure you think you saw these things, Alice, but can’t you hear how insane it sounds?”

  Suddenly, I understood my sister’s broken spirit perfectly.

  Since arriving in Yorkshire, I couldn’t fathom why my sister, who had never failed to speak her mind or have her voice be heard, was shrinking into a shell. Why she didn’t defend herself or argue with her nurse. Why she didn’t demand that her husband hear her and act accordingly.

  Now, however, it made sense.

  Because they—her husband, sister-in-law, and Nurse Gray—had broken her down. They’d made her feel small and silly. Whether they’d meant to or not, they made Catherine feel mad, so she gave up trying.

  “Strange and unexpected things happen all the time,” I said, eyes focused on Camellia. She, more than anyone, should understand that point. She’d left her home one afternoon for a walk and come back to find it in ruins, her family destroyed. Why, then, did she have such a hard time believing something strange could be happening on the moors?

  I’d admit, believing in house fires did not immediately predispose one to believing in spirits, but still, I felt Camellia should have been slightly more on my side given her past trauma.

  Charles was still wringing his hands, and despite me saying I did not want any medication, I could see Nurse Gray eyeing the vials on the table.

  I sighed. “I know this is a strange story. If it was not strange, I wouldn’t have run from the moors screaming as I did. I wouldn’t have collapsed from fear and exhaustion.”

  “You speak in a rational tone, but your words do not make sense to me,” Charles admitted, his shoulders stooping forward. “From the window here, we can’t see any smoke on the horizon. And the ground is so wet from the rain that I’m not sure any fire could have caught.”

  It was obvious to me that I was not going to change any minds, so I decided to save my strength. I lowered my head and nodded in solemn agreement, admitting that my time spent with the Wilds may have sparked my imagination.

  “It was a long walk from the house to where I was, and I didn’t pack any water.”

  “Thirst has done much worse things to people,” Charles said readily, happy to agree with any explanation other than the truth. “That is probably what it was.”

  “Yes, most likely,” I lied. “I just need a glass of water and some rest.”

  Nurse Gray rushed away to get me water, and I didn’t consider until halfway through the glass whether she’d put something in it.

  Whether it was from an unknown medication or my physical exhaustion, I didn’t know, but I fell into a deep and untroubled sleep.

  I didn’t wake until late the next morning.

  Warm, golden light poured through the windows, and I could hear birds chirping in the nearby trees.

  It sounded like a lovely day, and I was eager to get out of bed.

  The second I lifted my arms to stretch, however, my entire body protested. My legs burned with even the slightest movement, and scratches on my arms stung as the skin pulled.

  Suddenly, the evening’s events rushed back to me in a flurry, and the day didn’t seem quite so welcoming. In fact, it felt as though the earth were mocking me. The weather of the previous day—lashing rain and gray skies—would have been much more suited for how I felt.

  Slowly, I peeled back my blankets and assessed myself.

  Nurse Gray must have changed my clothes and tended to my wounds before I’d awoken from my bout of unconsciousness because, where I should have been caked in earth and blood, there was nothing but pink skin marred with cuts and deep bruises. I slid my hands over the small welts, wincing when I pressed on some of the more painful bruises.

  I slid my legs to the side and lowered my feet to the floor, moving slowly to let my body grow accustomed to movement once again. Not only had the previous day’s exercise been more than I was used to, but the repeated falling during my clumsy escape had taken a toll on me. I would need to move slowly to avoid hurting myself further.

  Long minutes passed as I rolled my ankles, flexed my calves, and stretched out my thighs. My arms received the same treatment, and by the time twenty minutes had gone by, I felt much more capable. I still smarted when I turned too quickly or squatted down to pull stockings from the bottom drawer, but it was not unbearable.

  I dressed in a simple cotton dress that did not require any buttoning or tucking or fussing. It simply needed to be pulled over my head, which made my shoulders ache, and then it was done. Fastening my shoes required a good deal of movement I wasn’t prepared for, though. I rested on the side of my bed and drew my knee up to my chest to tie the laces of my two-toned oxfords, and even then, I had to take several breaks to let my leg relax.

  When I was finally dressed, I pinned back the wild mess of curls on my head and went down to breakfast.

  I didn’t look as polished as I would have liked, but no one would expect much else from me today. Not after everything I’d been through the day before.

  Breakfast was likely already over, but I hoped
there would be some bread and fruit remaining, at least. My stomach rumbled with hunger, and more than any medication or rest, I needed sustenance to heal.

  I didn’t make any effort to walk especially quietly, but I had to take such slow steps to make sure I didn’t go light headed and lose my balance, that Camellia and Charles must not have heard my approach. For when I reached the top of the stairs, their hushed voices carried up to me.

  “I think we are worrying about something we ought not to worry about yet,” Charles said.

  “And I think you are once again avoiding a situation you find uncomfortable for no other reason than that you’d rather not deal with it,” came the response.

  “Don’t forget whose house this is, Camellia,” Charles warned.

  “Nurse Gray agrees with me,” Camellia went on. “We spoke last night, and she thinks we should keep a close eye on Alice. She hasn’t seemed well since she arrived.”

  Since I arrived? My face wrinkled in displeasure. Who was Camellia to decide whether I was well or not? She didn’t even know me.

  “That is just Alice’s way,” Charles said, coming to my defense, though it didn’t feel quite like a defense. It still felt like an insult. “She is an odd girl, outspoken and commanding. But I’ve never seen her like I did last night. Something happened to her.”

  “Madness,” Camellia whispered harshly. “That apparently runs in the family.”

  Charles sighed loudly.

  “It is no fault of yours, brother. You could not have known you were marrying into a family with these kinds of emotional and mental troubles. You shouldn’t blame yourself.”

  At that, I was about to charge down the stairs and tell Camellia exactly what I thought of her. If she wanted to say my family had problems, what of hers?

  She’d lost her family in a fire and was clearly trying to replace them with another family rather than face her own grief. If she wanted to discuss emotional and mental troubles, then I was more than happy to accommodate her.

  However, just before I could stomp down the stairs, alerting the couple to my presence, Camellia continued speaking. “As I said, Nurse Gray is in agreement. We should keep both women away from Hazel until we can figure out how to help them.”