Aunt Dimity Beats the Devil (Aunt Dimity Mystery) (16 page)

“Does this path meet up with the military track?” I asked.

Adam nodded, his dark curls tossing in the wind. “The track’s a quarter-mile from here, as the crow flies. Will it bother you to see it?”

“Nope,” I said. “I’d make a lousy poster child for post-traumatic stress.”

“You fainted on the hidden staircase,” Adam reminded me.

“Ancient history.” I pursed my lips. “Which brings us to the fascinating conversation I had yesterday with Guy…”

Once I started talking, I couldn’t stop. I spoke at breakneck speed, as if ridding myself of an unwanted burden of information. I started with Guy’s unspoken feelings for Nicole and went straight through to my curtailed search for Edith Ann Malson’s books. By the time we reached the military
track, I’d filled Adam in on everything that had happened since I’d last seen him.

When I finished, I felt as light as a feather. I felt a bit lightheaded, too, so intoxicated by the pure air that I swayed on my feet. Adam put out a hand to steady me, but I dodged past him and strutted confidently across the rutted track, to prove that I could face reminders of my crash without coming unglued.

“Your turn to talk,” I said as we regained the path. “Tell me about the Devil’s Ring.”

“It’s a neolithic stone circle,” Adam began. “Northumberland is littered with them.”

“What about artillery practice?” I said, alarmed. “Is the army allowed to destroy prehistoric sites?”

“If it weren’t, it couldn’t conduct exercises anywhere in Britain,” Adam replied. “Ours is a very small island with a very crowded history. Preservation isn’t always possible, but the Ring is safe enough. Its proximity to Wyrdhurst Hall protects it—and us.”

“Why is it called the Devil’s Ring?” I asked.

“I’ve heard a dozen explanations,” Adam said. “My favorite goes something like this: those who enter the Ring must be pure of heart or risk losing their immortal souls to the devil.”

I felt a twinge of apprehension, but chose to ignore it. I refused to let a morbid superstition cast a shadow on our perfect day. Forcing a laugh, I linked arms with Adam and demanded, in a mock-solemn tone of voice, “Are you feeling pure of heart today, my son?”

Adam favored me with an enticing, sidelong glance before
answering, “Not entirely.” He put his hand over mine, drew in a deep breath, and let it out in a satisfied rush. “I’m glad you suggested the walk. I haven’t been to the Ring in ages. It’s a special place.”

“Edward and Claire thought so.” As the words left my lips, my head began to spin and I stopped short, clutching Adam’s arm for support.

“You’re tired,” he said firmly. He motioned toward a grassy rise some twenty yards to our right. “We can rest out of the wind over there.”

“Rest? Who needs rest?” I shook off the dizzy spell, shot past him, and scrambled to the top of the hillock, where I raised my arms in victory, only to let them fall slowly to my sides. “Adam,” I called, peering curiously down the far side of the hill. “Come and see what I’ve found.”

He clambered up the slope to stand beside me.

I looked at him uncertainly. “Is it the Devil’s Ring?”

“No,” he replied. “But I’m damned if I know what it is.”

Below us, at the bottom of the long, narrow hill, lay a complex formation of rocks. The rocks were small enough to carry, too large to blow away, and they’d been arranged in regular lines to form squares, rectangles, and an enormous half-circle. The manner in which the shapes intersected and connected reminded me of Scara Brae, a many-chambered Stone Age village I’d once visited, up in the Orkney Islands.

“Scara Brae,” I said, “writ large.”

Adam understood the reference. “They do look like rooms,” he agreed. “But the formation’s not neolithic. It wasn’t here the last time I visited the Ring.”

“Are you sure?” I glanced over my shoulder. “It’s pretty well concealed from the path.”

Adam conceded the point, but remained perplexed. “Why would someone build a Stone Age village?”

“Maybe it’s not a Stone Age village,” I reasoned. “We’re on army property. It’s probably something to do with military exercises.”

“You may be right.” Adam squatted to scrabble in the dirt at my feet. When he stood, he held six shiny brass cartridge cases in his palm.

“Do not handle military debris,” I pronounced. “It may explode and kill you.” I looked askance at the cartridges. “Kind of small for artillery, aren’t they?”

“A new secret weapon, no doubt.” Adam smiled as he pocketed the cartridges.

“I’ll ask Guy. He’ll know.” I turned a slow circle, savoring the moment. “You can see forever from up here. If we looked hard enough, I’ll bet we could see Scara Brae.”

“I don’t know about Scara Brae,” Adam said, “but we can certainly see the Ring.”

He lifted his arm to point me in the right direction, but I’d already spotted the six gray stones that jutted like broken teeth from the tussocky ground.

I’d seen them before, in my dream.

The shock wave of recognition ripped me from my moorings. I felt an instant’s giddiness and then everything came unglued. The blue sky seemed to ripple, colors tumbled and swirled, and the world seemed to slow on its axis. The chill wind gentled to a velvet breeze, dried grasses blew green and supple, and heather bloomed, cloaking the hills in soft clouds of lavender. The air was perfumed with the sweet
scents of summer, warmed by a high summer sun, filled with the music of laughter and long-silent voices.

“You mustn’t leave,” I murmured. “You must never leave me.”

I swayed again, on knees as weak as water, but when Adam reached out to steady me this time, I turned into his arms and kissed him.

It wasn’t a chaste kiss. It was the kind of kiss that leads to shameful things, but I felt no sense of shame. I was drunk on pure sensation, as if tasting for the first time the sweet, heady elixir of love. I twined my fingers in his curls, arched my back, and pressed myself against him, aching to feel once again every curve and hollow of the body that had shared its warmth with mine.

Then Adam was gripping my shoulders, hard, and pushing me away. “Lori,” he managed. “Stop. It’s not right.”

I stood back, chastened. “Of course. Not here. We might be seen. Come on.” And I started down the hill, toward the rock formation.

“Where are you going?” Adam called.

“To our place.” I turned toward him. “We’ll take the shortcut.”

Adam approached me slowly, his troubled eyes never leaving my face. “Lori,” he said softly, “how do you know about the shortcut?”

“Don’t be a goose,” I replied, smiling. “You showed it to me.”

Adam shook his head. “We’ve never been here before. Not the two of us. Not together.”

“But I…” The velvet breeze turned razor-sharp. “I remember…”

Adam cupped my face in his hands. “No.”

The supple grasses shriveled and the lavender faded to brown. I backed away from Adam, looking wildly from side to side. “I
do
remember. Not just the shortcut, not just the terrace door…” A sharp pain lanced through my head and I crumpled, gasping, to the ground. “I knew where my room was. I turned down the corridor before Nicole told me which way to go. I
led
her to my room.” I clenched my fists and pressed them to my temples. “I knew the dead animals didn’t belong there. The room was a prison, not a zoo. Josiah put the bars in, to keep me from…to keep Claire from…” Adam dropped to his knees and I leaned into him, terrified. “I knew the books were hers
before
I found the notes. I
dreamt
of the Devil’s Ring. Oh, Adam,” I whimpered, “what’s happening to me?”

“I don’t know.” He tightened his hold. “But I’m here, Lori. I won’t let anything hurt you.”

Through a haze of pain I seemed to see, in the stitches of his blue ribbed sweater, the loops and curls of royal-blue ink repeating the fierce, solemn promise:
I won’t let anything hurt you.

I buried my face in his sweater, whispering,
“Dimity…”

A
dam all but carried me back to Wyrdhurst. I staggered along as best I could, but my mind was still half clouded, laced with memories that did not belong to me.

Adam asked no questions, demanded no explanations. He simply followed my faltering instructions, depositing me in his beat-up car, retrieving the blue journal from the wardrobe, and taking me away from Wyrdhurst Hall.

The farther we drove, the more coherent my thoughts became. By the time we reached the fishing hut, the pain in my head had subsided and the false memories had faded to dim shadows.

Adam guided me through the peacock-blue door, helped take off my jacket, and seated me in the leather armchair. While he got a fire going, I noted that the room had been put to rights. The narrow iron bed was back in its corner, the armchair cozily tucked to one side of the small hearth. Still, the hut seemed as familiar to me as my cottage, a safe place where I could recover from yet another accident.

Adam pulled a beechwood chair from the pine table and sat facing me across the hearth.

I must have looked haggard, and I felt as fragile as a teacup, as if a single misstep would shatter me. Tears welled in my eyes as I told him, quite firmly, “I’m not crazy.”

“I know.”

“What I’m about to do will
seem
crazy”—my voice broke and a tear spilled down my cheek—“but it’s
not.
”

“I believe you.”

I swiped the tears away and opened the blue journal.

“I’m sorry, Dimity,” I said. “I’m so sorry. You tried to warn me, but I wouldn’t listen.”

As the elegant copperplate curled across the page, a sense of calm came over me. Dimity’s love was like a fortress, shielding me from harm. Nothing evil could touch me, so long as she was near.

Tell me what happened, my dear.

“It’s been happening for a while, but I didn’t realize it until today.” I took a deep breath. “I have memories and…and feelings that don’t belong to me. It’s as if…someone else…is in my head.”

Someone else IS in your head, my dear. As I told you before, you’re not yourself.

Dimity’s literal use of the commonplace phrase provoked a ragged chuckle.

The handwriting continued.
You’re not entirely yourself, at any rate. It’s my fault, I’m afraid. Your relationship with me has made you vulnerable. Once the door is opened between the living and the dead, there’s no telling who will come through. We’re not all of us charming, sensible, and sane, you know. Some of us are quite mad.

“Are you telling me…?” I paused, momentarily at a loss for words. I’d always regarded Dimity’s presence in my life as
a blessing. It had never occurred to me that it might also be a liability. “Do you mean to say that any passing noncorporeal being can just walk in and take up residence
in my head?
”

Not exactly. Have you been unwell since your arrival at Wyrdhurst Hall? Dizziness, headaches, queasiness?

“All three,” I admitted.

I thought as much. You’ve always been a stubborn girl, Lori, and admirably independent. No one could enter your mind without a struggle. Hence the headaches.

“Who’s inside my mind?” I asked, though I was already fairly certain of the answer.

Someone called Claire.

“Claire Byrd?”

She doesn’t use a last name, but if “Claire Byrd” means something to you, it’s undoubtedly she. You’ve taken an interest in this Claire Byrd, I presume.

“A great interest,” I acknowledged.

Influenced, no doubt, by Claire herself. She’s been working on you ever since you entered Wyrdhurst. That’s why I insisted on joining you. I felt the bond between us waver alarmingly. Other bonds wavered as well, I’ll wager.

My conscience burned as I recalled the framed photograph of my beloved boys, clattering to the floor. “Marriage and motherhood,” I murmured. “How could I, Dimity? How could I forget my family?”

You mustn’t blame yourself, Lori. Claire’s a very clever, very desperate girl.

“Why did she choose me?” I demanded. “The woman who lives in Wyrdhurst isn’t nearly as bullheaded as I am. Why didn’t Claire go after Nicole?”

Is Nicole a virgin?

“I think so.”

Claire has a great need to express physical affection. She’d find it difficult to use an inexperienced woman. In Nicole’s case, ignorance truly has been bliss.

You, on the other hand, have a passionate nature and the experience to go with it. You also have, if you’ll forgive me, a roving eye. I take it there’s an attractive man on hand?

I looked over my shoulder at Adam, who was quietly making tea, and remembered the warm flush that had spread through me as I gazed upon his face in the firelight, well before I’d set foot in Wyrdhurst Hall. Aunt Dimity was right. I did have a roving eye. It was part of my passionate nature. Claire had chosen her puppet wisely.

“His name’s Adam,” I said, under my breath. “Adam Chase. He saved my life.”

Claire could use such a connection for her own purposes. Did she attempt to express herself through you?

The breathless moment on the moors came back to me in a vivid, visceral rush. I felt the heat rise again, and the hunger, and the helpless sense of losing him forever.