Dark Enchantment (6 page)

Chapter Six

“W
ake up,
cailín
. We’re here.”

Arianna curled into the warmth of the gentle hand resting on her shoulder. She stretched and muffled a tired groan. “Mmm… Sorry I keep falling asleep on you.” Reaching beside the seat, she felt for the mechanism to return it to its upright position. Funny, she didn’t remember lowering it.

“No worries,” Caleb murmured, reaching for the key to turn off the ignition.

Through the windshield, Arianna caught her first glimpse of the two-story thatched roof cottage that had been her childhood home. The whitewashed exterior showed bright and crisp against the candy apple red of the door and trim. It resembled a fairytale dwelling in the chimerical glow of the headlights. “Well, I have to admit I’m pleasantly surprised.”

“Surprised, why?”

“The condition of the place,” she explained absently, finding it difficult to tear her eyes away. This was her family home, the place she had shared with her father—and the mother she had never known. “Da hired a property manager to maintain the house and land. But you know how that is. After all these years, I half-expected to find it rundown and abandoned.”

Love, curiosity, awe, sadness, trepidation—a thousand different emotions raced through her like a rushing river because, no matter how well maintained the property, she could sense the myriad secrets lurking behind the darkened windows of the lonely abode. Arianna’s fingers tangled in her lap, her resolve to stay here beginning to crumble like a cookie in a toddler’s fist. What utter madness had possessed her to schedule this life-altering encounter with her past in the dead of night?

A ground-hugging fog rolled over the short-shorn grasses of the front yard before billowing against a wall of stones bordering the property. Low-hanging clouds crept below a waning moon. Here and there, light filtered through the trees, their leaf-bare branches painting eerie shadows on the pristine stucco walls. The unearthly glow silvered tightly interwoven shrubs embracing the long-vacant structure. The occasional breath of wind made a rustling sound as it scattered dead dried leaves across the rain-soaked ground.

“Perfect setting for a graveyard scene in a horror flick.” Arianna shuddered.

Male fingers gently brushed her arm. “I’ll leave you at a hotel in town tonight, will I? Sure, the old place here will seem a lot less daunting come morning.”

Very tempting.
In the full light of day, the quaint little cottage behind the hedgerows would undoubtedly be charming. But now, with the spooky haze enshrouding the grounds and the wind whistling through the branches of barren tress, the vacated old homestead looked just plain haunted.

And not,
Arianna finished the thought sadly,
with Da’s comforting presence either.

“Arianna?”

Just deal with it
, she ordered herself. Putting on a brave face, she turned to Caleb. “No, it’ll be fine once I get the house opened up, the lights on.”

“Right, so. Let me grab a torch so we can find our way inside.”

Forcing her aching limbs to move, Arianna climbed out of the SUV. Making her way along the uneven flagstone path leading to the front door, she felt around in her wallet for the key that Da had given her. At the door, she slid the key into the lock and turned it.

It wouldn’t budge.

She bit her lip and frowned. She had been so sure the key would fit the door of the house her father had bequeathed her.

Her hand trembled and knocked the key from the lock. It landed with a ping on the cement stoop at her feet. Caleb scooped it up and fitted it back into the lock. With a minimum of jiggling, the tumblers turned and he pushed the door open. “Lock was banjaxed from disuse is all.”

“Thanks.” Her feet glued to the raised front step, Arianna stared into the yawning black maw of a life she couldn’t remember.

With a gentle squeeze to her upper arm, Caleb slipped around her. His flashlight sliced a path through the inky darkness of a small sitting room. The eclectic scatter of furnishings felt familiar somehow. There were several dark wood tables and bookshelves, a walnut Canterbury, and a sofa with anthemion-carved legs and fluted arms. Two tufted easy chairs sat in front of a gray stone fireplace occupying the far wall. Bud vases, small ornaments and sundry knick-knacks were scattered here and there, making the house a home.

Arianna stepped into the living room. She reached out with her sixth sense, trying to pick up on the remnants of any energy that might have been left behind by the former inhabitants. She was seeking a feeling of recognition, of homecoming, some sense of the young family who had once lived here.

Feeling detached, as if she were standing outside herself, she watched Caleb cross the room toward a mahogany drum table in the far corner. He reached beneath the six-sided shade of an owl lamp and a soft, amber glow trickled across the room.

Ariana found her gaze fixed upon that golden orb as it began to pulsate. Growing brighter and brighter, it became a shimmering wave of evanescent light, reaching and expanding, moving toward her, caressing and encompassing her unmoving form, until it had blotted out everything around her.

Caleb, the furniture, the musty family room…the entire scene in front of her first began to tremble, then dissolved before her eyes. Head spinning, Arianna covered her face with her hands to try to regain her equilibrium.

When she opened them again…

* * *

The golden glow began to diminish, to twitch and flicker, fold in upon itself layer by layer, until all the light extinguished except for that emanating from the fireplace. A burning chunk of wood falling through the metal grate startled Arianna. As she watched the tiny orange sparks scatter like fairie dust she shook her head in confusion. When they had entered the room only seconds before, the hearth had been cold and blackened with soot.

The vision expanded and Arianna felt her heart wrench at the unexpected sight: it was her father stretched out on his belly on a Blue Qum rug in front of the fire. Another ghostly apparition? she wondered, taking a step toward him. She tried to call out to him, but discovered she couldn’t make a sound.

A clanging of pots and pans drew her attention to the adjacent kitchen. The sound awakened her olfactory senses, the smell of soda bread and scones wafting in the air.

A sudden movement on the staircase caught her eye. A tow-headed little girl in a flowered dress climbed off the bottom stair and toddled toward the fireplace, her right arm in a stranglehold around the neck of a doll nearly as big as she was.

Her cherub face lit up as she squatted beside Da. “Get up, Daddy.” Rosebud lips pursed in consternation at his lack of response. The doll tossed aside and forgotten, she scrambled onto Da’s broad back. Straddling him, she leaned over one shoulder, and tried to pry one of his eyelids open and peek inside.

A slight smile lighted on Arianna’s mouth. Her father used to play the same game with her when she was small, and she knew exactly what would happen next.

Her eyes fixed on her father, she watched his lips twitch, then he began to snore. Loud racking snorts startled the wee tyke so much that she sat down hard, plop on her backside. Brows wrinkled, lips pushed into a perplexed pout, the child heaved a long-suffering sigh, before quickly settling on a different tact.

Tiny arms around his neck, she placed her mouth to his ear. “Play, Da.” When that too failed to elicit a response, she placed her hands on his forehead. Grunting, she tugged with all her might, trying to lever his head off his arms.

A ferocious roar bellowed from her father’s mouth and, although Arianna had known it was coming, her heart lurched in unison with the child’s delighted shriek. Oh, no! She’d woken up the tickle monster! In one smooth move, Da reached over his shoulder and tumbled the little one onto the hearthrug in front of him. With snarls and various animal noises, he rubbed her ticklish belly with a whiskery chin, inciting a riot of breathless giggles and squeals for Mam.

The kitchen door swung open and Arianna’s breath caught in her throat. Standing in the doorway, with an aura of golden light spilling all around her, was undoubtedly the most enchanting vision Arianna had ever seen in her life. The woman’s slender hands coated with white flour, she used her dainty wrist to push pale strands of silvery blonde hair away from her face. A face stolen from the angels, Arianna mused, as she gazed into piercing blue eyes that were a mirror image of the child’s…

Of Arianna’s.

* * *

Then, like sand through an hourglass, the scene dissolved before her, leaving Arianna staring dully at the kitchen door. Weird. It had been like stepping through a time warp, the vision awakening her first conscious memory of her mother.

She met Caleb’s gaze. Standing in front of the cold, dark hearth, he was watching her, eyes dark with concern. “What’s the story, Arianna? You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.”

She swallowed a hysterical giggle. “Nope, no ghosts.”
Not this time.
“It’s just the memories…memories I never knew I had. You know, I was so young when I left.”

“Ah.…”

“Yeah. Everything is exactly the way it was when we left…almost twenty-five years ago.”

“We’ll go then, will we?” Caleb suggested again. “’Twill seem a lot less off-putting in full daylight.”

“No, I’m okay now.” A skeptical brow shot up. “Really, I am. I’m fine. Would you do me a favor though, and get my luggage? I’d like to walk through the house.”

After he had left the room, Arianna peeked through a door on the wall beneath the staircase. Discovering a tiny half-bath, she made quick use of the facility. Her tour of the house revealed that the downstairs comprised only two rooms: the living room and an eat-in kitchen with a gas-burning stove and a compact refrigerator. Checking the pantry, she found the shelves stocked with various food staples, as the property manager had promised.

Crammed into a tiny alcove behind a set of white folding doors was a small washer. Washer
and
dryer? The label on the front panel said the one machine did both. Missing were a dishwasher, a microwave—and half a fridge.

Caleb banged back through the front door and set the suitcases down on the knotty pine floor with a quiet thump. As Arianna headed toward the living room, she saw he was on his cell phone. As she was stepping back to give him some privacy, she overheard part of his conversation.

Reality struck like a punch to the gut.

“I was after finding her earlier tonight,” he was saying, his voice in a low, guarded tone. “She’s a wild one, so she is. Bloody-minded and high-spirited as hell.” He stopped to listen. “Sure, we’ll be having to trank her, at least in the beginning.” Again, he paused. “I’ll not be turning her over to you straight away, mate. After the challenge she presented tonight, I’ll fancy gentling this one myself.”

Steeling herself against the doorjamb, Arianna swore softly. “Girl, you are so screwed.”

There was only one explanation for what she had heard. The man was a white-slave trader, a peddler of human flesh. A nocturnal predator scouring the highways and byways for hapless women to sell as sex slaves. A niggling question wriggled its way to the surface. Why had he been grilling her for personal information? Showing more than a casual interest in whether anyone here was expecting her tonight? The implication—that if no one was, there was no one to report her missing—had her stomach doing back-flips.

The offhanded remark about the highwayman made so much sense now. The low, throaty chuckle that had followed it took on new and sinister undertones.

Unaware of her presence, Caleb stood facing the fireplace, studying the family photographs set in antique frames along the mantle. Every now and then, he grunted something non-committal into the phone.

Before Arianna could map out an escape route, he was saying goodbye and turning toward her. “There you are, so.”
Said the spider to the fly.

He started toward her, all loose-limbed and predatory male. His hands lowered to his belt.
Reaching for his zipper?
Relief washed over her as he proceeded to slip his android into his front pocket. Her eyes lingered, fixed in morbid fascination on the telltale bulge, on the threat against her encased in black denim. Two full seconds passed before she registered the focal point of her gaze. Good God, she was
gawking
at the front of the man’s jeans! Knowing he would have misinterpreted the stare as a blatant come-on, she prayed he hadn’t noticed.

Face flaming like a niacin flush, she jerked her gaze back to his.
Busted
. She knew it by the flare of his nostrils. By the size of his pupils, so dilated she could barely see the exotic green of his eyes. The look he was giving her was overtly sexual.
Uncivilized.
The look of a jungle cat stalking its mate.

Against her will, she could feel herself responding to his heat, her heart regulating itself to beat in time with his. Her body was melting, softening, as if she were running on instinct, hearkening to the call of the wild.

“Are you needing something else from me tonight,
cailín
?” He posed the question, voice low and seductive.

She swallowed. “No, I’m… um…” Okay, so she had to have misunderstood his conversation. After all, if he were a violent rapist, he wouldn’t be bothered with seduction, now would he? He would have already made his move. And besides, hadn’t Da always warned her about her tendency to jump to conclusions?

Forcing a false lightness into her tone, she changed the subject. “I…I was just coming to ask if you’d like something to drink.”

“First things first,” he replied. “If you’ll lead the way to your bedroom, I’ll....”

Arianna made a strangled sound. “My-my bedroom?”

Caleb cut her a strange look. “Is that not where you’d have me carry your bags?”

“Oh...
Oh.
Yes, of course. Thanks. Bedrooms have to be upstairs, so go on up. And while you’re doing that, I’ll pop into the kitchen and make you a cup of tea. I’d offer you coffee, but Mr. Kavanagh...do you know Mr. Kavanagh from the estate agents office...? Well, he stocked some supplies in for me, but forgot a coffee maker. There’s a box of little cakes, though...Java or Jaffa or something like that. They don’t have them in the States, but they look quite nice so I’ll— ”