In the Land of Tea and Ravens (2 page)

Eyes seemed to watch Grayson as he drove away, the feel of it heavy and warm on his back. The South, no matter what generation, was steeped in mystery, superstition, and folklore. As outrageous as it sounded, especially with the loud droning ATV, Grayson could have sworn he heard the rocking chair behind him.
Back and forth.
Back and forth.
Creak,
the chair said.
Creak
.

~2~

The poor merchant was in a desperate state. His only hope was in marrying his daughters to rich men. It so happened that the king of the realm was looking for a wife …

~The Tea Girl~

Grayson Kramer tugged his shirt over his head, leaving his muscled chest bare and facing a mirror hanging above a mahogany vanity. It had been a long day, the haying in the fields beyond his grandfather’s house having taken longer than they expected.

Reaching back, he rubbed his shoulders wearily, his gaze going to his bedroom window, to the way the warm night breeze blew lace curtains against whitewashed wood. The sun hadn’t completely set, leaving a trail of gold sitting between the earth and the dark sky above. There were no clouds. Stars sparkled, a moon that wasn’t quite full but also nowhere near crescent hanging just above the gold.

His bedroom door creaked.

“You’ll be
eat
up by bugs if you don’t close that window,” his grandmother’s voice chided.

Grayson’s gaze swung back to the mirror. Blue eyes stared back at him, his tanned torso lined by scars. His grandmother, Mildred Kramer, stood beside him, her gaze meeting his in the glass. She was a short woman, his grandmother, with silver hair and a face lined by stories. She squinted at him through a pair of dark-rimmed glasses, her blue eyes so similar
to his own
.

Her gaze traced the scar that ran from his collarbone to just below his breast. “How long you plan on
hidin
’ out here?” she asked him.

There was no pity in her voice, nothing except blunt curiosity.

Grayson’s gaze dropped, his fingers pulling hastily on one of the vanity’s drawers before drawing out an old black T-shirt.

He tugged it on. “I’m not hiding.”

Mildred snorted.
“Can’t lie to a woman who has mothered six children, boy.
That ship sailed long ago.”

Grayson’s lips twitched, but he didn’t answer.

Mildred’s hand found his shoulder. “You made a mistake, and you paid for it. You’ve got to quit
punishin
’ yourself.”

His jaw clenched, his gaze going back to the window. Across the overgrown fields edging their property, the old Miller house sat like an eerie sentinel, the gold blush behind it highlighting the decaying wood.

Moving to the casement, Grayson pulled the curtain aside, his back tensing as his gaze searched the night. The Miller house distracted him, his body drawn to it. It was a magnetic pull that made the scar on his chest throb.

He glanced at his grandmother. “There was a young woman on the Miller property today. Freddie says maybe a granddaughter of the woman who lived there?”

Mildred
tensed,
her chin lifting. “Mayhap she won’t come back. It’d be best if she didn’t.”

Grayson hadn’t expected that response, especially from his grandmother.

He watched her. “You know her then? I’ve never known you to be callous.”

She avoided his gaze. “They’re trouble.” Her gaze found the window and then dropped again. “The whole lot of ‘‘
em
are
trouble.” She stared hard at Grayson. “You stay away from them, you hear? You stay away. They’ll strip your soul bare and leave you to the devil.”

Grayson frowned.
“They?”

Mildred’s lips went white.
“The females in that family.
All of them.
They’re
nothin
’ but trouble.”

She walked out of the room then, leaving Grayson staring after her. Mildred’s shoulders slumped as she made her way down the stairs just beyond his door. There were secrets there, secrets that weighed her down.

Grayson’s gaze strayed once more to the window. The night had swallowed the house beyond the field, the darkness having eaten the gold dusk. Crickets and frogs sang, their song so loud it drowned out the silence. A breeze heavy with honeysuckle and magnolia tickled his nose and made humid condensation dance on his skin. Fireflies pricked the blackness beyond, their glow quick and fleeting.

The night was too much for Grayson. It would forever be too much. It would forever be filled with images he’d never be able to forget, pain he’d never be able to let go of.

He was about to turn away from the window when a sudden light winked at him.

Gripping the casement frame, he leaned forward with his eyes narrowed.

Again, the light winked at him, a flickering brightness that floated through the Miller house across the way.

He froze.

Ghosts
, he thought.
Surely not.

The light climbed to the house’s second story, its radiance jumping from window to window until it paused directly across from him. In its luminosity, he caught a glimpse of a figure.

Grayson Kramer didn’t believe in ghosts.

Grabbing a pistol he kept tucked in the bedroom
closet,
he shoved it into the waistband of his jeans and made his way down the stairs. His grandparents were talking quietly in the kitchen beyond, the sound of dice falling to the table loud in the stillness. The distant droning of Wheel of Fortune played from a small television set they kept on the kitchen counter, the sound of the wheel spinning followed by wild clapping. Mildred and John Kramer had been playing
Yahtzee
and watching the game show every night for as long as he could remember.

Sneaking out the front, Grayson stood on the porch, doubt beginning to crowd him. He was often too impulsive, making rash decisions that frequently ended in disaster.

Like a moth to a flame, the light beyond the field drew him forward.

Curiosity belongs to the damned.

His booted feet found the grass beyond the porch, fireflies and mosquitoes circling him as he clomped across a worn path through the trees to the side of the field. It was even darker in the woods than it had been in the open, but Grayson wasn’t afraid of the dark. He was afraid of dreaming.

Like a moth to a flame, the light beyond the field drew him ever forward.

He was standing before the old Miller house before he’d even had time to consider the consequences.

In the darkness, he heard singing, a smooth second soprano that wrapped him in warmth.

Sing to me, called the maid.

Smile for me, replied the raven.

But I cannot smile, the maid wept.

Then I cannot sing, the raven replied.

To the sky, to the mountain, to the sea.

The bird
flew
.

To the planes, to the future, to the past.

The maid withdrew …

Grayson’s foot touched the first porch step, and the singing ground to a halt. Through the broken windows, a light bounced frantically, throwing shadows against fabric-covered furniture and decaying vegetation.

It was a candle. The light was a candle.

“Who are you?” Grayson called.

There was no response.

Grayson Kramer didn’t believe in ghosts.

He climbed another step. Something within the house shattered.

“I’m armed!” Grayson cried. He pulled the pistol clear of his jeans, his thumb going to the safety.

The light within the house froze, and then extinguished.

Grayson clicked off the safety. “Show yourself and I won’t hurt you.”

For a long moment, there was nothing except silence … silence and crickets and frogs.

The light returned, glowing suddenly only a few feet in front of him, the flickering flame highlighting a face within the house’s open front door.

It was disconcerting, the swift illumination, and Grayson stumbled backward, his gun rising with his finger hovering just above the trigger.

Hazel eyes stared at him.
Hazel,
familiar
eyes.
Doe-like, soulful eyes.

The gun lowered. “What are you doing?” Grayson breathed.

His voice was no more than a whisper, his gaze crashing with hers. Her hair was curly tonight, dark and alive around her visage, making her face appear so much smaller than it had earlier in the day. Her eyes made up most of her countenance. They were large, bottomless eyes.

She stared. “This is my family’s home,” she answered, also in a whisper.

Grayson clicked the safety on his pistol before stuffing it back into the waistband of his jeans. “It’s dark,” he said, his voice rising, “and this house isn’t safe.”

Lyric Mason stepped from the shadows, her shaking hand lowering the candle she carried before setting it on the table beside the rocking chair on the porch. Other than the small flickering flame from the wick, there was nothing except darkness. It cloaked them.

 
“Safe or no, I have every right to be here,” Lyric said firmly. She swallowed hard, her fist clenching.

Grayson studied her. The shadows hid too much, but it didn’t hide the sadness that lined her forehead, the grief that pulled at her lips. It tugged at him. There was something familiar about the way she carried herself.

Lyric’s gaze rose, her eyes finding Grayson’s. “You’re trespassing,” she muttered.

He glanced over his shoulder at the lit up house across the field before turning back to her, his gaze raking her flame-hued figure. The light from the candle seemed to dance in her pupils.

“I’m beginning to think you
are
a ghost,” he said, his gaze flicking to the candle. “No one carries those anymore.” He gestured at the house behind her. “Wouldn’t a flashlight work better?”

Her lips tightened. “It might.”

It was all she said. Maybe it was the location that made the girl more intriguing, a decaying home in the middle of the night cloaked in candlelight. Maybe it was her silence, this reluctance to explain
herself
. Or maybe it was simply the girl herself, her wild hair, sad, stubborn eyes, and enchanting voice, but he was intrigued.

“You’re trespassing,” she repeated.

Grayson flung his arms wide. “Then make me leave.”

The challenge hung heavy between them.

Lyric gripped the top of the peeling rocking chair, her hands curled around the wood and her jaw clenched.

The man really was handsome, in a misguided, ruffled kind of way. He had the kind of solid, broad build that came from labor, his skin darkened by lengthy exposure to the sun. But it was his eyes that captured her attention. There was a story there, one she couldn’t risk getting involved in.

Bending low to blow out the candle, she whispered, “I was just going.”

A hand stopped her, a strong hand with long fingers that fell between her and the burning wick. His other hand gripped her wrist.

“What are you doing here?” he asked. “A girl carrying a candle through a house in the middle of the night isn’t here because her family owns the place. This house was foreclosed a long time ago. I’m not the only one trespassing.”