Spirited Away (40 page)
And waited.
Meanwhile, this guy she didn't even know—Gawan Conwyk—paced with his hands clasped behind his back and his dark brows drawn close, as though he were in deep, deep thought.
Somehow, she felt as though she were in deep, deep doo-doo.
Gawan stopped, grabbed a straight-backed chair, pulled it up, and sat across from her. He leaned forward, his muscles pulling his shirt taut. "What do you recall about last night? When I found you?"
Ellie thought about it. And thought some more. Was it just last night? It seemed a lot longer than that. "I remember being wet and sitting on the road." She focused. "Wet and cold. Lights, I think.
Really bright ones, and then ..." She looked at Gawan. "You. I only remember you." She took a hearty breath in and studied the room. "I remember getting into your truck, then coming here." She snapped her fingers. "I remember Nicklesby."
A smile lifted the corner of Gawan's mouth. Cute smile, she thought. Cute and ... comforting. Nice lips.
Really
nice lips.
"Nicklesby leaves a grand impression on everyone, I'll warrant." He gave a stern look. "Do you know how you came to be in the lane?"
The lane. How
did
she end up on the lane? For that matter, how'd she end up in the north of England? "I just can't remember."
" 'Tis fine, girl." He studied her, those deep brown eyes boring into her as if he could will the information from her brain. She wished he could.
"Can you recall your family? Do you have siblings? Your mother and sire, mayhap?"
Ellie thought hard. Certainly a normal person would remember their own family? She closed her eyes, thinking for some stupid reason it would help her concentrate. Maybe help her focus better.
Sire? Who said sire anymore?
Then it came. First pitch-blackness, then a flash of light. Yellowed light, foggy and dim. It illuminated a scene, almost as though she watched an old movie. It faded just as fast as it had appeared.
"What is it?"
Ellie opened her eyes and stared at Gawan. "Not much. A young girl, maybe eight or nine years old, sitting on a wooden dock."
Gawan cocked his head. "A wooden dock?"
Ellie nodded. "Yeah. A dock floating over the water. Maybe a river?" She recalled the scene again.
"I think it was me."
"Nothing more?" he asked, his voice calm, soothing.
"No."
Gawan frowned, scratched his jaw, then sighed. "I've something to tell you that may frighten you, but there's no sense in putting the matter off." He reached out a hand, large and callused, she noticed, with thick veins, and squeezed her own hand. "I beg you, don't be afraid."
The pit of Ellie's stomach lurched. "What?"
He inhaled a deep breath, then released it. "I suppose I should have told you from the first, but you kept disappearing." He shifted in his chair. "I have a rather ... unconventional occupation."
She stared. What did his occupation have to do with her situation? Certainly, he had a good reason.
"So ... what is it?"
Those soulful brown eyes rimmed by dark lashes blinked; then Gawan leaned closer. His soapy scent wafted toward her nose. "I sort of ... see the unliving."
Silence.
Without moving her head, Ellie glanced around. She scanned each corner of the expansive room, looking for a hidden camera, or who-knew-what, then locked eyes with Gawan.
"You what?" she asked. She scooted closer to the edge of her seat.
He shoved a hand through his hair. "I know it sounds ridiculous, unfathomable, mayhap, but 'tis the truth. I vow it." He cleared his throat. "I see"—he coughed—"spirits."
Ellie peeked over the very broad shoulder of Gawan Conwyk and eyed the door. The one she'd be going out of at any second. Good Lord, how could someone
that
cute be
that
delusional? Oh, his poor mother.
"Ellie?"
Her eyes darted back to Gawan, who had the look of a wounded puppy. Too bad. Didn't matter how cute and sexy he was—he had
issues.
Major ones. Ones she felt sure she couldn't help him with.
And here she sat ... in his bedroom—trapped! Poor guy. Almost made her own situation seem trivial. Her muscles bunched as she got ready to make a break for the door—
"She's going to bolt!" a gravelly voice barked from behind the large oak door. "Grab her!"
"Hush, Sir Godfrey! You'll frighten the poor lamb—"
"Move over, woman! I cannot see a bloody thing—"
Ellie froze in her tracks as two ... images? ... sifted through the closed door. She blinked, rubbed her eyes with her knuckles, and stared.
A strange word grumbled from Gawan's throat. Ellie suspected it wasn't nice.
The images—a man and a woman, slightly transparent and wispy and looking as though they'd stepped out of another century—slowly erected themselves. The woman covered her red lips with two fingers and gasped. The man coughed.
The woman had a big bird on her head.
"Now, Ellie," Gawan said. His voice, while deep and a bit raspy, resonated in a low, soothing tone.
Sexy, she'd think, if the situation wasn't so damn bizarre-o. "Mayhap you should sit? Come." He touched her elbow. "Sit back down. I'll explain—"
Ellie looked at the man and woman, who simply stood stiff and stared back at her. Blinking.
They'd just stumbled through a closed, solid-oak door.
That just wasn't possible.
She slid a glance at Gawan—whose eyes pleaded with her to do ... something. Sit? No, she couldn't sit. Definitely not sit. Run, maybe. How she loathed being a coward, though. What else was she to do? Gawan claimed to see ghosts, for God's sake, and then ...
She chanced another peek at the two by the door. The woman with the big bird on her head gave a sheepish grin and a hesitant wave. The man just frowned.
She could nearly see through both of them.
She
could see them?
Ellie closed her eyes and squeezed her temples. "Not real. Not real. Not re-al—"
"What in heavens!" Nicklesby—who reminded Ellie of an older version of Ichabod Crane but dressed in a long, striped sleeping gown and a hat—stormed through the door ... and right through the bird lady and the man.
"Beg pardon," Nicklesby threw over his shoulder. Then he scowled at Gawan and made a beeline for Ellie.
"My dear," he cooed, grasping her hand and giving it a gentle pat, " 'tis all right." He tugged her gently. "Come away from this chamber of madness and let me settle you into another." He scowled at everyone in the room. "One where you may gain a spot of peace."
Ellie's mind whirled, but she focused in and studied Nicklesby. He felt ... safe. Maybe a blend of Ichabod Crane and Ebenezer Scrooge. Yeah, that was it—especially in his old-fashioned nightclothes. And that silly long hat. But if he thought she was about to bunk
here
for the night, he was crazy, too ...
Gawan gave a hearty sigh and shoved a hand through his hair. "Nicklesby, let me. I'll settle her just as comfortably as yourself, I vow it."
The two by the door stared on, watching the exchange, but remained silent. Maybe they couldn't speak? No, they'd certainly spoken earlier. Or was that her imagination?
In a way, it all struck her as pretty hilarious. She couldn't recall her own name, or where she was even from, but she felt pretty sure she'd never had two guys—even if one did look like Ichabod Scrooge—fight over who would do the honors of
settling
her into bed. Ha, ha! Ho, ho! What a riot!
In a swirl of mist her mind drifted, away from the room with all its strange people. Nicklesby's hand remained on her elbow, so she knew she hadn't left. Very, very bizarre.
Who
was
she? And how in the heck had she ended up in northern England? God, her brain hurt from all the deep, heavy thinking she'd been doing. And none of it had helped.
Except for the small, fragmented flashes she'd had. But they'd been too quick for her to make any sense of them. So far, they'd all been nothing more than miniature scenes of who she could only assume was herself, either sitting on a wide, shady front porch with big, wispy ferns, or a sunny floating dock on the salt marsh—always alone. And none of it meant anything to her. Could be, it wasn't her at all. Then who?
And this guy—Gawan. Even in the midst of her weird situation, she couldn't help but be drawn to him. Silent yet strong, emanating a sense of security and power unlike anything she'd ever experienced—save the small fact that he claimed to see dead people. His voice, while a bit raspy, wasn't too deep, definitely not too high, but just right. Calming, even. And that strange Welsh accent made it all the more intriguing, not to mention he was cute as hell.
Wait—how did she know she'd never experienced anything like that? She couldn't even remember her own name, or where she'd bought the clothes she had on, or jeez—she didn't even remember getting on a 747 and jetting across the Pond.
Gawan claimed to see spirits. And she could see them, too.
The headache started to return.
As did the voices ...
"Honestly, Godfrey, I can handle this—wait, she's coming back round." Gawan leaned close to her.
"Ellie? Are you well?"
Ellie blinked and focused on the handsome face of Gawan Conwyk. His soft, fathomless—ancient?
—eyes studied her. "Are you?" he said. "Okay?"
Godfrey? Who was Godfrey?
Again, Ellie scanned the room. The man and woman had moved closer, now only a few feet away and curiously studying her. Nicklesby had stepped back, and Gawan had taken his place at her elbow. Everyone seemed genuinely concerned over her well-being. So why did it all seem so ...
surreal?
"Do not worry overmuch, Ellie," Gawan said, his voice low. " 'Twill be easier deciphered come the morn—"
It was at that exact moment—the one where she'd
almost
felt a little calm—when a figure burst through the thick stone wall. A child—a young boy, rather, maybe nine or ten years old—dressed in dark knickers and socks, scruffy ankle-high boots, and a long-sleeved white shirt with dark suspenders, came hurtling toward her. He pulled up short just a few inches away, out of breath. He, too, was nearly transparent.
Not only that, but the outfit he wore made him look like a paperboy announcing the sinking of the
Titanic.
He stared hard, and then his nose screwed up and he cocked his head. "Blimey, she doesn't look much like she's dead," he said in a thick, nearly incoherent British accent. He leaned close. "Sir Godfrey, I thought you said she was dead."
The man, Godfrey, coughed.
"Oy, young Davy," Nicklesby said. "Be you quiet!"
Ellie blinked. Too much weird stuff was happening, and cowardly or not, she figured the best thing to do would be to Run Like Hell.
Dead?
"She's going to bolt!" Godfrey cried.
Just as she bolted.
Jerking out of Gawan's grasp, Ellie ran—straight through young Davy, slammed into the very narrow and bony shoulder of poor Nicklesby, then right through the flimsy forms of Godfrey and the bird lady ... and straight out the door.
Down the passageway she flew, the hiss of gaslights throwing a pale yellow streak over the stone, reminding her of an old Frankenstein movie. She'd watched that before, right? Good Lord, at least she remembered something.
Down the winding stairs and across the oversized great room, Ellie dashed for the double front doors, voices arguing and seemingly right on her heels. Her heart thumped in her chest and her lungs burned, but by God, she was leaving this madhouse—cute guy or not.
Then her body grew light and wispy, and an eerie feeling of her feet not actually touching the ground stole over her. Her vision became very, very blurry.
Gawan called to her, above the ruckus of the others as they quibbled and argued over ... something, but his voice began to fade, as well.
All just before her body sifted through those thick, ancient double doors ...
... and vanished.
Spirited Away
Copyright © Cindy Homberger, 2007
ISBN: 978-0451221452
SIGNET ECLIPSE
First Printing, May 2007
