The Curse (Seacliff High Mystery Book 2) (15 page)

“I guess we’ll cross that road if and when we reach it. I really like your friends. More importantly, I trust them. Maybe one day we’ll have to tell them everything. Let’s just make an effort to be more careful and see how it goes.”

“Okay.” Alyson held her mom’s hand from across the table. “I know this has been hard on you too. It must be really difficult keeping up appearances with Blake. It seems like you’re getting pretty close.”

“Not really. I mean, I enjoy his company and we have a lot in common, but there’s really no spark, if you know what I mean.”

“Yeah, I do.”

“I think Blake wants more out of our relationship than I do. I’m thinking about having one of those I-like-you-as-a-friend talks with him. I really don’t want to hurt him, but I think it’s best to tell him up front that our relationship really isn’t going anywhere.”

“I think you’re right.” Alyson wished her mom could find someone she could have a spark with. The break with her dad must have been hard. Her mom never really said much about her feelings, but it had to have hurt that he hadn’t chosen them.

Alyson got up from the table, then walked around to hug her mom from behind. “Thanks again for all your help. I have an errand to do before the hayride. I won’t be long.”

Alyson loaded Tucker in the back of the Jeep, then headed toward town. She doubted the occult shop was open on Saturday, but she had the feeling Chan might be the only one who could help her with her stalker. She knew Trevor and Mac didn’t really believe she had one. Maybe they were right. Her nerves had been a bit frayed the past few days.

Alyson turned the doorknob to the shop and let out a breath when it opened easily. “Chan,” she called.

“Amanda, how are you?” he called from the loft above.

“It’s Alyson.”

“Of course. What can I help you with? Did you find your friends?”

“Yes, and thank you for your help. There’ve been some strange things happening the past couple of days. I could really use your help again.”

“Sit down. I’ll make us some tea.”

Alyson sipped her tea and told him what had happened recently, about finding the body and the necklace and the mysterious girl. She told him about Andrea’s attack and the strange events at the farm the night before. And last but not least, she told him about the man who seemed to be stalking her.

“Interesting.”

“That’s it? Just interesting?”

“Tell me more about the girl. The one who led you to your friends.”

Alyson described her in as much detail as she could. She talked about how she seemed to mysteriously appear and disappear at key times.

“May I see your pendant?”

Alyson removed the necklace she still wore and handed it to the insightful man. He held it in his hand and closed his eyes. His fingers gently caressed the aged gold pendant as he concentrated. He moved his index finger slowly over the inscription on the back.

“I think I have your answers.”

Alyson and Devon had dressed up as ghosts from Cutter’s Cove’s past. Alyson wore a vintage dress that looked to be from sometime around the turn of the century, from the clothes they had found in her attic the previous month. It was a long, off-white dress with a lace overlay, tight lace sleeves that became wider at her hands and dusted her knuckles at the top of her fingers, and tiny pearl buttons that hooked through satin buttonholes up her back from her waist to her neck. She arranged her hair in an old-fashioned chignon and dusted her face with white powder to give herself a ghostly complexion. The pendant she had found rested prominently on her chest.

Devon was wearing an old-fashioned black tuxedo with black leather shoes. He’d used extra hair gel and combed his blond hair flat against his head and used some of Alyson’s powder to give himself the same ghostly appearance. After applying a little dark eye shadow under their eyes for added effect, they used a light-colored foundation stick to lighten their lips. They looked like the perfect upper-class society couple who had been dead for over a hundred years.

Trevor had dressed as a suave and debonair James Bond with an ax in his back. Eli wore the pirate costume he’d bought at the costume shop, and Mac was his female captive in a long vintage dress that had belonged to the Cutter family. In true Mac fashion, she’d added a few ghoulish props to her eighteenth-century maiden, including an eyeball that dangled from its socket and a large gash across her forehead that made it appear her head had been split open.

The hay wagons were being loaded as they arrived at the dark trail that would take them to the Thomases’ barn. Alyson and Devon sat on bales of hay facing Trevor, Mac, and Eli.

“Isn’t Chelsea coming?” Alyson asked.

“She’s already here. She volunteered to help Caleb set up for the party because he was so shorthanded.”

“It seems like there might be something going on between Caleb and Chelsea. Are you okay with that?” Alyson asked Trevor.

“Sure, why not? Chelsea and I are just friends. Besides, Caleb’s not really her type. It’ll never last.”

“I don’t know. Caleb might not be athletic or particularly good-looking, but he’s the richest guy in town now.”

“Yeah, but Chelsea likes flashy. She may be dreaming of diamonds and foreign sports cars, but I don’t think Caleb’s into all that stuff. I mean, he’s had access to at least part of his money for weeks now and he hasn’t even bought a car or gotten a cell phone. Chelsea will get bored with him once she realizes having riches doesn’t necessarily mean living like a millionaire.”

“I guess you have a point. I can’t see Caleb driving expensive cars or buying fabulous presents.”

“Everyone, remain seated throughout the ride,” the driver of the lead hay wagon directed through a megaphone. “Each wagon has been equipped with its own taped narration that will coincide with its location along the road. The wagons will be leaving at five-minute intervals so you’ll have the effect of being in the haunted hills alone. No one may get off at any point along the way. We ask that everyone behave appropriately so that all passengers can enjoy the ride. Once everyone has been delivered to the barn, the wagons will be available to take people back to their cars as needed. If you don’t plan to stay for the party, line up near the headless scarecrow at the front of the barn and a driver will bring you back to the parking area. Are there any questions?”

He paused to see if anyone would reply. “Okay; the first wagon will be leaving now. Please remain seated and be patient waiting for your turn.” The driver sat down and flicked the reins attached to the two horses at the front of the wagon.

“It shouldn’t be long.” Mac cuddled up next to Eli.

“No, it shouldn’t.” Alyson rubbed the pendant at her throat.

“We were lucky to get in the second wagon. Some of the ones farther back filled up before this one did,” Trevor said.

After several minutes the driver of their wagon clicked on the prerecorded tape and set the wagon in motion.

One hundred years ago on this very night, a group of gypsies traveled these hills in search of a new home, away from the persecution they had suffered at the hands of the other settlers.

Whoever had narrated the tape had done a perfect job of bringing just the right hint of spooky anticipation to his voice. The night sky had turned dark and the silhouettes of the trees on the hillsides rising up from both sides of the canyon road looked like giant creatures with their arms raised toward the sky. Alyson snuggled closer to Devon as the wagon crossed the wooden bridge and then continued its ascent along the winding road into the narrow canyon.

They set up camp in the clearing just ahead on your right. As they built their fires and cooked their evening meal, they had no way of knowing that many of the tight-knit clan would perish before the next sunrise.

In the clearing on the right side of the winding road several covered wagons formed a semicircle around a crackling fire. Giant spotlights were set about strategically to display mannequins dressed in the traditional costumes of nineteenth-century gypsy families. There were mothers cooking by the fire, men engaged in a game of cards, and children playing under the watchful eye of their parents. The music, which seemed to be coming from inside one of the wagons, was traditional gypsy folk songs.

“Wow, Caleb really did a good job with the costumes,” Mac whispered.

As the wagon slowly made its way past the gypsy campsite and around a bend in the road, the tape continued.

It just so happened that on that fateful night, a group of settlers heading toward a new life up north were camped just down the road from the gypsies. Although the group included several families, many of the traveling party were young men who had fled the confines of eastern propriety for a life in the west that promised a rugged, less civilized existence.

As the wagon curved its way into the valley, a campsite much like the gypsy one was depicted on the right. There were several families with small children crowded around a blazing fire, and a group of young men hooting and hollering and holding jugs that appeared to be filled with alcohol.

As fate would have it, two of the canyon’s visitors, one from the gypsy camp and one from the settlers’, were destined to meet: a beautiful young gypsy girl, the favorite of her clan, and a randy young man with a dangerous plan.

As the wagon crept along the dark trail, Alyson anxiously waited for the next scene to unfold along the trail ahead. Devon wrapped his arm around her shoulders as she snuggled closer to his side. Across the wagon, Mac was whispering something in Eli’s ear, and Trevor had started a quiet conversation with the cute blonde on his left.

The gypsy girl had wandered too far from her camp as the night sky turned black. She became lost and disoriented as the canyon walls grew steeper, blocking out the light from the moon above. Gypsy training had taught her to read the stars in order to find direction, so she found a spot where she could climb high onto the hillside where the night sky would be clearer. As she climbed the hill, she noticed a fire in the distance. Assuming it was the one from her own clan, she headed in the direction of the light.

The next scene showed a young gypsy girl dressed all in white looking into the night sky. The way the light reflected on her dress made her seem almost ethereal.

At the same time one of the young men from the wagon train was out for a moonlight stroll. He had been drinking heavily, and when he saw the vision in white he thought he was seeing a beautiful ghost. Alcohol clouded the young man’s judgment, and before the fire of the neighboring camp had burned down, he had raped and strangled the beautiful vision.

The next scene simply showed the dead body of the beautiful gypsy girl, lying among the long blades of brown fall grass.

Once the gypsies realized that the girl was missing they sent out a search party made up of the bravest and strongest men of the clan. When they found her lifeless body the men were outraged and promised vengeance against whoever had done this horrible thing to her. The men searched the canyon and found the camp of the traveling settlers.

“One among you has taken from us the life of one of our daughters. For this we demand the life of the one who forever extinguished her light from our lives,” the leader of the group loudly announced upon entering the camp.

The next scene showed the settlers’ camp with the addition of several gypsy men, one of whom held the lifeless body of the beautiful girl before him.

The group of settlers refused to turn the young man who had committed the heinous crime over to the gypsies to face certain death. The gypsies, in their anger and grief, promised to bring down a curse on all the members of the traveling party if the guilty person was not brought to their camp for judgment by sunrise. The gypsies returned to their camp to bury their favorite daughter.

The young men of the settlers’ camp decided to take matters into their own hands and kill the gypsy men before the curse could be cast. They gathered together all their weapons and raided the gypsy camp, killing all the men, both young and old.

The next scene showed the gypsy camp strewn with lifeless bodies. Women and children were gathered around the bodies of the men. In the center of the scene was a very old woman holding a crystal ball. From somewhere near the mannequin came a voice.

“For the terrible deed that was done here tonight I cast a curse on all who share this canyon with us. May all of your worst fears come to find you, and may you never find even one moment of peace. May your lifeless bodies as well as your souls be trapped in this valley for all eternity.”

The curse set off a series of events that would forever change the lives of the settlers. An unexplained fire burned to death the occupants of one of the wagons. One of the young men fell to his death from a rock cliff. Several members of the party suffered terminal diseases and others were attacked by wild animals. In the end, all of the members of the cursed party died horrible and unexplained deaths. It is said that, as the gypsy woman promised, their souls are trapped here forever. The spirits of these cursed souls wander the hills, endlessly searching for a way out.

As the narrator spoke, ghostly visions, many grossly deformed by the manner of their deaths, wandered the canyon around them. Several of the apparitions appeared to come right up to the passing wagon, then fade into the night. In the background they could hear the cries of people dying. Alyson buried her face in Devon’s shoulder. The final scene showed the ghost of the beautiful gypsy girl whose death had set off the events of that momentous night. She appeared to be crying. Alyson gasped as she recognized the mysterious girl she had seen near the barn and on the cliff during the storm.

What the gypsy woman who uttered the curse failed to realize was that when she cursed the souls of those responsible for the girl’s death, she also trapped the life force of the one whose death led to the series of events. The gypsy princess was doomed to relive the destruction of the fated party each year on the anniversary of her death. It is said that her soul, and the souls of the others trapped with her, can only be freed if a direct descendant of the woman who first uttered the curse removes its binding power.

As the narrator’s speech ended, the lights from the barn became visible in the distance. Alyson knew what she had to do. Everything Chan had told her suddenly made perfect sense.

“Wow, that was intense. Scary but also incredibly sad.” Mac wiped a tear from her eye. “The story seemed so believable. The drama department does a good job of coming up with a new one every year.” She leaned forward on her bench so she could talk to Alyson, who was seated across from her. “It really looked like those ghosts at the end were going to end up sitting on our laps. And did you see how hideous some of them were? Faces with huge scabs and pustules; bodies burned beyond recognition. Caleb really is a genius. I think he can have a career in Hollywood doing costumes and set design if he wants one.”

“The girl at the end who played the dead gypsy—I’ve seen her around a couple of times in the past few of days.” Alyson leaned forward and lowered her voice. “She was near the spot where I stopped to get the pebble out of my shoe yesterday, I saw her when I went back to the barn yesterday, and I swear I saw her on the cliff during the storm.”

“I doubt anyone was out in that storm,” Devon said. “It must have been a trick of the light. Things have been pretty crazy lately. I’m sure it’s perfectly natural to have your senses play tricks on you.”

“I know it sounds far-fetched, but I’m sure it was her. That’s how I knew where to find the opening. I just walked to where I had seen her standing.”

“Wow, maybe she really is the ghost of the dead gypsy girl.” Mac shivered. “Maybe she really is trapped here.”

“Come on, Mac,” Trevor teased. “You don’t really believe in ghosts, do you?”