The Splendour Falls (24 page)

I
might have worried that my new open-mindedness would show on my face, but dinner passed without incident. And without Welshmen; the Griffiths had gone out. Slightly disappointed, I figured it was for the best. My reactions to Rhys were always odd, and maybe opening the figurative door on the whole ghost idea was enough to handle for one evening.

After eating my sandwich, I soaked in a hot bath, walked Gigi, and retired for the evening. Then, ten minutes after Paula's bedtime, I snuck back down to get
my dog and bring her upstairs. At least my cousin's regimented schedule was good for something.

Settling Gigi on the bed, I sat at the desk and opened
Notable Gardens of the South,
pulling Dad's handwritten pages from the back. I'd barely glanced at them in the garden, and though I'd made my plan before dinner, I'd delayed more careful study for when the house was asleep, savouring my anticipation of this private father/daughter moment.

The diagrams were neatly drawn. I'd need to refer to them outside, but I didn't want to get the originals dirty, so I traced Dad's plot of the planting beds onto a fresh sheet of paper from the drawer. The thin, ladylike stationery was perfect for that, but I taped it afterwards to a sturdier piece of printer paper I'd scored from Paula's desk.

As I'd guessed from the photograph in the book, the corner beds were a Celtic knot, but the pattern in the central circle was more interesting. It was more like a maze – Dad had even written
Labyrinth
on the side – but designed so that the pattern made pie pieces. Or, if you looked at it in negative, the spokes of a wheel.

There was a key, with a corresponding list of plants. I copied those, checking off the ones I recognized and marking the ones I wouldn't know from a weed. Then I sat back and rubbed the crick in my neck, stunned at how long I'd worked.

I could stop for the night, but momentum had its foot on my backside, propelling me forwards. Still, I needed a book on plants. And if I wanted instant gratification, there was only one logical place to look. The study.

I didn't want to give into my dread of an empty room. That seemed to be giving too much importance to a far-fetched possibility. So with a mix of resolve and resignation, I squared my shoulders and looked at Gigi, who was happily gnawing a rawhide bone in the middle of the bed. ‘Are you up for braving the Colonel's study, Gee? Because I'm not going without you.'

She sat up at her name and gave a brave yip, as if she'd understood me. Now I had to go, or have her think I was a coward.

The hallway was all clear when I opened the door. The stairwell was dark, the foyer chandelier turned off, so I guessed everyone was in for the night. I left my door open for light, and padded in my bare feet to the landing, Gigi trotting beside me. At the corner I paused, then turned into the back hall, where there was nothing but moonlight at the window.

I gave my first sigh of relief, but I still had to open the study door. I did it quickly, not allowing myself time to be scared, and found nothing to be afraid of after all.

Of course not, you dope.
Scolding myself made me feel only half as silly for the double-time beat of my pulse.

Switching on the light – hooray for modern conveniences – I glanced at Gigi, who only seemed interested in exploring the corners for dust bunnies. I got to business, browsing titles for an encyclopaedia of plants. If the gardens had always been a big part of the manor's reputation, surely there had to be something like that. The Davises, as I was coming to understand them, would want to keep that point of pride up.

I didn't hurry, exactly. But I was anxious to get in, find a book and get out. There was no logic behind it. But it seemed there was no logic behind half the things I felt in the house.

Finally I located a shelf of DIY books from the seventies, including something called
Antebellum Architecture,
and
Laura Ashley's Guide to Style.
I guess that would explain the Victorian striped wallpaper in the bathroom.

And then,
The American Horticultural Society's A to Z Guide to North American Plants.
Success.

I pulled it from the shelf just as Gigi began to growl. My gaze snapped to the desk chair, wondering what she saw, but Gigi dashed for the exit. Book in hand, I barely managed to grab her. Momentum carried me out of the study, and I found myself at the French doors, where she must have been headed. The glass panes looked out on the woods, and I could hear – just barely – the familiar, tremulous wail.

It was so faint that I might not have noticed it if Gigi hadn't alerted me. But she had, and as I stood listening, a movement in the moonlit clearing in front of the woods sent my heart thumping against my ribs.

Clutching Gigi tight with one hand, I pressed the other to the window and my nose to the pane. It was a girl-shaped something – Addie? No. I glimpsed long hair, and longer skirts. Even if she was wearing odd clothes, it was harder to change the way one moved. Then my breath clouded the cold glass, and I couldn't see anything else.

I jerked back, because the glass
was
cold, and getting colder. Pulse hammering, I stared at the outline of my hand on the windowpane as the growing chill chased
away the imprint. Frigid eddies brushed my bare arms, my toes, my face. My breath made thin curls of mist as I exhaled in shallow fear. I was standing in the watcher's place.

Had I created this moment out of expectation and suggestion? Or if I stood there long enough, what would I see? The watcher? The Colonel?

Part of me wanted to confront it, but the larger part, the smarter part, knew my fragile brain might break whichever way it went, ghost or madness.

The smarter part seemed to be in control of my legs. Holding Gigi tight, I backed away.

Right into a tall, warm body. His arms came around me automatically, keeping me from falling as I spun round, off balance with fear. My scream never got past the knife-sharp inhale of panic as Rhys's hard whisper reached through the ringing in my ears. ‘Sylvie, it's me. It's all right.'

‘Oh my God,' I breathed, pressed against him, my face buried in his T-shirt. He felt warm and real and so
right
that I couldn't move away. ‘You nearly scared me to death.'

His hands moved to my shoulders, as if to pry me off, but he stopped in surprise. ‘Your skin is like ice.'

He rubbed my arms to chase away the cold. There was a casual intimacy to his touch that made me shiver, nothing to do with the supernatural. ‘You feel that too? The chill?'

‘Yeah.' He looked over my head, towards the window. ‘That's a wicked draught. Come on.'

Rhys pulled me towards my room, closing the door
before he steered me to sit in the upholstered chair. For once it felt good to be handled. It felt good to be handled by
him;
the brush of his skin and the way his scent filled my head evoked tempting ways to chase away ghosts, literal or figurative. At least for a little while.

Crap. I really was freaking out. Not because I was tempted to close the short distance between us as he leaned close to wrap the quilt from the bed around Gigi and me. But because I thought he might not object.

Gigi licked my face, her tongue warm on my skin. I curled my fingers into her fur, hiding the shaking of my hands. From the night I'd arrived, I'd been glimpsing the past of the house – servants in halls and guests arriving in carriages. The figure in the window. But
not
seeing anything had freaked me out exponentially worse, because I could
feel
it, incipient and awful.

Rhys sat in the desk chair and leaned forward, elbows on his knees, staying close. ‘What was all that about?'

I had to get a hold of myself, be analytical. Or at least coherent. ‘Did you see anything by the window?' I asked.

He shook his head. ‘No. Did you?' His tone was neutral, though serious, as if we were comparing notes.

‘No.' It was the truth, though I would have lied to keep from sounding nuts. ‘But you felt the cold, right?'

Slowly, he nodded. ‘I felt a draught. And I felt how
chilled you were. Will you tell me what happened? What has you so upset?'

No matter what I admitted to myself, there was no way I could say aloud, not to him, not to anyone, that I was experiencing these things. That I was moving through a morning routine that wasn't mine, and smelling flowers that weren't there. That an empty spot in the park plunged me into an icy well of despair. That I felt such bone-deep horror at the inexplicable chill and the building pressure in the air … It touched too close to my psyche, to the part of me rocked off my already shaky foundation.

So I shook my head, answering his question –
Will you tell me?
– even as I lied. ‘Creaky, draughty old house and an overactive imagination, I guess.'

Rhys sat back with a sigh, running a hand over his hair. He sounded almost disappointed. ‘All right. I don't guess I've given you reason to trust me.'

No. I barely knew him. But here I was, sitting in my pyjamas, in a bedroom –
again
– talking about extraordinary things. ‘I don't know why you're always around when I get spooked.'

‘Probably because it keeps happening right outside my door,' he said wryly.

‘I'll try and have my next meltdown somewhere else.'

It was a darker joke than he could know, but Rhys smiled, grudgingly, then ran his hands over the knees of his jeans before speaking again. ‘Listen, Dad and I are leaving before the break of dawn tomorrow—'

‘For good?' My voice rose in way more distress than I meant to show.

‘No, no,' he assured me, as if it weren't odd that a girl he barely knew was upset by his departure. ‘A field trip to the northeast corner of the state. I think Dad mentioned it.'

‘Oh, yeah. Ancient fortress.' The discussion – had it only been this morning? – seemed distant from the weirdness in the hallway. Which was welcome, as it grounded me in the real world, and I took the opportunity to break the tension by needling him a little. ‘Isn't it kind of Anglocentric to think Native Americans couldn't build forts as well as the Welsh?'

‘I would be Celt-centric, to think that,' he corrected me with some humour, allowing himself to be distracted for a moment. ‘But we don't. Different isn't the same as better. But that's beside the point.' He took a breath, getting serious again. ‘I want to try and be back tomorrow night, but you've seen how my dad is. If he finds a kindred spirit, we'll be there until next week.'

‘Not that I won't miss these scintillating late-night visits, Rhys' – and I would, for several reasons I didn't examine too closely, but which might have to do with how his knee bumped mine when he shifted in his chair – ' but what does this have to do with me?'

Again, he drew a breath, like he was bracing himself. I knew dancers who did that before a difficult step or jump. Eventually they broke the habit, or they passed out. ‘I want you to promise you won't go wandering about after dark.'

‘Oh for heaven's sake.' I shrugged off the quilt, because I'd definitely warmed up. ‘This again?'

‘Just tomorrow.' He raised his hands as if warding off my anger. Or possibly just my raised voice.

‘Why tomorrow?' I demanded more softly, resorting to sarcasm to try to get some answers. ‘Is the moon full? Do the vampires and werewolves prowl for young maidens?'

He looked at me askance. ‘You really do have a lurid imagination.'

I made an exasperated sound and stood up, plopping Gigi on the bed, where she watched with interest as I paced the tiny room. The thing was, I didn't
want
to go outside after dark. But he was hiding something and it was pissing me off.

‘Give me a good reason why,' I challenged, ‘and I'll think about it.'

Rhys stood up too, and the room suddenly seemed that much smaller as he looked down at me from an intimately close distance, his green eyes appearing very dark in the indirect light of the lamp. I had to check the instinct to step back, because my senses were again
full
of him, and I was trying to stay focused.

‘Because,' he said distinctly, as if I weren't very bright, ‘even if you arrived in Alabama as ignorant as a newly hatched chick, you must see by now that there are, as my dad would say, strange dealings afoot.'

His candour surprised me, and I was too pleased that he'd acknowledged that much to be irked by his tone. ‘When you say “strange dealings” …'

A smile turned up the corner of his mouth. ‘Well, I don't mean werewolves or vampires. Or pirate treasure,' he added, when I drew a breath.

I wanted to keep it light, but I was getting worried. ‘Seriously, Rhys, if someone is doing something illegal—'

There was a flash of hurt in his eyes, quickly covered by anger. ‘If someone was doing something illegal, I would go to the police.'

The way he fired back made my ears burn, as if I'd accused him unfairly. But I didn't back down. ‘Then why are you being so cagey? Maybe
you
don't trust
me.
'

His quickly shuttered expression spoke volumes. The flush ran out of my cheeks, and hurt jabbed me in the heart.

‘I keep forgetting we just met,' I said softly.

‘I know.' His admission surprised me, and eased some of the irrational pang. The confession seemed to take him a bit off guard too, and he stuck his hands in his pockets, like he didn't know what to do with them.

‘Look, Sylvie,' he said, ‘you're not telling me everything either.'

I started to deny it, then, after a pause, decided on a measure of honesty. ‘Maybe not. But that's personal.'

‘So is my problem.' Again he caught my gaze and held it. ‘And I can't tell you more than that just yet.'

It was the ‘yet' that convinced me to let it go, for now. ‘All right,' I said. ‘I'll stay inside. Anything else?'