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He sounded almost sorrowful through the pulse beating in Juliet’s ears. She reminded herself sharply that any sorrow he felt was for himself only, and thought frantically about where she could safely hide. She’d never be able to reach the farm in a blizzard, what with all landmarks wiped away. And she didn’t relish the thought of creeping through the dark house, trying to keep one step ahead of Duncan.
Outdoors? The old stables were still standing, but she had no coat, no hat, no boots. She’d freeze to death even if she had light enough to make her way carefully from house to stables. Except …
Duncan had moved on for now—his voice was getting farther away. Juliet crept through the Victorian kitchen into the scullery, through which she’d first entered Havencross all those weeks ago. Just as she remembered, there was the assortment of heavy outdoor garments hanging on hooks, stiff from age and disuse. There were also two pairs of Wellington boots.
She hesitated, still unsure what was safest. Glancing out the scullery windows told her nothing—it was as dark inside as out. Help me, she prayed, perhaps to Liam.
A light began to shine outside, dimly at first but slowly growing. It was not the light of a farm tractor or car—it was the same shivery, otherworldly light she’d seen in the corridor outside her bedroom once before. Ghost light.
Come hide with me.
Only this time, the light did not outline the shape of a young boy but that of a woman in long skirts, beckoning to Juliet in an undoubted gesture of urgency.
You’ll be safe.
Juliet allowed the universe to decide. She shoved her feet into the smaller pair of Wellingtons and shrugged on the heaviest coat, clearly made for a man but waterproof and lined with flannel. There was even a felted wool cap shoved into one pocket that she tucked her hair into. After one deep breath and a final prayer, she opened the scullery door and plunged outside.
The wind stole her breath and the cold battered her. But the light remained, and Juliet set herself grimly to follow it to the stable. She was so focused on the pale female form that she didn’t realize they weren’t headed for the stables. Only when the form slipped inside the ruined walls, precariously capped with snow, did Juliet understand that she’d been brought to the old chapel.
Her immediate thought was This is no help at all, until the light stopped and bent over. It was the same motion Juliet had seen days before over Noah’s shoulder—a woman grasping the edges of a false grave slab to move it.
The tunnel, whose opening she and Noah had discovered. The tunnel that she knew she could access safely, and whose opening could be covered and uncovered from the inside. It might not be much warmer down there, but at least it would be dry and protected from the wind. And Duncan would never find her.
Her decision was made by a shout from the house and another gunshot. “I see your footprints, Juliet. Do you really think you’re safer outside? Just come back and talk to me!”
The offer would have been more enticing if Duncan hadn’t screamed the last part. Whatever was happening with him, he was clearly on the edge.
Juliet headed into the chapel, trying to make her path look as uncertain as possible. She stamped down, flung snow with her arms every which way, and swept clear as many grave slabs as she could find so that Duncan couldn’t be sure where exactly she’d gone. She doubted his first thought would be secret tunnel.
She squatted down at the false grave slab and gripped the edges with the sleeves of the coat covering her hands. It moved easily enough to allow her to slip through the space and onto the ladderlike steps. She stopped partway down to slide the slab back into place and paused. Would she have enough air if she shut it completely? Better leave an edge open just in case.
Her biggest worry, though, was unpredictable Duncan and that gun. Like all bullies, he was primarily concerned with his own survival, and she didn’t think he’d confront Noah in any kind of fair fight. When a farm tractor blazing light and sound appeared in the fields, Duncan would likely make a run for it. Probably. But he might just be unhinged enough to take shots at someone unaware that he was armed.
After pulling the grave slab as near to closed as she dared, Juliet rested her head on a step and whispered, “Don’t let anyone get hurt tonight.”
Before she’d even finished, the oppressive darkness lightened. She looked down and saw the same outlined woman making the same beckoning gesture as before.
Juliet remembered the property deeds and royal decrees she’d found in Nell’s files: Said property to be held by the crown without prejudice or favor in the interests of a proven heir to the previous owner, Lady Ismay Deacon.
“Is that who you are?” Juliet breathed the words into the air between them. “Are you Ismay Deacon?”
If she’d expected an answer, she would have been disappointed. The form—oh hell, thought Juliet, might as well call it what it is—the ghost only continued to beckon. There was nothing threatening or frightening about the action, just that sense of urgency. And as Juliet had nothing else to do at the moment but wait for Duncan to grow tired of searching outside or for Noah to arrive, she might as well see what the ghost wanted.
She descended the rest of the steps and faced forward. “Lead on,” she said.
It wasn’t at all like following someone real—not only was there no noise except Juliet’s own movements and breathing, but the ghostly light before her seemed to shrink and grow at will and, sometimes, appeared to be shining from out of the very tunnel walls. Juliet counted steps at first, but got lost around two hundred. Although the space was confining, she hadn’t had to do more than stoop thus far. If it came to crawling on her hands and knees, she decided, then she was out. Imagine being stuck down here, slowly dying and no one ever knowing where you were?
But when the tunnel changed, it grew larger rather than smaller. And soon Juliet stepped upright into some sort of underground cavern. She thought it might have begun as a natural space, for much of the floor was irregular stone as though water had long ago flowed through here. It had been widened at the sides to create a space where threatened monks could hide with their precious gold and jeweled vessels.
One side had collapsed inward, and that was where the ghost hovered.
Picking her way carefully across the floor, Juliet reached the outer edges of the disturbed earth and saw bricks mixed in with the rest. A structure, then, or—
“The well,” she said suddenly. The surveyor’s map Noah had showed her was vivid in her mind. The medieval well that had been capped off when Gideon Somersby began building. If Juliet were to draw a line between the tunnel opening in the ruined chapel and the medieval icehouse where it might once have come out, that line would pass very near to the old well.
Juliet thought of how excited Daniel Gitonga would be, and she hoped there would be a proper excavation. And that she could be part of it. She looked up at the ghost, who had stopped both moving and beckoning.
“Is this what you wanted to show me?” Juliet asked, with no expectation of an answer this time.
