Page 63 of Rory

Chapter Sixteen

“Okay, do you have everything in focus?” Athena Makris said to her husband Demetri. When he nodded she cleared her throat and thumbed on the microphone clipped to her collar. “Welcome to the latest and final edition of Fear-Faire. I’m Athena Makris, the personal assistant for Harper Ensley, your ghost-hunting myth-debunking always curious never nervous tour guide to the paranormal. Pause the camera, honey.”

Since Harper Ensley had vanished Athena thought of a thousand things she could have done differently. She should have told her parents to stop squabbling, gotten on a plane and come home. She would have been able to talk her boss out of going into the cursed castle by herself. Harper would still be here. She’d be safe from whoever or whatever had stolen her.

As she wiped the tears from her cheeks her man came over and took her into his arms.

“You don’t have to do this, babe,” Demetri told her. “We can just send out a press release.”

“No. She was the best boss I ever had,” she told him. “I owe it to her.” She took a tissue from her purse and mopped up, blew her nose and then kissed his cheek. “Come on. It won’t take that long, and I promised the fans one last update before I shut down the channel.”

He hugged her again, and then went back to the camera. Athena straightened her jacket, nodded to him, and then restarted her report.

“As most of you probably know Harper has not been seen since she went to film inside McKeran’s Castle, a haunted medieval structure brought from Scotland to Monterey, California at the turn of the twentieth century.” She turned sideways and gestured toward the empty property behind the broken remains of the wrought iron gates. “Three weeks after she disappeared the castle vanished, literally overnight. Although it’s been months, the authorities still have no explanation as to what happened to the building. The owner of the property, Renard Beaumont, has also gone missing. Let’s go and have a look at the site.”

Athena walked through the gap between the twisted gates and up the long curving drive to where the castle once stood. Sword ferns and other bracken already covered the bare ground left behind after the bewildering disappearance. Given how many people had gone missing here since the castle had been brought over from Scotland, the place should have seemed haunted, or incredibly spooky. Instead it resembled a calm, beautiful forest meadow.

“Many theories have arisen from this incredible paranormal event,” she said to the camera. “Reports from the UK have revealed that the castle did not reappear back at the original site in the Scottish Highlands. It is literally impossible that anyone could have moved the hundreds of thousands of stones that made up the structure in a twenty-four hour period. There are no signs that the castle sank into the earth, and a team of researchers is headed here with ground-penetrating radar equipment to confirm that. So what happened to McKeran’s Castle? It's possible that we may never know.”

Athena crossed her fingers at Demetri, who paused the camera. Then she turned to walk along the perimeter, stopping when she saw something in the ferns.

“Honey, come here.” She crouched down and reached out, picking up the battered-looking camera. “It’s a Sony. This is Harper’s.”

“How could it be?” He helped her up and inspected the device. “It’s an old Sony.”

“She loved it. Look, there’s her Fear-Faire sticker on the side.” Athena caught her breath. “What if it filmed what happened to her?”

“We need to turn it over to the cops,” Demetri said.

She opened the display door and pressed the power button, and Harper’s image appeared on the cracked screen.

“Don’t be scared, A.,” she said. “I’m okay.” She glanced down at the odd dress she was wearing. “I found all the answers I needed, and I’m with the guy I love. I could come back to our world if I get some druids to help, but I want to stay with him. Here I get lots of benefits I won’t have in your time.”

“Do you think she’d been drugged?” her husband muttered.

“By now you know I left all the stuff I have to you and Demetri. Do whatever you want with it, but I hope you’ll live in the house. It’s really cool, and the schools are better in Pacific Grove. Oh, and D.?” She winked. “I haven’t been drugged.”

Athena knew tears were streaming down her face again but didn’t care. “Harper.”

“You really were the sister I always wanted, A.” She blew a kiss to the screen. “Have a wonderful life.”

The camera shut down, and then fell to the ground from Athena’s frozen hands. As she stared at them a cloaked figure came out of the woods, walking between her and Demetri to pick up the camera and tuck it into a pouch tie to her belt.

“I’m sorry I can’t let you keep this,” Chlíodhna said. She touched Athena’s brow. “I’ve already had to create several parallel universes to accommodate those who did not wish to return to the twelfth century with the McKeran. In this one everything happened in the same way, but everyone involved disappeared mysteriously. Remember only that your friend is safe, and that she loved you very much. Be at peace now.” She repeated the touch and words with Demetri, and then walked back into the woods.

Athena blinked and frowned at her husband. “What was I saying?”

“You know that Harper is safe somewhere, and she loved us. I do, too. Why else would she leave us everything?” Her husband put his arm around her and grimaced at the place where the castle had once stood. “Come on. Let’s go and get the kids from school. They’re dying to see the new house.”

Once they left the property Chlíodhna stepped out of the shadows, using a tiny bit of her magic to hide herself and her companion from the others watching them through time.

“They’ll do fine,” Mirry told her. Dressed in a black sequined jumpsuit large enough to hold four people in one pant leg, she peered after the two mortals as they disappeared from sight. “I could make sure they do fine, of course, but Da-da said Harper’s inheritance was enough and not to mess with them.”

“It’s best to keep our involvement with mortals to an absolute minimum,” she told the giantess. “I cannot regret what happened after the collapse, for the backlash was richly deserved and, I think, quite appropriate given his many, many crimes. I am sorry that you lost your friend, however. I know you cared for him.”

“Bodach?” She shrugged her roof beam shoulders. “I thought I had a shot, but after all those centuries of munching on evil crystal and being hateful and horrible to the mortals, there was no saving him. Plus you know he would have killed us all if he’d taken over Elphyne.” She sniffed. “I have such lousy taste in men.”

“Speaking of the lesser beings,” she said. “What are you going to do about that one who keeps returning to you?”