"Well, then, the readin' o' the will takes place tomorrow evenin'," Gregory announced. "Nine o' the clock."
"Why so late?" Kira asked.
"'Twas at Iris's request, lass. She left explicit details. I suggest you prepare yourself, though. She was a rather…unusual woman." He turned toward his son. "I would suggest, Ian, that you spend the day showin' our new friend about her family's homeland."
"I really don't think—" Esmeralda began.
"I'd love that!" Kira said, cutting her off. "Will, you Ian? My stay isn't all that long, and I'd hate to miss seeing some of the countryside while I'm here."
Ian's father stared at him, and so did Esmeralda. But his eyes never left hers. With a soft smile, he nodded. "Of course I will. It'll be a rare pleasure." And without looking away, he added, "You needn't worry yourself, Esmeralda. You've known me all my life. Your great niece will be perfectly safe in my company for the day."
She didn't argue, but Kira got the feeling Ian was going to hear about this later—and maybe his father would, as well.
"Nothing to fear in these parts, anyway," the minister said. "It's a perfectly safe area. God-fearing folk. Good people."
As the table was cleared, the guests took their leave, Ian and his father pausing at the door. "'Twas a sheer delight to meet you, lass," Gregory said, clasping her hand warmly.
"It was mutual, Mr. Stewart."
"Gregory, please."
She nodded, then looked up at Ian. "Good night, Ian. I'm really looking forward to tomorrow."
"I'll come around for you after breakfast. All right, then?"
"More than all right." He took her hand, and gave a surreptitious squeeze that made her heart flutter in her chest. Seemed he was getting over his shyness, or whatever his issue had been.
Or maybe he was just as much a rebel at heart as she was. Perhaps she owed Aunt Esmeralda a thank you for pushing his buttons.
Kira fell asleep with a smile on her face. But when she heard someone whispering her name, the voice penetrating her girl-with-a-crush dreams, that smile faded. She opened her eyes, blinking in the utter darkness of the bedroom, instantly aware of the chill that hung heavy in the air. This place always seemed cold but this was different. It was bone deep and drew goosebumps on her skin as a shiver rippled up her spine. She tugged the covers higher, hugging them tight.
"Kira…" the whisperer breathed. "Kiiiiiiraaaaaaa."
She sat up fast, one hand shooting toward the bedside lamp, then freezing in mid-air as her eyes widened. There, at the foot of her bed, was…something. A wisp of fog, in the vague shape of a woman.
"What the hell!" She resumed her groping for the lamp, found it and turned it on.
In the cold light of the sixty-watt bulb, there was no fog. No form. No ghostly apparition looming over her. The chill retreated, too, as the room returned to its normal state of clamminess.
She hadn't been dreaming. She'd been wide awake, she assured herself of that, even as she lunged out of the bed, snatching up her robe and pulling it on clumsily while heading for the bedroom door.
This was ridiculous. There were no such things as ghosts. And yet she was driven from the room. She needed to find her aunts, demand an explanation. Maybe it was Esmeralda, trying to scare her away. Maybe it was…hell, she couldn't think of any other explanation.
She yanked open the bedroom door and dashed into the dark hallway, turned in the direction of Esmeralda's bedroom, and saw it again. That foggy, misty form, floating a few yards down the hall.
"Kira," it whispered.
She turned and ran through the pitch darkness, heading in the opposite direction from the thing, feeling pursued and too afraid to look behind her to find out for sure. She rounded a corner toward the staircase, barely able to see in the pitch blackness of this place. And then it was there, ahead of her again. A segment of mist rose, like an arm, reaching toward her.
The stairs were just to her right, and she turned to race down them, tripped on the hem of her robe, and tumbled headlong. The impact of every stone stair drove screams of pain from her lungs, and when she hit her head at the bottom, she lay there, hurting, dizzy, hovering on the very edge of consciousness.
She forced her eyes open, only to see them, several of them, she couldn't count, but they were floating all around her, reaching toward her, so close now she could feel the iciness of that mist that seemed to embody them, all of them whispering her name over and over.
She screamed, and then she passed out, the scream dying as her eyes fell closed.
"There, there, lass. You're all right now. You're fine."
Kira blinked her eyes open, and stared up at the faces that surrounded her. Her great aunt Rose and her aunt Emma gazed down at her. Rose held a cold compress to one side of Kira's head, her ample rump perched on the edge of the bed. Emma stood on the other side, bending over her, stroking her hair. A little further away, Esmeralda sat in a hard-backed chair. They all wore night clothes, long nightgowns, housecoats, slippers.
Kira closed her eyes, pressing a hand over Rose's, to her head, which ached monstrously. "What happened?"
"You took a tumble, lassie. Right down the stairs. 'Tis a miracle you didn'a break every bone in your wee body," Rose said. "Whatever possessed you to go wanderin' about the castle in the dark like that, bonnie girl?"
She opened her eyes, looking from Rose to Emma, and then spearing Esmeralda with a steady gaze. "I saw something. Someone was whispering my name, and then I saw…something."
Rose sucked in a breath. Esmeralda pursed her lips, lowered her gaze.
"I think they were supposed to be ghosts. I think someone is trying to scare me away from here."
"I didna think the ladies would bother you, Kira. Most assuredly not so soon," Rose said.
"The ladies?"
Rose and Emma both looked toward Esmeralda, as if seeking her permission to speak further. Esmeralda got to her feet, moving to the table beside her, where Kira saw a tea service that hadn't been there before. She poured from a delicate china pot, filling a cup that matched, and then brought it to Kira in the bed.
"I suppose it's time we told her," Esmerelda said. She handed the cup, balanced in the center of its tiny saucer, to Kira.
Kira sat up before taking it, and Emma quickly adjusted the pillows behind her. She took the tea, sipped it. "Don't even tell me they were ghosts. I don't believe in ghosts," she said. And then she sipped some more because the tea was warm and sweet and it felt good going down.
"Aye, they were lass. They linger here. All of them," Rose said.
"All of who?"
"The MacLellan women, the ones who died at the hands of their husbands," Esmeralda said. "Your own dear mother lives among them now. They're trapped between the worlds. We've no idea how to put them to rest, though the dear lord knows we've tried."
Kira pinched the bridge of her nose and squeezed her eyes tight. "Maybe you'd better start from the beginning."
"Aye, perhaps we should," Rose said.
But she didn't speak. Instead, she looked to her sister to do that. And with a deep sigh, Esmeralda began.
"There is a curse on the women of the MacLellan clan, lass. It began more than a century ago, when Miranda MacLellan was wed to the love of her life, Robby Stewart."
"Stewart?" Kira asked.
"Aye, an ancestor of Ian's, just as you've likely guessed," Esmeralda said. "The marriage, it is said, was blissful for her. But her bliss was built upon a lie. For Robby soon found himself in the arms of another woman. And when Miranda returned a day early from a journey to visit a cousin, she found Robby and this harlot, locked in a passionate embrace in her own wedding bed."