A Very Gothic Christmas by Christine Feehan
"What is it, Tara?" Trevor leaned in close as his sister lifted a gold chain for all of them to see. "It's a locket." It was small, heart-shaped, and intricately etched on the outside.
"I think it's real gold," Trevor said, lifting it up to peer at it more closely.
"Is it for me? Did someone get this for me? Where did this come from?" Tara looked around the room at the band members who had fallen silent as she held up the necklace. "Who gave it to me?"
Dillon leaned forward to get a closer look. Brenda's hand went to her throat in a curiously vulnerable gesture. Her gaze met Dillon's across the small space and she quickly shook her head. "I didn't, Dillon, I swear I didn't."
"It opens, doesn't it?" Trevor wrapped his arm around his sister's shoulder and peered at the delicate locket. "What's inside?"
Tara pressed the tiny catch and the locket popped open. There were two smiling faces, a two-year-old girl and an identical two-year-old boy. Both children were smiling. Their black, wavy hair framing their faces.
"Dad?" Tara looked at her father. "It's us, isn't it?"
Dillon nodded solemnly. "Your mother never took that necklace off. I didn't even know the pictures were inside of it."
Tara turned to Jessica, an awkward, uncertain expression on her young face. She didn't know what to think or feel about such a gift. Everyone was stunned, and had shocked looks on their faces. She didn't know whether to hug the locket to her, or to throw it away and cry a river of tears.
Jessica immediately hugged her. "What a beautiful gift. It is a day of miracles. Every child should know their mother wanted and loved them. I remember how precious that locket was to your mother. She wore it always, even when she had much more expensive jewelry. I think the necklace is proof of what she felt for you, even when she was too ill to show you."
Brenda caught Jessica's hand and squeezed it tightly. "Vivian always wore it, Tara--I teased her about her preferring it to diamonds. She said she had her reasons." Tears glittered in her eyes. "I know why now. I would never have taken it off either."
Tara kissed her aunt. "I'm glad you're here, Aunt Brenda," she confided. "I love you." She handed her the necklace. "Will you put it on me?"
Brenda nodded, her heart overflowing. "Absolutely I will."
"It was for both of us, Trev," Tara said. "She loved both of us after all. We'll share it." She leaned over to kiss her brother on the cheek.
Jessica settled in Dillon's lap, waited until the others were crowded around the twins, and she slowly opened her hand to show him what lay in her palm. The small ring was a mother's ring with two identical birthstones in it. They looked from the ring to one another without speaking.
Jessica closed her fingers around the precious gift the dove had left behind. It was better than diamonds. The most important gift ever given. Dillon's scarred fingers settled over hers, guarding the treasure, holding it close to their hearts. Trevor and Tara were theirs. They had their Christmas miracle and it was exactly what they needed.
LADY OF THE LOCKET
Melanie George
chapter
1
THE CASTLE ROSE OUT of the heavy mist like a phoenix emerging from the ashes, a looming monolith seemingly born of its craggy foundation, perched on the uppermost edge of the earth for the purpose of lording over the village in the distance.
A trio of crenellated towers reached for the sky, where slim fingers of scarlet-tinted sunlight endeavored to wedge through the damp December fog that enshrouded the entire jagged coast of Inverness, Scotland.
To Rachel Hudson, who had stopped her rental car in the long gravel-strewn driveway leading to the front steps of Glengarren, the castle echoed of things past, of secrets long held--imposing, yet somehow tragic.
The sight left her breathless as she pushed open the car door and got out, letting the brisk winter air sting her cheeks and whip at her long hair.
An acute sense of isolation struck her, an almost palpable aura that warned people to stay away, to turn around and hasten from its unhallowed grounds.
Rachel could picture a tormented Heathcliff ranging its windswept moors, or imagine that she caught a glimpse of a woman's ghostly figure disappearing among the ramparts, as in Rebecca, Rachel's favorite novel, by Daphne du Maurier.
" 'When the leaves rustle, they sound very much like the stealthy movement of a woman in evening dress,' " she softly recited. " 'And when they shiver suddenly and fall, and scatter away along the ground, they might be the pitter-patter of a woman's hurrying footsteps, and the mark in the gravel the imprint of a high-heeled satin shoe.' "
Rachel felt as though she finally understood what her parents had found so fascinating about this place, its mien of romance mingled with bittersweet despair.
Her mother and father had met here thirty-one years ago. Her mother had come to spend Christmas with relatives, and her father had been visiting his old college friend, Ian MacGregor of Glengarren.
Her parents' paths had crossed and they fell in love during that magical holiday. The following year, they returned to Scotland together, marrying twelve months to the day after they had met.
They had planned to return this year to celebrate their thirtieth wedding anniversary, but it wasn't to be. In June, six months after her mother had been diagnosed with end-stage breast cancer, she had died. Five months after that, and two weeks before Thanksgiving, her father had passed away. A massive heart attack, the doctors said.
Rachel didn't believe a heart attack had been the cause of her father's death, but rather a broken heart. He had not been the same after his wife had died. Her passing had ravaged him. Now, they were together again. And soon Rachel would carry out her parents' last request.
She did her best to shake off the pall of sorrow threatening to overcome her, and climbed back in the car. Windows that resembled lifeless eyes glittered out at her as she proceeded up the sloped and pitted driveway, a coil of disquiet settling in the base of her stomach.
No one came out to greet her as she drew to a stop at the front door, but she didn't expect anyone to. The castle and grounds would be hers alone to explore, courtesy of the current owner of Glengarren, the son of her father's friend.
She had met the elder Lord MacGregor once when he had come to America to visit her father some ten years earlier, but she had never met his son. Yet it was his son who occupied Rachel's thoughts at that moment, as she remembered his condolence letter, filled with compassion, his words reaching across the distance to console her.
Perhaps he understood her grief so well because his own father was now ill, removed to Edinburgh, to a nursing facility that could monitor his health, and the devastating effects of his decline from Alzheimer's disease.
Troubled by thoughts of illness and death, Rachel sought a familiar comfort, taking hold of the locket around her neck--a very special keepsake that had once belonged to her mother. The pendant gave her strength, infused her with courage when her own faltered, as it did now.
She prayed she would find what she was looking for here, the solace she so desperately needed to ease her sore heart . . . and the closure that would help her move forward.
She removed her luggage from the trunk of the car, but hesitated, glancing toward the cliff. Over the crest, she could just make out the faintest glimmer of the River Ness, curving like a serpent's gray back, whitecapped by the lashing winds as it flowed toward the sea.
Through a break in the mist stood a rowan tree, balanced precariously at the edge of a three-hundred-foot precipice, its gnarled limbs reaching toward the heavens, as if seeking surcease from the air of tragedy bending its branches.
That was the spot, Rachel thought, the place where she would fulfill her parents' last wish and sprinkle their ashes, letting them drift out to sea on their anniversary, together forever.
With a lump in her throat, Rachel turned away and lugged her suitcase to the front door, pausing to reach under an upturned clay pot, locating the key exactly where Lord MacGregor had told
After unlocking the heavy wooden portal with its intricate carvings, she pushed it open. The hinges creaked, as if oiling had been long forgotten and rust had become a familiar friend.
A rush of cold air swept through the mostly shadowed room, stirring her hair, causing her flesh to shiver and a sense of foreboding to tap at her subconscious.
Ridiculous, of course. While there was reported to be more ghosts haunting these aging premises than any other place in the world, she had never been one to believe in such Poe-esque tales--things that go bump in the night had never sent her fleeing into her parents' arms or caused her to hide, trembling, under her blankets.
Again the air moved. A haze of dust motes danced and collided in the stream of dim light filtering through the heavy drapes on the windows, and with this stirring came a hint of mustiness--a certain indication that the castle had been unoccupied for a while.
Rachel glimpsed a movement out of the corner of her eye; something scurrying into the gathering shadows by the far wall. A rat? A cat? Or simply a figment of her imagination brought on by the gloom of her surroundings?
A prickling of unease raised goose bumps on her arms as she fanned away the dust that lingered in front of her face. With a deep, nervous breath, she stepped over the threshold.
There she stopped in her tracks, her bag dropping to the floor with a dull thud that resonated through the cavernous space like a gunshot and rattled loose windowpanes.
It was as though she had crossed a portal into another era, a time when harried servants in tattered clothes scampered over rush-strewn floors to do their master's bidding, and kilted Highlanders restlessly paced its armament-laden hallways, preparing for some skirmish against a rival clan.
A huge, circular foyer with a vaulted, buttressed ceiling surrounded her, and a U-shaped staircase ascended to the second floor. In darkened corners, snarling stone gargoyles peered down at her from their lofty perches.
On the walls hung Flemish tapestries, yellowed by age and moth-eaten, detailed yet fading, dating back--she suspected--hundreds of years or more.
Her eye then followed a ribbon of nebulous light to a spot between the arms of the staircase, and there, her heart gave an unexpected stutter.
Bathed in the hazy illumination and braced upon the wall, an enormous oil painting of a virile Highland warrior stared down at her--eyes of the most penetrating shade of blue burning straight through her, seemingly alive as they regarded her from that rugged face, tracking her every move as she walked across the foyer, as if pulled by some invisible force.
The man forever captured on the canvas had a commanding presence, a combination of arrogance and confidence that was clearly delineated on his chiseled features.
He was rigged out in full regalia, one hand resting on the jewel-encrusted hilt of the sword sheathed at his hip, the words "GRACE ME GOD" etched into the glittering blade. His kilt barely covered heavily muscled thighs and his linen shirt spread taut across a firm chest and broad shoulders.
Against a backdrop of cliff's edge and sky, the artist had imbued an aura of wind into the portrait, blowing the warrior's wild skein of jet-black hair over his shoulders, hair that looked raked by impatient hands. Rachel could almost feel its texture between her fingertips, and shivered as a chill breath of air glided over her skin.
"It's just a painting," she chided herself, then forced her gaze away, letting it drift downward to the brass plaque at the bottom of the ornate gilt frame. "Duncan MacGregor, 1745. A mighty Scotsman who battled a kingdom for the House of Stuart." Her eyes lifted and locked with his. He looked every inch the hero, she thought--and every inch the epitome of women's fantasies.
"I see ye've met the master."
With a startled gasp, Rachel whirled around to find a stooped old man lingering in the shadows behind her. His face grizzled, he peered at her with one eye squinted, the right side of his mouth frozen in a grimace. She took a step backward, her heart climbing into her throat.
"Frightened ye, have I?" He shook his head and shuffled toward her, dragging his right leg while his right arm dangled uselessly at his side. "Must learn tae announce myself," he said in a voice made breathless by his efforts to walk. "The missus is always tellin' me I creep up on folks like Hamlet's ghost."
Encircled with an air of stale smoke, he stopped before her. "Name's Fergus Osgood. I'm the caretaker of Glengarren." He glanced around and gave a grunt of disapproval. "Not that I'm up tae much caretakin' these days--not since my stroke." Cutting his gaze back to hers, he said, "Ye must be Mistress Hudson."
Rachel managed a weak nod, as unnerved by the man's frightening aspect as she was by his sudden appearance.
He gestured toward the painting. "Fine lookin' man was our Duncan." He tugged a rag from his back pocket and whisked away a layer of dust that had settled along the frame.
"Who is he?" she asked, her attention diverted.
"The man who built Glengarren."
Rachel's curiosity about Duncan MacGregor momentarily eclipsed her discomfort, and she wondered if the old tome she had discovered in a small bookstore the day before would have more information about him.
The book was a detailed history of the MacGregor clan. She had bought it, thinking to familiarize herself with her host's ancestors. The story, however, only went as far as 1965, and would give her no information about the current lord of the castle.
Fergus tucked the rag back into his pocket, then turned his attention on Rachel again, his expression somber, his good eye regarding her with an intensity that made her acutely uncomfortable.
"Is there a problem, Mr. Osgood?"
He squinted and ran his hand over his mouth. "Aye," he admitted, nodding. "I told the young MacGregor when he called tae tell me ye was comin' that this ain't no place for a woman alone. House is too damn queer. Local folks don't come 'round here--least those with good sense, anyways. Too much history, ye see. Too much woe."
Rachel glanced around the vast chamber, dark and looming, and fresh shivers raced up her spine. "Are you saying the place is haunted?"
"If ever there was a place that had a right tae be, 'tis this one." He shuffled closer. "Ye look like an intelligent woman, and bein' from America, yer no doubt accustomed tae comfort. Ye'll find no comfort here.
"Half the bloody time the electricity don't work--comes and goes as it pleases, and even when it's workin', it don't warm this place or light it worth a spit. Ain't nothin' of this good earth that can help dispel this cold and gloom. If ye've got any smarts at all, ye'll climb back in yer car and take ye a room in the village. Leave these dreary walls and lonely shadows tae the souls who've occupied Glengarren for the last centuries."
Rachel tamped down her growing apprehension and forced a light smile to her face. "I'm accustomed to being alone, Mr. Osgood, and I don't believe in ghosts. I'll stay, thank you."
A moment of silence passed as he regarded her, not exactly with an expression of disfavor, she noted, but more of concern, which bothered her even more.
"Suit yerself," he finally said with a shrug, reaching for her suitcase and starting toward the stairs, a corner of her bag dragging on the floor, the sound like a whisper as it shifted along the walls.
Rachel had no choice but to follow, her gaze darting about, awed by the sheer size and magnitude of the castle as they reached the second floor.
Here the cold bit at her, teeth-sharp and marrow-chilling, making her bones ache and her skin quiver. She hugged herself, endeavoring not to think about how she would soon be alone in these empty, rambling corridors.
She cast a nervous glance over her shoulder, as if expecting to find someone lurking there--a figure, ghostly pale and still as death.
Yet nothing but endless shifting shadows greeted her. Still, she couldn't shake the sensation of being watched, as though eyes followed her through slits in one of the paintings. Obviously, she was allowing Fergus's monitions to bother her more than she should.
Fergus rattled of
"What's the matter with the east wing?"
"Ain't nothin' but ruins. Burnt down somewheres in the eighteenth century. The current master's great-great-great-grandfather, or some such, tried tae restore it, but none of the workers hired tae do the job would stay beyond the first few days."
"Why?"
"Can't rightly say." His head turned, one steely eye peering at her over his shoulder. "Though there's them as say that somethin' don't want that section rebuilt."
"Something? As in a ghost?"
He shrugged and looked away. "Don't know. Only repeatin' what I heard."
Rachel refused to be intimidated by Fergus's claims of spooks, though she hurried to catch up to him when he got a few paces ahead of her.
"Keep an eye about ye when dark weather rolls in," he said then. "Stay indoors."
"What kind of weather?" she asked.
"Lightning, mostly. Place is famous for it, sittin' as it is on the highest rise above the river. Those bloody towers invite trouble, thrust so defiantly toward heaven as they are. Almost as if Glengarren is shakin' its fist at God."
Was the man purposely trying to scare her? Or was his perpetual voice of gloom and doom merely a facet of his personality?
He motioned down the long corridor. "Most of the rooms is closed off, as there ain't nobody stayin' here since the master's father took ill. But I had a room cleaned for ye. On a clear day, ye can see all the way down tae Culloden Moor." He stopped and pushed open one of the doors with his foot. "This is it."