My water was cold by the time we realized we’d better get me dressed and down to dinner before someone came looking for me. I shivered through my bath like a trooper and dressed as quickly as possible. It was of the utmost importance to keep Isabelle’s presence a secret. Elizabeth proved a valuable ally in this cause. Her admiration and reverence for Rosalie spilled onto Isabelle. There was nothing the lady’s maid wouldn’t do to guarantee my friend’s safety. Although grateful, I couldn’t help being a little jealous. I got the impression that if it came to a choice between saving Isabelle or me, I’d lose.
With Isabelle tucked safely away under the watchful eye of Elizabeth, I went about my daily routine as Lady Margaret while I furthered my discoveries of the type of person she was. I learned that she’d been born into a magical family. When I learned her parents were kin to the faeries, but had only the faintest of blood in them, I had to spend some time digesting that fact. I believed in magic and -thanks to my relationship with Duncan- I believed in vampires. I supposed the faerie story could hold some truth to it.
Dinner had almost come to a conclusion when I learned about the grimoire Lady Margaret’s mother once possessed. It wasn’t the same grimoire they’d stolen from Lady Vivian. It was far more complete and complex. Unfortunately, when she died, so did the information on its hiding place. That was why they’d stolen the one from Lady Vivian. Had they possession of Lady Margaret’s inheritance, there would have been no need.
My mind went back to that afternoon and my time spent hiding behind the tapestry. Could it be that Lady Margaret’s mother hid the grimoire there? No, that couldn’t have been it. From what I’d learned, Margaret came to live with the Colliers after her parents were killed in a carriage accident. If she allowed them to steal Vivian’s grimoire to send her to the future, then she must not have had her family grimoire in her possession. I decided to brave the hole in the wall behind the tapestry, even though I doubted I’d find anything of significance there.
I was forced to endure the company of Lady Andrea Somers and her daughter Juliet for an hour or so after dinner before I was able to beg off with a headache. Having amnesia and not acting normal was proving useful.
When I returned to my rooms, I found Isabelle was up and moving around. She appeared to be in good spirits even if she had aged a few more years in my absence.
“How long do you have?” I questioned without really wanting to know the answer.
“A week, maybe longer,” she said with a shrug. “When do you have the portal set for?”
“Two days,” I replied.
“Then we have two days to throw me into the mix,” she said matter-of-factly.
“Oh, lord,” I moaned.
“Be careful the phrases you use here my dear and always be on your toes with the language. These walls have ears,” she whispered.
My back stiffened as I looked around. My eyes rested on the tapestry.
“There is a hollow or a hall or something behind that tapestry. I hid there for a while this afternoon when Elizabeth first entered,” I informed her.
“Let us check it out then,” she whispered as she moved toward the beautiful thick fabric and lifted it way from the wall.
After poking her head behind the tapestry, she slid behind it and motioned for me to follow. I wasn’t able to go far before my claustrophobia kicked in and my breathing grew labored. Not only was it pitch black, but the stone walls were within reach on either side of me. I could touch the stone ceiling as well. I felt Isabelle grab my hand and urge me forward. I tripped a few times on the hem of my skirt, but, other than that, the journey down the confining primitive corridor was uneventful.
I marveled over Isabelle’s ability to maneuver in the pitch blackness. She confided she’d been down many corridors of the like and they were all pretty much the same. It had something to do with the magical traditions of her people. Even the paths leading to the sacred space had to meet certain specifications.
Although her explanation seemed complicated, it also felt surprisingly familiar.
When I thought I couldn’t stand blindly following Isabelle one second longer, -no matter how adept she was at maneuvering- we came to the opening of a cave. I stood in it and breathed in the cool night air. It was sweet and refreshing after the interminable trip through hell to get there.
I looked out upon a large quarry with a round clearing. In the center of the clearing was a stone alter. Two large statues of hawks were placed on the ground on both ends of the alter. Their proud, majestic stance projected a combination of regal and threatening.
As I followed Isabelle out of the cave, I felt a buzzing sensation when I stepped into the outer perimeter of the clearing. It was like a mild electrical current flowing through my body. I didn’t like the feeling.
“What’s that buzzing feeling going through me?” I asked.
“You have a buzzing feeling? I have none. I wonder why,” Isabelle replied.
“What do you feel?” I asked.
“Nothing,” she said quizzically. “Perhaps you should step outside the circle, just to be safe. There is probably a protection spell around it.”
“Why would I react and not you?” I asked.
“There are many reasons,” she said thoughtfully. “The one that comes to mind and concerns me most is a sensor placed around the circle to notify the keeper of the circle when you returned.”
“Returned? This is my first time here,” I insisted.
“True, but you are a dead ringer for her,” Isabelle said cautiously, as she surveyed our surroundings.
Before we could travel down that road of conversation any further, at least a dozen hawks swooped down upon us. As we battled to protect ourselves from the onslaught of their fierce beaks, Isabelle fell to the ground. Blood oozed from her temple. I screamed and tried to get to her, but the entire flock turned its focus on me. Rather than take me down like they had Isabelle, they took me up; literally. Their thick sharp talons dug into my tender flesh as each bird gripped my body, my clothing, my hair, etc. and carried me off into the wild blue yonder.
They were surprisingly strong and managed to get my bulk above the tree tops where they could fly more easily with their burden. The scent of dirty feathers and bird feces assaulted my senses as I struggled to maintain my composure. I had no idea where they were taking me or why, but I did know that if they dropped me I had a crippling distance to fall that could prove fatal. I thought it best to just let them take me wherever and deal with escaping afterward.
We traveled for quite a distance over the tops of trees until we finally hit the rolling hills of the local farmland. I recognized a few cottages and began to get my bearings. If I was correct, we weren’t far from the cave where I’d hidden my belongings.
I could feel the strength of the birds’ heavy wings waning and our position in the sky lowered ever so slightly. I feared for my safety as we flew over an enormous lake at a frighteningly lesser speed than we’d been traveling. Clearly the hawks were tiring under their burden. Their ability to carry both me and themselves ended just as we reached a small cottage in a clearing at the edge of yet another wooded area. A scream purged from my throat as they released me and I fell about twenty feet onto a large haystack. Although the hay provided a cushion for my fall, it also hurt like hell when little pieces of it pierced my flesh. I was filled with a mixture of relief for being alive and anguish over being stuck like a pin cushion with tiny shards of hay.
I lay motionless for a while and gathered my wits about me while I forced myself to work through the pain as I picked slivers of hay from my arms, legs and buttocks. As I looked at the bruising that was already surfacing, I reminded myself that it could have been worse. At least I was alive.
Thoughts of death brought Isabelle immediately to mind. I needed to reach her; but how?
I scrambled off the hay stack and brushed my clothing free of debris while straightening it as best I could. I’d lost a slipper in the fall and searched around the haystack in hopes of finding it. I was just slipping it back onto my foot when the infamous Lady Vivian Everhoust rode toward me on her enormous white stallion like a ghost in the night.
I have no idea how I knew it was Vivian. I just knew.
Perhaps it was when she spat out, “So, Lady Margaret, are you a glutton for punishment or just simple minded?” Or when she threw her head back, laughed, and said, “I believe simple minded is the like” that it struck me.
Her stallion paced and pawed the ground while it struggled against the flimsy looking restraints in its mouth. She seemed unbothered when it reared several times while its powerful whinny pierced the night air. Although I found her horsemanship impressive, I shuddered at the eeriness of the situation.
“Vivian,” I said flatly.
“Lady Vivian to you, peasant!” she screeched.
I almost peed myself when her eyes flashed a burnt yellow before returning to their normal dark brown. What was she? I’d only seen the eyes of those two vampires during my attack, but I didn’t think they were flashing light exactly like that. The vampires repetitively flashed more red. Vivian’s eyes had only briefly turned a definite burnt yellow before returning to their normal dark brown. Her facial features were also not distorted. In fact, I had to admit she was quite the beauty. If I had to describe her, I’d say she was a mixture of Amanda Seyfried and Angelina Jolie. She displayed the body type and spoiled cuteness of being that Amanda Seyfried carried off so well in her role in the film Mama Mia, but the sexy facial features of the actress icon, Angelina Jolie. I could easily understand why she was the belle of the season.
Thinking back on the people I’d met since my arrival, I recalled very few people who weren’t on the attractive side. That seemed a little out of place compared to walking down the streets of Manhattan. There were so many people from so many cultures intermixing with each other, not only in cultural practice, but genetically. Sometimes these mixes and mingling of traditions and genetics weren’t the best idea and you had to remind yourself that you weren’t at a circus side show. I saw no sign of that here. The culture and the genetics were, for the most part, untainted. The purity came through as true beauty.
It’s amazing how my mind just went off into that direction while in the face of danger. Perhaps Vivian was right. Maybe I was just simple minded. I’m sure most people of normal mind wouldn’t be contemplating all the pretty people they’d met while some yellow eyed bitch on an enormous white beast taunted them.
Before I knew what was happening, I was besieged on either side by Vivian’s men. They grabbed my arms and forced them behind my back. If I thought I was in pain from my encounter with the haystack, it paled in comparison to having my arms twisted behind my back as if I was some cotton stuffed rag doll.
I was about to make a complaint when a nasty, musty smelling sac was shoved over my head. It had clearly been used to carry some type of feed. I kept my mouth pinned shut and took shallow breaths through my nose to avoid inhaling too much of the rancid sediment of grain that remained within the fabric’s weaves. Like the pain of the straw pokes paled in comparison to the pain in my twisted arms, so did the claustrophobia of the cave wane in comparison to the confines of the suffocating sac.
For the first time since I’d arrived, I questioned whether I would live or die.
I was unceremoniously shoved into a cart.
I was grateful for the thickness of the tightly woven silk I wore as I’m sure I would have met with an onslaught of slivers from the roughhewn planked floor of the cart, had I not had its protection. Had I realized the hole behind the tapestry on my wall led outdoors, I would have donned my cloak. As it was, I was not only depending on the layers of clothing I wore for protection against the cart, but for whatever warmth they could provide as well. Where I would normally silently lament about the unmerciful number of articles of clothing a woman was expected to layer onto her person simply to leave her room, at that particular time, I was extremely grateful.