Valley of Nightmares Page 11

  But I had moved away from him before he finished speaking. I drew aside the black hangings to reveal a door. It was locked. “Where does this lead?” I asked.

  He frowned, trying to calculate the geography of the vast house. “It must lead to the clock tower stairs,” he replied.

  I went over to the table. The only other item upon it, hidden from view behind the skull, was a small copper bowl. There were traces of a crimson liquid in the bottom. I dipped my finger into it, my stomach churning wildly. I held my dripping index finger up to show Gethin. “You brother’s obsession when he was younger doesn’t explain this. It’s blood,” I pointed out. “And it’s fresh.” A number of questions battled for supremacy in my mind. “What creature has this blood come from?”

  “It is likely to be the blood of a chicken, or a small animal.” Gethin held out his handkerchief so that I could wipe my hand clean. “I know it’s no consolation, Lilly, but there’s a possibility this blood is the by-product of Sunday lunch rather than a ritual killing.”

  “You’ll excuse me if I don’t immediately feel reassured,” I said, turning to the next, and perhaps most pressing question. “Because I can’t help wondering—how did it get here?”

  “I don’t know,” he confessed. “I mean, we know from the break-in that it’s possible for people to get into the house…” I regarded him in horror and he held up an apologetic hand. “I will check the doors and windows myself, Lilly, to make sure they are safe and that no one can enter. Does that help to alleviate your fears?”

  “Slightly. But there is very little about this situation in which I can find any crumb of comfort.” I viewed the bowl and the altar with final a shudder before turning away.

  Chapter Ten

  The weather was perfect as we set out, with bright sunshine breaking through the clouds to cheer us on. We followed a small brook and a series of watery cascades upstream, through a wood where the trees wore their best springtime colours. It was heartening to know that the back of winter was finally broken, and to feel summer at last approaching. The day was warm, and I felt little beads of sweat trickle down my spine as we navigated a pony path beyond the increasingly straggly woodland and finally gained the open ground. Here heather and scrub clumped together in dull purple-brown shades, a feeble effort that could not compete with the glorious palette of the valley. The near landscape was dull and desolate, but above us the ridges and screes announced the romance and majesty of the mountain. The feeling that clawed at some primeval instinct deep inside me grew stronger as we climbed. Mount Taran was stamping its supernatural poetry into my consciousness.

  An acrid smell of sulphur drifted on the morning breeze, and I wrinkled my nose. It was out of place in this sylvan setting. As Gethin marched ahead of me, a single warning flash of cold blue light shot across my vision and flew upward. It paused, quivering like a single lightning bolt, high above me atop the mountain. I stopped in my tracks, and Gethin looked in enquiry over his shoulder at me.

  “The lights…I told you I could see them. Well, one of them just flew past me.” The words sounded lame even as I spoke them.

  He followed my gaze up to the summit. “But it’s broad daylight,” he pointed out reasonably. “You said you only saw them at night.”

  “I still saw it,” I insisted. It may have been only a fleeting glimpse, but I believed my own eyes.

  “Do you want to go back?”

  Well, what a silly question! Of course I did. But I said no. My natural contrariness kicked in. I marched past him with a new determination in my stride. After all, it was he who had insisted on this walk, to prove to me that it really was “just a mountain”.

  As we continued our climb, the impressive north face of the arête, which I could see from my bedroom window, spiked upward ahead of us. After much red-faced huffing and puffing on my part, we finally came to a point where the steep rock face relented and became the gentler incline known as the chair. We rested there and sat with our backs against the dry stone wall of a tiny, two-roomed cottage. Gethin told me that it belonged to the Taran estate and had been built in a time when shepherds spent much of their life on the hillsides. It was used occasionally now by ramblers if the weather turned. We had no need of its shelter on that sweetly sunny day.

  Continuing even farther skyward, we crossed the hump of a whale-backed hill that unfolded a series of spectacular views one after the other. A final undignified scramble gained us the craggy summit. My breath came hard and fast whereas Gethin—most unfairly in my opinion—appeared not to have broken a sweat. When we stood, at last, on the highest point, he pointed out the key features of the landscape including the blue-and-gold line where surf tormented the shore with wild kisses. In the far distance, snow still silvered the majestic Snowdonian peaks. Below us—a tiny speck in the depths of the plunging valley—sat Taran House, cradled in its mountainous embrace. Sheep, hardy as mountain goats, clung to even the steepest slopes and eyed us resentfully when we neared them. Gradually, the air, clear as spring water, soothed the stubborn redness from my cheeks, and although I suspected that I resembled a maenad after a particularly wild dance, I began to feel restored to normality.

  “No lights,” Gethin observed, watching my face carefully.

  “No. But you know that I am not the only person to have seen them,” I reminded him. “Gwladys tells me they are part of the local legend.”

  He sighed. “Perhaps the legend is the reason so many people claim to have seen them?”

  “Claim?” I asked, a slightly dangerous note lending a flinty edge to my words.

  He appeared not to notice and ploughed on regardless. “Well, you know, it’s like talk about a haunted house. People who are susceptible to that sort of thing will hear the stories and then often see a ghost.” His gaze was clear as he continued to look down toward the valley.

  I stood up, and he turned his attention back to me, seeming surprised that I should be so enraged. “I am not susceptible!” I spat the words out angrily. “I saw those lights before anyone told me about them and…” It almost came tumbling out. All of it. The shared dreams, the mysterious hunter who haunted both Ceri and me, the arrival of Shucky. Some instinct for self-preservation stopped me. No self-respecting guardian was going to allow a woman who babbled wild, supernatural fantasies at him within shrieking distance of his niece. The laughter in Gethin’s eyes drove my fury up a notch. With a strangled cry of frustration, I stomped away from him and blindly started to follow the downward path. I could hear Gethin following me at his own leisurely pace, but I pointedly ignored him. I was so angry that it was some time before I looked around and realised I had chosen a different route for my descent.

  From this angle Taran’s Chair resembled a spent volcano. I was at the edge of a stunning amphitheatre of huge cliffs towering over and circling the clear, glossy mirror of Lake Taran. I remembered another of the many local legends. That when the ghostly hounds of the hunt drank from these beautiful waters, they polluted their bottomless depths. Only the pure of heart could safely enter the unruffled waters. Was there any part of this wretched valley that did not have a blood-curdling legend attached to it?

  “Fear not,” Gethin joked, as we crested the ridge. “It is only those whose hearts are poisoned by evil who need fear this place.” I stood in the sunlit horseshoe, catching my breath and regarding the blue-green depths suspiciously. “Worried, Miss Lilly Divine?” Gethin taunted, enjoyment lighting his eyes as he watched the play of emotions across my face. “Trying to gauge how pure your heart really is and whether you can risk it?”

  My anger had dissipated somewhat, but I was not prepared to relent toward him yet. Ceri and I had more than our dreams in common. Neither of us could resist a challenge. I pulled a haughty face at him and sat down on the rocky ground to remove my shoes and socks. One good thing about having been in burlesque was that modesty—or perhaps the lack of it—was not an issue for me. I
shrugged out of my shirt and shorts until I was clad only in my underwear, which had, until very recently, been my “working clothes”. Without a backward glance at Gethin, I waded into the icy waters, gasping in shock as the chill hit my stomach.

  Following my lead and stripping down to his khaki shorts, Gethin followed at a more leisurely pace. This gave me the opportunity, had I been so inclined, to admire his sculpted chest. I swam under the water and emerged closer to him, brushing wet strands of hair away from my face.

  Suddenly, his eyes widened and an expression of shock crossed his features. He flailed around briefly and then disappeared beneath the surface. He was gone for so long that I panicked. Swimming over to where he had been, I dived down again and again. Although the water was clear, the lake was so deep it was impossible to see what was below me. I broke through the surface, drawing a desperate lungful of air. The beautiful sunlit scene began to feel menacing. Stories of demon hounds and satanic hunters did not seem so silly now. When I was grabbed from behind, I let out a high-pitched squeak that made my assailant—Gethin, of course—laugh delightedly.

  I swung around, anger and relief warring within me. My temper won again. Without thinking, I pounded his chest furiously with my fists.

  “Stop it, you little hellcat!” he admonished, grabbing my upper arms and jerking me toward him so that he could hold me still. His touch acted like a talisman, and I collapsed against him, all of the fire leaving me abruptly. I was powerless to resist, and he drew me closer, holding me in a featherlight embrace.

  We trod water in time, my legs just brushing his as I lifted my head to look up at him. Droplets of water clustered on his eyelashes and flattened the black swirl of hair on his chest. Suddenly, there was a very purposeful look on his face. My throat tightened to the point just short of pain. And then I wasn’t able to think anymore. I was seized in an embrace that had changed its intent. Iron-hard passion replaced gentleness. Gethin’s lips crushed mine, and time ceased to exist. My eyelids fluttered closed. I gave myself up completely to the tempo of his kiss, showing him that my own desire matched his in its ferocity. My lips opened eagerly, and our tongues met and teased each other with promises of greater intimacy. I felt the instant urgency of his erection pressing exactly where I so desperately wanted to feel him. I opened my legs wider, leaning back slightly to deepen the sensation. He groaned his appreciation and drew me even closer. Even that was not enough. Oh, how desperately I wanted more!

  I opened my eyes slowly. Immediately, the dark, watchful presence of the mountain shadowed the bright sunlight of my desire. I wanted to close my eyes again and shut out all that dreaded grandeur, but it was too late. Even through the blaze of emotions that were alight within me, I told myself what I was feeling was just a rare physical reaction. The chemicals in Gethin’s body just happened to exactly match mine. That was why his damp skin against mine felt so tormentingly right. That was the reason I could taste heaven in his mouth. Our bodies, weightless in the clear lake water, moulded so perfectly together that I couldn’t tell where I ended and he began. We were so in tune that, if I had a choice, I would have spent all my eternities kissing Gethin Taran and giving myself up to those sensations.

  But I didn’t have a choice. The thought hit me like a slap in the face. Reality had teeth and it bit hard. I was acutely aware of our state of undress, that he was my employer and that I was hopelessly, helplessly in love with him. When did that happen? I had been so busy concentrating on not falling for him that love had sneaked up on me while I wasn’t looking. I didn’t have time to examine the thought.

  “Mr. Taran,” I gasped. His dark head was lowered so that he could nuzzle the curve of my neck, and his hands gripped my buttocks as he moved my body tantalisingly against his. He looked up at my words, his eyes crinkling into the laughter that I so rarely saw.

  “I think we may have just passed the stage of formality, Lilly,” he said, illustrating the point by pressing himself, hard and demanding, between my legs.

  I bit my lip, feeling a blush rise in my cheeks. “Gethin,” I began again and something in my tone made him pause. He scanned my face and, as he did, the smile faded from his eyes. “I don’t think this is a good idea!” The words tumbled out. “I can see why you might think that I would be able to take this sort of thing lightly,” I said, and he frowned. I ploughed on clumsily, stumbling over the words. “I mean, when you consider the way we met, well, I’m sure you have every reason to think I’d be easy. And this, today…well, I didn’t exactly resist, on the contrary…I wanted to, so much. In fact I probably even started it, but…well, I just think it would be a mistake.” My stammering explanation stumbled to an uneasy, and decidedly lame, halt.

  His lips thinned slightly. “I see.” He moved away, until he reached a point where he could stand waist-high in the water. I understood his anger. It was foolish of me to let things go so far before stopping them, but the blaze of fury in his eyes still shocked me. “I should thank you, I suppose, for letting me have such a candid assessment of my character! Let me assure you that I am not in the habit of seducing my employees and then excusing my actions by blaming them!” He waded out of the water, grabbed up the rest of his belongings and marched off, leaving me—still treading water in the lake—staring after him in confusion and chagrin.

  I waited for some time before returning to the house. I didn’t know what to say to Gethin, or how I should behave around him now. But I needn’t have worried. Dusk was falling as I stepped into the gloom of the hall and Gwladys was lighting the first candles.

  “Mr. Gethin told me to tell you he’s gone back to London,” she said, without glancing up from her task. “He doesn’t know when he’ll be back, see? Proper bad news it must have been though ’cause he went out that door looking like a badger chewing a wasp!”

  On leaden feet, I plodded up the stairs to my bedroom. Intense weariness washed over me, and the need to drown it in a hot bath was overwhelming. As I reached into my wardrobe to return my jacket to a hanger, I paused. The change was a subtle one. In an attempt to make my sensible outfits more palatable, I had arranged them in the wardrobe on hangers with matching skirts and blouses. It was a dispirited attempt to eliminate the possibility of getting it totally wrong should I ever need to dress in a hurry. My careful arrangement had been disturbed. The grey, georgette blouse I had matched with a houndstooth-check skirt was now on a hanger with a pair of fern-green trousers. I didn’t know what annoyed me more. The fact that someone had been in my room, moving my clothing around, or the suggestion that I would ever—in a million years!—have worn those two items together.

  * * *

  “I can call them,” Ceri stated simply. We were sitting on the kitchen step. An earlier cloudburst had ceased. The newly rinsed air was crisp and cold, and a thousand stars decorated the velvet sky. By night, the valley became a place of bitter beauty and foreboding. I didn’t need to ask what she meant. “I think, if you did it with me, we might not need to be scared of them anymore.”

  I looked up at the mountaintop. From this angle it was a sensation rather than a reality, a loitering shadow of its daylight majesty. Fear—of darkness and light, of known and unknown—wrapped its creeping, itching cloak around my shoulders. I wanted it gone.

  “You mean together we could control them.” It was a statement not a question. Ceri nodded. Why would we want to control the lights? When the valley’s climes were sunlit and bright, I might have been able to dismiss the notion. But now the sense of menace was strong. The darkness allowed my feelings no hiding place. The answer thrummed through my mind: because we must—or let them continue to control us.

  “How do you call them?” I asked.

  She wrinkled her nose. “I think them. The way I think you.”

  We trod purposefully round to the front of the house, where we had a better view of the sullen outline of Mount Taran and the yawning darkness of the chair. The damp grass soaked ou
r feet and released its pungent, earthy scent. I followed Ceri’s lead. We held hands and closed our eyes. I opened that hidden part of my mind. Rational thought was suspended as telepathy took over. I had to overcome my reluctance to make a connection with the entities that lived within the lights. Breathing in the thick, opaque air, I allowed their darkness to enter me. Slyly, it prodded at the corners of my consciousness, inviting me to engage further. Chaotic, fractured images came to me. A bright ache bloomed behind my eyelids. Death, blood, unspeakable atrocity, and depravity so foul I cried out in protest.

  “I can’t!” The words stayed in my mind, but Ceri heard them.

  “Don’t let them take you down with them where they want you to go. Stay with me.” Her unspoken command steadied my resolve.

  When I focused on Ceri, the images gradually became lighter. Nymphs and fawns danced, children played, horses caracoled and the parade of the long-departed was serene and silent now.

  When I opened my eyes, the lights had begun to form high on the mountaintop. Shards of violet and lavender dripped from the blackness. Fluorescent-blue serpents slithered. The defiant hand of an unseen artist splashed an arc of gold, brushed with auburn, onto the canvas of the starry sky. The heavens exploded into pinpoints of crystal sparks. Spiking and curving, rippling and swirling. This spectacular theatre was for us. We were the audience, and nature was determined to impress us with her daring artistry.