1

Lynnette Overton was a pink of Society. It had been remarked among those who knew her that she was as merry as a cricket, and more than one gentleman of her acquaintance thought her quite taking in her own, straightforward fashion. No one had ever accused her of being a cabbagehead. Nor had it ever been said that she was so timid as to not say boo to a goose.

Yet even she was not one to take foolish chances.

Before she climbed into bed that night with a cup of chocolate and a copy of Mrs. Mordefi's newest sensational gothic novel, Lynnette locked her door. She was too taken by the glittering light of a full moon to pull her draperies shut but even she was not so blinded by the sparkle as to let it beguile her. So she also made sure that the French windows that looked onto a wide veranda, and from there over the gardens, were fastened tight.

It was a good thing she did, she told herself, settling down with her book. The happenings at Greystone Castle were enough to curl her liver.

The noise came from outside my window, a low, inhuman moan that seemed at one moment to come from the wind and the next to shiver in the air all around the ancient castle walls. My heart beat like a marching army, the sound so loud in my ears I wondered that my father, or my dear governess, Madame Bretaigne, or any of our servants who were asleep in their own chambers, did not hear the uproar and come to my aid.

Except for my own rough breathing and the sound outside that seemed nothing less than the exhalation of hell, Greystone Castle was quiet, its inhabitants blessedly and soundly asleep at this late hour, insensible to the terror that coursed through the air like the reverberation of thunder.

A frisson like icy fingers touched Lynnette's shoulders and she burrowed farther under her blankets. She fluffed her pillow and tilted the book to make the most of the single candle that burned beside her bed. Her heart pounded, nearly as unmercifully as that of poor Clarice, the besieged heroine in this, the latest tome from the wildly popular Mrs. Mordefi.

Pounding heart and icy shivers aside, Lynnette could no more have stopped reading than she could keep herself from taking another breath. Mrs. Mordefi had long been her favorite author and Greystone Castle was all that Lynnette had hoped for. And more.

I do not remember pushing back the blankets under which I was huddled, weak and shivering with fright. I do not remember my bare feet touching the icy flagstone floor. I cannot recall, though I have tried mightily in the long years since that most haunting of nights, when I took into my hands the candle that was lit beside my bed. I know only that I carried it with me, its light around me like a nimbus in the black void. The flame did not shiver; my hands did not tremble. Nor did my feet falter. They carried me relentlessly nearer and nearer, step by inexorable step, to the window and to the horrific sound that shuddered in the air just outside.

A small scraping sound interrupted Lynnette's reading and she gasped and sat up, automatically looking around her bedchamber.

"Looby!" She scolded herself instantly for being so suggestible as to let Clarice's plight affect her own pleasurable pastime. Yet it was not so easy to convince herself that what she'd heard wasn't the sound of her doorknob turning.

Though she knew full well that her housekeeper had been abed for hours and was not inclined to move about the house at night, Lynnette called to her in any case. "Mrs. Wilcox?"

There was no answer.

"Of course." She clicked her tongue, a reminder not to be so fanciful. Ready to settle down again, she positioned the pillow behind her in a more comfortable fashion. When she did, her hand brushed against the paper that was tucked beneath it. Just as it was tucked there every night.

Suddenly, in spite of the reasoning that told her otherwise, the sound she'd heard outside her door did not seem so unlikely.

Lynnette swallowed the dry-as-sand taste that filled her mouth. She did not need to remind herself that while she was visiting Brighton recently and out to tea with friends, someone had slipped into her lodgings. When she'd returned, she found chaos. Her bedchamber had been turned upside down. Her desk had been emptied. Even her wardrobe had been thoroughly searched.

She knew this single sheet of paper was exactly what the intruder had been looking for.

"No use kicking up a dust," she reminded herself. "You're home now at Plumley Terrace and no one can get to it here." It was good advice, but it did not keep her from propping herself on one elbow to look across her well-appointed room and toward the doorway again.

"No one. Nothing." She let the words escape on the end of a sigh and forced the tension out of her shoulders. It was not as easy to untwist the knot in her stomach so she reached for her cup of chocolate and sipped. She closed her eyes, savoring the taste and the heat that poured through her and eased her jangled nerves.

Soothed, she went back to her reading.

I remember nothing at all until the moment I found myself at the window. I could see little beyond my own reflection, my pupils wide and dark, my hair loose around my shoulders like an ebon shawl. I knew that beyond the glass was naught but the vista of lonely countryside that extended for miles around our home. There was no balcony outside my chamber. No foothold of any kind at all in the sheer rocky face of Greystone Castle. Far below, glistening in the moonlight, was the moat that ringed our walls, and below and to my right, the medieval drawbridge that was never raised because Father believed it to be only for ceremonial purposes, those occasions when someone of importance came to call. In our isolation, we did not often have visitors.

For one heartbeat, then two, nothing happened and I realized that the sound that had disturbed my sleep and brought me from my bed had stopped. The quiet pressed against me, as real as the darkness that surrounded me. I shook my head, certain that the noise and the shudder of fear that rode on the air with it had been nothing more than a dream, that I had imagined both the sound and the chill that crawled along my skin like the frosty fingers of death.

"Sleepwalking." My own whispered word echoed back at me from the stillness like a prayer.

I was sleepwalking. Certainly that was what was happening. Thus, all was explained. The sound was not real. It was nothing but a figment of my too fanciful imagination.

If I dreamed the sound then perhaps I was asleep still. I must certainly be. For as I stood there, endeavoring to see beyond the blackness that wrapped our castle like a shroud, a face appeared outside my window. A pale face, with eyes as yellow as a rodent's, and as hot as flame.

Copyright © 2004 by Connie Laux