Unsettled, Mena scanned the gloom of the library again. A large, dark shadow caught her eye, but darted away as soon as she thought she’d found it.
“Please,” she called. “Show yourself. You’re frightening me.”
“If I showed myself ye’d be terrified.” The masculine voice could only be identified as serpentine. The ss drawn out in a bone-chilling hiss that seemed to come at her from everywhere and nowhere at once. “But I mean ye no harm, ’tis the laird ye should fear.”
“Why?” Mena asked the shade, inching along the wall toward the door that now seemed miles away rather than across the room. She wanted to call for help, but didn’t dare. What would she say once help arrived? That a disembodied voice had accosted her?
She’d be sent back to Belle Glen for certain.
Cold fingers caressed above the high collar of her gown, and Mena let out a strangled scream. Whirling around, she saw nothing but a dark blurred shadow, and the flash of white streaked with veins of startling red surrounding black, abysmal pupils.
Surging back with terror, she somehow forced her legs to move, and bolted from the library.
Mena didn’t stop in the hallway, nor did she seek refuge in the solarium, her room, or the conservatory. Running on pure, heart-pounding fear, she flew down the back stairs and burst from the keep into the embrace of the sun outside.
Racing through the back gardens, she didn’t stop until she’d plunged deep into the forest that grew wild on the south and west of Ravencroft lands. She quickly found a deer path that led through the foliage. Picking up her skirts, she allowed her fear to drive her deep into the trees. She’d always taken refuge in the forest back home in Hampshire, and while the sun broke through the dancing leaves, Mena could pretend she was at Birch Haven, and that demons didn’t chase her.
When her lungs felt as though they’d burst, Mena reached her arms out and braced them against the trunk of an ancient oak. Clinging to it, she focused on catching her breath, her thoughts racing as if chased by whatever malevolent presence she’d fled.
Had she truly just encountered a ghost? Or a demon?
She couldn’t believe it was so, and yet there was no denying the chill bumps that still lifted every fine hair on her body. If she closed her eyes, she could see nothing but those dreadful black pupils rimmed with white and streaked with alarming bolts of red. She’d never in her life encountered eyes like that before.
Because surely no living creature was bestowed of something so horrific.
As she began to catch her breath, another terrible fear pierced her like an icicle as a memory she fought to repress rose to the surface.
Are you hearing voices? Or perhaps seeing things that are not there?
Dr. Rosenblatt’s even timbre was as bloodcurdling as a banshee scream, and Mena fought the impulse to clap her hands over her ears.
Could it be? Was she going mad? Hallucinations were the hallmark of true insanity and Mena couldn’t decide which was worse. A demon in Ravencroft’s library, or one in her mind.
The things he’d said about the laird …
A sound permeated the roar of her own blood in her ears. A high-pitched yip and a howl followed by a succession of barks. Lifting her head and peering around the tree, Mena identified the unmistakable roll and crest of the sea.
The canine sounds intensified in strength and pitch until Mena was certain they were distressed. Drifting carefully forward, she climbed over a fallen tree limb and followed the sounds through the thick foliage until the tree line suddenly gave way to a thin, steep grassy knoll. She found that she was at the peak of this hill, though taller, imposing black cliffs rose to to the north, and to the south. A steep path led down some amber-tinged autumn grasses to a hidden cove of golden sand.
Below her, a tall sheepdog and her tiny replica frantically paced at the surf, barking and howling loudly. Occasionally the mother would dive in and attempt to break the pull of the waves to reach an outcropping of rocks, upon which one little black and brown puppy yipped and cried for help.
Demons all but forgotten, Mena checked her surroundings before tucking her skirts into her wide belt and descending the steep and rocky trail to the cove as hastily as she could while still keeping her balance. She guessed the dogs had been playing on a sandbar and frolicking around the rocks when the tide had come in. The mother must have only been able to rescue one pup before the water became too deep and powerful for her to reach the other.
Since the coast of Wester Ross was buffeted by the Hebrides and the Isle of Skye, the surf was not as wild as the open ocean, and Mena felt confident that she could reach the little creature in time.
Abandoning her shoes and stockings the moment she reached the sand, she pulled her skirts even higher as the mother and her puppy raced toward her. They danced at her feet, barking pleas for help, rushing back to the water’s edge, and then returning to nudge her legs.
A pang of fear slid between her ribs as she realized how cold and alarming the water would surely be, but it only took one look at the whimpering, stranded puppy for Mena to find her courage.
“I’m here,” she told the frantic mother, who wouldn’t stand still long enough to be touched. “I’ll get your little one.”
The icy shock of the autumn ocean drew a gasp from Mena as she plunged into the gentle surf. But as frigid as it was, it had nothing on the asylum’s dreaded ice baths. Mena knew exactly how long she could function in water this cold.
Her skirts became heavy as the water engulfed her knees, then her thighs. But she quickly found the sandbar that the dogs must have crossed, and was able to navigate quite a ways to the outcropping of wet rock without the water reaching past her hips.
Once she neared the terrified pup, she reached out just in time as the little creature leaped into her arms. “Come here, my darling,” she soothed as the tiny warm body squirmed and whined and burrowed its little face into her neck. “I’ve got you. You’re safe now. Your poor mum is awfully worried.” The chill of the water now stung her legs, and the depth began to creep upward toward her waist. Mena cuddled the wet pup to her breast and turned toward the beach.
Then froze.