Page 17 of Harrowing Hall
Finlay kept grinning and ushered her and Jane along. “Wishing you both a wonderful All Saints’ Eve.”
The air was chilly and the wind a tad biting, but it felt refreshing. Exhilarating as she and Jane made their way through the gardens to the back of the castle, where the party was every bit in full tilt as it had been indoors. Inside, the castle had been scented with various perfumes, but outside smelled of wood smoke and exotic spices as many danced around a monstrous bonfire in the center of a clearing.
Where inside, waltz after waltz played, outside, the music was solely bagpipes, their trill lively yet somehow haunting. Lovely. Torches blew in the wind, and scary faces stared back from hundreds of neep lanterns scattered throughout the woodland. Fiery faces carved into beets, turnips, and rutabagas.
“How stunning,” Maude said at the same time Jane shivered and called them spooky.
“I cannot say I have ever been all that fond of this night.” Jane glanced back at the castle then, however fleeting, at Maude’s pearls. “Especially, quite frankly, at this castle.”
“Because of Lady Annabel.” Maude stopped Jane halfway down the path. “You recognize these pearls as well, did you not?”
“Aye.” Jane frowned. “For all the good Lord MacLauchlin is doing for me, I must be honest.” She made the sign of the cross over her chest. “I do not think his gift to you appropriate as he could have only fashioned your pearls from that portrait.” She glanced around. “And it could be, as the night wears on, that others will think the same.”
“Understandable.”
Yet she could not find the willpower to remove them. Not when they felt like they belonged. That perhaps they had been a gift from Lady Annabel herself. How to explain such to Jane, though? To make her understand? Where she could spin a good yarn, she decided against it because she wanted their friendship to be as truthful as the one she shared with Blake.
So she made sure her friend had a fresh cider in hand, kept their arms wrapped as they continued walking, and told her everything. From start to finish. Praying she would take it for what it was worth rather than something devilish or to be shunned.
“Oh, dear,” Jane whispered once she finished. “That is something, is it not?” She glanced from the castle to Maude’s pearls again. “Frightening, to say the least, some might say.” Her eyes rounded before they narrowed a little. “Yet you are not afraid, are you, my friend?”
“No.” She gazed at the castle. Remembered the picture of Lady Annabel. “If anything, I’m sad for the mourning I sometimes hear in those pipes…and flattered that she might somehow be reaching out to me.”
“Well, I will say, you are a different sort, are you not, Miss Maude?” Jane seemed more at ease with Annabel than she had minutes before. More accepting than scared by Harrowing Hall. “Different in a way I suspect my countrymen will appreciate. Respectful where others might not have been.”
“Aye, she is,” came a raspy voice off to their left. Stands were set up here and there with folk selling wares, but this stand was the most traditional sort on All Saints’ Eve.
One of a fortune teller.
A small bowl of flames burned in front of her as she held out a dainty cup of tea to Maude. “Come, she who will soon be mistress of this castle. Drink the tea I brewed, and allow me to share what the future holds for you.”
Although quite old, she was beautiful with long wispy white hair. She was also strangely familiar, so Maude thought nothing of taking the tea and sipping the delicious brew.
“Sit, lasses.” She gestured at the tree stump in front of her table. “So that I might tell Miss Maude more, aye?”
“Indeed,” she and Jane agreed at the same time, equally enthralled.
The tea was delicious, so she kept drinking.
“I will get to you soon enough, Lady Jane, though I suspect your fortune has already been well met.” Her gaze never left Maude’s face as she urged her to drink the cup down and tossed two nuts into the fire. “It will be your destiny that is of the utmost importance, Miss Maude.”
“Will it be then?” She looked from Jane to the old woman, unsure how one’s fate could be more important than another’s. “For I see no difference between us.”
“No, no, you misunderstand.” The woman smiled between them. “One simply no longer needs my help, for her path has been revealed.” Her gaze landed squarely on Maude again. “Where the other’s has not.”
“I can assure you my path is—”
Jane touched her arm, shook her head, and gave her a warning look. One that Maude took as equal parts superstition that she not argue with the seer and to be careful how much she revealed. Because weren’t fortune tellers nothing more than tricksters? Those who made coin off of saying whatever the listener wanted to hear?
“Your path is about to be revealed,” the old woman whispered, gesturing at the two nuts now vibrating in the flames. “Just watch…wait…be patient….”
Her eyes fluttered shut, then snapped open at the same moment the nuts leapt together.
“Aye, but o’ course, lassie.” She smiled and nodded. “You have a long, true life ahead with your beloved.”
“Well, I would hope so because I love—”
“But do you have a long true life within this castle, I wonder?” the old woman went on, turning her attention to Maude’s tea. “Have you finished it yet then? Because you do want a pleasant life here, aye, missus? And only that can tell me.”
