Page 29 of Camellia and the Christmas Curse
Finn went still. “What did you say?”
Her hands tightened around his arms, for a different reason than a moment before. “Look around, very slowly. Right by the double doors. What do you see?”
He turned his gaze from Camellia and looked toward the doors.
It was, unquestionably, a ghost.
The kiss momentarily forgotten, he stared at the image, a vague flutter of white, like snow through a windowpane.
Then, without seeming to change at all, the image suddenly became solid, but more through the grace of his eyes focusing more clearly than any alteration in the substance of the figure, which now showed itself to be a young woman in an exquisite gown of the previous century.
“It’s the Silver Lady!” Camellia breathed, her heart pattering wildly in her chest. Whether it was due to the kiss or the appearance of the ghost or some combination of the two, she couldn’t say. Instinctively, she slipped her hands into Finn’s. “Tell me you see her. Tell me I’m not mad.”
He swallowed, all his usual aloofness gone. “If you’re mad, so am I. Is she the one you saw before?”
“Oh, yes!” Camellia said, hardly daring to speak above a whisper. “Oh, yes, of course!”
The Silver Lady did not appear to see them. At that moment, she glided down the hallway, away from them, moving at a stately pace.
“We must see where she goes!”
He nodded wordlessly. He turned, keeping one hand clasped with hers. “Not too closely,” he warned.
“She can’t hurt us!” Camellia whispered, enchanted by the vision. She followed along the corridor, tugging him along at first. But soon he matched her pace, and they trailed the Silver Lady down one hall and another, afraid to speak lest the spell be broken.
After a few minutes, Camellia noticed they had to walk faster to keep the shimmering figure in view.
There was a sharp turn in the hallway. They lost the Silver Lady for a moment. Camellia cried out, running to catch up. She and Finn both turned the corner to see the figure fade directly into the heavy oak of a closed door.
Camellia gasped, appreciating the impossibility of what they’d seen. “It can’t be!”
Finn stared at the heavy doors though which the Silver Lady disappeared. “That’s the door to the tower,” he said in a low voice.
Camellia didn’t know if she would dare try to open the door without Finn there. Her knees were weak, and she was conscious of a chill in the air, one that could not be simply due to the winter. “Should we…?”
“We bloody well should,” he said decisively. He tried to open the massive door by pulling the big iron ring handle, but it was held fast by either locks or time, or both. “There’s no way she got through. There’s no way…”
“Finn, she’s a ghost. Of course she can.”
“It must have been a trick! An illusion of some sort.” He yanked again at the ring set in the door. The iron clanked hollowly through the air. He took a few steps back and then lunged toward the door. It shook, but didn’t look close to moving. Finn winced, recovering his senses. “Ah, hell. I’m not an army, am I?” he growled.
“Why are you so upset?” Seeing he was about to try again, she put a restraining hand on his arm. “Oh, don’t! You’ll hurt yourself. Tell me why you don’t believe in her.”
He suddenly looked tired. “It’s not that I don’t believe in her. I saw her. But I felt so strange when she disappeared. I felt panic. I haven’t felt something like that since…” He trailed off, misery in his face.
“Let’s go back to the main wing,” she suggested. She didn’t want to bring up bad memories, especially after what he had told her of his experiences. “We shouldn’t be here.”
“She looked sad,” Finn said, still fixated on the mystery. “Don’t you think?”
“Of course she did. Ghosts walk because they have lost something, or they’re cursed.”
As they walked slowly back, they discussed the lady and tried to decide if she was truly the Silver Lady of Hortense’s story.
“And if she is, then where is her beloved?” Lia mused. “Do you think he became a spirit too?”
“And what of the Duelers, who seem to be from her time?” he added. “Did they know her?”
“Did they fight over her memory?”
