Page 37 of Camellia and the Christmas Curse
The wind swirled around her ankles, pushing her forward. Camellia reached the frame of the window and looked out on a fairyland of drifting snow. Moonlit ice crystals streamed through the air swirling around the tower.
Dimly, she heard a voice behind her. Not the singing. A man’s voice, far away. “Camellia!” Hearing her name, she turned back for an instant, but then felt the call of the night again. Something inside her whispered about the loveliness of the winter moon, and she placed her hands on the freezing stones of the window frame. Then she put one foot on the sill.
“Camellia!” The voice came again, louder this time. Closer. “Lia, are you up there?”
“Yes?” she whispered. A sudden gust made her shiver and blink. What was she doing here, in this strange room at the top of the tower?
You want to see the stars, a voice reminded her. Oh, yes. Camellia’s head swiveled back to the sky. See the stars, and step closer to them. That’s right…
Below, Finn rushed up the final flight of steps and entered the freezing chamber. He saw Camellia balanced on the windowsill, and went still.
A dark laugh seemed to echo around the room, but Camellia didn’t hear it. Her gaze was fixed on the night sky, and she was hearing something else entirely.
All at once, Finn shouted, “Camellia! The ghost is telling you things. Don’t listen to her! Listen to me! Don’t step forward. Do you hear me? I love you, Lia!”
His voice finally pierced the fog in Camellia’s mind. Finn loved her. She paused for a split second, her balance on a knife edge. One more windy gust and she would fall to the icy courtyard below. She began to step back…
No! A sharp voice sounded in her mind. You will suffer as I did…I don’t care who you are. Now walk forward!
She swayed, and leaned forward. The wind seemed to lift her up.
“Lia, give me your hand! Step toward me, darling.” She looked and saw Finn there.
What a very long way down, Camellia thought, her mind curiously calm. I shouldn’t listen to her. Then she inhaled, as if waking up from a nightmare. “Oh, my Lord!” she gasped, teetering on the sill. I’ve been someone else, she realized. I was the Silver Lady! She was moving me around, reliving her own death. And Camellia would fall too, if…
“Finn!” Camellia spun toward the man trying to help her, and nearly fell into his arms as she leaped off the windowsill.
Finn grabbed her and held her tightly to him. “I’ve got you, Lia. I’ve got you.”
She was shaking, thinking of the long drop to the bottom of the tower. “I love you,” she whispered. “Don’t let me go. I almost fell. Please don’t let me go. I love you.”
At her words, he inhaled. “Are you still under a spell?” he demanded, running one hand over her forehead, pushing her hair away so he could see her face. “Tell me.”
She shook her head, “No. I’m me again. Camellia Swift, of 17 Bedford Square, London. But I am in love with you, Finn.”
Finn wrapped Camellia in his arms and held her close until she stopped shaking from the shock of her near fall. He told her what he saw in the old great hall, and how Elliot appeared and suddenly all three of them were haunted by the past.
Camellia said, “It was so strange. I wasn’t myself. I had these thoughts that weren’t my own. They were the Silver Lady’s. And she was listening to someone else too…”
“The Welsh Ghost,” he said. “I heard her too. It was like a sinister voice in my mind, whispering. Encouraging me to act in the worst possible way.” He pulled Camellia even closer. “I guess I was lucky I had something good to focus on instead.”
“The Welsh Ghost started it all, didn’t she?” Lia said, putting the stories together. “She cursed the castle, and haunted the other woman who became the Silver Lady. The Welsh Ghost made those two Duelers so possessed that they fought each other till they died. She can’t bear anyone to be happy.” Camellia took a deep breath. “Remember when Hortense looked so strange during her story the first night? The ghost was speaking through her. She wanted everyone to be thinking of the tragedy again.”
“It’s possible,” Finn said. “Anything is possible.”
“You think they’ll come back?”
He spoke of the sword fight with Elliot, and how relieved he was when he fought off the urge to kill. “I don’t know if they’ll return. Hortense’s stories suggested history keeps repeating itself around here. But Elliot and I didn’t kill each other like the Duelers did, and you didn’t fall like the Silver Lady did.”
“Thanks to you,” Camellia said, cuddling closer to him.
“You were strong enough to resist the Welsh Ghost’s suggestions,” he argued. “Perhaps we changed the outcome.”
“It’s true what I said, you know,” Camellia said softly. “I love you. I know it’s sudden, but it’s true all the same.”
“And I love you. Maybe suddenly is the only way to fall.” He kissed her head. “I can’t offer you anything, Lia. I have a pittance as a veteran, and nothing else besides.”
“What does it matter, if we are together?”
