Page 151 of Ironvine

He buried his face in her neck. “I love you.”

ChapterSixty-Six

Georgina

Georgina knew she shouldn’t.

But as she took in the towering wall of the castle ruins before her, every fibre of her being shouted,yes, I must!

She’d come here tonight to sketch the castle in the light of the full moon. She’d done a myriad of sketches and watercolours of the ruins in the bright sun and under the clouds, but now, she would finally capture the ruins in the unique silvery light of the great bright August moon.

Darting across the narrow stone bridge over the moat, she’d made her way around the tower to the courtyard of the castle. On purpose, she had worn her boots and Charles’s old clothes as all the rains this week had left the valley sodden. Her boots sank into the muddy earth and splashed in the pools of water in the old courtyard as she worked.

Charles was out with Brandon in the village this evening, and she could spend all the time she wanted taking in the various views and perspectives of the castle tower and its house.

She captured the light glittering over the stone walls, and the gleaming surface of the pond. She recorded all that the moon revealed that the sun did not—shadows, contrasts, mystery, allure. The umbrage of the trees and foliage, an atmosphere of gloom, a gothic murkiness.

As she tucked her sketchpad into her satchel, securing it, she glanced up at the moon. She had been here a long while already, and the moon had moved its position since she’d first arrived. Clouds now streaked across the sky like eerie ghostly apparitions.

Perhaps she should have gone inside the ruined castle first and then sketched the exterior, but it all had been so overwhelming when she’d first arrived.

Georgina was desperate to see if she could find that design motif on the walls that Charles had seen when he had been trapped here as a boy on a full moon night. She was sure it was real, not some fantasy, and she dearly wanted to prove it to him, to please him, to shake off all the madness that Amanda and Hugh had left behind.

“I won’t take long,” she promised herself. She wouldn’t go in the castle tower, only the section of the house ruins where Charles had said he’d seen the motif.

She made her way to the courtyard of the house that was overgrown with grasses and flowering trellises. She reached the walls that remained and found the low-hanging window. She stepped up on a pile of stones just under it and heaved herself up. Tumbling forward in the shadows, her arms wrapped around her head.

She landed in muck.

“Ugh.” Her boots squelched in the mud and waters as she found her footing. Standing up, she wiped her hands, blinking as her eyes adjusted to the shadowy dark interior. Wings fluttered, the wind seemed to whistle around her, the musty damp chilling her skin.

Adjusting her bag, making sure it had not come undone in her fall and her belongings were secure, she proceeded to track slowly through the interior, a hand at the damp slime-covered wall to keep her bearings. Finally, she reached the area of the house where the roof remained, where Charles had been stuck as a child.

The upper floor of the house no longer existed. Shafts of light filtered through the ruptures in the stones, the clerestory windows up at the very top allowing in the moonlight. The roof, although intact, was gashed with a number of gaps and the moon and the stars were visible.

“He must have been here,” she thought.

A mist filled the air like a diaphanous curtain that grew thicker and thicker, the buzz of insects hovering around her. The walls were covered in moss and vines, and the dingy smell of earth and still water filled her nostrils. Rotted timber lay in a low pile, the ground uneven, muddy, stones upturned everywhere, bird droppings, and so many puddles of muck.

As she sloshed through puddles of black water, she proceeded carefully as the stone floor had collapsed in sections, whilst in other areas, slabs of rock were smashed together, jutting out of the ground as if a great fist had punched at them through the earth. Across the great room, the opposite wall sagged under the pressure of time and weather.

Her hand slid against the wet, cold stone of the ruined wall as she slowly tracked about the room, watching where her feet stepped, desperate not to miss anything. Her fingers slid into deep grooves in the stone, and she stopped. “What have we here?”

Her hands explored the groove which led to another engraving, this one curvy, no—round. What was it?

In the dim light, her hands followed the sculpted lines and another pattern teased her fingertips. Georgina stepped back to take in this carving in the stone better. A long branch with large leaves hanging from it. Was this the garland Charles had seen?

“Where does it start? Where does it end?” she murmured.

Gingerly, she stepped along the wall again, and moved around the perimeter of the great room, her hands following the long branch. No. Not a branch.

She froze. “Not a branch, it’s a vine. A vine!”

She let out a soft laugh as her fingers shoved past the ivy, greedily hunting over the surface of the stone. Yes there…another form was engraved in the wall…a series of round shapes clustered together…a flower? No, a fruit—were they grapes? Was this vine carved along the entire perimeter of the room?

“Oh, Lord…”

Her pulse quickened as she dug her eager hands into her satchel and retrieved the paper and a piece of charcoal. Placing the paper over a section of the engraving in the stones, she quickly rubbed the charcoal over it and the design of the vine appeared under her fingers. She repeated the action over another section. Leaves and a cluster of grapes were visible.

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