Page 1 of The Path to the Last House Before the Sea

PROLOGUE

Charity hurried down the path, trying not to stumble as the sun slid beneath the horizon and shadows lengthened. The day had hardly begun, it seemed, before it was slipping towards sleep. But there would be no sleep for Charity tonight.

She glanced back at Driftwood House, which sat alone on the clifftop. Its windows were sparking gold in the setting sun and, for a moment, her resolve faltered. What if she was caught and this was her last sight of home? What if she would never again watch a storm roll in across the sea or feel a salt breeze cool her cheeks?

‘Hush,’ she murmured to herself, turning away from the house and moving on down the cliff path. ‘All will be well once I find Josiah.’

She felt in her pocket for the gift she had for him. A precious gift, once given to her, that would be passed on to the man she loved. A man who didn’t realise that his life tonight was hanging by a thread.

Charity quickened her pace and, leaving the cliff path behind, soon reached Heaven’s Cove. Candles flickered in cottage windows and the village seemed full of secrets as she passed through the streets, like a ghost.

Past the church and graveyard. Past the quayside where the hard slap of water hitting stone echoed her pounding heartbeat. On and on until she reached the beach that gave Heaven’s Cove its name.

With a sigh of relief, Charity hurried towards the sea, her feet sinking into the cold sand. The sky was now inky and moonless, and cresting waves were pinpoints of white in the darkness that shielded her from prying eyes.

Charity hesitated when she reached the mouth of the cave that edged the cove. She pulled in a deep breath and felt her heart quicken at the thought of seeing Josiah. She would find him and warn him. She would give him the gift nestling in her pocket and keep him safe.

‘All will be well,’ she assured herself once more. Then she stepped into the cave. And disappeared.

ONE

ALYSSA

Why had he even bothered booking a tour? Alyssa wondered. It obviously wasn’t his thing, if his hangdog expression was anything to go by. He looked terminally bored.

She sighed quietly when the man raised his hand, as if he was in a school classroom, rather than in an ancient stone circle on Dartmoor.

‘Yes?’ she asked with a smile, being careful to keep any hint of irritation out of her voice.

‘These people,’ he said, brushing dark hair from his eyes, ‘these people who you claim would chant here at midnight to summon spirits from the deep – did they also sacrifice animals?’ He raised an eyebrow. ‘To enhance their summoning, perhaps, and bring forth… I don’t know, elves or pixies…? Or Wombles?’ he added, not quite under his breath.

Alyssa could feel the smile freezing on her face, but she kept her voice level. ‘I have no idea. There are no myths or legends I’m aware of, regarding these stones, that mention any kind of animal sacrifice.’

No stories that mentioned human sacrifice, either. Though that could be remedied, right here and now.

The man raised his other eyebrow, and the corner of his mouth twitched upwards, as though he could read Alyssa’s mind. Then, he went back to scuffing his feet in the grass.

There was no point in letting him get under her skin, Alyssa decided, turning to the seven other members of the group she’d brought with her from Heaven’s Cove. They were an enthusiastic bunch: two middle-aged couples on holiday, a twenty-something student fascinated by the paranormal, and two elderly ladies carrying huge rucksacks. All of them seemed enthralled by the fantastical stories that laced Dartmoor’s rich history.

‘Let me tell you about that tor over there,’ said Alyssa, pointing out where the land rose into a high peak of dark granite. ‘That’s where the so-called “Devilish Duke” lost his life in the late seventeenth century.’

She described a particularly gruesome legend involving a lost nobleman on the moors who refused to pay the beggar who was showing him the way home. A bad mistake, as it turned out, when the duke was dragged to the depths of hell for being such a skinflint.

The group gasped, entering into the spirit of Alyssa’s myths and legends tour, and enjoying the wild beauty of the moorland around them. It was hard not to be awestruck by the towering tors and vast swathes of countryside stretching into the purple distance.

But the man – Jack, she thought his name was – seemed to be managing it.

Oh, well. There was always one.

She did her best to ignore him and concentrate on the others during the rest of the two-hour tour. He followed at a distance as she told of ghouls and ghosts, huge stones cracked open by demons, and rolling mists that obscured footpaths and swallowed people forever.

And he sat alone, at the back of the minibus, during their forty-five-minute return journey to Heaven’s Cove.

Alyssa stared out of the window as the bus, driven by Claude, bumped along Devon’s high-hedged lanes towards the village. Claude, well into his seventies, was a fisherman by trade, but happy to act as a driver when she needed him. He was also an oddball, which was why Alyssa – seen as something of an oddball herself – particularly liked him.

He and the other villagers had, in the main, welcomed Alyssa when she’d first arrived in Heaven’s Cove six months ago. And they’d been encouraging about her plan to set up myths and legends tours of the area. Devon was awash with old stories, and she was happy to tell them to tourists. Her customers were entertained, she made money to help her get by and, crucially, no one got hurt as she went about her job.

Alyssa had a sudden flashback to what she’d fled from – the reason she was now living alone in Heaven’s Cove. That was no fantastical story, made up to make sense of what had happened centuries ago.

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