Page 43 of Once Upon A Haunted Castle
He gulped his beer again. “Maybe,” he said. “Legends say that people who went there right after the Vikings were never seen alive again. Who knows what happened to them? Maybe Lenore’s ghost killed them all or maybe they simply vanished into thin air. We may never know the truth. But if I were you, Yank, I’d avoid Findlater. It’s not some romantic place. You might not like what you find.”
It was a warning. Not a threat, but a definite warning. But Heather loved that kind of thing; she was the type to walk head-long into any adversity. It was part of her nature. She considered his warning a challenge.
“I appreciate your concern,” she said, “but we’re going to visit it just the same. In the daylight, anyway. We should be safe then.”
The old man’s eyes glittered at her, a faint smile on his lips at the oh-so-foolish young woman who was willing to go head to head with an eight-hundred-year-old legend. Yanks were all bold and foolish, he thought, but the world needed them. The world needed the brave.
Still, he couldn’t help but shake his head at the foolhardy miss. She was clearly determined to go.
We’ll be safe in the daylight.
“You think so, do you?” he asked. Then, he laughed softly, as if she were foolish, indeed. “If you hear any tapping, I wouldn’t investigate it if I were you.”
Heather didn’t like the look in his eye. “Tapping?” she repeated. “What tapping?”
The old man turned back to his beer, his eyes taking on a distant cast. The old tale rumbled through his mind, like a trickling brook, and he caught pieces of it as it flowed by. “Tapping at my chamber door,” he mumbled. “Only this… and nothing more.”
“Excuse me?”
“Once upon a midnight dreary….”
Heather was coming to realize that he didn’t seem inclined to answer her questions or even talk much more about it. He just wanted to recite the poem. Perhaps it was the drink; perhaps not. Perhaps she had simply worn out her welcome. In any case, he’d given her more than enough to go on. And go, she would.
Tapping… ghosts in chains….
Heather and Lynn were heading to Findlater, on their own, by morning.
