Page 32 of Beyond Dreams

Since she wasn’t the type of person to force herself on others, Holly did not request any assistance or permission to gad about. She didn’t need any help making her own way, meaning she simply commandeered one of the candles from a table in the empty hall, taking a moment to light it at the big fireplace. Having only minutes ago left Doirin and Moire in the solar on the second floor, Holly was a little surprised to rise and turn from the hearth to find Moire watching her, standing pretty close.

Holly startled, clapping her hand over her heart. “Geez,” she hissed through her teeth.

Moire offered an unconvincing smile as her apology. “What need have you of a candle?” She asked.

Not an untoward question, Holly imagined, since it was the middle of the day.

In a voice that she hoped brooked no argument or any further questions, Holly said pertly, “I want to explore the cellar.”

Moire’s eyes widened at this. She glanced at the darkened passageway and chewed the inside of her cheek.

Sensing something in the girl, though Holly could not pinpoint if her reaction suggested wonder or disapproval, Holly asked, “Do you...want to go with me?”

Apparently not, said her sudden frown, before Moire answered, “Nae. I-I was...” she started in English and then rushed out a bunch of words in Gaelic and ducked around Holly, leaving the hall.

Holly frowned after her for a moment before shrugging and making her way toward the arched entrance to the cellars. The steps here were both shallow and short, so that her gait was awkward but only briefly before she came upon a door before she’d gone more than twenty steps. It was not locked and opened easily enough. She passed through, contemplating the extensive darkness ahead, and cautiously left the door ajar before moving on.

She was smacked with cold air and a damp and musty scent. Holding the candle out in front of her, she carefully picked her way through what now looked and felt like a tunnel, a passage simply dug into the rock beneath Thallane. She touched her hand to the wall, absorbing the cold of the stone, and shivered before pressing on. She passed by two chambers, the first which held about twenty barrels, foodstuffs, Holly imagined. Unless it’s the wine cellar, she also considered, though had little interest in that. The next open chamber was stocked with wooden crates, all of them sealed shut, none of them covered in enough dust to say they’d been here very long. Holding the candle out in front of her, above a few of the crates, she saw that there was another entrance at the back end of this chamber. She wondered if this was just more kitchen stuff, accessed from that far opening and tunnel.

She moved on, going another twenty or so feet, and then was faced with a decision as she came to a fork in the tunnel. She was chilled already, and the darkness was a little unnerving, but she wasn’t frightened, was more curious, intrigued by possibilities of what she might find. The right fork showed only a path, more of the same tunnel. The left fork was girded by another door, this one crudely built and seemingly wedged into the stone. There was no lock, per se, but a latch that she lifted to open the door. The door did not open easily but needed a strong tug as it scraped along the gravel of the ground, revealing a wide open chamber and not simply another passageway. She pushed the door open as wide as it would go and then found a rock nearby which she guided against the door with her foot. Possibly the rock had been left there purposefully and was used as a stopper. When she was satisfied that the door would stay open and she wouldn’t be trapped inside, Holly stepped into the vast room, her eyes darting around from what she pretty quickly determined was an underground crypt.

She’d just found Thallane’s graveyard, filled with at least a dozen different coffins and tombs. Creepy, yes, but also very cool to the history lover in her. In awe, she moved down the center aisle, noticing that there was more than one walkway between the coffins. She paused before the first coffin she came upon, holding the flickering light above the roughly carved recumbent effigy on the top of the coffin, realizing a female figure, garbed in robes, her head upon pillows carved from the pale stone, with several detailed items hanging from her belt. Holly explored all the sides of the coffin, looking for some identification. She found this, words and numerals scratched prettily into one side, but which she could barely make out let alone read. On her haunches, she studied the carvings, believing they might be written in Latin. She held the candle closer, tracing her fingers over the letters and numbers, trying to decipher them.

Holly jerked in surprise when a quick scraping noise was heard, followed by an ominous thud. She hopped to her feet and spun around to the door, which was now fully closed. At her swift movement, the candle in her hand flickered, the flame leaning far in one direction before it fluttered and disappeared.

“No,” she whimpered. “No.”

She stood in complete darkness, the likes of which she could not ever recall. Her eyes were open but all she saw was the deepest black. She stood frozen for a moment, unsure what she should or could do.

“Hello? Help!” She called out, wondering if someone had inadvertently closed the door, not knowing she was down here. They must have since she’d been so careful to wedge the door open. But there was no answer to her cry. She set down the candle and held her hands in front of her while she navigated her way toward the door. The aisle was a straight shot from the door, and she hadn’t ventured away from it except for walking around that coffin. By the time she believed she was walking on the main aisle toward the door, her eyes had adjusted to the inky blackness so that she could at least, almost, see the shape of her hand in front of her. She then rushed forward to the door, landing hard against it, splaying her hands over all of it, unable to find a handle. She shoved against the cold and thick wood. She beat her fists against the door and screamed her head off. “Open the door! Let me out!”

She did that for quite a while, pausing here and there to stop and listen. Had she heard someone on the other side of the door? Did she hear anything else from above her? Would anyone even be able to hear her? Somehow her screams hadn’t sounded strong or loud, were muted as if imprisoned by the darkness. She called out again and again over the course of a quarter hour until she turned and with resignation, leaned her back against the door.

But she did not give up, not yet. With halting steps and her arms lifted in defense of herself, she made her way around the room, keeping to the perimeter, more than once screaming as she stepped in to cobwebs. She hated spiders more than anything else on earth. This, she imagined, was how nightmares were born. When she’d moved about halfway around the chamber, turning at two different corners, she came upon another door, her heart skipping with excitement until she realized that this one was locked as well. Both doors were secured so tightly and so deep underground that not even a sliver of light shone through either of them.

She continued along the wall, only tapping her hands, afraid of sliding them into something unknown but disgusting. After a while, she noticed a scent she hadn’t picked up on before, of death and decay. As the minutes ticked by and panic set in, she began to wonder if she and her eventual corpse would add to the foul fragrance.

She spent a long time, with tears streaming, on her hands and knees on the uneven dirt floor, looking for something to use to bang either of the doors open, to no avail. Not willing to throw in the towel yet, she returned to that first coffin she’d inspected, wanting to be close to the door. She’d recovered the metal candle holder she’d dropped and began hammering that against the robed lady’s coffin, hoping someone might hear the repeated dull thuds.

It was eerie and cold, almost evil in the darkness. Holly shivered and cried, hardly able to believe she was trapped down here. How often did people venture into the cellars? Might she be found, might the doors be open before she died of fright or froze to death?

Time marched on, minutes surely gone to hours she believed. She alternated using her left hand and right for banging the candle holder, keeping the other hand tucked under her arm, trying to warm her fingers. She thought she’d nodded off for a while but could not be sure.

Her mind began to play tricks with her, imagining the thoughts in her head were voices outside the cellar, letting her believe that she saw light at various points around the chamber.

She almost welcomed the growing lack of consciousness, thought it a merciful state of affairs. If this was to be her end, she didn’t want to know or feel. After a while, terror won out. Holly’s arm slipped away from the coffin, and she withered and slumped to the ground.

She dreamed she was at The Bluffs and running through the darkened house, being chased by something wild, unseen, but terrifying, nonetheless. She tripped and fell, and the creature pounced on her.

A blinding light attacked her. She skittered and scurried away from it, from the shadows that followed it.

“Ceri...Jesu, Ceri!”

Duncan’s voice.

“Ah, Christ, Ceri.”

She was lifted and cradled against his broad chest, his arms strong around her back and under her knees.

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