Do Your Worst(3)
The little time she’d had to research in the short period between receiving the assignment and arriving in Scotland had left her with more questions than answers. Arden Castle didn’t attract the same obsessive analysis and “eyewitness account” forum fodder as other Highland supernatural stories. A cursory Internet search hadn’t turned up many hits.
Maybe it was like Eilean said, that the close proximity of Loch Ness, or even the standing stones at Clava Cairns, simply drew interest. Or maybe it was because castles, cursed or not, were a dime a dozen in the UK. Whatever the reason, Riley knew she would have to tap into the firsthand experiences and folklore of locals like Eilean—people who had grown up in the castle’s backyard—to get this job done.
“Very well.” Eilean’s mouth pulled to the side. “I suppose it’s better you hear from me than the sensationalized tales of these hooligans.” She raised her chin toward the armchair crowd from earlier.
Riley eagerly pulled out a pocket notebook and pen from her purse. “Start at the beginning, please.”
It was curse breaking 101: pin down the origin.
In their most basic form, curses were uncontrollable energy. And power stabilized when you completed a circuit back to the source. Riley’s first task was always uncovering specific details: who, when, why, and how.
“Now, I’m not a historian, mind you.” Eilean popped open a jar of olives and began to spear them in pairs while she spoke. “But based on what I’ve always heard, the curse started roughly three hundred years ago.”
Riley leaned forward. An origin date somewhere in the eighteenth century was a broad window, but it gave her something to start with in terms of timeline.
“A land war had broken out in Torridon between the Campbells, the clan who held the castle at the time, and the Graphms, who controlled the region to the east.” Eilean kept one eye on her customers as she spoke and patiently spelled out the Gaelic version of “Graphm” when Riley jotted down the names.
“The fighting was so bitter and so deadly that it nearly wiped out both clans.”
Already the set pieces were starting to make sense. Gran had taught Riley that curses came from people, born out of their most extreme emotions—suffering, longing, desperation—feelings so raw, so heavy, that they poured out and drew consequences from the universe.
A blood feud made the perfect catalyst. All that burning hatred, the sheer magnitude of anguish from so many lost loved ones.
“The tale goes that when both clans’ numbers had dwindled so far that it looked like the castle might soon belong to no one,” Eilean said, her low, lilting voice weaving the story like a tapestry, “one desperate soul went into the mountains, seeking the fae that lived beyond the yew trees, determined to make a terrible deal.”
Ah, the infamous Highland fae. Riley loved a good fairy tale, especially when they were real.
“But which side did the person come from?” By the sounds of it, a member from either clan would have enough they stood to win or lose.
“The name is lost to legend, I’m afraid.” Eilean frowned. “Whoever it was, they made a bad bargain, because the last lines of both clans fell, and the castle lay dormant for years before a lieutenant from the Twenty-First Light Dragoons purchased the place in 1789.”
The bartender paused to hold up the bottle of scotch from before.
With a smile, Riley tapped the bar next to the glass, accepting the offer of a refill.
“Whatever that sorry soul was promised by the fae remains unfulfilled”—Eilean delivered a generous pour—“and the curse persists as a consequence, driving any-and everyone away from that castle.”
Riley bit the inside of her cheek while the bartender went to help another customer. She knew there were tons of regional nuances to curses, but even though popular lore cast the fae as tricksters and mischief-makers eager to make deals with desperate humans, Gran’s journal didn’t say anything specifically about their influence.
Whatever Riley was up against here, she had her work cut out for her.
A bell chimed over the front door of the pub, pulling her attention from the first stirrings of a mental pep talk.
Holy shit. Her breath caught in her throat at the sight of the man who entered.
Everything from the harsh line of his jaw to the broad stretch of his shoulders pulled tight with a specific kind of tension that seemed . . . tortured. Even though that didn’t make sense. The expression on his face was perfectly neutral; he wasn’t limping or dripping blood.
As he walked in and moved toward the bar, Riley had the sudden, visceral memory of a painting she’d seen once. She was far from a fine art lover, but back when she was in the sixth grade, her whole class had gone to the Philadelphia Museum of Art on a field trip.
Riley had found the whole day unforgivably boring—none of the work moved her. But then she’d come to this one massive canvas, and it was like her feet sprouted roots into the marble floor.
All these years later, she still remembered how the artist had captured an angel suspended midfall. She’d felt the momentum of that still image within her own body. The way anguish strained his face and form until his plunge became like ballet, like poetry.
She felt it again—the painting feeling—now, looking at this stranger. Heat licked up her spine, as swift and sudden as wildfire.
Looking back, that painting had probably been some kind of sexual awakening. For even though the man at the bar was fully dressed, coat and all, the angel had been naked, his modesty preserved in profile.