A Very Gothic Christmas Read online

  They had planned to return this year to celebrate their thirtieth wedding anniversary, but it wasn’t to be. In June, six months after her mother had been diagnosed with end-stage breast cancer, she had died. Five months after that, and two weeks before Thanksgiving, her father had passed away. A massive heart attack, the doctors said.

  Rachel didn’t believe a heart attack had been the cause of her father’s death, but rather a broken heart. He had not been the same after his wife had died. Her passing had ravaged him. Now, they were together again. And soon Rachel would carry out her parents’ last request.

  She did her best to shake off the pall of sorrow threatening to overcome her, and climbed back in the car. Windows that resembled lifeless eyes glittered out at her as she proceeded up the sloped and pitted driveway, a coil of disquiet settling in the base of her stomach.

  No one came out to greet her as she drew to a stop at the front door, but she didn’t expect anyone to. The castle and grounds would be hers alone to explore, courtesy of the current owner of Glengarren, the son of her father’s friend.

  She had met the elder Lord MacGregor once when he had come to America to visit her father some ten years earlier, but she had never met his son. Yet it was his son who occupied Rachel’s thoughts at that moment, as she remembered his condolence letter, filled with compassion, his words reaching across the distance to console her.

  Perhaps he understood her grief so well because his own father was now ill, removed to Edinburgh, to a nursing facility that could monitor his health, and the devastating effects of his decline from Alzheimer’s disease.

  Troubled by thoughts of illness and death, Rachel sought a familiar comfort, taking hold of the locket around her neck—a very special keepsake that had once belonged to her mother. The pendant gave her strength, infused her with courage when her own faltered, as it did now.

  She prayed she would find what she was looking for here, the solace she so desperately needed to ease her sore heart . . . and the closure that would help her move forward.

  She removed her luggage from the trunk of the car, but hesitated, glancing toward the cliff. Over the crest, she could just make out the faintest glimmer of the River Ness, curving like a serpent’s gray back, whitecapped by the lashing winds as it flowed toward the sea.

  Through a break in the mist stood a rowan tree, balanced precariously at the edge of a three-hundred-foot precipice, its gnarled limbs reaching toward the heavens, as if seeking surcease from the air of tragedy bending its branches.

  That was the spot, Rachel thought, the place where she would fulfill her parents’ last wish and sprinkle their ashes, letting them drift out to sea on their anniversary, together forever.

  With a lump in her throat, Rachel turned away and lugged her suitcase to the front door, pausing to reach under an upturned clay pot, locating the key exactly where Lord MacGregor had told her it would be.

  After unlocking the heavy wooden portal with its intricate carvings, she pushed it open. The hinges creaked, as if oiling had been long forgotten and rust had become a familiar friend.

  A rush of cold air swept through the mostly shadowed room, stirring her hair, causing her flesh to shiver and a sense of foreboding to tap at her subconscious.

  Ridiculous, of course. While there was reported to be more ghosts haunting these aging premises than any other place in the world, she had never been one to believe in such Poe-esque tales—things that go bump in the night had never sent her fleeing into her parents’ arms or caused her to hide, trembling, under her blankets.

  Again the air moved. A haze of dust motes danced and collided in the stream of dim light filtering through the heavy drapes on the windows, and with this stirring came a hint of mustiness—a certain indication that the castle had been unoccupied for a while.

  Rachel glimpsed a movement out of the corner of her eye; something scurrying into the gathering shadows by the far wall. A rat? A cat? Or simply a figment of her imagination brought on by the gloom of her surroundings?

  A prickling of unease raised goose bumps on her arms as she fanned away the dust that lingered in front of her face. With a deep, nervous breath, she stepped over the threshold.

  There she stopped in her tracks, her bag dropping to the floor with a dull thud that resonated through the cavernous space like a gunshot and rattled loose windowpanes.

  It was as though she had crossed a portal into another era, a time when harried servants in tattered clothes scampered over rush-strewn floors to do their master’s bidding, and kilted Highlanders restlessly paced its armament-laden hallways, preparing for some skirmish against a rival clan.

  A huge, circular foyer with a vaulted, buttressed ceiling surrounded her, and a U-shaped staircase ascended to the second floor. In darkened corners, snarling stone gargoyles peered down at her from their lofty perches.

  On the walls hung Flemish tapestries, yellowed by age and moth-eaten, detailed yet fading, dating back—she suspected—hundreds of years or more.

  Her eye then followed a ribbon of nebulous light to a spot between the arms of the staircase, and there, her heart gave an unexpected stutter.

  Bathed in the hazy illumination and braced upon the wall, an enormous oil painting of a virile Highland warrior stared down at her—eyes of the most penetrating shade of blue burning straight through her, seemingly alive as they regarded her from that rugged face, tracking her every move as she walked across the foyer, as if pulled by some invisible force.

  The man forever captured on the canvas had a commanding presence, a combination of arrogance and confidence that was clearly delineated on his chiseled features.

  He was rigged out in full regalia, one hand resting on the jewel-encrusted hilt of the sword sheathed at his hip, the words “GRACE ME GOD” etched into the glittering blade. His kilt barely covered heavily muscled thighs and his linen shirt spread taut across a firm chest and broad shoulders.

  Against a backdrop of cliff’s edge and sky, the artist had imbued an aura of wind into the portrait, blowing the warrior’s wild skein of jet-black hair over his shoulders, hair that looked raked by impatient hands. Rachel could almost feel its texture between her fingertips, and shivered as a chill breath of air glided over her skin.

  “It’s just a painting,” she chided herself, then forced her gaze away, letting it drift downward to the brass plaque at the bottom of the ornate gilt frame. “Duncan MacGregor, 1745. A mighty Scotsman who battled a kingdom for the House of Stuart.” Her eyes lifted and locked with his. He looked every inch the hero, she thought—and every inch the epitome of women’s fantasies.

  “I see ye’ve met the master.”

  With a startled gasp, Rachel whirled around to find a stooped old man lingering in the shadows behind her. His face grizzled, he peered at her with one eye squinted, the right side of his mouth frozen in a grimace. She took a step backward, her heart climbing into her throat.

  “Frightened ye, have I?” He shook his head and shuffled toward her, dragging his right leg while his right arm dangled uselessly at his side. “Must learn tae announce myself,” he said in a voice made breathless by his efforts to walk. “The missus is always tellin’ me I creep up on folks like Hamlet’s ghost.”

  Encircled with an air of stale smoke, he stopped before her. “Name’s Fergus Osgood. I’m the caretaker of Glengarren.” He glanced around and gave a grunt of disapproval. “Not that I’m up tae much caretakin’ these days—not since my stroke.” Cutting his gaze back to hers, he said, “Ye must be Mistress Hudson.”

  Rachel managed a weak nod, as unnerved by the man’s frightening aspect as she was by his sudden appearance.

  He gestured toward the painting. “Fine lookin’ man was our Duncan.” He tugged a rag from his back pocket and whisked away a layer of dust that had settled along the frame.

  “Who is he?” she asked, her attention diverted.

  “The man who built Glengarren.”

  Rachel’s curiosity about Duncan MacGregor momentarily
eclipsed her discomfort, and she wondered if the old tome she had discovered in a small bookstore the day before would have more information about him.

  The book was a detailed history of the MacGregor clan. She had bought it, thinking to familiarize herself with her host’s ancestors. The story, however, only went as far as 1965, and would give her no information about the current lord of the castle.

  Fergus tucked the rag back into his pocket, then turned his attention on Rachel again, his expression somber, his good eye regarding her with an intensity that made her acutely uncomfortable.

  “Is there a problem, Mr. Osgood?”

  He squinted and ran his hand over his mouth. “Aye,” he admitted, nodding. “I told the young MacGregor when he called tae tell me ye was comin’ that this ain’t no place for a woman alone. House is too damn queer. Local folks don’t come ’round here—least those with good sense, anyways. Too much history, ye see. Too much woe.”

  Rachel glanced around the vast chamber, dark and looming, and fresh shivers raced up her spine. “Are you saying the place is haunted?”

  “If ever there was a place that had a right tae be, ’tis this one.” He shuffled closer. “Ye look like an intelligent woman, and bein’ from America, yer no doubt accustomed tae comfort. Ye’ll find no comfort here.

  “Half the bloody time the electricity don’t work—comes and goes as it pleases, and even when it’s workin’, it don’t warm this place or light it worth a spit. Ain’t nothin’ of this good earth that can help dispel this cold and gloom. If ye’ve got any smarts at all, ye’ll climb back in yer car and take ye a room in the village. Leave these dreary walls and lonely shadows tae the souls who’ve occupied Glengarren for the last centuries.”

  Rachel tamped down her growing apprehension and forced a light smile to her face. “I’m accustomed to being alone, Mr. Osgood, and I don’t believe in ghosts. I’ll stay, thank you.”

  A moment of silence passed as he regarded her, not exactly with an expression of disfavor, she noted, but more of concern, which bothered her even more.

  “Suit yerself,” he finally said with a shrug, reaching for her suitcase and starting toward the stairs, a corner of her bag dragging on the floor, the sound like a whisper as it shifted along the walls.

  Rachel had no choice but to follow, her gaze darting about, awed by the sheer size and magnitude of the castle as they reached the second floor.

  Here the cold bit at her, teeth-sharp and marrow-chilling, making her bones ache and her skin quiver. She hugged herself, endeavoring not to think about how she would soon be alone in these empty, rambling corridors.

  She cast a nervous glance over her shoulder, as if expecting to find someone lurking there—a figure, ghostly pale and still as death.

  Yet nothing but endless shifting shadows greeted her. Still, she couldn’t shake the sensation of being watched, as though eyes followed her through slits in one of the paintings. Obviously, she was allowing Fergus’s monitions to bother her more than she should.

  Fergus rattled off details as they headed down the long corridor. “Twenty-two rooms there are,” he said. “Most of the castle is original and in middlin’ shape, but I warn ye now tae keep out of the east wing.”

  “What’s the matter with the east wing?”

  “Ain’t nothin’ but ruins. Burnt down somewheres in the eighteenth century. The current master’s great-great-great-grandfather, or some such, tried tae restore it, but none of the workers hired tae do the job would stay beyond the first few days.”

  “Why?”

  “Can’t rightly say.” His head turned, one steely eye peering at her over his shoulder. “Though there’s them as say that somethin’ don’t want that section rebuilt.”

  “Something? As in a ghost?”

  He shrugged and looked away. “Don’t know. Only repeatin’ what I heard.”

  Rachel refused to be intimidated by Fergus’s claims of spooks, though she hurried to catch up to him when he got a few paces ahead of her.

  “Keep an eye about ye when dark weather rolls in,” he said then. “Stay indoors.”

  “What kind of weather?” she asked.

  “Lightning, mostly. Place is famous for it, sittin’ as it is on the highest rise above the river. Those bloody towers invite trouble, thrust so defiantly toward heaven as they are. Almost as if Glengarren is shakin’ its fist at God.”

  Was the man purposely trying to scare her? Or was his perpetual voice of gloom and doom merely a facet of his personality?

  He motioned down the long corridor. “Most of the rooms is closed off, as there ain’t nobody stayin’ here since the master’s father took ill. But I had a room cleaned for ye. On a clear day, ye can see all the way down tae Culloden Moor.” He stopped and pushed open one of the doors with his foot. “This is it.”

  “Oh, my . . .” Rachel murmured, her eyes widening as she scanned the murk-stricken room, a single ray of gray light filtering through the dark burgundy drapes that swallowed the floor-to-ceiling windows.

  An enormous four-poster bed commanded attention in the center of the room, swathed in a canopy that matched the drapes. A massive fireplace dominated the length of one wall, the hearth charred by eons of soot that lent an acrid smell to the air.

  “Ye’ll be needin’ that tae warm yerself on cold nights,” Fergus said when she moved to stand in front of the empty grate. “And we have plenty of them—cold nights, I mean. I stacked up some logs and kindlin’ for ye.”

  “Thank you.” Rachel rubbed her arms for warmth, but the chill went deeper, and felt as if it had become a permanent part of her.

  Fergus deposited her suitcase on the bed while she drifted to the window, parting the curtains to look out at the view, or what little she could see of it, cloaked as it was in a mist that crept across the landscape like a living entity.

  Though nearly noon, the sky had darkened severely. Beyond the patches of descending fog, the black clouds roiled just above the treetops. The air felt ominously still, and heavy.

  Fergus scuffled up beside her, his gaze wandering the moors, his wizened face creased with worry. “Looks like we’re in for it. Gets this way now and again—cold collidin’ with heat. They’re comin’ late this year—the storms, I mean. The missus says it’s ’cause of that El Niño. Maybe.” He shrugged. “Maybe not. Weather ’round here been strange for a while. Damn air feels electrified half the time. Hard to breathe. More so here at Glengarren,” he added, sliding a wary glance in her direction, to which she tried to show no reaction, even though that look chilled her.

  He shifted his gaze, bringing her attention to the octagonal dovecote by the west side of the house. “Six-hundred-forty nesting boxes it has,” he told her. “Though there ain’t no doves in there now—nor any mongrels in the kennel. Haven’t been none of either since the old master’s son lived here. He’s a fancy lawyer in Edinburgh now. Reckon he finds the gloom of this old place depressin’ compared tae the glitter of the city. Good lad, though. Came tae see his father whenever he could. That’s his room there across the hall.”

  Rachel glanced over her shoulder at the closed door across from hers, then looked at Fergus. “So is that where he is now? In Edinburgh?”

  “Aye. Brought his father there tae keep the old gent close by.” Fergus shook his head. “Sad it is, all comin’ tae an end like this. First the elder gettin’ ill, and now the castle passin’ from the family. Ye’re the last guest The master is givin’ it tae the town of Inverness as an historical landmark, which it rightly is, mind ye.

  “ ’Tis said Bonnie Prince Charles once stayed here for two days shortly afore the ragin’ battle of Culloden Moor.” Fergus pointed toward a tall cairn in the distance. “Many a restless Scottish spirit resides beneath the soil of Culloden. Brave men who fought and died for what they believed in. It’s them very souls who roam these grounds . . . accordin’ tae some.”

  A chill washed over Rachel, as did a pang of sadness as she thought about all the lost souls inter
red in a mass grave, outnumbered nearly two to one in that bloody battle, if she recalled correctly.

  “ ’Tis a shame, I tell ye. Glengarren has been owned by one MacGregor or the other for over two-hundred-fifty years. His lordship—a right handsome lad, if I say so m’self—still don’t have himself a missus. No MacGregor heir tae carry on the family name.” Fergus sighed. “ ‘Tis a shame indeed.”

  It seemed a shame to Rachel as well, and infinitely bittersweet, like something coming to an end that shouldn’t be. Now, more than ever, she was glad she had taken the trip to Scotland. This was Glengarren’s last Christmas, and Rachel would, in some way, be able to share this with her parents.

  “What are those?” she asked, gesturing to a ring of mist-shrouded stones standing erect near the bluff.

  Fergus’s cheeks drained of color, and he backed away from the window. “Those be the Destiny Stones,” he said in a muted voice.

  Destiny Stones. The name conjured up images as dark and mysterious as everything else she had encountered thus far. “How long have they been there?”

  “ ’Tis claimed they were erected in the time of the druids.”

  Rachel had read about such stones. Supposedly, prophets and sorcerers used them during sacred rituals, the circle possessing some sort of mythical symbolism.

  “ ’Twas near that very spot Duncan MacGregor was cut down. Story is, he was laid tae rest amid that ring of stones. His survivin’ army buried him there in the hopes the magic of them rocks would bring him back—in spirit, if not in body—so he could lead them into the fray against stinkin Willy, the Hanoverian king.”

  An image arose in Rachel’s mind of the magnificent Highland warrior depicted on the canvas downstairs. How tragic to have been killed in the very shadow of his home.

  For a moment, she allowed her romantic heart to overcome her practical mind and wonder what it would have been like to know such a man, someone fierce and brave, who fought for the things he believed in, and who would give his life for those he loved.