While Caspian and Crowcaller talked between themselves, Coral took her time to really take in her surroundings. The Dog House was going to always be a local hotspot, and she would never be able to compete with its popularity. It was in the right location, central to the town and easily accessed via cobbled roads. The food was hearty and comforting, the atmosphere was jovial, mead aplenty and who could beat the comfort of these plush chairs?
Pearl’s unwanted mead went to Coral. It was strong and sweet, with hints of honey, malt and a spice that she couldn’t quite put a name to. Reluctantly, Coral agreed with Silas. The brute. The honey wine was strong enough to knock her on her arse. She drank it anyway, enjoying the lightening of her limbs and worries with each mouthful.
Did the Dog House brew their own mead? Perhaps they would need a source of honey. Coral could start beekeeping; she certainly had the land for it. Once the flowers arrived, it would keep the bees happy, and Pearl.
Coral knew next to nothing about beekeeping, but she could learn. Just like she knew very little about carpentry. She wasn’t going to let something as trivial as not knowing what to do hold her back. Coral had never travelled before and look how far she had come now.
She took another swig of the mead, holding the liquid in her mouth just a moment longer before swallowing to try to identify the spice. What ever it was, it was good. Not a contender for wine, but it was good.
Despite knowing that Caspian had been forced to vacate his room at Moonflower Inn, and that Pearl was visibly irritated at him for being crude, she also became disappointed when they had finished their meals and began to make their way back to the Adventurer’s Guild. It had been a long time since Coral had enjoyed an evening dining out. Perhaps she should visit the Dog House more.
As she made her way down the stairs to the lower floor, there was a raucous bellow of laughter. It was at odds with the otherwise quiet evening that had settled over the tavern. Normally the Dog House was filled with that kind of noise all evening. It was a stand out difference from the happy but subdued air from patrons.
Coral looked down over the banister. A group of men and women stood before the fireplace, drunkenly tottering about. One was loudly telling a story, animatedly moving about and sloshing the contents of his drink from the mug. They were earning quite a few dark looks from the other people drinking heavily from their own cups.
Coral had made it almost to the bottom of the stairs before one of the more somber customers staggered over to the loud group, clothes wrinkled and cheeks ruddy from the alcohol. Coral didn’t hear what the wrinkled man said, but the group grew serious as they were berated. Then wrinkled drunk’s fist flew and knocked squarely into the jaw of the one who had been telling the story.
Caspian immediately steered Pearl towards the door, putting himself between her and the group. Crowcaller looked unconcerned and merely strolled behind Coral as she tried to hurry across the length of the room to the front door. There was a clatter of wood as the drunk slammed another one of the noisy groups into a table, shattering it.
“Oh, good one,” Crowcaller said, looking impressed. “Never seen him fight before.”
Crowcaller waited a moment longer, wincing as one of the group members hauled the drunk back and dropped him hard to the ground.
“I’m not staying to watch,” Coral said, hurrying past Crowcaller.
Crowcaller turned and followed Coral out the front door. “Poor man. He has every reason to be angry. His son was one of the people killed last night.”
“That’s awful,” Coral said, turning to look back at the closed door. The sun was well and truly gone for the night. The light spilled out of the windows on to the street and illuminated the fog rising from the Dire river into a white haze.
They left the Dog House behind for the darkened streets. Even with Crowcaller and Caspian escorting them across the bridge, Coral still felt unsafe. What if the ghoul was still out here somewhere? There were lanterns posted at the end of each bridge, but it did little to push back the darkness.
They stopped outside of the guild. Caspian stood back as Crowcaller and Coral walked up to the door. Pearl stood a foot from Caspian, her hands clutched in front of her chest, her cloak wrapped tightly about her shoulders.
“Be careful tonight,” she said softly to Caspian, her head tilted so that the moonlight illuminated her pretty face. The pale light wasn’t able to wash away the colour in her cheeks.
“Those wolves were monstrous. Don’t let them get you again. I won’t be around to help, if you… Well,” Pearl trailed off, her cheeks reddening further.
“I will be,” Caspian assured. “Once I’ve found my satchel, I’ll return to be by your side.”
Oh, blessings. Coral cringed and had to turn away from watching her sister and Caspian.
First thing tomorrow morning, she would need to go purchase chocolate. She would also need to employ some form of distraction for Pearl. While Coral had grown to like Caspian, she was familiar with the type of men that lived for short and sweet romances. Caspian appeared to be the type. There was a significant lifespan difference between a human and a vampire, and both her sister and Caspian would be fools to entangle their lives together. One way or another, someone always ended up heartbroken.
This time, it was likely to be Pearl. Coral could only hope that it was genuine emotions that Pearl could grow from. If it was beguilement, that never left unless it was willed by the vampire, or death.
“Good hunting, Caspian,” Crowcaller said, interrupting the moon-eyed ogling that was happening.
Caspian swept them all a bow. “Until we meet again,” he said, then turned and swiftly disappeared into the dark street.
Pearl stood fixed in place, watching the space that he had gone. “Do you think he’ll come back?”
“Come on. Let’s warm up inside,” Coral said, taking her sister by the arm and leading her to the door that Crowcaller had propped open.
Elwin looked up from behind the desk, surrounded by scrolls and books. A couple of scrolls fell to the floor and rolled away. “Welcome back,” he called out. He hurried around his desk to collect the runaway scrolls, scooping them up and uncaring that he crushed the rolled paper in his hands.
“What’s all this?” Crowcaller asked, prodding at a large stack of documents.
“It’s the records for Lady Seaver’s estate. Cecil brought it out so I can sort through it tonight,” Elwin explained. He dropped the scrolls back on to the pile.
“So far, this is all that I can provide,” Elwin pointed to a single page at the far end of the desk.
Crowcaller picked it up and drew it close to her face, squinting. “This only has some names and an address listed.”
“I know,” Elwin said seriously. “Everything else reads like a necromancer’s inventory list. There’s a disturbing amount of bottled body parts. Listen to this. Seven jars of fingernails, twelve pounds of preserved bone marrow, fifty-two and a half feet of pickled human intestine, a whole preserved human nervous system-,”
“Thank you,” Crowcaller said loudly, cutting over the top of him. “We have just eaten.”
Elwin blinked back at Crowcaller. “I’ve never known you to be squeamish.”
“Not me,” Crowcaller said tilting her head pointedly back towards Coral and Pearl. Coral was glad that Crowcaller had the courtesy to filter this information. Reading a list of body parts that had been found in the manor was rather unsettling.
“Oh, right. Sorry,” Elwin said, not sounding sorry at all.
Crowcaller handed the page back to Elwin, who placed it back in its original place on the desk. “I think it’s going to take me a while to shift through all of this,” he said, examining the extensive pile of parchment, books, and the pile of boxes behind the desk.
Leaving Elwin to his task, Crowcaller guided them back to their room for the night. From the soft scuffles and murmuring from the other doors in the corridor, Coral realized that she wasn’t the only person staying in the guild tonight.
Crowcaller left with a nod of her head and Coral and Pearl were able to finally retire. It took longer for Coral to prepare for bed than usual, as she had discovered that somehow her skirt had been soiled with the stew. Her boots were covered with splashed mud and her legs were streaked as well. Coral spent several minutes with the wash basin to scrub away at the grime, where the water turned dark and muddy.
She hung her skirt on the door handle, hoping it would be dry by morning. Finally, Coral climbed into bed and almost immediately fell asleep.
----------------------------------------
Direwood Adventurer’s Guild had a library that Coral was increasingly jealous of. It wasn’t large by any degree compared to the city libraries she had been to, nor were the books kept in finely carved bookcases like she had come to expect in the building. It boasted a surplus of books on many creatures and monsters, which was expected. It also had that well lived in feeling that Coral had associated with her schooling. There were dents in the bookcases, scuffed covers and pages dirtied with fingerprints. Four long, worn wooden tables sat at the center of the room with only a single window to let in light for reading. A low set chandelier hung over these tables strung with magelight instead of candles.
There were several rows of bookshelves, filled with old and new books. Everything was in some form of disrepair from use. It was fantastic.
Coral sat at the furthest table, waiting patiently for Elwin to return. She considered getting up to inspect the spines along the closest shelf, but instead was drawn to the conversation two children were having at another of the tables. They were whispering together, with three open books before them, and each with their own scroll of parchment.
“If we go here, we’ll have our best chance,” a girl said. She pointed at something on the table Coral couldn’t see. She had a mop of brown hair that cut off at her chin, and round chubby cheeks that made Coral want to pinch them. The girl was dressed in the Direwood Adventurer uniform, but it was more simplified for everyday use rather than the polished overcoats that were militant style for the older guild members. She couldn’t have been more than eight years old and looked like she was playing dress up.
“That’s too high up,” the boy said beside her. He was sturdier looking than his friend, less round and more angles than anything. His own dark brown hair was in desperate need of a trim, the uneven ends curling up around his ears.
“It’s fine,” the girl said, rolling her eyes.
“I don’t like heights Valorie. I won’t go.”
The girl, Valorie, tsked. “Don’t you want to be a Hero?” she asked, her voice petulant.
“I do!” The boy said, too loud.
Valorie shushed him, then looked up to see if anyone was listening. Coral quickly looked aside at the bookcase, pretending to be interested in the volumes. A moment later, the two children resumed their murmuring, though it was so low Coral couldn’t hear them. She watched as they flicked through the pages of another book. They stopped on a page that had an illustration of a corpse.
The two children looked at the picture intently, before scribbling down on the parchment with a pencil. The door creaked open behind Coral, and the two looked up and hastily closed the book.
Elwin came up beside Coral and dropped a large box on the table. “Here you are, everything we can give you about the estate.”
Coral looked it over, surprised to see that there was the edge of a rolled painting protruding out of the box. She reached over and carefully pulled it out and unfurled it over the table. A pretty blonde woman stared back at her with large, round eyes. She was elegantly dressed in green, the dress sweeping around her and a shawl gracing her shoulders. Behind her stood a man in a black suit, his hand resting lovingly across the woman’s shoulders. At their feet were two small children, barely older than a few years. Each wore matching expressions of laughter as they played with a small brown and white dog. The background was a mottled grey, with the intent on highlighting the family with no other embellishments to the painting, emphasizing the love captured in the parents’ expressions as they looked at one another.
If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.
“Who is this?” Coral asked, her eyes skimming over the brushwork. “It’s beautiful.”
“It’s the family that lived there before. Here,” Elwin passed her the same slip of paper that Crowcaller had read the night before.
At the top of the page was her own name and Pearls, followed by the date the deeds of the manor had been purchased.
Below that was the previous owner. Lord Henry Rayner, and his wife Sabina Rayner. They had two children. The oldest was their son of seven, Emeric, who had inherited his father’s stern look and dark hair. The youngest was six, named Ayleth, and was almost a twin to her mother with large green eyes and blonde hair.
Coral lowered the paper to look at the painting, she had to push back one edge as it curled back over, the paint cracking like spider webs over the surface. It was a shame that the painting had been carelessly stored this way. Coral appreciated being able to put faces to the names she had just learned. There were many paintings in the manor, none of which in the front part of the house she and her sister had been working had these people. Though there had been darker patches on the walls, as though paintings had once hung there.
“Lord Rayner was the previous owner,” Coral said. Elwin didn’t need to be told this, having spent the previous night shifting through the contents and finding information that wasn’t strictly prohibited. It did help to solidify the previous owner’s existence in Corals mind, that he was more than a heinous necromancer. He had also been a father and a husband.
Elwin sat down beside Coral, looking tired. “I can’t believe how much I had to shift through. There was so much. And all there was in the end is a box full. A box. Not to name the items stored. If I must ever look at another box of necromancer athame’s and skulls, it will be too soon,” he complained.
Coral made a face at picturing Elwin sorting through a box of skulls and pushed aside any thoughts of those ever being inside of her manor. Moonflower Inn was going to be completely clear of all manner of nefarious material, once Silas and his band of adventurers returns. They hadn’t yet, which Coral was unsure if she should be concerned about this or not.
Coral pulled the painting closer to her so that she could inspect the faces. “He looks so normal. He had children. What kind of man obsessed with the dark occults starts a family?”
Elwin shrugged. “Murderers are people with normal lives. You never know what anyone is capable of.”
“Met many murderers, have you?” Coral asked lightly.
“Yes,” Elwin said flatly.
Coral hadn’t expected that answer, not from a fifteen-year-old boy. She had thought his answer was based on theory studies from his apprenticeship. Not worldly experience.
“I’m sorry,” Coral said, feeling awkward now. Not everyone’s experiences were the same, she should know. In many ways Coral and her sister had been used as bargaining tools, and while she had been exposed to power hungry and depraved people, she didn’t think they were outright murderers. As far as she knew.
Coral read down the page, more for something to do rather than deal with the awkward feeling. Lord Rayner had purchased the estate’s one hundred acres twenty-eight years ago. From the Acheron’s. It had been sectioned off from the Acheron’s estate and provided to Lord Rayner. It wasn’t just Lord Rayner either. Many smaller plots were listed, and sold to families with no titles or any noteworthy names that Coral had ever become familiar with. Except for one that sounded familiar. Stoneshaper. Hadn’t that been someone she had been introduced to recently?
The value for the land had been noted as well. Lord Rayner had paid a hefty amount compared to the other families. Coral was unable to tell if this meant that the value for the land was more fertile for Lord Rayner compared to the smaller plots.
Coral flicked through some more pages and found that construction for the manor began just a month after the purchase, sourcing materials from the locals in Direwood and hiring master craftsman for all facets. The lumber and stones came from the surrounding areas. The craftsman was paid to travel to Direwood specifically to work.
Elwin had referenced different documentation that showed contracts and purchase orders for these, and with a quick look inside of the box, Coral found them. She pulled out a large scroll, the same size of the painting, and unfurled it to reveal a map of the manor and the estate grounds. The ageing paper was yellowed and stained darker in some patches, with small scribblings that had faded from time.
“Do I get to keep these?” Coral asked, her eyes glued to the map. There were fields and a small forest, labelled outbuildings that she had yet to find. Coral hadn’t bothered to go looking much further than the sprawling manor and greenhouse. It was so large it had taken hours. If there were other buildings, what kind of state would they be in? Would they be reusable?
“I don’t see why not. We have everything else, and no one has looked at this stuff since it was taken. Cecil will probably whine a bit, but he’s weird like that, needing to catalogue everything.” Elwin said. He pulled the painting towards himself and took his time looking.
“Their bodies were never found,” he said, tapping on the two children.
“What?”
“The kids and the wife. When they apprehended Lord Rayner, his wife and children were gone, along with all their staff. There were lists of people who worked for him, and none were there when they took him. Probably killed, I’d say.”
“Are you assuming or is it certain?” Coral asked, digging through the pile of paperwork in the box.
“It was in the report written up for what had happened. I can’t show it to you. There was some pretty dark occult things in there. But it included many reports of missing people that had worked at the manor. There was unanswered mail and apparently some staff family members came to town looking for their missing brother or sister.”
Coral pulled out contracts with stoneworkers and carpenters, cooks, maids, stable hands and even guards. There was a ledger held inside the box, and she flipped it open where all names were accounted for, with how much each was paid per week. They were all well paid, which Coral assumed compensated for bringing people in away from their homes to such a small village and encouraged locals. There was well and truly over a hundred and fifty staff names accounted for.
“I’m not surprised by how many people were employed. I swear I start cleaning one side of a room and by the time I’m finished I have to restart all over again,” Coral said, flipping through the pages.
Over one hundred and fifty staff personnel, all just gone. That was a lot of people to go missing. It wasn’t feasible for anyone to up and leave undetected. Not in that mass quantity. Someone would have noticed. An unsettled heaviness squirmed in her stomach as Coral wondered what had befallen so many people on the estate.
Maybe she shouldn’t. Necromancy was horrible.
“How are you managing with the manor? That’s a lot of work to take on,” Elwin asked.
“Very slowly,” Coral admitted. “I never expected looking after the manor would be easy. Something always happens to drag out a task. It took Pearl and I a week to clear the driveway, and there wasn’t a lot of overgrown trees. The weeds proved to be stubborn, and I was rubbish with a saw. I have mastered wood chopping. I hadn’t even held an axe in my life before then.”
Elwin looked over at her, his eyebrows lifted. “What did you do before coming to Direwood?”
Coral closed the book and set it on the table, wondering how best to answer. While she had debated the nuances of changing her name and deciding to keep her first name was a way to prevent her betrothed from finding her location, she wasn’t sure how much of her previous lifestyle would leak through to her life now.
Elwin was free with his words. It was always a worthy endeavor to be cautious about what to reveal to people like him as they may let slip something, intentional or not. Coral didn’t want to lie to him, nor did she want to brush him off.
“My father passed away and I grew tired of the courtiers and their games. So, I decided to move as far from them as I could get.”
“Which brought you here,” Elwin said.
Coral nodded her head once.
“I’m sorry. About bringing you the letter. If I had known I wouldn’t have bothered you with it,” he said, his head bent.
“It’s fine Elwin. Don’t think on it again. I don’t even know if the curse has taken a hold. I’ve not gotten hurt. You said yourself the letters were screened for any dangerous spellwork. Whatever it is, you can’t be held accountable for the contents of what someone sent me,” Coral said. She wished she could. If she did get hurt, it was on perfectly reasonable grounds to demand compensation. She wanted someone to blame and be angry at for her father’s mistreatment. It would make her feel better if she could yell at her father now, and tell him hurt full truths that would break his pride. She would have relished his fallen expression.
Instead, she was left to wonder what damage Eirek Farley had inflicted upon her this time. His actions were usually small, niggling things that dug needle like jabs into her heart. It had happened so often she felt her heart ought to be hardened against that kind of abuse by now. She wasn’t, not really. It left her feeling like she was never good enough.
Coral was going to change that though, because she had never relied on anyone other than herself to pull her from situations where she could have used guidance and love. Coral was perfectly capable of loving herself. She just had to stop the longing for wanting to be loved by others as well.
“So,” Elwin lowered his voice and leant a little closer to Coral, watching the two children. “What are you going to do about the ghosts? Can I get in on it?”
Coral had to hold herself back from snorting in Elwin’s face. “Aren’t you in trouble already? I don’t want to extend your punishment because you’re up all night chasing down some ghosts.”
“I was only late because Orvil Norwood wouldn’t hurry up and pack my order. I would have been on time if he hadn’t wanted to individually wrap everything,” Elwin complained. “I only had to walk across the bridge, I didn’t have far to go.”
“Besides, you might need someone to catch you when you fall over and break your nose,” he grinned at her.
“My nose is not broken, thank you very much,” Coral said. Her eyes were still swollen, and the bruising had darkened to a dark purple.
“Doctor Thornheart can speed that up, we should go visit her today before my shift starts again,” Elwin offered.
“Are you not supposed to be training?”
He shook his head. “Everyone is taking a day to mourn while the funerals are taking place. I’ll be heading there this afternoon, so I can walk you to the Widow’s Poison. You’re not supposed to be on your own until Silas comes back with the beast.”
“Alright,” Coral said. She busied herself again with the box, now reading an inventory list of orders. Lord Rayner must have had a large paddock, as he had many heads of cattle and pigs. Coral hadn’t seen any pigsty’s, and she hadn’t seen any cleared paddocks either on the estate.
“You said the children and wife were never found. That makes it sound like they were presumed dead.”
“There’s no record of them cropping up in other cities, but they could have changed their name,” Elwin said. He was leaning back in his chair with his arms crossed looking somewhat bored.
“That’s true.” Coral had taken on her mother’s maiden name to move to Direwood. It was logical.
“No one had any recordings of people leaving Direwood back then. Carriages always arrived with people all the time, and left too. But there aren’t any records of horse change overs.”
Coral rested her head in her cupped hand, her elbow braced on the table. “I’d say the ghosts in my manor are probably the staff. Or the children. The certainly sounded young.”
“You heard them?” Elwin asked excitedly, his voice rising in volume.
Coral had to shush him before answering. “Yes. They spoke to me. They wanted me to go down to the basement. That’s where we discovered the Ghoul. I still can’t make my mind up if they wanted to warn me, or get me killed.”
“Maybe both?” Elwin suggested.
“What I need is a way to speak to them, without having to wait for them to show themselves. I know ghosts are more active at night, but I’m hardly an adventurer and I’ve never done anything like this before,” Coral said.
Elwin got up and wandered down a few rows of bookcases before disappearing. Coral watched the space he had gone down, then continued searching the compiled information. She was both happy that this gave her an insight to the manor’s past and frustrated that it hadn’t given her many answers other than to name the family.
Coral flipped through another ledger, this time an inventory for the house specifically for perishable goods. The kitchens it seemed was always well stocked, and they included an excess of ingredients of garlic, ginger, poppyseed, blessed thistle, purslane, white horehound and betony. These were all common enough ingredients. The amount that came in was substantially large, which was odd. The herbs grew freely in all the gardens. Coral was sure if she looked, she would likely find them growing in her own estate.
They had medicinal purposes as well. Coral knew some uses for the herbs listed, like betony was for headaches and horehound for the common cold.
Coral drew her finger down the listed items, her interest growing as she found more medicinal plants listed. It was odd. Why would a necromancer purchase so many beneficial plants. Were they dangerous in excess? Even then, why bother poisoning people? Coral didn’t know much about medicine, but she could ask Doctor Thornheart.
Coral looked at the dates listed for the inventory. Three years after the land was purchased. The manor must have been either completed or in a livable state by then. Which was impressive considering the detail that had gone into every carved piece of wood, the gold detailing on the handles and hinges, and even the outside facade. The manor was exquisite, and Coral would have loved to have seen it in it’s prime.
This information was at least a helpful guide for where she could turn to when she eventually could hire a carpenter for the work she wasn’t capable of.
Coral looked up as Elwin returned, a book opened in his hands. He placed if before her, over the top of the books and paper now sprawled all over.
"What’s this?” she asked, blinking down at it.
“Read it,” Elwin said, settling himself down beside her on the chair. “You aren’t going to find anything in those old files for how to deal with the ghosts. But this will.”
Coral picked up the book and read the title at the top of the page.
“Ghosts?”
Elwin nodded at the book to encourage her to keep reading. The first few paragraphs didn’t tell her anything that she already knew about. A Ghost was the soul or spirit of the departed, and in general was known to remain behind if they were unsettled and couldn’t move on until something was corrected. Often this never happened, and the soul would grow more bitter over time. They would resent the living while they were unable to move on to the netherworld.
There was a phrase that caught Coral off guard.
A deliberate attempt to contact a spirit is considered necromancy. However, it is acknowledged that intent becomes vital to remove the soul. Some acts of necromancy are required in order to deal with this type of magic, as it’s counterpart in essence deals with death.
“I don’t understand, what does this mean?” Coral asked, pointing to the paragraph.
Elwin read the passage. “It means whatever magic used to counter the effects of necromancy also requires death magic. Like, fighting fire with fire,” he said.
“If I were to try to remove the ghosts, I’d be dabbling in necromancy. A highly illegal magic?” Coral said, lowering her voice so that she practically hissed at Elwin.
“Adventurers are usually called in to deal with the dead. There are some laws that are relaxed around magic use that is,” Elwin struggled for a moment before going on. “Intended for good use rather than to cause harm. It’s why dangerous magics aren’t completely banned. Though, it’s not common knowledge that Adventurer’s make use of necromancy elements to fight the dead. Anyone else and they would feel the full consequence of the law.”
“That’s not comforting. I’m not an Adventurer,” Coral said.
“I am,” Elwin said, grinning at her.
“You’re an apprentice. You aren’t fully licensed yet.” Coral pointed out.
Elwin leant back in his chair, looking smug. “I would describe myself more as a promising, though wayward trainee,” he said, plucking the book from her hands and flipping through a few pages. Having found what he wanted, Elwin held it up so Coral could see and well out of her reach.
“I also happen to have resources to contact your ghosts.”