Shivering, I glanced up at the sky—evenly gray now, with no breaks, the air cooler than it had been. Mist almost completely hid the surface of the pool, as if the water were hot rather than cold. Mysterious patchy fogs were common on the Tregarrick estate. Sometimes youcould watch them gather here when there was no fog to be found in the village. Da once told me it likely meant the land was more bog than heath—even more reason to stay off it—but I’d crossed it enough times to know better.
Finally I looked at Harker. He stared into the mist, lost in his thoughts. “The constable told me these stones are all that remain of the old manor,” I said. “Is that true?”
His gaze flitted in my direction. “So said my father. All but the moorstone burned, and much ofthatwas carted away for other uses over time. The house was never rebuilt.”
“Do you know why?”
He took a slow breath. “While the chapel was under construction, laborers claimed they’d seen a devil on the estate.” I half gaped at him. “Things began to go wrong. Worker injuries and missing tools. My ancestor’s wife fell ill while she was carrying his child, and shortly after the chapel was completed, she died in childbirth. The chapel was to have been a gift to the church, but the bishop refused it, ruling officially that there was a demonic presence here. Then the manor burned, and my ancestor and his motherless son moved into the chapel. There was no talk of rebuilding after that, whether because my ancestor was too bereft after his wife’s death or because no workers would set foot on the place, I cannot say.”
My next question came out in a rush. “Have you seen the wall painting in St. Gomonda’s bell tower?”
He looked at me, brows lifting. “Of the saint slaying the demon?”
“I was looking at it today with Father Kelly. You remember what the demon looked like? The thing with tree branches growing from its head?”
His gaze drifted again as he sifted through memories. “It’s been many long years since I set foot in the church. My father told me it wasn’t safe for us, and we never attended services. But as a boy I was curious about the other tower that we could see from ours.” He smiledfaintly. “I wondered whether another boy might live there. Roche Rock was not an easy place to be a child.”
“You were lonely even then.”
“I was.” The matter-of-factness of the reply tugged at my heart. How well I knew that loneliness, like a ghost that met you each morning and followed you through your day. I couldn’t imagine decades of it.
“My father left the estate very rarely, but one night he had some business with his steward, and I made up my mind to visit the other tower.” Sighing quietly, he looked down. “It crushed me to discover it empty. I had brought a lantern with me, and I climbed up to the bell, just to be sure. I noticed the painting as I was leaving, though I wasn’t tall enough to see it well. I recall the ‘demon’ better than anything else about it. Years later, when my father told me the story of our chapel’s construction, it seemed to me that the story of St. Gomonda had likely provided inspiration for the church’s belief that an evil presence dwelled here.”
“It’s real, Harker. I’ve seen it.”
I watched the small movements of the muscles in his jaw before his head slowly turned. “Seen what, exactly?”
“The demon, or whatever it really is. I’ve seen it at least twice, but I think three times. First, the day I found Mr. Roscoe. I glimpsed it in the mist on the other side of the wall. I saw the branches and thought it was a stag. Since then I’ve seen it twice from the garden behind our cottage.”
His gaze remained fixed and flat. When he spoke, his tone was quiet, but I had learned by now that this meant the inside of his head was anything but. “You’ve always seen it on the estate?”
I nodded. “I think it might be the creature that attacked me. And the one that’s done the killings.”
Brow furrowing, he said, “What makes you associate the creature responsible for the attacks with the one in the painting? That bell tower is centuries old.”
“I know how it sounds. But Isawit, Harker. In the painting there’s a woman with a wound in her neck, and her blood is pooling on the ground. Maybe the creature is a kind of vampire.”
His fingers trembled as he reached up to touch the burn at his throat. “That is a detail I missed.”
“You and your ancestors are—forgive me—blood-drinkers who’ve lived unnaturally long lives. Could this creature and your family be connected somehow?”
His expression was one of wonder and shock. I tried to give him a moment to think. But my own brain was still working, and patience wasn’t exactly my strength.
“There was something else, too. Someone had scratched a word into the wall, just above the door arch. ‘Goosevar.’ Does it mean anything to you?”
For a moment, he seemed not to react. Then his eyes locked on mine. “You’re certain that was it? ‘Goos-evar’?”
“I made a point to remember in case it was important.”
“It’s important,” he said softly, and I caught a quaver in his voice.
“You know what it means?”
“You said it just a moment ago. ‘Blood-drinker.’ But in Cornish.”
No wonder I hadn’t recognized the word. No one spoke Cornish anymore.No one who isn’t nearly a hundred years old.
“It seems you may be right about the connection with my family,” he said. “Howit is connected is something I would very much like to know. Yet if this creature has been on the estate for centuries, why has no one seen it before now?”
