“It’s alright. I’ve spoken many times over the years about my experiences. Ghost hunters and the like trying to find the gold and relics. Do you know that no one since me has made it up those stairs? No one. Why do you suppose I was allowed but others were not?”
“Maybe you were innocent and whatever is there knew you weren’t going to steal the gold,” said Wes.
“No,” she laughed, shaking her head. “Do you know that not one of my photos turned out? Not one. It was an old disposable camera. Twenty-four photos and not one could be seen. I’m a good photographer. All the photos you see on the walls are mine. That day. That day nothing was right. Nothing.”
“How do you mean?” asked Fitz.
“I felt someone pushing me, shoving me but there was no one there. Then there was a scream, a loud piercing scream thatreminded me of a banshee. I covered my ears and cried out but I couldn’t hear my own voice.”
“Everyone has said the same thing,” said JT. “But all of those people died.”
“Maybe I did too,” she said. “When they found me, I was battered, bruised, cut, and barely had a pulse. Whether I got away on my own or someone, or something helped me, I’ll never know. I’m just glad that I did. I never want to experience something like that again.”
“I’m sure,” nodded Liffey.
“It wasn’t just Castle O’Shan, lad. Have you ever been in a mental hospital?”
“No, ma’am. Not as a patient but I’ve visited some folks who were pretty bad off.”
“Well, I wasn’t bad off. I was as sane as you are right now. Yet no one wanted to believe what I told them. In spite of it all, no one wanted to hear what I had to say. I’d never been a storyteller before. I’d never lied to anyone. I’d never ban fantastical in any way. I was just little, plain Sherilyn. But they still thought I was mad.”
“I can understand that, as unfair as it might feel. I’m sure you experienced exactly what you said,” nodded Liffey. “Is there anything else you remember? Anything else that might help us.”
“Yes,” she said standing slowly. She swallowed hard, went behind the counter and filled a box with her homemade pastries as they watched her. She walked back to Liffey and handed him the box. “Someone whispered in my ear that my blood was no good.”
“No good?” frowned Fitz.
“I didn’t know it at the time but I had leukemia. I received treatment and obviously made a full recovery. But how would anything, ghost, fairy, selkie, whatever it was, how would it know?”
“We’re not sure but thank you for the treats,” said JT. “Thank you for your time.”
As the men stood, ready to file outside in the rain again, Sherilyn gripped Wes’ arm.
“One more thing. Don’t go back there. He won’t let you live twice.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“Below the west stair, through the priest hole, wait for the second bell, bring the key with the hollow stem,” read Julia. She turned to stare at Rose and frowned. “Just what is a priest hole?”
Rose laughed at the young woman and rubbed her back as they sat on the west stairs.
“A priest hole is nothing more than a secret hiding space built into houses in England and Wales during the 16th and 17th centuries. They weren’t as common in Ireland because the whole purpose of the design was to conceal Catholic priests from government priest hunters.
“Ireland was almost entirely Catholic other than the north. England and Wales hunted them during a time when practicing the Catholic faith or harboring a priest was a crime punishable by torture and execution.
“These spaces were built into thick walls, underneath floorboards, behind oak wall paneling, in attics, or inside chimney flues and staircases. Many of the most ingenious hides were constructed by a devout lay brother who was martyred for protecting priests. He was so skilled that some of these spaces remain undiscovered even today. Like this one. I believe we will be the first ones to see it.
“The hiding spots are often tiny, cramped, and lack proper ventilation. In some cases, priests were forced to stay in them for days during intense searches, occasionally dying of starvation or suffocation.”
Her delicate hands moved over the stone wall, feeling, pressing, feeling, pressing.
“In fact,” she smiled pressing hard on the wall, “sometimes they were made to look like one thing, for instance stone, and in fact they were something else. Like wood.”
The wooden portion of the wall, plastered and painted to look like the massive blocks of stone in the rest of the stairway, gave way and opened easily for the two women.
“Wait,” said Julia holding her arm. “Let me text the guys so they know where we are if this shuts on us.”
“Verra smart,” she said with a laugh. Julia texted the entire group and they all sent back a thumbs up. Conor was shocked.
