Total pages in book: 48
Estimated words: 44459 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 222(@200wpm)___ 178(@250wpm)___ 148(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 44459 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 222(@200wpm)___ 178(@250wpm)___ 148(@300wpm)
He shot me a look that told me not to discredit the idea so quickly. “It goes all the way back to the seventeenth century, when the Earl of Fordun left home to pay taxes but didn’t return. His horse was found abandoned by a stream the next day, along with his slashed and bloody clothes. He’d been missing nearly a week before a witness came forward to say he’d seen the earl riding alongside a local tradesman named William Stuart. And they’d been arguing.”
The innkeeper shifted in the driver’s seat, like he’d told this story countless times before and was settling in for it.
“When Stuart was brought in for questioning,” he continued, “he had the earl’s money. He admitted they’d argued and that he’d been given the purse to help settle the earl’s gambling debt, but he had no idea what happened after that. The men went their separate ways, he claimed.”
The innkeeper took a breath, perhaps for drama’s sake.
“Despite there being no body,” he went on, “and that the earl’s gambling addiction was widely known, the following spring, Stuart was tried, convicted of murder, and sentenced to death.” He turned the steering wheel, making the older-model car putter up a fog-steeped hill. “The execution took place in the Castle Docherty courtyard, and William Stuart claimed his innocence with every step he took across the scaffold. Just before he was beheaded, he cursed the ground and everyone who stood upon it to witness his death—which by all accounts wasn’t pleasant. The executioner was drunk, and it took five swings of the axe before poor Stuart’s head was severed from his body.”
“He was innocent,” I guessed.
He glanced in my direction to deliver a slight smile. “Three months later, the earl was caught trying to board a ship for France. He’d faked his death and hoped to use the tax money to start a new life out from under his debt. But when Stuart caught him leaving town, the earl gave up his purse so he could continue his escape. While he was waiting for a ship, word got to him that Stuart had been charged with his murder. That he was about to be executed.”
“But he didn’t come forward to stop it?”
He shook his head. “The townsfolk were so outraged by his lies and inaction that he was tried, convicted, and put to death in the same spot as Stuart.”
The road leveled out, and the line of trees broke, giving me my first view of the town, which wasn’t more than a smattering of houses seated at the base of a large cliff.
“It’s not unfair to say,” the innkeeper added, “that the castle’s story has been bloody and tragic ever since. It does seem like darkness is drawn to it.”
Atop the cliff, the castle . . . waited.
Its massive wall rose above the thin mist. It had a tower at the center, plus one at either end, and the stones had been bleached a pale gray after centuries in the sun. The towers stood at least five stories tall, and the impressive main one jutted out at the front. The dark arch of its gate looked like a ravenous mouth, wanting to consume anyone who came near.
The drawbridge was long and narrow, extending over a steep ravine that might have held water at some point to serve as a moat but was empty now. Long ago, it had been a dreadful fortress.
Today, I looked at it with a different kind of anxiety. It was ominous, unsettling. The kind of place that if you stared for too long, it made your chest tight and your stomach feel weird.
The castle couldn’t have been a more perfect location for a haunted house if it had tried.
Chapter 2
At 1:00 a.m. precisely, as instructed by the email I received after submitting my forms, I walked beneath the portcullis and checked in with the man waiting there. There had been a jittery sensation working its way through my body all evening, and as I’d approached the castle, it had grown worse.
Stop being a baby. You’re going to be fine.
The staff member seemed irritated by my presence, but I wondered if it was just an act, like the servers who are intentionally rude at themed restaurants. I followed the guy through what must have been the lobby of the hotel and down a hallway into a conference room, where he told me to have a seat and sign the contract.
He left and shut the door behind him with a loud thud before I could ask any questions.
The small, windowless conference space looked like it hadn’t been updated since the eighties. The wallpaper was faded and bubbled in spots, and some of the lightbulbs overhead were burnt out, so the room was sad and dim.
I was already tired, and this environment wasn’t helping, which I suspected was by design. They’d probably chosen this time slot—one of the last of the night—to maximize my vulnerability.