Nachtstürm Castle by Emily C.A. Snyder Page B

some alarm.   Did this substantial ghost yet roam these halls?   Worse – had Catherine been subjected to her presence?   How did his wife fare? Had she need of him?   Self–anger filled him; he had been a negligent husband this week. He had allowed the library and the mystery to woo him and he had proved a poor lover indeed. Catherine would have every right to renounce the name of Tilney for his inattention. All the newly-wedded fears coursed through him, hastening his steps to their chambers, ready to swoop Catherine up into his arms and convince her of his ardour through kisses.
    But no sooner had he approached that wing than the second strange occurrence happened: he saw Old Edric emerge from their rooms. That man’s motions bore no hint of stealth or furtiveness. He closed the doors solemnly – yea, slowly – as though only making his nightly rounds. Edric even bowed to Henry as they passed – a glimmer of sharp knife shimmering briefly in the old man’s bleak attire. That done, Henry opened the doors and found the scene of destruction much the same as Catherine would shortly. A quick search divined that the letters nothing had been taken, although judging from the slits in bedding, chair and cloth, Henry surmised that Edric had been searching for the very letters that our hero kept always on his person.   Nor could Henry blame Edric for so urgently desiring these most valuable documents, since they bore proof against his word.
    Catherine had appeared soon after and the sight of her terrified countenance stirred all the knightly sentiments within our hero. He would solve this mystery tonight and leave with Catherine tomorrow. And he must go out tonight for surely any longer and who knew what else Old Edric would steal! His wife’s sudden confidence had shaken his determination, as well as gratifying his sense of adventure.   So it was with a light step that he made his way down out of Nachtstürm and to the graveyard.
    Horrible place! Across the natural bridge Henry strode, winding down to the shambling church – half plaster, half marble – its solitary bell keening in the rain–drizzled wind. Frightful angels loomed like gargoyles and twisted shadows over the broken ground. Crosses and obelisks, pillars and bas–reliefs, all a grisly mockery of the sun–washed stone garden of the Florentine Medici’s – O! how long ago! And above all this towered the great marble mausoleum of the Barons of Brandenburg.
    If, Henry supposed, the Baron had truly taken his own life, then he would not find him in this hallowed ground.   A man might be dishonoured in his own home, but not his eternal one.   The familial mausoleum would tell all.   And reveal as well, perhaps, whether a wife lay beside him in her eternal rest.
    Through the bracken, winding past the minor gravestones of the spinstered daughters and bastard sons – cruel fate, thought Henry – he approached the edifice and by the faint moonlight read the chiselled names upon the door.   But the moon played coyly through the tattered clouds, until at last she burst through, lighting on the name he most longed to see.   Yes, just as he suspected, the late baron appeared to lie entombed.   His death was doubtful, but some cleric was not – and in that instant, Henry felt a rush of pride for his brother clergy.   Look though as he may, no Cecelia of any family was likewise inscribed upon the slab; he must look elsewhere.
    That same moonlight illuminated a willow tree, a little past the monument.   Its trunk was gnarled, stumped and gibbous; its limbs a collection of wooden writhing forms as horrible as ever those that threw themselves into Charon’s boat.   Its branches hung low and thick, glistening in the rain, waving tremendously in the wind.   They swayed, now caught in motion in the lightning flash, now twining together in Fate’s knotted veil, now drifting apart with a sigh like a religious at her prayers. But most extraordinary of all was