The beat in her chest became louder as her body pumped more blood to enable her to keep up with the young man. Elijah stopped at the top of the hill and looked around. He appeared to be admiring the view, but Dawn suspected he was giving her time to reach his side and catch her breath. Mouse tried to stick next to her, but even the wolfhound struggled with the footing and took to bounding forward over obstacles.
At long last she made the top. Dawn looked around, trying to determine if there was an easier route to the hermitage. Georgian ladies would never have scrambled through the forest. They’d have either ridden their horses or taken a gentle stroll. Under all the undergrowth and composting leaves would be a wider and level path, they just had to find it.
Dawn stood tall, arched her back to relieve an ache in her spine, and silently congratulated herself on ascending what was surely the tallest hill in Cumberland.
Then the earth disappeared from under her feet.
Mouse howled as a sense of weightlessness engulfed her. The sky seemed to soar away from her as she dropped into a void. Elijah’s eyes widened and in the next instant, the lad lunged for her.
“No!” Dawn cried. Not a denial, but a warning to Elijah. She didn’t want her weight and momentum to pull him down into the hole with her. If they were both trapped – or worse, injured – who would raise the alarm? She had serious doubts about Mouse’s ability to fetch help or guard her.
Elijah pounced faster than she could comprehend and snatched at her hand as the ground devoured her. He arrested her sudden fall with a wrench through her shoulder. Dawn dangled with nothing under her feet, but tree roots, earth and sharp rock closely surrounded her body. The ground had collapsed beneath her and dust drifted up from far below.
Elijah grunted and almost pitched forward, and Dawn feared they would both fall down the hole. She flung out her free hand to grab a root or rock to steady herself.
“Ow!” She scraped her wrist on something and it pierced her skin. She glanced around and spotted a length of vine, one sharp thorn now sporting a red tip.
“Are you all right?” Elijah called down.
“Yes. Just a scratch.” Dawn glared at the plant, then she reached upward again and her fingers curled around a rock near the edge of the hole. As she steadied herself and began to heave her weight up, she discovered her hand hold wasn’t a rock but the toe of Elijah’s boot. He had become part of the hill, his boots and lower leg hard stone as though he rooted himself to the spot to haul her back up.
“I have you,” he squeezed out between gritted teeth as she emerged back into the light.
As he hauled her up by her right hand, Dawn glanced at her left. While she scrabbled over the edge, the rock under her fingers turned back into hard boot leather. She lay on the rough earth and Elijah dropped beside her. Her heart raced with a wild beat from exertion and fear as she lay still, waiting for her body to calm.
Dawn rolled to stare at Elijah’s feet, about to ask how he had become one with the outcrop, but saw only normal boots and trousers. She pressed a hand to her temple; she must have knocked herself swinging back and forth.
Elijah blew out a deep breath. “I think you found the hermitage.”
Dawn dared a glance at the gaping hole. What light made its way in illuminated a tangle of tree roots just inside. A thick one had a fresh break, as though something had snapped it off at a crucial point. The vine crossed from one side of the hole to the other with a missing segment.
“You’re bleeding,” Elijah said.
Dawn glanced to her wrist, where a thin trickle of blood ran toward her palm. Over her pulse point was a scratch about one inch long. “I’ll survive to fight another day.”
Elijah pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and folded it into a long length. “It’s clean, I promise,” he said as he wound it around her wrist and tied the ends.
“Thank you.” She sat up and urged her body to her feet. “The trees have undermined the rock. We should probably get off the roof before more of it collapses.”
“Good idea.” Elijah bounced to his feet and offered her a steadying hand as they climbed down the other side. Below, the hillock levelled off to a flat area, as though someone had cleared it to make a patio. A wide, winding path led off either side of the clearing, but both were obstructed by decades of fallen branches. The rotting trees then made the perfect growing environment for smaller shrubs and ferns.
Mouse jumped down beside them and glared at the hill. A soft growl rolled off his tongue. Dawn glanced at the dog. “I don’t think it collapsed on purpose, boy.”
Elijah gestured to one side, behind the wolfhound. “The path is completely obscured, no wonder you couldn’t find your way. The entrance is only visible if you climb over the roof and down.”
Dawn turned to survey the hermitage. It was dug into the base of the hill. An oval door was the only indicator that anything was out of the ordinary. Even that looked ancient and weathered, as though it was part of the rock. A heavy, circular iron knocker was the only way in. She imagined ladies riding up the wide path on their placid ponies and waiting on the cleared area for the hermit to appear and quote poetry, or spout cryptic ravings.
Elijah took hold of the ring in the middle of the door and hauled. To Dawn’s surprise, it swung open easily, as though someone had oiled the hinges or it saw regular use. They both peered into the hollowed out space. It now possessed a skylight some twenty feet overhead, and dust motes drifted on the stirred up air.
Elijah walked in first. “Watch out for loose rock,” he called over his shoulder. Part of the roof now formed a pile under the hole.
“Hard to imagine someone once lived here,” Dawn murmured as they stepped inside.
She skirted the edges, looking only, too scared to touch anything in case a wall crumbled and fell upon them.
Rough, ancient-looking furniture inhabited the space. There was a table and two chairs. A large bed with the tall posts still showing the bark so it appeared to be part of the forest. A fireplace was carved into the rock on one side, and Dawn wondered how well it drew up through the hill. Odd that it didn’t look abandoned. Apart from the recently disturbed rock, it almost seemed clean. The bedding looked fresh, yet she would have expected the linen to have rotted over the years.
Was someone still living in the hermitage – unknown or unseen by the family?
10
“Does your uncle still keep a hermit?” Dawn asked, looking for other signs of recent occupation. A light layer of silt covered everything, but that seemed to have come from the disturbed earth rather than a build up of layers over the years.
Elijah laughed. “I don’t think the estate has had a hermit since last century.”
“Odd,” she murmured. The estate played tricks on her, and things were often not as they seemed. “We will need to find a way to cover the hole I created, or this place will fill with water when it rains.” If there was an occupant, they might not appreciate the new skylight once the weather turned.
Her attention drifted to the bed and its linen. There was no sign of mould or decay on any of the fibres. When she slid a hand under the blanket, it seemed cool but not damp, as she would expect of something abandoned decades ago.
Dawn stood close to the centre, or as close as she could get given the waist-high mound of rock and dirt, and looked upward. The fine silt was clearing and she could see the trees and sky above. She could also examine the sides of the hole, which were interlaced with a thick black vine.
“How odd.” She tried to look closer but couldn’t without a ladder to stand upon.
“What’s odd?” Elijah asked from where he was peering into a carved-out wall niche.
“The vine that is covering most of the estate is present here, too.” Her neck ached from straining backward, and tiny bits of dust made her eyes water. The vine reminded her of something she had seen before, with the way it seemed to loop round. Then the image came to life in her mind – a snaked coiled in a similar fashion.