Chapter 1: GABRIEL

 

The dude in the mirror is trying to kill her!

Ivy moves into an overgrown cottage in the back of beyond two days before Christmas. She soon discovers that the old place keeps old secrets. The mirror above her mantlepiece is not what it seems. Ash and oil footsteps appear from nowhere, as does writing on a wall.

Is her refuge haunted? Ha, well, she’ll decorate the bejeezus out of it, overwhelm whatever it is with pretty baubles and blinking lights. Not everyone loves Christmas as much as she does, after all.

A good plan indeed … until Gabriel introduces himself.

Old houses certainly do keep old secrets.

I

 

M

oss-covered stone hid Gabriel’s End from the lane, a teetering wall that instantly filled her with misgiving.

She pulled into the drive; the twisted gates on either side were forever open by the looks of them. With courage in hand, eyeing the place while scraping through the thick, overgrown hedges on either side, she cautiously manoeuvred in. Dark green foliage clung to the low building; leaves spotted in scarlet. Red Ivy, and not in good trim.

Might be great for Christmas wreaths, though.

She snorted amusement. It fit. Red Ivy. That was her. Ivy, with her red hair.

Ivy’s first impression, therefore, was of the degree of labour involved to prune the old creeper. Her labour, with her city hands. She would need tools. The ramshackle garden shed peeping through a juniper bush promised … well, she needed to ferret there some first.

‘Needs TLC’ the agent murmured during their one conversation, never specifying exactly what and where, but quite happy to take her money in full payment. Buying via the internet possessed drawbacks, but it also removed the need for physical presence, and she took the risk fully aware.

She loved the name. Gabriel’s End possessed mysterious connotations and felt as if it belonged to another time.

Clearly the stills on display on the website were taken before the climber overran the old place, and in better light than this filtered grey. Did the sun ever shine here? Then again, if it was only the creeper and the overgrown garden that required care - add to that one unstable boundary wall - Ivy was quite willing to acknowledge that she received the best end of the deal.

Gravel sporting moss clumps crunched as she climbed from the little jeep she had swapped her city car for just yesterday, another internet deal. That had been the greater risk than buying the cottage, for it meant potentially shady characters and an overdriven engine, but the old guy who met her at the train station a few towns away had been an absolute darling. He wanted a sweet little car for his granddaughter, a Christmas gift, he said, and she needed a bushwhacker to go with her new life. Both of them walked away happy.

House and transport were registered under her now legal pseudonym; she hoped it meant she had managed to vanish off the radar. In another life she was not Ivy, but her mother called her that in their private moments, and she was therefore familiar with it. No one knew of that past; her mother died when she was ten.

Christmas was a mere two days away, and this fresh start was her gift to herself. She would be spending it alone and couldn’t be happier to do so. Still, a few wreaths and decorations were a great idea. Jingle bells all the way, and all that.

After doing battle with ivy tendrils, Ivy discovered the weed-ridden path to the front door. A brief glance at the garden revealed that it needed months of work, but that suited her. She had years ahead of her in the end of beyond and intended to create a wonderland.

It would be a lonely endeavour, but so be it. She had no need of company. And, hey, maybe someone came out of the woodwork one day soon. A girl could keep an eye out for that.

A huge and rusty hook had been embedded decades ago in the very centre of the old door, the perfect place to swing a Christmas wreath from. Almost she shouted out her glee. She had wanted to do that forever.

The key waited under the mat as promised, a huge brass affair that had her smiling with pleasure. Ivy adored things old, objects imbued with history.

Her smile vanished when she sensed how Mark would see it. A quirk, he called it when they started dating, himself into everything modern and minimalist. Old-fashioned, he called it after they were married … and it became one of the reasons for parting, if only the smallest part. Irreconcilable differences, according to the divorce papers. No common ground, she snorted. Hell, given what happened, no common ground at all. She wondered if he’d signed the papers; she fled the same morning they arrived.

Nothing was ever that simple, of course. A marriage didn’t begin and end without a host of issues between, but this was a new day, a new country, a new start, and it was time to move on.

And this year she intended to bloody enjoy Christmas.

Ivy slid the key into its slot and twisted.

The damn thing near broke her wrist.

Shoving at the door and rattling the key, she battled the ancient lock until the solid wooden barrier finally creaked inward. Hinges and lock definitely needed some of that TLC. The door, though, was a beauty.

An instant later she shrieked like a banshee on a cold winter’s night.

Cobwebs and Ivy were mortal enemies; the presence of said spectacle usually meant a spider or three could be in the region. Glaring at the offensive web that hung like a bead curtain in a hippie spa, she wondered just how long it had been since someone opened this door.

Peering beyond the cobwebs, she could see little, but had the strangest sensation. Not that weird feeling as if someone was watching, but rather a sense of expectation. Maybe being alone for the first time worked on her senses; she, after all, was the expectant one, all prepared to start over. Yippee yay.

Backing up to search for a stick to deal with the cobwebs, Ivy looked up. Above the door, etched into the stone lintel in Celtic type letters, were the words HERE GABRIEL ENDS and a date. She peered through narrowed eyes, attempting to decipher the lichen-covered numbers.

1018.

She blinked.

This cottage had been in this spot for a thousand years.

GABRIEL