Maggie Shayne: Weddings from Hell

She opened it herself before he got there, however, and stood staring at the house with the wind blowing through her hair. There was something niggling in the deepest part of her mind, like a word on the tip of one's tongue. It was calling to her, nagging at her to dig around and figure out what it was, but she wasn't certain how.

"I can't wait to show you the place," he said. "Come." Taking her hand, he led her up the walkway, made of flat fieldstones, fitted together like a jigsaw puzzle. There were three steps up to the front door, and they dashed up them, then paused there at the top while Ian unlocked the door. He swung it wide, and she stepped inside and then gasped, overwhelmed with the most incredible sense of déjà vu she'd ever felt in her life. She stood there, almost nauseated with the surreal rush that swamped her. She pressed a hand to her forehead without being aware she was doing it.

"Kira?" Ian dropped her case inside the door, facing her and taking hold of her shoulders. "Are you all right?"

"I just…feel so strange." She frowned, and looked around the foyer. The floors were hardwood, narrow boards in rich maple tones. The walls were covered in floral paper, and crown molding painted white gave the place an elegant, antique look. The windows stretched from ceiling to floor, with wide sills, and sheer curtains. It smelled like old wood and the sea.

As Ian led her from room to room, she began to relax. Except when he showed her the room on the third floor, the only room there, in fact. It was a tiny room, that led out to the widow's walk. There were candles and a book of matches upon a dusty table in the room's center.

"What is this place?" she asked.

"I don't know." But he did, she knew he did.

She'd push him on it, later, she decided, as they made their way back to the ground floor and through the kitchen. As they approached the back door, she found herself knowing already what she would see when she got there. A steep, rickety staircase that zigzagged its way down to the rocky shore far below. And suddenly, as Ian reached for the doorknob she gripped his shoulder and whispered, "I'm too afraid to go out there."

He frowned at her, searching her face.

"The stairs are too steep and they can't be safe, not with the weather and the ocean and all the years…"

He nodded. "The stairs were torn down fifteen years ago. There's a deck now, a wide one. Look." And as he said it, he pushed the door open.

Kira peered outside. No rickety, deadly looking stairs sloped dangerously down to the rocks below. A giant redwood deck stretched out instead. At the end of one level, were a few steps down, followed by more decking, and more steps, and more decking. What had been a steep and dangerous descent to the beach was now a gradual walk over the multi-level deck, with only a small set of steps at the end of the final level, that led down to the shore.

Each level had built-in benches and safety railings, some of which were lined with flower boxes, devoid of any growth. It was modern and pleasant, and friendly. The only part of the entire house that didn't give her goosebumps, in fact.

"You see?" he asked, as they walked out over the redwood planks.

"It's wonderful. It's the best part of the house."

"Mmm. Those staircases were treacherous, you're right about that. I argued with the aunts for years to get them to make this change." He led her to a bench that overlooked the beach, and she sank onto it, facing the ocean. "How did you know?" he asked. "About those stairs, that is."

She turned her gaze to meet his. "I don't know."

"Perhaps Esmeralda was right."

Kira held his eyes steadily. "She didn't want you to bring me here."

"No."

"She said if I knew the whole story—"

"You heard that, then?" She nodded and he said, "Aye, I thought you might've. But we've only just arrived, lass. I'd hoped for one happy evenin' together before we turn our minds back to those aunts of yours and their ghost stories."

She sighed. "It feels as if you're putting off telling me something you think will change my mind. Have a little faith in me, Ian. I'm not as easily frightened as you seem to think."

"If you were, you'd have turned tail and run home by now." There was a chiming sound, a doorbell, she realized, and Ian got to his feet. "That'll be the groceries. I phoned in an order before we left the castle. I'll see to it. You just relax."

"All right."

He left her alone on the deck, in the sunshine, and she basked in it. Slowly it burned away the chill that seemed to have settled into her bones from the moment she'd set foot in this country. She closed her eyes, felt the sun's warmth, and in a moment, a smile pulled her lips into its hold, and her mind told her how ridiculous all the rest of it was. Curses. Ghosts. A billion-dollar inheritance. An enforced marriage.

Ridiculous. She didn't have to do anything she didn't want to do. And no curse was going to run her life. It would neither force her into marriage nor keep her from it. And it certainly wouldn't bring about her early demise.

Curses only had the power their believers gave to them. If you didn't believe, they couldn't hurt you. And she didn't believe.

A hand smacked against the window glass from inside the house. The sound was unmistakable, and she sat up, popped her eyes open, and glanced in the direction from which it had come, fully expecting to see Ian smiling at her from the other side of the glass.

Instead she saw her own reflection, only…it wasn't her.

She sucked in a breath that hurt her chest as she realized it. The woman with her face wore different clothes, and her hair was up, and her eyes were red as she stared intently through the glass at Kira. And then Kira moved, just slightly, to get a better angle, and the vision vanished.

On her feet now, Kira moved closer to the glass panes. They belonged to a set of French doors that led into a room she hadn't yet seen. "I don't believe in ghosts," she whispered, as she hesitated, then, gathered her courage, and cupped her hands around her face to peer through the glass.

She saw no woman. "Probably just my own reflection like I thought at first." Tricks of light and shadow could explain the differences. Couldn't they?

Within the room, which appeared to be a large living room, she saw no woman. There was a fireplace, a lot of furniture. It was dim inside.

She tried the door handles, and found they gave when she twisted them. Pulling them open, she stuck her head in, looked left and right. "Anyone here?" she asked, feeling silly. Because really, who could possibly be there, besides ghosts, and she didn't believe in them.

Since no ghosts answered her, she stepped the rest of the way inside, but left the French doors open onto the sunny deck. And then, as soon as she spotted them, she moved from window to window, yanking open the heavy, dark draperies that shrouded each of them. Clouds of dust erupted, and as she opened the last set, she brushed her hands against each other, and turned to survey the room in the newly admitted light.

And then she froze, because there, above the fireplace mantel, above the shotgun that was resting on its hooks there, was a huge portrait, as perfect and fresh as if it had just been finished yesterday.

A couple, side by side, his hand on her shoulder, stern faces staring out from the canvas into the room, in that serious pose that was considered appropriate in times gone by.

Her face, Kira realized, was the same face she had seen peering out the window at her. It was her own face. Looking at the portrait was like looking into a mirror.

And then she forced her eyes to move to the male subject, and she felt her heart trip over itself in her chest. He was Ian. He was absolutely Ian.

"Kira? Lass, where've you gone?"