Chapter One
The kids were starting to get bored, Serena realized as her eyes swept over her students, one of which was trying to hide the fact he was playing a game on his cell phone rather than paying attention to the tour guide. The others were shuffling from one foot to another, gazing blankly at the old walls of the English manor in which they stood.
Although the house had been carefully preserved and restored to its original glory, cracks still ran up the plaster walls near the ceiling, splitting the honey-yellow wall paint like the lines in the palm of someone's hand. The floorboards creaked under the weight of the forty-odd American high school students and the nine chaperones all supporting matching T-shirts, and as everyone moved into the hall, Serena could hear the sighs of her students over the soft thumping of their shoes on the floor.
"We are about to enter the ballroom," the tour guide smiled cheerfully as she waved her hand in the style of Vanna White at the double doors just behind her. The dress she wore, cut to the style of the early nineteenth century, rustled about her waist as she turned to open the door. The thick fabric looked hot and rough to the skin, and Serena felt sorry for the woman. "Please, do not touch anything," the guide said, turning the handle.
The class filed in behind the woman, who moved to stand in the middle of the spacious room. "This," she stated, "is the pride and glory of Terra Manor."
As the tour guide spoke, Serena took in circumference of the round room, the walls of which were covered with a mural of a forest, which, Serena mused, must have made the dancers feel like they were dancing in a faerie ring in the middle of a forest. She wondered if, a hundred years ago, the women dancing in the room had felt the urge to go out and pick flowers to weave together to make crowns and necklaces.
The ceiling was as blue as the sky on a clear spring Montana day. Whoever had commissioned the painting of the room, Serena mused, had certainly been a fanciful and romantic person.
"However, tragedy befell Terra Manor in this very room," the guide theatrically told them. "A woman was murdered at ball held here shortly—just a few weeks, in fact—after the manor caught on fire in 1816."
"Why was the woman murdered?" asked Kindra, one of Serena's more vocal students, but it seemed as though a lot more of the students were listening since the topic of murder was mentioned.
The guide smiled, warming to her subject. "There are many stories speculating the murderer's motive. Some say that the man who murdered the woman was a scorned lover. Others say that the man had too much to drink that night and pulled out his pistol to show off at bit and then accidentally pulled the trigger, his stray bullet killing the women. The most popular story, however, is that the bullet was actually intended for the lord of the manor and that the woman stepped into the path of the bullet to protect the lord."
"Why would she do a stupid thing like that?" asked another student.
"It's said that she was in love with him."
A male student snorted, causing a few others to chuckle.
"It is said that after the woman's death, the lord—an earl, actually—became forlorn. He did, however, later marry a lovely woman that he met while traveling in Scotland. To this day, this house is still privately owned by the descendents of that lord. The family currently lives on the top floor, which is why that area of the house is off-limits to tourists."
"People actually live here?" one student asked, and Serena smiled, trying to imagine the people living on the top floor.
Did they ever peek out the windows or sneak downstairs to join a tour group just to watch the tourist ogle their house? Serena wondered. That's what she'd do, she decided, if she lived in such a house. She also wanted to know what happened at night, when all the tourists were gone. Did the owners make use of the lower floors of the house? Did they sit in the scroll-footed chairs in the foyer? Did they dance while someone played the piano in the ballroom? Did the living room become a family room after the strangers vacated it?
Did the manor ever become a home?
"If you would all direct your attention to the painting to my left," the guide urged, shifting her body to her in the direction indicated, "you will see a painting of the lord and his Scottish wife."
Serena turned her gaze to the painting in mild curiosity and gave the figures a cursory glance.
"Man, to live two-hundred years ago," whispered Mina, Serena's coworker. "That man is simply gorgeous."
Serena nodded her agreement as she stared at the two figures captured forever in oil paint.
"Do you think he really looked like that, or do you think it was an exaggeration on the painter's part?"
Serena studied the male figure more closely since it was the object of her friend's attention. The lord was dark haired and imposing. He had an almost wild air about him even though he looked perfectly domesticated in tan breeches and a blue jacket that amplified the color of his eyes. His skin was golden, and a thin scar above one of his eyebrows stood out because of its paleness. The man looked stoic in his facial expression, and his stiff posture indicated that he was either a man who was extremely uptight or extremely alert. Serena thought it was probably the latter, but despite his rigidity, the hand resting on the shoulder of the seated woman appeared extremely gentle. At first glance, Serena thought the focus of the man's gaze was on the viewer, but after a few moments it seemed as though he were gazing out of the corner of his eye at the woman.
"You know what?" Mina asked, rhetorically, "The woman kind of looks like you."
Serena focused her attention on the woman in the painting who was of obvious Scottish lineage. Her skin was fair, a pure cream that lacked the pink that tinted Serena's epidermis. The woman had green eyes and hair that was a wavy copper red, and Serena, a blue-eyed blonde, did not see the resemblance and she said as much to Mina.
"I mean," Mina tried to explain, "if your hair was red, and your eyes a little closer together, you could pass as her sister."
Serena sighed. "Mina, you're delusional."
Mina narrowed her eyes at the portrait. "There's just something…I think it may be her expression. You wear that same smile when you are happy for no apparent reason."
"Happy for no apparent reason? How do you know if I'm happy for no apparent reason?"
"You get this smile sometimes. I ask you why you are smiling, and you say 'No reason.' That's why."
Serena's mouth twitched, but she refused to smile, afraid that Mina would make some comment about its likeness to the woman in the painting. Instead, she glanced back at the former lord of Terra Manor and the gentle hand he placed on his wife's shoulder and amusingly thought that the woman in the painting had at least one reason to be smiling.
Serena began to feel herself slip into the place in her mind where she turned history into fictional stories and turned names in textbooks into characters that embodied the personalities she imposed upon them, thus making them more realistic to Serena, who had always felt that historical figures, like George Washington and Harriet Tubman, were described in textbooks in terms of what they had done and not who they had been. Yes, actions say a lot about a person, by how was Serena supposed to believe that the people in history books were once real people when they were portrayed as so two dimensional and when she knew nothing about their personalities that she could relate to?
She was prevented from entering that world, however, by the tour guide who asked the bored students, "Alright, who's ready to tour the garden maze?"
Few gave a response to the woman's question, and those that did answer did so in mumbles and grunts.
Serena shared a look with Mina and asked, "I wonder how many of them we'll lose in the maze."
"I wonder how many of them we'll catch making out," Mina responded in a whisper. "I swear these kids get more action than me."
"That's because they do."
A slightly offended Mina came back with, "Well I at least get more than you."
Serena shrugged, not offended by Mina's comment. There was no arguing with the truth. Serena's last relationship had been almost two years ago, and the fact was, she was comfortable being single. While she enjoyed intimacy with men, she didn't miss it to the same degree that Mina did. She was perfectly content to read romance books and eat chocolate, whereas Mina seemed to desperately need the comfort of a male body.
Once outside, the walls of the maze garden rose eight feet into the sky. At the sight of them, Serena couldn't help but smile in glee; she had always wanted to experience getting lost in a maze and then trying to find her way out. Now she had her chance.
Eager to enter the garden, Serena barely heard the tour guide as she concluded, "Well, I hope you all enjoyed the tour of Terra Manor. Please visit us again if you ever return to England."
The guide, then turned and left, her skirt swishing as she walked up the stone steps and into the back door of the manor.
Daniel Mathews, the head of the history department at the school where Serena taught, directed everyone's attention towards him by emitting a loud whistle using his thumb and forefinger. "Alright, everyone, we're going into the maze and I ask that you not get lost on purpose. I know that you are bound to take some wrong turns, but this isn't hide-and-seek. We have a schedule to keep, and if you guys want to eat on time I suggest that you get through the maze as quickly as possible. If I or one of the other teachers find any of you goofing off you can bet your bottom that you will be punished, so get in there and get out."
"Hey, Mina," Serena elbowed Mina once most of the students had entered the maze, "I bet I can get out before you." Then, almost before her sentence was out of her mouth, she started running for the maze entrance, bypassing a few straggling students who had yet to enter the garden.
The sounds of the outside world were muted inside the walls of the maze, and Serena stopped her running to pause and listen. Faintly, she could hear the giggling of the students and the sound of birds nesting in the shrub walls around her. Her breathing, slightly elevated from her brief run, was the loudest sound inside the vacuum of the maze.
Smiling, Serena picked up her pace, turned a corner, and entered deeper into the heart the maze. She held her right hand out at her side, letting her fingers trail across the leaves of the perfectly trimmed and flattened bushes.
It wasn't until she had made six more rights and four lefts that she realized something was wrong. Not only had she not reached the end of the maze, but her breathing, which should have returned to its normal steady tempo, was still heavy. In fact, it seemed to have increased in severity, coming in and out of her lungs in wheezes.
Confused, she clutched her chest and throat, vaguely wondering if she was having an asthma attack even though she did not have a history of asthmatic problems. Her next thought was that she was having a panic attack, but she had never had a problem with those either. Serena tried to call out for help but couldn't find the breath, and a cough emerged from her throat rather than a plea for help.
With her back against the wall of the maze, Serena slid to the ground, tiny branches scratching the backs of her arms, as she felt her head grow both light and heavy at the same time. Short, panicked thoughts darted through her mind as her neck struggled to support her head.
Please, I don't want to die, she pleaded in her mind as she listed to one side and felt the side of her body touch ground, her eyes staring at the sky and the white cotton-candy clouds.
As child, she used to believe that when people died their souls shrunk to the size of ants before traveling to Heaven, which was located inside clouds. But Serena didn't feel as though she were shrinking. Instead, she felt as though she were growing, as though she were too big for her skin. She felt trapped, tight, and helpless.
The wind started to blow, and Serena felt her body shudder. Dreamily, she looked on as the sky turned from blue to pink and the clouds began to swirl in an unnatural pattern, becoming one giant mass that seemed to descend from the sky to clog her pupils and obscure her vision. She felt the clouds spread to the rest of her body, coating her in a soft numbness that alleviated the pressure in her chest and left her immobile. She was aware of them lulling her into unconsciousness, and Serena fought the sensation, afraid that if she gave up the clouds would leave her body and take her soul with them.
When Serena finally succumbed, the clouds did not take her to the after life. Instead, they transported her to a place where she no longer had to use her imagination to make history come to life.