I own nothing that seems familar to you in this story, but you know that already. Holly is my own creation. Tristan is very irritated at me for this I assure you.

THANKS TO THE BETA TEAM! Leigh, Jo and Murt, this chapter wouldn't be what it is without your input!

This is a paranormal romance/mystery. Though some things seem vague now, they will be all explained in due course. Give me time dear readers, I hopefully will not fail you :)

"The good he scorned stalked off reluctant, like an ill-used ghost, Not to return; or if it did, in visits like those of angels, short and far between."- Robert Blair

Chapter 2

She hadn't meant to kill him.

Holly watched stunned as the normally agile man she'd come to admire from afar slipped. Well, not slip exactly; it was more like scramble backwards, trip over his own two feet and fall into the frigid pond. She didn't realize that something was terribly wrong until he did not immediately break the surface of said pond.

She'd used up her entire store of energy just to make herself appear to him. There was no way she'd be able to reach into the pond and pull him up. Crouching, Holly bent over the log but didn't actually touch it. She felt the wood, but it did not respond to her weight the same way it had his. She reached out a hand only to watch the translucent appendage pass through the water, the surface of which remained completely undisturbed.

Holly heaved a sigh and waited. Patience was a virtue, her mama had always said. The man may not be a great swimmer, but he'd recover from his fright soon enough. So what that he'd just seen a ghost? So what that he may have hurt himself in his flight to get away from her? Holly told herself all of these things, but she had a hard time pushing away the alarm that was now clawing at her.

What if she had killed him?

Thankfully, she was saved from her torturous thoughts seconds later when someone came running into the clearing, shouting.

"Tristan!" A deep voice boomed. She looked to her left and spotted a big man, someone she'd seen several times over the years, but who had never dared to brave such close proximity to her before. He broke into the clearing, a deep look of concern crossing his bold features, the scar crossing his right eye standing out white against his swarthy skin.

"Tristan!" he called again, and as if in answer the man's body broke the surface of the water--face down. Dread washed over Holly in thick waves. The answer to her salvation had drowned and she'd been helpless to stop it. In fact she'd caused it. Once again, almost forgetting the state she'd been in some twenty-five years, she reached for him, watching powerlessly as her hand passed through his own.

No contact. Not even a single indication that she'd tried to touch him. The dead oak leaves that tumbled across his prone body in her wake mocked her attempt.

Loud splashing broke through her despair and Holly turned to watch the big man dive into the pond, his movements surprisingly graceful and fluid for someone so large. He reached Tristan within seconds and dragged him to the surface.

Holly felt his panic and fear as keenly as if it were her own, and watched as his erratic puffs of breath made clouds on the cold air as he dragged the lifeless man to the shore. His big hands tore at clothing trying with all his might to make the man breathe again. Turning him face down he beat upon his back with timed yet forceful whacks between his shoulder blades.

"Come on Tristan, you ass! Breathe!" The last word was wrung from him as if it were a prayer. Holly's sense of dismay and hopelessness increased tenfold. She berated herself; knowing without a doubt that her selfishness, her own desire to end decades of solitude and finally be acknowledged had cost a man his life.

Waiting and watching she hovered in the ether, always a witness but never a participant, as the enormous man tried desperately to save his friend's life. Holly crept ever closer to the pair of them: one unconscious, the other frantic, and she was stunned by the waves of desperation rolling off of the big man.

"Breathe, damn you!" he finally shouted and Holly found herself whispering along with him as if it they alone could will the man to live. He had to live, she realized, he was her only hope. If he died it would be as if she didn't exist. The waiting, the watching, the hope that one day he would be the key so she could set things to rights.

If he died it would make her existence, her reason for being seem an utter void. With a force of will she hadn't felt since she was alive she bent ever closer to him and whispered one single word into his ear: "Please."

With an unexpectedness that made her reel backwards, the fallen man began to cough and gag. Sickly streams of water poured from his throat and nose before he sucked rattling breaths into his aching lungs. A feeling of relief so acute shot through Holly, that for the first time she had difficulty distinguishing her emotions from the others around her. The big man rolled his friend over, cradling him in a brotherly embrace. His powerful hands were quick and sure as the checked over the still-struggling man for injuries.

"Tristan? Are you all right? Speak to me man!" Tristan groaned, muttered something incomprehensible, and pushed Dagonet's searching hands away in irritation while still coughing. When the healer's hands came away bloodied, Holly gasped. He had hurt himself in his attempt to flee from her? Was she really that frightening?

"Well, you managed to crack your skull!" Dagonet snapped, showing clear exasperation before hauling Tristan to his feet. "We need to get you back to the wall," he stated. Slinging an arm across his broad shoulders Dagonet preceded to half drag, half carry the man out of the forest.

Holly trailed in their wake not far behind. Many yards had past before she was aware that the heavy fog that accompanied her more riotous emotions had returned. It shrouded her within its white embrace even as oak leaves swirled about the tangled forest floor.

Several times the big man turned to look over his shoulder, thick brows drawn together in unease at the dense fog that seemed to follow them. Holly could tell that his hackles were raised at the unusually crisp wind that shook the naked branches overhead.

Fear was an emotion she was all too familiar with. She wasn't sure if she imagined the increase in his pace, but she was aware that he did not like this part of the forest as much as his friend did, especially on this night.

Control your emotions, she chastised herself. Instantly Holly felt the mist roll backward and dissolve around her. The last thing she wanted to do was scare someone else and cause more unintentional harm.

Rogue oak leaves continued to cartwheel behind her, but the wind died down and the fog had vanished. Holly knew she was just as invisible to the men she was following as she was to almost everyone else she crossed paths with. There were times when she was thankful for her spectral cloak-- this was one of them.

Dagonet dragged Tristan as fast as he could without harming him further. The scout's big boots carved tracks into the ground behind him, but he had not elicited a sound since Dagonet had roused him earlier.

"What were you thinking?" She heard the older man ask, a scolding yet curious tone to his voice. "You know you can't swim, and you've been drinking. I can smell it on you." A moment of silence stretched out between them. The tip of Tristan's boot snagged an upturned root and Dagonet successfully dislodged it, shaking him a bit rougher than was necessary.

Tristan's answering groan of pain twisted at Holly's heart.

"Did you see her?" Came a mumble so quiet that Dagonet almost dismissed it. They were nearing the edge of the forest and Holly began to feel a familiar pull backward. It was the invisible force that held her captive to this place. She could never cross the border of the woods; this was a rule she learned early on, one that was obeyed without question.

"See who?" Holly watched as the two men walked into the clearing just outside of the forest. Dagonet stopped to readjust the hold he had on his friend. Holly knew with a keen sense of profound disappointment that she had ill-used her one of her few chances at an introduction. All of her carefully laid plans had been cast to the wind the second Tristan had tried to flee from her. It would take her days to store up enough energy to appear to him again.

The question remained, though, after tonight's disastrous results: would she want to?

Had she really expected him to be different? Only one other person Holly had encountered over the years had given her any indication that they sensed her, but for some reason this man, this knight, this Tristan had as well. She had been a fledgling spirit, weaker than a kitten, when the first had arrived, her death having only occurred a few years before.

He had been thin raw-boned boy with a strange luminous air about him that couldn't be denied. Holly had been drawn to him from the first. The glimpses of him she'd caught over the years were enough to sustain her and give her hope. She had grown more powerful as time wore on. As she had learned to hone her new abilities and found her limitations, she had watched from a distance as the odd, careful, quiet boy grew into a man.

And now the truth stared her in the face and Holly refused to accept it. She had been mistaken, and in her impatience and desire to be acknowledged she had in fact caused this man a grievous injury. Tristan, despite her previous beliefs, was no different than any other. Holly had foolishly stacked all of her hopes on one person. Instinct and incarnation be damned, she was a fool!

Perhaps she was doomed to live out an eternity in these woods, constantly reliving her gruesome death at each full moon, never again to feel the breeze on her face, the warmth of the sun on her skin. Trapped forever in this purgatory of an existence. Silenced completely just as he had intended so long ago.

She would be forced to finally accept that her untimely death had been just that, untimely.

Never. She thought fiercely.

Holly had fought to escape death's clutches with one purpose in mind: To seek vengeance and justice in whatever form she could. She was tied to this forest, but she'd always known that its hold on her was fleeting. And once she was set free she would hunt him down and show him that no deed, neither good nor bad, went unpunished.

The two men stopped at Tristan's insistence. Dagonet's features sharpened in worry as he watched incredulously as Tristan stood wavering on his own two feet. The scout pushed Dagonet's arm away even as he reached for him, as if he were loath to lean on the other man's support any longer.

"You didn't see her?" He asked again, this time his voice more adamant, loud, and it carried toward her on the wind.

"See who?" Dagonet looked at him through narrowed eyes as if Tristan may have injured his head more severely than the healer had originally thought.

"The woman, the…? " Tristan's reply trailed off, his words slurred. A question lingered in the air around him, as if he himself didn't quite believe what he was saying.

"Woman?" Dagonet asked the word tumbling from him in haste; his tone was gruff, dubious, seconds before both of them turned back toward the forest. A thin trail of mist hung low at the threshold, creeping slowly backward toward the thick darkness of the trees.

Holly knew that her emotions were getting the best of her, but the men could only see the ethereal fog, not the woman who's riotous feelings controlled it.

"There is no one there, Tris," Dagonet said. Though his tone seemed to waver and his heavy brows once again gathered into a deep V over his eyes. He grabbed for his friend's arm once more, and Tristan, though reluctant, leaned upon him. "Let's get you back to the wall. Reagan is going to be beside herself when she finds you in this state."

"Reagan…" Tristan mumbled again as though the name sounded strange to his ears. Holly wondered who this Reagan was and what sort of relationship the two of them had, realizing there was so little she really knew about him.

All thoughts of this other person were cast aside moments later when Tristan turned his head in a slow almost imperceptible move, just as he was being led away and met her curious gaze. Holly gasped, the echoing sound something only she could hear. Tristan had looked at her as if she were corporal, as if she were real.

"Lady," he muttered again. "Saw her."

"I'm sure you did." Dagonet's tone was every bit as patronizing as it sounded, but Holly paid it no heed.

One look was all the encouragement she had needed.

AN: HUGE thanks go out to everyone to reviewed/alerted/read the prologue. I must confess I was nervous with this concept. Hopefully this short chapter helps shed some light on the chapters to follow. I am borrowing from my own knowledge of legends and myths, plus the dozen(s) or so paranormal romances I've read over the years, and the movie itself.

Delicious freshly baked cyber cookies to anyone who guesses the correct quote from the movie for my inspiration!

Until Chapter 3, I hope you enjoy! Happy Reading!

~S