Ghostlight by Marion Zimmer Bradley Page A

Gate, Ms. Jourdemayne—I can’t think of anyone who ought to be here more. Oh, boy, this is terrific—none of us knew you were coming.”
    Of all the possible reactions—humor, disbelief, confusion—this was one she’d never seen. Obviously her name meant something to him, but he was so innocently delighted to discover who she was that it was hard to take offense.
    â€œBut, hey! You’ve got to come up to the house and meet Julian,” Gareth added. “It’ll be great!”
    â€œI don’t think, Mr., um …” Truth began.
    Gareth wilted visibly at this rebuff. “Call me Gareth. And—please. It won’t be any trouble. Julian isn’t, like, doing anything right now. And you could see the house. That’s what you’ve come for, right? To see your house? Julian’ll be glad to show you around.”
    He gazed at her so hopefully that Truth began to feel a bit guilty at refusing. Gareth was obviously a big bluff hearty puppy-dog of a man who never expected to give or receive unkindness. And she did want to see the house. Could the Blackburn estate possibly have been settled enough for the place to be sold? No one had any reason to tell her if it had, after all.
    â€œJulian, I take it, is the new owner?” Truth said.
    â€œYeah,” Gareth said. “We just moved up here a few months ago, in May.”
    Truth wondered a bit at that—even on such short acquaintance, Gareth Crowther somehow didn’t seem a
likely partner for someone who could afford a property that cost, at a very conservative estimate, several hundred thousand dollars.
    â€œGo on up,” he said encouragingly. “Please.”
    You’ve come such a long way; you might as well. Go on. Just take a look. The silent urging was so strong that it seemed a thing separate from herself, and still Truth hesitated.
    As a parapsychologist, Truth Jourdemayne believed in the unseen world of perceptions beyond the ordinary and communications beyond speech. As a scientist, she preferred any normal explanation to a paranormal one. This niggling hunch was probably simply her own unconscious desire to lay childish bugbears to rest.
    â€œOkay, I will,” she said, deciding. “Thanks, Gareth, you’ve been very kind.”
    â€œThank you, Ms. Jourdemayne,” Gareth said, sweeping her an impish mock-bow.
    â€œTruth,” she said. His smile widened. He stepped back as her car drifted forward through the freshly-painted gates.
    Â 
    You could not see the main house from the gatehouse, Truth realized as she drove. She had the peculiar sense that she had just driven into a picture, or a movie—into a world that was real in a different fashion than the world she had just left, and had its own rewards and dangers.
    Once you were on the estate property, the twentieth century vanished. There wasn’t another house in sight; she couldn’t even see the power lines she knew must be here. The gravel drive swung first left, then right as it cut through the young forest surrounding the house; the roadway was deeply ditched on both sides to carry off summer rains and winter snowmelt, and filled at the moment with drifts of leaves like golden doubloons plundered from some ghostly galleon.

    Truth did her best to rein in her fancy and concentrate on the meeting ahead. Who was Julian? Why had he bought Shadow’s Gate? Gareth had seemed to know who she was; how awkward was this meeting going to be?
    Suddenly the wood opened out and Truth could see the house ahead. Without conscious volition, she brought her car to a stop.
    Shadow’s Gate was a sprawling example of nineteenth-century Hudson Valley Gothic. It bore the look of a fairytale castle built as a stronghold for a war in Neverland. In contrast to other Hudson River mansions constructed of native timber or imported marble, Shadow’s Gate was fashioned of the local pale gray stone. Three cone-roofed towers