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Book: The Witching Hour (The Witches Pendragon Mystery Series Book 1) by Julie Sarff
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Authors: Julie Sarff
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kitchen. There’s a new item in Hatha’s bag today, a beautifully wrought gold cross that is about two feet tall. It makes me whistle just to see it; it must have cost a mint. Pulling it from the bag, I run my finger along it’s smooth contours. Hendra throws me a get-back-to-work look and I put the cross down on the kitchen counter. After we unpack all of Hatha’s things, Claire-Elaine shows us to a well-appointed room, with a canopied bed, Louis the XVI furniture, and fussy wallpaper in a small floral print. Camille and I are to share this room, but I worry because the bed looks so tiny. With sweet Camille tucked up in it, there won’t be much room leftover for me.
I am just finishing unpacking my own bag when Claire-Elaine calls us down to the red room to show us the marks on her daughter’s back. All four of us gasp when she lifts her tiny daughter’s white cotton blouse. The marks are light but clearly visible. Someone or something has scratched the poor girl.
“How evil!” Hatha exhales.
“Indubitably,” Camille agrees.
“Time for that ghost to go,” Hendra insists, feisty as ever.
“Ladies, first things first. What kind of a host would I be if I didn’t serve you some dinner before you get started?” Claire-Elaine asks.
I smile ruefully at this. The idea of ghost hunting has stolen my appetite. Hendra however, looks delighted, so we follow Claire-Elaine down the hall where she slides a pocket door open to reveal a room with dozens of windows and a long mahogany dining table running down its center. This room is so much saner than the red room. Here the walls are painted a calming green color. I take a seat next to Camille as Claire-Elaine serves a simple dinner consisting of a creamy leek soup, a cheese course, and pears from Anjou.
After dinner, the Count goes upstairs to ready his children for bed. Since the incident with the fingernails, we are informed that the girls no longer sleep alone. At the insistence of their mother, cots have been installed in their parents’ suite.
“That sounds very sensible. Until we rid you of the ghost, it’s best if your family stays together at night,” Hatha concurs.
“Do you think you’ll be able to make her leave us alone?” Claire-Elaine asks with a twinkle of hope in her eyes.
Hatha nods, “I do,” while I marvel at her optimism. Ever since we moved into Chateau Morcelle, we’ve been telling Francine and Lizelle to move into the light. Hatha has tried reasoning with them several times, but they say that now that we’ve come to live with them, they’re having too much fun to move into the beyond. It seems to me that if we can’t convince reasonable ghosts like Francine and Lizelle to move on, what chances do we have with this totally irate spirit who is raking its fingernails down the backs of innocent children?
Of course, with Lizelle and Francine we didn’t try the Gathering like we’ll do tonight at the Witching Hour.
“I’ve done some research on your ghost,” Hatha reports, as we retire to the horrible red room after dinner. “I believe your ghost is Lady Charlotte du Mont. She was married to a count in the 11th century. I found this information by contacting a Catholic priest in Paris who is a genealogy expert. He was more than happy to help one of his own.” She says this with a straight face. I shoot Hendra a penetrating look. What does she mean by “happy to help one of his own?” We are witches, not Catholics. Although these days, Hatha seems to be some mixture of the two.
“It took the priest, Father Antoine Beaufort, about a day to get back to me. He said that a fellow priest living in the 14 th century wrote about the haunting. They have some kind of fancy machine where Beaufort works, a cat scan I believe, and they’ve entered many priest’s and monk’s diary entries into their computer. I don’t really understand it all, but he was able to access some entries in a database pertaining to your ghost.”
Here
I am just finishing unpacking my own bag when Claire-Elaine calls us down to the red room to show us the marks on her daughter’s back. All four of us gasp when she lifts her tiny daughter’s white cotton blouse. The marks are light but clearly visible. Someone or something has scratched the poor girl.
“How evil!” Hatha exhales.
“Indubitably,” Camille agrees.
“Time for that ghost to go,” Hendra insists, feisty as ever.
“Ladies, first things first. What kind of a host would I be if I didn’t serve you some dinner before you get started?” Claire-Elaine asks.
I smile ruefully at this. The idea of ghost hunting has stolen my appetite. Hendra however, looks delighted, so we follow Claire-Elaine down the hall where she slides a pocket door open to reveal a room with dozens of windows and a long mahogany dining table running down its center. This room is so much saner than the red room. Here the walls are painted a calming green color. I take a seat next to Camille as Claire-Elaine serves a simple dinner consisting of a creamy leek soup, a cheese course, and pears from Anjou.
After dinner, the Count goes upstairs to ready his children for bed. Since the incident with the fingernails, we are informed that the girls no longer sleep alone. At the insistence of their mother, cots have been installed in their parents’ suite.
“That sounds very sensible. Until we rid you of the ghost, it’s best if your family stays together at night,” Hatha concurs.
“Do you think you’ll be able to make her leave us alone?” Claire-Elaine asks with a twinkle of hope in her eyes.
Hatha nods, “I do,” while I marvel at her optimism. Ever since we moved into Chateau Morcelle, we’ve been telling Francine and Lizelle to move into the light. Hatha has tried reasoning with them several times, but they say that now that we’ve come to live with them, they’re having too much fun to move into the beyond. It seems to me that if we can’t convince reasonable ghosts like Francine and Lizelle to move on, what chances do we have with this totally irate spirit who is raking its fingernails down the backs of innocent children?
Of course, with Lizelle and Francine we didn’t try the Gathering like we’ll do tonight at the Witching Hour.
“I’ve done some research on your ghost,” Hatha reports, as we retire to the horrible red room after dinner. “I believe your ghost is Lady Charlotte du Mont. She was married to a count in the 11th century. I found this information by contacting a Catholic priest in Paris who is a genealogy expert. He was more than happy to help one of his own.” She says this with a straight face. I shoot Hendra a penetrating look. What does she mean by “happy to help one of his own?” We are witches, not Catholics. Although these days, Hatha seems to be some mixture of the two.
“It took the priest, Father Antoine Beaufort, about a day to get back to me. He said that a fellow priest living in the 14 th century wrote about the haunting. They have some kind of fancy machine where Beaufort works, a cat scan I believe, and they’ve entered many priest’s and monk’s diary entries into their computer. I don’t really understand it all, but he was able to access some entries in a database pertaining to your ghost.”
Here
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