Chapter 1
“How in the hell do you know who I am?”
Sophie stared in shocked disbelief at the person in front of her. It could only be Fay Driscoll. Or Fay Grancourt now. She looked around at the room, momentarily ignoring the sputtering Fay. It was the same room she’d been in moments before, cataloging items that had been donated from various museums and collections across England for Grancourt Castle’s renovation. Yes, it was the same room, but very, very different. The windows that had been crumbling holes had some sort of odd glass in them, causing the light to waver and give off a pale greenish sheen. The items she’d been painstakingly dusting and itemizing were nowhere to be seen. Instead of boxes and shelving, there was a giant bed with heavy wooden beams and rich hangings. A huge wardrobe took up most of one wall and there was a desk right in front of where she’d found herself in a heap only moments before. There was a table with two chairs pulled up around it near the window. A few candles and a scattering of sewing tools rested on top of the richly-embroidered table cloth as if someone had been working there recently. The adjoining door that led to a tiny, empty compartment was ajar and she could see that there were beds in there now. With a gasp, Sophie hurried to the other door in the room that she knew would have been the bathroom. They would have called it the garderobe.
She swung open the door and stared down the hole in the bench to the ground far below. A pile of folded cloths and a dish of dried herbs on the bench added a lived-in air. Lived in. People were living here. It was all true, then. The words in the ancient booklet Sophie had found, supposedly written by the girl who’d died in this very room a year ago, were true. She turned around to find that very girl, covered in grime and with her hands on her hips, looking as shocked and confused as Sophie felt.
“You’re really Fay Driscoll, aren’t you?” she asked, her voice coming out a choked squeak.
“How do you know that?” Fay wailed, looking anxiously at the door. “And how did you get here? I can tell by your daft hairband you’re from my time. There’s nothing stretchy here, nor is there anything near neon pink.”
Sophie ran her hand over her ponytail, pulling out the offending hair tie. By habit, she slipped it around her wrist, earning her an eye roll. “I read about you,” she said. “I read what you wrote.” She gained confidence as Fay took a step forward, clearly interested.
“What I wrote?” Fay repeated. “Oh my God, the notes for Uncle Randolph.” She reached out and grabbed a bed post. “Someone actually found them.”
“Oh we found them all right,” Sophie told her, helping her to sit down. “Listen, are you all right? No offense, but you look…”
“I’m sure I look quite awful,” Fay interrupted snippily. “I’ve been trapped in one of the dungeons for five days with no food or water. I should probably be dead.” She shrugged and smiled bitterly. “But, strangely enough, I feel fine. It’s most likely the effects of the curse resetting itself.”
She said this last bit almost to herself and Sophie ran her hands along the sides of the dress she’d put on. It had been only a few moments ago, hadn’t it? Could she possibly be in the year 1398, as Fay had written?
Fay shook herself out of her shocked reverie. “We don’t have much time before they storm in here and try to make us look presentable. If everything is how I think it is, we’ve got guests about to arrive, one of them my fiancé.” She stamped her foot, turning red in the face. “It should have been broken! How is this happening? Tell me everything. From the beginning, as fast as you can.” Fay grabbed her wrist. “Oh goodness, what’s your name? I suppose you’re a sister now as well. God, whoever set this bloody curse could have probably cured all the world’s ails if they’d been good instead of evil. The damnable thing is smarter than all of us, it seems.”
Sophie shook her head, the rattled-off words pinging past her, barely sinking in. She still couldn’t believe everything she’d read was real.
“My name’s Sophie Hester McCurdy,” she said, not knowing how else to start.
Fay frowned. “McCurdy? Scottish? You don’t sound Scottish… you don’t even sound—” Fay shook her head. “Oh God, are you American?”
Sophie started to feel slightly offended by all the calling out to God Fay had been doing in regard to Sophie’s existence. “Yes, I’m from Louisiana. But I’ve been in England for six months on a college grant. Helping restore the castle.” She looked around the room once again. It was pristine now, not a stone out of place. “It didn’t look at all like this a few minutes ago.” She took a deep breath and patted at her sides as if she had something in her nonexistent pockets. Ever since she’d dug out the worn, faded book from one of the many loose stones in the walls, she’d carried it around with her. She’d practically memorized all of it. The few stories that were in it mesmerized her. A perfect recounting of what it might have been like to live in that—no, this—time. And the signature had nearly knocked her off her feet when she first read it. “These accounts taken by the hand of Fay Driscoll, who is living as Fay Grancourt, and was brought here from another year by a cursed gown. I hope someone can read these words and see their true meaning one day,” she recited, watching Fay’s eyes grow as round as melons.
“You really found it,” she said, her face growing red again. “And you still put the bloody dress on?”
“I searched for this dress for months,” Sophie said, ignoring the darkening glare. “And it was nowhere to be found. I swear I thought it was just an odd coincidence that the name in the book was the same as the girl who—”
“Died,” Fay supplied tersely. She looked like she wanted to say more but pressed her lips together.
“Right. Anyway, I’d been over this room with a fine-tooth comb, almost literally. We’ve got historians, archaeologists, all sorts of people helping to renovate this place. Your, uh, death caused quite a stir. Lots of people were suddenly interested in restoring it. They realized it might be a nice tourist draw for the area. Believe me when I say I looked in every nook and cranny. This dress was nowhere to be found.” She paused and looked around. “This next part’s a bit creepy,” she warned.
Fay closed her eyes and sighed. “Are you joking? I’ve been stuck in this time, fighting this bloody curse, for a year. I just got out of a dungeon! You think you can rattle me, Miss Louisiana?”
Sophie slumped but continued, almost wishing she could get a rise out of the snotty Fay Driscoll-Grancourt she’d been dogging after all these months. The person in front of her didn’t seem at all like the winsome fairytale weaver of the small, battered book.
“So, I was cleaning this room and cataloging things.” Sophie pointed to the ground in the vicinity of the desk. “Right there. Someone donated about twenty porcelain vases that weren’t right for the era but were still gorgeous, so I was packing them up for another museum. I got up and put one of the boxes on a shelf.” She pointed out where the tall shelf had been. “I turned around for maybe five seconds and when I got back, the other box of vases was underneath a chest. Oh gosh, I wonder if the chest came back with me.”
They both looked around wildly. Fay groaned when she spied it first. The chest the gown had been in was wedged halfway under the bed.
“This chest?” she asked, kicking it scornfully.
Sophie winced, but realized it wasn’t a rare antique in this time. Just an ordinary storage chest. One that had apparently just changed her life. “That’s it. It appeared right out of the blue. I opened it and…”
Fay let out a long breath and paced before speaking. If she was trying to calm herself down, it didn’t work very well. “You’re telling me you read what I wrote about getting sent here by a cursed dress, then you not only actively looked for said dress, but you actually put it on when you found it?” She put her hand over her mouth and shook her head. “I should leave you to rot. I should knock you out and run away with Tristan, if he even still remembers me.” At this odd proclamation, Fay looked more distressed than she had, and she’d looked plenty distressed up to that point. She looked at the door as if she really might run off, but her shoulders drooped. “Except, Anne’s back…” she said wistfully.
Before Sophie could ask who Anne was, a rosy cheeked, bright-eyed girl burst into the room. “It’s all right,” the girl said breathlessly. “We’ve got a bit of time yet.” She cast her gaze quickly over Sophie without showing a hint of surprise or confusion about her existence. “You’re not so bad, Sophie, but goodness I’ve got my work cut out for me with you, Fay. I know it was unkind of Marjorie to say so, but you do look as if you’ve rolled in the sewage pit.”
Sophie blinked as this brunette ball of energy with bright, doe eyes started whipping Fay’s filthy clothes off. Within minutes, she was given a quick wipe down and reclothed in a clean, pretty gown. Its flowing, gray-blue sleeves beautifully accented the embroidery on the dove gray overdress. She’d never seen any gowns from this era in such perfect repair. She let out an inadvertent gasp as she realized that the gown Fay had on was probably new. For the first time since she’d shivered with excitement over finding the jade green wedding gown, just knowing it had to be the one from Fay’s accounts, she now shivered with fear. How long would she have to be here? A day or a week might be good fun, but Fay had been here a year and hadn’t yet managed to get back.
When Fay’s knotted tangles of hair had been transformed into a luxurious mass of braids on top of her head, the maid turned to Sophie.
“All right. Let’s just get your hair done. That gown should be all right.” She tilted her head to the side and scrunched up her features. “When was the last time I saw that gown? It’s a bit too fine, actually. Anne’s isn’t as nice, and you shouldn’t wear something better than her tonight.” She turned to the giant wardrobe and began rummaging.
Fay gave her a hard look and mimed grabbing her stomach. “I don’t think Sophie feels that well, Batty,” she said through gritted teeth.
Sophie caught on and doubled over in a high school drama class level of feigned agony. “I’ve been feeling poorly all day,” she moaned. “I don’t think I can make it down tonight.”
The maid—Batty, Fay had called her, shook her head and tsked. But she also looked like she might not believe her, so Sophie fell onto the bed and curled into a fetal position.
“I’ll keep Anne from having a conniption about it,” Fay promised, squeezing Batty’s arm. “I’m sure she’s pacing a path in the floor waiting for us, no?”
“I thought steam might start spilling out of her ears,” Batty admitted, still looking skeptically at Sophie. Sophie closed her eyes and moaned some more. “Should I send your uncle?” she asked.
“No, she’ll be fine after some rest,” Fay said in a hurry. “Definitely don’t need Uncle Edgar just yet.”
Who was this uncle that Fay clearly didn’t want sent for? A chill of terror washed over Sophie as she realized she was about to be left alone in a strange time. The one person who might have been able to help her couldn’t wait to get away from her, and she didn’t have a clue who anyone else was. What if someone wandered up here while Fay was gone and started questioning her about why she was there? But Batty hadn’t blinked at her being in the room. And now that she recalled, Batty had known her name as well. She felt like falling down a rabbit hole would have been a less confounding option, and tugged at the now hated dress that was beginning to make her itch.
“Please give my apologies,” she croaked. “I’m sure I’ll be better by tomorrow.” Sophie waved weakly at the two girls, both staring at her with little kindness.
“Yes, rest up, Sister,” Fay said darkly, waving at the desk. “Perhaps do some reading. Though I doubt it will make you feel any better, it will help you pass the time.”
When they were gone, Sophie jumped out of bed and tore off the gown. She looked around for its chest but got sidetracked by a chilly draft. Hurrying to the wardrobe, she pulled out the first dress she could get her hands on and wriggled into its pieces. Having studied this time period extensively, she knew the proper layers and how to lace it up. Once she was clothed again, the scroll and book on the desk caught her eye.
That was where she’d woken up, slumped over the desk with a scroll in her hand and a book nearby. And Fay had made a point to tell her to read. She looked with distaste from the dress that lay in a heap on the floor to the desk. She still couldn’t quite believe that she’d not only found the cursed gown that she’d read about but, like Fay had scornfully said, put it on.
“Is this a dream or a nightmare?” she asked aloud, sidling over to the desk. She slid into the straight-back chair, admiring the woven seat. She’d never seen a completely intact cane seat from this time. All of them had rotted away, leaving only their wooden frames. “It’s a dream,” she murmured, running her hand over the smoothly polished and carved wood of the desk. Everything she loved was here in front of her, in all its glory. Not restored to near glory, not shabby or in tatters. Beautiful, brand new, exquisite medieval handiwork.
She sighed and unrolled the scroll. It wasn’t new. In fact, she feared it would crumble as she unrolled it, but it had been in her hand when she awoke to this world, so it must be the first thing she was supposed to see.
The words were written in flowery handwriting, almost unreadable. She squinted and adjusted her mind to the old English way of spelling and finally made out the words on the parchment.
True love and faithfulness are but a lie.
Prove me wrong, you must now try.
Fail, return the gown in which I was betrayed,
And in your grave you will for certain lay.
She read it over several times, saying it once out loud. Hearing the words about lying in her grave ring out in the large chamber made her flinch. She looked again at the dress on the floor and noticed a corner of the chest Fay had ruthlessly kicked under the bed.
“Well, it’s a good thing I didn’t put the nasty thing back in its box,” she muttered.
Could she die in this time? That was a dumb question to ask herself, but everything still seemed so unreal. Apparently, she’d die if she returned the gown. Or if she couldn’t prove true love wasn’t a lie. Cold fingers of fear ran down her spine as she recalled the story about Fay’s demise from their own time.
Fay had gone upstairs to this very chamber to put on the wedding gown for a fashion show to raise money for the castle renovation. She never came back down, and was found dead in her knickers. A massive, freak heart attack at age twenty-three. The gown was never seen again, and no one could agree on exactly what it had looked like. A few of the designers said they had pictures of it, but no one could ever produce any. Funds poured in to restore the supposedly haunted castle. The story had circulated all the way to her small college in Louisiana where she’d fought for grant money and the opportunity to get to work in England.
Fay’s Uncle Randolph had been beside himself with grief, but eventually went back to work overseeing the restoration. He didn’t want the place turned into a sideshow, but wanted the historical integrity maintained. Sophie had agreed wholeheartedly with the dear old man, and they’d become friends. When she first found the battered missive that had been signed by none other than his deceased niece, it had taken her a while to decide to show it to him. When she finally had, he’d burst into joyful tears and redoubled his efforts to bring the crumbling old ruin back to its former state. He was doing it for Fay, believing she was alive and well in another time. Sophie herself had gone back and forth on believing it. After all, it was so far-fetched, thinking someone who was absolutely known to be dead had written it. And from the year 1398 of all things. They’d had the book tested and it wasn’t a hoax, at least not one that was carried out any time later than six hundred years before.
She believed it just fine now. She was here. The dress was real. She peeked behind her and there it was, lying benignly on the floor. It gave her the creeps thinking it might be looking back at her and she raced to stuff it in the wardrobe. She wadded it up as far back in the corner as she could get it and covered it with a pile of scarves from the top shelf.
“Well, that poem didn’t do too much in the way of explaining things,” she sighed, settling back in at the desk.
She picked up the book, a handmade affair with a rough cover and sewn in pages. She flipped through it, finding places where pages had been carefully torn away, and wondered if that was what Fay had used to write her own book. This one looked like a diary, and what caught her eye was that it wasn’t in the scrolly old English. It was written in simple modern handwriting, albeit a bit splotchy in places. Her head hurt and she realized she was hungry. Ravenous, in fact.
She wished she hadn’t let Fay make her chicken out of going down to greet whatever guests had everyone so worked up. They were probably tucking into a nice roasted pig right now. She should march down to the main hall and brazen her way through this little adventure she’d gotten herself into. It wasn’t as if she didn’t know the castle backwards and forwards. So a few—well, quite a few—of the walls were just piles of stones in her time. She still knew the lay of the land. Batty had known her name and Fay had called her sister. The curse must have made her belong here, wedged in a place for her as it had for Fay.
Sophie tossed the book onto the desk, her head pounding too much all of a sudden to be able to make heads or tails out of it at the moment. She needed food before she could figure anything out. The book landed open to a page that had a single line of writing on it, large enough that she didn’t have to squint or lean over to see it. It was like a billboard, blazing up at her.
If you’re reading this, you’re dead.
Well, that certainly stole her appetite clean away. Even though it was as plain as day, she pulled the book toward her and read the words again. Still the same. Her headache pounded against the backs of her eyes. Was she dying right this moment? Was she already a corpse in the twenty-first century and about to become one here? She hadn’t even explored the castle yet. With shaking hands, she flipped a page and held the book up to read what was on it. It all seemed incredibly important now. Imperative that she read every word. On the page before the ominous warning was an apology of sorts. Whoever had written it couldn’t bear to go on. Disconcertingly, the author suggested whoever was reading it should give up as well before their heart was broken. Not encouraging at all.
She flipped around a bit more, finding a list of names. People she was supposed to know in this time, she supposed. People she was related to even! She slowly began to understand that Fay wasn’t the first person to be pulled to this time by the dress. It seemed every time someone failed the objective, someone else got roped in to try again.
How long had it been going on? Sophie pinched the bridge of her nose to drive back her headache. It was chilly in the room and yet too stuffy at the same time. She longed for a deep breath of fresh air. She scanned a few of the pertinent pages again. The gist of it seemed to be someone tried, someone failed, the cursed gown brought a new player in to try again. And again. She got that much, but what she didn’t understand was how Fay was still around. If Fay was alive and hadn’t been the one to return the gown to its chest, how had Sophie found it?
“Of course Fay’s alive, nitwit,” she said to herself. “And it’s clear she didn’t return the dress.” Fay had looked at the gown as if it were her mortal enemy. And she’d muttered about how she’d broken something. “She must have meant she broke the curse,” Sophie surmised, now pacing and pressing on her eyes. The pain was almost unbearable. “Or thought she did. She obviously didn’t, though.”
Sophie made it to the bed and lay down. Her act from before was now completely true. She felt horrible. Her stomach roiled and her brains seemed ready to burst out of her skull. Whoever Uncle Edgar was, she wished he’d come and help her. She balled herself up, yanking on the bedding to cover herself against the cold. As she lay alone and shivering, she didn’t know if night crept in or if her headache blinded her, but utter darkness surrounded her as she finally passed out.