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It was a crisp and clear October Saturday in the North Yorkshire village of Ravenscar, a sleepy jewel of England's North Sea coast that keeps its eternal vigil over those waters with the rustic stoicism that carries English villages from one century to the next with only a bit more moss on the fieldstone walls and the inevitable fading of cemetery headstones as any proof at all of the march of time. The advancement of autumn's fullness had gilded the countryside in resplendent vibrancy and the pervasive thrill of the season was evident in the rapid and enthusiastic bustle of both the villagers and the tourists that came from far and wide to admire for themselves the green and pleasant land spoken of by poets and common men alike.
Up and down the cobblestone walks and along the fenced gardens, singly and in small groups, a surprisingly diverse assortment of both smartly and plainly dressed people made their way along the charming and meticulously groomed streets and avenues of the small coastal village. Centuries of coastal storms had layered a muted patina upon the wood and stone houses, inns, and public buildings that dotted the proud and fertile countryside beneath the high moors; and the smell of the salty air, passing over the village with the sea's great respiration, was a tonic for mortals wearied by the disquietude of city living.
The sounds of village life echoed through the narrow streets and clustered two- and three-story houses that had grown together over the centuries into the kind of quaintly picturesque scene that sold post cards, calendars, and hotel rooms to travelers and tourists of all stripes and dispositions from the decreasingly remote corners of an ever-shrinking world.
It was along a shaded side street off the village's main thoroughfare that a somewhat wide-eyed and eager-looking young woman progressed that afternoon, her smartly dressed feet clicking the pavement stones as she passed a village pub, The Smuggler's Briar, and rounded the corner toward the secluded brick and cob building that she had seen many times in her small collection of dog-eared pamphlets and brochures.
The Ravenscar Village Museum was the sleepy and often lonesome repository for centuries worth of paintings, portraits, documents, and tomes, as well as the myriad artifacts of English innovation and nostalgia that had been donated for the edification of future generations of Britons; and Ciara Grayling had arrived there by no accident, beholding after her long journey the unlikely home of the curious item that her English hostess had mentioned in the last of her letters shortly before Ciara's sudden departure for the lands of Europe.
The sudden and mysterious correspondence of Ciara's twenty-first year carried with it the revelation of her place in the Grayling clan of Yorkshire, England as well as details of her family's history and accomplishments that ignited within her a curiosity that burned like the autumn leaves. The illustrious Baroness Charlotte Vanderbosch had broken her decades-long reticence with a quill pen, and Ciara was instantly consumed with the desire to see the lands of her ancestors and meet with the strange, elderly lady that lived in a castle over the sea.
The man who had become Ciara's guardian in her infancy, a self-made industrialist and aluminum magnate, corroborated the letters and spoke at length with her about the long-obfuscated details of her family's past. Ciara's shock upon learning of the unsolved murders of her grandparents had filled her with a templar's focus; and with the resolve of a true Grayling, she declared she would one day find the answers where others had failed. A resentment for his years of secrecy began to grow within her as he spoke; but when he had finished his retelling of the tragic events that led to Ciara's adoption, she forgave him in a shower of kisses and ran off with her letter to read its perfectly printed words again and again.
No Yorkshire agency nor bureau was spared Ciara's inquiry as she ordered and amassed what might have been every publication on the subject of Eastern England as well as copies of photographs and newspaper articles, some specially requested, until she might have been counted a scholar with her thick notebooks and bound portfolios at the ready. It was armed with these sheafs and letters that she flew across the wide Atlantic, meeting the villagers of Ravenscar at last with a smile that seemed for a moment even fresher than the North Sea breeze.
No head in the village went unturned at the passing figure of the young Miss Grayling, whose exotic yet tasteful raiment spoke of distant America, and whose utterly flawless pale skin and infuriatingly wry smile always left a trail of furtive-lidded men withering under the heated glare of their wives' and girlfriends' eyes, even when the young lass dressed in nothing fancier than a long woolen coat and unassuming faux-fur traveling hood that allowed only glimpses of her silken, pale yellow hair and delightfully symmetrical and wholly comely face. Ciara Grayling was a petite thunderbolt who was no stranger to splitting the skies with the plasma-hot lines of her paradoxically buxom yet lithe form.
A string of small bells shaped like hummingbirds chimed as the diminutive wayfarer turned the antique doorknob and pushed her way into the dimly lit and seemingly deserted village museum. A thick blue carpet greeted her feet as she stood surveying the place, and the dull tang of must was evident as her senses adjusted to what felt increasingly like a den or lair to the intuitive young woman. Her eyes cautiously adjusted to the scarce light, revealing a dizzying array of oddly selected, dusty, and undeniably aged artifacts on the tables, walls, and display shelves; and antique glass cases, darkling in the feeble glow of the low gas-light, filled up the modestly apportioned rooms of the cottage museum.
As she turned and closed the belled door, her eyes fell upon a tall and heavily built individual who could only have been the establishment's guardsman, dressed as he was in a reluctantly worn navy blue uniform and the quaint, crookedly mounted hat of his station. His face seemed naturally inclined to leering and sneering, though he held his expression at bay with mock solemnity, settling somewhere in the middle as a caricature of aped professionalism.
