บท 4: Chapter 4: The Company Trip
A soft rain was falling when Edith woke up the next morning. She spent several minutes sipping coffee and looking out the window at the grey outdoors, debating whether or not she should go on the company trip.
A soft pat to her leg made Edith jump and look down. Blaze meowed loudly.
“You’re right,” Edith sighed. “Enough moping around this palace.”
Blaze raced her to his empty bowl. After feeding the cat and digging through her father’s belongings to find an umbrella, Edith left the house to meet up with her new co-workers. She parked in the same spot she had left her car the day before, and was met at the office door by Theresa.
“Oh good, you have an umbrella,” Theresa cheered. “I have an extra raincoat, if you’d like to use it.”
Edith followed the older woman into the foyer and was greeted by the others. Lewis handed her a pamphlet with details of the ruins.
“Is Mr. Byrne coming?” Edith asked.
Lewis laughed softly, “No.”
Edith felt an unexpected pang of disappointment in her heart. Lewis caught her expression, but was interrupted before he had a chance to comment.
“Here’s the bus!” Sam shouted cheerfully.
The group chatted excitedly as they climbed aboard the small bus with others from the company, and in minutes were on their way. Lydia sat with Edith and looked at her expectantly.
“Well?” Lydia played with her curly hair and blinked.
“Uh…” Edith stuttered.
From in front of them, Lewis peered back over the seat.
“Lunch with Mr. Byrne yesterday,” he winked. “What was that all about?”
Edith shrugged, feeling her cheeks getting warm, “He knows I recently lost my father. Mr. Byrne was just giving his condolences and welcoming me to the company.”
Lydia and Lewis became serious.
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” Lydia whispered.
“Sorry to hear that,” Lewis added. “It was just a surprise to see Mr. Byrne take someone to lunch.”
“It created quite the stir,” Sam wiggled his eyebrows from his seat across the aisle.
The bus rounded a turn and climbed a challenging hill. When it crested the top, Edith could see the ruins through the front window.
“Oh wow,” she breathed. “No wonder Dad fell in love with this place.”
The grass was lush and vibrant green, growing right up to the road. Tall evergreen trees grew deep and dense around the ancient ruins of a large, grey stone complex. Walls and archways rose eerily through a thick mist which rolled over a ridge and down to the edge of a wild, wide river. The bus abruptly turned down a worn path. At least, that’s what Edith would have called it. Obviously this road was used often, but it was unpaved, no stone, simply a hard-packed dirt road. It ran in a single lane from the road to a small clearing near the beginning of the ruins.
“It didn’t take us long to get here,” Lydia scoffed. “We could have walked.”
Lewis looked at Edith and rolled his eyes. The bus emptied onto a mossy parking area where the group was met by a guide named Stephen.
Stephen was a no-nonsense type of guide and whipped the group in shape the second they got off the bus.
“Everyone listen!” Slightly-balding, but with fierce ice-blue eyes that instantly commanded obedience, Stephen cleared his throat. “Stay together. This is an ancient place, although made of stone, much of it is in a state of collapse. Also, stay with the group. The ruins are massive and are like a labyrinth. Take as many photos as you wish, but don’t wander off. Safety first!”
The guide turned and began to walk down a narrow path towards the closest half-crumbled part of the ruins complex.
Sam pushed past Edith and Lydia, “Let’s go!”
The women laughed and followed the enthusiastic Sam. Stephen paused at an outcropping to discuss an ancient gate, and Edith took the moment to struggle with her umbrella.
“This gate was the entrance of this entire complex of ruins. We are walking on the very paths people traveled in their daily lives, centuries ago. It is the only gateway found here, so it must have had some importance,” Stephen laid a reverent hand on the remaining wall and arch.
He continued walking and Edith sighed in frustration. She had yet to open her umbrella. The tour moved on through the rain and many skeleton-like archways. When the group made its way into an expansive courtyard, Edith paused outside to fiddle once more with her umbrella.
“Dad would never have an umbrella that didn’t work,” she mumbled.
When she looked up, she noticed Stephen had continued the tour without her. An uncharacteristic choice of words fell from Edith’s mouth. Ignoring the continuing rain, she walked quickly to find the group.
Coming out of the courtyard, Edith noticed the path veered off into two separate directions. The tall, tower-like structure that divided the path made it impossible to see which way the tour went, so Edith took a breath and set off down the left track, and through a thicket that surrounded several crumbling structures. Seeing a doorway, Edith paused and stepped inside.
“...Just for a minute to get out of this dismal rain…” she thought.
Suddenly, through the wet air came a sound so familiar to her ear, Edith had to hold her breath and tilt her head.
Hoofbeats.
There was a horse galloping nearby, and by the sounds of the hoofbeats it was coming her way. Edith left her brief refuge and went down the path further, to where it opened up onto a vast, hilly field. Through this field, standing out stark and bold in the grey day, came a galloping horse the color of charcoal. Its mane and tail flowed like water from its body with every stride. On the horse’s broad back sat a man, whose face was shockingly familiar.
“Mr. Byrne!” Edith exclaimed.
Caden Byrne’s challenging, dark eyes stared at Edith’s soaked form standing before him from beneath hair blacker than his horse
“Edith Doyle? What are you doing here?” he asked, his windswept hair sleek from the rain. His horse’s breath came in quick bursts of warm mist from its nose.
“I was on the tour,” Edith began, motioning behind herself. “I stopped to open my umbrella and when I looked up, the tour was gone.”
Mr. Byrne blinked, then looked over the field, “I passed them just moments ago. Here, give me your hand. You can’t stay here in the rain.”
Edith raised a hand, and before she could say a word, Caden Byrne grasped her narrow wrist and lifted her up behind him. Instantly, she grasped his tight waist and balanced herself as the horse leaped forward.
They cantered down a nearby path that brought them through the ruins to the other side of the vast complex.
“Do you ride here often?” Edith questioned when the horse was brought down to a trot.
“I do,” came the brief reply. “I own this land.”
“Oh,” Edith said, surprised. “Do you enjoy riding in the rain?”
Byrne turned slightly in the saddle, “It wasn’t raining when we set out. Bracken doesn’t mind the rain, anyway, do you, boy?”
“He’s wonderful,” Edith said, aware of the horse’s steady gait.
“There they are,” Caden Byrne pointed at a group of people coming around the ruins of an ancient chapel. “I’m sure you can walk from here.”
Edith slid from the horse’s back, “Of course. Thanks so much.”
She looked at the umbrella she still held firmly.
Caden reached down and took the umbrella from Edith’s hands. In one swift motion, he popped it open.
“Now you will be able to concentrate on the tour,” he said coolly.
Edith blushed, but didn’t look away, “Thank you, Mr. Byrne.”
“Caden,” the mounted man said. “You can call me Caden.”
He turned the black horse and began to ride away.
“Would you join me for supper tomorrow?” Caden looked back suddenly.
“I would like that very much,” Edith smiled.
The horse began walking again, and its dark-haired rider spoke one more time.
“I’ll pick you up at six.”
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