The baying wolves surrounded her. She was freezing in the light negligee. Steam from her mouth broke through the mist of the cold winter night air.  Sarah backed away. She clutched at the clammy ivy protruding out of the Abbey stone walls. The sound of the wolves’ howling grew louder. She could see evil yellow eyes peering out of the white vapor. One of the pack lunged and tried to grab the hem of her nightdress. Sarah screamed in terror. Just at that moment a tall, dark figure swept her off her feet and carried her off into the ruins. She looked up at the face of the stranger dressed in ancient clothes. It was the face of Hugh St. Owen. The brown liquid eyes bored into her very being. Sarah buried her head in the warm, soft chest hairs of this magnificent Knight of Chivalry. Her heart was beating frantically. He looked down and buried his salivating red mouth in her luscious, generous full breasts. Sarah heaved a sigh of relief and desire. This was what she wanted. This is what she craved.
“Oh, take me! Take me!” she screamed.
Sarah sat bolt upright in bed.
         “That’s quite a fantasy,” she muttered to herself.  All night long her dreams were filled with visions of the Knights of Chivalry guarding the old Abbey ruins. Ancient druids cheered them on. Wolves pursued her through winter night mists. And Hugh St. Owen was rescuing her time and time again from ever-present danger. He was kissing her passionately and wildly. Making scorching love to her. And she was eating up every minute of it.
Sarah frowned. She rubbed the sleep from her eyes and climbed out of bed.  She shuffled across to the window and drew back the drapes.  Instantly the drama of the night was banished as the full rays of the sun filled the girl’s room.  Sarah looked out. The blossoms were heavy on the trees. It was the most wonderful spring day. The birds were singing and Sarah’s heart was filled with exhilaration.  She executed a languorous stretch. It was time to bathe and get dressed. She had a lunch date with a dashing young man.
Within the hour Sarah had bathed and dressed. She felt much better after the experiences of the previous evening, and, apart from a small bruise on her head, felt none the worse for wear.
Sarah checked herself in the mirror. Before her stood a very pretty woman, twenty years old, with fair skin, large green eyes and thick, curly long red hair, pushed back in the current pageboy style of the early 1950s.
“Time for the hairstylist,” she said to herself. Her unruly hair was fighting the strictures of conformity. Just like she was fighting to preserve her sense of self in this narrow little community, she thought.  Her light blue two-piece suit set off her slim, but full body at it’s best.  Sarah smiled as she applied a little light makeup  some powder, rouge and lipstick. Her perfect complexion did not yet need the camouflage of foundation, nor her eyelashes the exaggeration of mascara and eyeliner. Nature had been kind to Sarah Llewellyn.
Sarah finished her toiletries and looked at the mantelpiece clock. It was a quarter to eleven. She had slept late. There was no time for breakfast.  Just as she was about to pick up her purse there was a knock at the door. It was Margaret, or Morfydd, as she liked to be called, the daily help.
“Begging your pardon, Miss,” she said, “But Doctor Llewellyn requests your presence in his study.”
Sarah thanked the maid, snatched up her purse and made her way down to her father’s study. Now what was wrong, she wondered?
Sarah felt a sense of unease as she knocked at the study door.
“Come in.”
Sarah entered the study. It was an old, dusty room that had the archaic, musty smell of an archive. Sarah had never seen so many shelves of books outside a library. Her father rose from behind an antique oak desk and looked at her.
         Without any preamble the old man launched into quite an accusatory speech.
“I won’t beat around the bush, Sarah,” he said, “In fact, I am quite horrified about the way you treated Vivien last night.”
“Whatever do you mean?” said Sarah. “I think you have it the wrong way around, father. Vivien owes me an apology.”
“For what?” The doctor snapped his head and looked directly at Sarah with his cold, blue eyes. “Vivien has told me how you threw your own painting on the floor while you were having a tantrum.”
Sarah was shocked by Vivien’s barefaced lies.
“Is that what she told you, father?” she said, “It’s not true. Vivien is lying.”
Doctor Llewellyn paced around the room, slim, tall, white haired and intimidating.
“Sarah, my wife does not lie. And if you want to stay in this house you will be more civil to her.”
“I am civil to her, father,” said Sarah. “But she doesn’t like me, and in fact, I think she is threatened by my presence here. She is spiteful and jealous, she lies without  ”
“I won’t here any more of this, my child.”  Her father pointed a warning finger at his daughter. “I have been married to Vivien a lot longer than I was to your mother. I think I should know her by now.”
Sarah was surprised to hear her father mention her mother.  He usually did his best to avoid any allusion to her whatsoever. He sometimes behaved as if her mother had never existed. This was a sore point with the young woman.
Sarah looked at her father.
“Would you rather I left here?” she said.
“No,” he said, “You are my daughter. And, what is more, I really need you to start in my office after the weekend.  Those office chores have become a little too much for a woman of Vivien’s age.”
“Too much because she is too drunk to carry them out,” thought Sarah.
“Very well, father,” she said out loud. She made a move to go. Her father cleared his throat.
“By the way, Sarah, where were you last night?  You must have got in quite late.”
Sarah flinched at the unexpected question.
“Oh, I went for a drive to the Saint Owen’s Abbey ruins,” she said, “I slipped in the rain and fell. A young gentleman brought me home. He is picking me up to go back and get my car.”
“Is he indeed?” said her father. “A young gentleman, aye?”
Sarah flushed and stared at the floor. She felt uncomfortable with this interrogation.
“Well, you’d better excuse me now,” said her father, “I’ve got surgery and a few house calls to attend to.” He waved an arm and dismissed his daughter. “Run along now, and Sarah, remember what I said. Be kind to Vivien.”
Sarah hurried out of the inquisition chamber and shut the study door behind her.
“Be kind to Vivien.” The words rang out like the sound of a hollow, cracked bell and stuck in her throat. She walked into the hallway. How could she be kind to a woman who obviously loathed the very sight of her?
Out of the corner of her eye, Sarah was aware of someone watching her. She turned around. It was Vivien. Her small, thin body was hunched up in what looked like a fit of glee. Her thinning long black hair covered her face as she struggled to control her laughter. She stood straight up and glared at her stepdaughter. Sarah drew back as she looked at the woman. Her heavy makeup was smeared on her face. She looked like a deranged circus clown.
          “Making whoopee at Saint Owen’s Abbey were we?”  Vivien said.  “The helpless damsel in distress. I can just picture the scene. How very charming.” The woman’s face contorted into a sneer. “How very charming to have a stepdaughter with such low morals.”
Sarah gritted her teeth and bit her tongue.  She was repulsed by the woman’s theatrics. It was apparent that Vivien had been listening at the study door. Her stepmother carried on. “Did he hold you tight? Was he good in bed? Did you slip and fall before or after you got to his place?”
Sarah’s face turned red. This was too much to ignore. But something told her not to respond.  She turned to go. Her stepmother persisted.
“I wouldn’t mess with Hugh St. Owen if I were you, girl. The Guardians of the Abbey might not like it.”
Sarah wheeled around and faced the wretched woman.
“And what would you know about it, Vivien?” she said, “What would you know about the Guardians of Saint Owen’s Abbey?”
The older woman cradled a cigarette lighter and lit a cigarette with a rather unsteady hand. She blew a smoke ring into the air and idly watched it dissipate in the close atmosphere of the hallway.
“She certainly is into amateur dramatics,” thought Sarah, “She must have been some sort of thespian in another life.”
The stepmother looked at the young woman and narrowed her large, red-rimmed black eyes.
“I wasn’t always a middle-aged doctor’s wife you know,” Vivien said, “I did have a life of my own, once.” The woman looked wistfully away.
Sarah could see that Vivien must have been quite an attractive woman at one time. But what had made her so unhappy? She had been married to her father for a long time. Maybe too long a time.
The woman looked straight at Sarah.
“You’re just like Gillian, your mother,” she hissed, “A little whore.
You tramp, coming here, taking over as if you owned the place.”
“Just a minute, Vivien,” said Sarah. She had an edge to her voice that even she herself noticed. “What do you know about my mother?”
“Gillian? More than you care to hear, my child,” said Vivien.
Sarah folded her arms with exasperation.
“I’d like to know what my mother has to do with all this,” she said, “And how did you know about Hugh St. Owen?”
Vivien rewarded the girl with a wan, sickly smile. Under the heavy rouge, her face looked like a death mask, thought Sarah.
“I recognized his car,” said Vivien, “That little Morris Minor used to belong to his father, Robert St Owen.”
Sarah raised an eyebrow. So spying really was high on the list of her stepmother’s activities.
Vivien drew heavily on her smoldering cigarette.
“Of course,” she continued, “They are both members of the Knights of Chivalry, you know.”
Sarah stared at her stepmother in shock and disbelief.
“You really are a witch,” said Sarah, “You’re just the epitome of the wicked stepmother.”
The older woman gave a harsh laugh that turned into an alarming smoker’s cough.
“More than you know, my girl, more than you know,” she wheezed, as soon as she could catch her breath. She glared at Sarah. “You’re being taken for a ride, just like your mother before you. But unlike Gillian, I doubt that you will survive the power of the Guardians of Saint Owen’s Abbey.”
Sarah stood there stupefied. But before she had time to question her stepmother’s remarkable assertions, Vivien turned on her heels, let out a harsh cackle and started up the stairs, heading for her room.  It was then that Sarah took note that her father and stepmother slept in separate bedrooms.
“Not much romance there,” thought Sarah.
She felt more than a little shaken by this discourse with her stepmother.  She couldn’t tell whether Vivien was bluffing with her usual viciousness, or whether there was something to her story.
She glanced at her watch. It was past eleven o’clock. She didn’t want to keep Hugh St. Owen waiting.
Just as she turned to go, Sarah observed a small painting hanging at the darker end of the narrow hallway. Funny, why hadn’t she noticed it before?  Sarah walked to the end of the corridor and peered closely at the painting  and drew back in surprise. There was a picture of her mother, lovely and young, to be sure, but her mother all the same. She was standing in the ruins of the Abbey, with a tall young man standing to one side of her, and an attractive woman with dark hair on the other. Sarah recognized them at once. The young man was her father  and the young woman dressed entirely in black, looking for all the world like a witch of Salem, was Vivien, her stepmother.  Sarah froze in astonishment.
 

What did Vivien really know about the Guardians of Saint Owen’s Abbey? Were Hugh St. Owen and his father members of the Knights of Chivalry? And what awful secrets were Vivien and Doctor Llewellyn hiding about her mother, Gillian Llewellyn  and the terrible power of the Druid’s curse? See the next exciting installment in Chapter 4 of Sarah Llewellyn and the Druid’s Curse coming soon!
Read Chapter 4: Strange Confessions
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