Chapter 12 - BLACKWOOD CLIFFS
The train dropped me off at a sleepy, wind-whipped station where the air tasted of salt and ancient rain. I rented a battered Vauxhall and drove narrow, winding country lanes flanked by high stone walls until the landscape opened up into the bleak, dramatic expanse of the Cornish coast.
Blackwood Manor loomed out of the sea mist like a gothic cathedral built for ghosts.
Its iron gates stood slightly ajar, groaning in the ocean gale. I parked the car on the crunching gravel driveway, my boots echoing against the cobblestones as I walked up to the heavy oak front door. Before I could even knock, the door creaked open by itself, revealing a dimly lit foyer smelling of damp earth, old paper, and burning wax.
"You came," a voice rasped from the shadows.
A tall, elderly woman stepped into the flickering light of a brass chandelier. She wore a high-necked Victorian black dress, her hair pulled back into a severe bun, her face a web of deep wrinkles and piercing, intelligent eyes.
"Who are you?" I demanded, keeping my hand firmly inside my coat pocket, wrapped around the heavy steel mace I had packed. "Where is the person who sent the letter?"
"I sent it, child," the woman replied calmly. "My name is Evelyn Blackwood. And I am the woman your father tried to erase from history forty years ago."
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My mind raced. Blackwood. The name of the estate matched her own. "What does my father have to do with you? If this is about money—"
"This isn't about money, Jessi Vance," Evelyn interrupted, turning her back and gesturing for me to follow her down a long, portrait-lined corridor. "This is about a blood debt, a stolen patent, and a legacy built on absolute fraud."
