Tell Me What the Dead Say
Book Two of a Four Book Series entitled, The Persephanie Chronicles
When Baron Nefas Guiste transformed the crumbling old monastery into the palatial residence he named Walden Park, the curse of Guiste Castle came with him. Isolated within a three-hundred-acre woodland estate in Oxfordshire, England, the magnificent manor was designed as an impregnable fortress where the baron could keep his darkest secrets hidden from the world.
Baron Nefas Guiste incarcerated his only daughter, Persephanie Sophie Guiste, in specially designed accommodations located thirty feet beneath the magnificent mansion. Below her rooms, the monastery's ancient wine cellar had been transformed into a mausoleum for the victims of the ancient evil that had taken root there.
Freed on her sixteenth birthday after eleven years of captivity, Persephanie has returned to Highfield Manor, her ancestral home. As she recovers physically, the frightened teenager who arrived in a body stunted by years of imprisonment gradually blossoms into a young lady possessed of a beauty so rare it seems almost otherworldly.
Unfortunately, freedom is nothing like the paradise she had imagined or the dream she had clung to for so many years. The cherished memories of a happy childhood spent at Highfield Manor bear little resemblance to the unfamiliar world into which she has so suddenly been thrust. Those she loved are gone. Yet Highfield remains a place where kindness, compassion, and unconditional love still flourish; a place filled with people who speak her language but talk of things beyond her comprehension. Instead of bringing her peace, this strange new world terrifies her. And through it all, Baron Nefas Guiste has no intention of allowing his precious "Little Pet" to escape. Confident that no one believes he can reach her there, he continues to torment her with impunity.
Like her father, Persephanie is a telepath. She was also born a genius, endowed with one hundred percent recall, gifts the baron exploited without mercy. He educated her himself, and desperate to earn his approval, she worked tirelessly to help expand her beloved father's vast fortune while he quietly extended his influence across the globe. Freedom did not change that. Her work remained both her purpose and her refuge from the bewildering world into which she had so suddenly been thrust.
It was 1964, a world without the internet, where global communication depended upon telephones and telex machines. In that world, Persephanie's extraordinary telepathic abilities gave Baron Guiste an unparalleled advantage. From her prison beneath Walden Park, she managed her father's vast international cabal of business interests and powerful influencers entirely through the power of her mind. Yet no one believed her. Instead, a psychiatrist was brought in to treat what was assumed to be nothing more than delusions. Despite her remarkable intellect, Persephanie's years of isolation had left her socially naïve, and she was diagnosed as psychotic, suffering from hallucinations and a host of mental and emotional disorders born of prolonged abuse.
Determined to break her spirit, the baron believes that, in time, Persephanie will have no choice but to beg him to take her back. To that end, he unleashes the spectral faces of those entombed beneath Walden Park, sending them to haunt her waking hours while terrifying telepathic visions invade her sleep, driving her ever closer to the brink of madness. Yet the world into which she was born refuses to surrender her so easily. The love that surrounded her before her father stole her away calls to her still, as steadfastly as it sustained her through eleven long, lonely years of captivity. Torn between the fierce devotion that binds her to her father and the unconditional love awaiting her at Highfield Manor, Persephanie finds herself caught in a battle not only for her mind and heart, but for her very soul.
One man stands between Persephanie and the baron. SIS Chief Lord Edward Reese is determined to wrest legal custody of her from Nefas Guiste. Yet it is Edward's nephew, MI6 agent Cadan Reese, who finally rescues her from the nightmare beneath Walden Park and brings her home to Highfield Manor. From the time she was a little girl, Persephanie had adored Cadan. There was something hauntingly familiar about him, as though the spirit of one she had loved and lost still lingered, and fate itself had returned a cherished part of her childhood. Throughout her years of captivity, memories of him became inseparable from the hopes and dreams that sustained her. Now the little girl who had longed for his return finds him standing before her at last, and childhood devotion quietly blossoms into love.
When MI6 agent Cadan Reese reports to his uncle, SIS Chief Lord Edward Reese, that he has uncovered evidence of mass murder on a staggering scale at Walden Park, he becomes obsessed with proving that the elusive Baron Nefas Guiste is behind the crimes. Yet no matter how damning the evidence Cadan uncovers, Persephanie remains unwavering in her conviction that her beloved father is innocent and merely another victim of those truly responsible. Not even Edward, nor her devoted psychiatrist, Dr. Trevor Briggs, can persuade her otherwise. Her faith in the man she loves remains absolute.
But the dead will not be silenced. Their relentless pleas follow Persephanie wherever she goes, begging her to reveal the truth they carried to their graves. As the forgotten memories of her own childhood begin to surface, the man who rescued her now asks the impossible: Tell me what the dead say. Yet Persephanie knows the unspeakable horrors that await should she lead them into the crypt beneath Walden Park. Is she prepared to confront the evil that has haunted her since childhood? Who will win this relentless tug-of-war for her heart, her mind, and ultimately her soul? Or will the next victim be Persephanie herself?
A haunting Gothic tale of love, loyalty, and supernatural terror,
Tell Me What The Dead Say is the gripping second instalment of The Persephanie Chronicles.
