Read The Fate of Mercy Alban for Free Online Page B

he was still a young man, he bought what everyone thought was desolate land in the northern part of the state. Where he got the money for this is questionable; some sources say he won it in a poker game, others allege he killed a man for it. When iron ore was discovered on the land, he was a millionaire almost overnight and eventually became one of the richest men in the country .
    When it came time for J.J. to marry, he went home to Ireland to find a bride, wanting to show everyone there what a success he had made with his life. He also wanted to build a fitting house for his bride, and while they were in Ireland he decided to import some materials from his homeland to build his castle in his new land .
    We know the patio table at Alban House is an ancient Celtic relic, but maybe you didn’t know that much of the wood in the house—the paneling, the floors, the beams on the ceiling in the drawing room—comes from an old-growth forest in the heart of Ireland, near where the Alban family lived way back when. J.J. had played there as a child. He paid off whomever was necessary, and much of that forest was cut down and the lumber sent to Minnesota to build Alban House .
    Here’s where the tale veers into the otherworldly. You know how the Celtic people love their folktales of magic, witchcraft, and fairies. As the story goes, that forest was a witch’s wood. She had been imprisoned in an old oak hundreds of years earlier by a rival. And when Alban felled the trees and brought them to this country, he got her spirit in the bargain. Legend has it that her spirit has been bedeviling the Alban family ever since. Of course, that’s all foolish nonsense, but that’s the way the story goes in Ireland. They do love their tall tales .
    Curse or not, Fate was right in what she said that first evening in the drawing room—accidents, death, scandal, and even murder have taken place in the house over the years. J.J.’s son, John Jr. (Johnny’s father), reportedly grew the family’s fortune exponentially during the Prohibition era running liquor over the border from Canada—it was a nasty, cutthroat business, and he was the kingpin in the area, from what I have found. We both know the man well—he’s so affable!—but I shudder to think about what he is capable of. The blood of many stains his hands .
    Anyway, that’s the story in a nutshell. As I said, it’s a fictionalized version, but I’m going to rely on you, darling, to tell me if I’ve skimmed too closely to the truth. The last thing I want to do is offend Johnny and his family, all of whom have been so good to me .
    I’ll see you next week, darling!
    All my love ,
    David
    So he finished the manuscript after all? That didn’t jibe with what I knew of history. I opened my mother’s laptop computer and typed “David Coleville” into the search field and watched hundreds of hits come up.
    I clicked on an encyclopedia page to read a quick biography of the man and saw what I already knew—war correspondent, multiple Pulitzer Prizes, a lecture series at Harvard, an impending first novel that had the literary world abuzz, career cut short by suicide.
    According to his letter, he had indeed finished his “impending first novel,” and it was a ghost story about my family, no less. But it never saw the light of day. Why?
    I gathered up the letters and slipped them back into their satchel, wondering where Coleville had unearthed that otherworldly tale about the witch’s wood. I knew about the supposed Alban curse, of course, but I had certainly never heard this witch business before. The thought of it crept inside me like the chill on a foggy autumn morning as I gazed around the room at the wood paneling on the walls. I tried to shake it off, but it kept nagging at me. I had to admit it to myself—there was something about this house. I’d always felt it. It was as though Alban House had a presence of its own that wrapped itself around us, my mother most of all.
    But