Marian Youngblood

Phantom's Child Marian Youngblood

The tragic tale of a 300-year old family whose members are haunted by an age-old curse carried through the centuries by an ancient lineage of women. PHANTOM'S CHILD speaks from the depths of Scotland's lost past. In a hidden corner of Aberdeenshire in northeast Scotland -- once the domain of Pictish kings -- comes the voice of Lillias, whose legendary form as the Greene Ladye still haunts the halls and great staircase of FYVIE Castle. She reveals a slice of Aberdeenshire's unwritten history in ruinous gardens and forgotten towers where her descendants have borne their unfotunate children, and where, unless Fate's unkind hand can be stayed, they may be doomed forever to relive her story.

PHANTOM'S CHILD brings to life the tale of Lillias Drummond, murdered wife of Alexander Seton who built Fyvie Castle's grand facade, 1601. On the night he married her replacement, Lillias is said to have carved her name on the outside windowsill of the bedroom of the honeymooners. To them she threatens to perpetuate the curse that Fyvie's firstborn will never inherit.  To others her wraith is seen merely as the Greene Ladye whose haunting presence in the great castle is accompanied by the scent of roses.

But Lillias's spirit does not die. She roams the corridors still. Her communications affect the lives of other women whose families chose to restore and live in the great 'palace' through the centuries. Not only Fyvie, but the rooms and towers of other Aberdeenshire castles, like Barra and Straloch--wherever her descendants made their homes. The days of these ancient stone towers are now numbered as private families find them no longer economical to maintain. Fyvie itself is in the hands of the National Trust for Scotland.

But Lillias has grown accustomed to her hauntings and her descendants don't want her to leave.

PHANTOM'S CHILD tells another history of Scotland--the secret history of individual families whose women suffered horrific pain and loss, made real by a curse they and their children seem destined to play out and forever replay...