Claire had gone through the stones of Craigh na Dun on the ancient fire feast of Samhain, on the first day of November, two and a half years before. Roger shivered, and not from cold. The hairs stood up on the back of his neck whenever he thought of it.
“So not everybody can go through—but you can.” Abernathy’s voice was filled with curiosity—and what sounded vaguely like envy.
“I don’t know.” Roger rubbed a hand through his hair. His eyes were burning, as though he’d sat up all night. “I might.”
“The thing is…” He spoke slowly, trying to control his voice, and with it, his fear. “The thing is—even if she has gone through, there’s no way of telling whether, or where, she came out again.”
“I see.” The deep American voice had lost its jauntiness. “And you don’t know about Claire either, then. Whether she made it?”
He shook his head, his vision of Joe Abernathy so clear that he forgot again that the man couldn’t see him. Dr. Abernathy was no more than average size, a thickset black man in gold-rimmed spectacles, but with such an air of authority that his simple presence gave one confidence and compelled calm. Roger was surprised to find that this presence transferred itself over the phone lines—but he was more than grateful for it.
“No,” he said aloud. Leave it at that, for now. He wasn’t about to go into everything now, on the phone with a near stranger. “She’s a woman; there wasn’t that much public notice of what individual women were doing, then—not unless they did something spectacular, like get burned for witchcraft, or hanged for murder. Or be murdered.”
“Ha ha,” said Abernathy, but he wasn’t laughing. “She did make it, though, at least once. She went—and she came back.”
“Aye, she did.” Roger had been trying to take comfort in that fact himself, but there were too many other possibilities forcing themselves upon his consciousness. “But we don’t know that Brianna went back as far—or farther. And even if she did survive the stones and come out in the right time…have you any idea how dangerous a place the eighteenth century was?”
“No,” Abernathy said dryly. “Though I gather you do. But Claire seemed to manage all right there.”
“She survived,” Roger agreed. “Not much of a sell for a vacation spot, is it, though—‘If your luck’s in, you’ll come back alive?’ ” Once, at least.
Abernathy did laugh at that, though with a nervous undertone. He coughed then, and cleared his throat.
“Yeah. Well. The point is—Bree’s gone someplace. And I think you’re probably right about where. I mean, if it was me, I’d have gone. Wouldn’t you?”
Wouldn’t you? He pulled to the left, passed a lorry with its headlights on, plodding its way through the gathering fog.
I would. Abernathy’s confident voice rang in his ear.
INVERNESS, 30, read the sign, and he swung the tiny Morris abruptly to the right, skidding on wet pavement. The rain was drumming down on the tarmac, hard enough to raise a mist above the grass on the verge.
Wouldn’t you? He touched the breast pocket of his shirt, where the squarish shape of Brianna’s photo lay stiff over his heart. His fingers touched the small round hardness of his mother’s locket, snatched at the last moment, brought along for luck.
“Yeah, maybe I would,” he muttered, squinting through the rain streaming over the windscreen. “But I would have told you I was going to do it. In the name of God, woman—why did you not tell me?”
31
RETURN TO INVERNESS
The fumes of furniture polish, floor wax, fresh paint, and air freshener hung in throat-clutching clouds in the hallway. Not even these olfactory evidences of Fiona’s domestic zeal were able to compete with the delectable aromas floating out of the kitchen, though.
“Eat your heart out, Tom Wolfe,” Roger murmured, inhaling deeply as he set down his bag in the hall. Granted, the old manse was definitely under new management, but even its transformation from manse to bed-and-breakfast had been unable to alter its basic character.
Welcomed with enthusiasm by Fiona—and somewhat less by Ernie—he settled into his old room at the top of the stairs, and embarked at once on his job of detection. It wasn’t that difficult; beyond the normal Highland inquisitiveness about strangers, a six-feet-tall woman with waist-length red hair tended to attract notice.
She’d come to Inverness from Edinburgh. He knew that much for a fact; she’d been seen at the station. Also for a fact he knew that a tall red-haired woman had hired a car and told the driver to take her out into the country. The driver had no real notion where they had gone; just that all of a sudden, the woman had said, “Here, this is the place, let me off here.”
“Said she meant to meet her friends for a walking tour across the moors,” the driver had said, shrugging. “She had a haversack with her, and she was dressed for walking, sure enough. A damn wet day for a walk on the moors, but ye know what loons these American tourists are.”
Well, he knew what kind of a loon that one was, at least. Curse her thick head and fiendish stubbornness, if she thought she had to do it, why in hell hadn’t she told him? Because she didn’t want you to know, sport, he thought grimly. And he didn’t want to think about why not.
So far he had gotten. And only one way of following her any farther.
Claire had speculated that the whatever-it-was stood widest open on the ancient sun feasts and fire feasts. It seemed to work—she had herself gone through the first time on Beltane, May 1, the second time on Samhain, the first of November. And now Brianna had evidently followed in her mother’s footsteps, going on Beltane.
Well, he wasn’t going to wait till November—God only knew what could happen to her in five months! Beltane and Samhain were fire feasts, though; there was a sunfeast between.
Midsummer’s Eve, the summer solstice; that would be next. June 20, four weeks away. He ground his teeth at the thought of waiting—his impulse was to go now and damn the danger—but it wouldn’t help Brianna if his impulse to rush chivalrously after her killed him. He was under no illusions about the nature of the stone circle, not after what he’d seen and heard so far.
Very quietly, he began to make what preparations he could. And in the evenings, when the fog rolled in off the river, he sought distraction from his thoughts, playing draughts with Fiona, going to the pub with Ernie, and—as a last resort—having another bash at the dozens of boxes that still crammed the old garage.
The garage had an air of sinister miracle about it; the boxes seemed to multiply like the loaves and fishes—every time he opened the door, there were more of them. He’d probably finish the job of sorting his late father’s effects just before being carried out feetfirst himself, he thought. Still, for the moment, the boring work was a godsend, dulling his mind enough to keep him from fretting himself to pieces in the waiting. Some nights, he even slept.
* * *
“You’ve got a picture on your desk.” Fiona didn’t look at him, but kept her attention riveted on the dishes she was clearing.
“Lots of them.” Roger took a cautious mouthful of tea; hot and fresh, but not scalding. How did she do that? “Is there one you want? I know there are a few snaps of your grannie—you’re more than welcome, though I’d like one to keep.”