“Aye, lass. He’s not.”
“He enjoys a good jest now and then.” She’d remembered his Fin Grin. His laughter when he was giving some unsuspecting MacDonnell the chills. She’d swallowed a lump. Blinked until the watery haze passed. “But he’s a braw laddie.”
“Right ye are.” The old woman’s bony, spotted fingers had drummed on the arms of her chair. “Mayhap he’s nae like other ghosties.” The old woman’s gaze fell to where Annie’s hand reflexively covered her ribs. “What do ye ken of the lad?”
“He’s been with me since I was wee.”
“Since yer mam died, aye?”
Annie nodded. “His mam died, too, before he did. He stayed behind to … find her, I suppose. Then he couldnae find his way out.”
“Likely he felt a kinship, ye bein’ so close to his age. Losin’ yer mother. Must be why he attached to ye.”
And he’d been connected to her ever since. Until last year, when she’d begun to lose him, their tether deteriorating and Finlay struggling mightily to keep it intact. Losing his color. Losing his hold. Fading away.
Gone.
“I’m sorry, lass. I was certain the thistle amulet would work.”
“They werenae meant to be worn, ye daft auld woman. I had to use Angus’s liniment to clear up the chafing.”
“Many a Highland clan wears them proudly.”
“On their banners. Because a prickish weed that injures ye when ye step on it is a fitting emblem for this place. They dinnae wear the nasty things round their necks.”
Confusion had clouded the woman’s brow. “Mayhap a carvin’ of a thistle would have sufficed.” She’d shrugged. “These are deep mysteries we seek to plumb, lass. Dark forces and hidden realms. Answers willnae come easily.”
“Or, in yer case, at all.”
“Now, if ye kenned where he was buried, that would be somethin’.”
Annie had glared hard at the old woman. “I told ye where he was buried a year ago, the first time ye asked.”
Mrs. MacBean had blinked, her milky eye beginning to wander. She’d scratched her head. “Ye did?”
“The auld churchyard, up near the castle.”
“Oh. Well, why didnae ye say so?”
Now, the morning after her conversation with the half-mad, all-befuddled Mrs. MacBean, Annie ventured from MacPherson land onto John Huxley’s land on a daft mission. The castle sat at the northern end of the loch, isolated deep in the valley, a half-hour’s walk from MacPherson House.
What would she say to Huxley when she arrived? She didn’t know. She hadn’t seen him since he’d devoured her venison with jealous zeal, then accepted Angus’s ridiculous wager. Afterward, he’d donned his hat, handed her the three skeins of thread she’d dropped in the square, and driven away in the pouring rain, uttering only a terse, “Good evening, Miss Tulloch.”
He was odd, the Englishman. Stubborn. Reserved, though she would have bet her best boots that reticence went against his true nature. She teased him about being so handsome he near blinded a lass, but in truth, his demeanor dulled the shine. If the man ever let loose with a genuine grin, God help every female with working parts.
As she rounded a stand of birch, the castle came into view. Craggy gray stone jutted upward between the loch’s shore and a backdrop of dark pines. Mist rose from the water like clutching fingers. Light danced through varying shades of white and green.
From this vantage, Glendasheen Castle looked fair enchanted.
The house wasn’t a true castle, of course, but a hunting lodge built by one of the MacDonnell ancestors. The roof, newly repaired with black slate, was a series of steep gables, including a hexagonal tower on one corner. The windows were all narrow, but there were a goodly number, and they glinted with new glass. The garden around the house’s ground floor had been cleared of brambles and castoff fieldstone. Instead, it now had a shorn lawn, low hedges, and several old pines.
She wondered if Huxley had made similarly impressive progress on the interior. Smoke rose from one of the chimneys, so the place hadn’t killed him yet.
Good. She liked the man, though he was addled to accept Angus’s wager. Stay in the glen through a Highland winter, only to be humiliated in front of the entire village before losing his land entirely? He must enjoy suffering.
By the time she arrived at the castle’s heavy oak door, her nose was numb and her teeth were grinding against a chatter. She lifted the iron knocker and pounded it seven times.
No answer.
Seven more times. “Huxley!” she bellowed, glaring up at three stories of gray stone and fanciful pointed arches. “Ye’ve a visitor!”
Nothing.
Damn the man, she would have liked to warm herself by the fire before mucking about amidst the dead. “Dawdling Englishman,” she muttered, making her way toward the pine woods beyond the garden, where the old churchyard lay. “Cannae even drag yer arse out of bed to answer the bluidy door.”
Past the main stand of trees flanking the castle, a weed-choked clearing dotted with decrepit stone markers and birch saplings surrounded the skeleton of the old church. Two high walls still stood, but everything else was rubble. Every spring, the ruins filled up with ferns and moss. Birds nested in the crannies and took flight whenever someone drew near. She’d always felt the place had a bit of magic in it. But as autumn wore into winter, it just felt frozen.
Shaking off a shiver, she hugged herself tighter and trudged over MacDonnell gravestones toward the oldest part of the churchyard. Behind an ancient fence, near the base of one of the walls, a rusted iron gate lay propped awkwardly where it had fallen when the hinges failed.
This was where Finlay had been buried. Near the gate. On the northwest corner of the ruined church. No marker. No signs that his bones lay beneath the soil. She only knew because he’d shown her the spot years ago when she’d asked where he’d been laid to rest. Finlay hadn’t liked to visit here. He preferred not to dwell on his past.
Frozen grass rustled as she crouched beside the gate. Rusted iron groaned and stung her hands as she wrenched it away from the ground. Heaving it aside until it flopped flat, she cursed again. “Blasted, sodding thing,” she muttered, yanking at the weeds that covered Fin’s grave. Once the ground was cleared, she withdrew the small wooden carving from inside her plaid. It was supposed to be a thistle. It looked like a mushroom.
Sighing, she withdrew the note Mrs. MacBean had given her. She skimmed it silently before rolling her eyes. “Daft rubbish,” she muttered.
But this was for Finlay. So, she ignored all good sense and read the words aloud. “Spirit who lieth in hollow ground …” She frowned. “Hallowed ground, not hollow ground, ye daft auld woman.”
She started again. “Spirit who lieth in hallowed ground, come forth to the ring where my offering may be found.” She squinted at the paper. Glanced around. “Ye didnae mention any ring, ye daft auld woman,” she grumbled. Losing patience, she rose to gather a few stones, then arranged them in a circle. Kneeling, she tried again.