The Curse of Clan Ross

by L. L. Muir

  “I meant you, with the light. Get me out of here or I’ll start screaming right now.”

  “Oh, I don’t think you want to do that, Jillian. After all, you want to test the prophecy too. You want to really find out what’s going on here.” Lorraine gave her a long look, then sighed. “We’ve come this far—”

  “Yes, we’ve never come this far before,” Loretta chimed in. “And this will be our last chance. You don’t want to cheat us out of our last chance, do you, Jillian? Dear?”

  They didn’t sound senile. They didn’t sound threatening. They sounded like they knew something they weren’t telling her. The walls started closing in on her. She needed some space. It would take forever to get back outside.

  The Great Hall. There would be air there.

  “Ten minutes.” Jilly pushed Loretta toward her sister, hoping the larger room was near. “That’s all you’ve got. And you can cut the ‘Jillian dear’ crap. You may be old, but you are not sweet. You’re conniving—”

  “I beg to differ,” Loretta said cheerfully. “One can be both conniving and sweet at the same time.”

  “Absolutely,” Lorraine said as she turned and led them deeper into the abyss. “If we only have ten minutes, you’d better shake a leg, missy.”

  # # #

  Exit signs pointed to possible escape routes and gave the Great Hall an eerie green glow, but Jilly immediately relaxed. There was room to breathe here, unlike the hallways that had confined her within the cloud of Estée Lauder. That fragrance surrounded her companions like the cloud of dust following Pig Pen on a Charlie Brown Special.

  They had emerged to the side of the dais near the pedestal displaying the “enchanted” torque. Without the spotlight, the Celtic symbols looked a bit like miniature graffiti.

  The ancient version of Laird Ross, if it had been his voice in her head, was gratefully silent when it was obviously the perfect time of night for him to try to communicate—not that she believed in such things. The accelerator on her imagination had merely gotten stuck that afternoon and was still sticking. Otherwise she’d never have entertained such possibilities.

  Jilly stepped forward and maneuvered the tight “C” shape around her neck just as she’d sworn she wouldn’t do again. She experienced the same old nothing she’d felt before, no tinkling of chimes, swirling strains of Hans Zimmerman music, or sparkles in the air, but at least this time, there had been no audience to disappoint.

  “Jillian, dear, what do you think you are doing?” sang one of the sisters.

  Jilly looked up and found the pair standing at the far side of Juliet’s tomb. Lorraine, she assumed, had the crowbar and Loretta was now holding the flashlight for her. They had the nerve to look at Jillian as if she were the one to have lost her mind.

  “If that glorified boomerang didn’t work this afternoon, why would you think it would work now?” asked Loretta. “Come away.”

  She had a point. So what had they broken in there for if not to give the torque another try?

  “What are you doing?” Jilly whispered loudly.

  “Breaking into the tomb. Come help,” came Lorraine’s low answer.

  Any moment Jilly expected the ghost of Isobelle to come flying out from between the stones and give the three their own personal curses to hand down for generations. They were as good as standing in a cemetery about to open the grave of a witch, and she was tempted to ask Lorraine if she might have a large cross down her slacks behind which they all might cower when the time came.

  “Wake up. Wake up,” she chanted just in case, before obeying Lorraine’s summons.

  As Jilly approached, Loretta scanned the rounded wall with the light while Lorraine ran over the cracks with her hands.

  “See if you can find a likely place for a door,” urged the latter.

  “I thought there was no door.”

  The sisters stopped and gave Jilly the first honest and sober look of their acquaintance. Finally.

  “We bought a torque today from the souvenir shop. Do you remember?” Lorraine’s voice was different. No trace of the sweet flippant granny now.

  “I remember.”

  “We’ve never thought to do that before.”

  What did they plan? To switch it with the real one?

  “When I put it in my purse,” Lorraine continued, “I realized it felt the same as the one they have on display. No heavier. Not real. Oh, the patina on the Celtic markings makes the one on the pedestal look different, but the torque itself isn’t any heavier. That’s not silver, it’s tin. Just as the souvenir shop necklaces.”

  “The real necklace was made of silver.” Loretta’s eyes sparkled in the near darkness.

  “And if I were Laird Ross and trying to protect a silver necklace that was the famous family heirloom—”

  “I’d have put it in a bank!”

  Laird Quinn Ross’s bark echoed around the empty chamber without the baffling effect of dozens of tourists’ bodies to impede it. Standing in the green light of exit signs, his shirt glowed neon and Jilly was once again given the impression the man was only a ghost.

  Thank goodness Jilly had used the ladies room recently or the Rosses might’ve had a mess to clean up before letting in tomorrow’s selection of shade sniffers. She braced herself for the brunt of the man’s wrath, for surely he wouldn’t yell at timid old women.

  “You are a cheat.”

  Jilly’s could feel her eyes bug out. “Lorraine, dear, don’t make things worse,” Jilly warned between her teeth.

  “But she’s right, Jillian.” Loretta lifted her chin and raised her wrinkled brow at the glowing man. “He is a cheat.”

  “Ye have vandalized my property.” He flicked on the lights and his own brows flew high. “Were ye going to vandalize the tomb, as well?”

  Quinn took huge strides toward Lorraine, and instead of holding the crowbar up in defense, she hid it behind her.

  “This tomb has been protected for over five hundred years and yet ye would take a pry bar to it?” He held out his hand for the weapon, but Lorraine merely frowned at him while she slid the bar back inside her waistband.

  “You are a still a cheat, sir.”

  He shook his head like a bee was buzzing around inside. “What the devil are ye talking about, woman?”

  Lorraine got up in his face as much as a five-foot-three woman could do with a man more than a foot taller. Both stood with fists on their hips.

  “You advertise that you have Isobelle Ross’s necklace.”

  “I do have her necklace.”

  Loretta stood back, smiling and scrunching her nose as if she couldn’t be enjoying herself more. Jilly was just glad his attention had not yet fallen on her.

  “And you advertise that anyone who thinks they are of ‘Immediate Blood’ can try it on, to see if they can fulfill the prophecy.” Lorraine was on a roll, but Jilly worried she was just rolling downhill.

  Quinn didn’t answer. He didn’t move.

  “How long are you going to make them wait, your lairdship?”

  The conversation had turned and Jilly hadn’t followed. But she didn’t want to bring attention to herself by asking for clarification.

  The pause was so long and so silent, she wondered if the ghostly man really breathed air. Finally, his nose narrowed as he sucked in a deep breath. He didn’t look away from Lorraine.

  “Ivar MacKay and Morna Ross are waiting for nothing. They are long gone, buried for centuries, madam.”

  “Shame on you.”

  Jilly would be damned if he didn’t suddenly look ashamed.

  “I only do what has been done before.” His argument wasn’t much more than a whisper.

  Lorraine reached up and stroked the man’s cheek. Why didn’t he pull away?

  “But you have known real love, sir. You more than others know what could be won here for those poor souls.”

  He closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them, his face was hard, his lips thin. “No one can do it for me. Why shou
ld I allow it for someone else?”

  Lorraine struck him. Not hard; for all her wiry strength, she could have given him whiplash. It was more a wake-up-and-smell-the-coffee slap.

  Loretta edged between the two, her hands also on her hips. “You have been guarding it from your family, not for them,” she declared, sounding appalled. “Don’t you think it would make Isobelle’s death mean something to allow the prophecy to be fulfilled? Do you feel no loyalty to your ancestors? Nothing for the Rosses? Nothing for that man who listened to his sister dying for nearly two weeks?”

  “No, madam.” The laird smiled triumphantly. “He did no such thing!”

  Jilly didn’t understand, but Lorraine’s head whipped around and she stared at the tomb like she’d never seen it before.

  “He didn’t what?” Loretta asked. Thank goodness Jilly was not the only one confused.

  “Montgomery Ross did not listen to his sister die. It was an act. A hole was dug beneath the tomb after the wall was sealed.” The words were barely out of his mouth when he clenched a handful of his own dark hair and staggered back against a table where he promptly sat down. “Shite. I canna believe I just told it.”

  Jilly could at least understand this. If word got out, the tourist trade at Castle Ross would take a hit. That tragically romantic tale was his livelihood, and contributed mightily to the livelihood of the village, if Jock was to be believed.

  Lorraine’s face lit up as she stepped close to the wide tower of black stones.

  “So there is not a skeleton inside wearing the cursed torque of Isobelle Ross?” Her voice rang with the giddy joy of a woman with fresh gossip.

  “Oh, the necklace is inside. But Isobelle is not. She lived a long life, I am told, in the Caribbean where witches were shown deference.”

  “Why did she leave the necklace behind?” Jilly asked.

  He seemed to notice her there for the first time. Again, there was a pause while he looked at her. Perhaps the Scots had no qualms about looking a person over, but it made her feel exposed.

  “She insisted the cursed thing must never leave this tomb, and it hasn’t.” Quinn ran a hand down his face. “Nor will it ever, madams.”

  “But you’ve seen it, have you not, Laird Ross?” Lorraine patted the side of the tomb. “You had to have seen it to design the replicas.”

  The weary Scotsman nodded, then clasped his hands in front of him and stretched his shoulders before letting his arms fall once again to his sides.

  “I’ll not call the bobbies if ye leave now,” he offered. “But please don’t come back to Scotland again. Or at least to my portion of it.”

  He didn’t look at Jilly and she hoped it meant that he didn’t include her in his edict. Suddenly she was overcome by the certainty that she might suffer terribly if she were never allowed to spend some time here. Perhaps it was the Ross blood in her. What had he said to Eileen? When a Ross gets a feeling, well, we’d best stay on our toes.

  What would he do if she refused to leave? After deciding breaking in to Castle Ross was the last thing she wanted, she now felt the same about walking out the door.

  Loretta and Lorraine stood together now, arm in arm, and faced Laird Ross with that scary set of smiles that would forever give Jilly the chills. She almost pitied the man.

  “In exchange for allowing ye to leave, ladies, ye will be expected to give yer word that ye will not reveal what I have told ye here this night.”

  Silly man. He obviously wasn’t familiar with the smell of a Muir rat. If he were, he would have already called for help.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  “Absolutely not. No. Absolutely no. Uh, uh.”

  Jilly did pity him. Surely Quinn was trying to sound commanding, but he was doing a better impression of a Monty Python player.

  “I’m afraid you have no choice, Laird Ross.”

  Lorraine dressed the poor fellow down like he was still in grade school, back in the day when a teacher could blister a kid’s butt and he’d be the one in trouble with his parents.

  “Yes, sir. Why, even our Jillian here would spill your story to the American tabloids and then where would you be?” Loretta said with feigned concern.

  “Actually, if the story made it to our tabloids it would probably double his business,” Jilly felt her duty to point out.

  The denim-thighed Highlander did not look relieved.

  “I don’t think that’s what he’s worried about.” Lorraine gave him a knowing smile, which he returned with a glare. “Are you, Quinn?”

  “That’s ‘Mr. Ross’ to you, madam,” he ground out.

  Oh, he was wishing he’d called for help, all right. Jilly could see it in his eyes. She’d felt that way herself only moments ago, in the dark hallway when she’d realized she hadn’t been the first to be bested by the Muirs. It gave her and the handsome man something in common—members of The Victims of the Muirs Club, the VMC for short.

  She wondered if he considered her one of the instigators, but then, he trained his frown only on Lorraine and Loretta. He hardly noticed she was there.

  Lorraine finally looked at Jilly. “The Rosses have been telling this tale for centuries, dear. If word got out, they wouldn’t get credit for making up a good story—”

  “They’d be famous liars,” finished Loretta, now wearing a knowing look of her own.

  “Ye’d take the honor of Clan Ross and toss it to the dogs? Spiteful women, indeed.”

  Lorraine and Loretta smiled on, unaffected.

  “Lead the way to the tomb, sir.” Lorraine offered her flashlight to the Scotsman who briskly stood, snatched the light from her hand and stomped from the hall.

  The Muir sisters followed in a hasty parade and Jilly was left with nothing but the smell of their perfume to lead her way.

  # # #

  Twenty minutes later, Jilly was pulled up into Isobelle Ross’s tomb—essentially a large stone jewelry box—and Jilly felt quite like Jillianna Jones as she pushed drapes of spider webs and dust aside to make space for herself. With the opening directly centered in the floor of the oblong structure, there was barely enough clearance for the four of them to stand without falling back through the hole.

  It surprised Jilly not to be in the throes of a panic attack in such cramped quarters. Perhaps it was the excitement of the moment, or the renewed hope that she may well be able to save the star-crossed lovers, that kept her from freaking out. If they did find remnants of a skeleton in there, however, all bets were off.

  “Ye’ll not be takin’ it out of this tomb, ladies.” His jaw was set as he stared at Lorraine over the one beam of light he shined on the ceiling.

  “Agreed,” said the sisters, in stereo.

  Jilly knew this was no time to request a history lesson, but she couldn’t help it. “Why did Isobelle not suffocate, Mr. Ross?” she asked.

  “The mortar and things have settled a bit since it was built, aye? Sealed it a bit tighter than it was when the stones were set. Montgomery could only leave a crevice or two what with The Kirk’s men watchin’ o’er his shoulder.” He paused, looking down at the hole until his frown softened into something akin to pity. His voice softened also. “They’d let her have no water, no food, no light. Not even a blanket. So for a while he did wonder if his sister would survive long enough for the others to carve their way through. They couldn’t very well walk into the hall and be takin’ measurements, could they? So there was a chance they would be diggin’ up right beneath the bastards’s feet. It was a long wait, aye?”

  He didn’t look up for confirmation. While he paused, the vibrations of his Scot’s burr settled around them like dust too heavy or lethargic to be stirred much by their intrusion.

  “When she could hear them diggin’, she’d cry out to cover the sound. And Montgomery would cry out with her. To be sure the others wouldn’t feel the poundin’, he would throw fits of madness and push the churchmen as far away from the tomb as they’d go.”

  Quinn looked up into Jilly’s face, his
eyes black and shiny in the combination of flashlight and ancient shadows, his smile strained.

  “I suppose it was no act after all.” He shrugged. “If their plan was discovered, his sister would die a horrible death...of his own design. Can you imagine it?”

  Jilly could imagine it all too well. When they’d learned tonight of Isobelle’s escape, she had been vastly relieved, happy Isobelle had not died such in such a gruesome manner, and grateful she no longer needed to hate the man whose likeness so closely resembled this Scotsman’s. Actually, after she’d heard the first telling of the old laird’s hare-brained idea to bury his sister alive instead of letting her burn as a witch, she’d wanted to reach back through history and knock him on his butt. Now she just hated the clergy for putting them all in such a situation. What kind of priest would agree to such cruelty?

  “My grandda was told, as was his grandda before him, that by the time they got to Isobelle, she was near dead with thirst, but she lived. One man whisked her away in the night, never allowing her to bid her sister, Morna, godspeed.

  “She had her brother’s promise that the torque would stay put, for Morna’s sake. And so it has. Montgomery sealed the floor and it has been the duty of each leader of Clan Ross to see the cursed thing stays here for all time. The small room below also kept Montgomery’s friends from being discovered while they dug and pounded, and the passages twist and turn so oft, it was easy enough to point to the ceiling down the way a bit and call it the floor of the tomb. In a way, keeping the abomination guarded is likely one of the reasons this castle has stood firm against time, ye ken?”

  “Where is it?” Jilly blurted. Her heart was breaking for these people that lived and suffered so long ago. If her presence here could bring Ivar and Morna together again, she was anxious to get the ball rolling.

  Or maybe the quickest way out of the nightmare was at the bottom of the delusion pool and she only needed to dive in.

  Quinn turned his back and fumbled around against the wall. A muffled clank and a curse built the tension from Jilly’s toes up to her shoulders. When he turned back to them, he held what looked like a dusty metal tennis visor without the elastic. He held it close to his body as if he feared the women would snatch it and run, which strangely enough, Jilly felt the urge to do.