The Ghosts of Tullybrae House

by Veronica Bale

  “I’ve been meaning to check in on her at night anyway,” Mrs. Lamb continued. “That Clara’s been getting curious again.”

  “I thought you told her to stop bothering her. I won’t have her doing what she did that first night, pulling the covers off and disturbing her sleep.”

  “I did tell her,” Mrs. Lamb insisted. “As much as you can tell a five-year-old anything. You know how they are. Tell them something one day, and the next they’ve completely forgotten about it. You were far worse when you were that age, you know.”

  Lamb harrumphed. “Well, tell her again. That poor girl needs her sleep, needs to recover from what happened today.”

  “I’ll go up as soon as I’m sure that dough’s rising right. I have my doubts, what with the way you were squishing it to pieces.”

  Lamb rolled his eyes. “Yes, Mother.”

  The first few days of the dig were noisy and chaotic. The primary archaeology crew were the ones doing the grunt work. Dr. Iain Northcott came out only twice more after his first visit, and stayed only long enough to make a few on-camera appearances. It would give the impression that he was there in the fields, working alongside his colleagues for the benefit of the show.

  On his third visit, he was close enough to the open nursery window that Emmie could hear what he was saying for the cameras.

  “It’s day three of our dig, and we’re making substantial progress. The weather’s been cooperating so far. The rain’s held off, so we’ve been thanking our lucky stars that we have dry conditions to dig in.”

  “We?” Emmie muttered from two stories up.

  For the initial stage of the dig, a backhoe was brought in. The job of the operator was to scrape up the top soil, one thin layer at a time, which covered the direct areas where the ground-penetrating radar had picked up disturbances. There was a cluster of these areas, which Lady Rotherham had explained were thought to be the outbuildings. A more distant disturbance, farther east of there, was thought to be the burial site for the murder (assuming, of course, that’s what it was).

  Normally, this kind of activity excited Emmie. In her fourth year of university, one of her undergraduate professors had taken her class to a dig site at Fort Henry in Kingston, Ontario. She’d been fascinated by the process, by the possibilities that these men and women were helping to uncover. They hadn’t actually uncovered anything while her class was visiting, but still, the idea that they might find something was what captivated her imagination.

  Now, though, the work going on outside made her feel uneasy, like it wasn’t right.

  Like whatever was buried there, out in those fields, should remain buried.

  She stayed inside those first few days, avoiding the crew. It was easy, since they didn’t come inside. They had their tent set up close to where they were digging, with a generator rigged to it. Inside the tent the excavators had a hot plate to boil water for tea, and their laptops, paperwork, and other technical equipment. They even had a port-o-potty onsite, so they weren’t traipsing in and out of the manor house all day.

  Thank goodness for small mercies.

  Emmie’s cataloguing and research kept her occupied, and by this time she was beginning to feel like she was making progress. She used her progress as a justification for why she needed to stay indoors, rather than go out and meet the dig crew—she was just too busy. She knew Lamb went out, though. With clockwork precision, he brought biscuits and tea to the excavators every morning at ten, and again at three in the afternoon.

  They knew she was in the house, hiding from them. Lamb mentioned it at every meal.

  “They’re eager to meet you, you know.”

  “I know, I will. Soon.”

  She couldn’t avoid going out forever, though. Emmie Tunstall may be a bit of a wallflower, but she was no hermit. Wherever this aversion to the dig came from, whatever had sparked it… it was simply all in her mind. It had to be.

  This wasn’t like her.

  So she went.

  It was just before noon. She finished up with a collection of random buttons which she’d found buried in a cardboard box in one of the main bedrooms (several of which buttons she’d traced to the officers’ uniforms of the German Imperial Navy of the late eighteen hundreds), closed her laptop, and went outside.

  At first, she stood on the edge of the driveway, one hand hugging her middle and the other shading her eyes. Above, the clouds chased each other across the sky, intermittently blocking out the sun, like giant search lights sweeping over the hills. A light breeze ruffled the sleeves and the hem of her sheer, cream-coloured blouse.

  They looked peaceful out there, the crew, digging quietly within the perimeters of the grid they’d marked off with yellow nylon string and pegs. Doing what they loved to do in contented silence. Emmie didn’t doubt that this was how she looked to others when she was knee-deep in cataloguing and tagging. There was a comfort in doing these kinds of repetitive tasks. She recognized that same comfort in the excavators working in the field now.

  She hadn’t been there long before one of the archaeological crew spotted her. It was a young woman, tall and svelte. Her light brown hair was pulled back into a ponytail, which was tucked through the snaps of a pastel blue baseball cap. A neon yellow reflective vest hung from lean, strong shoulders. Denim shorts, cut off just above the knee, were dirty from days of digging in the Scottish soil.

  She waved and stood. Hopping up out of her shallow trench, she loped towards Emmie in a graceful stride.

  “Are you Emmie?” she asked when she was close enough. She spoke with a slight accent. German, maybe? Or Swedish?

  “Yeah, hi.” Emmie extended her hand. The woman removed one of the heavy-duty work gloves she was wearing, and gave Emmie’s hand a firm shake.

  “Hello, I’m Famke. Famke Bomgaars. Mr. Lamb has mentioned you. And also Lady Rother-ham—am I saying that right? Rother-ham?”

  “Rother-um” Emmie corrected. “Do you mind me asking what your accent is?”

  “It’s Dutch.”

  Emmie nodded appreciatively. “Far from home, then.”

  “As are you, I understand. Canada, is it?”

  “Born and raised.”

  “And you are curator here?”

  Emmie tipped her head back and forth. “Er … that’s the official title. There’s so much stuff here, though, and none of it is catalogued, so mostly I’m doing a lot of junior stuff that would already have been done before a curator would typically be brought on board.”

  “Oh. I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “No, no. Don’t get me wrong, I’m okay with it. I knew what I was getting into before I came out here. It’s good experience.”

  “Yes, I suppose it would be,” Famke agreed. “I’ve been in a similar position myself.”

  The two women smiled at each other, slightly awkward in their new acquaintanceship.

  “Would you like to come and see what we’re doing?” Famke asked.

  “Sure, I’d love to. If you don’t mind, that is.”

  “Of course not.” Famke motioned with her head, then set off across the field.

  Emmie trailed behind, stepping carefully over the nylon string and into the grid. There had been a rain last night, and the ground was spongy beneath her feet. Her low-heeled leather booties weren’t the best footwear for this kind of terrain, even when it was dry. She was relieved when she made it out to the dig site without overturning an ankle.

  “Here is where I’m working.” Famke pointed to her trench. “I’ve not yet found anything.”

  “Do you think you will? Find something here, I mean?” Emmie peered into the trench.

  “I hope so. I think I will. Some of the others have found a few things already. Nothing very exciting, of course. Pottery shards and domestic waste, mostly.”

  “Domestic waste is exciting,” Emmie argued amicably. “Evidence of lives lived long ago and all that.”

  Famke beamed. “I think so, too. Usually I’m the only one.”


  She brought Emmie farther into the field where the rest of the team was working. A young woman and a late-middle-aged man were in the trench closest to Famke. Both were equally dirty, and both were blissfully content scraping away layer after layer of compacted soil.

  “Sophie, Ewan. Emmie Tunstall has come out to see us.”

  The man looked up from beneath a khaki bush hat to reveal a face covered with a full, brown beard. “Ah, yes. The elusive Emmie Tunstall” he noted in a Northern English accent. “We almost came to bets on whether or not you actually existed.”

  Emmie glanced sheepishly to Famke. “Oh. I… Sorry, I didn’t mean to be rude, I—”

  “You’re awright. I’m just teasing, love. Ewan Brown.” He extended his dirt-caked glove.

  “Emmie.” She smiled and shook his hand.

  The girl next to him clucked her tongue. “C’mon now, Ewan. Look at the state of you. You can at least take off your dirty glove.” She removed her own glove, and extended a short-fingered hand with chewed nails. “Sophie Miner,” she said in a thick, cockney accent. “Pleased to meet you.”

  “It’s all right. I don’t mind.” She shook Sophie’s hand as well. “I’ve been hearing that backhoe for a few days now. It’s nice to have the quiet back.”

  “I’ll bet,” Sophie acknowledged.

  “So how do you know when to stop with the backhoe and start on the manual excavation?”

  Ewan’s eyes lit up. “That’s a good question. You see here?” His hand swept over the far wall of the trench. “This ridge of discoloured soil? That’s usually our cue to switch gears and start with the more delicate hand work.”

  “Don’t ask him too many questions, you’ll be here all day,” Sophie warned.

  “I’ll behave,” Ewan promised. “You should come out to see us more often.”

  Emmie surveyed the field. “Yeah, I don’t know about that. I’m kind of avoiding the cameras.”

  “They don’t come out too often,” Famke explained. “And they call before they come out anyway, so you won’t be caught by surprise if you are here and they do show up.”

  “And besides, you need to sign a waiver before they’ll use any footage of you,” Sophie added. “That Rotherham lady was quick to sign, wasn’t she?”

  Ewan huffed. “Thought she’d scratch right through the paper, she was so chuffed.”

  “She’s a right piece of work, she is.”

  “Soph,” Ewan chastised.

  Sophie ignored him. “I mean, really. Did you see her prancing about with Iain, flirting and laughing? I swear, she couldn’t get enough of us when he was here, and now that he’s gone, we haven’t had even a whiff of her.”

  “She’s…” Emmie pursed her lips, searching for the word, “unique.”

  “That’s one way of putting it,” Famke agreed. “I think she’s nice. Flaky, but nice.”

  “She’s awright,” Sophie admitted reluctantly.

  Their conversation was interrupted when the last two members of the crew came bounding over. Both were young men, in their late twenties, Emmie guessed. She smiled hesitantly as they approached, waiting politely for an introduction.

  “Who’ve we got here, then?” asked one of the young men in the same cockney accent as Sophie.

  Famke sighed. “Behave yourself Adam. This is Emmie Tunstall. Emmie, this is Adam Flett and Dean Walker.”

  “Cor, if I’da known you were hiding in there, I woulda found a reason to check the place out sooner,” Adam guffawed.

  “For the love of shite, man, you have a girlfriend,” Sophie complained.

  Adam fixed her with a charming grin. “Only fun, love. Only fun. You’re not offended, are you?”

  Emmie shrugged dismissively.

  “See, Soph? She’s a good’un.”

  “Well then, move over and let the man who doesn’t have a girlfriend have a chance.” The one called Dean shoved Adam out of the way, and offered Emmie his hand. “Dean Walker.”

  Emmie took his hand. “American?”

  “Texas, born and raised, ma’am.” He winked.

  Famke and Sophie rolled their eyes.

  “Laying it on a little thick there, aren’t you, Deano?”

  “Why you gotta call me out like that, Soph? You can never lay it on too thick, you know that.”

  “And on that note, why don’t you go put on some cologne,” Adam put in. “You reek, man.”

  Dean swung a toned arm around Adam’s neck, and pulled his head down for a good, firm knuckle rub.

  Their boyish, over-eager banter was infectious. Emmie found herself laughing along with the others while Adam and Dean rough-housed playfully.

  “I’m Emmie Tunstall,” she offered, when they were finished and standing upright again. “I’m curator here at Tullybrae.”

  “Oh aye, we know,” Adam nodded. “We were wondering when you were going to come out and see us. We were starting to think we’d frightened you away, or summut. I know we’re dirty now, but we clean up good, love. I promise.”

  “I’m sure you do. Anyway, I don’t want to keep you guys from your work. I just came out to say a quick hello.”

  “You can keep me all you want, love. I don’t mind.”

  “Oh would you shut up, Adam.” Sophie chucked her spade at him. He dodged it easily.

  “Ah, I’m only teasing. You don’t mind, right?”

  “In small doses, no,” she relented. “I’ll let you guys get back to it. See you soon.”

  She started to turn but Famke called to her. “Emmie, what are you doing this evening?”

  “The usual, dinner with Lamb. Why?”

  “We’re all going to have supper at the pub in the village. You know, being Friday and all. Would you like to join us?”

  Emmie’s hesitated. Her first inclination was to say no, to go back to hiding now that she’d gotten the introductions out of the way. But the thought of spending time out with people closer to her own age (with the exception of Ewan, who was likely closing in on sixty) was suddenly appealing.

  “Um… yeah, sure. That sounds good. Thanks.”

  “Great. So seven o’clock, then, at The Grigg?”

  “Where’s The Grigg?”

  “Just up the road that way a bit.” Famke pointed in the direction of the road. “Turn right at the end of the driveway, and go straight for about ten minutes. You can’t miss it.”

  Emmie nodded. “Ok. I’ll see you there.”

  THE FIRST THING Emmie did when she got back inside was find Lamb. Going out with the dig crew meant she’d be skipping out on their dinner routine for the first time since she’d been here, and she wanted to make sure it was okay with him.

  She was sincerely coming to enjoy their quiet meals together.

  “I can cancel if you don’t want me to go,” she added once she told him.

  Lamb’s bushy white brows drew sharply together. “Don’t you dare. I’ll not lie, I’ve grown fond of your company in this short time, my dear. But I won’t stand in the way of your night out. You young people need time to let loose every now and then.”

  Emmie was touched. “Aww, that’s the first time you said you enjoy my company.”

  He gave her a bashful glance. “I would have thought it was obvious.”

  “You big softie.” She pulled him in for a quick hug. He hadn’t expected it, and his arms bent stiffly at the elbows, not embracing her but not resisting. His wrinkled face was notably pink when she stepped back.

  “Okay, then I’ll go. But we’re still on for roast beef tomorrow, right?”

  “That we are.”

  At five o’clock, Emmie retreated to the third floor to shower and change. Even her ‘going out to a pub’ outfit was mindfully selected. A casual plaid fitted shirt, slim-cut denim jeans, and clean-as-a-whistle Ugg boots made the perfect statement. Casual, but composed. After a final primp in the mirror to make sure her hair was still secured in a purposely messy top knot, she transferred her personal effects to a canvas satchel-style purse,
and was off.

  She took the main staircase from the second floor, traipsing past the portraits of Tullybrae’s dead. Perhaps she was just imagining it, but she thought their eyes held a measure of approval. Like they were pleased for her that she was getting out for a night. In fact, the entire house was intangibly lighter, even though the sun was starting to set and Lamb hadn’t yet turned on any of the corridor lights.

  She climbed into her Fiat Panda, and made the short journey into the village. Famke was right. Emmie couldn’t miss The Grigg if she tried—it was the only pub in sight. The Grigg was a one-story building with a Tudor-style front, and a chalk-board sign on the curb outside announcing the night’s specials.

  She parked on the street across from the establishment, climbed out of her car, and smoothed the wrinkles from her shirt. The night was crisp, but not unpleasant. Somewhere in the vicinity, someone was burning a wood fire. She pulled in a deep breath, savouring the smoky fragrance. The same sense of contentment she’d felt on her Saturday off in Aviemore came over her again.

  “I could definitely get used to living here,” she whispered to the night.

  Inside, the air was thick with cigarette smoke. Wooden benches with high backs and long tables lined the walls of the lower seating area, which was reduced to half its size to accommodate a live band. It was more crowded than Emmie expected for a remote village pub, and the people who were there looked like they came out specifically for the music. The band was good, an older group of gentlemen playing traditional Scottish tunes. The audience nodded their heads and tapped their feet along with the familiar melodies.

  Two shallow steps, located about halfway into the building, led to a raised seating area at the back with individual tables and chairs. At the far corner, next to a narrow, stained-glass window, were the excavators from the University of Edinburgh.

  “There she is,” Adam called happily. He flung his arms into the air like he was signaling a touchdown.

  The others turned expectantly. Pints of ale in various hues occupied the surface of their table.