The Ghosts of Tullybrae House

by Veronica Bale

  Around them, the sky was lightening to the surreal, colourless blue of early dawn. She’d been with him for a while now, but when Cael led her to another place, she did not at all mind. He was in control of this memory, and whatever he wanted to show her, she would willingly witness. As long as she got to stay with him a little longer. Here, like this.

  They walked beyond the hut, hand in hand, into the open ground. They walked a long way, on and on until the castle was no longer visible. In the distance was a dense stand of alder and crab apple trees, whose fresh spring leaves were beginning to show their brilliant green hues. Cael helped her to enter its enchanting shade, guiding her over fallen branches and around low-reaching twigs. In the centre of the stand was a small stream. It wandered through the trees with a life of its own, gently bubbling on its way to other places.

  Cael turned to face her. He looked into her eyes, telling her of the peace he found in this place.

  “This was your spot, wasn’t it?”

  It did seem like a place that would belong to him. Quiet but strong, and utterly beautiful in its simplicity. A deep longing for this place and time filled Emmie. She looked at Cael, was touched by his obvious love for this place. It was his land, he belonged here. It was home. That was something Emmie had always wanted for herself—a true home. To know that she belonged to a place as he did.

  Cael gazed back, searching her face. Looking for something in its depths. When he touched her cheek with the back of his fingers, Emmie’s breath caught. She closed her eyes, letting him trace the line of her jaw with a fingertip, then follow the line over her lips. He was as entranced by her as she was by him. This touch, this moment—he’d wanted it for so long. So had she.

  His hand slid beneath her hair and cupped the back of her neck. Emmie held perfectly still as he leaned closer. She waited, feeling as though she were standing on the edge of a precipice…

  Then his lips touched hers, and she fell. Cael was kissing her. Kissing her with a need that surmounted the centuries between them. It was a rough-tender kiss, both poignant and desperate.

  Emmie kissed him back. She was freefalling headlong without any safety net or any idea of where the ground was. And she didn’t care. Let her fall, let the ground come and swallow her up. As long as they were falling together.

  The last vestiges of awareness, of remembering that none of this was real, were forgotten. It was of no consequence that Cael was dead, that he had died a long time ago. He was real now. She was being pulled into his world, her mind and her soul willingly given to a force that was larger than either of them. It was like an ancient magic, a prophecy. Something she couldn’t fight and didn’t want to.

  She was kissing him.

  She was home.

  LAMB HAD JUST made the climb up the rear staircase from the kitchen when Famke and Ewan came tearing headlong towards him. He staggered backwards a step, startled by their sudden appearance, and his wrinkled fingers tightened on the door handle to keep himself from tumbling back down the stairs.

  “Lamb,” Famke exclaimed, beaming from ear to ear. “Oh jeez, don’t fall. Lamb, we found them. Come see.”

  The old butler looked from one eager face to the other. “Wha—What’s this, now?”

  “You won’t believe it—we found them,” Ewan repeated. “We found the mass burial site. Three individual skeletons so far.”

  “It’s unbelievable!” Famke was bouncing in her steel-toed work boots. “A major archaeological find. The legends are true.”

  “Don’t get ahead of yourself,” Ewan warned. “We found bodies. We don’t know for sure when they died or who they were.”

  Famke puffed her lips dismissively. “Oh, please. We know exactly who they were. Don’t take this from me, Ewan. I have never been part of a team before that has unearthed Skeletresten. I’ve always come in afterwards, wanneer al het werk wordt gedaan.”

  Ewan snapped his fingers in front of Famke’s face. “English, woman. You’re getting all flustered. Lamb here doesn’t speak Dutch.”

  “You don’t know that,” Famke countered teasingly. “Lamb, where’s Emmie? She will want to see this.”

  The lines in the old man’s forehead deepened. “Well now, she didn’t come down for breakfast this morning. I’m sure she’s fine, though. She did have a night out with that young man Dean. She’s probably having a lie-in.”

  “Of course she’s fine,” Famke assured him. “I’ll find her. You will want to see this, too. Ewan, you can take Lamb out, can’t you?” She skipped off towards the rear staircase before either of them could answer.

  Ewan chuckled, and held out an elbow for Lamb to take. “Shall we?”

  Lamb nodded once. “I think I would like that. You know, I’ve lived at Tullybrae most of my life, and have always known of the graves. But until you folks came along, it was never anything but a story.”

  Arm in arm, the two men made their way outside. Ewan walked at a pace that was comfortable for Lamb, though he was as eager as Famke, and could hardly keep from bouncing himself. He was entirely unaware that the stoic silence of his elderly companion hid a mountain of worry. Nor was he aware of the ghost of the little old woman in the black dress who followed behind, wringing her hands.

  By the time Ewan and Lamb reached the front door, Famke had already made it up to the servants’ quarters.

  “Emmie?” she called into the empty space.

  There was no answer except for the slow drip of a leaky tap from the bathroom.

  Figuring she might be in the nursery and already at work, Famke came back down and headed towards the front of the house. But when she popped her head into Emmie’s office, Emmie wasn’t there, either.

  By now, she was becoming a little concerned. Traversing the rest of the second floor hall at a trot, she meant to go downstairs and check the kitchen. Perhaps Emmie and Lamb had missed each other in passing.

  Rounding the corner of the upper landing at the top of the grand staircase, Famke came face to face with a figure standing in front of the full-length mirror.

  “My God, Emmie, you scared me.” She placed a slender hand to her breast.

  Emmie didn’t move.

  “Em?” The Dutch woman approached cautiously. “Em, liebchen—Earth to Emmie.”

  In a daze, Emmie turned slowly and looked blankly at Famke.

  She tried again. “Em, wake up.” She gave Emmie’s shoulder a gentle shake.

  The shake was what brought Emmie back to the present, what tore her away from Cael’s embrace. One minute she was lost in the bliss of kissing him, and the next, she was staring into Famke Bomgaars’ concerned face. The shock of the sudden shift of place was like being thrown into a pool of frigid water. She blinked rapidly as Famke’s image came into stark focus. Her eyes darted left, then right.

  Light. It was daylight.

  Oh, God, had she been standing here all night? That couldn’t be possible, she wasn’t the slightest bit tired. Quite the opposite, in fact—she was hyper awake, her senses crackling with electricity.

  Those hyper aware senses picked up Cael immediately, homing in on him without conscious effort. He was still here, but his presence was faint. Like a flashlight struggling to shine on a dying battery.

  Once she’d determined Cael’s whereabouts, she became embarrassingly aware that Famke was still watching her.

  “I… um… I zoned out there, didn’t I?”

  Famke’s graceful brows drew together.

  “That was frightening, Emmie. Are you sure you’re all right.”

  “Really, everyone’s got to stop worrying about me all the time. I’m fine.” She brought herself up short, cheeks turning pink. “You didn’t deserve that. Forgive me.”

  “There is nothing to forgive,” Famke assured her. Then, gently, she said, “Hey, we found something out there. You’ll never guess what.”

  Emmie smiled, trying for enthusiasm—unsuccessfully. “Yeah? What did you find?”

  “We found,” Famke paused for drama
tic effect, “the murder victims. Three so far. Isn’t it amazing?”

  The smile froze on Emmie’s face. The murder victims. Cael. They’d found him.

  “That is amazing,” she said, her voice unsteady.

  Famke didn’t seem to notice. “Well, come on then. You’re about to be a part of history.”

  She snatched Emmie’s hand and pulled her down the stairs. Emmie let herself be taken.

  Panic had begun to build in her chest. Cael—where was he? Why was he not by her side? He was always by her side. At first, she wondered if he’d somehow tired himself out by pulling her into his world. But the closer they got to the dig site, she began to fear that, instead, he was upset about the excavators’ discovery.

  His earthly remains had been buried and forgotten for hundreds of years. What if he didn’t want to be found? What if he didn’t want Emmie to find him?

  Outside, Sophie and Adam were hunched over Dean’s trench. The top of Dean’s head was visible. Clad in a dirty orange Texas Longhorns baseball cap, it bobbed gently as he worked. When Sophie glanced over her shoulder and saw Emmie and Famke emerging from the house, she straightened and waved her arms over her head.

  “Eeemmm, come quick.” To Lamb and Ewan, who by then had only covered half the distance from house to field, she added, “Get a move-on, Lamb. You’re holding up the show.”

  Emmie, who was still being pulled along by Famke, felt as though her own legs were as stiff as Lamb’s. It was only by conscious effort that she kept moving, that her knees didn’t buckle from beneath her.

  When Dean looked up from the trench, his eyes were sparkling with the same reverence he showed for the skeletons at the college. With one hand at the edge of his ball cap bill, he shielded his brow from the sun which struggled to shine behind a translucent wash of cloud.

  “We found them, Em. Can you believe it? We found them!”

  That reverence was something she recognized. It was the same awe, the same respect for lives long past that all history lovers had. It was as though the object being discovered, or examined, or even simply admired, was a link to a person who had lived and loved, laughed and cried. She didn’t resent Dean for his reverence. Under any other circumstance, she would have shared it.

  Right now, though, she just felt sick.

  “This will be the fourth,” he was telling her and Lamb, the latter of whom had finally reached the trench.

  Emmie barely heard him. She was unwillingly absorbed in the methodical strokes of the stiff-bristled paint brush he was using to dust away the loose dirt. She watched, her chest tight, as he switched to a trowel and carefully carved away the impacted dirt around a smooth, round object. It was the same colour as the earth in which it was buried, and zipper-like cranial sutures were highlighted by the soil crusted into them.

  It was a skull. Cael’s skull. She felt it like a punch in the gut when Dean finally cleared enough dirt away to gently pry it from the ground. He held the skull up to examine the face. Then, equally as gently, he removed the freed jaw from the earth. In the excitement of the moment, he fitted the jaw to the skull and held the completed piece like a prize.

  “Wow,” he murmured, shaking his head. “Just… wow.”

  His finger worked back and forth over the rough bone of the jaw, an absent-minded caress. Then he stopped, and frowned. Unhinging the jaw from the cranial socket, Dean turned it over and examined it.

  Two slices marked the remains, one on each side, just below where the ears would have been. They were deep, angry cuts, each about a quarter-inch long.

  “Holy crap. You guys, look.” He tipped the jaw bone upwards so that his colleagues could better see the evidence. An amazed grin spread across his face, and his eyes gleamed with academic glee. “This one’s throat was slit.”

  As soon as his gaze landed on Emmie, his face fell—she was as white as a sheet and trembling.

  “Em, oh my God. Em?”

  Emmie couldn’t hear him over the roaring in her ears. Her body wouldn’t stop shaking, and a strange, strangled gasping was coming from her throat.

  There was no indication that this was, in fact, Cael. It was nothing more than a centuries-old skull. Yet she knew it was him. The empty eye sockets crusted with dirt, the ghastly, fleshless grin…

  It was him.

  His throat had been cut—that’s how he’d died. The windpipe beneath the tender flesh had been severed. The breath which had been warm on her cheek only minutes ago, and the strong, graceful neck which she’d admired… more than admired… had been violated, mutilated. Destroyed.

  His life had been taken from him, and those marks on his jaw confirmed it.

  She knew she was hyperventilating. If she didn’t stop, she was going to faint. But she couldn’t stop. Couldn’t command her mind to take control of her body’s visceral reactions.

  “Someone grab her,” Dean shouted. With the skull and jaw still clasped together in his hands, he leapt out of the trench. The sight of Cael’s remains were more than she could stand. She staggered back, palms outstretched, blubbering incoherently.

  “Emmie, please, let me take you inside,” he implored at the same time that Sophie and Ewan rushed to steady her.

  “Naw, mate. Let me do it,” Adam said.

  Ewan shook his head. “Adam, I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  “I got this.” He fixed Ewan with a look that said he would take no arguments.

  Ewan studied him for a moment. Assured that Adam was taking this seriously, he relented. “Awright, mate. You’ve got her.”

  “Soph, why don’t you take our man Lamb here inside,” Adam suggested. “We’ll need a strong cuppa, milk, and a shot of whiskey.”

  Bending slightly, he swooped Emmie up into his arms and carried her across the field. The others watched them go, each of them at a loss to account for her reaction. In their minds, that skull was nothing more than a historical artefact, no different than any other they’d encountered before.

  “Christ, you’re lighter than I thought,” Adam muttered when he reached the house and fumbled with the door knob.

  If Emmie hadn’t been so consumed by shock, she might have laughed. But the sight of that skull had been too much.

  Cael was dead. Inarguably, factually dead. He had been betrayed and horribly murdered.

  And his ghost… His ghost had fooled her, had made her believe that he was with her. But he was not. No matter how much he showed her, or how convincingly he reconstructed his world for her, it wasn’t real. It was all an illusion.

  This was her world. The only world. And it was one in which Cael’s true existence was in a collection of bones excavated for archaeological record.

  Keeping up a running commentary for her benefit, Adam brought Emmie up to the third floor, to her room, and laid her on the bed which was still made from the night before.

  “Stay there, love,” he ordered, not unkind.

  He left her briefly to find the bathroom, where he soaked a hand towel in cold water from the tap. When he came back, he laid the towel over her forehead and eyes.

  “Deep breaths,” he instructed.

  From under the damp, cool cloth, Emmie became aware of the sound of chair legs scraping across the wooden floor.

  “Careful, that’s an antique.”

  Adam gave a low chuckle. “There she is. Thought we’d lost her for a minute.”

  “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

  “Nothing’s wrong with you. It was just a shock, that’s all.”

  “Shock.” Emmie frowned. “You guys weren’t shocked. You saw Dean—he was practically drooling.”

  Adam sat back in the chair. He looked at Emmie, chewing on his lip. “Hey—you want to hear something?”

  Emmie breathed once. The shaking was starting to ebb, and the roar in her ears had subsided almost to nothing.

  “You tell me. Do I?”

  “Dunno, love. But I’m gonna tell it whether you want to hear it or not.”

 
A wry smile tweaked the corner of her mouth. “All right. I’m listening.”

  “You know, when I was in my mid-teens, maybe fifteen or sixteen, I was a complete tosser,” Adam began. “Like, a total minger. I cut class more often than I went. Me and me bezzie mates were blatted every weekend. It was bad. If you were to tell my tenth-form teachers that I would one day be where I am now, they would have carted you off as barmy.”

  Emmie lifted the cloth off one eye and looked at Adam. He was hamming up his East-Ender slang for what was an obvious attempt to lighten her mood, and they both knew it. She appreciated the attempt.

  “So what happened to make you turn around?”

  Adam’s face grew sad, his gaze turning inward. “What happened was that this one night—we were being our usual wanker selves, hanging out in the pubs, wandering around, making a racket, that kind of thing. This night, though, we got into it with another group of lads. We started arguing, then it turned into a right good punch-up. We thought it were all for fun, you know? That’s what lads do. They get blatted and then they brawl. But these lads—we should never have started anything with them. One of them pulls a knife and stabs me mate, Stuart, in the belly. The one who did it and his mates, they all legged it, of course.”

  He paused, recalling the scene as he was telling it. “I remember throwing myself to the ground and pulling Stuart to me. He was shaking, and his face was turning white. It was dark—I remember that much. But I could still see how white his face was going.”

  “I’m sorry,” Emmie said after a time.

  Adam’s gaze returned to the present, and his eyes landed on her. “It’s funny the things that go through your mind at times like that. Did you know? When I fell, I hit my knees on the pavement so hard that the pain shot up my legs. It was bloody unbearable. And I remember hating myself for thinking about how bad it hurt when Stuart was there in me arms, dying. For weeks, my knees hurt so bad. Like, I probably chipped the bone or summut. All me mates, and me mum and dad, they were telling me to go to the hospital and get x-rays in case I had broken something. But I wouldn’t. I was so angry. That’s one thing I’ve never really forgiven myself for, thinking of how much pain I was in then.”