Emmie followed Clara as she took them out of the bedroom and down the servants’ hallway. She glanced into the darkened bedroom across from her own as they passed Grace and Ron. Without any natural source of light, this room was ink black inside. She could only make out the risen lump of blanket under which the two bodies of her parents were sleeping. Ron was still snoring, the gentle cadence masking the creak of the floorboards beneath Emmie’s feet.
Dressed only in a pink spaghetti string camisole and the sweats she was wearing that evening, Emmie continued to let Clara pull her along through the house, down the stairs, and out onto the gravel drive. Barefoot, she walked over the pebbles to the dewed grass, around the side of the house and through the rear gardens. When they reached the edge of the estate where it met the Highlands beyond, they slowed to a halt.
Standing amid the rolling mist was the little old woman in the starched black dress. Next to her was another woman. She was startling to behold in her finery. Her dress was Baroque in style, of a deep gold silk with a broad lace collar, pointed waist and voluminous sleeves. A luxurious pile of auburn hair was crafted into an elaborate style, accentuating her handsome face. She was statuesque and striking. It was the countess. The sixth Countess of Cranbury.
She and the little old lady watched her with visible pride. Clara dropped Emmie’s hand, and skipped over to the countess, whose rose perfume mingled with the earthy scent of the natural flora around them. The countess wrapped her arms around the child lovingly, allowing her to lean back against her gown as though she were Clara’s own mother. And she was, in a way. These three women were a family; they held for each other a love and a bond which had been forged of shared place and death.
Emmie looked down at her feet. The mist was rolling around her ankles, pulling her out to the trio of women. She breathed once, deeply, then took a step into the hills and joined them.
“Emmeline, love. Why so sad?” the old woman said.
“I lost my chance,” she answered, her voice thick with tears that threatened to fall. “I lost my chance to save him.”
The lady smiled, her lined face strangely youthful in the moon’s glow.
“You’re an intelligent young woman, my girl. What on earth made you think you only get one chance?”
Emmie stared at the woman, her brow furrowing. “But… but I betrayed him. I failed him.”
“No, sweet child. His father betrayed him. You did not.”
“I— But— He was killed. He died because I wouldn’t go back with him.” Emmie looked from the old lady to the countess.
The little woman sighed. Tilting her head, she took both of Emmie’s hands into hers. “This is asking a lot of you, I know. To leave everything behind to follow the path you were meant to walk—it’s a lot to take in. You wavered. Who wouldn’t? But our futures are never set out and us only one chance to take them. There are many chances in life for us to find our way to the lives we are meant to live.”
“Is that true?” Emmie looked to the countess. Both she and Clara nodded, the countess benevolently, Clara an encouraging bob of her small head.
“But when am I going to get another chance? He’s gone, I’ve lost him.”
“You haven’t lost him,” the old woman insisted. “He is no’ gone, and you will go back. You’ve already made the choice to go. You made it even as you were telling him no.”
Confused, Emmie shook her head. “Then how do I find him? Will you take me to him?”
“Actually,” the woman paused, and glanced meaningfully to the countess, “we came to bid you farewell.”
“Farewell? Where are you going?”
“It’s no’ where we’re going, my love. It’s where you’re going. You crossed the boundary of time when you stepped through the garden and into the mist. You’re half-way there.”
Emmie’s eyes flew to her feet, watched the thick mist lapping at her ankles. The boundary—she’d crossed it? Was she really on her way to Cael? Her heart sang at the prospect. But another part of her, the pragmatic, cautious part, could not overlook the gravity of the situation.
“Grace,” she said. “And Ron and Chase. My friends. I won’t get to say goodbye. They’ll wake up and… and what? I’ll be gone? Just like that?”
“Aye,” the woman answered gravely. “And it will hurt them tremendously. But one day they’ll understand. Maybe no’ in this lifetime. But after it.”
“Lamb.” His name was the hardest of all for Emmie to say, the thought of leaving him behind the most painful.
“My son understands better than anyone that your destiny is no’ here.”
It was a lot to absorb, too much in too short a period of time. Emmie looked back at the house, the outline of which was blurred by the fog.
“Did any of it have meaning?” she asked Mrs. Lamb. “My life? My mother’s life? Was any of it for a purpose?”
“Such things are no’ for us to know—” Mrs. Lamb paused, as if listening to something in the distance.
“We’ve had our turn it seems,” she told the countess. To Emmie, she said, “Now there is someone here for you.”
Cael! He was coming for her. Coming to take her with him. This time she would go without question, without hesitation. Emmie looked out to the hills, in the direction the three women were watching. Her heart could have burst with the anticipation of waiting, and when she finally spotted the figure walking towards them, her feet itched to run to the tall, broad form of Cael.
Only, as the figure drew closer, Emmie realized that it was neither tall, nor broad. The face was not the face that haunted her dreams and caused her to ache from longing.
Instead, the smile on the face, when it became clear, was a smile which she’d only ever seen through the glass of a picture frame. At times, it had been an enigmatic smile, a reassuring one. It had been sympathetic and proud and indifferent, all depending on Emmie’s mood.
And now, the smile was real. The face was real.
“Mom.” Emmie’s voice cracked. Tears flooded her eyes and spilled down her cheeks.
Her mother stopped directly in front of her, eyes full of life and love. She was radiant—a little taller than Emmie, with the thick brown hair that Emmie only half remembered from very early childhood. The hazel eyes, a hue which she’d passed on to her only daughter, studied Emmie, taking in every line of her face.
Emmie had often thought about what she would say if ever she were to stand before her mother like this. She’d thought about the questions she would ask, the accusations she would make, the things she would tell her. Was her mother proud of her? Was she sorry for her choices? Did she love Emmie?
Now, with the opportunity standing so close, Emmie saw that none of it mattered. She knew the answers already. Pride, love, regret, hope—they were all spoken without a single word.
Emmie’s mother stroked a forefinger along her daughter’s brow, clearing a wisp of golden hair from her forehead. Then she embraced Emmie, pulling her close and holding her tightly. Emmie breathed in her mother’s indefinable scent, committing it to memory, holding onto the moment for as long as she was fortunate enough to have it.
When the embrace ended, Emmie’s mother stepped back, winked knowingly, and gave a small backwards nod.
Go to him, she was saying.
Emmie glanced to Mrs. Lamb, the countess and Clara. They looked back expectantly, saying nothing in words but everything with a gaze, a smile, a tilt of the head.
Farther in the distance, the fog cleared. Beneath the gentle glow of the moon, Cael was waiting for her.
This time, Emmie was sure. The voices in her head which had before made her doubt, question, fear—were silenced. She belonged with Cael. He was her home. Eagerly, she traversed the short distance between them. It was bittersweet, knowing that she would be leaving loved ones behind. But above all, it was right. That’s what she held onto, what kept her feet moving.
Cael waited patiently for her to join him, as peaceful and beautiful and strong as she’d
ever seen him. She stepped up to him, and looked into his eyes. This was not a dream, not a vision. It was real. He was real.
When she placed her hands in his, the warmth ran through her palms, up her arms, and straight to her heart.
“Save me,” he said. He spoke the words aloud. They were not a whisper on the breeze, or an echo in a dream. It was Cael’s voice.
“Save me,” he said for the first time. And for the last.
“Yes,” was her answer.
When Emmie said this, Cael’s eyes closed. He savoured the word, the one word which all along had been the key to his salvation. Then he took her in his arms, bent his head, and kissed her.
As the mist closed around them, the two figures disappeared, vanishing into the folds of time.
Tullybrae House – One year later
HAROLD LAMB STOOD behind the gleaming, custom-built cherry stained reception desk in the brand-new foyer-turned-lobby of the Tullybrae House Museum. His dry, wrinkled hands wandered restlessly over the piles of paper, the binders and the keyboard that were hidden from sight by the foot-tall ledge at the edge of the unit.
Oh, how he wanted to grab for his Swiffer duster and retire to the study to commence with his cleaning ritual, the same one he’d carried on with despite the death of his former employer, the late Lord Cranbury. But he had been expressly forbidden to clean and putter by his current employer, the Countess of Rotherham, while visitors were touring the house.
He observed the main staircase, watching surreptitiously for the reappearance of the seven visiting tourists and the manor’s tour guide, who were currently on the second floor, judging by the footsteps and hushed chatter that reached his ears.
For the third time in as many minutes, he straightened the framed photograph tucked away under the ledge where curious visitors wouldn’t see it. It was a graduation picture. The subject’s sunny curls tumbled elegantly over her left shoulder, and her smile was bright and hopeful beneath her blue and gold cap and gown. Her mother, Grace Tunstall, had sent it to Lamb when he called and asked for something he could have to remember her by.
Of course, everyone who came to visit the newly opened Tullybrae House Museum knew the story of the young curator who had disappeared, gone missing one night, never to be heard from again. They asked questions, cruel questions that certainly they thought were innocuous. Was she a flighty girl? Not very responsible? Was there something wrong with her, perhaps—not quite right in the head?
One tactless woman had even dared to suggest that Emmie might have been kidnapped and murdered. “You see it all the time,” she’d said gravely. “Young girls taken in the dead of night, raped and killed. For all we know, her body could be out there in the wild right now. Maybe eaten by wolves or buried under the soil. If that’s the case, she’ll never be found. Poor thing. Did you know her, Mr. Lamb?”
For his part, Lamb deflected their questions, feigning indifference. But each one cut him a little bit, keeping fresh the wound that refused to heal.
It was not just Lamb who was hurting. Emmie’s disappearance had cut a lot of people very deeply. Her parents were devastated. Her brother had flown to Scotland from his job in Toronto to help with the search. Lady Rotherham, the excavators from Edinburgh University, even Dr. Iain Northcott and his friend Dr. Paul Rotenfeld had come out to help.
But days turned into weeks, and there was no sign of her. She was gone. Missing, presumed dead, given the state in which she’d been found only a few days before that. Foul play was not suspected.
Everyone was left shaken, but it seemed to have particularly devastated the little one on the excavation team, Sophie Miner. Long after the others had lost interest, she was still calling Lamb, writing him at the newly-created Tullybrae House Museum email account (which he was still learning to use).
Eventually, though, she too had given up.
At length, the visitors completed their tour of the second floor, and reached the landing where they were visible from the lobby. Lamb pretended to be busy with the papers in front of him.
“Yes, they’re now in the archives at the University of Edinburgh.”
That was Brigitte speaking, Tullybrae’s resident tour guide. She was a pleasant girl, bright and attractive, but nowhere near as captivating and warm-hearted as her predecessor had been.
Of course, she was talking about the bodies. Everybody wanted to know about the murder victims that had been unearthed last autumn. There had been twenty-two of them in all. Inevitably someone always asked about either the Digging Scotland episode or the Haunted Britain episode, both of which had aired the past winter.
“And can you tell me what’s known about them?” This was an elderly gentleman with a full head of white hair and a pot belly.
“Well, now, I’m not too sure about that. This is Lamb’s specialty. Lamb?”
He looked up as the group descended the grand staircase, unaware of the oil-painted eyes of Tullybrae’s lords and ladies watching them.
These people didn’t care about those eyes. Emmie had. Emmie knew their significance.
“I’m sorry?” Lamb said.
“What’s the story about the massacre again?”
He waited until the group reached the bottom of the stairs to begin his tale. It was not the first time he and Brigitte had acted out this routine. The first time they’d done it, it was because Lamb knew the story better. Now, it had become habit that Brigitte would ask him to tell it when someone should inquire. Someone always did.
“Well now, as the story goes, the murders date back to fourteen ninety-two. It was the time of conflict between the MacDonalds of Keppoch and the MacIntoshes, and there was a dispute over whether the former or the latter legally held the land. You see, Highland clans being what they were, it was physically held by the MacDonalds, but only by force. On the other hand, it legally belonged to the MacIntoshes—the Crown, as I understand it, had officially granted the land to them—and they were intent on retaking it.”
As they always were, the visitors were fascinated by the tale. Lamb continued, bolder now, as was the routine.
“The MacDonald clan was divided. Many wanted to resist the MacIntoshes themselves, while a small but determined number of them wanted to appeal to the larger branch of the clan, the MacDonalds of Clanranald, for protection.”
“I’m a MacDonald of Clanranald,” declared the white-haired man.
“Someone always is,” Lamb jested dryly, which wrought a laugh from his audience.
“Dh'aindeoin có theireadh e,” the man continued, oblivious to the fact that the butler’s joke had been at his expense. “That’s the war cry, you know.”
“Back to the story,” interrupted a slender, middle-aged woman, casting an annoyed glance at the man. Giving a short nod to Lamb, she said, “Go on.”
“Very well,” Lamb replied. “So these determined men managed to turn the ear of the chief, and were granted permission to set an ambush to wipe out the most ardent of those who wanted to resist the MacIntoshes alone. As it turned out, this latter group were warned ahead of time. Prepared for the ambush, they set one of their own. Ten men slaughtered their would-be twenty-two assassins and escaped death. The dead were buried where they were killed, and the failed attack caused quite a rift in the clan—after all, the ten realized they’d been betrayed and set up for execution by their own laird, Angus MacDonald, for none in the clan would carry out such a bold act without the Keppoch’s blessing. In any case, the MacDonalds of Keppoch did manage to resist the MacIntoshes on their own, without the aid of their Clanranald counterparts, and the land remained in Keppoch control.”
“What’s remarkable about this story is how much we know about it,” Brigitte jumped in as she typically did at this point. “The account of this event comes from the diaries of a Mrs. Emmeline MacDonald. The reason it’s remarkable is the fact that a woman of her station, better than a peasant but unimportant within the clan hierarchy, was educated enough and had the presence of mind to record as much
as she did, and in as much detail. There are volumes and volumes filled with the most minute of descriptions about this conflict—names, dates, occurrences—and also about everyday life at the time.” Enigmatically, Brigitte concluded, “It was almost as if she knew somehow that her works would survive and be of interest to future generations.”
“That is interesting,” the white-haired man agreed. “Where are those works now?”
“They’re on display at the British Museum of Natural History. They’re quite an achievement within the historical record, yet Mrs. MacDonald remains relatively obscure when next to the more important figures of history.”
After a few more random questions from the visitors about the house, the television episodes, and about the missing curator, Brigitte led them all to the gift shop, which had previously been the library. Lamb remained behind the desk, glad to be alone again. His eyes drifted to the picture of Emmie, and the longing for the girl who had been like a granddaughter to him for that short time resumed its hollow ache in his frail chest.
A cool hand patted his shoulder from behind.
“I know, son,” Mrs. Lamb said soothingly. “It hurts. But you know it was what she was meant to do. And you know it turned out well for her in the end.”
It was unusual for the tiny old woman to comfort her son. She certainly had done little of it in life. But ever since Emmie’s disappearance, she’d offered more comfort to Lamb than she had even when he was a boy.
Lamb blinked back an errant tear, and said the only thing he knew to say. It was the same thing he always said. But this time, there was no exasperation, no annoyance. There was only an acknowledgement of the hurt he felt, and the truth in what Mrs. Lamb said.
“Yes, Mother.”
Veronica Bale is a freelance writer, copy editor and author of Highland historical romance and women’s fiction. She holds an Honours Bachelor Degree in environmental writing from York University in Toronto, Ontario.
The Ghosts of Tullybrae House Page 26
