by L. L. Muir
“Hiya!”
A bloke stood at the base of the fountain looking up at him and Jamie’s heart raced at the shock of it. Only Soni and wee bairns were ever able to see him, and no one had hailed him for ages.
“I’m sorry,” the man said. “Did I say that wrong? Everyone in town has been saying Hiya, but maybe it doesn’t mean what I thought it did.”
A yank then.
Jamie nodded while he waited for his heart to settle.
“Hello,” he finally said. “Ye said it just fine.”
“Are you Mr. Houston? Here to let us inside?”
Jamie stood and brushed the back of his kilt while he strode down the hillock. “I am Jamie Houston, aye. But this is no longer my family’s home, I’m sorry to say.”
“Oh, well.” The fellow smiled and held out his hand. “I thought you looked a lot younger than the guy on the phone.” The yank looked around, then gave Jamie a smile. “Either he’s late or we’re early. I’m Dawson Griggs.”
Two others who were not burdened with heavy equipment came to join them and held out their hands for a good shake. Dawson introduced them.
“This is Matt and Tuke.” He pointed to his friends. Matt was a young, darkly tanned fellow with only a short fuzz of gold hair on his head. Tuke was a little older than the other two with long curly hair—dreadlocks, they were called.
“Did you say this place used to belong to your family?” asked the latter.
“Auch, aye,” Jamie said, proud to claim that truth. “I was raised here.”
“Really?” Tuke seemed pleased to hear it and pulled a small notebook and pen from his many pockets. “So you probably have all kinds of stories you can tell us about the Houston Ghost?”
Jamie choked on his spittle. “The what?”
Dawson and Matt exchanged a nervous glance.
Tuke’s brows slammed down hard. “Now, don’t tell me we’ve come all this way and there are no ghosts here. We did our research—”
Jamie held out both hands and eased them up and down as if soothing a troubled beast. “Calm ye doon,” he said. “There is a ghost here.” He was surprised he could manage to say it with a sober face. “I can, in all honesty, tell ye that there is a spirit here at this very moment. It’s just that…I’d never thought of it as the Houston Ghost afore.”
The three immediately relaxed.
Jamie wondered if it might be exciting to see how much fun he might have with a bunch of ghost hunters now that they were able to see him. On the moor, he got no pleasure from it at all. In fact, it had always insulted him to have folks call themselves mediums and demand that the dead of Culloden rise up and speak—like dogs performing tricks for a wee treat.
The spirits he knew had more important matters on their minds than the entertainment of strangers. Although, at the moment, he marveled that he’d been able to busy himself for so many years.
Perhaps it was the simple fact that Jamie wasn’t currently a ghost that made him feel mischievous once again. After all, he had mortal time on his hands, and the matters that occupied his mind while haunting Culloden didn’t seem so pressing that morning, perhaps because his revenge was close at hand.
A few drops of excitement in his blood was a heady thing indeed and he decided he wanted more. A great deal more. And though the trio was obviously expecting some entertainment to be had at Kinkeld House, little did they know that they would be the ones providing it.
“How do you know?” Matt fumbled with a pocket and pulled out a small machine of some sort and started pointing it in different directions. Jamie had seen something similar in the hand of a man who was measuring the temperature around the grave markers. “I mean, how do you know the ghost is here now?”
Jamie grinned. “Because I am here now.” The honest truth, surely. And Jamie Archibald Houston was nothing if not honest.
Dawson’s attention snapped to. “And this ghost likes you or something?”
Jamie nodded, but allowed the man to interpret it how he would. He’d not lied, for he liked himself fine.
Matt moved his gadget closer to Jamie’s person and peered intently at the little screen. But since Jamie was as warm as the rest of them, he doubted the machine would detect any sudden drop in temperature.
“Well, if the ghost likes you…” Tuke looked him over from head to toe, from toe to head, then grinned as well. “How would you like to be on tv?”
“Are you kidding me?” Matt showed his screen to the other two and they all turned to look at him with wide eyes.
Tuke put his hands together as if praying. “Please say you’ll help us.”
Jamie could just imagine how tickled his fellow ghosties would be to look over some youngster’s shoulder only to find his familiar mug on a small screen. If, in fact, any of his fellows were still on the moor to see it…
But no matter. He’d still enjoy rattling his chains for the yanks who seemed so desperate to be frightened.
He grinned until his thought his cheeks might tear. “Of course I’ll help.” And perhaps, in the doing, he’d find a noble deed that wanted doing.
Brace yerself, Yer Majesty! He wished the young prince would somehow hear his warning and know that an angry Highlander would soon be on his way to have words with him.
CHAPTER FOUR
A small blue car turned off the main motorway and headed down the long drive. Inside it was likely to be this Houston relative come to let the film folk in.
Jamie waved a hand to gain the attention of his new friends. “I think it best if ye doona mention my…relationship to the ghost to this man. Neither should ye let on that I’m a relative. Bad blood and all that.”
“Oh? Well, sure,” Dawson said. “I’ll just tell him you’re Jamie, an historical consultant. How’s that?”
“Fine then. Just fine.” Jamie only hoped the history of which they needed consulting dated back before 1745. After that, he only knew what he’d seen on small television screens and mobile telephones.
The blue car stopped next to the fountain. Inside it was a wrinkled, weather-worn man with a shock of white hair over each ear. He climbed out of the vehicle with the help of a cane that appeared as knobby and weather-worn as himself.
“Hello there. Hello,” he said to Dawson, who stood beside the car’s open door and offered the old man a hand. He waved it away. “I’ve a cane, laddie. I’m not dead.” His smile never wavered. “Hello,” he said again to Matt and Tuke. Then his brows rose skyward when he got a look at Jamie. “Would ye look at that, would ye? Some fine piece of work ye are, me boy.” He glanced around dramatically in concern. “Dinna let me wife have a gander at that fine Goldenrod kilt or I’ll lose her to ye fer certain!” He raised his knee to give it a slap, and laughed with no care whether he laughed alone.
Dawson looked nervous. “This is, uh, Jamie. He’s our historical advisor for this job.”
The old man’s head bobbed heartily. “Just call me Huey. And a fine advisor I would think with a Great Kilt like that. Oh, I say.” He hobbled closer so he could finger the weapons and gadgets hanging from Jamie’s belt. “Ye see these?” He spoke over his shoulder to the others. “Flints at the ready. Ooh, and he’s got authentic tools, here, do ye see? Back during the ’45, he’d have had to melt his own shot and use these to cut away the seam.” He winked up at Jamie, then frowned rather suddenly. “Do we ken each other, laddie?”
Jamie gave his head a shake.
The man grunted then turned away. “Shall we go in, then?” He pulled some keys from his pocket and headed for the front door. “I don’t suppose our ghost will come outside to greet ye.” He laughed gleefully as if he’d made the most humorous comment.
The four of them gathered just inside the door. The cameras and crew were left outside for the time being.
“What we plan to do this morning is to get some clear shots of the house to edit in later,” Dawson explained. But then his ramblings became a low drone in the background while Jamie soaked in the sight of his
beloved home.
Nothing was out of place.
The doorways and rooms had not been changed at all. The paper on the walls was not from the 18th century, but some of the paneling was original. The railing had been changed, but the ornately carved newel posts were all too familiar.
In reverent awe, he sat on the first landing and ran his hands over the leaves and stems. He’d stood at his father’s hip while the man carved each and every detail. He learned how to hold his father’s tools, learned what a soft strike of the mallet would do in comparison to a firm one. How the wood chips fell away as if they’d been asked kindly to do so. The pattern inside was slowly uncovered, as if it had been there all along, waiting for the right man to come reveal it to the world.
Without thought, his fingers found the leaf that was a bit smaller than the rest. His father had allowed him to chisel that one detail, and he’d struck too hard. There’d been no way to fix it, and yet his father claimed it gave the post character. “Variety is best,” he’d said. “Else why would God have made us all different, even from our brothers?”
The old man tapped the floor with his cane. “Jamie, lad. Are ye coming?”
The party moved farther into the heart of the house and he was forced to leave his memories for the moment. But he was determined, if his noble deed didn’t take him away before morning, he would return and give the posts the adoration they deserved.
The bedchambers on the main floor were furnished with cheap velvet coverings over cheaper bed frames. The photographs on the walls were of no one he knew. The master bedchamber held not a trace of his parents.
Though it was a barren cavern of stone walls, the kitchen was packed to the rafters with memories of his mother, aunts, and grandmother bending to their work, laughing at familiar stories, and murmuring appreciation for the taste of a well-made recipe. He could almost see them dancing about—for their movements had been like dancing—a room full of women moving fine but heavy laden dishes from table to table without bumping into one another. And all done with smiles on their faces.
His mother’s kitchen had indeed been a happy place. And he remembered well the sad year he became too large and gangly to be allowed inside, once that dancing began. He’d bumped into his grandmother and sent her tumbling. After that, he’d sorely missed dipping a piece of shortbread into the clotted cream…
He’d become just another of the menfolk who had to wait at the table for his meal to be served. Only it was worse for him—he knew that not all of the delicious things in the kitchens made it to the table.
When he asked his mother about it, she gave him a riddle instead. “If Suisan likes treacle tarts best, Suisan gets the biggest tart.”
He’d held a certain malice toward his sister Suisan ever since. But later, of course, he’d come to understand that he was given certain privileges himself because his mother knew what it meant to him. And his annoyance with his sister paled.
What he wouldn’t give to see Suisan again, learning those dance steps in the kitchen. He could almost see her…
A dark-haired lass in a white nightdress appeared at one end of the kitchen and paced to the other, wringing her hands as she went. “I dinna ken. I canna remember.” Then again. “I dinna ken. I canna remember.”
“Suisan?” The name tripped off his tongue before he thought about his ghost hunting companions.
The lass turned to face him. Her eyes flew wide and she screamed. She fainted, but before Jamie could reach her, she disappeared altogether. But her shriek still echoed against the bare stones.
A ghost? Truly?
“What in the hell was that?” Tuke’s voice fell like a heavy stone to the floor.
Dawson gave his friend a pointed look. “Tell me you were recording.”
Wide-eyed, Matt stood with his hands held out, like he expected the walls to start moving in to crush him. “Dude,” he said. Then he repeated himself half a dozen times before Dawson told him to shut up.
Tuke let loose a disgusted sigh. “No, we weren’t recording anything. Okay?”
He and Dawson exchanged a look, then the latter turned that look on Jamie. “Do you think you can get her to come back again?”
The old man poked his head in the kitchen. He’d been to the water closet. “Dinna fash, laddies. She’ll not be likely to show herself until dark, now will she? And sometimes in the wee hours, just as the horizon turns a pale shade of blue.”
Either the flush of the toilet had covered the sound of the scream, or the man’s hearing was questionable.
He motioned for them to come. “I’ll show ye upstairs, to the solar. Something there ye’ll want to see.”
Tuke and Dawson shared a knowing glance with Jamie, then followed Huey out, but they peeked back over their shoulders as they went, searching the far wall. Matt shook his head and hurried after them. The young man was terrified—which might prove to be a problem given his career, searching for ghosts on a daily basis.
As for Jamie, he couldn’t quite make his feet move, still shaken by the female ghostie. It hadn’t been his sister Suisan, no matter how much he would have liked to see her face again. The dark hair had given him hope, but just a flash of the lass’s face had crushed his chest like a mishandled caber.
He now knew who it was that haunted Kinkeld House. And the ghost hunters were wrong—she wasn’t a Houston.
At least she hadn’t been…as late as April of 1745…
CHAPTER FIVE
The lass never presented herself again even though Jamie waited alone in the kitchen for as long as he could. Eventually, he had to give in to the calls from the men upstairs or explain why, and he didn’t feel like getting into such intimate details with Huey, let alone the yanks. Besides, the history of the house was being sorely exaggerated by the old man, and Jamie wanted to amend the truth as much as he could, especially if the telly folk were presenting it all as fact.
Thankfully, after a long lecture about the foolishness of the Jacobites—which Jamie longed to counter—Huey’s energy began to wane.
“If ye’ll follow me, laddies,” he puffed and gasped down the hallway, “I’ll show ye the face of the man who haunts the graveyard beyond the gardens.”
More spirits?
Jamie had been confident he was the closest thing to a ghost present when he’d been teasing the film crew. But not only had he seen Elspeth’s ghost in the kitchens, there was apparently another in the family graveyard! And though he’d learned the fine art of patience over the years, he could hardly wait until nightfall to discover who else he might be able to speak to once again.
It was possible, sadly, that the ghost in the graveyard could be anyone else who’d died at Kinkelding in the centuries since he’d lived there—for he knew of no ghosts roaming around in his childhood. And if he did not know this new ghost, so be it. It was enough of a boon to be allowed to see Elspeth again.
If he was still around after dark and was able to speak with her… He couldn’t imagine what he could he have done in his past to deserve such a reunion! It was a wish he couldn’t have dared wish.
Did Soni know his heart so well then? The thought made him nervous. What else might the witch have in store for him?
Soni’s warning repeated for the tenth time. Stay close to home. Stay close…
Aye, it was easy advice to follow, easiest he’d ever been given. But he would stay wary, just the same.
The small company moved to the end of the hall, away from the portraits of Houston ancestors, or rather, descendants he’d never known, and into the solar—the room where his family had gathered every evening of Jamie’s rather short life. He stepped across the threshold and his eyes flew immediately to the far wall where his father’s elaborately carved chair had always stood. His heart leapt to see that it still existed after so many years. The worn bits were much more worn that before, the color all but gone from the thick bar where his own feet had rested when he was a boy playing at “Laird of the Manor.”
But
his father had needed no bar on which to rest his feet. He’d been as tall and lanky as Jamie turned out to be.
“That chair was built and carved in this very room,” the old man explained, noting Jamie’s interest.
“I ken it,” Jamie muttered, his pride preventing him from holding his tongue. He’d watched his father make the chair as well.
“It’s too big to get out the door or the windows, and none of the owners of the house had the heart to cut the thing in half.”
Praise God.
Jamie closed the distance and slid his backside onto the seat of it, pleased to see that it fit him the same as it had fit his father. His feet remained on the floor, or at least his toes did.
The old man sputtered. “Ye canna sit in it man. Have ye not read the signs posted all about the house? No touching the furnishings, aye?”
Jamie begged pardon but took his time getting to his feet. And silently, he promised his father’s chair that he would return later.
“Now,” the old man slipped back into his easy tour guide skin. “The manor is called Kinkeld House, but the area around it is called Kinkelding. Translated directly, it refers to the people of the area, not the area itself. And if ye’ll turn yer attention to the portrait above the mantle, ye’ll see the Kinkelding man who haunts the graveyard. I’ve see him meself, I’m not ashamed to admit. Late at night. A special tour group of Americans—” He turned from the painting and showed the whites of his eyes. “Weel, I’ll be jiggered!” His face paled as he glanced from the painting to Jamie and back again.
Jamie looked up hoping to see the face of his father, for who else would a son like to see again, after two hundred seventy years, but the man who made him a man himself?
His heart stuttered.
He had to allow that his father’s face bore a striking resemblance to the man in the portrait. But it wasn’t Archibald Houston in the painting…it was Jamie Archibald Houston!
Two things confused him, however.
Firstly, how had anyone remembered Jamie’s face so well they might paint such an accurate likeness after he’d left for war? And secondly, if he had been haunting Culloden all those years, how could he possibly be haunting the family graveyard?
