Percy

by L. L. Muir

  Percy

  The Curse of Clan Ross: Bk #6 (Previous Edition: The Lad that Time Forgot

  L.L. Muir

  Green Toed Fairy

  To the Percy’s of the world…

  who suspect they are not

  where they were meant to be

  in this life,

  and who are brave enough

  to make a change.

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  An excerpt from BRAM

  GET MORE BOOKS written by L.L. Muir

  Notes from the author…

  About the Author

  License notes…

  Prologue

  Ross Manor, last Christmas…

  The smell of toasting almonds told Percy that Jules was making her favorite Dundee Cake again. He inhaled through his mouth and tasted the sweet tang of cherries and sultanas. His mother would have loved the stuff—his real mother, not Jules. But his mother was dead and buried…over five centuries ago.

  Seemed like four short years.

  A cheery red Santa stared at him from the mantle, laughing, jeering. He snatched it from its perch, stepped back, and hurled the stupid figurine into the fire. The sound of it exploding against the brick gave him bone-deep satisfaction. He was sick of the lies, sick of the silliness—sick of the fanciful tales of an old man who could miraculously make children happy.

  Lies told by adults to keep their bairns in check.

  If Quinn, his so-called father, hadn’t come into the room, Percy might have destroyed a lot more. But the second he felt the man’s heavy footfalls, his need for violence gave way to his pride. So he stood still, stared into the fire, and waited for his punishment.

  Quinn paused at the doorway, then wandered over to stand beside him. The man’s broad hand was heavy on Percy’s thirteen-year-old shoulder while he waited for an explanation Percy didn’t feel like giving.

  As was Quinn’s way, however, he insisted on nothing while they both stared into the fireplace. Percy knew the man would like nothing better than a heart-felt chat, but what he had to say would help neither of them.

  “I’ll fetch a broom, shall I?” Quinn gave Percy’s shoulder a gentle pat, then left the room.

  Percy went the other direction, slipped out the front door, and headed for Castle Ross just up the hill. It was his favorite place to hide from his substitute parents and their large extended family. The ancient keep was more like his own home than the pretty manor house anyway, and it was inside those stony bones he felt he belonged.

  Two inches of snow covered the ground that afternoon. The breeze already nibbled at his fingers with its sharp bite, a reminder that winter was upon the Highlands once more. Wearing denims and two shirts was no way to prepare for an extended exile, so he turned back.

  Around the end of the house was a delivery door that opened at the side of the kitchen. Just inside that door, to the right, was a staircase that led up to the second floor and Percy’s bedroom. He planned to don his warmest clothing and snow gear. Then he’d take his thickest blanket and a satchel of food along with him. If he were lucky, he could camp inside the castle, in his favorite cubby hole, for a day or two before the Rosses came to harass him.

  Luckily, the door made no noise when he opened it. He allowed it to close slowly, in case someone was in the kitchen, on the other side of the narrow wall. While he waited, he heard Quinn and his foster mother, Jules, talking about him.

  “We cannot fault the lad,” Quinn said. “And we’ve far too many Santa trinkets sitting about.”

  “I’m just glad Emmie wasn’t there.”

  “He would hardly have thrown Santa in the fire with Emmie in the room. He treats her as his own sister, protects her. Compared to what he was like before, we can only assume it was circumstance that made him that way. He’s a fine lad now, and his eyes are clear of the anger that once was in them. So, unless I see that again, I’ll have no reason to worry.”

  “I trust him too,” Jules said. “I just wish I could make him happier.”

  “A nearly fourteen-year-old laddie?” Quinn laughed. “Happy is the last thing he wants to be.”

  Percy didn’t remember climbing the stairs, packing, or going up to the castle and settling in. But he’d been greetin’ like a fool when Quinn and Jules found him in his hidey hole a few hours later. He refused to tell them what ailed him. And though they did not press him, they refused to leave without him.

  They were stubborn like that.

  His foster parents had been eager to please him for a long while afterward. And they’d had many long visits, trying to discover what would make him happiest. But those conversations had always circled around to the same spot—

  He wanted to go home, to Clan Gordon.

  They were incapable of making that happen.

  Stalemate.

  But in all the conversations, and no matter how he prepared himself, he was never able to ask the questions that needed asking.

  What was he before?

  And before…when?

  Each time he opened his mouth to ask, his chest would tighten so painfully he could not breathe. And if he couldn’t breathe, there would be no air to push the words up out of his gullet. So he would walk away, holding tight to the memories he did have, determined not to lose any of them.

  I am Percy Gordon, eighth son to The Chief of Clan Gordon…

  …in the Year of Our Lord, fourteen hundred ninety-five.

  “I was the Chief’s son,” he whispered. “I was. And with the Muirs’ help, I will be again.”

  Chapter One

  The following fall…

  Percy stood in the shadows between Isobelle’s tomb and the statue of Montgomery Ross and listened to his heart pounding. The tourists had come and gone for the day, the employees had left for the car park just minutes ago, but he’d snuck inside before they’d locked up.

  He’d gotten away with it, again.

  The rough rock walls of Castle Ross were a sanctuary that smelled much like his old home, the Gordon Keep, but without the scent of the North Sea. Of course, it was supposed to be the haunting place of Isobelle Ross, the Burnshire Witch. But it wasn’t. And even though he suspected Isobelle was alive and well and living in present day Edinburgh, he did prefer to check the tomb each time he came inside the keep, to make certain no other spirit was moving around in there.

  On fair days like today, with no rain falling on the high tin roof, the great hall was quiet as could be. And thankfully, so was the tomb. That eerie silence gave power to his imagination, however, and it was an easy thing to envision the scene from the past, described almost daily by tour guides, to and for Castle Ross’ paying visitors…

  In the late 1400’s, Montgomery Ross had threatened to chop off a wicked priest’s hands and bury them along with his sister, a woman accused of witchcraft and condemned to die. And thanks to Montgomery, laird of Clan Ross at the time, he chose to bury her alive instead of allowing her to burn at the stake.

  For more than five centuries, folks had argued over which would have been the kinder death…

  Isobelle was led into the nearly-finished tomb. She joked and teased while her brother finished the last section of the final wall. And the exchange, just before he set the last stone…

&n
bsp; “I love ye, sister mine.” His words were quiet, for Isobelle alone.

  “And I you, Monty. Blow us a kiss.”

  When he raised his crusted fingers to his lips, his palm filled with tears. He blew a kiss that was instantly returned.

  “I’m stayin’ right here, pet. Ye’re no’ alone.”

  “Get on, then.” The whimper in her voice was slight. “I’ll have a wee nap if ye’ll but douse the light.”

  With a final wink, she disappeared.

  It was only after the last stone was set, however, that the torture truly began. It took her two weeks to die—or so the story went.

  The tour guides claim her spirit came back when her brother tried to marry, that she frightened everyone away in the middle of the ceremony. They also claim it was the daughter of the Gordon chief who was supposed to be Montgomery’s bride. If so, she would have been Percy’s own sister, Betha, and that ceremony could only have happened long after Percy had been stolen away…

  Whenever the subject of the past was brought up, Quinn and Jules insisted they hadn’t taken him from his family. They claimed they’d saved him from certain danger and bringing him into the twenty-first century had been their only option. But the way the family got all shifty-eyed when they spoke about it made believing them impossible.

  Especially after what he’d overheard the Christmas before…

  How could he trust anyone of the Ross, MacKay, or Muir clans with so many secrets kept from him? Did they think he was such a child that he wouldn’t suspect that all the characters from the Legend of Clan Ross were the same characters that came over for supper on Sunday nights?

  Ivar and Morna MacKay—the star-crossed lovers whose devotion began the legend in the first place. Their home was just west of the burn, a mile to the west.

  And on the east side of the burn was the home of Montgomery Ross—the brother that sealed his sister, Isobelle, inside the tomb five hundred years ago. He and Ivar had been best friends, then mortal enemies, and were now the best of friends again.

  Montgomery’s wife, Jillian, was twin sister to Jules. Both Americans, yet they were nieces to the Muir witches, Loretta and Lorraine. And yet, in spite of being a Muir, Jules had somehow needed to save Percy from Clan Muir? It didn’t make sense.

  They expected him to believe that the folks piled around the supper table had all been named after those ancestors? That they couldn’t have traveled through time, through the tomb, just as easily as they had the day Jules had supposedly rescued him?

  They thought he couldn’t put two and two together and realize that Isobelle Dragotti, who was sister to Monty Ross, was Isobelle Ross, the Burnshire Witch?

  Strange that Isobelle and Morna were the only women in the family who seemed to possess no witchly abilities at all…

  It was a complicated, messy web of lies that made Percy’s head ache to think about it. In truth, he really didn’t care what they did or did not explain to him—except for two things. He wanted to know why they believed they had to ruin his life by taking him away from his home and clan, and why they couldn’t let him go back.

  And he wanted the truth.

  Had they stolen him as he suspected? Was he secretly being held for ransom? Were they keeping him just to punish Clan Gordon?

  If he could just find that tunnel they whisper about, he could discover the truth for himself!

  So, for the twentieth time in as many days, he’d brought his torch and extra batteries, determined to find that secret passage. If they couldn’t see their way to telling him the truth, then he couldn’t see a reason not to leave them all behind.

  A faint knocking echoed in the hall and he stood very still, waiting for it to repeat. When it did, he leaned closer to the tomb and listened.

  When the knocking sounded again, it came with a voice.

  “Percy!”

  He closed his eyes and sighed. He knew that voice. It belonged to the bane of his existence, Emmie Ross, all of three years old.

  “Percy! Let me in!” She rapped on the large hall door with her chubby little knuckles. There was barely enough bone behind them to make a noise at all. No wonder the sound had seemed to come from so far away—or from inside the thick walls of the tomb.

  He walked slowly, waiting for his heart to calm. But he wouldn’t be able to open the lock without the code, so he pressed his face against the seam between the hinges and shouted. “Go home, Emmie!”

  “No! Let me in!”

  “Nay! Go home. Ye shouldn’t be this far from the house alone. Ye’ll fall in the moat and the crocodiles will eat ye for supper.”

  “I’m not alone,” she said. “I’m with you.”

  He stood silent for a moment, hoping she’d realize how wrong she was. But she knocked again.

  “Don’t go, Percy.” Her voice was smaller then, and he wondered if he’d truly frightened her with the mention of crocodiles. “Dinna leave me, brother.”

  A lassie of three couldn’t possibly have guessed what he was up to. She simply wanted him to stay close to the door. It was growing darker by the minute. She was frightened, that was all.

  Still…

  It recalled to him Montgomery’s reassurance to a frightened sister. I’ll not leave ye, pet.

  “Emmie, ye stay right where ye are. I’m coming ‘round to get ye. Dinna move.”

  “I’ll be right here, pet.”

  Though chills rushed through his blood and up his spine, he took it for nothing. The lass had heard the tale often enough. Like a parrot, she was just repeating a phrase she’d heard before. Emmie wasn’t Isobelle and he wasn’t Montgomery Ross, burying her alive. And there would be nothing sad about it when he did find the tunnel and left for good.

  He didn’t remember anything before the age of four. He needed to believe that Emmie wouldn’t either.

  Chapter Two

  A few days later, when Percy still hadn’t found that mysterious tunnel, he jumped at the invitation to work for the Muir sisters in Edinburgh again. Since he was in the midst of a week-long school break, Quinn let him go.

  Percy always uncovered something interesting when the Muirs needed him to do odd jobs around their tea shop—like the time he realized that the lockers in the back room had names on them, and some of those names belonged to people who had disappeared.

  People from news reports who were never heard from again.

  He didn’t know what the Muirs did to them, or why they did it. To him, it only mattered that they were guilty of something—and he could find a way to blackmail them. The violence didn’t bother him—or at least it shouldn’t. After all, he’d witnessed death a’plenty before he ever passed ten years.

  When he lived at the Gordon Keep, he’d seen many a body run through with a blade for one reason or another. The justifications seemed only to matter to the one holding the hilt. The mournful ones left behind were never considered, never consulted.

  Even if one of those mourning was himself…

  When Quinn dropped him off at the sisters’ shop, The Enchanted Tea Cup, he gave Percy the usual warning. “I ken ye like to help where ye can, but be careful with those two. They are never so innocent as they seem. And if something doesnae sit right with ye, call me. Anytime. Anywhere. Ye ken?”

  Percy assured the man he’d watch out for himself, then went inside. As it happened, the sisters wanted him to accompany a driver, Ian, early the next morning, to pick up an American at the airport. They were to bring her back to the shop to sign some papers, then escort her on to Dalwhinnie. From there, Ian would take him on to Wickham Muir’s house, to watch his bairns the next day while he and his wife delivered the American into the Highlands for a secluded holiday.

  “Wickham’s wife already called about tending their bairns,” he told Loretta. “I’ve watched them afore. Don’t mind at all.”

  Lorraine was pleased he’d already agreed. “So we’ll take you to supper and you can spend the night on our long couch.”

  He hid his disappoin
tment behind a smile. There would be no rummaging around the tea shop, then, but he was careful to keep his mind blank on the matter. If they could read his thoughts, as he knew they could, he didn’t want them knowing what he suspected until he had more proof.

  He wouldn’t get a chance to look at those lockers after all, to see if any new names had been added since he’d last seen them. But at least he would have a good meal to compensate for it.

  The next morning, the sisters pushed a sausage roll into his hand and shoved him out the door. They handed Ian the keys to their own car, paid him and Percy handsomely for a day’s wages, then sent them on their way. The American would be more at ease if there were two of them, they reasoned. And there would be no need to pay for parking if Percy went in to fetch her while Ian waited in the car.

  The sausage roll tried to come back up when he realized he was acting as an accomplice to whatever the sisters had in mind for the American, Sophie Pennel. He only hoped, after meeting her, that he wouldn’t see her name on the news in the following weeks—or on a locker whose contents went unclaimed.

  Then again…

  If she did disappear, he would have firsthand knowledge of what had happened to her that day. The police could figure out the rest from there—if Loretta and Lorraine didn’t give him what he wanted.

  No—not what he wanted. Going home again wasn’t a wish—it was a need.

  Trees flashed past his window as they drove the A9 along the southern edge of the Cairngorms, but he noticed little as he contemplated his soul and his standing with God if he completed the mission the Muirs had set out for him.