The Highwayman's Legacy: Book 1 of Ghostly Travels

by Natasja Rose

  She nearly fell over when two ghostly heads poked themselves out of the wall, eyes alight with mischief that Tina recognized far too well from her own pre-teen cousins, except these two were dressed in fancy clothing from the late 15th century and wore unconsciously self-assured expression.

  Tina pinned both of them with the stern 'don't-even-think-it' look that never failed to work on her cousins, and both boys stopped short. The younger boy, who looked nine or ten, blurted out, "We were just exploring, I promise! It's a ruin, just like in all of the best stories, and we justhadto see it. We got lost, and -"

  He stopped when his older brother shot him a look, taking over with an overdone air of one who is trying to look superior and failing miserably. "I am Edward, Prince of Wales, and this is my brother, Richard. You should be bowing."

  Tina gave him a deeply unimpressed look. "If you were alive I might, but I'd look stupid bowing to what most would see as thin air, and Lizzy's been fussy enough for one day. Besides, weren't you supposed to have been killed in the Tower of London?"

  Both Princes immediately scowled. "Lies and slander! Uncle Richard was the one to warn us that we shouldn't run away from the bodyguards to go exploring!"

  The older prince took on a slightly rueful expression. "We probably should have listened to him, especially since a succession crisis usually has most people backing the adult who has proven himself and can marry and sire heirs, rather than an untested boy still years away from his majority."

  Tina raised an eyebrow, curious as to the real story. "So why would History accuse Richard of your murder?"

  Despite a minimal knowledge of astrology and the firm disbelief in extra-terrestrial life common in his time, Richard's expression strongly suggested that Tina had dropped in from Planet Imbecile. "History written by Henry Tudor's best friend Thomas More, supported by a play by Elizabeth Tudor's favourite, William Shakespeare. Neither of those monarchs wanted to hear anything nice about Uncle, so they went out of their way to vilify him as much as possible, even if it meant making up outright lies."

  Edward shrugged philosophically. "History is written by the victors, after all, and few people are willing to risk their lives to defend the loser of a power struggle, even only through speech."

  There wasn't really any good reply to that, but Tina found herself saved by the warning honk of a bus horn that wanted to leave now, knew that it wouldn't be going anywhere for at least five minutes, and wasn't willing to wait a minute after that, no matter how long the toilet line was.

  Further salvation came in the form of Lizzy, pulling up the hood of her jacket againssteadily darkening clouds that had gone from threatening rain to promising a storm. "Come on! The driverreally isn't waiting around this time, and I really want to stop at the halfway Inn."

  Tina had already banged her head accidentally on the nearest hard surface once that day, so she stopped herself from doing it deliberately when Lizzy continued, her eyes bright with anticipation even as they ran to the bus. "We were meant to be stopping there anyway, because of a local legend that says you can sometimes see the ghost of a Highwayman riding to meet his love."

  Sometimes, Tina wondered if she should tell Lizzy about being psychic, if only so that Lizzy would stop telling her these things that she didn't want to know until she had to be unpleasantly surprised by them. She settled for rolling her eyes instead. "You're a ridiculous romantic, you know that?"

  Lizzy stuck out her tongue, not even slightly bothered by the affectionate exasperation in Tina's voice. "And you're a hopeless pessimist, so it evens out."

  About half of the tour group were back when Tina and Lizzy made it to the parking lot, and more had slowly trickled in as they waited in line to get on. The sound of running feet made them look up to see the Gap-Year students approaching at a sprint, probably having seen the sky and drawn the appropriate conclusions. Moving aside to avoid being trampled, the two young women exchanged grins and boarded the bus, quietly bickering over who had the window seat.

  Unfortunately, the weather did not hold, and to make matters worse, the bus broke down a mile before they reached the tourist village, which meant that they could sit and wait for hours before Roadside Assistance answered their call and got out to them, or walk to the village for an early dinner at the Inn house.

  Tina had been wary of Inn houses and 'Old Town' restaurants ever since two days ago at 'The Rogue's Destiny', where she hadn't understood Lizzy's remark about an interesting play on words until they walked into the outdoor dining area… that had been the execution yard of the town gaol until it burned down and was re-built by a family of Norwegian immigrants.

  Apparently, the word 'Destiny' had been used interchangeably with the word 'Doom' in the Scandinavian countries, so anyone who had been up-to-date with the building's history could interpret the name as 'The Criminal's Fate'.

  Lizzy, to her friends' and family's sometimes-despair, was one of those people who could spout a hundred useless facts and see a double-meaning in everything, but drew a blank when you asked who won the last football World Cup.

  Tina hadn't caught on to Lizzy's meaning until she looked into the garden and knocked over her milkshake when she saw a flash of a man hanging from a gallows, jerking and twitching from a hangman not experienced enough to have caused the quick end of a broken neck.

  Luckily, Lizzy had been too busy scrambling to move her shopping bag of newly-purchased silk out of range of the spill to notice Tina’s expression.

  With the number of inns that had been the location of clandestine, revolutionary meetings or fatal bar-brawls and arguments that turned deadly, dining had become a bit of a picky choice.

  Even more unfortunately, the skies opened just as they reached a large Inn, the 'Journeyman's Rest', and while Tina could feel a deep sense of sorrow penetrating the very walls, it wasn't bad enough that she was willing to run through bucketing rain to see if the small town had another Inn, which it probably didn't.

  The sense of sorrow and loss was strongest in the common room, especially near the fire, where Tina caught a glimpse of a man, aged far beyond his years by grief, who had fallen asleep in his chair one night and never woken up. Tina brushed the tears out of her eyes along with the rainwater, thankful that Lizzy was in front of her and unable to see.

  In the first stroke of good fortune, the small tour group was welcomed inside by the walking definition of a kindly old couple, who had beds to spare and wouldn't dream of sending them back outside in this weather. No, no, of course they would stay the night, and we'll see what the weather is like in the morning, there's a lamb.

  It looked like they wouldn't be going anywhere for a while.

  Chapter Two

  Tina yelped quietly and snatched her hand back.

  For once, it wasn't due to a psychic memory, but due to Lizzy's reflexes when Tina had tried to switch a brussel sprout for a baked potato off Lizzy's plate.

  Lizzy didn't even look up from her conversation with a few of the local boys as she filched one of Tina's caramelised carrots and used it to flick both sprout and potato back onto Tina's plate. Both girls loathed sprouts, and they were the only exception to the sharing food routine that had existed since the third time they ate out after a movie when they were still in High School, and where Lizzy had developed a sixth sense to beat Tina's psychically assisted one.

  The Common Room/Dining Hall of the Inn looked as though it hadn't been changed since the place was built, much like the rest of the village, with wooden floor and furniture and stone walls. There was even a stable on the other side of the yard, though no one had said if any actual horses were in there.

  Tina might have been a bit worried about if there was any modern conveniences, but a local patron had made a joke that even if the ghosts had wanted the Inn unchanged, at least they agreed that mattresses and indoor plumbing had improved since the 18th Century.

  Cutting off a piece of the potato and gently blowing on it, Tina watched with amusement at two of the youths
talking over each other as they tried to explain some of the local history and how it tied into the ghost legend, occasionally pausing to argue over a point.

  That was the funny thing. Apart from pretty brown eyes and long black hair that most people would kill for, Lizzy was more frequently described as ‘plain-featured’, especially when contrasted with blonde, busty and conventionally attractive Tina.

  Yet, against all expectation, while Tina's looks were usually what brought the opposite gender over in the first place, Lizzy was almost always the one who had the visitors - at least those who stuck around after realising that a quick pick-up was not in the cards - hanging off her for half the night.

  Tina had never been able to decide if it was the fact that her own good looks tended to hide a pessimistic, often-sarcastic and sometimes bitchy personality, or if it was because Demi-sexual Lizzy actually was only interested in talking over a few drinks, and men sometimes got tired of being hit on, as well. Either way, at least Lizzy could enjoy a conversation more-or-less certain that the guy she was talking to wasn't trying to picture her naked, and probably actually paid attention to what she was saying.

  But if the boys Lizzy was talking to were discovering that it was possible to be just friends, the third member of the group, who was apparently the Innkeepers' grandson, was just sitting there quietly, looking almost entranced as he watched. Finally, Tina leaned over slightly. "You can stop staring at any time, you know."

  The young man started, and Tina caught what might have been the barest hint of a psychic flicker as he fumbled for an answer.

  After almost a week of being surrounded by ghosts nearly every waking moment – and more than a few sleeping moments – Tina was thoroughly fed up with all and everything supernatural. 'Turning off' her psychic sense gave her a mild headache within minutes, which grew worse the longer she maintained it, but it couldn't possibly be worse than the stress-induced near-migraine she had been suffering. Making up her mind, she forced her psychic sense away as the young man apologised to her friend. "Sorry, Bess. I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable."

  He had directed the words to Lizzy, rather than Tina, who looked up at him as the two she was speaking to argued if the Highwayman was a James Hind or a Dick Turpin, and agreed that it depended on who you asked. "Don't worry about it. I'm used to getting strange looks."

  Usually because of Tina, but that was beside the point. Tina nudged her playfully, "And even stranger ones if you don't start explaining what the heck you're talking about. Who is James Hind?"

  Lizzy looked a bit startled, as if she actually hadn't considered that not everyone knew all the random drabbles of history that she did, which was probably the case. "Kind of a Civil-War-era Robin Hood. He was a highwayman who robbed the Roundheads to give to displaced Loyalists. Dick Turpin was a Highwayman of the Georgian Era. Highly romanticised in popular literature, but not nearly so nice in fact."

  One of the boys Lizzy had been talking with leaned in, nearly cracking heads with one of the Gap-Year boys, who was suddenly paying a lot more attention. He was the one who only noticed people if they could spout off random interesting facts, and spent most of his time admiring the scenery or talking to his four friends. "You're into History, then? That's a rare treat."

  Tina usually didn't mind Lizzy getting all the attention, since it stopped people from noticing much or staring at her when a psychic episode cropped up, but this was starting to get a little depressing.

  Well, there were anti-jetlag pills in her handbag, and she would prefer a long-overdue good night's sleep over sitting around listening to ghost stories.

  Nudging Lizzy, she gestured to the stairs, receiving a nod in return. Most of their luggage was still with the broken-down bus, but things always accumulated in handbags, such as the comb, tooth-brush and toothpaste for occasions when Tina slept through her alarm clock and had to duck into a bathroom at work to fix her hair and teeth after eating breakfast on the way to work.

  After checking three rooms and discovering that they were all as old-fashioned as the rest of the building, Tina picked a room at random, turning her psychic sense back on just enough to make sure that it wasn't haunted. Lack of nightwear was annoying, but the blankets were thick enough that getting chilled overnight shouldn't be a concern.

  She stayed awake just long enough to fold her clothes on a chair and brush her teeth (thankfully the ewer was already full) before falling into a sleep mercifully devoid of dreams.

  But if Tina didn't dream that night, Lizzy did.

  Lizzy – no, she was Elizabeth Dawson, Bess to those who loved her, and Lizzy was a name left behind with her childhood.

  Bess stood at the fishmonger's stall as his apprentice wrapped up her purchase, paying less attention to the fish and more to the boys lined up in the village square. The merchant's wife would have scolded her, but since half the girls in town were doing the same thing, the fishwife had given it up as a lost cause.

  King George's men had come recruiting, full of tales of glory and adventure and how girls could never resist a man in uniform and the local boys had signed up in droves. Bess hoped that the bit about the uniform held true while they were on campaign, because the village girls had known most of them since birth, and no uniform would change the fact that the Surgeon's son was a scrawny brat, and Young Harry was only given the time of day because he was the mayor's oldest boy.

  Now the new recruits were doing drills, and Bess inwardly cringed at the clear proof that only one or two of them had the first clue of what they were supposed to be doing.

  A few of the Merchants' sons, having accompanied their fathers on journeys to and from the larger towns, knew at least a few moves, picked up from the men hired to guard the wagons from any thieves or brigands. The Sherriff's boy had some idea, having been taught the basics by his father.

  But the best of them was John, the Blacksmith's bastard, currently showing the Miller's son that the pointy end of a bayonet was supposed to face away from the person holding it, and it was to him Bess looked.

  The Blacksmith's wife didn't like seeing the proof of her husband's betrayal – not that any could blame her – so the Innkeeper, Bess's father, had taken him in as a helper in exchange for food, board and a small wage. Soldiers passed through the Journeyman's Rest all the time, and many either had sired their own bastards, or sometimes were the family embarrassment, and therefore had a little sympathy for a fellow mis-begot.

  Over the years, some had been sympathetic enough to take him behind the stable and teach him the use of a soldier's tools, so he could make his fortune if none in the town took pity on him.

  The Innkeeper, James Dawson, had taken pity, but he was in fine health, and with Tim already there as a stable boy, John had little hope for any advancement. Certainly no chance of advancing far enough to earn the money to begin his own livelihood, much less support a wife and family, so to the army John would go, until he had made his fortune and could return to marry her.

  John felt her eyes on him, giving Bess a wink and a roguish smile, and…

  The sun in her eyes woke Lizzy from a strange dream.

  It wasn't the weirdest dream she had ever had – that dubious honour belonged to the dream where she was being chased by boots with fangs – but it certainly numbered in the top ten.

  Glancing out of the window, she decided that it was late enough that she wouldn't be disturbing anyone else, and climbed out of bed. It was a nuisance to put yesterday's clothes back on, but at least they were dry now, and it would have to do until the found out what was happening with the tour bus.

  Tina was already awake, feeling well-rested for the first time since they started the tour, and slowly getting ready to face the world with the help of a very large mug of coffee.

  She briefly looked up when Lizzy sat down, nodding at her friend and glancing at the large clock over the fireplace. There was just no living with some people in the morning, and Tina was perfectly well aware that she was of the sub-set of
people who shouldn't be engaged in meaningful conversation until an hour and two coffees after waking up. Luckily, she was an early riser.

  That meant that Lizzy had another ten minutes and about two-thirds-of-a-mug of grouchy silence before even asking how Tina had slept, by which time several more of the tour group would likely have shown up. The driver had already come down, though he looked more than a bit haggard, but had proven to be a morning person before, which meant that Lizzy could talk to him instead. "Any news on the bus?"

  The driver, a bright-eyed man in his fifties, slumped in his seat. "Yes, but it isn't good. The part that broke needs to be completely replaced, and nowhere in the village has a replacement, so I'll need to have it delivered special-like, and find someone who knows how to fix an engine. We're here until at least the day after tomorrow."

  Tina tried not to over-react, and only managed because Lizzy had anticipated such a response and given her a small kick under the table. Tina still had half a mug of coffee before she could hold a polite conversation, and settled for a snarky comment, instead. "Well, that messes up our itinerary."

  It was unfair of her, since the break-down and bogging was hardly the driver's fault, but the early morning and the effort of keeping her psychic radar turned off was making her short-tempered. Lizzy was used to dealing with it, even if others weren't, and tended to automatically mitigate, though it sometimes came off as condescending. "Be nice. We had two days scheduled for random stuff before we left, anyway, and the airline doesn't charge much to switch flights as long as you give them longer than 24 hours advance warning. We can send an email to them easily enough."

  Tina subsided under the mildly-reproachful glance, and the driver sighed in relief, grateful that at least two of his passengers weren't going to kick up a stir. "We will be happy to cover the cost of staying here, and subsidise any extra fees as an apology, of course."