by L. L. Muir
He was far too anxious to wait for Soni to come to him. Before he could talk himself out of it, he headed for the car park. She popped out of her car and her black cloak dropped around her like a heavy curtain. A happy smile lit her face in the darkness.
“Good evening, Tristan.” She turned back and locked her car.
“I don’t understand why ye even bother locking it up. There is no one about.”
“Habits are not easily broken, aye?” Her brows pinched together gently. “I am sorry to have kept ye waiting. Maybe I shouldn’t have promised. Perhaps ye would rather wait?”
“Nay, lass. Truth be told, if I was forced to wait yet another day, I might go a wee mad.”
“Excellent. Then let’s get on with it.”
They strode off together, and as they progressed toward the moor, the ground began to glow green as the circle of Soni’s protection began to swirl around the witch’s knees. He moved away slightly to offer ample room for it, for there was no telling what watched and waited in the darkness beyond sacred ground, and he would not have her vulnerable just so he could stand closer.
If there was something on this earth as good and kind as Soncerae Muir, then it was reasonable to expect that there were also people or creatures who were the opposite, as evil as she was innocent. And if her wee green circle would protect her from it, he wished it would accompany her everywhere she went.
She reached over to rest a hand on his arm. “Perhaps it does, Tristan. But mortal eyes were never meant to see it, aye?”
If so, it was a relief to hear, even though it was a wee disconcerting to ken that the lass could readily read his thoughts. And he immediately wondered what else the wee witch already knew. That he was not truly interested in exacting revenge from Charles Stuart? But neither was he prepared to meet his maker? That, while he’d been haunting the moor all these years, he’d been haunted by something himself, but he knew not what?
Could a child of sixteen understand it if he explained?
Perhaps the answer would be waiting for him after he did his deed, faced Charlie, and left it all behind.
“Easy, now, Tristan.” Soni slowed her steps even though a congregation of half-visible Highlanders awaited. “Don’t tell me ye’d wish yer two days gone already, when there is so much needing done.”
“Never, never. Much to do, is there? Weel, point me to it. I’ll not let ye down, lass.”
“I don’t worry about ye, Tristan Bain. Ye’re a fine man with a true heart. But I would give ye a bit of advice before ye go.”
“And what advice would that be?”
She chewed her words for a moment. “Sometimes, I’ve noticed ye can be…distracted. But when ye get where ye’re going, I hope ye will pay close attention. Be kind and gentle, aye? Patient and…attentive.”
“Someone is in need?”
“Aye.”
“Kind, gentle, patient.” He laughed. “Is it a horse then? Or a…female?”
Soni choked on her own laugh and stopped walking. They’d arrived at the memorial cairn. “Not a horse. Definitely a female.”
He couldn’t suppress a smile. “Then I’ll heed yer advice.”
With a wave of her hand, the large white bonfire appeared behind her, fully engulfed in white flames as if it, too, was eager to get to work.
“Say yer farewells, Tristan. Ye’ll not pass this way again.” She gestured to the now-substantial crowd gathered around them. At the front, MacKenzie gave him a knowing nod. The rest looked on with avid interest. In their eyes glowed the anticipation of their own chances to stand before the fire and be mortal once more. With every departure, the fear waned and the idea of leaving Culloden stirred an audience that had gone nearly three hundred years without stirring.
MacKenzie lifted his chin. “Can ye feel it yet?”
Tristan looked to Soncerae. She shrugged, then nodded, and instantly, he felt a warmth moving beneath his skin—skin he never noticed was cold until that moment. He had been dead. Well and goodly dead, no matter how he’d suspected otherwise.
“Aye,” he said loudly. “I feel it.” He raised his hand to examine it, then quickly snatched up Soni’s smaller one and brought it to his warming lips, to press a kiss to it. “Patient. Gentle. Kind…” He frowned, trying to remember the fourth.
“And attentive.”
He nodded. “Attentive. Aye.”
She rolled her eyes. “I think I’d better come right out and say it.” She took a quick breath and exhaled in a huff. “Don’t waste yer two days staring at rocks, Tristan Bain. Got it?”
The surrounding Highlanders laughed. But he took it as a compliment that they’d noticed him much at all, let alone knew his habits.
“Aye. Attentive to everything but the rocks. Got it.”
Soni stepped closer and leaned forward over the ring of green in order to kiss his cheek. “Ye’ll do fine, my friend. And remember, two mortal days is not much time.”
“Aye. I’ll remember.” But the words were whispered to empty air. Soni, the fire, and the glow of green were gone, along with the faces of the dead. “I will remember all,” he said again, just in case they could still hear him.
Tristan cringed and used his arm to shield his eyes against a painfully white mist that suddenly surrounded him, taking him from deepest night into daylight, with no time for his vision to adjust. And while it did so, he shifted his weight to test the strangely bumpy sensation that pushed against the soles of his boots, and he marveled that he could feel anything at all.
Even his hearing was improved, or else he was standing not ten feet from waves crashing on some mysterious shore. Carefully, he opened his eyes and lowered his arm. On the ground, the mist’s reflection caught on a million water-polished surfaces…
Of a million wee rocks…
CHAPTER SIX
Milton’s Landing was an odd little B&B on the edge of Loch Ness. In fact, Audie thought it was a little too odd to be called odd.
When they turned off the main road toward the water, Audie couldn’t even see the building until they’d made a couple of hairpin curves, and if it wasn’t for their GPS insisting they were on the right road, she would have made her friend turn back and find somewhere else to stay. But Nat gave a quick “you gotta have faith” speech and slowed down just enough to keep Audie from freaking out, sure they were going off into the water at any second.
The little stone house looked a couple hundred years old and big enough for only two or three rooms, tops. But it was just the cherry on top of two other stories that you could only see from the back. The middle floor held a kitchen and dining room with large windows that looked out onto the lake. The lower floor had rooms for guests. Each had a sliding glass door that opened onto a grassy lawn. At the far edge of the lawn was a concrete and stone wall that seemingly kept the whole place from spilling onto the shore and sliding into the water.
The real oddities were the guestrooms themselves. The walls were covered with plaid—carpet. At first, Audie thought it was wool fabric. But it was like a magnet—you couldn’t see it and not feel compelled to touch it. And sure enough, it was carpet. Scottish tartan in little loops.
Of course it wasn’t odd to have plaid carpet. She’d been in enough club houses at golf courses to have seen it before. And she’d even seen some freaky houses with carpet that went a good foot up the walls. But this carpet went all the way up.
“Well isn’t that cozy,” Nat said, when she, too, felt the magnetic force pull her over to the wall to touch it. She wasn’t one to complain about a place that she’d picked out. And Audie wasn’t going to knock it either. They’d stayed in some interesting places in the last three weeks, and since they were all temporary, it didn’t matter how weird they were. In fact, it was the crazy that made them easy to remember.
Milton’s Landing was shaping up to be the most memorable.
The real shocker was not the carpet on the wall, or the pattern of it—they were in Scotland after all. It was the fact that t
here was no carpet on the floor. None. Not even a cozy rug to cover up the pink Formica with little chips of color spread through it.
“I think some very old woman is missing her very large table-top.” Audie bent to examine it closer. “Yep. Definitely a table-top. And we’re on top of it.” She looked around to see if there was anything stranger, but that was it. “Keep an ear out for the words “Fee, fie, foe, or fum.”
The beds were nice and soft, so all the weirdness was immediately forgotten.
They napped until seven, when dinner was served. It was a package deal, and the choices were fish, caught fresh that day from a little dock down the way, or…fish. Nat grimaced, knowing how much Audie hated fish and seafood, unless it was deep-fried and unrecognizable. Milton Hardie, the proprietor, must have noticed her friend’s expression because, even though Audie smiled and thanked his wife, he hid behind his evening paper and grumbled something about land lubbers.
Apparently, he was the fisherman who supplied the fish and perhaps wanted a little credit for putting food on the table.
Audie was extra grateful they’d stopped at a gas station earlier, so there was something in her purse she could use to fill in around the fish. Or so she thought. As it turned out, Mrs. Hardie took as much pride in her cooking as her husband took in his fishing and by the time they’d finished the fifth course—a blue ribbon-winning recipe for Banoffee Pie, the fish was well buried and forgotten in the bottom of her stomach.
Feeling a bit on the roly-poly side of comfortable, Audie threw on her favorite tan cardigan and followed Nat out onto their grassy terrace. They sank down onto two chaise lawn chairs, and when her friend produced the white sack, she dutifully held out her hand for a pair of binoculars.
She settled the strap behind her neck and rested the heavy contraption on her chest while she took in the view. “This was a brilliant idea, Nat. A few days of this, and I’ll actually feel like I had a vacation, not just a marathon.”
Nat folded a piece of gum into her mouth and tossed the package onto Audie’s lap. “I’ll let you relax as long as you hunt while you do it.” She lifted her binoculars to her eyes to demonstrate.
Audie stuffed gum into her mouth—a precaution against potential fish fumes—and did the same. It was nearly eight thirty. The sky was low and gray, as it had been all day, but until she lifted her binoculars high to take a good look, she’d almost forgotten that it was a blanket of clouds and not the new normal for sky color.
“I forgot that the sky is naturally blue,” she said. “Even when it’s raining, I forget there are clouds up there. It’s like some painter got the color wrong. I think, if I lived here all the time, I’d be claustrophobic. Like the blanket’s about to drop on my head.”
“Milton said it’s supposed to be clear tomorrow. A grrrrrand day for monster-spotting.”
“Maybe we should go in. Looks like fog.” Audie pointed to a cloud of mist moving in from the Loch and onto the shore about fifty yards to the north.
“Oh no you don’t. We’re going to watch until it gets too dark.” Nat swiped at a bare spot on her arm where all her scarves failed to cover her skin. “Or until the bugs come out. Whichever comes first.”
“Come on, bugs,” Audie whispered.
“I heard that.”
“Shhh! I’m hunting for Nessie.” Audie tipped her wide-brimmed hat back and fiddled with the glasses. The two sides moved together until they fit better. Then she monkeyed with the little eye-pieces to get them focused. A castle on the far bank looked about a half a mile away instead of the actual distance of two. While scouring for anything funny on the water’s surface, she lowered the glasses slowly, moving them from side to side so she could cover more ground.
Er, water.
“What are you doing?” Nat had that disgusted look on her face, though all Audie could see was one giant, unfocused nostril. It was more the tone of her voice that gave it away.
“I’m scanning, do you mind? It’s a secret math-teacher technique. First, you imagine a grid—”
“Loch Ness is not a grid. It moves. Just because you looked in one spot, doesn’t mean Nessie won’t pop up there in a few minutes. You just have to...watch.” Her friend was growing more and more testy as she tried to explain how one Monster Spots, even though she’d never done it before in her life. Something was wrong. Maybe it was bad fish.
Audie rested her glasses on her chest. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing is wrong. I just don’t want you—or I—to miss it. That’s all. Just open yourself up to the possibilities.”
Audie bit her tongue to keep from pointing out that her friend sounded a lot like a commercial for Scottish tourism. But, she didn’t want to make things worse. Natalie Harber didn’t get upset easily, and she sounded like she was on the verge of a full-blown melt down. Audie didn’t know if her friend was just tired from driving all afternoon, or if they’d just spent too much time together all at once. But it was time for some diffusing.
Audie started looking again, careful not to think of grids or mathematical equations. She tried to put herself in Nat’s shoes, to at least pretend to think like she did.
Open to the possibilities.
Okay, Nessie. Let’s say you’re out there. Let’s say you’re not a hoax. Let’s say you’re just too clever to let people find you.
Well, if that was true, she’d be too clever to let two American chicks at Milton’s Landing catch a glimpse of her.
Doesn’t matter. Open to the possibilities. Think like Nat.
All you have to do is come up for air, and I’ll be able to dream of my true love. So, come on. Give a girl a break, would you?
She followed the progress of a wave as it headed their way. After it got close, she looked farther to the left, just to the right of that bank of mist. Something was splashing—
Nope. Just someone skipping rocks. A little path of rings led away from the shore, faded, and were replaced by a fresh, bouncing trail. Whoever it was, they were completely blocked from view by the fog.
She looked beyond the rings. Another wave started in the water, rolled, but didn’t make any progress.
Wait a minute.
She lowered the binoculars and tried to find the same spot, just to the right of the mist. She squinted, but the movement she saw could have been the fluttering of her own eyelashes, so she looked through the glasses again.
There! She found the same line of waves, but they’d moved north, closer to the cloud. Sideways.
Sensing a trick, she held the glasses still, but turned aside to see if Nat was watching the same spot, or if her friend was watching her. But Nat’s binoculars were pointed off to the right, toward the little dock.
Audie looked again. All that was left of the line of waves—or whatever they were—was the tail end. The rest had moved out of sight. She found herself rooting for it to turn around and come back. But if it was a log or something, it would continue with the current.
Only, the current was moving toward the shore.
It was almost gone. Too late to say anything to Nat—
The very end of the shadow flipped up, out of the water, then disappeared. Like a tail!
“Nat!”
“What?” Her friend took one look at her face and her eyes widened. “Did you see something? Where?”
Audie shook her head and held her hands up. “It’s gone. I don’t know what it was, but—”
“Where?”
Audie pointed.
Nat raised her glasses. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Happened too fast. I thought it was just a wave, but…” She tried to see it again in her head, but her head said it was a wave.
“But what?”
“But it…”
She realized what she’d been about to confess and stopped herself. She wasn’t going to tell anyone anything. For all she knew, it had been a wave, and that last little flip could have been just that, a wave, folding over, crashing against itself. And if she showed eve
n the slightest sign that she was turning into a believer, she would never hear the end of it. Ever.
“But nothing,” she said. “I’m sure it was just a wave. It’s getting dark. The waves are dark. It was just wishful thinking, that’s all.”
Nat nodded, but her excitement had obviously deflated, along with her posture.
“We can do it again tomorrow. Supposed to be clear, right? So we can see better?”
Nat forced a cheerful smile. “You’re right. I just hoped we could, you know, dream about our true loves tonight. That’s all.”
“We’ve got plenty of time. And if it makes you feel any better, I really hope we see her tomorrow.”
“You’re just saying that.” Nat straddled the bottom end of her chaise and stood.
“I’m serious. My curiosity is officially engaged.”
“Well, we’ll see if you still feel that way tomorrow.” Nat pulled her fluttering layers around her shoulders, dropped her binoculars into the sack, and held out a hand for the other pair. “I’m still groggy from that nap. I’m going to bed.”
Audie held her glasses out of reach. “I’m going to stay out here for a little while. I’ll bring them when I come in.”
Nat nodded and yawned as she walked away. “I’ll leave the door unlocked.”
Due to her big city habits, Audie wouldn’t normally sit outside alone so late in the day, especially with such a pitiful light source—a single bulb hanging on the dock down the beach. But she had two things she had to find out.
Who was skipping rocks?
And had they seen what she had?
CHAPTER SEVEN
Tristan pried up a large flat stone the size of his own hand and sent it skipping into the water. It bounced twice, then thunked into something. He narrowed his eyes and picked out two dark humps skimming slowly north in the narrow space between the rippling water and the mist floating just above. The second hump wobbled to and fro, then the entire body silently submerged. The tip of a tapering tail flicked and was gone.
