The Bagpiper's Ghost

by Jane Yolen

  Jennifer had never heard Gran so angry.

  The dog shut up, closing his mouth so quickly his teeth made a loud snapping sound.

  “Now what?” Jennifer asked.

  “Noo we wait till evening,” Gran said.

  “More waiting? But Gran, if time is important, why don’t we do something? Now?” Jennifer was appalled at how whiny she sounded, but she couldn’t stop herself.

  Gran put her arms around Jennifer and said quietly, “Because we need the dark, lass. Andrew MacFadden came in the dark, and he’ll gae oot the same way. It’s the summer solstice this eve, and ye two are twins, as the MacFaddens were. Twins hold great power every day, but more so on the solstice. Something has begun that’s stronger than my magic, I fear. So we wait, lass. We wait. But only till the dark.”

  “Ye doited carlin,” the dog dared in a gravelly voice, “it hardly gets dark at all this time o’ the year.” Then he stood trembling, clearly expecting some awful fate to fall upon him because he had spoken out again.

  This time Gran ignored him. After all, he was right.

  The same white-haired doctor arrived within fifteen minutes, carrying his little black bag. He gave Peter a shot that put him out cold immediately. One sigh and he was gone. Then the doctor gathered the rest of the family downstairs.

  The dog came, too.

  “It’s probably just a hormonal change,” the doctor said, nodding at Pop. “Peter’s going from a boy to a man. Sometimes it happens this way. The body is set for a gradual change, not for things to happen all at once. And poof!” The doctor’s hands described an explosion.

  The dog put his paws up over his ears, mumbling, “Poof is nae a medical term.”

  Silently, Jennifer agreed. She wondered about the doctor’s competence. Besides, Gran had said this wasn’t a problem that a doctor could solve.

  The doctor continued, leaning toward Mom as he spoke. “I’ll come by and check up on young Peter tomorrow. But if he’s still much the same, I’m afraid I’ll have to recommend hospitalization. I don’t like to do that with tourists. I’d rather send you all home, where your family doctor can see to him. But if he’s incapable of traveling …”

  Mom and Pop nodded, their heads going up and down as if on strings.

  Jennifer felt cold inside, then hot. The cold was her guilt, sitting like an iceberg in her stomach. Like the iceberg that sank the Titanic. The hot was her temper. It was a volcano. She was furious with the doctor’s smug account. Hot and cold. The room suddenly seemed to be spinning.

  Maybe I’m going crazy, too, she thought. But she knew she was as sane as could be. It was the rest of the world that had suddenly become the madhouse.

  She thought carefully: We have to get Peter back tonight.

  Tonight.

  Because if the doctor takes Peter away from here—from Fairburn and Fife—he’ll never get better. He really will be Andrew MacFadden, that awful, lying man.

  Forever.

  Twelve

  Runaway

  Dinner was a sad affair. The roast was burnt, the potatoes undercooked, the green beans overcooked into a gray mash, and there was no pudding.

  It didn’t matter, of course.

  Jennifer pushed the potatoes around her plate with her fork and couldn’t eat a thing.

  Mom and Pop sat with glazed looks on their faces, and Da’s normally sunny smile was turned down into one of the dourest frowns imaginable. Gran was clearly thinking about something other than the meal in front of her.

  Only Molly had any appetite.

  And the dog.

  The dog waited patiently under the table for scraps. Jennifer knew he’d have a lot to eat soon.

  Afterwards dragged by as well. Jennifer tried a couple of games with Molly, because none of the grown-ups wanted to talk at all. They played Stone, Scissors, Paper, with the cat sticking her paw out as if playing with them every third round. They attempted several verses of the hand-clapping “Miss Mary Mack.” They even tried some card games. But Jennifer couldn’t get up much enthusiasm for any of it, and Molly, sensing something wrong, asked if she could just watch TV, instead. Jennifer was grateful to stop playing.

  In fact, they were all in a state of tremulous listening, as if expecting any minute to hear Peter start ranting and raving and speaking in a foreign tongue again.

  Only Molly—happily watching a game show she didn’t really understand—seemed blissfully unaware of the danger.

  Those hours between dinner and bedtime seemed endless.

  Endless and full of endless light.

  At last Molly, who had fallen asleep on the sofa, was carried up to her room by Pop around nine o’clock. There Mom undressed her and tucked her into bed.

  Jennifer followed, took off her own shoes, and lay down fully dressed on top of the covers. She got out the piece of paper from her pocket and attempted to make sense of her notes, in case there was something important there: glaistig, green ladies, banshee, sluagh. None of them seemed to be part of the spell. Besides, she doubted she’d got any of the spellings right and wondered if spelling mattered.

  “Of course, spelling counts,” she told herself in a loud whisper, “in magic!” She smiled a little and thought how Peter would have loved the joke. “Spelling counts,” she said again. Somehow it no longer seemed so funny.

  “Mmmmmm,” Molly called out, mostly asleep. “Jennnnnn?”

  Jennifer looked over at her little sister. The last thing she needed was to wake Molly and have to explain a lame joke. “Everything’s fine, Molls,” she whispered. “Just fine.”

  Though, of course, nothing was fine.

  Peter was possessed by some eighteenth-century liar and twin abuser, and it was all her fault.

  Her fault.

  And the dog’s.

  Molly turned over and went right back to sleep, making her little pop-pop-pop snore.

  Shoving the paper back in her pocket, Jennifer tried to fall asleep herself. Really she did.

  But no such luck.

  She tossed and turned and ended up with the sheets wrapped around her neck in a stranglehold. Having to untangle herself woke her up completely. She knew she would never fall asleep now.

  So she got off the bed and tiptoed into Peter’s room.

  Still knocked out by whatever the doctor had injected into him, Peter was snoring lightly. He looked no different from her old familiar brother. No sign of the awful Andrew MacFadden anywhere. But Andrew MacFadden was still there. Jennifer knew that for certain.

  Dead certain.

  Or certainly dead, she thought.

  Peter turned over heavily but did not waken.

  “Oh, Peter,” Jennifer whispered, “don’t leave me. Don’t leave me and become some dried-up old Fifer who lies to his sister and keeps her from her own true love.”

  Peter opened his mouth, then closed it again without a sound.

  “You’re my best friend, Peter,” Jennifer said. “You’re my twin. We were together before we were with anyone else. We belong together now. Come back. Come back.”

  She tried not to sound sappy. Peter hated sappy. But there were tears in her eyes.

  Something like a shadow of an answer passed across Peter’s face. But still he slept.

  Kisses always work in fairy tales, Jennifer thought. She bent over and kissed him on the forehead.

  He didn’t stir.

  “Oh, Peter,” Jennifer cried again. She couldn’t stand feeling so helpless, so she went back to her own room. This time when she lay down on top of the covers, she fell instantly to sleep and slept without dreams.

  At eleven-thirty something woke her. Some strange sound. A scraping, a grunting, a cascade of foreign language.

  She got up slowly, still half asleep, and walked out into the hallway. Looking out over the half balcony that Gran called a minstrel’s gallery, she saw that the front door of the house stood wide-open.

  “Peter?” she whispered.

  No one answered, so she went to check up
on him. In the half-light, she saw the bed was empty.

  Quickly she checked in the bathroom down the hall.

  He wasn’t there, either.

  She ran down the stairs. A washcloth lay by the open front door.

  “Peter …” she called, loud enough to be heard outside, but not so loud as to wake the house.

  Still no answer.

  She ran outside, paying little attention to the way the pebbles hurt her bare feet.

  The road was empty.

  Why didn’t the dog bark? She thought. Where’s Gran? Why didn’t she wake me? What should I do now?

  She took a few tentative steps on the road and realized that going barefoot would slow her down. So she went back into the house and found her shoes. Then, just to be sure, she checked Peter’s room again.

  A strange, muffled sound came from the closet.

  Opening the door, she found the dog tied up, a gag made out of a sock tight around his jaws.

  Quickly she untied him.

  “Oh my ears and tail, he swicked me,” the dog moaned. “Swicked me and tricked me. Aye, he’s a canny one.”

  “Peter?” Jennifer asked.

  “Nae—that spoacher, that minister, Andrew MacFadden” the dog said, shaking himself all over. “The one who stole Peter’s body fer his ain.”

  The noise brought Gran into the room.

  “Hsst,” she said, “is Peter gone?”

  Jennifer nodded.

  “And got oot the door how?” Gran looked puzzled. “I thought the cold iron latches would stop him.”

  “So that’s why the washcloth was by the front door” Jennifer mused. “He must have used it to shield his hand.”

  “I said he was canny,” the dog put in.

  “Then we must follow,” Gran said. “Nae one minute must be lost.”

  “Now you’re rushing?” Jennifer asked.

  “Noo it’s dark,” Gran said solemnly. “And dark is the time to deal wi’ ghosts. I was just aboot to wake ye, lass.” She was already dressed, her pocketbook clutched in her right hand. When she saw Jennifer staring at it, she smiled dourly. “Fer my magicks, Jen. My unguents fer emergencies. And my hankie.”

  “Fer nose drips,” the dog commented.

  “Are you kidding?” Jennifer began, then shut up at the look Gran gave her. She remembered what was in that hankie now—the ashes of the wizard Michael Scot. “Well, what about Mom and Pop and Da?”

  “Asleep,” Gran said, her right finger making a circle in the air.

  “And Molly?”

  Gran made a grimace. “Likewise.”

  “And if they wake?”

  “They willna,” the dog answered for her. “The auld carlin’s bespelled them.”

  Gran looked grimly satisfied. “We need nae screamin’ and carryin’ on when there’s real magic work to be done. And there’s nae an ounce of magic in any o’ them. Except perhaps the wee lass. But she’ll be nae gud wi’oot her sleep. Come.” She cocked her head, listening for a minute, then put her fingers to her mouth and let out a shrill whistle.

  Thunder met them at the open front door.

  Gran hoisted Jennifer onto the horse’s back, then, with a strange little leap, mounted behind her.

  “Oof,” Gran said. “Getting too auld fer sech.”

  “Could have fooled me,” Jennifer whispered.

  The horse turned and set off down the cobbles, the dog trotting by his side. Even without metal shoes, Thunder seemed to make an awful racket clattering along, but Jennifer knew that since no one in the house would wake, it didn’t matter.

  At the corner, the white cat waved them off with its long tail.

  They were in a full gallop on Double Dykes Road before Jennifer realized they were riding with neither saddle nor reins. Trembling, she leaned over Thunder’s neck and grabbed hold of his mane.

  “Not so tight, girl. I will not let you fall,” the horse called to her.

  But still she held on.

  As they turned onto the main road, they were suddenly passed by a single car.

  “Ride ’em, Granny!” someone shouted out the car window, then the car careered out of sight.

  After that, the street was empty.

  Thirteen

  Stones

  The horse’s feet cloppetting on the pavement and the steady rocking movement of the gallop had a lulling effect, and Jennifer almost fell asleep again.

  But suddenly the dog bayed. “See him, see … see!”

  Jennifer startled and at that moment felt more awake than she’d ever been in the past two days. Leaning forward, she sighted down the road over the horse’s head in the gloaming, the semidark, and saw Peter just turning onto the path that led to the graveyard gate.

  “Gran!” she cried, turning her head to tell the old woman behind her.

  But Gran had already seen.

  “Gae to it, horse,” Gran urged.

  As if he had wings on his feet, Thunder flew down the street with a gait as soft and as fast as a Thoroughbred’s.

  Peter would have gotten into the graveyard before them, but he was stopped at the iron gate by the great ghostly figure of Iain McGregor. The piper had pulled out a wicked-looking sword and wouldn’t let Peter past.

  “Oot o’ my way, McGregor,” Andrew shouted, waving his hand dismissively at the big man.

  “Ye’ll gae no further in, Andrew MacFadden,” the piper boomed. “Nae on this nicht or any other, till ye mak amends for the wrong ye did to me and my Mary.” The sword inched toward Andrew’s chest.

  “Can a ghost sword harm a real person?” Jennifer asked, looking over her shoulder at Gran.

  Gran’s voice whispered in her ear, and it seemed laced with fear. “I dinna ken fer certain, Jennie lass. A sword meant to harm a ghost might harm a mortal boy if he houses that spirit.” She shook her head. “I canna say.”

  If Gran doesn’t know, Jennifer thought, then no one knows. In a panic, she tried to shout Peter’s name, to call him back to himself, but the sound that came out was thin and without power.

  The horse came to an abrupt stop right by the wall, and Jennifer tumbled forward onto his neck. She clutched him tight, her hands still twisted in his mane.

  Gran slid off Thunder’s back with an ease born of old habit. “Come, lass, we’ve work to do.”

  Sliding off after her, Jennifer cried out to the piper, “Don’t hurt him. Don’t hurt the boy. He’s not who you think he is. He’s not really Andrew MacFadden.” She felt the familiar comfort of Gran’s hand on her shoulder and continued. “He’s my brother. My twin brother.”

  The piper’s sword stopped just short of Peter’s throat, holding there. His grip was firm.

  Just then, gasping for breath, the dog limped the final block toward them. Somehow he’d gotten a pebble lodged in one paw as he was running, which had slowed him down. Moaning and gabbling to himself, he managed to reach the gate, where he sat down on his haunches and worried the pebble with his teeth.

  “Stanes,” he mumbled. “I hate them. A stane in the paw is the worst.”

  The word pierced Jennifer like an arrow.

  “‘Stane,’” she whispered. “It means something. Gran?”

  Gran looked at her and saw that Jennifer was wrestling with some memory. She reached into her pocketbook and hauled out the hankie in which the wizard’s ashes were tied. She held it to Jennifer’s ear as if it were a seashell that could sing a song of the sea.

  “Remember,” Gran said.

  “Stane,” Jennifer repeated. Then her eyes got bright. “That’s it, Gran. Something Peter said about a stane. Before the doctor got to the house. When Peter was gabbing and babbling. Only I can’t quite get it …”

  It was Gran who remembered. “‘In the stane a token of luv. Three from the bottom and four above.’”

  “What’s a stane?” Jennifer asked.

  “A stone,” the dog said, looking up at them.

  “Then maybe,” Jennifer said thoughtfully, “maybe Iain’s messa
ge was about something left for Mary in a stone somewhere.” She took the hankie from Gran and turned to the piper. “What token did you leave, Iain McGregor? What stane did you leave it in?” She held the hankie toward him.

  The big man shook his head, as if clearing it. “There’s so much time twixt me and my hame.” His face twisted in agony. “I … I canna recall.” He pushed the sword closer to Peter’s throat, and the tip drew a red line down the skin. “Can ye tell us, ye auld liar?”

  Trembling, Peter shook his head. “Never!”

  The piper’s face got grim, but Jennifer cried, “Don’t kill him. He’s the only one who knows which stane the token is in.” She shook the hankie at them.

  “I’ll die first,” Peter said in Andrew MacFadden’s voice.

  “Ye coof, yer already dead,” the dog said.

  “I’ll find the stane,” Jennifer promised. “Let me try.” She handed the hankie back to Gran and, without another word, squeezed past the piper with his sword, past her possessed brother and her grandmother and the dog. “Stay here and make sure he doesn’t hurt Peter. I’ll find that token. I promise.” She pushed open the ironwork gate just a sliver and slipped through.

  “I ken ye will, lass,” Gran cried. “This feels richt in my bones.”

  “Ye have till midnight,” warned the piper. “That’s all I’ll offer ye.”

  “But that’s only minutes away,” Jennifer said.

  “Midnight,” Gran repeated. “On solstice eve. O’ course. O’ course. A time o’ power and the exact time ye first encountered these fey folk.”

  “Don’t worry, Gran. I know I can find it.” Jennifer turned to look at the graveyard behind her, and her heart sank.

  There were stones everywhere. Gravestones and headstones, a stone wall, and stones in the church ruins as well. How would she ever find the one stone that was three from the bottom and four above?

  “From the bottom of what?” she whispered. “And above what?” She shook her head miserably. “Mary MacFadden, your brother’s a pig!”

  As she spoke the name, a white mist rose from one particular gravestone. Slowly it formed into a woman’s shape and came up behind Jennifer.

  “Who calls me?” the Lady in White asked, her voice like a wisp of wind. “Who curses my ain?”