Time Everlastin' Book 5

by Mickee Madden

  Time Everlastin’

  Book 5

  by

  Mickee Madden

  ***

  Smashwords Edition

  © 2011 by Mickee Madden

  ****************************************************

  Smashwords Edition, License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Cover design by Mickee Madden

  ***

  Dedicated to my husband, Steve; Gwen, Carlos, Eric and Christopher;

  Buddy and Amy; Brehan and Dameon.

  Also to Matt, Grace, Erik, Kahl and Alby; Steve, Mary, Ashley and

  Patrick; Gerri and Anna; and Aunt Donna.

  Last but never least, to Michelle and Carey of Salt Lake City.

  ***

  Glossary

  afore/before — anither/another — annsachd/darling — aught/anything

  bahookie/buttocks — canna/cannot — corbie/crow — dinna/don't — efter/after

  faither/father — fegs/damn — ken/know — ither/other — mither/mother

  shouldna/shouldn't — thegither/together — uirisg/offspring of faerie & mortal

  verra/very — wasna/wasn't — weel/well — willna/will not — winna/won't

  wouldna/wouldn't

  ***

  For information on Mickee’s upcoming ebooks

  please email her at: mickeemadden@charter.net

  Chapter 1

  If human beings were designed to wait away most of their lives, "patience" wouldn't be a four-letter word in sheep's clothing. It was this philosophy that had advocate Taryn Ingliss on edge.

  Five weeks. Five frustrating weeks retracing her leads on the history of the MacLachlan Dirk.

  She'd had the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel to keep her spirits up after her flight from Baird House. It dimmed considerably when she returned to Aberdeen to re-question Collin Baird—Lachlan's great nephew—on the rumors Lachlan's mother practiced witchcraft, only to discover he had died in his sleep a week prior. His grieving sister—another good source of information—Margaret Cunningham, had flown her eighty-two year old carcass off to Europe immediately after the funeral.

  Taryn was disappointed, but not once did she embrace the possibility of failing. She was a woman used to taking back roads to obtain a story, her curiosity a bloodhound hot on the trail of a fox. The only conclusion was in the capture of the prize, which in this case was a piece of history entwining Lachlan Baird and her ancestor, Robert Ingliss.

  Her leads had met a dead end here, too, at the Astory Inn on the Isle of Lewis.

  So dead, in fact, she questioned her skills to unravel the mystery behind the MacLachlan dirk and its connections to the two men.

  Until yesterday morning.

  From Edinburgh, to Aberdeen, to the Isle of Lewis, she had interviewed every professor, wiccan, and nonprofessional self-ordained expert on ancient writings she could track down. Each one—fourteen in all—translated the runes alike.

  Passage Key Karok on both sides of the blade.

  Family Of Karok on each side of the handle.

  Karok.

  The name was a searing thorn in her determination to unlock the mystery.

  All agreed the dirk was some kind of ceremonial dagger.

  Witchcraft?

  Maybe, but no one had encountered the name Karok in any of their research. One professor suggested the dirk was used in human sacrifices. Passage key represented the liberation of the sacrifice's spirit during the offering to one of the gods. Karok was most likely the name of the high priest.

  Taryn didn't buy into this theory. Actually, she had yet to hear one that held an element of truth—as in light-bulbing her instinctual take of a given truth.

  Dead ends. Until yesterday.

  "Is your meal no' to yer likin'?"

  Taryn locked her teeth against a retort and forced a smile through her taut facial muscles for the benefit of the woman who spoke. Mavis MacLachlan sat across the dining table, her snow white hair reminding Taryn of a Kewpie doll, her pale blue eyes lost within the layers of wrinkles surrounding them. Taryn guesstimated her to be in her nineties. She was thin and stoop-shouldered, her head and hands in constant motion.

  "My stomach's still queasy," Taryn lied. Any concoction stuffed and served in an animal's intestine would never pass muster with her palate. She also had a dislike for eating anything she didn't recognize, and the Astory Inn served up some scary dishes. Meats were sweets and sweets were bland. Little wonder her parents had left Scotland and moved to the States. A supreme pizza or a hamburger with the works was what she craved.

  "Tis a sin ta waste food," Mavis said, her voice as nerve-assaulting as fingernails raking a chalkboard.

  "Yes, ma'am," Taryn said. Mind your own business, you old biddy, she thought. This is the same food you tried to foist on me last night! "My stomach's still a bit queasy," she repeated, hoping this time the words penetrated the family's selective hearing.

  Seven others sat at the large oval table, all watching Taryn with hooded suspicion.

  Why run an inn if you dislike accommodating guests? she mentally challenged. I would have checked out yesterday afternoon as planned, admitting defeat and finally letting go of my obsession, until fate at long last stepped in.

  A serendipitous bit of eavesdropping on you, Katherine, and one of the other guests, talking in the hall outside my room.

  The elderly woman had asked to stay another day. Her gout was acting up. Katherine was adamant that all the guests leave by two. At first listen, Taryn attributed it to Katherine's rudeness. Gout was gout, after all. Had Katherine said nothing more, Taryn's nose for news wouldn't have snared a whiff of intrigue.

  "We dinna rent ou' our rooms durin' a full moon," Katherine had said, her whining voice clipped with finality.

  Ten AM.

  By two, the other guests were hastened out of the inn and on their way to parts unknown. Taryn had used the time to stage a devious plan. When Flan arrived to carry out her luggage, she was knelt over the toilet, hair and face dampened to lend the appearance of a fever. She moaned piteously, and claimed she believed she was suffering from food poisoning.

  One by one the family filed in, scrutinizing her heightened color—benefit of holding her breath for excruciating minutes—and proffering various herbal drinks and other liquids to induce a miraculous recovery. The last of the pseudo well-wishers was Mavis herself. Conjuring up an image of cramming raw liver down her throat—she could never abide it cooked, even!—Taryn was rewarded with a violent upheaval of her stomach. Mavis squealed with disgust and fled the room, closing the door behind her. Taryn remained at the toilet for nearly an hour longer, full-bodied groans intact, then tooth-pasted the foul taste from her mouth and crawled into bed.

  There was no doubt she would be left alone until the morning, but the deception couldn't end for at least another thirty-two hours, when a full moon would slink into the night sky.

  While the household slept during the wee hours of the morning, she poured sugar into the gas tank of her rented Volvo. She feigned sleeping until late afternoon, and wasted another hour using the bathroom, her portrayal of suffering dry heaves deserving of an Oscar. Despite her "apparent" misery, Katherine insisted she leave by dusk.

  Dougie loaded her luggage into the Volvo's trunk, opened the driver's door, and gestured to her
to climb in. She barely contained a grin when he steadfastly remained a few feet away, arms folded across his chest, a sneer enhancing his homely face.

  Voila!

  Nothing like a stuttering engine to zap the sass right out of a man. The Volvo declined Dougie, Charles, Flan and Gil's efforts to fix the problem. The only local repair shop was closed. The owner had died two days prior. For his advantageous timing, Taryn wished him a glorious existence in the afterlife.

  The game was afoot.

  At one hundred pounds a night, one expected better food and certainly friendlier behavior. At one hundred pounds a night, it was damn suspicious for the inn owners to want their guests gone. And what did a full moon have to do with anything?

  Tonight was a full moon.

  Maybe this creepy family turned into werewolves....

  Seven pairs of eyes continued to stare at her as if she were a fat fly about to pounce on their dinners. She found it amusing how adeptly they forked food into their mouths while their gazes never wavered from her. Amusing and...eerie. Mavis' daughter, Katherine, and Katherine's husband, Gil, reminded Taryn of weasels harboring a secret joke. Katherine's face was longer and narrower than her husband's. Like her mother's, her white-streaked dark hair had a tendency to poof up and outward, whereas her husband's hair had thinned and headed south toward his nape.

  Katherine's eyes were the same shade as her mother's. Gil's were murky something. Hazel perhaps.

  Katherine and Gil's son, Charles, and daughter, Katie, were another study in peculiar. Both in their early forties, neither had married and were seldom seen apart. They were quiet, soft spoken, and abnormally shy for people involved in a very public-oriented business. At first Taryn thought them homely, a trait passed down from their parents. It wasn't that, though. They were plain people, not partial to makeup or complimenting styles of dress, or any improvement on what nature had given them. Taryn strongly believed their existences meant no more or no less than what the inn brought them each day.

  They existed for the business. Or rather, what the business enabled them to do, which was to perform as self-appointed guardians over the Callanish Standing Stones.

  Taryn nearly jumped out of her skin when the vibrating mode of her pager went off. Although the sound wasn't unusually loud, only annoying, it clacked rapidly against her metallic powder case. She dug it out of the purse dangling from a strap on her left shoulder. Mumbling beneath her breath, she glanced at the green letters on the face of the instrument, then cleared it.

  Dougie and Flan MacLachlan eyed her as if she had grown another head. The brothers were three years apart and in their thirties. They were cousins far removed from Mavis' side but nonetheless a part of the "Watchdog-MacLachlans," as Taryn had dubbed them. Flan's bright red hair was worn close-cropped. Dougie was “tangles-are-in-style” blond. Both had dark eyes, narrow faces, and weak chins. Tall and beefy, they resembled bouncers and she suspected that was their purpose at the inn.

  Hadn't they derailed her from approaching the megaliths two nights ago?

  She found it particularly curious that daylight visits were encouraged.

  Why the paranoia come night?

  "My editor," Taryn said lamely, indicating the pager before dropping it back into her purse. She lifted her fork and inwardly grimaced at the thought of putting any part of the intestine thing into her mouth.

  "There's no story here for ye, as I told ye on yer last visit," Mavis chided. She passed her family a conspiratorial look, her head bobbing on a wrinkled neck. "The stones are fine ta visit. Ye canna write anymair abou' them than wha's already been written."

  Gil and Katherine nodded, while the bouncers watched her, deadpan.

  "You're right, of course," Taryn said airily. "I just wanted another visit before I return to the States."

  "Ye ask a lot o' questions," Mavis snipped.

  "Ye never said wha' ye do write," said Gil. A half chewed piece of bread fell from his mouth onto his plate. Without missing a beat, he popped it back into the waiting cavity, and lifted his eyebrows in a gesture for Taryn to respond.

  "I'm a journalist," Taryn said, deciding it was best not to reveal she was also a paparazzi. The latter profession had a tendency to raise people's hackles. "When I was last here, I was considering doing a piece about the standing stones, but decided against it."

  "If ye are no' here for a story," said Katie, her voice so soft Taryn strained to hear every word, "then why so many questions abou' our family history?"

  "I really am on vacation," Taryn said with a light laugh, inwardly patting herself for not mentioning Broc MacLachlan or Ciarda Baird's names. "Don't tourists usually ask about your ancestors?"

  An Oscar performance.

  "Some," Gil said with his mouth full of stuffed intestine.

  Taryn gulped back a reflex to gag. "I-ah, love Scottish people. They have such a fascinating history."

  "Na canny how yer car willna start," said Katherine, an accusation in her tone.

  "Nothing funny about it." Taryn sighed. "The rental company is going to get an earful. I had to reschedule my flight out, and the airline charges for that privilege."

  "I see," Katherine murmured. "Weel, Miss Ingliss, ma brither will be here in the morn. Samuel will give yer car a looksee. If it canna be fix, he'll take ye to the rental company."

  It took all of Taryn's willpower not to grin. In her vast experience, there was hostility and there was hostility, the kind that gave her the impression these plain, questionably-good folk would love to have her head mounted on their parlor wall.

  "I'm so sorry I've been so much trouble," Taryn said, so sincerely she almost convinced herself she cared what these people thought or did. "I realize now I couldn't have food poisoning. You all would be sick, too, right? It must be a stomach flu. Bad timing."

  "Trouble is as trouble is," Mavis said in a singsong manner. She stared at her emptied plate as if confused.

  "I'll be ready when Samuel arrives," Taryn said. "It's a shame none of you own a car, or I wouldn't have to impose on you another night." The hell I wouldn't.

  "Usually," Katherine said with a cynical smile, "we have no use for but one car, Miss Ingliss. Yer stay here happened at a time when Samuel had business on the mainland."

  "Yes. Like I said, bad timing." Taryn faked a yawn. "I really am tired."

  "Wastin' food is a sin," Mavis repeated, her head bobbing.

  "I'm afraid my stomach won't hold anything more."

  "Wastin' food—"

  "Aye, mither," Katherine said patiently, and forced a smile as her eyes shrewdly appraised Taryn. "Miss Ingliss kens wha' her stomach can endure—efter her mysterious ailment."

  "That's very gracious of you." Get me out of here before I really toss my cookies. "If you don't mind, I'd like to retire to my room. I have a big day tomorrow."

  "We'll be retirin' early ourselves, this eve," said Gil. "There's been a rash o' burglaries in the area. We'll be lockin' up."

  Taryn offered a blank look, although she understood what was said.

  "If ye should get up, Miss Ingliss, ye canna leave the

  house," said Katherine.

  "I have no intention of going anywhere till morning." Taryn dabbed at the corners of her mouth with a linen napkin, and stood. "Good night."

  "Good night," was echoed by the others.

  By the time Taryn reached her room on the second floor, she was ready to burst in to laughter. She ran to the bed and dropped her purse on the nightstand. Snatching up the pillow from beneath a colorful quilt depicting Celtic knots, she pressed it over her face and laughed until a stitch in her side sobered her. Then with a long sigh tinged with an afterglow of hilarity, she sat on the bed and tossed the pillow against the oak headboard.

  A rap at the door brought her to her feet. Opening it, she found Katie, a steaming cup in hand.

  "I brought ye some het chocolate ta help ye sleep."

  Probably loaded with knock-out drops. "Thank you. It's so nice of you to wor
ry about me."

  Katie graciously inclined her head. "Good night, Miss Ingliss."

  Taryn was in the process of closing the door when Katie said, "Wha's it like?"

  "Excuse me?"

  "Writin' for a livin'."

  "It's a hard life, but it does have its perks."

  "Like wha', for example?"

  "The freedom to travel, to meet new people, to see new places." Taryn sighed pensively. "Have you ever been away from this island?"

  Katie's eyes widened. "Och, no!"

  "We have but one life, Taryn quipped. Unless you're Lachlan Baird or Beth Staples. "There's a big world out there, Katie."

  "Aye," Katie murmured. Her gaze lit on the cup in Taryn's hand. "Be sure to drink yer chocolate."

  "I will. Good night."

  Taryn was staring at the dark contents of the cup when Katie closed the door. It was drugged all right.

  Why disable a guest?

  Curiouser and curiouser.

  Engaging the doorknob lock, she looked around the room to find a place to dump the hot chocolate. The bathroom was in the hall. She couldn't risk being caught carrying a full cup out of her room. There were no plants. No vases. No containers. The oak bed, nightstand, dresser and wardrobe were devoid of knickknacks. Doilies were no help.

  What to do? she mused, eyeing the cup ruefully.

  Setting it on the nightstand alongside a wind-up alarm clock, she knelt and slid her black leather knapsack from beneath the bed. She unzipped it and fished out a plastic container nearly empty of shampoo. Removing the cap, she carefully tipped the cup over the opening. About three-fourths went into the container, with little spillage. She replaced the cap, making sure it was screwed on tightly, put the bottle into the knapsack, and returned the bag beneath the bed.

  Taryn stood and went to the foot of the bed. As if her life depended on speed, she drew back the covers and fitted sheet, exposing the mattress. She retrieved the cup, sat on one corner of the bed, and slowly poured the contents out, going back and forth in a line as the material absorbed the liquid. She returned the empty cup to the nightstand and removed a thin, spare blanket from the cabinet below. After dabbing up the spills on the floor, she laid the blanket, thrice folded lengthwise, over the wet mattress.