Lost Highlander Page 6

  “It’s full of clothes, have at it. I know you don’t believe in cold weather, but it’s very real here. Listen, I’m going to tell Sam you’re up and then maybe we can get to work?” Piper looked at her as if she were an important visiting lecturer from a prestigious university, hoping she’d be ready to take the podium on time and dazzle the eager students.

  Evelyn just nodded and went to find a sweater from the wardrobe. The click of the door as Piper left her alone in the bedroom sounded like a nail being driven into her coffin.

  ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

  Downstairs in the library, Sam and Piper were looking at her expectantly. She shuffled the papers and books around on the desk, and then moved around to the other side of it, pulling up an armchair and sitting on the edge of it. Finally, she shrugged.

  “He just appeared upstairs, you say?” she asked. They both nodded and she motioned exasperatedly for someone to continue. “Tell me everything from the beginning.”

  “It was Sunday,” Piper said. “I went down to the mausoleum that morning to leave Fenella’s remains, and then did some paperwork in here for a while. Uh, I was about to get a snack when Mellie screamed.”

  “Who’s Mellie?” Evelyn interrupted, feeling like she should have a little notebook and be jotting things down.

  “The housekeeper,” Piper said. “She works here during the day, and is helping get the place together. I had a contractor in on Friday and he did a walkthrough and told us which areas were all right, structurally. So, Mellie was going to start taking some boxes upstairs to get them out of the way.” Piper fidgeted with her sleeve and looked at Evelyn.

  “I’ve got nothing from Mellie hauling some crap upstairs, Piper,” Evelyn said a little testily, then motioned for Piper to get on with it.

  When Mellie discovered the pile of discarded musical instruments and several boxes of yellowed sheet music in the back of the pantry hidden behind a stack of dusty old pickle jars, she’d barely blinked. It wasn’t the first odd thing she’d found in the three weeks since she’d been hired to help clean the old manor house. She was delighted to have the job, having been fascinated with the place since as long as she could remember. Her friends were sick with envy and plied her with questions every night about what she had seen.

  Everyone was convinced the place must be haunted and even though she mostly thought it was all hooey, Mellie wanted nothing more than to see a ghost here so she could be the one to confirm it. How could a place that was this old and this filled with crazy things not be at least a little bit haunted?

  At first she had agreed with everyone in the village that it was a crying shame the place had gone to an American, but as she got to know Piper Sinclair, she decided it was only fair, since it certainly wasn’t Piper’s fault she’d ended up an outsider. Just because your grandmother runs off to America and never breathes a word about being from a grand old family, doesn’t make you belong to that family any less, was Mellie’s final judgement on the situation.

  The first trip she had dragged and pushed and heaved a heavy box full of dented brass wind instruments all the way up the four flights of stairs. After she stowed the box in one of the empty rooms up there, she decided that was for suckers. Remembering that the kitchen had a dumbwaiter that was practically rusted shut, she went in search of a possible opening for it up there. If there was one, she’d find a way to get the blasted thing unrusted and running again so she could get the rest of the boxes up that way.

  The main hallway and none of its adjoining rooms turned up anything so she decided to try the round stone turret room that was separated by the main part of the floor by a few steps down and a little curving dark walkway. Quite frankly, that area of the house gave her the heebie jeebies. It seemed colder and darker. Oppressive. She told herself to stop being daft, it was just the fact that there were no windows in this hall, and the stone walls would of course make it a bit colder. Perfectly natural and not scary.

  The turret room had a barred, heavy wooden door, that had at one time been locked with a large steel padlock. Now however, the padlock hung open on it’s loop, and the door was a tiny bit ajar. Feeling foolish, Mellie stood in the dark hallway staring at the door, about to turn around and get back to civilization, because she was quite certain that there was no dumbwaiter opening in that room.

  Then, feeling even more foolish for letting her fear get the better of her, she took a step forward, only to have the massive door flung open to a giant, angry, battle scarred and soot smeared warrior wielding an axe at her.

  Screaming bloody murder at the top of her powerful distance runner lungs, Mellie turned and fled down the shadowy hall at a breakneck pace. She tried to scramble up the three steps in one leap, but took the corner too fast and twisted her ankle badly, landing with a jolt and ending up sprawled across the stairway. She saw that the huge muscle-bound man was advancing toward her, his blood spattered kilt swirling menacingly around his powerful legs. She let loose another scream and held up her arms to shield her face from the axe blow she felt sure was forthcoming.

  It was then that Piper burst from the main hallway, coming skidding to a stop to see Mellie about to be murdered by the biggest and most bizarrely dressed man she’d ever seen. Had he come from a parade to kill them? She realized with horror that he already had a fair amount of blood on him. Had he killed everyone in the parade before coming here to hide? Piper threw herself down the steps to stand between the murderer and Mellie, flinging her arms out wide and shouting for him to stop. He stood there looking confused and shook his head, quickly lowering his axe.

  “Who are you and what are you doing in my house?” Piper demanded.

  He said something in a deep rumble of a voice that sounded like garbled gibberish. Mellie pulled herself up and leaned against the wall.

  “He’s speaking Gaelic,” Mellie said and garbled something at the man.

  They had a stilted exchange which involved Mellie stopping to think every other word and the man looking more and more confused.

  “I’m not very good,” Mellie explained in an aside to Piper before slowly beginning again. The man was beginning to get agitated. “We need to get Sam over here, he speaks much better than me. I think this poor man was a victim of something, kidnapped maybe? His name is Lachlan. He doesn’t know where he’s at. I think he’s not going to hurt us.”

  Mellie and Piper argued for several minutes, Piper wanting to call the police and Mellie saying she thought the man was in trouble. Sometime during their awkward exchange of Gaelic, the man had smiled at Mellie and even Piper had to admit it was rather dazzling, but she was not about to be swayed into harboring a criminal just because he happened to have sparkling dark blue eyes and a damn dimple. When he agreed to wait in the tower room, Piper relented to waiting on the police until Sam arrived.

  “And was I ever glad about that,” Piper said, getting up and walking over to the desk.

  She pulled out an especially crackly and yellowed piece of paper and handed it to Evelyn. It was clearly written in Gaelic and Sam jumped in to explain.

  “That’s a page from a daily journal the steward of this place used to keep back in the seventeen hundreds. It documents the capture of a poacher on this land, the plans for ransoming him back to his clan, and then how he escaped in the night, never to be seen again. We think he didn’t escape at all, but ended up here.”

  “Yes, Lachlan’s story fits that perfectly,” Piper said. “He said he was captured, and was waiting for his buddies to come get him in the middle of the night, but they never did, and when he woke up, the door to the tower was unlocked and Mellie was there poking around.” She sighed. “He’s actually pretty nice. For an eighteenth century savage, I mean.” Piper trailed off, and began messing with the cuffs of her sleeves. Evelyn raised an eyebrow.

  “But we still don’t have a clue how he ended up here in this time, or why,” Sam said. “He really wants to get back, too.”

  “Well, sure,” Evelyn said. “Of course
he does.”

  “Do you have any ideas?” Piper asked.

  She picked up the handset on the desk phone and punched in a few numbers. She quietly asked for some cookies and drinks, then glanced sheepishly at Evelyn.

  “Wait,” Evelyn said, trying to avoid the moment when they would finally realize she had not one single answer for them. “Is he a nice guy or a poacher? Did he get kidnapped or taken into custody to have justice served?”

  “It was common back then for people to steal livestock from rival clans,” Sam said. “Our guy Lachlan was out on a raid with some of his men to gather some intel much further south, and decided to pass through and take a few head of cattle as revenge for some marriage contract that the Glens broke.”

  “Those are my people,” Piper said, glowing with pride. “The oath-breaking clan Glen.” She was beaming from ear to ear. “Of course, I’m sure they had a very good reason for it.”

  “He was probably short and bald,” Evelyn supplied helpfully.

  “I can’t imagine that, if he was related to Lachlan,” Piper frowned. “He’s …”

  “Yes, he’s dreamy,” Sam cut in, looking at Piper and Evelyn with irritated disbelief.

  “But if Lachlan was your clan’s enemy, how’d he end up in the crypt with the family and friends?” Evelyn asked.

  “We’ve wondered that as well, but we can’t exactly ask, can we? Anyway, back to business.” Piper clapped her hands together and primly sat back down, bestowing Evelyn with a look of expectation.

  Evelyn looked down at the mess on the desk and swallowed. At that moment, a gangly teenager pushed her way backward into the room, bearing a silver tray that was almost half her size, loaded with baked goods and tea things. Saved, she sighed to herself. Saved by high tea.

  Her nervous stomach was grateful for the dry, sweet scone she nibbled on as Piper introduced her to Mellie, the only other person who knew their dark secret. It seemed Piper wasn’t the only one who had a little crush on the Highlander in the attic. Mellie also shared how friendly and kind he had turned out to be after the initial axe wielding incident.

  “And that was just when he thought I was a guard,” Mellie said earnestly before being shooed back to the kitchen by Sam, who was clearly finding the Lachlan fan club increasingly tiresome.

  They ate their treats in tense silence, Piper continuing to fidget with her jewelry and unraveling her sweater sleeves, Sam sitting on the edge of his chair, a crease in his brow. Evelyn kept trying to wake herself up. Finally, with the tea things put away on a table by the door, Evelyn couldn’t stand the silence any longer.

  “I really don’t think I can help,” she said despondently.

  Piper leaned over the desk and patted her hand encouragingly.

  “This is a lot, for sure,” Sam said. “I think we can all agree that time travel is possible.” Evelyn winced and he nodded vigorously at her reaction to his statement. “See, even though we’ve seen for ourselves that time travel has actually happened, it’s difficult to accept. I think we should all say it aloud. Time travel is real.”

  Piper and Evelyn just looked at him and he sighed. “Fine. But if you can’t accept it, how are you going to be able to help figure it out?”

  “Evie, just try to remember how it happens in the books you’ve read. I think at least some of them might be true accounts.”

  Evelyn rolled her head around to work out the kinks in her neck and squeezed her eyes shut, trying to think of the least far fetched of her favorite books. She’d always been a devoted fan of time travel novels, from the classics to the sci fi to the steamy romances. She loved being swept away to the past, which according to most of the books, was usually never a simpler time. Heading forward into the future was always a fun romp as well. Ever since she first picked up ‘The Time Machine’ in sixth grade, she’d been hungrily searching out more and fervently wishing with all her heart that it could really happen. Don’t get all teary eyed, she told herself. Reality always disappoints, you knew that before this happened. She breathed out hard through her nose and nodded.

  “Okay, lets get the easy stuff out of the way. It wasn’t a full moon on Sunday, was it?”

  Piper shook her head no.

  “It’s only the beginning of September so I think we can rule out the equinox, and of course way too early for Samhain …” Evelyn trailed off to see if they were going to laugh, but instead they were carefully listening. Sam had opened a notebook and was poised to take notes. Surprised and emboldened by their response, she continued. “Have you, uh, cast any spells?”

  “No,” Piper said.

  “Do any blood rituals?”

  “No! Oh my God, Evelyn, what kind of books do you read?”

  “It could have been inadvertent. Did you cut yourself any time at all when you were down in the crypt, even just snag a hangnail or something?”

  Piper carefully inspected her hands. “I don’t think so, no.”

  “Well, maybe it’s some sort of curse that got released somehow. Have you read from any ancient manuscripts or opened any locked chests lately?”

  Piper pressed her lips together and flailed her arms over the great messy piles of papers strewn all over the desk.

  “That’s all I’ve been doing since I’ve been here,” she wailed. “They’re all ancient. All the chests are locked. I’ve upended this whole place, practically.” Piper seemed seriously concerned that she may have released an ancient evil upon them.

  “Okay, that’s all right.” Evelyn rushed to reassure her. “Did you notice anything with weird symbols on it, like Egyptian hieroglyphs, or that might have mentioned raising someone from the dead?”

  At this suggestion Sam dropped his pen, but didn’t make any effort to retrieve it. He stared at Piper, who raked her hair back and began pacing.

  “No, and at any rate, that’s not what happened. He’s still clearly down there in the crypt. He came here from another time, before he died.” She stopped abruptly in the middle of the room. “Is this changing history?” she asked, looking wild eyed at Sam.

  He shrugged. “Hell if I know.”

  “No, it’s what made the history,” Evelyn said, trying and failing to find the piece of parchment they’d shown her before. “Remember the old ledger said there was a prisoner who disappeared. If that’s him they were talking about, he disappeared to here. Either we don’t get him back because there wasn’t a mention of him showing back up, or we get him back to another place altogether. Or maybe getting him back is what changes history and we won’t know until we do it. If we can do it.” Evelyn pinched the bridge of her nose, having given herself a headache.

  Piper let out a small whimper.

  “Let’s not worry just now about the possible outcomes to history. I doubt we do much damage either way,” Sam said. “I think if Piper didn’t cut herself at all down in the crypt—” he looked at her narrowly.

  “I didn’t bleed in the crypt,” she said shortly, huffing back to her chair.

  “I think then, since it wasn’t a blood ritual, that the most likely cause is probably a curse.” He shrugged, seeming to find it less distressing than he might have previously thought to so easily accept the possibility of an ancient curse. “You think it was something in all the papers we’ve been going through?” He turned to Evelyn and she quickly had to remind herself that she was the so-called expert here.

  “Yeah, either something in the papers, or like I said, it could have been something that got opened, or found. It could be attached to an object.” She turned to Piper, being very careful to keep her voice from sounding accusatory. Poor Piper was already on edge. “You didn’t take anything out of the crypt with you on Sunday, did you?” She wasn’t careful enough because Piper’s jaw dropped in outrage.

  “I would never!”

  Sam patted her hand. “We know you wouldn’t. We’re just trying to cover every possible angle, right?”

  “Right,” Evelyn said and sighed. “I think we’re going to have to just
figure out what you were working on leading up to Sunday. Go over everything you read, sort all the stuff you unpacked, to see if anything seems likely to, uh …”

  “Be cursed.” Sam finished almost cheerily.

  Piper glared at him. “If it even is a curse,” she sulked.

  “It’s a start, anyway.”

  Chapter 8

  Sam and Evelyn divided up the books, papers and ledgers into two piles, Sam taking the ones that were written in Gaelic and Evelyn taking the smaller English pile. Piper wearily called Mellie into service to help her try and remember what they had come in contact with up to the point when Lachlan Ferguson appeared in the tower room.

  Evelyn’s eyes were crossing and she was almost comatose from boredom going over all the accounts. She had papers dating all the way back to 1712 mixed with papers from a week ago. She tossed aside a receipt for delivery of two dozen free range eggs from a farm nearby. Surely the egg farm wasn’t in the habit of cursing its customers. She also dismissed a yarn catalog from the seventies, multiple pizza coupons, and a treatise on whether or not heavy rain in winter affected the rabbit population.

  She was this close to whining out loud when she found a battered brown leather book tied up with a length of ribbon. So far everything that looked like it might even be slightly awesome had turned out to be in Gaelic, so she tried to suppress her excitement as she unwound the ribbon and opened it. She made a little hissing sound of triumph when she found the tiny, flowery handwriting to be in English. She’d need a magnifying glass, but at least it wasn’t another account of how many bales of hay were needed for the month of April, 1883.

  “What does Lachlan think of all this?” she asked Sam, pressing the heels of her hands into her eye sockets, trying to release some of the strain. As enticing as the little leather journal looked, the cramped script swam incomprehensibly in front of her tired eyes. She blinked a few times to bring Sam into focus. He looked as fatigued as she felt and he closed the book he was studying, grateful for a break.