The Curse of Clan Ross

by L. L. Muir

  Poor Sorcha. She so wanted to marry him, mean man that he was. But a laird needed wee lads, and that required a young and fertile lass, not an older widow with no children to show for her marriage. And although the woman tried, she eased only his body, not his loneliness. Not his soul.

  How he would ever convince a lass to be Lady of a haunted castle, only God knew. The Gordons were not yet out of sight, but word had likely reached England by now of Isobelle’s supposed attendance at his wedding, and even if his home were not truly haunted, it would be soon enough.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  “Wake up. Wake up, wake up,” Jilly chanted into the black air around her. It would be simple enough to pinch herself, but she honestly dreaded finding proof that she was indeed entombed.

  She also chose to believe the worst of the Muir sisters. And Laird Ross, or whoever he really was. For all she knew, the entire town was in on this little charade. Maybe there was a curse of some kind and they had needed a virginal sacrifice. A wonderful way to snag one would be to station two of their conspirators in the United States where they could find some orphan whom no one would miss.

  Yes. The sisters had completely set her up. The entire night—the break in, the confrontation, even the moment when the sisters told her not to try on the necklace after all—it was all just part of the routine.

  Remembering the way Quinn had looked at her in front of the statue, she could easily imagine he was assessing her worthiness of the sacrifice. The way he’d accidentally let Isobelle’s secret slip? Oh, brother!

  That was it. The perfect explanation. And convenient too. She would much rather believe her survival centered on whether or not the “Stepford Twins” would come to their senses and let her out—or some James Bond would come to her rescue—than to believe the reason there was no flashlight, no dust, and no hole in the ground was because she had traveled through some black hole in time. She hadn’t had good enough grades in Science to examine that possibility, let alone find a solution.

  If she’d traveled to another time, no one would know she was inside, so no one would be racing to get her out, as they had for Isobelle Ross. She would suffocate, or worse, starve and die from dehydration.

  “Wake up, wake up, wake up.”

  Through her feet, Jilly felt vibrations.

  “Thank God.” She knelt on the floor, pounding and screaming, “I’m here. Please. Get me out of here.”

  The pounding stopped on the other side.

  Maybe they’d left to get the authorities.

  Maybe they thought she was Isobelle’s ghost.

  Maybe they were making sure she couldn’t get out.

  She pounded until her hands felt they would explode like water balloons. She hollered until her ears hurt. Her voice was hoarse and scratchy from what little dust she had loosened from the walls, so she listened until her own breathing was the only proof she hadn’t gone deaf.

  Rest. She needed rest. It was at least midnight and she was in shock. If she wanted to wake up from this nightmare, then she would need to sleep first.

  It made as much sense as anything else.

  She laid her cheek on the cool rock floor, chanting “Sleep, sleep, sleep,” while her tears dripped off the bridge of her nose onto the all-too-clean floor.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Monty stood on the steps shading his eyes from the bright morning sun, watching the procession of wedding guests excitedly departing through his gates, no doubt intent on hurrying home to spread the fantastical story of dead Isobelle Ross chasing the mighty Gordons from her unhallowed home.

  It was something fiery Isobelle would have done in life, as well.

  He missed his wild sister so dearly, perhaps he should send for her. Isobelle could roam the halls and battlements of her keep now and all would assume she was but a ghost. It had been a good year since her supposed death, nearly to the day, so it was only right she would begin her moaning again on such an auspicious occasion. ‘Twas always Isobelle’s way, to mark such coincidences.

  There would be no one willing to work inside, more’s the pity. And with just his sister and himself within the walls, he’d likely go mad and seal her up in the tomb after all.

  Nay. She was much safer where she was.

  “Ye’ll not believe this, Monty,” said Ewan as he squeezed out through the massive door. The man used his given name far too often, but Monty would never chide him for it. With his sisters gone there were few who remembered Montgomery Ross was more than just the laird of the clan.

  “What is it? Did ye end with killing him?”

  “Nay.”

  Ewan was never one to dilly-dally. Perhaps his friend had no stomach for executions this day.

  “Where is he, then? I vowed the mon would be sealed inside Isobelle’s tomb and I’ll see it done myself if needs be.”

  Ewan rubbed the back of his neck, his face lined with a fierce frown.

  “That’s just it, ye ken? He is in the tomb.”

  “Dead?”

  “No. No, he’s alive. I heard him cry for help.”

  Ewan was going soft, then.

  “But ye packed the stones so he canna get out, as I ordered ye to do?”

  “Nay.”

  Ewan’s head would roll from his shoulders if he did not cease sawing on his neck the way he was. Montgomery was too confused to be angry. Yet.

  “So, ye let him out?”

  “Nay. I’m sorry, Monty. I don’t ken how he got in there, but...”

  “But?”

  Ewan looked around, then leaned toward him. “But the floor is sealed as tight as it was after we took Isobelle out,” he whispered. “I doona ken how he got inside.”

  “God’s blood,” Montgomery cursed as he flung the door open and started inside. “If he’s made a hole in the side, he’ll be gettin’ away.”

  “But Monty—”

  “Why did ye not check the walls, mon?”

  Ewan sputtered after him through the hall. By the time Monty reached the tomb, he had a torch held high. He rushed to the tight space between it and the back of the hall.

  “I tell ye I have, Monty. I looked. The tomb is sound.”

  Montgomery had to see for himself. After searching every stone three times, and going to the tunnels below to check the floor, he gave up. There was no possible way anyone was inside.

  “Someone must have been standing behind it during the wedding. With all the upheaval, I hadn’t considered it,” he said. “Mayhap a Gordon. He would have walked out the gates, laughing with the rest.”

  It tasted bitter, the idea of a Gordon besting him. It was a temptation to take Morna back from them, and her dowered lands. It had been a year, and she had not yet conceived. He could claim it to have been no better than a handfasting, married only if there were issue, and turn his back on the blessing of the church. He was laird here. He could do anything he liked if the king did not get involved, and England kept the king busy enough these days.

  If he believed it could undo what he had done to his sister, if her heart could be mended, he would be sore tempted. But that was not to be. It was rumored Ivar MacKay would never marry another and was as unhappy as Morna, but the man would never defy the church to have her. In times like these, it was dangerous to make holy enemies, or enemies of a clan as large and as close as the Gordons.

  What a woman he’d become in a year’s time. Of course there was no undoing the past. He’d done what was best for his clan at the time. He’d stand by his choices now in spite of losing the companionship of his sisters.

  “What about the cry for help, Monty? I was telling no tales.” Ewan waved a hand before his eyes to return his attention to the matter at hand.

  “Ah, we’ve heard nothing since then. I say it was voices from the hall ye heard while ye were below. Voices do strange things between stones, aye?”

  “As ye say, then.” Ewan’s face dropped, like a dog that had been ordered to surrender a bone. “So, if no one is in there, can the others co
me back inside?”

  “Nay, for we cannot explain how we ken there is no ghost. I declared none shall enter the keep for a fortnight, and a fortnight it shall be.”

  And with that he slapped his friend on the back to lead him outside.

  “And the widow Murray will not mind ye biding yer nights with her, I reckon.”

  “Nay, Ewan. I reckon she won’t.”

  # # #

  That night, Montgomery tossed and turned in the widow’s sheets. Every time he drifted to sleep he would dream himself back into the tunnels beneath the tomb. He could hear his sister crying through the walls, having no faith that he would reach her in time.

  But he always did.

  As the last slab of heavy stone was lowered away from the opening, she would slip through the hole, landing on her bare feet, suddenly recovered enough to peck at him until he sealed the opening yet again, forcing from him the promise to keep her necklace safe. As soon as the vow was made, Isobelle would be gone, the tomb closed tight, and again he would hear her crying from within.

  It mattered not how tired he was from clawing at the stones to get to Isobelle once more. He dared not hesitate; she would die if he did.

  Half awake, Montgomery tried to push his thoughts in another direction, lead his dreams to something more pleasant. He was sitting in the Ross’s grand chair upon the dais. A beautiful woman approached. His wife. Her hair was straight and black, her eyes green and sparkling as moss just beneath the surface of a clear running burn. When she smiled at him, his toes curled with pleasure.

  Then tears began streaming down her cheeks.

  “I’m sorry, Monty,” she said, rubbing the back of her neck. “I dinna ken how she got in there, but...”

  “But?” he heard himself ask.

  Plump tears gathered in her eyes. “But the floor is sealed as tight as it was after we took Isobelle out. I don’t ken how our daughter got inside.”

  Our daughter. She was sealed inside like Isobelle was. And I have to get her out!

  It didn’t matter that he may be walking in his sleep, Montgomery had to find Ewan and get his daughter out of that cursed tomb.

  “Ewan! Ewan!” he bellowed, not caring if the whole clan roused. “Get up, Ewan.”

  “I’m up and at ‘em, Monty,” his friend grumbled as he swung his door open. “Will I need me boots?”

  “Aye. And hurry.”

  He couldn’t help but pace in the moonlight while he waited for Ewan to emerge from his cottage. At the last moment, he thought to call out his apologies to Ewan’s sister. She did not answer. It was probable she slept on, uninterrupted. This was not the first time he had roused Ewan in the middle of the night, but he hadn’t done so for months. Not since the last time he’d been chased from his bed by such nightmares. But then he’d been grieving over never seeing his sister again, not because she’d perished.

  As his daughter would do if he didn’t get to her in time.

  He tried to explain this to Ewan as they made their way up the rise to the Castle.

  “But ye don’t have a daughter, Monty. Ye don’t even have a wife.”

  “I ken the truth, Ewan. I’ve not gone daft. I must just make bloody sure, aye?”

  Ewan laughed. “It makes perfect sense, but only because it is the wee hours before morn. Tomorrow I don’t plan on being kind about it. Not kind at all.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  Jilly was suffocating. Whether it was from the staleness of the air, the lack of oxygen, or a panic attack making her lungs feel tiny and useless, she was definitely suffocating.

  Each time she had awakened to find that the nightmare continued, she’d gone through what was now a routine. She tried on the necklace and imagined Laird Ross, being careful to imagine Quinn, the 21st century one, not Montgomery Ross, the statue. She had concentrated on the Muir sisters, individually and together. She had not only clicked her heals like Dorothy, but had found hope in another old movie, digging in her pockets to find a modern penny. Unfortunately, there was no light by which to read the year, but surely it would get her back to the 1980’s at least.

  At this point, she didn’t care why she was in the tomb. The century didn’t matter. Ritual sacrifice didn’t matter. Air did.

  All her rituals failing once more, she lay on the floor to conserve air and tried to remember Laird Ross’s theory about dust settling. She wasn’t sure if she should hope for more time than Isobelle had, or wish for it to all be over sooner. There really was no guessing how much air and days remained, and it was the not knowing that drove her quietly out of her mind.

  Too bad she hadn’t magically travelled back in time, to a year where the castle would have been filled with medieval dinner guests. Or better yet, filled with men like Michelangelo’s Highlander.

  The food would have probably killed her anyway.

  Suddenly, like a flood of light, memories of her grandmother’s warnings poured onto the darkened stage inside her mind, overlapping like rushed dialogue in a manic play.

  “Never trust a Scot.”

  “Scottish soil is poison for MacKays.”

  “The devil’s playground.”

  “Avoid it like the plague.”

  Closing her eyes did nothing to stop Grandma’s voice.

  “Never let them know you speak Scots.”

  “$100,000 for every year you stay away.”

  “Wyoming is your home.”

  “Stay in Wyoming.”

  She so wished she had.

  Then, in the cool darkness, with nothing but imagined variations of blackness before her eyes, one question rose to the fore and drowned out all the mislaid warnings. She’d wondered it a million times, but chalked it all up to the ravings of an eccentric, bitter woman whose occasional mention of her Scottish husband was only to mutter the word wicked. But now, the question screamed out for an answer, like a long ignored middle child who had taken as much neglect as it could take.

  How had Grandma known?

  How could Ivy MacKay have suspected what would happen to her granddaughter in a remote Scottish Castle less than a year after her own death?

  The panic that usually accompanied Jilly’s paranoia did not come.

  Grandma had a secret, and if it could be ferreted out, this would be the place to do it. Even locked in the damned tomb, the knowledge that Grandma was now powerless to stop Jilly from asking questions came with calming determination to do just that.

  The truth was out there somewhere. If she could just find out what Grandma knew, the old woman’s eccentricities could be put to rest, buried beside her in a grave her husband should occupy, but never would.

  Jillian Rose MacKay could move on.

  She’d once asked where her wicked grandfather lived, but the old woman had glared, told her to mind her own business, and then redirected Jilly’s attention.

  You had to hand it to Grandma; she had definitely controlled her own world, every discussion, every silence. She had nipped at Jilly’s heels and guided her every step, every thought, like a border collie manipulated sheep, with fear and a little sting when one least expected it.

  The image made Jilly smile in the dark.

  Ivy had even tried to wield that control from the grave, but thanks to a poorly constructed clause in her will, her power was cut.

  Jillian had millions and before getting locked in the tomb, she’d had her freedom, or so she’d thought.

  After finally crossing that Wyoming border, without Grandma quickly herding her back to the farm, Jilly thought she’d be able to hunt down her own happiness. Only hours from home, however, finally in a big city, she’d lost her focus and allowed the Muirs to do the herding. Only the twins had been much more subtle; they’d used whimpering instead of barking, and puppy dog eyes, albeit surrounded by an atlas of wrinkles. The outcome had been the same. Jilly was, ever and always, right where someone else wanted her to be.

  But no more. If she ever got out of here, she’d get to the bottom of Ivy MacKay’s conspiracy
theory, she’d ditch the Muir twins, and grab some Highlander off his...mountain, and take him home for a pet. She’d need a home. Italy would do. She’d get tattoos and pay for Italians to serenade beneath her balcony—even when she wasn’t home.

  She’d have fresh flowers in her bathroom, for hellsakes.

  She’d never again return to Wyoming, or to Scotland. And if she ever had a daughter she’d warn her...

  No. She wouldn’t.

  There was nothing about her grandmother’s actions she’d ever wish to repeat.

  Jilly could almost feel the old woman rolling in her grave.

  Lost in her rantings, it took a moment for Jilly to discern the pounding in the floor beneath her. She felt it more than heard it actually, but held completely still until she was sure she was not hallucinating. Considering her unlikely situation, she thought she’d done a reasonably good job of keeping her imagination in check all these hours—or was it days? But with oxygen deprivation, mirages of sound may be just around the corner.

  Then she felt it—a direct hit on the stone beneath her cheek. Her ear was ringing from it and she cried out in a mixture of surprise, pain and hysteria. Good Lord, she was going to blubber all over someone, and she sure hoped it was that Quinn Ross.

  Maybe the penny was from the late nineties and he’d be a little younger.

  The stone jumped and she squealed. “I’m here. Oh, thank God. I’m here!”

  Then nothing.

  Nothing at all.

  She begged her heart not to stop, forbade her eyes from crying.

  Just count to ten. Just count to ten. You can endure anything for the count of ten.

  She counted to ten, backed up a couple, and counted 8, 9, and 10 again.

  What was it with this place? If you cry cried out, you lost? If you kept your mouth shut, you got out? If she had to start her parole over again, there wasn’t enough air to survive it.

  “Listen you, whoever you are,” she yelled at the floor. “You get me out of here right now. I don’t know if you’re aware of it, but I...am...dying in here. I can’t breathe. So you make me an air hole and make it quick. I also need a flashlight and some water. If I were down a mineshaft you would have made sure I had those things already. Air, water and a light. Got it?”