by Fran Stewart
I laughed, but then we lapsed into silence, which was a good thing because the waitress brought the soup and tea I’d ordered. “Anything else I can get for ye?”
“No. Thank you.”
She looked at the chair pulled out away from the table. “Are ye expecting someone?”
“No. No, I’m not.”
Her forehead furrowed.
“I like to stretch my legs out,” I said.
“Shall I take awa’ the chair then?” She moved toward it and Macbeth scrambled to stand.
“No! No, it’s fine just the way it is. Thank you.”
She gnawed a bit at her lower lip. “If ye say so.”
I nodded, and she left with only one backward glance.
I wasn’t much of a companion. Whatever was I going to do with a ghost? I couldn’t spend the rest of my life toting him around, could I? Did my great-grandmother ever have to pull out a chair so a ghost could sit? Did she ever have to watch her conversations so people wouldn’t think she was crazy?
Doggone it. The whole family did think my great-grandmother was crazy. Was this why? Did she know a ghost? Ghosts? Was I hallucinating or had I somehow inherited this ability? Was I going to be able to see other ghosts? I looked around the pub. Surely over the centuries people had died here. Would their ghosts be hanging out? Everybody looked alive to me, but then, so did the hunk—I mean the guy—at my table.
“Are ye worrit?” His soft voice called me back to the pub. “That scowl on your face reminds me of my aulde auntie who had a roily stomach.”
Could I tell him? You show up in my life and I’m wondering how to get rid of you. “I’m just a little worried about something going on at home.” That was true enough. My cheating former boyfriend, who I did not want to see ever again. “Still, I can’t do anything for a couple more days. I have to shop tomorrow.” And stop thinking about Mason. Oh, good grief, Winn. Chill out. “And then we have to leave. I’ve already paid for the ticket. . . .”
“Ticket? What would . . .”
“. . . and it’s not transferrable. I suppose you’ll be coming with me.”
His voice rang out in indignation. “I dinna intend to leave.”
“Whyever not?”
“My Peigi, my pearl, is here.” He spoke simply, but sincerely.
I hugged the shawl around me. “I don’t think you have much choice in the matter.”
“Ye could leave the shawl behind.”
“No!” Our voices, except for that one burst of laughter, had been quiet, but my startled cry in response to his request stopped the party in progress across the room. Everyone turned to look at me, and the proprietor, Mr. Graham, hurried over to our table. To my table.
“Is something wrong, miss?”
I groped about for an excuse. “I’m sorry, I just read something that startled me. I didn’t mean to disturb anyone.”
He looked at the table, at my lap.
I didn’t have a book with me. Should have thought about that. “On my cell,” I said. “On the Internet.” I lifted my phone from my purse and waved it in front of me. “I should know better than to read during a meal.”
He nodded and hurried away to the other tables, probably to assure them that all was well with the eccentric American. I’d eaten here so many times over the past six years, I felt like I owned part of it, but Mr. Graham still didn’t understand me.
I finished my soup quickly, paid, and left with my wee ghostie in my wake.
We walked for several blocks before he said anything. “Why can ye no leave the shawl?”
“I just can’t, that’s all. I just can’t. It would be like leaving a part of myself behind.”
Until I said it, I hadn’t realized how important the shawl had become to me. I didn’t want to be without it. Ever. I glanced down, and the white stripe seemed to shimmer in the moonlight.
* * *
It was when we walked in the front door of the Sinclair cottage that I realized there might be a problem.
Bed.
I looked at the broad shoulders of my wee ghostie.
The Sinclairs sat in front of their telly, as they called it, and waved to me as I walked toward the stairs. “Did you have . . .”
“. . . a lovely meal?” they asked in their back-and-forth pattern.
I barely paused. “Yes, thank you, but I’m tired. I think I’ll go on to bed now,” and kept walking.
“Sleep well, dearie, and we’ll . . .”
“. . . see you at breakfast, lassie.”
I climbed the stairs, unusually aware of the ghost behind me. The dimly lit stairs were too narrow for two people at a time, and I was glad he couldn’t see my face. We reached the top, and I paused outside my door. “I have to tell you something,” I said. “You can’t come in my room. I wouldn’t feel comfortable with you hovering around while I’m trying to sleep.”
“I do believe I know how ye feel. I wouldna verra much like to spend the whole night hovering, as ye say, either.”
“Can you stay out here in the hall?”
He looked around him, considering the question. He stepped—or rather, tried to step away from me, but about six feet from me, he pulled up short, as if he’d walked into a wall. “I canna.”
“Why not?”
Mrs. Sinclair’s voice came up from the bottom of the stair. “What did ye say, dearie?” She climbed a step or two. “I was on my way into the kitchen, and I thought I heard ye call. Are ye alright now?”
I looked over the bannister. “I’m fine, Mrs. Sinclair. I was just . . . humming to myself.”
She retreated, and he whispered, “It doesna look verra comfortable out here, and I dinna think I can move verra far awae from you, from my Peigi’s shawl.”
“You don’t have to whisper,” I grumped in as quiet a tone as I could manage. “She can’t hear you.” I opened my door and glanced back at the utilitarian hallway. “This is ridiculous. Okay. Come on in if you must. And close the door, please.”
There was a deep silence, and I looked over my shoulder. “I canna,” he finally said, shrugging helplessly.
“Sorry. I forgot.” I motioned him inside, brushed past him, and closed the door quietly. “You can sit over there,” I pointed to a wingback chair of extra-large proportions, “but I’m going to turn it around to face the window. You’ll have to promise not to peek.”
He rubbed his hand over his chin, and I could hear a faint rasping. I guess his last shave was six or seven hundred years ago, plus about two days. I grinned, but he wasn’t looking at me. “Would it no be easier if ye just folded the shawl and set it aside?”
“What?”
“All this day I have been with ye, and ye have been wearing yon shawl. What would happen if ye took it off?”
It seemed such a reasonable suggestion, I was surprised I hadn’t thought of it myself. I lifted the shawl from my shoulders, folded it into a soft bundle, and set it on the chair. And he was gone.
I snatched the shawl back up again, and he stumbled into view.
“Dinna do that!”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t . . . It was . . . I was . . . Did I hurt you?”
“No, but ye scairt the . . . ye scairt me something terrible.”
I folded the shawl once more. “I’ll see you in the morning,” I said, and laid it gently down.
“Rest ye w—”
I took a quick bath and got ready for bed, but I was too restless. This was crazy. Absolutely insane. How could I have a ghost in my life? Was I imagining it? I touched the shawl with one finger. It was real enough. If I’d gone mad, then this was all pretty convincing. I paced around the room two or three times, sat on the side of the bed and brushed my hair, stood and stretched as high as I could onto my tiptoes. I’d been lazing off. Hadn’t gone through my usual yoga routine this morning. If only Mas
on . . . Stop it! I moved the chair to one side and folded myself into Sukhasana, open palms resting on my crossed legs, hoping it would settle me down.
I guess it helped a little bit. Or maybe it was that, after I’d blown out the candle, I lifted the folded shawl from the chair, pushed Mrs. Sinclair’s puffy pillow out of the way, and curled up with my head on an ancient white line.
5
Pitlochry
I ate breakfast without him. It didn’t seem fair to subject him to having to watch me eat when he couldn’t touch or taste anything at all. A bit before it was time for the shops to open, I went upstairs, freshened my face, brushed my teeth, and opened the shawl.
“Did ye sleep easily?” He stood right before me, almost blocking the light from the window, but I could catch a glimpse of rose leaves behind him. Through him. His eyes widened when he looked down and saw my jeans, but he didn’t say anything.
“Yes, thank you. I did. And you?”
He ran his fingers through his silky black hair. “I wouldna call it sleep, exactly. Nor wakefulness, neither. I simply was. And wasna at the same time, if ye know what I mean.”
I didn’t, but I thought the concept of what he’d gone through might not be an easy one to explain, rather like some of the concepts he was about to encounter—mass transportation and libraries and world history, just to name a few. So I mumbled a platitude or two and set off briskly down the stairs.
We didn’t say much walking into town, and when we reached the Atholl Road, I found that I’d come a bit too early, so we strolled until the shops opened.
We passed the World War I memorial. A tall column that had the dates 1914 and 1919 carved on it, and the names of all the Pitlochry men who’d died overseas. I’d seen it often but still was moved by the incredible waste of all those young lives.
He paused and looked it over. “What would this be?”
“It’s a war memorial.”
“Ah.” His hand strayed to the hilt of his dirk, even though I could tell it wasn’t a conscious move. He nodded toward the names inscribed around all four sides of the base. “That’s many to have died in a battle.”
“Not just one battle,” I said. “Many. For five long years. They called it the War to End All Wars.” I could hear the capital letters in my tone of voice.
“I dinna think it did, for I know a bit about the way men think, and I canna believe they’ve changed all that much in six hundred years.” He paused to watch a bevy of young women pass by.
No. Men hadn’t changed much in six hundred years.
They parted and moved around him, oblivious to the energy he must have been putting out to prevent their running into him. Or through him, I thought.
By then the shops were open, and we walked up and down the Atholl Road, looking for handmade items, not the usual run-of-the-mill tourist junk that any shopkeeper could order from a catalog. I had a loyal clientele of leaf-peeper bus companies that brought their customers to Hamelin every autumn to see the riotous fall colors. They generally unloaded their tourists right in front of the ScotShop and directed people next door to the Logg Cabin, Karaline’s restaurant, for a meal. Naturally, those people peered in my windows as they walked past and usually returned to browse and buy something after their lunch. Wide-sleeved homespun shirts were a big item with the men, tartan skirts for the women.
Then there were the regular summer residents, most of whom had a house in Hamelin and another farther south, so they could enjoy mild weather year round. They bought mostly gift items for their friends and family. Plaques and postcards, kilt pins and tartan coasters, coffee-table books and clan warrior figurines.
The regular tourists, just passing through for a day or an hour at any season of the year, usually bought a scarf or a tartan tie—I sold a lot of those—but often they’d buy a big-ticket item such as an authentic formal kilt, with kilt hose and matching flashes, a sporran and ghillie brogues, a kilt pin, and they always wanted a sgian-dubh, the small knife that is slipped inside the hose. I included a DVD called How to Put on Your Formal Kilt with every kilt purchase. No sense having a kilt if you didn’t know how to wear it; those things could be confusing as heck to a beginner.
I glanced sideways. He inspected every passing car, probably listening for a horse whinny. His kilt wasn’t the military kind, with the pleats already sewn down along the top. No. His was real. Nine yards of tartan. That’s where the saying the whole nine yards comes from. The fabric had been cut in half and sewn together to make thirteen and a half feet of cloth that he’d have to pleat, lie down on, pull up around him, and belt. Next, he’d stand and arrange the top either around his shoulders or over one of them, securing it with his kilt pin, and finally he would pull up the front corners of the bottom half, tucking them into his belt so they wouldn’t hinder his stride.
And quite a stride he had. At first I’d felt I had to keep up with him, and then I gradually saw that he matched my pace, no matter what it was. If I strolled, he strolled, always within three or four feet of me. If I sped up, so did he. I adjusted the shawl, letting it fall open a bit. The day really was quite mild.
I went back to inspecting his garb, trying to do it surreptitiously, as he absorbed all the sights and sounds. His hose were hand-knit, of course, and the completely utilitarian handle of a sgian-dubh showed above the top of his sock. His left leg. He must be left-handed. I mulled that over.
“When ye have finished inspecting me,” he said, and I raised my head to find his eyes twinkling, “would ye explain this to me?” He waved his hand at a confectionary store with stacks of chocolates, boxes of shortbread, and goodies I didn’t even know the names of. Unfortunately, when he gestured, his hand swiped through a nearby man neither of us had noticed. The man stumbled, and I reached out to grab his arm. If he hadn’t weighed about twice what I did, I might have been a help. As it was, we both tumbled to the ground.
Passersby, both Pitlochry denizens and tourists, rushed to help us. By the time the man and I were hauled to our feet, I’d lost sight of my ghost in the frenzy.
“I don’t know what came over me,” the man said, shaking his head and speaking to the crowd. “I don’t normally become dizzy.”
A woman standing at my elbow spoke up. “I’ll just run down the side street and ask Dr. McLeod to come take a look at ye.”
I stepped forward. “I don’t think that’s necessary.” I looked the man straight in the eye, lying for all I was worth. “I’m afraid I stumbled into you. I caught my foot on . . .” I looked down at the perfectly even pavement. “Well, I don’t know what I caught it on, but I certainly hope you’re not injured. I think you cushioned my fall.”
I tried to smile endearingly, but it must not have worked. “Ye look a bit sickly,” the man said. “Perhaps we should call Dr. McLeod for ye.”
“No. Thank you. That’s very kind. I’m, uh, I’m fine.” I reached down and rubbed my knee. No blood. My jeans were sturdy. “I think I’ll just mosey along and do a little shopping.”
There was a collective murmur, with words like elevate and careful popping to the surface, but I nodded my head to each of the people surrounding me. “Thank you for helping me,” I said. “Thank you. Thank you.”
I spotted the ghost nearby, on the edge of the throng, and headed toward him. When I was sure we were far enough away, I said, “You’re going to have to watch when you throw your hand around.”
“Aye.” He crossed his arms in front of his chest. His massive chest, I noticed. Had he always been that brawny, or was I only now beginning to see him for real?
“Let’s head up that way.” I gestured to my right. “There aren’t as many people, and there’s a store I want to visit.”
“Ye didna answer my question about the wee shop back there.” He thrust his chin in the direction we’d come from.
“They sell all different kinds of candy.” When he looked blankly
at me, I added, “Sweets? Desserts? Like shortbread?”
His rather grim countenance lightened. “Ah, shortbread. The aulde grannies bake it as often as we have sugar. ’Tis verra dear.”
“Expensive, you mean?”
“Aye, that is what I said.”
I considered heading back down the street just to pick up a box or two, but one look at my ghost convinced me not to. He couldn’t eat it, and I couldn’t possibly enjoy eating it with him watching me.
“Here, look at this.” I stopped in front of a small store I’d been in before, where I usually bought notecards, enough to last me between visits to Scotland. I was old-fashioned about some things, and writing letters—well, notes—was something I enjoyed doing. People were always so surprised when they received something other than junk in their mailbox.
Maybe I could write Mason a poison pen letter. I shuddered.
“Have ye caught a chill? Mayhap we should go inside, out of the breeze.”
“Sorry. No, I was just thinking about writing a letter to somebody.”
“Ah, a letter?” The awe in his voice was palpable. “I saw a letter once. ’Twas to Father Marcus, from Father Godfrey at the Church of All Hallows by the Tower. In London.” I started at the name. I’d toured that church once when I spent a few days in London. It was still in pretty good shape, considering its age. He looked around, almost as if he expected to see the good father sauntering down the street. “Father Marcus let me practice my reading using that letter. ’Twas all about church matters and didna make a great deal of sense to my young mind.”
“Nowadays, letters aren’t quite so weighty,” I said, opening the door.
I nodded to the shopkeeper, who eyed me over her thick glasses. After all, I appeared to be talking to myself. I picked out an assortment of finely crafted notecards with matching envelopes, too good to waste on the likes of Mason Kilmarty, may he rot in hell, but I wasn’t going to think about him.
6
A Wee Town of My Own