Night Visitor

by Melanie Jackson

  Colkitto stood abruptly, his fascination replaced with alarm.

  “I pray that you are mistaken.”

  “Whyever? A good Scotsman should enjoy thinking on a bonnie lass.”

  “Not when he is nearing the time of battle and travel. What ails thee, piper, to think of laying the hand of Fate upon this lass? I tell thee, it does not serve to give hostage to Fate.”

  Malcolm nodded, knowing that the MacColla was thinking of his own family, ransomed in the merciless hands of Lord Lorne.

  “Worry not about me lass, Irish. She’s already walking wi’ the spirits. In any case, ‘tis late in the day for us tae flee our memories. The heart that truly loves a woman cannae forget her, and somehow I ken that she is bound tae me as well.”

  “God grant eternity,” the other whispered, crossing himself hurriedly.

  To that Malcolm didn’t answer, and MacColla, no longer so curious about the future, didn’t ask if he knew what his own end would be or whether his imprisoned family would be waiting at Duntrune.

  That was best, Malcolm knew. It would be difficult to lead men in battle if one knew that grim Death was waiting impatiently nearby. It was hard enough to lead men when one’s piper’s thoughts were not upon the coming battle but upon his own nearing end.

  Malcolm turned back to look out over the loch. He couldn’t be certain, but there was a tiny rowboat coming their way, and as none of the other men were raising an alarm at the approaching vessel, he was led to hope that it was the apparition. His…

  Malcolm closed his eyes, and for the first time, reached down inside to the forbidden place where he never allowed his mind to go. He wanted to see if he could name her, his blond wraith.

  What is your name? he asked her.

  Taffy, a soft voice whispered back.

  “Taffy,” he repeated, testing the foreign syllables and finding he liked their rhythm.

  He opened his eyes, watching the boat draw near. Something golden and shining was aboard it, glistening under an unseen sun.

  Mayhap he truly meant what he had said to the MacColla about being blindly infatuated. For which of the great lovers had ever not loved—and deeply—at first sight True, it was daft. But there was no escaping that this strange new feeling he had was stronger than the call to duty, stronger even than the fear of dying.

  But if he had only a score of days left to spend in this world, why should he not spend them in love with this beautiful apparition?

  Patiently he waited for the skiff to approach, breathing deeply the salt air, which was gradually spiced with the scent of sweet woodbine and blackberries ripening under the sun.

  “Come tae me, Taffy, lass,” he murmured.

  I’m coming, he thought he heard the wind whisper back.

  Chapter Three

  Kilmartin, 1888

  The darkness’s disquieting dreams had given way to the morning rituals, which included performing one’s toiletries by a small lamp feebly aided by dawn’s faint light. Taffy loved Scotland, but she found this to be one of the more discouraging aspects of rural life. She did not care for early hours, cold baths, or arranging her hair when she was still fumble-fingered—especially this morning, as she intended to call on Bishop Mapleton and wanted to put in a respectable appearance for…well, whoever might see her at Duntrune.

  “My sainted aunt!” Taffy muttered in Gaelic as she wrestled with her hair—which was much too cumbersome that morning. She began to ponder, as the hands on her timepiece swept past the new hour, if perhaps it was time to halve its length. Surely no one needed hair that reached past their shoulders.

  After the long and difficult battle with braids and combs, she arrived at the breakfast table in a dead heat with the tea. Fortunately, her father was preoccupied with reading some repelling, moldy manuscript and did not note Taffy’s near tardiness and suspiciously formal dress as she discreetly slipped into her chair.

  It wasn’t that she was unfilial, Taffy assured herself, but as she had gotten older, she found that she was not open to parental suggestions on how to improve her nature. Nor was she receptive to advice on the manner of her clothing—which, according to her parent, was practically an eyesore for any that had beheld her in “rational dress.”

  It was unusually ill-natured of her to wish to avoid one of her father’s favorite mealtime topics, but she was not in the mood this morning to endure another lecture on the matter. She had come to the conclusion that she wasn’t meant to live up to his ideal of womanhood, and anyway, she had greater thoughts on her mind this morning than her attire.

  Fortunately, other than the ritual daybreak greetings with Mistress MacIntyre, not a word was spoken over breakfast, and Taffy escaped the morning table as soon as she decently could. She needed to be out in the open air where she could think without interruption.

  She paused only long enough to grab a short cloak and then hurried from the inn. The morning air was bracing and filled with a salty tang and the scent of wild honeysuckle. She breathed the sea air deeply, already feeling less constrained.

  In the distance was the distinct sound of bagpipes. Taffy listened carefully as she fetched her velocipede. She couldn’t hear the tune plainly, but what snatches there were sounded mournful. It seemed that there was also someone else who didn’t care for being up with the dawn! Mayhap he had spent the night having restless dreams as well.

  The sun, just fully over the horizon, was bright enough that Taffy had to narrow her eyes as she set the velocipede on its lurching course toward the loch. She should have fetched a visor, but it looked out of place with her fancier dress and would mean returning to the inn and possibly encountering her father.

  Her precious prints of Duntrune were secured between slender boards and stored in a mudproof oilskin satchel, which she used for transport on the bicycle. She had not taken the time yesterday to develop the first plate she had exposed at the castle, suspecting that it was ruined, but after her dreams of the night before…

  Taffy shook her head once, and then, recalling her recalcitrant hair, desisted.

  Well, never let it be said that she was one to let the sun go down upon an interesting notion. She decided to take the time to see if anything odd was there on the undeveloped plate.

  Like Malcolm.

  Taffy flushed with a sudden surge of emotion the name brought and slowed her pedaling. It would not do to have an accident and arrive at Duntrune in a muddied state or unbecomingly flushed.

  It was not amazing, she assured herself as the sound of pipes grew louder, that she had dreamt of Malcolm the night before, given the thoughts she had taken to bed with her. His story was a colorful one, and though skeletal remains were a fairly regular occurrence in her life, they were usually very old, partial skeletal remains, and hardly resembled people anymore.

  But these things, even in conjunction, could not account for the content of her dream. She had seen a virtual re-creation of yesterday’s events, except that at the moment when she went to expose her plate, an unusually tall man with dark hair and the palest gray eyes had knelt down beside the grave.

  He had been dressed in the old manner wearing a belted plaid, secured at the waist with a wide belt and then wrapped over the shoulder where it was pinned with a silver broach. He had hand-stitched brogues that came up well over his ankles, and beside him on the stone floor were a set of pipes and a severed boar’s head.

  At the last instant, he had looked up from the bones to stare at her, surprise—and longing—written clearly on his weathered face.

  There had been something else, too, something very strange. Her own ears were the tiniest bit pointed at the upper tips, but the piper’s had been very pointed. In fact, he very nearly matched the locals’ description of a faerie. Yet this man could not be the infamous still-folk patriarch Tomas Rimer; that great faerie appeared to mortals only as an old man.

  Taffy pushed the thought aside. Her mind was filled with rubbish this morning! But she would develop that other plate as soon
as she returned from the castle. She hadn’t believed any of her friends’ spiritualist nonsense when the craze swept through London last winter, but there had been some remarkable photographs of supposed apparitions caught on film, and she was willing to see if perhaps she had encountered such a—a “technical flaw” with her own equipment. It might be that she would be able to finally lay to rest all the silly rumors about ghosts and faeries appearing on film.

  Taffy dismounted her velocipede at the castle gates and leaned it against the rough gray wall. She removed her cycling cloak, and then smoothed her skirt back into neatness before walking boldly up the long drive to the castle’s entrance.

  On the top step she looked about once, sensing that she was being observed, but seeing no one and hearing no stirring from within, she reached out a nervous hand and let the ugly door-knocker—a hideous tusked boar with mean, little eyes—fall on its iron plate

  After a time, a drowsy housemaid answered the summons and took Taffy through a great hall, where there hung a large banner with yet another boar’s head emblazoned on it—this swine in profile and having a forked tongue as well as dagger-length tusks—into a parlor which, judging from the accumulated books and folios resting upon every flat surface, was serving as the bishop’s study while repairs were being carried out in his home.

  Bishop Mapleton took some time in joining her and looked as though he had hurried through his toiletries. But he welcomed Taffy politely, even though he was clearly surprised at her early arrival and so distracted by the ongoing renovations that he spent most of his time peering out of his study window and jumping nervously at every sharp sound. Even a workman’s tuneless whistling seemed to irritate his tender nerves.

  Perhaps it was her velocipede that had put him off; many people did not care for the whimsical design of the bentwood hickory frame, she thought, noticing that it was resting within plain view of the window. Taffy frowned. Or maybe he did not like that a female was riding it. She had been rejected at the Glasgow cycling club for precisely that reason.

  Taffy was slightly disappointed that the bishop wasn’t more cordial in his greeting, but she supposed that being reclusive—no doubt due to that clever, bulging head with its prominent browridge that made him, in her opinion, plug-ugly—it would hardly be shocking if he didn’t know how to turn out a real highland welcome when company appeared.

  Although, he wasn’t truly a highlander at all. She decided that that was most likely the problem. Courtesy wasn’t bred into the bishop’s blood as it was with the other local people.

  Taffy’s already low opinion of her ungenial host sank even lower when he accepted her beautiful photographs of the piper’s skeleton with all the enthusiasm of someone being offered a long-dead fish, and she decided then and there that she would seek no more of his society. Disliking the velocipede was one thing; scorning her precious art was another. Clearly, man of God or no, the bishop was a Philistine!

  It was also the height of unchristian heartlessness not to say something about the fate of Malcolm’s poor, abandoned bones when she raised the subject of their disposition. The bishop was positively evasive on the topic of what would be done with the remains.

  Nor was he willing to answer any of her inquiries about faerie lore. Taffy had some questions about the matter, for she had heard it said that those who went to visit the faeries died on the dawn of the day they returned to the world of Christian men. A single night among the still-folk supposedly took the same toll on a body as the passing of one hundred mortal years—and though time passed slowly in the world of Faerie, the earth’s spun along as before. According to the legends, to remain with the faeries for the length of one dance or to hear one of Tomas Rimer’s poems was to lose a year of one’s life.

  But at Taffy’s questions the bishop grew even more abrupt. He would say no more than it was fortunate if such heathens did die when the sun’s rays fell upon them. With those words, he wasted no time in hustling her out of his home.

  Stunned by such heartlessness, Taffy left without protest. There would be no answers from Bishop Mapleton.

  The castle, she noticed upon leaving, didn’t feel as welcoming this morning, either. It was just a pile of old gray-green rocks, devoid of any personality or life. Some form of grace had been withdrawn since the previous day’s events.

  Certain that she was unobserved, Taffy gave into a childish impulse and stuck her tongue out at the ugly door-knocker before hurrying down the drive.

  Back on her bicycle and away from cold Duntrune in record time, Taffy left no blessings behind for its rude occupant.

  As always, cycling lifted her spirits, and she soon felt more cheerful. The air agreed with her, made her feel whole. It was a morning that brought the sort of companionship that she sometimes found when riding with a partner. She could almost pretend that someone rode beside her, enjoying the scenery in friendly silence.

  Finally, Taffy admitted to herself that seeking the bishop out in the early morn and unaccompanied had not been a very mature scheme. Some men simply didn’t approve of women having a profession. And, too, it was very early for a social call, even in the country where the inhabitants were awakened at dawn by bagpipes. She should have delayed her visit a while, let him get a little of the bacon and eggs and coffee inside his fat stomach before confronting him with pictures of skeletons. And she had forgotten to bring her calling cards! She had no doubt that he thought her mannerless.

  “Well, it is no bloody wonder he didn’t receive me with enthusiasm,” she muttered.

  But, she decided on her way back to her wheeled darkroom, it had been worth the trip simply to prove to herself that she could get on with her plans, even with her father doing his best to nobble her. Independence took practice; she would get better over time.

  Her carriage workroom was not yet suffocating, so she set about her labors without removing her annoying collar, though she did roll back her cuffs to spare them from the stains of blackening.

  By this time, Taffy had convinced herself that she had imagined all of yesterday’s strange episode, and if anything actually appeared on the plate, it would be a white blot—some completely unidentifiable shape—caused by a stray beam of light reflecting off of a lost button or shiny pebble on the nearby flagstones at the castle.

  It therefore came as a rather large surprise when she washed away the softer gelatin and discovered that there was, in fact, the image of a man in a belted plaid kneeling at the side of the piper’s grave.

  “Angels and ministers of grace defend us!”

  In disbelief, she picked up the blacking and began to gently rub the print into stronger contrast.

  “And Columba preserve me!” she whispered, rubbing away the last of the excess blacking with a cloth and holding the print before her.

  The plate could not show her what color of eyes the figure had, but it did show his face—the one from her dream!—and also those amazing, pointed ears peeping out of his thick, dark hair where it fell around them. The only thing missing from her dreams was the severed boar’s head on the ground beside him.

  “It can’t be,” she whispered. But the image didn’t change and an almost forgotten phrase presented itself to her stunned mind. This man was Homo arcanus, as a Latin scholar would say. Daoine shi, to the Gaels.

  “Pronounced ear cartilage was not uncommon among the northern Gaels,” she told herself.

  Her shaking hands did not agree. That there was anyone in the photograph was a matter so uncommon as to rate the appellation of miraculous.

  She was grateful that she had a witness to the fact that no one—visible—had been at the grave when the photo was taken, else she would doubt her sanity.

  Not that she would call on her father to verify this happening. No! She could well imagine his reaction if this plate was ever made public and he was appealed to for support by the members of the spiritualistic movement…He’d more likely support the suffragettes, and he detested those pushy women.

  No, s
he could not tell her father—ever—about this Malcolm of Glen Noe.

  Again, there came the strong feeling that she was not alone. Paying closer attention this time, Taffy exhaled slowly and closed her eyes. Goose-flesh arose on her arms and her head swam giddily. Almost, she could hear pipes playing a mournful song.

  Malcolm.

  It took all her courage but she managed to call softly: “Malcolm? Piper, are you here?”

  “Tafaline! Is someone in there with you?”

  She nearly shrieked at the loud summons right outside her door.

  “Father! Just a moment. Don’t open the door!” Quickly, she stuffed her damning plate into an open satchel and, peril temporarily averted, opened the carriage door to her impatient parent. “Yes?”

  He peered over her shoulder for a moment, searching the small interior for a visitor.

  “Father? You wanted something?”

  “Hm? Oh! Have you those blasted prints ready for Mapleton?”

  “Why, no. I delivered them earlier. Did you need to see them?”

  Davis transferred his gaze to her.

  “You delivered them?”

  “Certainly. I have the proper means of transporting the plates, which are fragile. And you are far too busy to deal with such paltry matters. Anyway, it isn’t as if the bones are important to your work.”

  “Quite.” But he still stared as if she had grown two heads, causing her to wonder if she were behaving strangely. He asked, with obvious reluctance: “Are you quite well? Perhaps I should open your windows and let some clean air inside. It would be most inconvenient if you fainted from the fumes and heat.”

  There were many who thought that females were of negligible intellect and unable to think calmly in a crisis, but Taffy had learned to use both initiative and resourcefulness when she wanted her way. And what she most definitely wanted was for her father to leave before he discovered her hidden plate, or before she fainted dead at his feet from the shock of the ever-louder bagpipes playing an alarm in her head.