He tried moving his feet, but his body wouldn’t respond. He couldn’t even blink. It was as if he were a statue.
Darkness pressed around them. Beyond the narrow beam on which they traveled, Alex saw other small lights in his peripheral vision, flashing and zipping in myriad directions. He wondered if they represented other travelers in this odd place, but all he could make out were shimmering spots.
Then suddenly, he and Farquhar sank into a gelatinous mass that both slowed and warmed them. In a blink, Alex found himself stumbling out of a large pane of silvered glass, finally able to move again. His grip around Farquhar’s arm closed suddenly on nothing but vapor, as the ghost’s form lost the solidity he’d had a moment ago. Alex kept his feet while he came to a shuddering stop and brushed a layer of frost off his lapel and eyebrows.
A strange smell, a mix of old blood and offal, burning pitch and rusting iron, surrounded him. It was the stench of ancient misery. A single torch lit the dank chamber. The mirror he and Farquhar had come through occupied the center of the room, suspended from the high ceiling by a pair of long chains. The looking glass was so veined with dark spots Alexander’s reflection wavered in disjointed chunks.
“Aye, ’tis old beyond reckoning. A wonder it still works, is it no’?” Farquhar said. Alex suspected his steward was a mind-reader as well as a ghost.
“Are we still in Bonniebroch Castle?” Alex asked.
Farquhar nodded. “Ye might come here by the secret tunnel from your chamber, but the path through the mirrors is quicker and we’ve nae time to waste.”
“This is the dungeon, then.” Moldering leather straps attached to iron rings jutted from the gray stone and a gibbet hung in one corner. “I trust there aren’t many inmates,” he added as an afterthought, hoping to lighten the mood.
“Only two at present. Come.”
There were three barred cells giving off the larger chamber where the mirror was. One appeared to be empty. At first Alex thought the next one was as well, but then he noticed a black shape against the back wall. If it hadn’t moved he’d never have seen it. The darkness gathered itself into the form of a man and moved toward the bars. A sudden flash of brilliant light sprang from the bars and the shape slunk back into the corner.
“Settle, then,” Farquhar told it gruffly. “Yer time isna come yet.”
“What is it?”
“That is what’s left of Morgan MacRath, a sorcerer of no little power.”
The shape glowed like a glossy piece of obsidian at Farquhar’s words.
“Why is he held here?” As Alexander stepped nearer to the bars, unbridled contempt rolled over him. The shape of Morgan MacRath seethed with hatred, directed at everything and nothing.
“Morgan’s in a prison of his own making, ye might say. The result of a magical backlash. Ye see, he’s the one who cursed Bonniebroch all those years ago. He’s a fine canny sorcerer, ye ken, but a bit sloppy. If he’d read a bit further in his grimoire, he’d have realized that his curse carried a hefty price.”
The shape seemed to shrink a bit, but Alex wasn’t disposed to pity it. Anything so filled with rage was due a healthy wariness, but no empathy.
“So if the curse is lifted, what happens to the people of Bonniebroch?”
“They become unstuck. They’ll grow and age naturally from that day forth and eventually die as God intended folk should.” Farquhar joined him near MacRath’s cell. “Now they’re like insects trapped in amber, frozen in time. Believe me, there’s no’ a soul in the castle as doesna long for a normal life and a normal death at the end of it.”
“And what about Mr. MacRath?”
“If the curse is lifted before Twelfth Night, he winks out entirely, never to trouble another soul again.”
The dark shape rose and swelled to twice its size and then deflated like a child’s balloon.
“And if the curse isn’t broken?” Alex asked.
“Then Morgan MacRath will be strong enough to take corporeal form again. He’ll be loose and abroad in the world to wreak whatever mischief his wicked soul chooses.” Farquhar’s narrow shoulders slumped. “And the people of Bonniebroch who’ve been unchanging as stone all these years will finally become stone. They’ll turn to statues where they stand when the chapel bell rings midnight on Twelfth Night.”
Alex turned away from MacRath’s cell. “How do we end this?”
“We canna. At least, I canna. Ending the Bonniebroch curse must be your doing, milord, or no’ at all.”
“Very well. What must I do?”
“That I canna tell ye either.”
Farquhar raised his hands before himself in a defensive gesture even though Alexander had made no threatening move against him. He only felt like wringing the ghost’s scrawny neck. Evidently, Farquhar was as sensitive to intent as action.
“I didna make the magic, but we must live by its rules. But I can tell ye that in the coming days, ye’ll be faced with some pivotal choices. How ye choose to act will decide what’s to become of us all.”
Alexander snorted. “Oh, good. No pressure.” He strode toward the remaining cell. “Who’s in this—”
He stopped to listen. Very softly, on the thinnest edge of sound, the sobbing began. “The weeping woman. Why is she being held here?”
“She isna held except by her own will. As ye can see, the cell door is open. She came to us some twenty odd years ago and hasna stopped mourning since.”
“Who is she?”
“Search your heart, lad. Ye know already.”
The woman stood in deep shadow at the rear of the cell. Then she turned and walked toward the open door. The shade stopped at the threshold. She was dressed all in black with the broad panniers of a generation ago extending the width of her hips so that she’d have to turn sideways should she decide to pass through the opening. He’d never seen her so clearly in his dreams. She’d always presented as a diaphanous shape that seemed to vanish when he came too close.
Her sleeves were festooned with furbelows and her petticoat was thick with obsidian ruffles. Her hat was large enough for a stuffed black pigeon to blend in almost unnoticed among all the other frufurrah. Reams of veils trailed over her shoulders and down her back. One swath of black netting was caught up so it obscured the bottom half of her face. Only her eyes were visible above it.
Storm-gray eyes that were mirror images of his.
In all the nights when his dreams were invaded by her sobbing, she’d never spoken to him. In a broken voice, the woman said the first intelligible word he’d ever heard from her.
It was his name.
“Take me away from this place, Farquhar,” Alexander said quietly. He barely contained the tremble that threatened to take him.
“Will ye no’ listen to her side of things?”
“She has no side. She chose to leave.” The old keening ache in his chest throbbed afresh. The bitter venom his father had injected into Alex over the years coursed hotly through his veins. “Turns out she taught me well because that’s what I choose, too. Now either take me back through the mirror or point me to the stairs leading up to my chamber.”
“But, milord—”
“Now, damn it. Am I laird of this place or not?”
“The stairs are over there, milord,” Farquhar said with a sigh and extended a spectral arm. “Mind how you go.”
Alexander stalked toward the steps and started climbing. He had to stop halfway up to cover his ears. The farther away he was, the louder her sobs seemed to grow.
It wasn’t fair. Wasn’t it bad enough that he had to face her weeping in his sleep? Hearing her in the waking world made him doubt his sanity.
Well, that was fitting. Madness was all he might expect to inherit from his mad mother.
“‘Love covers a multitude of sins,’ or so says holy writ. But what are we poor souls to do when love has been long absent? Or seems to have been?”
From the secret journal of Callum Farquhar,
Steward of Bonniebroch
Castle since the
Year of Our Lord 1521
Chapter Twenty-Four
Lucinda pushed her food around her plate until the rest of the company was served. The Great Hall fairly buzzed with excitement. The fact that conversations stopped abruptly as she passed made her strain all the more to overhear them.
“Mr. Farquhar has taken him . . .”
“Does anyone know what the first task . . .”
“Wouldna it be wondrous if . . .”
Snippets of gossip about their laird’s absence in relation to the Bonniebroch curse sparked through the assembly with the unfocused energy of heat lightning.
’Tis fine for them to be stirred up over what Alex is doing, but I wonder how the other ladies here would feel if it was their husband popping through a mirror with an old ghost, Lucinda thought crossly.
As soon as she was decently able, she rose and admonished the others to continue their Christmas feast. Mr. Lyttle lit her to the laird’s chamber. She dismissed him at the door, telling him not to send a maid to help her to bed.
Lucinda wanted to remain dressed, ready to accompany Alexander if Mr. Farquhar decided to take him on another trip through any more looking glasses. Her heart lurched when she saw Alex in the darkened sitting room, his still form lit only by the fire in the grate. She hurried to him and knelt by his side.
Wordlessly, he pulled her up and settled her on his lap, but continued to stare into the flames as if mesmerized by them.
First things first. Aunt Hester had always told her the best thing a woman can do for a man who has a problem is to tend to his basic needs while he sorted the rest out for himself.
“Ye missed supper. Shall I ring for a tray?”
He shook his head. Perhaps the problem was more than he could sort out on his own.
“Alexander, what happened?” She kissed his neck and nuzzled his earlobe.
“My world is upside down, that’s what,” he said softly as he stroked her arm absently. “This sort of thing would never happen in England, you know. I suppose it’s because we don’t regularly consort with ghosts and curses are only the stuff of faery tales.”
Lucinda wished he’d look at her. It’d reassure her to see his soul shining behind his eyes. “Brodie would say that’s because there’s more magic in one foot of Scottish earth than in all the land south of Hadrian’s Wall.”
“He’d probably also say it was time I learned to listen to my wife. You were right. The weeping woman is my mother.”
“You’ve seen her?”
“Aye,” he said, not bothering to correct the Scottish-ism that slipped through his lips this time. “She’s set up housekeeping in a cozy little cell in the dungeon.”
“The dungeon? Whatever she may have done, you canna mean to keep her there.” Lucinda tried to sidle off his lap, but he held her fast.
“I’m not. She keeps herself there when she’s not bedeviling my dreams.” He shook his head. “Doing penance, I expect.”
“Oh, Alex. I dinna know much about these unearthly things, but somehow, ye must release her.”
“Since you have your very own pet ghost, you must know something about it. Certainly more than me. Where does your Brodie MacIver stay?”
“Pretty much wherever he wants. However, he’s been verra good about giving us privacy when we are alone.”
“Thank God for small favors.” He finally met her gaze and she saw his eyes were clear, if still distracted by his trip through the mirror.
The man wants distracting in an entirely different way.
She brushed his lips with hers and he answered her by claiming her mouth in a bruising kiss. She melted into him. He held her so tightly, she had difficulty drawing breath, but she wouldn’t complain. She wanted to be close to this man, so close their souls would mingle and stay mixed together forever. For several glorious minutes, neither of them thought about ghosts or curses or anything beyond the wonder of a shared breath.
Alex was the first to pull back.
“Before we get completely off the subject, will your ghost come when you call him?” he asked.
“Usually.” She laid her head on his shoulder and wished she could take the pain of seeing his mother’s shade from him. “Why do ye want Brodie?”
“It might be interesting to find out if I can see him.”
“Ye canna. Ye’ve been in his presence dozens of times. He even shared the coach with us and Aunt Hester all the way to Dalkeith and ye didna notice him once. Brodie was being fair obnoxious that day too, as I recall.”
“You’ll have to tell me what he says then.” Alex spit the next words out, which showed they cost him dear. “I need his help. Summon him.”
“Let me up, then. Even though we’re wed, he’s still a might possessive of me.” She slid off his lap. “Brodie MacIver!”
Almost instantly, the ghost came headfirst down the chimney and rolled onto the hearth rug with a laugh. “Just sweepin’ out the soot for Father Christmas. Cromwell should have been boiled in pudding for banning the celebratin’ part o’ the holiday. I’ve always loved Christmas!”
“I thought you didna remember much from your natural life, Brodie.” Lucinda stared down at him. She glanced at Alex, but his bewildered frown told her he still couldn’t see her ghost.
“I dinna, but it’d be a poor spirit indeed as forgot Christmas entire, would it no’?”
“Mr. MacIver.” Alex stood and looked down at the hearth rug as Lucinda had, but by that time, Brodie had already floated up to the ceiling and was doing barrel rolls along the sturdy beams. “I’ve need of your help.”
“Indeed his lairdship does, since he doesna even know where I am.”
“Keep a civil tongue in your head, and listen to the man, Brodie.” Lucinda tipped her chin so she could follow the ghost’s antics and show Alexander where he was now. “Go on, Alex.”
“There’s a female spirit in the castle. I need for you to speak to her and find out . . . well, whatever it is she wishes to say to me.”
“If he knows she’s here and she’s tryin’ to communicate with him, why does he no’ talk to her himself?”
“Because some things are hard to hear firsthand,” Lucinda explained. “Ye’d be serving as . . . as an ambassador of sorts. A mediator.”
“Hmph!”
“Please, Brodie, this is important,” Lucinda said.
“Don’t beg,” Alex interrupted. “If he’s unwilling, he’s not going to do it very well. I’ll figure out some other way.”
Brodie made a rude noise, the kind that made Lucinda grateful she couldn’t smell her ghost. Then she cocked her head and listened while Brodie whispered to her.
“He says he needs the spirit’s name.”
Alexander crossed his arms over his chest. “Why?”
“It’s how he’ll find her. Just as I used his name to call him, he’ll use her name to locate her. It’s their way.”
“Finding her is not a problem. Tell him she’s in the dungeon.”
“’Tis no’ so simple a thing. Apparently, if ghosts dinna ken each other’s names, they canna recognize each other. They slide by each other, like wind that ruffles a pile of leaves and passes on unheeding. He could look right into her cell and never see her, nor she him.” When Alex shot her a dubious scowl, she added, “Ye remember how Mr. Farquhar said he sensed a new presence in Bonniebroch so he laid out the book with Mr. Lyttle’s family tree to draw the other spirit out. Since he didna know Brodie’s name, that’s all he could do.”
“And ye thanked me for bringing it to yer notice, did ye no’? This castle is peculiar and no mistake. Tell him I need her name or I’ll be no help at all.”
Alex huffed out a noisy breath. “Very well. Her name is Finella MacGregor Mallory.”
“Finella,” Brodie repeated, his tone suddenly thick with emotion.
Alexander’s head jerked toward the sound. “I heard that.”
Brodie suddenly shot through the floorboards at Alexander’s fe
et with a burst of white light, but Alex must not have seen it. He didn’t bat so much as an eyelash.
“He’s gone,” Lucinda said.
“Will he help me?”
“That I dinna ken, but he’s on his way to talk to your weeping woman. He was headed straight down.”
“Finella,” Brodie chanted. Memories rushed back into him along with her name. The prettiest girl in ten parishes. Stolen kisses and furtive trysts when she’d sneak out of her brother’s house by night. Riding bareback with Brodie. Galloping on the heath. Wind in her unbound hair. Oh, the feel of her arms around his waist and her breasts pressed up against his back as they bounded through a burn in full spate. Her legs were wet....
More slices of the past slammed into his mind. He remembered a hated contractual marriage with an Englishman. Brodie tried to steal her away, but her brother Cormag MacGregor found them out. Brodie was arrested and Cormag locked Finella in the tower till her Englishman came and claimed her.
Then Brodie was taken, bound and gagged, to a dank cellar. Finella was lost. He no longer cared what happened to him. He was dead inside already. The rest of him followed suit in time, though he couldn’t say how long the dying took. Days and weeks blurred together in unremitting misery.
Sorrow aged his soul before it flew free. But he couldn’t fly far. Anger chained him to earth. Other passions burned out, but seething rage remained. Little by little, his former life faded like a rose past its prime till all that was left was a wisp of what had been a sweet scent.
By the time a wee lassie crying in the dark pulled him out of his self-pitying stupor, Brodie had forgotten almost everything but his own name.
Now his first love’s name called him back to himself. Back to her.
“I’m coming, Finella.”
Alex sank back into the chair and leaned forward to balance his elbows on his knees, head in his hands. “I’m going mad.”
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