Stirring Up Trouble: A Warlocks MacGregor Novella

by Michelle M. Pillow

  At that, Donna glanced at him, feeling the comparison. “She sounds perfect.”

  “Aye, she was for me. She also had a stubborn streak and a bit of a jealous temper. She knew I would never betray her, and yet she’d glare down any woman who dared look at me too long.”

  “I’m sorry you lost her. May I ask how?” When he didn’t speak, she nodded. “I understand. You don’t have to talk about it.”

  Donna found her clothes on the floor where he’d magickally placed them. She grabbed her underwear and jeans and pulled them both up at the same time. The denim was hard where she’d kneeled in the snow, but they had dried as she’d dozed in his arms.

  “It was during the height of the North Berwick witch trials. Malina was a baby. She’d been born with what they called the witch’s mark. People were desperate then—for food, for salvation, to prove their piety and waive suspicions of witchcraft from themselves. There were many reasons for someone to name a child to the authorities if they believed that child was touched by the devil. Confessions were extorted with torture. People would say anything to avoid it. The midwife saw Malina’s mark when she was born and later traded the information for five potatoes and a cut of meat.”

  “That’s horrible,” Donna whispered. She threaded her arms through her bra. Dressing was an excuse not to look at him, and it busied her shaking hands.

  “As is starvation,” Fergus said. “Ya cannot blame a hungry peasant for needing food. That’s what Elspeth said when we found out.”

  “It is horrible that the midwife had to be in that situation, but I don’t think I’m as kind as Elspeth was. I can’t see giving up a baby to murder.” She pulled her long-sleeve shirt over her head and finally turned to face him.

  Fergus looked as if he would reach for her, but he held back. He was still naked on the bed. A sheet draped over his waist, pulled down just enough to show his muscled hip.

  “So what happened?”

  “Knowing that the hunters would kill Malina if they found her, and then would investigate the entire MacGregor clan, Elspeth tried to get our niece out of the country.”

  Donna’s hands shook. The pain in his voice was raw. She could picture running through a snowy forest with an infant in her arms. White puffs of breath and uneven ground. Trying to keep an infant warm. Scared. Cold.

  “When warlocks marry, we give part of ourselves to our significant other so that they may develop some magick of their own, but it takes time. Elspeth was human. We were new to marriage, and my powers had not fully developed in her to protect her. I helped to distract some of the men looking for Malina so they could escape. When I finally caught up to them, it was too late. Elspeth had used up what little magick she possessed to bind Malina’s cry and hide her from harm. When she wouldn’t tell the witch hunter where she’d taken the child, he ran her through and left her for dead.”

  A tear slipped over Donna’s cheek. “And she died in your arms, didn’t she?”

  “Aye. She did.”

  “And I’m guessing, since you have magick, you’ve been trying to bring her back ever since?”

  Fergus nodded. “How did ya know that?”

  “I can see it on your face. I can also see the pain and guilt.” Donna tried to hide her sorrow. It felt as if her heart was breaking in half. What real claim did she have on this man? Despite the connection she felt, she realized they hadn’t known each other long. There was no competing with ghosts. “I’m sorry she passed away, but this isn’t cheating. If your wife loved you as much as you love her, then she wouldn’t want you to feel guilty for this.”

  “Angus would agree with ya, but I’m not sure that’s what my Elspeth would say. She was always a jealous one. She loved me very much.” Fergus moved to sit on the edge of the bed. He folded his hands in his lap. “I haven’t been with anyone else since her.”

  “Why me? Why now?”

  “There is something about ya that draws me. I haven’t felt this way since…” Fergus left the rest of his comment unspoken.

  Donna took a deep breath. He couldn’t even say it. “I’m not Elspeth. I’m rarely jealous of anything. I don’t cook. I couldn’t forgive the midwife for betraying a child. I don’t always know the right thing to do or say, but I go with my gut.” She walked around to his side of the bed. “I really like you, Gus. I like spending time with you. I would like to spend more time with you and see where this goes. But I’m only me. I will not replace a dead wife, and I will not compete with her ghost.”

  “I would not ask ya to.”

  “You might not say it, but that look on your face when you speak of her says more than your words ever could.” Donna touched his face. “I want you. I want to stay here with you. I want to crawl into that bed and kiss you and pretend your past is not your past, and the pain in my chest right now is not real.”

  He placed his hand over hers and held her to him, and a very frightening realization came over her as she looked into his eyes. She loved him. Somehow, someway, she loved him. She knew it as sure as she knew the sun shone and birds sang. It just was. A natural, indisputable fact.

  The pain became worse.

  “Thank you for not lying to me,” she whispered.

  “Don’t leave. Come back to bed. Stay. Please, Donna. I don’t want ya to go.”

  “I, um…” She pulled her hand from his and scratched her forehead in distraction. “I have to go to work. I missed a shoot, and I have to make some calls, and I have an appointment.”

  The vague excuse was all she could come up with, even if everything she said was true.

  “May I call on ya later?” Fergus grabbed her camera off the floor and followed her as she made a move for the bedroom door. He handed it to her.

  Donna nodded, unable to get any more words out as she left him. She hurried to the stairwell, not wanting to run into any of the family members on her way out the door. Luck was not with her.

  Margareta stood in the front hall gazing up at the Christmas tree. She pointed at it, moving her finger to magickally rearrange a few ornaments, so they were no longer perfectly aligned. Seeing Donna, she chuckled. “Don’t tell Cait. This will drive her to distraction.”

  Donna nodded and moved toward the front door.

  “What it is it, dear?” Margareta followed her to the doorway.

  “I’m late for work,” Donna mumbled.

  The woman looked worriedly up toward where Fergus’s bedroom was and then back to Donna. She stared with a strange look on her face.

  “Don’t worry, I’m not going to tell anyone about anything.” Donna glanced at the magickally decorated tree. “No one would believe me, and I value my reputation for sanity.”

  “Elspeth?” Margareta whispered.

  “Yes. He told me about her.” Donna wondered at the dynamics of this family. Clearly they were close if generations of them had lived in the same house for presumably hundreds of years.

  Margareta reached for her shoulder. Donna started to smile politely at the kind gesture when the woman suddenly pushed her aside and hurried out into the front yard. “Elspeth, wait!”

  Donna gasped. She looked over the yard. The slender woman she’d had glimpses of around town a few times was walking toward the trees. Her brownish blonde hair flew behind her in the breeze and the hem of her green dress dragged in the snow behind her. There was a translucence to the woman’s appearance that made her more of a projection or an apparition than an actual presence.

  “Fergus!” Margareta ran to the doorway and screamed, “She’s here. Elspeth is here.”

  Donna bit back her tears as she stumbled away from the house. She stared at the trees where the woman had disappeared until movement caught her attention.

  “Elspeth?” Fergus appeared in the doorway fully dressed. “Are ya sure, Margareta? I do not see her.”

  Donna took small steps away from him, walking backward down the hill. Fergus found her and stiffened mid-motion. He glanced at Margareta and then back to her, clearly torn as to
which direction to run.

  The cold caused the tears falling down her cheeks to sting. Donna shook her head in denial and lifted her hand to keep him from coming after her. She’d make the choice easy for him. She could not compete with the memory of Elspeth. There was no way she was competing with Elspeth now that she’d come back.

  Chapter 8

  Fergus searched the woods for hours. He had not seen his wife, but Margareta had been so certain he had to keep looking. There were no tracks in the snow where his sister had claimed she’d appeared. That could only mean Elspeth was in spirit form, not corporeal. Spirits were hard to find, but not impossible. When searching proved fruitless, he then went to the stone altar in the back gardens and lit candles. He’d tried his spirit board many times. It had never worked. But now Elspeth was close. She’d been seen.

  Had his feelings for Donna stirred his wife’s spirit? Was it jealousy that had brought her back to him?

  Donna.

  Being with Donna had been like the answer to a prophecy—meant to be. She was smart and witty, and a strange combination of sweet and saucy. Now, as he tried to call Elspeth to him, he felt as if he was betraying Donna. The guilt he’d felt over Elspeth was now amplified, as if he cheated on both women.

  He needed to be here, calling Elspeth. Never had he been this close to finding her. He wanted to be with Donna, erasing that parting look of pain off her face. He’d never meant to hurt her. If he were honest with himself, he’d admit that he loved her.

  He loved Donna.

  He loved Elspeth.

  The knowledge shamed him.

  “Elspeth?” Fergus whispered, looking around the gardens bathed in moonlight and snow. “It feels like the night I lost ya, love, the cold snow and a bitter chill to the air. Do ya remember what I promised? Whatever lies ahead, I’ll find you. I’ve tried, but I need your help, love. Ya were always the one who knew what I should do.” He waited, but there was no answer. “Is this your way of saying ya approve of Donna? Do ya want me to move on?”

  A strong gust of wind whipped over him, blowing out the candles and throwing the spirit board angrily into a shrub. The thick wood split in half on impact. Seconds later, the wind changed directions, ripping the shrub from the ground as it carried the broken board toward Fergus’s head. He lifted his arms as the bush slammed into him. The impact knocked him over. The bush rolled down the cobblestone path toward the mansion.

  Stunned, he lay on the ground, breathing hard. It would appear he had Elspeth’s answer.

  Chapter 9

  Donna huddled on her couch, staring at the display screen on the back of her camera. An angry, distorted face stared at her. She knew the woman was Elspeth by the long blonde-streaked brown hair and green dress. The ghostly image was locked in a scream.

  What should have been naked Fergus on the sled had ended up being a series of strangely threatening photographs. Donna slowly flipped through them for the hundredth time. Fergus’s face was blurred in the first one. Then there was the sheepdog she’d seen near Fergus laying in a grave partially covered in dirt. There was a squished insect on a window ledge. One picture depicted a cow with wide, frightened eyes. Another was an old mule. Yet another was a fallen butterfly. Then Donna as a child on the farm, crying and holding her bleeding head after she’d hit herself during a stick-fighting match with her imaginary friend. And finally the enraged Elspeth.

  It didn’t take a genius to interpret the message. Elspeth was warning Donna to stay away from Fergus or she’d kill her like an animal going to slaughter.

  Donna pulled the knitted blanket close to her body. Thick, fuzzy pajama pants and slippers should have offered her plenty of warmth, but the room had been getting colder despite the furnace being on. She thought about running, but there was nowhere to go. She couldn’t call Sheriff Johnson and tell him a ghost was threatening her. She didn’t dare go back to the MacGregor mansion for fear that would make the spirit angrier.

  The one thing she couldn’t control was the pain she felt. She had fallen in love with Fergus. There was no hiding it, no denying it to herself. He cared for her. She’d seen it on his face when he’d watched her walk away. If she thought for a moment he could love her back, she’d fight Elspeth for him—scary, jealous supernatural witch and all.

  Her lamplight began to flicker, and the temperature dropped dramatically as if Elspeth had heard the thought and come to answer the threat. The sound of wind whipped around the house, whistling loudly as it rattled the windows. A dog barked in warning.

  “Oh, shit,” Donna whispered. She hooked her camera strap over her neck, not for any other reason beyond muscle memory repeating an old habit. The barking outside grew louder only to be followed by a series of hard thuds coming from her ceiling. The lights flickered harder. Donna looked up, shaking with each paranormal bang. She held the blanket close and forced herself to stand. The front door was the closest escape. Footsteps began running down the hall toward her.

  Donna crashed into her oversized photo display, knocking it over as she ran out of the house. Snow flurried all around her, reflecting enough moonlight so that she could see where she was going. There was only one destination that made sense—Fergus. Her slippers crunched through a hard sheet of ice covering the snow beneath. It gave her a little traction as she made her way to the MacGregor drive. She couldn’t see the house yet, but that only made her run faster.

  The dog barked again. She screamed at how close it sounded. When she frantically looked, nothing was there. Strange noises tormented her—the soft ting of a cowbell, the cry of a donkey, the buzz of an invisible fly.

  “Leave me alone, Elspeth,” she cried, out of breath as she continued to run uphill. “You’re dead. I’m not. I can be good for him.”

  Her answer came in the form of a rabid sheepdog. She screamed, dropping her knitted blanket as she ran harder. The beast forced her to turn toward the woods. She hurried for the shelter of the trees. Her heart pounded, drumming in her ears like a horse’s hooves. She wasn’t going to make it to Fergus. Elspeth was not going to let her.

  The sound of her heart seemed to come from outside of herself until she realized it was the echo of the hooves.

  “Comhstach,” a man’s voice said. She recognized it as the same one that had been whispering in her house.

  Donna could barely breathe. The horse stopped. Heavy boots landed on the ground and began to crush the snow, coming in her direction. If he walked directly past her inadequate hiding spot he’d surely discover her. She heard the long, sharp slide of metal. The invisible man had a sword.

  Donna took the uncomfortable camera strap off her neck and tucked the equipment next to the tree beneath the brush. She crawled in the snow looking for better cover.

  The footsteps found her. She turned, but no one was there, only impressions of boots crushing the snow as the ghost man came for her. She couldn’t fight what wasn’t there, but she knew he was angry and was going to kill her if she didn’t give him what he wanted. Donna screamed. She pushed to her feet and ran while looking behind her for signs of evil in the moonlight.

  Suddenly, a sharp object pierced her stomach. She turned forward, only to find she’d impaled herself on a low tree branch. Her breath caught, and she pulled away from the tree. Cradling her stomach, she stumbled and fell on the ground. The footprints stopped near her and for an instant she thought she saw a man’s boots. She drew her head back sharply only to see the impression of a Medieval warrior stepping away from her with his bloodied sword as if he’d been the one who’d run her through. The man faded, and his voice echoed in his wake, “See if the devil will save ya and the babe now, comhstach.”

  At first she felt nothing, just a confused sense of being hurt. Her eyes went to where she hid the camera as if suddenly protecting it was the most important thing in the world. Wait, no. Not a camera. A baby. She’d hidden a baby that couldn’t cry. She had to protect the baby.

  And then suddenly the pain came in a rush. She fell onto her
side in the snow and gasped loudly as she clutched her stomach over the wound. Tears slid down her cheeks. She tried to speak, but only a moan came out.

  “Elspeth? Where are ya? Where did ya go?”

  She moaned louder at Fergus’s voice.

  “Donna?”

  Donna lifted a bloodied hand as he appeared before her.

  “Donna!” He kneeled beside her. His hands pressed over her wound as if he could stop it. “Oh, love, what did ya do? Not again. Not again. Oh, not again. Cait!”

  “Gus,” she said, desperate to get his frantic attention. There was so much she needed to tell him, but as he looked at her, his face changed. The gray faded from his temples. His hair grew as did his beard.

  “Do not leave me,” he begged, the voice strange as if it came from inside her mind.

  She wanted to answer, but it hurt too badly. This was not how their story was supposed to end. She’d just found him.

  “I’m coming with ya, my heart,” Fergus said, more like a plea. He began to look around the forest ground.

  “Gus.” Her voice broke whatever spell they were under and his hair returned to normal. Not knowing why she said it, she whispered, “Whatever is beyond, find me again.”

  “No! I will not lose ya, Donna.” He gathered her in his arms and lifted. “Cait! Help me, Cait!”

  Donna moaned in agony. Fergus’s movements jolted her body as he carried her through the trees toward the mansion. She coughed, and her lips tasted of blood. The world began to dim and with darkness came blessed relief.

  Chapter 10

  Fergus continued to scream for his sister as he carried Donna from the woods. He’d followed Elspeth’s spirit to where Donna lay. The wounds were too similar to be ignored. Elspeth in her green dress, run through with a sword. Donna in soggy stuffed rabbits on her feet and pink fuzzy pants, punctured in the exact same place by a tree.