Gallowglass

by Jennifer Allis Provost

  I brought the African violet to my nose and sniffed, even though I knew they didn’t have any fragrance to speak of. It was just what one did when one was given flowers.

  “Are you courting my sister?” Chris demanded, shattering my warm fuzzy feelings.

  “Courting?” I snapped. “What are we, in a Jane Austen novel or something?”

  “So far, he’s given you jewelry, wine, chocolate, and flowers,” Chris ticked off. “Sounds like courting to me.”

  “You’re an idiot,” I grumbled. I put down the plant and grabbed my container of fish and chips, and stalked over to the couch. I heard Robert and Chris exchange a few remarkably civil words, but I ignored them. Then Robert sat on the other end of the couch, his lunch balanced on his knee. Chris had elected to eat at the kitchen table, which was just fine with me.

  “I was just tellin’ your brother that I meant no offense,” Robert said quietly. “I truly do appreciate ye takin’ me in, and I only wished to show ye me sincere appreciation. If ye do no’ care for the plant, I shall put it out in the garden.”

  “Oh, the plant’s staying,” I said. “If anything’s getting put out back, it’ll be Chris.”

  Robert smiled at that, and a few of my warm fuzzies came back. True to form, Chris wrecked it again, this time by uttering an expletive he normally reserved for students who got Milton confused with Spenser.

  “Bone in your fish?” I asked.

  “No.” Chris came over and dropped the newspaper on the coffee table. A headline below the fold read: Authorities Still Baffled Over Incident At Inchmahome Priory.

  “Oh, crap,” I mumbled. The story went on to detail that twenty-seven eyewitness accounts reported seeing a man with a sword decapitate an American tourist, yet no trace of the body could be found, and the same could be said of the supposed swordsman. Although, being that a local resident’s pleasure boat had been stolen and left at the mainland at around the same time of the murder, it was being assumed that the killer had gotten away on the boat, possibly with the body in tow. Also impeding the investigation was the fact that all twenty-seven witnesses were a part of the same tour group, and that all members were accounted for; as yet, no one could explain the twenty-eighth, and apparently dead, individual. The story closed by stating that the investigation was ongoing.

  “Crap,” I repeated. I handed Robert the paper, and watched his eyes widen.

  “This is not good,” Chris hissed. “What if they figure out we were there?”

  “You burned the passenger log,” I said. “And they must not have cameras there. If they did, the footage would be all over the news.”

  Chris grunted. “Twenty seven witnesses,” he grumbled. He retreated to the kitchen table, and wolfed down his fish and chips. “I’m going back to Ethan’s,” he announced when he was done.

  “When does Ethan teach?” I snapped. “With all this boozing, you’re going to get him placed on administrative leave.”

  Chris scowled; administrative leave was exactly what he’d been placed on once Carson University had gotten wind of Olivia’s plagiarism suit. “By the time I get there, class will be over,” Chris said. “Don’t concern yourself over the health of Ethan’s career.”

  “Chris, I—”

  He held up a hand. “It’s fine. I get it.” Chris grabbed the car keys, and then his jacket. “Are you going to be okay here?” he asked with a pointed glance toward Robert.

  “Yeah,” I said. Unlike whatever my brother was thinking, Robert was the one protecting me. “Tell Ethan I said hi.”

  “I’ll do that.” With that, Chris disappeared out the front door. I dropped my gaze and stared at my fish and chips, devoid of an appetite.

  “Ye and your brother are quite similar,” Robert commented.

  “How’s that?” I dipped a chip in some curry sauce and stuffed it in my mouth. Even though I wasn’t hungry, I was loath to waste good curry.

  “When e’er a topic arises that ye would rather no’ speak of, ye completely change the subject,” Robert replied. “Both of ye exhibit this particular trait.”

  “I… we do not.”

  “Truly, lass, keepin’ such things bottled up is no’ verra good for either o’ ye.”

  “Chris is just uncomfortable,” I said. “He just met you, you know.”

  “Of that, I was aware.”

  I glanced at Robert; he was staring at me, his blue eyes daring me to explain myself. “Want to help me with my research?” I asked, thus confirming everything Robert had just said.

  Robert gracefully accepted his victory. “O’ course, Karina me lass,” he replied. “Just tell me what ye are needin’ help with.”

  I smiled, and grabbed my notes. “Well, I’m worried that the direction my theory is moving in doesn’t make sense,” I began.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chris

  I wandered through the streets of Crail, taking almost the same path I’d taken two days prior. I was furious with that freeloader for taking advantage of Rina, furious with Rina for not using even part of her brain to figure out his scheme, furious for myself for not being man enough to handle the situation.

  Crap. I’d left Rina alone in the cottage with Robert. Again.

  Granted, Rina seemed to enjoy Robert’s company, and I’d had no indication that the guy had laid a finger on her. Still, those facts didn’t make Robert respectable, only patient. Patient to rob us, to do God knows what with my sister…

  “Christopher.”

  I looked down and saw a hand on my elbow; I’d know that alabaster skin anywhere. I turned around, and found Sorcha standing behind me.

  “Why are you here?” I blurted out, then amended, “Not that I’m not glad to see you. You surprised me.”

  Sorcha arched a delicate brow. “Are you pleased, then? Pleased enough to tell me what’s troubling you?”

  I sighed, and scrubbed my face. “It’s my sister.”

  “I didn’t know you had a sister,” Sorcha murmured. “Bit of a hellion, is she?”

  “No, not at all,” I replied, “Rina’s a good kid. She’s my best friend, the only one who really understands…” I straightened, unwilling to let Sorcha know how far I’d fallen. Not yet, at least. “She met this guy in Aberfoyle, and he’s been taking advantage of her ever since but she refuses to see it.” I glanced at Sorcha, and added, “She’s a hopeless romantic, you know.”

  “Hopeless,” Sorcha repeated. “She met him in Aberfoyle, you say?”

  “Yes, at the tourist trap behind the old kirk. He’s even calling himself Robert Kirk, after that preacher who was supposedly taken by fairies.”

  Sorcha pursed her lips. “Might you be able to capture an image of this Robert Kirk for me? On your device?” Her arm snaked around my waist, and she slowly withdrew my phone from the back pocket of my jeans.

  “Sure,” I replied, then I grabbed her hips and pulled her against me. “Why? Do you have friends in law enforcement?”

  “Enforcers,” Sorcha murmured, tilting her face upward to mine. “I have enforcers aplenty.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Karina

  Thursday dawned bright and cheerful, just as Wednesday had, though I myself didn’t share the sentiment. If it was Thursday, that meant it was the second day we were holed up in the cottage; well, only I’d been holed up. Chris had made his obligatory appearance at breakfast, though that was probably just to assure me that he was still alive. And, when he got back on Wednesday night—also known as early Thursday morning—the weirdo had spent twenty minutes snapping pictures of the cottage with his phone. I mean, it was a cute place and all, but I didn’t think we needed to preserve it for posterity.

  Since Chris had been meeting up with Ethan at St. Andrews I’d hardly seen him, and today their mutual friend David would be joining in the festivities. That was all well and good, but as for me, I still didn’t know if I would ever go outside again.

  They were out there.

  I was still terrified, if anythin
g even more terrified than I’d been yesterday or the day before, and I was handling it badly. Robert coming home with fey blood smeared across his neck had not helped matters.

  So instead of acting like a normal, non-fairy seeing person, I hid behind my varied texts and research notebooks. I lobbed excuse after excuse at Robert as he attempted to get me out of the cottage. Luckily, we’d never gotten around to opening the wine, since that might have just been my undoing. In the end, Robert took a liking to my geology texts. He mentioned again how much had been learned about the natural world since his day, and wondered how many more things we had yet to discover.

  When I first staggered out of my room that morning, it had only been to grab a cup of coffee and head back to my room. The second and final time I woke, it had been well after noon. I’d been up until just before dawn, finishing off the driest book ever written about bedrock composition. Granted, not many would refer to geology texts as riveting material, but this book was worse than most. It had taken me all of Wednesday afternoon and most of the night to force my way through the heavy volume, and all I wanted was coffee. However, it seemed that Robert had a few plans of his own.

  “What’s all this?” I asked. Now that I was in the common room, I realized what had roused me: Robert had gone out for fish and chips again, waking me the same way we’d woken Chris the day before. He had already unpacked and plated the food, and gestured to the seat across from him. I approached the table, then I grabbed a chip, dunked it in curry sauce and popped it in my mouth. Divine.

  “I believe you Americans call it lunch,” he said, with a wink, then he popped open a beer and pushed it toward me.

  “I just woke up,” I said, eyeing the bottle warily. Drinking at breakfast was something Chris would do, not his far more responsible sister. You know, the one who had insisted on the application of fairy ointment, thus making it possible for her to see monsters every waking moment. “Is there coffee? Or tea?”

  “There was, at breakfast time. Do ye no’ recall?” Robert closed the distance between us, and took my hands. It was the first time he’d touched me since the gray beast had terrified me, when I’d bawled on his shoulder and fallen asleep against him. “Karina lass, ye canna hide forever. What must your brother think of ye, cloistered inside this cottage like a nun in her abbey?”

  “He won’t care,” I said. “He’s probably off drunk with his friends, anyway.”

  “And when ye tell him that ye be hidin’ from the Good People, what then?” Robert pressed. “Will he send ye to a lunatic asylum? Do they still have those, or is there a more pleasant way for those who ha’ been touched to spend their days?”

  I dropped into the kitchen chair; yeah, Chris probably would have me committed, and for my own good at that. If that happened, and I broke and told the staff about all the creatures walking among us, they’d lock the door and throw away the key. “What about the fuath that attacked you yesterday?”

  “It shall ne’er attack another again,” Robert proclaimed.

  I shuddered. “I…I just wish you’d never seen it.”

  “I know.” Robert squeezed my fingers, then took the seat opposite me. “Eat your food, drink your ale. Ye will need your strength.”

  “Um, what for?”

  “You and I are going for a walk.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Karina

  And walk we did.

  I lingered over my lunch for as long as possible, but once your plate of fried fish and potatoes cool off there’s really nothing left to do but chuck it. So into the trash it went, and once I’d washed up and dressed I did what I’d sworn I’d never do again: I left the cottage.

  With a firm hand on my elbow Robert guided me out into the world, his grip tightening a fraction when I hesitated on the threshold. “I’m not going to run off,” I said, though I didn’t mention how I’d considered shoving him out the door, and locking it behind him.

  “Ye are no runner, ‘tis for certain,” Robert said. “Here, I’ve some friends for ye to meet,” he added, leading me around to the back of the cottage.

  “Friends?” I repeated. I couldn’t imagine what he meant, since everyone Robert knew had died centuries ago. Then I realized that he meant fairy friends.

  “Did these friends follow you to the cottage?” I asked.

  “Not at all,” he replied. “Near as I can tell, they have always resided here.” We rounded the rear corner of the house, and found ourselves in a lovingly tended garden. Late summer roses bloomed in a riot of color, along with bluebells and buttercups and stately thistles, just in case we forgot we were in Scotland. On closer inspection, I saw a bed of delicate primroses in shades ranging from pale pink to lavender. The lush profusion of blooms, many of which were out of season and should have long since withered away, told me that this garden was tended by magic.

  A flutter from the far corner of the garden caught my eye. That portion of the garden was dominated by a large marble birdbath, its many terraces covered with birds gossiping in little chirps and squawks as they stopped by for a drink. Robert tugged me closer and I realized that those weren’t birds, but something akin to pixies or sprites. My legs stopped working, and my entire body shook; he couldn’t be expecting me to get closer to those… those things.

  “Come, Karina lass,” Robert said. “I swear to ye upon me verra life, they will do ye no harm.”

  I nodded, unable to tear my gaze away from their colorful wings. “When did you meet them?”

  “Only yestreen,” he replied. “When I stepped out for the ale.”

  “Oh.” When I remained rooted in place, Robert altered his tactics and beckoned the creatures toward us. I shrank back but only for a moment, my dread having been quickly overtaken by wonder.

  “They’re beautiful,” I breathed. They were elegant little creatures, none of them larger than my hand, with slight, pinkish bodies, wings in jewel shades of red and green and blue, and glittering black eyes.

  “Thank you, thank you,” they chirped in unison.

  I laughed, spreading my hands so two could set down on my palms while others settled on my shoulders. A headstrong critter with electric blue wings landed on Robert’s head. “What are you called?” I asked the herd at large.

  When they giggled instead of answering me, Robert said, “Wights, they are. Keepers o’ secrets, tenders o’ blooms.”

  “Is this your garden?” I asked, and they nodded furiously. “It’s lovely.”

  Perhaps it was a trick of the light, but the wights appeared to blush. “Lovely lass, lovely lass,” they sang. “Lovely lass with the gallowglass.”

  My gaze flew to Robert, but he only shrugged. I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised that the wights knew who he was, being that they were fairies and all.

  “We must tend our blossoms,” the wights announced, the lot of them taking flight as one. “Take care of your lass, gallowglass.”

  Robert and I watched the wights circle overhead and then swoop toward the birdbath, scooping up handfuls of water and delivering it to each flower in turn. “They are adorable,” I said. “So happy and carefree.”

  “Aye, that they are,” Robert agreed. “Now that I’ve proven to ye that not all o’ the Good People are monsters, let’s be off.”

  I smiled at him, and tucked my hand in his elbow. “Okay. But if we see the gray monster again, I’m running. When he’s not looking, of course.”

  “O’ course.”

  With that, we left the garden and its wights, and made our way toward the center of the fishing village. Maybe it was Robert’s reassuring presence, or maybe it had more to do with the two beers I’d gulped down with lunch, but I was beginning to think I could do this. After all, most fairies weren’t so bad. Some, like the tiny pixies that flitted around the cottage’s garden, were uncannily beautiful, and most of the ugly ones seemed harmless. Maybe I wouldn’t have to live my life in a bubble.

  After a time we rounded a corner and I saw one of the monstrous ones. It w
as huge, ten or more feet tall, and it had a thick, rough hide that reminded me of red clay that had been baked dry in the sun. Its shape was vaguely human, with short, squat legs, a round gut, and long spindly arms that flailed on either side. I had no idea how we would pass by without touching one of those flapping appendages.

  Robert draped his arm across my shoulders while his other hand reached across my body and grasped mine. To the casual observer, we looked like we were on a date, just a regular man and a woman taking an afternoon stroll, not like a nearly four hundred year old minister and an aspiring geologist avoiding a monster.

  “Easy, lass,” he murmured when I stumbled.

  “Must be the beers,” I quipped, flashing him a smile. He laughed, and we passed by the creature with it none the wiser.

  “’Tis difficult to not stare,” he murmured, once we were out of the monster’s earshot. If monsters even have ears, who fricken’ knew. “Curiosity, and all.”

  “You really think I’ll get used to them?”

  “After a time, ye surely will. Make no mistake, they will still be terrifying as e’er, but it will be a familiar sort of scare.”

  “Oh.” My lack of confidence must have been plain, since Robert fixed me in his sly gaze.

  “This way,” he murmured, and we walked toward the outskirts of the village. After we’d walked for almost half an hour, and had left the buildings and cobbled roads behind, Robert led me toward a wooded glen. When I asked for the umpteenth time where we were going, he finally answered, “While I canna make them appear any less terrible to ye, I can make ye feel a wee bit safer.”

  “Feel?” I repeated, picking my way across the uneven ground. “As in, I won’t actually be safer? Like a placebo effect?”

  Robert’s brow wrinkled; I bet there hadn’t been much talk about placebos in the seventeenth century. “Well, they can still grab a hold of ye and take a bite out of ye, if they like.”