The Bagpiper's Ghost

I’ll carry him to one of the houses, she thought.

  She tried lifting him up in her arms, but even though they were twins, he was a lot heavier than she was.

  “I can drag you,” she told his unconscious body. But then she remembered the videos they had watched in school about what to do in case of an accident. Never move someone. Wait for the ambulance. That had been drilled into them, because moving someone might only make things worse.

  But was this an accident? Or was it something else?

  “Where is the magic now that I really need it?” she whimpered, miserable and guilt-ridden, even though she knew that what feeble magic she had was untrained and untested and probably unmanageable. It was American magic, after all, and they were in Scotland.

  “I’m sorry, Peter,” she whispered, gently laying him back on the cold ground. She meant she was sorry to have gotten him into this in the first place, sorry to have been a bad sister, and sorry to leave him, even for a moment. “I have to go get help.” Then she stood and looked around.

  Across the street and one block down was a row of darkened houses. She could run there and knock on the door until someone woke up, and then ask to use the phone. Mom had taught them that the emergency code here wasn’t 911 but rather 999. Someone in one of those houses might even lend her blankets to cover Peter until other help could get there.

  Or she could run back to Gran and Da’s cottage, about a ten-minute trot, less if she ran flat out. Maybe that would be better. After all, this was a matter of ghosts, of magic, not an accident. So who would know better about what to do than Gran?

  Just as she was trying to decide which way to go, she heard a strange, light clopping sound racing down the street. Turning, she saw an odd, wonderful sight.

  Nightgown flapping about her bare legs, a plaid shawl around her shoulders, white hair streaming behind, Gran was galloping toward the graveyard on Thunder’s back.

  Being a magic animal, Thunder couldn’t wear iron shoes, of course, which was why his hooves made such a peculiar, light sound on the paved road.

  Behind them, as gray as a ghost, tail firmly between his legs, came the dog.

  “Gran!” Jennifer called, waving an arm. “Over here!”

  Gran gave the horse a quick, sharp touch with her bare heels and leaned over his neck. Gracefully he leaped over the gate with about a foot to spare.

  Jennifer’s mouth dropped open. “Gran!” she said in an awed voice. “I didn’t know you were a rider.”

  Sliding off the horse, Gran landed with a grunt in a squatting position. Putting her hand to her back, she straightened up slowly, as if counting each vertebra.

  “My blue ribbons have all been put awa” she said. “I’ve nae been riding fer years.” She grimaced. “My knees are too auld fer this,” she added. “And the rest o’ me as well.”

  “Oh, Gran,” Jennifer cried, giving her a big hug. “Thank goodness you’re here.”

  “Och, lassie, what have the pair o’ ye been up to noo?”

  Jennifer burst into tears. “It was all my fault. All of it.”

  Gran’s face grew serious as she looked down at Peter, still stretched out on the ground. “I’m sorry to be so slow getting here. The cat warned me something was afoot, but didna know what. Then the dog came hame and hid himself fer a while, greetin and carrying on. It was a while before he came creeping into my room to whine aboot his ain guilt. Seems there’s plenty o’ that gaeing around.”

  Jennifer wiped a hand under her drizzling nose and nodded.

  Gran continued. “When I could finally make sense oot o’ what that greetin teenie was blethering on aboot, he told me he had introduced ye to the Lady in White. And somebody else beside. ‘An auld friend,’ he said. ‘Nae gud,’ I told him, ‘messing aboot wi’ the spirit world. Dangerous,’ I said. “There’s nary an auld friend when yer speaking aboot ghosts.’”

  “Two somebody elses, Gran,” Jennifer said. “If you count Peter.”

  “Count Peter? Why should I count Peter?”

  They knelt down beside Peter, and Jennifer tried to explain to Gran exactly what had happened, in as few words as possible.

  Gran put a hand on Peter’s shoulder to wake him, but to no avail. Even a shake didn’t work. A hard shake. So she gave a nod to the dog, who crawled over on his belly and lay down by Peter’s side, snuggling up close. Then Gran took the shawl from her shoulders and put it over them both.

  “The lad’s breathing well at least,” Gran said in a sensible voice. “So it’s nae immediately threatening to his life, whatever it is. And the dog will keep him safe.” She raised a hand, forestalling any questions from Jennifer. “Nae magic, my dear—but body warmth till we can sort this. Quick, though, tell me everything noo. Everything. Dinna leave a bit of it oot. Wi’ magic o’ this sort, one never kens what is important at the first.”

  So Jennifer explained about the Lady in White whose name was Mary MacFadden, and about Iain McGregor the piper, and how her brother had not passed on some sort of message. When she got to the part about Peter speaking in Andrew MacFadden’s voice, Gran interrupted.

  “Possession, of course.” Her face looked angry, and her lips were set so tightly against each other, they might as well have been sewn together.

  “Well, I knew that,” Jennifer said, disappointed. “It’s like in the movie The Exorcist. Peter spoke in this funny voice and didn’t seem to really know me. Only he didn’t throw up on me or turn his head around or anything gross like that.”

  “Never believe what ye see in the cinema,” Gran said. “And only half o’ what ye read in the books.” She knelt again and felt Peter’s forehead. “No fever. That’s good.” Then she looked up. “Anything else?”

  Jennifer shook her head. “No, Gran, I’ve told you everything.”

  “Everything?” Gran stared into Jennifer’s eyes as if seeing right inside her.

  Then suddenly Jennifer remembered. “They were twins, Gran. Mary and Andrew. Twins, like Peter and me.”

  “Ah.” The old woman breathed the word. “Doubles the trouble, that does. No wonder he could slip into Peter’s flesh wi’ such ease. That and the fact that Peter has been a vessel before.”

  “A vessel?” For a moment Jennifer was confused. Her mouth gaped open.

  “When that wizard Michael Scot used him so sorely.” She reached into her sweater pocket and drew out a handkerchief. In it were the ashes of the wizard, which Gran carried with her day and night.

  “Oh, that,” Jennifer said.

  “Being possessed is like having a bairn, a baby,” Gran said. “Stretches the body in ways ye’d never believe.”

  “Oh, Gran,” Jennifer said, horribly embarrassed but fascinated at the same time.

  Gran smiled at her, but grimly. “It’ll be harder getting him oot noo. Because of the time before, when he hosted the spirit o’ Michael Scot.”

  “‘Him’?”

  “That other twin.” Gran got up slowly. It was clear that kneeling was not something she did with any ease.

  “Should we call for help?” Jennifer asked. “Nine-nine-nine?”

  “The Fife ambulance wouldna ken what to do wi’ him” said Gran, her hand on her back. “Nor the constabulary. This needs magic, not medicine.”

  “What kind of magic?”

  The horse, Thunder, shook his head, and for the first time that evening spoke in his plummy voice. “To find that out will take a bit of research, child.”

  As usual, he was right.

  Eight

  A Long Sleep

  They brought Peter home, slung over the horse’s back like an old sack. As they walked along, the horse and its burden seemed to glow. Jennifer put her hand up to the glow, but it had no warmth. And no cold, either. It was simply there.

  She wondered about that glow for a minute, especially when policemen in a police car waved at them but didn’t stop to offer any help.

  “Does that glow make Peter and the horse invisible?” she asked as the horse turned onto th
e cobbled street leading to their house.

  “Invisible to everyone except those who have magic in the blood,” Gran said. “Good for ye, lass, for noticing at last.”

  “I noticed immediately, Gran. It just took me till here to figure out what it was. But you and me and the dog—why aren’t we invisible, too?”

  Gran sighed and held up the forefinger on her right hand. “Working an invisibility spell is tiring enough over two. Nae need to extend it where it’s not wanted. Why waste magic, lass? We must conserve what power we have to rescue yer brother. So, as far as the rest of the world sees, we’re but a wee lass and her gran oot walking the dog.”

  Tiring, indeed, Jennifer thought. Gran looks exhausted. There were deep circles under the old woman’s eyes and a sharp crease across her forehead, like a knife’s slash. Or like the shadow of a knife’s slash.

  Still she asked, “At four in the morning, Gran?”

  “And herself in her nightie,” the dog put in, but at a look from Gran, he shut up.

  “It’s five o’clock noo,” Gran said.

  At that very moment, the nearby church bell began to toll five long, slow notes.

  They dragged Peter upstairs between them, which wasn’t easy. He hung like a deadweight. The dog made the going even harder because he kept tangling in their feet.

  Jennifer was so disgusted with the dog, she aimed a kick at his side, but he dodged it easily.

  “Didna I fetch the auld carlin fer ye?” he said, a whine in his voice.

  She ignored him after that, concentrating instead on getting Peter to his room and into bed.

  While Jennifer took off Peter’s shoes, Gran got a “clout”—as she called the washcloth—and a large bowl of warm water. Then she began washing Peter’s face.

  “Will that dispossess him?” Jennifer asked.

  “Nae, lass, it’s just to clean him up. I dinna want yer mother seeing him this way. Too many questions mak fer too many answers, as my ain mother used to say.”

  “Then what’s to be done? About the possession, I mean,” Jennifer asked.

  “Likely he’ll wake up himsel again,” Gran said. Her voice sounded positive, but there was a strange darkness in her eyes. “Often these things are but a moment lang. Fer example, if a ghost in possession o’ a human body has nae mair to say, it’ll go back to its burial wi’oot needing a helpful push.” She wrung out the cloth and stood up. “Here, lass—dump this water into the sink and set the clout on the basin. I’m fer bed.”

  Jennifer did as Gran asked, then went back to Peter’s room. Lying still on the bed, he suddenly looked younger than she did. And unprotected.

  I will protect him, she thought fiercely, lying down at the foot of the bed.

  She meant to stay awake, like a medieval knight at a vigil, or a cop on a stakeout, but the long night had exhausted her, and she fell fast asleep, lying as if dead for seven hours.

  Waking at noon, Jennifer was surprised to find herself in her own bed. The clock seemed to shake its fingers at her, turning over one minute, then the next. She stretched lazily and tried to remember why she was so tired.

  All she could think of was the strange dream she’d had. About a Lady in White and Gran jumping a fence on horseback.

  “Oh no!” She sat bolt upright in bed. It hadn’t been a dream.

  Leaping up, she ran into Peter’s room, and there was her mother sitting and reading a paperback novel by Peter’s bedside. The white cat was snugged on the pillow by his head.

  Mom looked up gravely when Jennifer came in.

  “Hi, sleepyhead. Feeling all right?”

  “Me?” Jennifer shrugged. “Sure.”

  Mom shook her head. “This whole family seems to have a sleeping sickness today.”

  “Is Peter …?” Guilt stopped the rest of what Jennifer was going to say, like a cork in a bottle.

  “I think he caught something yesterday. We haven’t been able to wake him, though he’s been tossing and turning and calling out in his sleep. I’ve sent for the doctor. Do you know they still do house calls here? Thank the Lord for that.” She brushed a hand softly through Peter’s hair.

  “A doctor?” Jennifer knew a doctor wouldn’t help at all. Gran had said Peter needed magic, not medicine. She sat down heavily by his feet.

  Her mother continued. “I was worried about you, too. Found you right here, lying at the bottom of the bed. Your father had to carry you into your own room, and you’re no lightweight anymore.” She smiled and set the book down on her lap carefully, but her voice was tight with worry. “What’s this all about, Jen?”

  Jennifer suddenly realized that parents sometimes had to be protected from the world. What they didn’t know couldn’t hurt them, she reasoned.

  So she said, just as carefully, “I heard Peter crying out in the middle of the night, and I was afraid he’d wake Molly.” That wasn’t exactly a lie, just not the whole truth. “So I came in to see what was wrong. He was having a bad dream or something. I settled him down, then curled up here, waiting to see if he was going to be all right. I guess … I guess I fell asleep.”

  Her mother gave a tight little laugh. “Twins!” She touched Peter again as if to assure herself he was still there. “And you weren’t just asleep, Jen. It was as if you were dead.”

  Jennifer gave a tight little smile. “Well, I’m not dead. See.” She opened her arms.

  Her mother sighed, an uncharacteristic sound. “Gran sat with you until about an hour ago. For an old woman, she’s got an inexhaustible supply of energy.”

  Remembering Gran on the horse, Jennifer said, “She sure does.”

  “I’m going downstairs to phone and see if the doctor’s on his way. Will you stay with Peter a little while? I don’t want him to wake up alone. Then I’ll make you something to eat.”

  “Not hungry, Mom.”

  “Nonsense. You will have something to eat. Porridge. That’s just the thing. And it’ll take only a few minutes to make.” She put the book and her glasses on the bedside table, reached over and picked up the cat, then straightened slowly, suddenly looking like an old woman herself.

  It was another fifteen minutes before the white-haired doctor got there, examined the still-sleeping Peter, and left a bottle of pills by the bedside.

  “One when he wakes, and one every six hours after.” His voice was pleasantly English.

  Mom nodded and sat down again by Peter’s side. Pop sat at the foot of the bed. Exchanging dark looks, Gran and Da stood in the doorway. In the hall, Jennifer shifted from one foot to the other. Only Molly wasn’t with them. She’d been sent off to a neighbor’s to play with their children for the day.

  “Best to get her out of the way,” Pop had explained.

  Jennifer thought they should have sent the dog with her, for he lay whimpering by the bedside, as if by remaining close to Peter he might undo all the damage he’d done taking them to the cemetery.

  She felt like doing the same.

  Gran and Da accompanied the doctor downstairs, their voices floating back up to Peter’s room.

  “They will overdo when they come on vacation,” the doctor said to Gran and Da. “Youngsters always think they’re indefatigable. Especially American youngsters.”

  “Nonsense,” Gran said as Da closed the front door behind the doctor. Jennifer could hear the latch click into place. “Pills and all. It’s nonsense.”

  “Is it magic then, Gwen?” Da’s voice asked.

  “Aye, ’tis.”

  “There’s been an awful lot of that aboot since the bairns arrived,” he added. “First Michael Scot, then that lassie from the past, and noo this.”

  Gran answered, “The twins seem to call magic to them. They dinna mean to, but it’s in the blood.”

  Hearing that, Jennifer shivered.

  “It’s too much fer them,” Da said sternly. “They being Americans with no sense aboot it, no control.”

  “I’ll see it’s stopped,” Gran said. “Or finished.”

 
Jennifer started down the stairs just as Da went out the door after the doctor. Gran looked up at her and nodded, as if giving permission for her to leave Peter for a little while.

  “What’s indefatigable?” asked Jennifer when she got to the bottom step. “Undefeated?”

  Gran grinned. “Something like that, lass.”

  Then they went in to eat their porridge, which—as Pop liked to say—was the real magic that stuck Scotland together.

  Nine

  Studying

  The porridge was nicely warm and just a bit chewy. Jennifer tackled it as if she were starving.

  “Losh me!” Gran said. “Yer hoovering that up instead o’ eating it. Slow down, lass, slow down. Let’s think aloud aboot first steps while we’re breakfasting. Though …” She shook her head. “Breakfast at one fair beggars the imagination.”

  Jennifer stopped shoveling the porridge into her mouth for a moment. “Well, if Peter is possessed, Gran, shouldn’t unpossessing him be our first step?” She whispered and looked hastily around in case her mother or father might overhear them.

  “Powers, nae!” Gran said. Carefully she set her spoon down in the bowl and whispered back. “First we must make sure he’s still possessed and not just sleeping off his exhaustion. Being possessed takes a lot of energy.”

  “And if he’s still …” Jennifer took a deep breath. “If he’s still Andrew MacFadden?”

  “Och—I’ve never liked the MacFaddens,” Gran said. “Uppity folk, indeed. Always looking down their lang noses at the rest of us. There’s plenty in this toon still. I made some calls while ye slept on, to find oot what I could about Andrew and Mary. The MacFaddens dinna like to give oot gossip, but I phoned a friend at the Hall of Records. Seems she died young.”

  “We already knew that,” Jennifer said.

  Gran nodded. “Aye, we did. But what we didna know is that Andrew MacFadden lived to a ripe old age, married late, and had children and grandchildren, though he never got over mourning his twin. Put up a memorial to her inside the little church. Made oot a charity in her name. Och, he was the one possessed, that Andrew MacFadden. Probably had bad dreams all his life.”