Finding Fraser (22 page)

With the note-taking and scanning the
waters for Nessie, it seemed like no time at all before the driver announced my
stop. I stepped off the bus at Drumnadrochit just after five in the afternoon.
The bus station was not really much more than a pole on the street, near a
small hotel. I’d hoped to pick up a cab at the station, since according to
Gerald’s map, the stone circle was still about a twenty minute drive away, but
as the bus pulled out, there was no line of cabs waiting to meet it.

Not even a single cab.

It had begun to rain lightly, anyhow, so I
found myself a small hostel room and lay down to sort out my plans.

I woke at ten the next morning with my
copy of OUTLANDER on the pillow. Turned out I had slept on the map. A hint of
purple ink traced across one cheekbone as I gazed in the mirror while I brushed
my teeth.

Clearly, all the travel had begun to catch
up with me. But I knew it couldn’t last—I’d have to return to the city
and find a job, very soon.

I had a cup of tea while the hostel
supervisor banged dishes together in the kitchen, and then headed out toward
the bus station to see if I had better luck locating a cab than I had the night
before.

Down the street I found a little parking
sign with a taxi symbol on it, and planted myself there. If there was a cab to
be hailed, I was going to be the one to hail it.

An hour later, not a single taxi had passed.

Not a single car had passed, as a matter of
fact. My stomach rumbled and I began to think about finding something to eat.
But what if the cab came when I left my spot?

Finally, after another twenty minutes, I
spied a lady walking her dog. She smiled at me warmly when I stepped forward.

“Ach, no love—we do have a local taxi-driver,
but last I heard his transmission needed an overhaul. We migh’ try callin’ up
tae Inverness, but it’ll be a fair wait, I’m sorry to say.”

I must have looked disappointed, as she reached
out and patted my arm fondly. “Where’re ye off to, pet? Here to see family?”

“No, not exactly. I’m looking for—well,
I’m looking for this.” I held out the very-creased map to her.

She switched the leash to her other hand and
pulled on a pair of glasses that had been dangling around her neck on a chain.
After a moment, she glanced up at me over the rims.

“Are ye sure, pet? Them stones are … well,
are ye
sure
?” Her voice had dropped
to little more than a whisper.

I nodded, and decided to risk the truth.
“I’m really just checking it off my list. It’s a—it’s a bit of a long
story.”

She pulled her glasses off and they slid
down her chest with a quiet rattle. The wind whistled around us a little,
skittering last year’s leaves along the ground. She looked down at her
wristwatch and muttered. “Half-twelve. Should be enough time …”

Her gaze returned to me, over the top of her
glasses. “Well,” she said, “if ye
are
sure, then best I drive ye, pet. Come along—it’s just this way.”

The little terrier on the leash gave me a
short, sharp bark as if to say ‘get a move on’, and we were off.

Valerie Urquhart, for that was her name,
had lived in Drumnadrochit all her life, as had her father, and her father’s
father. “The family’s got property in the area,” she said. I later discovered
that the entire region was in the realm of Clan Urquhart, including a nearby
castle on Loch Ness that had been in her family for generations. Whether it was
modesty or for some reason I never learned, she shared none of these details
with me.

What she did share, however, was her gift.

We were in her small Volvo, rocketing along
the road less than ten minutes after I’d first met her.

“It’s all right, pet,” she said, expertly
gearing down to take a sharp corner. “I knew right away you were a good person.
I read faces like books, aye? An’ when ye showed us the map, well, it was clear
I had to help.”

The countryside was primarily farm fields,
each lined with low rock walls that wound up the hillsides. Any forested patches
were mainly peppered with deciduous trees, so the area still had a bit of a
bleak, pre-spring look. I could see alders and willows and even a few elm trees
through the windows as we whipped past. And there was the barest trace of green
to the blur of trees going by, showing spring weather might not be too far away
to hope for, at least.

The little terrier, whose name was Wullie,
stood on his hind legs the whole way, front paws balanced expertly on the back
of the front seat as we rounded the corners. Gerald’s map indicated the
distance as twenty minutes from the town. Valerie had the car parked and was
hopping out with the dog in under twelve.

My heart sank. I could see before I even got
out of the car that this area was flat, again— not on a hillside, and not
really even among the trees. Sheep placidly grazed one field over, beyond a
ragged rock wall.

The small parking lot was entirely empty,
and Valerie had stopped to wait for me by the path leading to the stones.

“So, ye’ve seen the stones at Clava, I take
it.”

I nodded and stepped past her onto the path,
but she put a hand on my arm. “Emma—your family. Before they went to
America—were they Scots?

“Not that I know,” I said. “My dad’s family
was Irish, and I may have had a great-grandmother from Aberdeen, but I think
that’s it.”

“Ach, that’s Celtic on both sides, then,”
Valerie said. She reached out and took one of my hands in both of hers, and
then closed her eyes.

We stood there in a most awkward silence, me
desperate to withdraw my hand but not wanting to offend the kind lady who had,
after all, driven me well out of her way. And she, standing still, humming
softly to herself.

After what seemed like an eternity, she
opened her eyes and looked at me earnestly. “There is a great longing in you,
Emma. And yer willin’ to work hard fer what ye want, there’s nae doubt about
that.”

She was still holding my hand, and she
unclasped hers from around mine but did not quite let go. Instead, she turned
my hand around, so the palm was open and facing up. “Sometimes the best thing
is to jes’ hol out yer hand like this, in yer mind’s eye—p’raps when you
are about to drift off to sleep or even jes’ when ye have a quiet moment. Hold
out yer hand and picture what you want in it—in your own grasp.”

We both looked down at my palm, held out
between us. And for an instant in my mind’s eye, I saw a hand there, clasping
my own. My fingers curled inward to a fist, involuntarily, and she patted it
softly before releasing me.

“That’s the way,” she said. “Now let’s see
about these stones, shall we?”

I hadn’t said a word about my travels, or
my intent regarding visiting the ancient site, but after our brief moment in
the parking lot, I felt almost as if I had no secrets from Valerie—as
though she had some weird grasp on my inner life. But instead of making me feel
self-conscious and ridiculous, I felt strangely at peace.

That didn’t last long.

We stepped off the path into the clearing,
which I could see had been fenced away from a farmer’s field. Just along the
neat footpath was a collection of rusty red Highland cattle alternately grazing
and staring into space. The circle of stones, eleven in number, was startlingly
similar to the ones near Culloden. It surrounded a pile of rocks, indented on
one side, with a rounded hollow center.

“It’s a cairn,” said Valerie. “Long
deserted. Robbed, in times past, of any valuables. But something still remains.”

She crossed her arms over her chest. “Twas
the old ’uns that built this cairn, and the ones at Balnuaran, too,” she said,
quietly. “Aligned with the midsummer moon, but not jes’ any moon. The entrance
lies in the path of the rare, long moon, wha’ comes but once a generation.”

She stepped to the edge of the cairn. “Did
ye walk through the ones up north?” she asked.

When I nodded, she gestured toward the low
entrance. “Those at Balnuaran are open to the sky, but this one still has its
roof. It’s corbeled, y’see, strong enough to hold those rocks in place for
millennia.”

Pointing at the middle, she walked back over
to where I lingered near one of the low standing stones. “When the
archeologists finally went in, there were no remains of the body. Just a sort of
stain on the stone, showing how they’d placed her, face out to see the moon as
it waxed full on all her children and theirs, each in turn.”

“It was a woman?” I asked. “I thought these
old monuments mostly revered kings and warriors and so on.”

Valerie smiled. “Oh, they’ve no proof, o’
course, as there were no remains found to test. But I’ve had my hand on that center
stone.” She pointed to a large slab that rested to one side of the opening at
the top. “And I can tell ye, I feel her still, or what she once was.”

We stood silently together and watched the
wind create weird shapes in the dead grasses sown across the roof of the cairn,
each lost in our own thoughts.

“Can you climb down through there to get
into the center?” I asked her, at last.

Valerie nodded. “Oh, aye—it’s called a
passage grave for a reason, y’know. But I’d not like to do it m’self, I’ll tell
ye, as it is a wee low ceiling. I’m too claustrophobic for that sort of thing
these days, though I done it enough when I was a young’un, up to no good here
with the other boys and girls.” She chuckled, eyes distant.

I walked over to the entrance, a dark smudge
of shadow amid the gray stone. “It was here that the ghost stood,” I blurted.
“At Clava. I saw him and another man—a friend who was there—saw him,
too. I could see his kilt in the moonlight, but not much else. Heavy boots,
maybe.”

Valerie, walking up to join me, burst into
delighted laughter. “Ach, girlie, someone’s havin’ ye on. Ye’ll see no
tartan-clad ghosties at these sites. The spirits of any who remain here—even
those of the warriors who may have guarded them—came long before the
plaid. Long before the bonnie sort of folk you’d recognize these days. It was
the old ’uns that made this place. Tha’s why I came with ye today. Whether
ye’re of the Celtic blood or no’, it doesn’t do to come unlearned before the
old ’uns.”