The Bagpiper’s Ghost (5 page)

The Lady in White winced and shrank away from the raised hand. But it did not stop her response. “If ye were truly thinking o' my sake, Andrew, ye'd hae thought o' my heart, too. Which belongs to Iain.” She wrung her hands again. “But always, Andrew, it's been yer ain comfort ye hae been worrying aboot. Ye wanted me to yersel, to mak yer tea and keep the hoose and all fer free till the end o' yer days.”

“Ye'll nae be speaking to yer older brother like that, Mary MacFadden” Peter said, his mouth still in that peculiar twist.

“Peter!” Jennifer cried. “You're
my
brother, not hers.” But it was as if he did not hear her.

The Lady in White stared at him, shadow tears running down her face. “Older by but a minute, Andrew, and me fast on yer heels oot o' the womb.”

Jennifer gasped. “You're
twins?
Maybe that's why the dog brought us here. Twins to twins at midnight, some sort of strange, dark magic. Don't you see?”

They both turned to stare at her then, and at that same moment a ribbon of sun touched the horizon.

Mary and Iain disappeared at once.

And Peter, like a puppet with its strings suddenly cut, collapsed at Jennifer's feet, face down, and didn't move.

Seven

To the Rescue

“Peter!” Jennifer knelt down and started shaking him. But though his eyes were open, the pupils had rolled up, and it was as if he stared at her with all-white eyes.

Jennifer glanced around the graveyard, then across the road, hoping to see someone who might help. There was an arrow of light along the horizon, though she knew it couldn't be more than one in the morning. But just then the church bell rang four times.

“Four?” she whispered. “Four already?” She hadn't thought the argument between the MacFaddens had taken that long. Then she realized that within a bubble of magic, time had no meaning. She looked back down at her brother and shook him, but still he didn't wake.

Putting her head to his chest, she heard a steady
thump-thump-thump
and was comforted by it. He didn't need CPR or anything like that, which she could do if she had to, having learned it in health class. But he was in some sort of a coma or shock. She put her arms around his shoulders and held him as if he were a baby, rocking him back and forth.

It's my fault
, she thought,
all my fault
. And then, as an afterthought, she added,
And that stupid dog's!

For a long moment she wallowed in her misery. Then she realized that whining about whose fault it was did not help the situation.

“Do something,” she told herself, and then she began to scream.

“Help!” she cried. Even to her own ears, her voice sounded thin and weak. “Help!” This time she was louder. But the nearest houses were blocks away, and anyone asleep or with the windows shut wouldn't hear her, anyway.

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 the 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.