The Bagpiper’s Ghost (6 page)

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.”

“Well, what if he's still inside Peter?” Jennifer asked. “And using Peter to bring back the sister he mourned forever?”

“Then we have a
big
problem,” Gran told her. She stood. “However, first things first, lass, and this we canna rush. If MacFadden is still here and using puir Peter, we must ken what kind o' ghosts we're dealing with.” She raised one finger and shook it at Jennifer. “In matters o' magic, knowledge is the most important beginning step, as surely ye have discovered by noo.”

“But, Gran,” Jennifer whined, “we have to do something
now
!”

Gran shook her head. “Rushing aboot is an American disease. We Scots ken that slow and steady in the ways o' magic is best.” She turned toward the door and then said over her shoulder, “I'll get my book.”

Jennifer pushed the porridge bowl away.
How can I even think about eating with Peter lying upstairs possessed? What kind of a sister am I?
And then she had another thought:
What kind of brother was Andrew MacFadden, treating Mary that way?
It made Jennifer hate him. She ground her teeth together and stood, planning to go up to check on Peter once more.

Just then Gran came back. “This is the volume on ghosts,” she was saying, holding out a large tome bound in dark red leather. “Sit doon, Jennie. Study comes from quiet contemplation.” Sitting back down at the table, she patted the chair next to her. “Ye'll tak the notes.” She handed Jennifer a pen and a piece of notebook paper that was longer and narrower than the kind Jennifer was used to at home. “Come, lass, sit.”

Jennifer sat.

Opening the book, Gran ran her finger quickly down the table of contents. “Glaistigs—nae, they're female and shape-changers. And our bonnie lad is neither a dog nor a lass.”

Jennifer put a hand over her mouth to keep from giggling.
Peter as a girl? Or a dog?
The idea would have been sidesplitting—if the situation weren't so serious.

“And …” Gran continued, “they're mischief makers besides. This is nae such a one. Nor is it green ladies, either.”

“Well, what about ladies in white …?” Jennifer asked.

“Notes, my little lass,” Gran said. “Unless ye've a better memory than mine.”

Jennifer dutifully wrote down NOT and under it put
glaistigs
and
green ladies
, though her spelling was atrocious.

Keeping a finger carefully on her place in the book, Gran looked at Jennifer. “Noo aboot that white lady—colors are important in magic, child. White is nae green, nae matter how hard ye squint.” She turned back to the book. “And we're nae dealing with the banshee or the caoineag. All they do is moan a bit and flap aboot, warning o' a death to come.” She shivered. “Horrid folk.”

Jennifer shivered, too, but dutifully wrote down the names under the
NOT
list, spelling them as best she could. “Are there lots of different ghosts in Scotland, Gran?”

“Hundreds,” Gran said with grim satisfaction. “Nae—thousands. Sometimes the unshriven dead all march together in a great lang parade, one after another, their winding clouts flapping in the wind. Then it's called the Sluagh.”

“Sloo-ack? Should I write it down?”

Gran nodded. “Sluagh.”

Jennifer scribbled the name.

“The death march o' ghosts,” Gran continued. “And those o' a superstitious nature never leave a window open on the west side at night because o' it.”

“Is Peter's room on the west side?” Jennifer asked in a horrified whisper. “He always sleeps with his window open.”

Gran threw her head back and laughed. “That's nonsense aboot the west window. Mere superstition.” She laughed again. “Dinna ye be believing it. Superstition is fer folk who dinna ken much aboot real magic.”

Jennifer gaped.

“Ye must ken what's true and what's only toom-headit,” Gran cautioned.

“Toom-headit?”

“Empty-headed nonsense,” Gran said. “So we crack the books, as ye say in America. Though a crack in a magic book is nae a good thing.”

Sighing, Jennifer said, “Green ladies and white ladies and the Sluagh and superstitions. I don't know
what
to believe anymore, Gran.” She was horrified to find she was crying.

Gran placed a hand on Jennifer's. “That's why study is important if ye have magic in ye, Jennifer. And right noo, we must study as hard and as fast as we can. Fer young Peter's sake. And fer our own.”

Jennifer smiled through her tears. “Don't you know—I'm on vacation, Gran. School's out. I'm done with studying for the summer.”

“A bodie's ne'er done wi' studying,” Gran said. But she smiled back at Jennifer to show she got the joke.

Ten

The Low Road

“The kitchen's gotten a wee bit close,” Gran said suddenly. “A body can scarce breathe in here.”

That was exactly how Jennifer had been feeling, too: choked up, as if lying under a heavy blanket on a hot day.

“Let's tak the book into the garden,” Gran said, getting up from the table. “There's naught like the smell o' summer herbs to clear a bodie's head.”

Jennifer got up eagerly and followed her out.

“The wee beasties can help, too,” Gran said, nodding at the horse and the white cat. The dog, who'd been kicked out of Peter's room, was there as well.

“Not so wee,” Jennifer told her, and they both giggled.

Dog and horse raised their heads at the laughter, but the cat paid no attention to them and headed across the rolled lawn to the summerhouse.

“Beasties often sense ghosts where we humans dinna feel a thing,” Gran said.

That made the dog grin, his tongue flopping out like a piece of used bubblegum. “See—sometimes I can be o' help.”

“And
sometimes,
” Jennifer hissed at him, “you make a mess of things and then run away at the first sign of trouble.”

The tongue disappeared. As did the grin.

“No apologies?” Jennifer asked the dog.

He was silent.

“And no explanations, either?”

“Dinna ye forget how he came to get me” Gran told her, her forefinger raised.

“And took his own good time about it,” Jennifer reminded her.

“Och, we'll get to apologies and such once we have young Peter back,” Gran said, looking down at the dog. “Meanwhile, Thunder here, having spent a lot o' centuries with that great and wicked sinner Michael Scot,” she added, nodding at the horse, “may have some insights fer us.”

At that, the horse started to paw at the ground, as if embarrassed by the praise, but Gran made a
tsk
sound with her tongue, reminding him that he was too close to her herb garden. So he stood still, a small tremor like a waterfall running across his flanks.