The Bagpiper’s Ghost (7 page)

Jennifer and Gran sat down at the garden table. Gran got a strange look in her eyes, as if she had suddenly gone blind, her eyes opaque as marbles.

“Gran!” Jennifer cried, and put her hand on Gran's, which was cold, and marblelike as well. It was terrifying.

Slowly Gran's eyes seemed to change back, the hand under Jennifer's getting warm again.

“What just happened to you?” Jennifer whispered hoarsely.

“Thinking,” Gran said, but the way she said it indicated that it was no ordinary kind of thinking; it was something deeper, harder, dangerous.

“Thinking about what, Gran?”

“About the dead.” Gran's voice was dull.

“For a minute …” Jennifer said quietly, “for a minute I thought you
were
dead.”

Gran smiled at her and opened the book. “Sometimes to truly ken a bodie, one must
be
that bodie.”

“I don't understand,” Jennifer said, shivering. But she did.

It was the dog that put it into words. “The auld carlin means that to ken the dead, ye must become dead yersel.”

Gran saw the stricken look on Jennifer's face. “Nae
really
dead, my dearie. Just magically so.”

“Is that why the cat has run off to the summer-house?” Jennifer asked.

Gran nodded.

“You … you don't expect me to try that dead thing, too?” Jennifer said in a small voice.

“You are not ready for any such,” Thunder told her, but gently. He shook his great head, and a waft of horse smell, warm and musky, enveloped them.

“The dead,” Gran said, ignoring the horse, “dinna always ken themselves passed over. And so they canna pass on. They're tied to the place o' their greatest grief. Mary MacFadden to the grave where she wept herself to death. Iain McGregor to the home where he left the young woman he luved. And Andrew MacFadden …”

“But why isn't Andrew a ghost, too, Gran? Why did he have to possess Peter in order to be seen and heard?” In her eagerness, Jennifer leaned forward, her hand on the red leather book. “And will he leave Peter's body quietly?”

“If your gran knew the answers to all that,” Thunder said, once again shaking his massive head so that his mane looked like dark waves, “she'd be up there in Peter's room right now.”

Gran slid the book away from Jennifer. “The horse is right. I dinna have all the answers. But this I ken—if Andrew MacFadden doesna gae quietly noo that yer brother has had a long sleep, we have real trouble.”

“Realer than this?” Jennifer asked.

Gran nodded. “I suspect that Andrew MacFadden is too angry fer peace, too guilty fer a quiet haunting, and that his heart is the size o' a wee hard stone. But all my blather is nae more than wind in the heather, lass. We must follow the book to ken what we must do next.” She patted the cover of the red book and then opened it.

“But, Gran—” Jennifer started, thinking that the one thing no one had mentioned yet was the dog's role in the whole disaster. “What about the—”

Anticipating her question, the dog ran off into the far end of the garden, his tail between his legs. However, Gran was so deep in study, she didn't seem to notice, and so Jennifer reluctantly let the question go.

They kept on with the red leather volume on ghosts well through the afternoon, Jennifer taking notes as they went along.

Twice Da stuck his head out to check up on them. The last time, he said he was going out for a walk and would pick up Molly on the way back.

Gran nodded and waved him on, but never lost her place in the book.

After that, they worked their way through the customs of sitting up with or “waking” a corpse before a funeral, death lights, and phantom funerals. They read about deaths—by hanging, by drowning, and in battle.

“There seem to have been an awful lot of battles in Scotland,” Jennifer said, scribbling furiously, the pen making blots on the page. “And an awful lot of ghosts.”

“Ghosts on the High Road and Low,” Thunder put in.

The dog, who had been slowly inching back toward the table, suddenly sat up and began singing in a high nasal voice, “Ye'll tak the High Road and I'll tak the Low Road, and I'll be in Scotland afore ye …”

Putting her finger in her ears to block the awful howling, Jennifer turned to Gran. “Can't you stop him?”

Gran lifted the point finger on her right hand and the dog was silenced. “That's a wee bit interesting, Jennie. Let's think more upon it. It's a bit o' ghost lore we've not come upon in our book yet. The Low Road—that's the spiritual path along which a ghost might return to the place of his birth.”

Thunder whickered softly. “The song comes from two friends, supporters of the King Over the Water, who were captured by the English. Only one of them ever escaped. The other was hanged.”

“Good,” Gran said, nodding at him. “Good.”

“Hanged.” Jennifer shuddered. And then she gave a start. “That's it!”

They all stared at her.

“There's nae a bit o' hanging in our nicht adventure,” Gran said.

“No, no,” Jennifer said. Her hands were making circles in the air and her voice rose excitedly. “Not the hanging part. The song. That's what Iain McGregor was playing on his pipes.”

“Was he noo?” Gran leaned forward. “Are ye certain, lass?”

“I'm
positive
, Gran. I sang along with him.”

“And ye've only just remembered?”

Jennifer hung her head.

“Never mind, lass, never mind. This is why we gae aboot this magic stuff slow and steady.” Gran smiled at her. “How much did ye sing?”

Jennifer shrugged. “Not much. I only remembered the first few lines.” Then an idea came to her. “You know, I bet Iain McGregor
did
die at that battle after all.”

Gran leaned forward. “Go on.”

Jennifer didn't need much encouragement. Somehow everything suddenly seemed to fit. “Well, what if he died, and then he took the Low Road home, but he just didn't
know
he'd died. You said, Gran, that sometimes dead folk don't realize they've passed over. Suppose Iain McGregor didn't know—but somehow his pipes did. Could that be right?”

Smiling slowly, Thunder showed a remarkable set of large yellow teeth. He whinnied with pleasure. “She's a smart girl and may be on to something.”

Gran smiled, too. “So noo ye ken that slow study does reveal all.”

“Well, it wasn't something we actually found in the book, Gran,” Jennifer said.

“One thing leads to another. All is connected,” the old woman told her, emphasizing what she was saying with her finger upraised.

Bounding the last few feet toward them, the dog cried, “But I was the one!
I! I!
Had I nae sung the song …” He suddenly sounded a great deal like Molly, who was only four years old and therefore had an excuse for such behavior.

“Sung it? More like you
howled
it.” Jennifer had to shout to be heard over the dog's commotion. She was disgusted with him—furious actually—because
he
was the real cause of Peter's possession. If the dog had never mentioned the stupid ghost in the first place, hadn't insisted on their going to the graveyard at midnight, hadn't left them when the ghosts appeared, they wouldn't have gotten into such trouble. Then she remembered her own role in the disaster and realized that the dog was not alone in creating it.

“I'm sorry,” she whispered. “Of course, it was you who thought of the song.”

Suddenly her mother burst out into the garden. “He's awake,” she cried, looking both happy and frightened. Her hair was standing out around her head, a dark halo of curls, and there were unshed tears pearling in her eyes. “Peter's awake. But we can't make out a single word he's saying.”

Eleven

Madhouse

They went into the house—all but the horse, of course—and Jennifer galloped up the stairs two at a time.

“Peter!” she cried. “Peter!”

Bursting through the bedroom door, she stopped short. Pop was sitting on the bed, holding on to Peter's shoulders as if trying to calm him.

Clearly Peter was not being calmed. His face was drawn up in a strange grimace, and he was cursing steadily, but in a broad Scots accent.

“Ye blind doited bodie, ye dorty man, are ye fou or fowsome?” Peter cried, his arms flailing.

Pop held on to Peter, but he looked up at Jennifer with such agony on his face, she wanted to cry.

“What's he saying?” Pop asked. “I can't understand a word of it.”

Gran bit her lip, then took a deep breath. “He said that yer a blind, foolish, stubborn man. He asked if ye were just drunk or an obscenity.”

Peter smiled. Or rather the man in Peter's body smiled. It did not improve his looks. “I never told her. She never asked. And what was I to tell her, anyway? Truth is nae absolute. Nae if it's meant to hurt a bodie. ‘In the stane a token of luv,' he said. The fool. The doited fool. Luvstruck and gawping.
Who's to ken it?
I thought. ‘Three from the bottom and four above.'” Peter began to laugh with the other man's voice. “Three from the bottom o' hell, I tell ye. Four above.”

“
Who
is he?” wailed Mom.

“
What
is he?” Pop's voice echoed her.

“Confused,” Jennifer said.

“Mad,” the dog muttered, though Mom and Pop didn't understand him.

“He's a
teenager
,” Gran said with finality. “That's the very definition of madness.” She raised her right finger and pointed it at Peter, who went dead quiet. Then she turned to Mom and Pop. “Gae downstairs, both o' ye, and leave Peter to me. I've handled worse.”

Mom hesitated.

“Gae!” Gran said. “Noo.”

“Okay,” Mom answered, her voice as unsteady as her legs, “but I'm calling the doctor.”

“Tell him to come wi' a lang needle,” Gran said.

As Mom, supported by Pop, went out the door and down the stairs, the dog added, “And a lang spoon.”

“A lang spoon?”
Jennifer asked.

Gran looked at her. “He means a
long
spoon.” She pronounced it carefully. “When supping wi' a Fifer, 'tis said, one should bring a lang spoon.”

Jennifer raised both her hands as if admitting defeat. “I don't get it.”

“The dog's guessing Brother Andrew was born and bred here in the Kingdom o' Fife. And when dealing with a Fifer—so they say—one has to be a wee bit extra careful, because a Fifer is that canny, that smart.”

“But aren't
you
a Fifer, Gran?” Jennifer asked.

Gran laid a finger beside her nose. “Who better to deal with one?” She turned back to Peter, who still sat, unmoving, on the bed. “That small hold spell will do fer noo. But we haven't much time, lass. Andrew MacFadden has nae gone quietly awa back to his ain grave after the boy's lang sleep, as I'd hoped. If we canna get Peter back in his ain body by tomorrow, Andrew will stay in control o' it forever.”

“Forever?”

“Aye. The longer a ghost is in a body, the less it wants to leave. We have another twenty-four hours at best.”

Jennifer took a deep breath of air. “And at worst?”

“In Bedlam—the madhouse,” the dog added morosely. “Who's to walk me then, I ask ye?”

Gran rounded on him, glaring. There were little spots of color on her cheeks. “I'll put
ye
in the madhouse if ye dinna shut yer cake hole.”

Jennifer had never heard Gran so angry.

The dog shut up, closing his mouth so quickly his teeth made a loud snapping sound.

“Now what?” Jennifer asked.

“Noo we wait till evening,” Gran said.

“More waiting? But Gran, if time is important, why don't we
do
something? Now?” Jennifer was appalled at how whiny she sounded, but she couldn't stop herself.

Gran put her arms around Jennifer and said quietly, “Because we need the dark, lass. Andrew MacFadden came in the dark, and he'll gae oot the same way. It's the summer solstice this eve, and ye two are twins, as the MacFaddens were. Twins hold great power every day, but more so on the solstice. Something has begun that's stronger than my magic, I fear. So we wait, lass. We wait. But only till the dark.”

“Ye doited carlin,” the dog dared in a gravelly voice, “it hardly gets dark at all this time o' the year.” Then he stood trembling, clearly expecting some awful fate to fall upon him because he had spoken out again.

This time Gran ignored him. After all, he
was
right.

The same white-haired doctor arrived within fifteen minutes, carrying his little black bag. He gave Peter a shot that put him out cold immediately. One sigh and he was gone. Then the doctor gathered the rest of the family downstairs.

The dog came, too.

“It's probably just a hormonal change,” the doctor said, nodding at Pop. “Peter's going from a boy to a man. Sometimes it happens this way. The body is set for a gradual change, not for things to happen all at once. And poof!” The doctor's hands described an explosion.

The dog put his paws up over his ears, mumbling, “
Poof
is nae a medical term.”

Silently, Jennifer agreed. She wondered about the doctor's competence. Besides, Gran had said this wasn't a problem that a doctor could solve.

The doctor continued, leaning toward Mom as he spoke. “I'll come by and check up on young Peter tomorrow. But if he's still much the same, I'm afraid I'll have to recommend hospitalization. I don't like to do that with tourists. I'd rather send you all home, where your family doctor can see to him. But if he's incapable of traveling …”

Mom and Pop nodded, their heads going up and down as if on strings.

Jennifer felt cold inside, then hot. The cold was her guilt, sitting like an iceberg in her stomach. Like the iceberg that sank the
Titanic
. The hot was her temper. It was a volcano. She was furious with the doctor's smug account. Hot and cold. The room suddenly seemed to be spinning.