Page 115 of A Scot on the Rocks

A child’s sob came from the sealed chapel. So small a sound, and so distinctly unhappy, that one of the soldiers turned toward it before remembering he’d been ordered to search the tower. The sob came again, much closer, and a little white figure appeared at the foot of the stair.

This one wore no veil. Its smooth, blank face lifted toward the man with the lantern, and one thin arm reached for him. Sorcha had stitched the thing from old linen and bent willow, but the way it turned its head as the light moved made it seem to be following the soldier with eyes it didna possess. It was smaller than Catrìona MacRae, and Jamie found himself disliking it intensely. Little children belonged by warm fires with crumbs on their faces, not wandering ruined castles with nothing where their eyes ought to be.

“Mother of God,” the soldier whispered. He stumbled over the broken step and fell hard on his backside, sending his lantern skidding across the wet flags. His companion caught it before the flame could spill.

The little apparition vanished behind a pillar. A bell rang three times from the tower, then the cry came from the opposite side of the hall. Two officers turned toward it together, their muskets scraping against stone.

Jamie had warned Olivia that the tricks would be too much when they were all working at once. Now he understood she’d been right to insist on them. A man could laugh at a sheet if he found its rope, but how was he to find a rope while something small was weeping behind him and a dead woman waited above his head?

Across the far wall, a shadow rose from the stones. It lengthened over the old arch, spread two narrow arms, and climbed toward the roof with the slow, deliberate movement of a figure waking from a very long sleep. The pale woman appeared again in the tower opening while the small faceless child stood motionless below her. For a few dreadful heartbeats all three were visible, though no person had passed from one part of the ruin to another.

The older soldier crossed himself so quickly Jamie feared he’d injure his fingers. Another pushed past him toward the door and stopped only because Robertson caught the back of his coat.

“Stand fast!” Robertson shouted. “There’s men behind these walls. Look for the cords!”

“Ye look for them,” the frightened soldier burst out, before remembering his rank and going pale beneath the lantern light.

Jamie felt Ewan’s shoulder shaking beside his own. The fool was laughing soundlessly. There was a time when Jamie would have joined him, but he could see Robertson’s face hardening with every nervous movement of his men. The officer had lost Finlay at the harbor, lost the trader at the quay, and been mocked at Mairi’s tavern before he came here. He’d make a dangerous decision, and soon.

Robertson shoved the nearest man toward the old tower. “Up there. Whoever is working the ropes must be above you.”

The soldier looked up at the cracked arch and the stair where three steps had broken loose. A fragment of mortar fell as the wind moved through it. He held his lantern out, then lowered it.

“Sir, those stones are coming away.”

“Are you afraid of a woman’s washing?”

The young man swallowed. “I’m afraid of the roof, sir.”

Jamie understood the distinction. He’d replaced enough timbers to know where the safe weight lay, and he’d forbidden the villagers to stand beneath that arch even when they’d been hanging the ghost lines. He reached for the warning cord and pulled three times. Above him the moving shadow faltered, and the woman in the tower slipped out of sight. The signal should have ended the whole performance.

Robertson saw the shapes stop. Instead of taking it as a reason to leave, he strode toward the chapel wall and began striking the old mortar with the butt of his crop.

“Come out, Campbell! I’ll have the stones torn apart until I find the passage you’re using.”

The young officer moved beneath the unsafe arch. Jamie heard the faint scrape of grit from above, the same sound that had sent him scrambling off the stair when he was a boy. There was no time to send Ewan around behind the men, and certainly none to convince Robertson that a haunted ruin was best left haunted.

Jamie stepped from the dark.

“Leave off, Robertson, before the arch falls and crushes ye or one of yer men to death.”

Five heads turned. The sixth man was still staring at the place where the child had vanished.

“Jamie Campbell,” Robertson said, breathing hard through his nose. “I knew you’d be here.”

“Aye, and I heard ye all the way up the hill. A man couldna sleep through that shouting if he were properly dead.”

Jamie moved clear of the arch, giving the soldiers space to see he had no weapon in his hand. “Call the lads back from the tower. There’s an old crack above that stair, and I’d prefer ye took them home with their heads where they belong.”

“You think this is a jest?”

“I’ve never cared much for jesting about a man being buried in stone.” Jamie glanced at the lantern in the young officer’s hand. “Come away from there, lad. Mind where ye put yer foot.”

The young man did as he was told. Robertson’s eyes followed him, then slid to the chapel passage Jamie had emerged from. Jamie knew that look. Robertson had finally found a door he’d been denied, and now he meant to go through it whether or not the wall stayed standing.

“What’s behind there?”

“A draught, several spiders, and a stair I wouldna trust.”