Haunt Me Still (34 page)

In Scotland, Helen Bradburn, Cailleach of the 2008 Samhuinn fire festival in Edinburgh, gave me invaluable insight into the workings of that spectacular celebration. Colin Campbell, a photographer with a fine eye for the Scottish landscape, along with his wife, Linda, and dog Cal, got me out to Loch Bruiach on a silent, snowy November afternoon. Jamie and Karen Sinclair gave me the great gift of a family paper on the history of the real King Macbeth, as well as the loan of their collection of books on Dunsinnan and its environs while I was in the area, traipsing up and down the hill. Inspector Paddy Buckley-Jones of the Tayside Police kindly enlightened me on some details of police procedure; any irregularities in police behavior in this book are my fault, not his.

In London, Chris Green, house manager; Paul Rotchell, assistant manager; and John Fitzsimmons, theater manager, all ensured that I learned what I needed to know about Her Majesty’s Theatre; Chris gave me a much-appreciated tour of Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree’s dome room. Jamie de Courcey served as my eyes and ears at the British Museum at times when I could not drop in myself; Dr. Silke Ackermann, curator of the British Museum’s European Department, helped with the workings of the museum and its collections, John Dee’s mirror in particular. Christina Oakley Harrington and her staff at Treadwell’s Bookshop identified useful books on various occult subjects.

In New York, Sister Carol Finegan, director of institutional research at the College of Mount Saint Vincent, gave me a long and detailed tour of fonthill Castle in riverdale.

On the academic front, Professor Dan Donoghue of Harvard university’s English department undertook to translate some Shakespeare into Anglo-Saxon poetry and then transliterate it into runes. Chris Tabraham, principal historian for Historic Scotland, helped me with details of Edinburgh Castle and its environs as they would have been in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Stuart Ivinson, library assistant at the royal Armouries in Leeds, provided much-needed research on Anglo-Saxon and Norse knives and swords, and John Oliver, curator (fiction) of the BFI National Archive at the British film Institute enlightened me on material aspects of silent-era films.

Others who helped with various angles of research are: Ilana Addis, Martin Brueckner, Brian Schuyler, Bill Fetzer, John Alexander, Eric Baker, Bill Kapfer, René Andersen, Liz Stein, Lauren Galit, David Ira Goldstein, Nick Saunders, Louise Park, Bill Carrell, Laura Fulginiti, Phil Varney, Sandy and Brian Stearns, Jill Jorden Spitz, Stephanie Innes, Pamela Treadwell-Rubin, and Assistant Chief Kathleen Robinson and Crime Laboratory Superintendent Susan M. Shankles, both of the Tucson Police Department.

Charlotte Lowe and Ellen Grounds both read parts of the manuscript and gave encouraging feedback. Dave Grounds has a special and much-appreciated talent for listening to me wander through tangled thickets of plot and then cutting straight through the chaos with sensible suggestions. My mother, Melinda Carrell, and Kristen Poole remain two of my most trusted readers.

Without my husband, John Helenbolt, this book would never have seen the light of day. He and our son, Will, give me day-today proof that the world is indeed full of strange and wonderful magic.