Picking the Ballad's Bones (14 page)

CHAPTER 13

Gussie arrived at Melrose to find
Willie, Brose, Anna Mae, and Julianne standing in a line like
guilty schoolchildren while a greenish glowing figure sitting on a
long stone casket glowered at them all.

The banjo for once was
silent.

"W—Wat—that green guy. Is
that—?"

"Hush," Sir Walter's ghost said to her
and to his foliage-fleshed forebear. "Greetings,
kinsman."

A breeze seemed to flutter through the
leafy apparition as it looked straight across at him and said, "And
to you, bairn. I see ye found a steed to bear ye to me."

"Who's he callin' a steed?" Gussie
demanded. "I may look like the old gray mare to you, buddy, but it
isn't very damn polite to say so."

"The grave is nae a courteous place,
kinswoman. Yer forgiveness—" The Wizard's voice was rough and
rusty, the wind soughing through him.

"She's nae kin, Michael, but a
visitor—"

"She's kin. She bears part of ye in
her mak'up, bairn, or ye'd no be able to blend to her sae
weel."

"Aye?"

"Yer dead, Walter Scott, and hae been
dead lo these mony years, though fewer years than I. Long has yer
body rotted in yer grave and long has yer spark been wi' yer
Makker. But the wee bits of ye that were yersel'—yer cares and
woes, the things that ye looked after—those things hae gone tae
other wights. There's a Scott laddie who cares for yer family name
as once ye did, there's a policeman in Aberdeen who is evenhanded
wi' the law as once ye ware, there's this one and that one who
carry on this or that bit of ye. This woman, whose
great-grand-sire's wife was Laidlaw and a relation, bears yer ane
love of story and ballad and yer ane lack o' voice to
sing."

"I think the man's sayin' Gussie's
your soul sister, Brother Walter," Brose said. "Ain't that nice?
But the point is, Mike, this banjo here told us we have to learn us
some songs and that right here is the root of 'em and we still
can't find any. Back home, this banjo was lotsa help because it
could give us tunes, but hell, every song you folks got over here
has the same tune as six other songs."

"And as Faron said, every one of them
can be sung to the tune of Gilligan's Island," Gussie added and
then decided maybe she should have kept her mouth shut since the
Wizard probably wasn't a big TV fan.

The banjo played a tune that could
have been "Lady Margaret," "Little Musgrave," or the American
version of "Omie Wise."

The Wizard said, "Aye, aye, ah'm weel
aware of the limitations of yer implement. Tha's why it's fetched
ye tae the bairn Wat and him tae me. T' Wizard Sam Hawthorne tawd
me o' yer woes and o' the great conspiracy tae undo the bindings we
set on t' world in sang shortly after he died and ah do understand
the argency o' yer difficulty. Tha's why I fetched Wattie doon.
It's his province amang ma folk, tae guard the char-ums. Tha's why
he 'gan collectin' them when a' was bein' lost before."

"The collection is gone—they're all
gone," Sir Walter's ghost said. "With the burning of Abbotsford the
last copy of Minstrelsy, the last of Percy's Reliques, are gone.
You feel it, don't you, Michael Scott? The loss of it—and my home,
my books, my life's work destroyed."

"For a dead man yer aye too attached
tae things of this world, Wat," the Wizard told him. "And 'tis true
the collections are gone but 'tis true as well that when these
people returned to their ane country, nane o' them but yer lass
there"—he indicated Gussie with a pointing finger—"nane o' them
would remember a thing. Too late noo for printed collections. The
only way for them to learn the char-um songs is to live the char-um
songs."

"Just what's that supposed to mean?"
Willie asked. "How can you live a song?"

"Not easily," the Wizard said. "For
those songs were nae written of easy times but of perilous times
and woeful. Ye ken that peaceful, happy times may be easy on a body
but they mak' bluidy puir sangs."

"Like the Chinese curse," Anna Mae
said. "May you live in interesting times. But there's no way we can
do that, is there? Live in those interesting times, I
mean."

"If there warn't, d'ye think I'd hae
risen frae ma rest and spend frae midnight tae cockcrow in counsel
wi' ye?"

"Why until cockcrow, kinsman, when I
may roam the day as well as night?" Sir Walter asked.

"Photosynthesis," the revenant Wizard
said, raising a leafy arm. "Ah'd sore need prunin' were ah tae stay
abovegroond the day. Not tae mention alar-umin' the tourists
somethin' fierce."

"I did wonder at your shape, kinsman,
for according to the ballads are we spirits not supposed to return
in our earthly guise?"

"Under normal circumstances, aye," the
Wizard said. "But this be a special case and ye've been deid lo
these two centuries and ah lo these seven and there be no remnant
of us either one large enough tae mak a rev'nant. Fartunately for
me, mah enemies rejoiced and sang o'er mah grave and made these
briers and rose leaves grow therein and from these I ha' shaped a
boddie. For you, more than for the common man, the things o' the
spirit was the sum of ye, and so yer disembodied spirit was able
tae return as in the past they nivvair war. And when ye had need o'
a boddie, why, the crisis itself sent ye the lass in which ye
bide."

"Ain't it kind of a large coincidence
that out of all the people in the world, one of us should turn out
to be related to him—even distantly?" Brose asked.

"We Scotts got aroond. Ye'd be
surprised tae find how many distant relations we have throughout
t'warld. And as for the speck of Wat the lassie bears, why, bairn,
I dinna think ye've the time nor the backgroond tae understand mah
theery o' t'fission o'souls."

* * *

"I bet you're right about that," Anna
Mae said. "But you were going to tell us—is there a way to reclaim
the songs without the written collections?"

"Aye, there's a way, but it's a hard
one and full of danger. To win the sangs, the four of ye maun live
the tales behind them and live yet tae sing o' those same
tales."

"Will ye mak' us a spell then,
kinsman?" Walter Scott asked.

"If they agree, aye. They've no been
given much choice in this matter and they stand tae forfeit this
life and the next for tales long past and gone. For 'tis in earlier
lives that the char-ums lie and the sang that maun bear the
char-um."

"There you are!" trilled a familiar
voice from behind.

"Wha's she doing here?" the Wizard
asked, which was a relief to Gussie who was beginning to think he
knew everything.

"This here is Miss Torchy Burns,"
Brose said. "She's been helping us out."

"Ach, aye?" the Wizard
asked.

Gussie was disgusted to find her mind
crowded with reverence and awe for the woman she thought seriously
needed therapy, or at least a little growing up.

"And why, madame, have ye coom?" the
Wizard demanded of her. "My business is theirs and none of yer
ane."

"Now, how can you say that, Mick?"
Torchy asked. "When the very stuff that covers you is my business?"
She flipped her long and lovely fingers at his leafy coating, which
didn't make much sense to Gussie, but then Torchy said, "And so are
these coverings. You poor dears are freezing to death. The grounds
keeper here is an old beau of mine and I 'appen to still have a
key. I'm sure he won't mind loanin' you these and I took the
liberty of making us all a thermos of tea."

"Mighty nice of you, darlin'," Willie
said, clutching a plaid blanket around his head and shoulders like
an Indian brave in a John Wayne movie. Julianne had two—Anna Mae
wrapped the one Torchy gave her around Julianne as well. Brose
tried to give Torchy a hug but she put him on hold with a flattened
palm and began pouring tea into the cups she'd apparently also
brought from the caretaker's cottage.

"Irrigation, Mick?" she offered.
"Wouldn't want you to wither before you made us privy to this great
scheme of yours."

The Wizard seemed to quail before her,
which puzzled Gussie, who thought he must surely be the most
magical thing in all of Scotland at that point. But Sir Walter's
ghost didn't seem surprised. She wished there wasn't so much going
on so she could ask him. From his mind she caught nothing but
admiration and adoration for the blasted woman and she supposed she
shouldn't find it strange that even dead men can make fools of
themselves over a certain kind of female. But the caution in the
Wizard's response was not admiration, nor was it reverence, though
it was certainly respectful.

"It's nae sae mickle a scheme, lady,"
the Wizard said. "We've the implement amang us and a'. The danger
is the being caught in the far realm and—weel, it's what ye maun
call a reverse of my theery of fission of souls . . ."

"Can you explain it without the mumbo
jumbo?" Brose asked.

The Wizard took out his nervousness on
Brose. "Ye black and heathen hoond, do ye doot me?"

"Man, it's not that I doubt you, I
just plain have trouble understandin' you," Brose replied. "I don't
talk Scottish or tree either. How do I know this ain't some special
effect or somethin'? You don't look nothin' like the ghosts I saw
along the Oregon Trail. I think I like American ghosts better,
pardon my ethno-cent-ricness."

The Wizard rolled his leafy eyes and
looked around, as if searching for something. His gaze settled on
Juli and he mumbled a few words and waited impatiently, tapping his
book with a twiggy fingertip.

"Furthermore," Brose was saying, "It's
too cold to stand around here while you jive us."

Julianne gasped and her hands sprang
to her ears, feeling them, then cupping them, cleaning them with
her fingers, and letting her fingertips linger for a wondering
moment on her lobes. "Believe him, Brose," she said in a voice
hoarse with emotion. "He's real."

Brose asked, "Yeah, so who is he
really? The Jolly Green Giant?" before he realized that Juli had
responded to his spoken remarks.

"He did it!" Juli said, pointing at
the Wizard, then asked, "You did, didn't you? You did give me back
my hearing?"

The Wizard shrugged and rustled as the
leaves of his face arranged themselves in a modest guise.
"Aye."

"Brose, I can hear. He restored my
hearing. Is it permanent? Can I keep it?"

"It depends," the Wizard
said.

"For Christ's sake don't toy with
her," Anna Mae told him harshly. "The woman's a musician. Will she
be able to hear or not?"

"In this life, aye, but to keep the
music, she may have to give up many things and who knows but that
her hearing may be amang them."

"And I expect the rest of us are gonna
have to give up some stuff too, is that right? My daddy always told
me you didn't get somethin' for nothin'," Willie grumbled and then
said to Torchy, who handed him a silvery metal cup with something
hot and smoky-smelling in it, "Thanks, darlin'. Don't suppose you
have that flask with you with a drop of somethin' stronger do
you?"

"Oh, I think you'll find it strong
enough, luv. Try it."

The Wizard's eyes darted to her and he
didn't object or interrupt while the rather rude exchange between
Willie and Torchy took place, or while Willie gave her a little
sideways, negligent hug, which produced a smug look on Torchy's
face. At any other time, Juli might have thought of Torchy's
expression as bitchy, because Torchy looked right at her, as if
expecting Juli to mind what Willie did. Right now, Juli was so glad
to have her hearing back that she beamed a beneficent smile at both
Torchy and Willie. Willie gave her a thumbs-up. Torchy changed
tack, and said sweetly, nodding to the silvery cup full of warm
liquid she had given Julianne, "Well, I think your recovery calls
for a bit of a drink, don't you, Juli dear? Don't be shy-y. Drink
up, luvvie. The rest of you too. Do."

The Wizard glanced at her as if for
permission to begin. She nodded graciously and again her expression
was sly.

"Ahem, my theery of the fission of
souls is as follows;" Michael Scott began, laying his book on the
knees of his leafy gown and thumbing through the heavy pages,
periodically murmuring to himself while Torchy Burns looked on in
amusement and all the others shifted from one foot to the other.
Gradually the fog began to lift and the darkness to lighten, just a
tad, and still the Wizard leafed through his book, murmuring to
himself.

CHAPTER 14

"And did they ever find
out what the theory was?" asked the twelve-year-old at Camp Prairie
Grass, where the campers all sat around a pond and listened to
their old counselor tell them the ghost story.

"Well, yeah, but it was
all in Scottish so Sir Walter had to tell Gussie and she had to
explain it in simple English. I think the old wizard was a little
apprehensive about talking about it, if you want to know the truth.
He was a philosopher, you see, as well as a magician, but he lived
during pretty early Christian times in Scotland and they still
liked to use barbaric practices like burning folks at the stake and
torturing them to death to enforce all the gentle teachings of
Christianity. Michael Scott wasn't exactly a pagan, but he would
have been considered a heretic if he'd told people what he really
thought."