The Secret of Isobel Key (17 page)

Brian turned his watch to face her, and she was shocked to find that is was past noon. “I should get back to the hostel, and see if she's come back from wherever she went.”

“I'll go with you. I wanted to talk to her about us maybe going out again tonight.” The tips of his ears turned crimson, and Tammy smiled at the sight.

They walked in companionable silence back toward the hostel, and Tammy was startled to see Brian stiffen and turn suddenly down a side street. She followed him without thinking, and when they emerged the next street over, she saw what he had seen. Lou was there, sitting on a bench facing the cathedral, her face buried in her hands. Tammy sped up and followed Brian.

He knelt on the ground in front of Lou. “Louisa, are you hurt? What's happened?” He questioned her urgently, taking her hands away from her face and holding them in his own. Tammy sat down beside Lou and put an arm across her shoulders.

“What happened to you this morning? When I woke up, you'd gone out, and you didn't leave a note or anything! Are you okay?” Feeling a sudden sense of guilt, Tammy hugged her friend tightly. She wanted to apologize for earlier, but she didn't feel comfortable talking about their fight in front of Brian. Quietly, she asked, “What happened?”

“It's just--I had a shock this morning, that's all.” Her tears started to fall faster, and Tammy squeezed her shoulder again.

“Can you talk about it?” Brian's question cause Lou to sob once, deeply, but then she seemed to gain control of herself, and she nodded slowly as she sucked in a deep breath. The salty air burned her throat, but it reminded her of the perfect picnic on the beach, and she relaxed a bit.

“It's silly.” She finally managed to say. “Nothing that should make me so upset.” Feebly, she tried to smile, but her lips trembled before falling. “But really, it's nothing bad. I shouldn't be crying.” Staring at the ruined Cathedral, Lou took another deep breath.

“I went to visit the professor again. It's just that while he was telling me about Isobel's family, about his family--” her voice choked up again, and Brian tightened his grip on her hand. “Well, we—he--that is to say, he realized that he knew who my mother was.”

Brian was staring at Lou, astonished, and Tammy almost fell off the bench. “But how could he know your mother? Your parents have never traveled to Scotland, have they?”

Lou swallowed twice, but then continued. “Not my parents. My, um, biological mother.” She dissolved into tears again, leaving Tammy and Brian to stare at each other in shock.

Through her tears, Lou tried to tell them everything, but the story was confusing.

“Are you sure? Couldn't it all just be some big coincidence?” Tammy tried to keep her voice calm, but Lou's words had shaken her.

“That's what I thought, at first. How could it be true? But the more I've been thinking, ever since I left his house, the more I believe he may be right. I mean,” she rushed on, when she
saw
Tammy open her mouth to speak, “the dates match up perfectly, the date his cousin said her granddaughter was born and my birthday, and the location is even right: the baby was born in Hartford, and that's where my parents have lived all my life.” She drew a deep breath, and continued. “I think I may have found my family.”

Brian had been silent through all of this, and he suddenly looked at Lou as a thought dawned on him. “If that's true, why, then it means that you're related to the witch, too.” Lou looked at him for a moment as his words sank in before she sat up straight.

“Maybe that's why I was drawn to her! There was no information there, nothing to make it an interesting case, but I had to write her name down because she's my ancestress!” Lou theorized excitedly. Lou leapt to her feet, her tears forgotten. “Don't you see? I was meant to come here, I was meant to try to clear her name, because it isn't just her name, it's mine.”

Tammy was watching Lou skeptically. “Lou, I'm willing to believe that some freak of the universe has led you to your long lost Scottish cousin, but I just don't think that this has anything to do with that woman, what's her name, Isobel? That's just too much of a stretch for me.”

Brian looked from Tammy to Lou, and shook his head slowly. “Stranger things have happened. I'm not saying that's why you're interested in Isobel Key, Lou,” he hurried to add, “but it might be a reason to explain all this. If you are related to the professor, and if what he knows of his family is true, then you're both related to the woman. Who are we to say,” he continued, looking straight at Tammy, “that family ties can't span the centuries?”

“'There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio--” Lou quoted eagerly. Brian nodded, but Tammy didn't look convinced.

“Please, Tam. I want to find out about my family. I want to clear Isobel's name, because something tells me she wasn't a witch, not even close.” Lou spoke softly and urgently to her best friend. “I want to learn as much as I can about her, but I can't do it alone. We have to be back in Edinburgh in three days, and I don't even know how much research one person can do in three days!”

Tammy sighed in defeat. “I'm not saying I believe in all this stuff… but I can help you look for information. Two heads should be better than one.” Lou threw her arms around Tammy, forgetting their earlier fight. After a minute, Brian reached hesitantly for Lou's shoulder.

“Three heads are even better. I'd be happy to help you with your research, if you like.”

Lou nodded and squeezed his hand. “Let's go. I need to know what happened to Isobel.”

Her unspoken thought lingered in the air.
I need to know who I am.

Nan's grandfather took her to Edinburgh. He felt that scandal would surely hang over her head should she grow up in St. Andrews, and he wished to make an advantageous marriage for her somewhere that it would not be common knowledge that she shared the blood of a convicted witch. He made all these reasons quite clear to the young girl, and his tone left absolutely no room for discussion.

She did not cry or protest the move, but she very carefully packed her own trunk, and in the folds of her lacy white drawers she secreted the book she had taken from her aunt's cottage, the book of spells and recipes. It was her only physical link to the woman whom she had loved since infancy, and it was her most prized possession. She kept it with her in Edinburgh, hidden from her grandfather, and when she was grown and wed, the book traveled with her to her husband's house. She consulted the manual whenever there was illness in the family, and when she herself felt the first stirrings of pregnancy, she turned to the words of her aunt and religiously doused herself with raspberry tea and other tinctures.

Her relatives marveled at the health in her household, and many a time her friends in Edinburgh begged her to reveal her secrets, but she remained silent. Her aunt's gruesome fate haunted her, and she knew there was a fine line between old wisdom and witchcraft. She never trusted anyone enough to reveal the source of her good health, or of her three successful pregnancies, but when she lay dying, she called her oldest daughter to her side, and whispered to her the story of Isobel Key. With that story, old Isobel Nairn passed down the book of knowledge to her daughter, and the craft of the condemned witch continued to protect the lineage of the family that had destroyed her.

“So,” Tammy asked, her eyes skimming the cobblestone street as they walked, “where do we start?”

Lou paused for a moment, considering. “Well, we've already seen the court record, and there's certainly not much to go on there, just the date and the names of the judges.” She tipped her head back and looked at the old buildings surrounding them. “I suppose we could try to find information about Isobel's family. The church records should have names and dates of her parents and siblings, right?” She directed this question at Brian, who nodded.

“Another thing we might look for is other documents from that era. When was the trial, 1687?”

“1667.” Lou corrected.

“Right. So we could look for family records to find Isobel, but we could also try to look through any documents from the years leading up to the trial.” Both Tammy and Lou nodded at him.

“All those records would be in the church right?” Tammy asked.

“Mostly. The births and deaths would be church record, but anything else is probably at the museum or the university now. More likely the university,” he amended after thinking for a moment.

They had stopped walking, and Lou shot an anxious glance at the sun. It was already late afternoon, and she was itching to figure out more about Isobel. It felt like she'd wasted the morning worrying over what the professor had told her, but now she couldn't wait to know more about her distant family.

“It sounds like we should divide and conquer,” Tammy declared. “I'll take the university archives, since I already know how to get there, if you two want the church.” Lou shot her a glance that clearly said “Thank you” and Tammy smiled.

“That sounds good to me. Brian, is that alright with you?” Lou tried to make her request sound nonchalant, but her voice squeaked a bit. If Brian noticed her nervous excitement, he didn't let on.

“Sure!” He beamed at her. “Tammy, make sure you make photocopies of anything you find. I don't know how old our witch was, but she wouldn't have been younger than twenty, and she may have been a lot older.” He paused, thinking for a moment, but Tammy cut him off.

“I'll look between 1600 and 1667. That should give me a good range of information.” Lou and Brian nodded, and they parted from Tammy after agreeing to meet up in the evening for dinner. Tammy went back to the archives, and Lou and Brian headed in search of the oldest still-operating church in St. Andrews.

The woman who was sweeping the sanctuary in preparation of the upcoming evening service listened very kindly to their questions. In a town with such a thriving university community of scholars, she assured them, bizarre research requests were nothing new to the church. She led Lou and Brian to the records room and left them to their work.

Boxes were stacked four and five high against the walls, and with a glance at each other, Lou and Brian each grabbed a box and began digging through it, approaching the tedious task with enthusiasm. Every now and again, Lou looked up and caught Brian watching her, but he always looked away before she could speak. She tried to focus on the task at hand, but her heart was thumping loudly, and she was sure it wasn't just because of her historical quest.

~

“
Brian, look at this!” Lou called Brian over to her side. “I think I found her!”

Brian read over her shoulder, his breath warm on the back of her neck. “Born to Jacob and Mary Key of St. Andrews, one girl child, baptized Isobel Anne Key on the 17th of November, in the year of our lord 1622.” He squeezed her shoulder, and Lou suppressed a shiver of delight. “It's the right name, alright, but remember that Isobel was a common name in these parts.” Lou's face fell, and he hurried to reassure her. “But the date makes sense, she would have been, oh what, 45 when they executed her? This very well could be your girl.” His words were reassuring, but Lou felt her heart sinking. What if this wasn't the right Isobel? Silently, she returned to the record she was flipping through, and Brian went back to the documents he had been examining. They worked shoulder to shoulder, and Lou tensed every time Brian moved his arm to reach for another paper. It was hard to concentrate alone with him, but she forced herself to go back to work.

“Here are the same names again, only this time it's another birth listed.” Lou read the entry aloud to him a few minutes later: “Born to Jacob and Mary Key of St. Andrews, one girl child, baptized Margaret Jane Key on the 23rd of May, in the year of our lord 1632.” Brian nodded, but he looked puzzled.

“I wonder if it is the same family. Ten years seems an awful long time to wait to have a second child. You haven't seen their name anywhere in between the two girls?” Lou shook her head, but set her jaw stubbornly.

“I'm just sure this is them. I feel it. Did the professor tell us the name of the witch's sister? The one he and I are descended from?”

Brian shook his head. “If he did, I can't remember. But it could be this Margaret that you've found. We should keep looking, though. Who was the man the sister married, the man who took his second wife on Halloween? Alexander something?”

“Alexander Nairn, of St. Andrews, wed to Margaret Jane Key on the 3rd of June, in the year of our lord 1647.” Lou read the entry softly and Brian let out a low, appreciative whistle.

“You were right, Lou, I think you found them. 1647…that would have made Margaret 15 years old.” He shook his head incredulously. “I know they did things different back then, but man! Fifteen!”

Lou agreed with him silently, but she was too engrossed in the church records to comment. Her pulse was beating faster now that she was sure that she had stumbled upon an important piece of the puzzle.

Although the villagers of St. Andrews never saw the doctor again, he did not forget the years he had spent tending to them.

When he was old, and felt certain that his time on earth would shortly end, he called a solicitor to him. He willed his estate, he said, in its entirety, to the University at St. Andrews. The solicitor looked up and asked, didn't he mean the University here, in Edinburgh? But the doctor was insistent. All his papers, all his belongings must go to St. Andrews when he met his rest.

When everything was signed and sealed and the solicitor had taken his leave, the doctor sat down alone in his lodgings and began to write a letter. In it, he bared his soul of the moment of dreadful mortal sin which had haunted him in his dreams his entire life long, and he begged forgiveness from the dead and the damned. He tucked the letter into the back flap of the medical journal he had kept while he worked in St. Andrews, and retired to his bed for the evening.