The Secret of Isobel Key (4 page)

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“All right, you folk. Today we'll be travellin' out to Skye, the loveliest island anywhere in Scotland, or the world for that matter.” The soothing accent of their handsome tour guide carried through the small bus via the microphone, and Lou sat back in bliss, letting the words roll over her. The accents here in the Scottish Highlands almost made up for the dreary, damp weather, and she loved listening to the locals say just about anything. Admittedly, she would listen to Brian say anything, even without his accent. The tall, red-haired Scot reminded Lou of the men on the covers of the romance novels she'd sold at the bookstore, and she kept her eyes pinned on him as the bus bounced along. His khaki cargo pants rested casually on his hips, and he looked like a cross between a fashion model and the boy next door with his navy blue fleece zipped partway up. The green collared shirt he was wearing underneath the jacket was plain and simple, but Lou kept staring at the neckline, watching for any telltale curls of chest hair. Did his body hair match his flaming red head? Lou blushed at the thought and closed her eyes, wondering what it would be like to run her hands across Brian's broad chest. Would he feel like sandpaper or satin under her fingertips?

A cymbal-shaking jolt of thunder abruptly pulled Lou out of her fantasy, and she blushed, glancing at Tammy. Her best friend seemed oblivious to her daydreams; Tammy was reading furiously in her guidebook, probably trying to learn everything about wherever they were headed. Lou glanced at Brian once more and then turned her attention to the window. The landscape was a brilliant emerald green, but the sky had begun to resemble heavy slate waiting to crush the unsuspecting earth beneath it. “It would be really beautiful, if it weren't always raining,” Lou muttered to herself. Tammy looked up from her guidebook, her green eyes unfocused.

“
What'dya say? Is it raining again? Aw, Lou, you remember what Brian said on the first day of the tour; everything's more dramatic in Scotland!” Tammy sounded annoyingly perky for someone who would soon be hiking across a muddy landscape toward whatever rustic destination the tour would take them on today. Not only did she sound perky, Lou considered, but she also looked perky: perky and perfect. Her silken blonde hair looked tousled just enough to be sexy, and her skin seemed to be drinking up the moisture around them; her cheeks were dewy and soft. Lou wished she looked half as at ease as Tammy, but she knew that her lumpy hat and wild hair made her look more like a hobo than a hot college student on vacation, and she sighed. Traveling with Tammy wasn't as much fun as she'd thought it would be.

Shifting in her seat, Lou gazed out the window at the rivulets of water cascading down the bus. “What would they call it if the sun came out? Just for a minute.”

“We'd call it a miracle,” a deep voice beside her shoulder answered. Lou's heart sped up as she whipped around, red in the face. Brian, the tall, ruddy tour guide, was standing in the bus aisle beside her, smiling.

Her throat constricted as he swayed in the aisle, her face dangerously close to his hips. “I didn't know, I mean, I didn't think--I'm sorry.” Lou stammered her apology before falling silent, dragging her eyes up to his face. She hoped he hadn't noticed her staring at his low-slung pants, but Brian just laughed.

“No, lass, nothin' to be sorry for. The weather here isn't what everyone wants, make no mistake about that. Although your friend remembers right: we call this sort of rain dramatic.” As if to drive home his point, the sound of close thunder crashed over the bus, and the inhabitants murmured uneasily. He glanced around at the travelers, penned like sheep in the bouncing van, flicked a strand of red hair carelessly out of his eyes, and looked down once more at Lou's blushing face. She wouldn't meet his eye, but sat uncomfortably aware of his tall form towering above her. Her skin prickled at their closeness, and her earlier fantasy popped into her mind again. Lou clenched her teeth and looked at her hands, trying not to say anything stupid.

Brian shook his head, sighed, and seemed to come to a decision. “Well, folks,” he said, lifting his microphone and pouring his words out through the bus speakers, “looks like the dramatic twist of the weather means we'll be changing our plans for today. We'll be making an unscheduled stop in Kyle of Lochalsh for a bit of lunch and a wander, and we'll see what the weather is doin' in a few hours. If it's still stormin' like this, we'll be heading back to Inverness for the night, and we'll reschedule our hike on Skye for the morrow.” He clicked off the microphone and looked down at Lou expectantly, as if waiting for her to thank him for his announcement. His blue eyes seemed especially bright, and Lou wondered if he were laughing at her. She smiled weakly in his general direction as she sank deeper into her seat, and she heard him chuckle before he turned and made his way back up the aisle to confer with the driver. His large frame seemed almost delicate as he swayed with the rhythm of the jolting bus, and Lou followed him with her eyes. His broad shoulders reminded her of Jerry, the high school quarterback she'd had a crush on years ago, but Brian's kind smile was nothing like Jerry's. As Lou watched Brian, she found herself wondering what it would be like to kiss him. She'd have to stand on her tiptoes to reach, but it would be worth it.

When Lou stepped off the bus, she forgot about Brian for a moment. The sight of the picturesque village of Lochalsh was so rustic that Lou felt like she'd been transported back in time. Entranced by the simple whitewashed buildings and the cozy feeling of the Highland town, she hardly noticed the rain. She raised her camera and snapped a shot of the town just as Tammy jostled Lou right into a deep mud puddle. Tammy didn't notice, and she grabbed Lou's arm.

“Come on. Let's find lunch!”

Annoyed, Lou followed her best friend silently. At least she'd gotten the picture before Tammy bumped her, Lou thought, trying hard to find something positive to cling to.

Squishing with each step, Lou followed Tammy up the slope of the street, in search of any place that would offer a bowl of warm soup and respite from the pounding rain. They turned off the street into a dark alleyway, and Tammy led the way to a hole-in-the-wall that quietly advertised itself as “the best pub in these parts” on an old, hand lettered sign. It would have been easy not to notice the sign or the dim entrance, but Tammy had a knack for discovering places bursting with local charm.

Inside the pub, the ceiling hung low with exposed wooden beams that seemed in imminent danger of rotting through, and the only occupant of the place, the bartender, gave the girls a disdainful look before returning to the difficult work of polishing the old, stained bar mirror with a dirty rag. Lou looked around the dark room uncertainly, wondering if they should just sit anywhere, or if the man would tell them where to have a seat. She glanced behind the bar, but the gentleman had turned his back on the room and had begun whistling something tunelessly.

“Tammy, maybe they don't serve lunch here--” Lou turned toward the door, preparing to drag her friend away in search of a more comfortable restaurant, when a short, round woman draped head to toe in a dingy green plaid bustled toward them.

“Ach, if it be lunch ye be wanting, ye be in the right place. We can warm your belly and light a fire there, too!” The woman chortled as she spoke, and Lou noticed that she was missing some of her teeth. Lou tried not to flinch at the woman's haggish appearance, but a strange chill went down her spine. Tammy happily followed the woman to a tiny table in the farthest corner from the bar, and not seeing any other option, Lou sighed and followed suit. The sudden appearance of the woman had shaken her, although she couldn't say why.

Glancing around the dank little pub, Lou shivered in faint discomfort. Rather than spoil their lunch, however, she pushed her thoughts away and reached for the amber liquid that had appeared, unordered. Tammy was already sipping at hers, smacking her lips like a satisfied cat, and Lou figured she had nothing to lose. Maybe “starting a fire in her belly” would help her to cope with the awful weather outside. Tammy's guidebook materialized on the table, and her friend began eagerly flipping pages, no doubt searching for an entry on their current location. Lou sort of hoped there would be a review in there that would cause Tammy to reevaluate their choice of lunch eatery.

“Did you know,” Tammy began, sipping happily at her scotch with her eyes focused on a page of her guidebook, “that Kyle of Lochalsh was practically the middle of nowhere all the way until 1819? There was a settlement here already, one that was hundreds of years old, but the road into Edinburgh wasn't built until then, and the railway didn't come for another ninety years!” Her eyes glistened with excitement, even in the dull light of the pub. “Can you imagine,
being
totally cut off from the rest of the world for two hundred years? I wonder how much the people here didn't know!”

Lou thought to herself that it didn't seem like much had changed in two hundred years, and she hunched down in her seat, feeling decidedly like an intruder in the dark pub.

“We have always had ways of knowin'.” Tammy and Lou both started, as the woman who had seated them materialized out of the gloom and addressed Tammy with a stern glint in her eye. “My kin have called this place home since it was founded, they have, and never have we been backwards to the world.” Lou heard the sting in her words and shifted uncomfortably on her chair, but Tammy leaned forward eagerly, unaware of any offense. The old woman went on, looking at them steadily. “Word reaches us, road or no, and we of Lochalsh have always known the goings and comings of our land.” She reached for Tammy's empty glass, and Lou surprised herself by placing her own hand on the gnarled claw before her.

“Please, we didn't mean any harm.” Still holding the woman's hand, Lou coaxed, “I'm sure you know more about Scotland than us. We've only been here a few days.”

Tammy was the history buff, the one who never shied from approaching random strangers and extracting their family histories through skilled conversation, but something about the old woman demanded Lou's attention.

Tammy looked once at Lou with a raised eyebrow, but her instinct for a good story overtook her. “Yeah, please, sit and tell us a story,” she wheedled, “you must know so much of the history here!”

Never taking her deep brown eyes off of Lou, the woman pulled up a chair and sat across from the girls, her knee pressed against Lou's. Lou tried to shift unobtrusively, but the confines of the table kept her close to the old woman. “Well.” She cleared her throat. “There have always been witches in the Highlands.” Lou almost fell off her chair. What in the world had made the woman think of witches? She resisted the urge to reach for her pentacle.

Tammy leaned forward eagerly, but the crone ignored her. Instead, the old woman clutched Lou's hand tighter, her raspy voice sounding low and threatening. “There were always witches, but there were not always burnings. A long time ago, when King James sailed to Denmark to marry good Queen Anne, every village had a witch, and glad to have her folks were, aye, for a witch could cure your ills and protect you and your'n from the fey folk. The family that sired a witch, be it woman or man, was mightily proud of such a child.”

The girls exchanged a bemused glance and the old woman cackled. “Surely, ye dinna be thinkin' that only women were ever witches?” Laughing gleefully, the old woman continued. “It doesn't take a woman to wield magic and learn the power of the plants. Some of our most famous witches were men.” Shaking her head, the crone returned to her tale.

“People stopped being so glad for their witches when the King and Queen returned, for it suddenly seemed that the witches had threatened the royals, especially the pretty young queen, stirring up a storm at sea to leave Scotland without a ruler. Now, what reason the witches had for doing this is beyond me, for our witches never bothered much with matters beyond their own village, and never did they seem to care about the high and mighty courtiers, but King James seemed fair certain of it, and it does not do well to go against the king in any matter, large or small.”

Here she broke off, divided a long look between the girls, and asked, “You're American?” When they nodded, she smiled thinly. “Even with your old defiance of kings, you should know how many lost their lives for your Revolution, how he expressed his displeasure in the streets of the colonies.” Tammy nodded, and Lou sat silent. The Revolution was like recent
history
to their minds after four years in Boston. Her point made, the old woman continued her gruesome story.

“Well, the king felt that witches had acted against he and his bride, and he wou'dna' stand for it. The king had them rounded up, nigh on a hundred women and a handful of men, and he had them tried for dealings with the devil. He dinna' find all the witches, mind, for many villages were unwilling to surrender their own, but many others feared royal wrath more than they valued kith and kin. In fact, so enraged was he over the threat to his queen, the king himself sat judge at a few of the trials, and those found guilty, which was all of the poor souls, why, they were executed. Strangled, mostly, their bodies burned in the town square, but some whose crimes were most dire, they were burned alive.” Showing no notice of the visceral reactions of her listeners, the woman continued to spin her tale.

“Those deaths were just the beginning, and following the king's lead, villages all over the Highlands and the lowlands both began sentencing and burning witches. Many died who weren't no more witch than you,” she pointed to Tammy, “and many accused others with their dying breaths. And we knew about it all here, road to Edinburgh or no! The people of Lochalsh knew. And not once in that frenzy of fire did we accuse any of our own as witch. Not once! We knew the truth of the witches, that they were not creatures of the devil, but healers blessed by the angels. It seemed that the rest of our world forgot this fact, consumed with a frenzy to burn others before you were burned yourself. None here spoke against the trials, mind, but none here used them as an excuse to be rid of foes.” Her eyes had a far off look, as if she were seeing something beyond the dark walls of the musty pub.