Waking the Dead (7 page)
“I don’t think so,” Josh replied easily. “But it’s a hell of way to go; seeing the water rise and knowing there’s no way out; rock at your back and --” He broke off, frowning and suddenly suspicious that they were playing a joke on him. “Hey! Why didn’t they just swim out? The villagers wouldn’t have stuck around if the tide was coming in and they’d have stood a chance, at least.”
Caitrin laughed. “Good point! But you’ll wish you hadn’t asked; that’s the part that freaks me out the most. They were tied, see, hand and foot. Some say they were tied with ropes made of brambles that tore at their skin when they tried to free themselves, so the water ran out of the cave red with blood that night, and still does on the anniversary of their deaths, but that’s just there to make the story spookier.”
“Like it needs it,” Rory muttered.
Josh wondered if Nick had ever gone to this cave, and if he’d seen anything if he had. He’d heard, from both Nick and John, what it was like for Nick to see ghosts the way he did, and he knew it was no walk in the park. In comparison, it kind of made his own talent seem pretty innocuous. “I guess all that’s missing is for you to tell me that tonight is the anniversary and you think we should go check out the cave.” It was sounding more and more like some kind of setup.
“Nah.” Alec shook his head; Sarah was looking up at him worshipfully. “If the stories have any truth to them, it was around October. Water must have been cold as ice.” Sarah murmured something Josh couldn’t really hear, and Alec rubbed her shoulder. “Don’t worry, sweetheart; it’s just a story.” To the rest of the group, he said, “Let’s talk about something else, yeah?”
The conversation drifted after that, and Josh, yawning again because of the three beers he’d drunk as much as the jet lag, let it wash over him, joining in only now and then. He was half asleep, watching the fire dreamily when Caitrin elbowed him in the ribs. “The fire’s dying down and I’m getting chilly. Want to walk me home?”
“What? Oh… sure.” Josh scrambled to his feet. “Sorry, I’m still not over the flight, I guess.” He looked around. People had split into pairs and were doing what pairs of teenagers usually did when they were tipsy and in the dark. He watched Alec tip Sarah’s chin up with one finger before kissing her throat and felt his body respond predictably. It’d been a while since he’d kissed someone and felt warmly fragrant skin against his hand. His own skin, sure, not that he’d jerked off since he got here.
When he looked away, Caitrin was smiling at him, her eyes promising him a kiss at least once they were alone. He smiled back and followed her through the dunes, the sky still palely lit above them.
Chapter Six
“I don’t remember what half this stuff is.” Josh was looking at the pub menu with a confused expression.
“I should have sent you a cheat sheet,” Nick said.
John was supposed to be meeting them for lunch, but hadn’t arrived yet -- not that he could fairly be called late, since it had taken less time to walk down from the house than Nick had anticipated. He hadn’t realized how much quicker the walk would be with someone more than twenty years his junior at his side, for one, and with the warm summer breeze at their backs, they’d made good time.
“Stilton mushrooms?” Josh said.
Nick patted his hand reassuringly. “It’s a kind of cheese. You might not like it -- it’s sort of an acquired taste.”
“Okay. What about Gammon steak?”
“Ham,” Nick said, giving the slightest shake of his head to Geordie to let him know they’d need a few more minutes. “Well, it comes from some particular part of the pig, I think, but I’ve never really figured out where. It’s good. Salty.”
“Yeah?”
Josh sounded doubtful, and Nick couldn’t resist teasing him. “It comes with a pineapple ring.”
“A what?” Josh shook his head. “Crazy. Like a Hawaiian pizza?”
“Something like that,” Nick said. “I think I’ll stick with the steak and kidney pie and I’ll order John the same; they’ll keep it warm for him if he isn’t here by the time it arrives.”
“Kidney?” Josh shuddered and rubbed his stomach dismally. “I’m going to starve.”
“No, you’re not.” Nick tapped the back of the menu, a grin already spreading across his face. “They do a mean burger and fries on the kids’ menu.”
Josh flicked a salted peanut at him. “Just for that, I’m having the most expensive thing on the menu. Let me see…”
By the time they’d ordered, with Josh deciding to risk the gammon, the pub had filled up. “Is it always this busy?” Josh asked, sipping at his Coke. “I know it’s the tourist season, but…”
“Not usually,” Nick said. The two tables beside them were crowded with people who were clearly part of a group, talking to each other with a slightly self-important air. The floor around them was covered with backpacks; the tables with maps and notebooks. He lowered his voice. “They could be hikers, maybe. From their accents, they’re English.”
Josh’s expression became unfocused for a moment, and then he wrinkled his nose. “They’re part of some society,” he reported. “Here to reenact a solstice ceremony at the standing stones tomorrow on Midsummer’s Eve.” He looked thoughtful. “Are they allowed to do that? I know
“The circle here is mostly tumbled down rock,” Nick said dryly. “The sheep visit it more than any people do. Don’t go thinking it’s as impressive as the one at Callanish over on Lewis.”
“Here comes John.” Josh said it a moment before the pub door opened. “But if it’s all falling down, why would they want to go there at all?”
“You’d know better than me.” Smiling at John as he made his way toward them, Nick toed the chair to his left away from the table. “There are a lot of people on these islands who are stubborn about clinging to the old traditions. I think it makes them feel connected, maybe.”
“To the past,” Josh said, like he understood. “Speaking of which…”
“Don’t tell me,” John said, smiling warmly as he sat down. “Cait and the rest of them were filling your head with all sorts of stories last night.”
“Well, a little,” Josh admitted, just as they were interrupted by the delivery of their meals.
“Ah, isn’t this lovely?” John looked unusually pleased at the arrival of his steak and kidney pie, steaming and accompanied by a side of peas. “A man could get used to this sort of treatment.”
Nick slid the extra pint over toward John. “I thought we were better off ordering before the place got too crowded.”
“We’re well used to having to wait,” John agreed. “This is a nice change.”
Once Geordie had gone, Josh frowned down at his plate. “I don’t know. I’m thinking pizza again.”
“You’ll like it.” Nick tucked into his own meal, forgetting about the conversation they’d been in the middle of until he’d taken the first few bites. “So what were you saying?”
Josh finished chewing and swallowed. “Oh, yeah. It was about the whole haunted cave thing.”
“Haunted cave?” It only sounded vaguely familiar to Nick, who’d be the first to admit that keeping track of the island’s history wasn’t one of his strong suits. Still, given the subject matter, he’d have thought he’d remember this bit, at least.
“Oh, God, that one?” John gave a mock shiver and stabbed a piece of steak with his fork. “Michael and I nearly went the same way as the brothers trying to find the cave. There’re three down there; well, more than three, but most are so shallow you could spit the length of them. Three go pretty far back, though, and we were sure there’d be claw marks on the wall, so we got our torches --”
“Flashlights,” Nick told Josh. “And don’t get any ideas.”
“But their hands were tied,” Josh blurted out. “How could they claw at the walls?”
John looked mildly exasperated. “Well, we were only nine; how the hell would we know? And do you want to hear about how we got trapped by the tide and I lost one of my boots swimming for my life, and my dad took the skin off my arse for it?”
“I think we just did,” Nick said and gave John’s knee a consoling pat. “It sounds hair-raising.”
“Aye, well.” John shrugged and ate some peas. “It wasn’t the closest we came to dying; we were an adventurous pair back then. Never did find out which cave it was, though.”
“Nick would know.” Josh turned, his chair scraping across the floor with a loud screech of wood on wood. “He’d be able to sense the ghosts.”
His voice had risen, and Nick flinched as heads turned at the neighboring table.
“Sorry,” Josh said immediately, lowering his voice and looking upset. “Sorry.”
“It’s okay.” Nick knew they’d be listening now, but told himself they were temporary -- they’d be gone from the island soon enough.
“But you would, right?” Josh didn’t seem willing, or able, to let it go. Stubborn. “You’d be able to tell which cave it was.”
He nodded. “I can’t imagine why not.”
“Unless there’s some truth to the stories and a witch really did perform some kind of spell to trap them,” John pointed out.
Nick wasn’t sure he wanted to think about that -- he remembered the legend now, and he hadn’t wanted to think about it when he’d first heard it, either. The ghosts of people murdered by their fellow villagers, whether rightly or wrongly, who’d been angry enough to haunt them for months, maybe years, before a witch had been brought to bind their spirits to the cave where they’d died. How angry would they be now, so many years later, having been imprisoned in a place that couldn’t have anything but powerfully terrifying memories? It made him shiver.
He jumped when he felt John’s hand settle on his, jolting him out of his reverie.
“You all right?” John asked, and Nick nodded.
“Sometimes I think a little too much,” he said to Josh in explanation.
“I know,” Josh said wryly. “Believe me, I know.”
John snorted and then hid his smile in his pint of beer. “You two…” he muttered.
Nick kicked his ankle under the table and was about to change the subject and move it far away from ancient horrors when two people, a man and a woman, got up from the table next to theirs and came over.
“Excuse me,” the woman said smoothly. She was in her fifties, with steel gray hair in elegant waves close to her head, attractive in a polished way. She was dressed casually, but it was an expensive, well-thought-out outfit. Still, her hiking boots looked broken in, and if the pants she wore were designer ones, they were equipped with pockets and would keep her warm if the summer day turned to a rainy summer day. Her companion matched her in looking well off but lacked her confidence. He stood beside her, plucking nervously at his lip with his fingers, his gaze fixed on Nick.
“Yes?” Nick asked, trying to keep the wariness from his voice.
“We couldn’t help overhearing -- you
are
Nick Kelley, aren’t you?”
Oh, great
. “Yes, I am,” Nick said, hoping maybe they’d just ask for an autograph and then go away. Of course, chances were they’d want more -- it wasn’t uncommon for people who’d recognized him to request an audience with That Guy Who Talks to Ghosts. They were usually hoping he’d be able to talk to some long-dead relative and weren’t thrilled when he had to tell them it didn’t work that way. And then there’d been that time a young woman, obsessed with beginning a new life with Nick as her husband, had shown up. Yeah, that had been fun.
“Oh, how lovely.” She offered her hand, and he stood up and shook it, not seeing any way out of the situation without being rude. “I’m Bonnie Wishart, and this is my friend Fred Reynell. We’re here with the Society for the Preservation of Ancient Henges and Circles. We’d love a chance to speak with you while we’re here on Traighshee, if you could make a bit of time for us.”
Nick shook Fred’s hand while he was at it. “I’m sorry, I really can’t,” he said, indicating Josh. “My brother’s here visiting from the States, and it wouldn’t be fair --”
“But surely he’d understand?” Bonnie smiled politely at Josh. “Even if you could spare an hour…”
Josh looked as if he was about to be equally polite back at her and say that it was fine with him, but Nick projected a mental
“No!”
so strongly, while keeping his expression neutral, that he thought he saw John pick up on it, as well as Josh.
“The man’s told you he’s busy,” John said without turning around, his knife and fork still active. It wasn’t like him to be that abrupt -- he usually found Nick’s fans, if that was the right word, more amusing than anything -- but Nick had the feeling that John, like himself, had taken a dislike to the arrogance behind Bonnie’s words. She didn’t seem like the sort of woman who was used to being denied.
“Busy? Another book, perhaps?” She gave an indulgent chuckle. “It
has
been some time since the last one, hasn’t it?”
John took a deep breath, but Nick forestalled him. “That’s right,” he said. “So if you’ll excuse me --”
“What we’re here for would make an excellent chapter,” she told him. Nick half expected her to begin dictating to him on the spot. “We’re going to recreate a ceremony at the stone circle tomorrow at sunrise. We most certainly don’t want an audience of the ignorant or inquisitive, but someone like you would be very welcome as our guest.”
“I really appreciate the offer, but I can’t.” He reminded himself not to offer any of the potentially arguable reasons
why
he couldn’t, because if he did she’d surely just come up with the arguments. “Thank you, though, for the interest. I hope you have a nice visit.”
Keeping his eyes on the table, Nick sat down and concentrated on his food. He could feel their gazes on him, but a moment later, they wavered, and then the two of them went back to their own seats.
“I don’t know why they’d want me there anyway,” he muttered, glancing at John and Josh. “It’s not like I’d have any clue what they were doing.”
“Just as well.” John cleared his throat and spoke in a more normal voice. “They’re the worst kind of tourists, really.”
“That sounds like an insult when you say it,” Josh said. He didn’t seem to think the label applied to him, which it didn’t, as far as Nick was concerned, even if, strictly speaking, Josh had no blood tie to the island; Josh and he only shared a father, and that father had never set foot in