Interloper at Glencoe

  Interloper at Glencoe

  Julianne Lee

  www.bookviewcafe.com

  Book View Café Edition

  October 2, 2012

  ISBN: 978-1-61138-203-7

  Copyright © 2012 Julianne Lee

  Prologue

  Screams in the distance. Barely there and seeming like a dream, but she awoke to them as she always did to nearly every sound in the night. She lay in her bed, cold stealing over her despite her thick blankets and the sturdiness of her father’s house. The fire in the hearth was reduced to embers, but still glowed high enough to throw light and heat.

  Another scream, and she sat up. “Father?” The men slept on, unhearing. “Father, wake up.”

  The snoring across the room faltered, then stopped. There was silence, then Father said, “What is it?”

  “Something is wrong. I heard screaming. Outside.”

  There was a pop in the distance, and Father sat up. She could barely make out his shape.

  “Musket fire,” he said. Her heart stuck in her throat. Muskets? Father looked to the sitting room. The billeted soldiers were gone. Then he leapt from his bed and reached into the upper bunk to jostle its occupant. “Come, boy,” he said to his son. “Now.” To her he said, “Stay here; you’ll be safe.” Her brother dropped from the upper bunk, muttering queries in a voice thick with sleep as he drew on his brogues. Fumbling in the dark, he managed to pull his kilt around him and belt it in place. Father told him only, “Don your coat, take your dirk, and come with me.” The two men hurried to take up their weapons, and left the house.

  In the darkness, the random sounds outside terrified her. She huddled in her bunk. Some men shouted, then there was silence. Another musket shot, then two more in quick succession off in the distance. A woman began screaming, long, shrill wails of grief. She went on screaming. Fear rose. Then, of a sudden, the screaming stopped. Cut short.

  The door to the house opened and closed with a slam. “Father?”

  There was no reply, so she knew it must not be Father, but rather a soldier. She slipped from the bed to confront him. He was a very young private, not much more than a boy, who was billeted in this house. She took a stern voice.

  “What is happening?”

  The lad stood by his bedroll near the fire, his sword in hand and glinting in the pulsing light of embers. He said naught, but only stared at her. He was a Campbell, and she was certain he thought himself too good to speak to her. But she was terrified, and angry at being so fearful of a Campbell, and persisted.

  “What are they doing out there? Why was that woman screaming?” There were more shots, and she wished for silence. Peaceful, blessed silence.

  But the young soldier wouldn’t speak. He only stared at her beneath his lowered brow, his head tilted vaguely as if he were thinking hard. There was a dull look in his eye. A look of confusion and animal stupidity. He didn’t seem to see her, but gazed through her.

  The door slammed open, and another Redcoat, the other private for this house, ducked through. The newcomer spotted her standing in her nightgown, and said to the younger, “Kill her.”

  The lad snapped to focus, and replied to his fellow soldier in a rattled, shaking voice, “But she’s a woman.”

  “She’s a MacDonald, and scum. A born thief who would breed more thieves. Kill her, lest you find yourself on trial for treason.” The young private started to say something, but the older soldier cut him off. “God save the man who is found by the sunrise without a blooded sword. Kill her, or face trial.” The older one’s sword blade was dark, and it was plain he’d already proven himself loyal to the English crown.

  Too late, she thought to run. The elder private blocked the only exit. She snatched up the skirt of her nightgown and turned to flee to the bedroom, hoping to climb over the wattle wall to the byre. The lad gave chase. She screamed, and began to cry. Death loomed. Trapped in her bedroom, she dodged back and forth in the narrow space between the bunks. “Please don’t hurt me,” she begged. But the soldier said nothing and only came at her with his sword. He could have had her then, but was still deciding. She continued to beg for her life, but each time she tried to dash past him to the byre or the sitting room he blocked her path. And the elder stood behind with his own sword ready to do the job if the lad would not.

  She dodged again, and this time leapt onto her bed. Her feet tangled in her blankets and she stumbled. Crawled across her bed in a panic, weeping hopelessly.

  The sword found her in the darkness. A cold, metallic pain made her gasp. Though it didn’t hurt as much as she’d feared, the certainty of death now made her cry out with the grief of it. She sobbed as the blade was withdrawn and plunged again, this time into her back. She collapsed onto her bed, unable to move any more. Her final screams were of terror, of meeting her end alone, attended only by her murderers, who were Campbells and therefore not truly men.

  A third time the sword pierced her, and this time found her heart. Then she knew no more.

  Chapter 1

  It was musty and stuffy in that little store, but at least it was out of the rain. Nick smoothed the wet hair off his forehead and followed Darlene into the close, smelly, dusty, overheated place. Thrift stores always had that signature odor of decay: dust and old furniture polish. Brittle wood, rotting cotton, and yellowing paper of the books crammed into cases of shelves against all four walls. Tables littered with knickknacks and old toys in rows across the floor. Ceramic ducks, a cookie jar in the shape of a cow, a digital clock with the numbers printed on a Rolodex of plastic tabs. Mismatched china in such a myriad of floral patterns as to resemble a neglected English garden. A Transformer robot missing one hand. Probably. It was hard to tell.

  Nick stood near the door with his hands in his pockets, and hoped his kid sister wouldn’t be long on this errand. He was hungry, and she needed to be dropped off with the parental units in Van Nuys before he could return to his own apartment and dinner in Burbank. The freeway was a zoo today because of the weather, and they weren’t going to get anywhere in a hurry.

  But hope died as Nick watched Darlene stroll slowly between the display tables, browsing ceramic figurines and discolored glass candy dishes, some of them cracked. She loved this stuff, and he’d never been able to figure out why. Old stuff. What was it about old stuff that was such a big deal to some people? A line of plastic bear-shaped honey bottles stood along a nearby shelf, and he wondered idly whether the one he had in his apartment, that had come with honey he’d bought last month, might be worth the five dollars this store was asking for theirs.

  His eyes drifted toward the wall shelves and he wandered over toward them. Old books, on the other hand, were a different story. He liked books, particularly rare ones. At home he had some vintage paperbacks and some lesser first editions, but his prize was a first edition of Stephen King’s “Carrie” he’d found in a used book store a few years back. These days he couldn’t afford the thing if he’d had to buy it for what it was worth. What titles might be here? Old volumes? Or just used and tattered? His head tilted to the side as he read the spines. Some of these really were old. Hardy Boys. Ivanhoe. Emily Post from the Fifties. He reached for that, figuring it might be good for a laugh while he waited.

  There was a distant scream, and Nick paused to look around. His ear tuned to what was happening, but now only heard the city noises outside the store, cars moving up and down Ventura Blvd., a constant hiss of tires on the wet street. Nobody else in the store seemed to have noticed anything. After a moment, he reached for the book again.

  Another scream, nearer this time. Like someone dying of a terrible wound. It was a woman. Alarmed, this time he went to the door to look out, but saw nothing but driving rain and gray shapes m
oving. A chilly wind blew rain in his face and he ducked back into the store to look over at the shelf containing the Emily Post book.

  Weird. Even in Los Angeles, this was weird.

  He returned to the bookshelf and reached for the Emily Post, and as his fingers touched it again, there was sobbing. This time a man. The sound was in his head, and he realized the backs of his fingers were warming. The book next to the Emily Post felt warm on his fingers, and he drew back his hand. Very weird. He tipped his head to see the title along the spine of the other book, but it was only a booklet and had no spine. Rather it was nothing more than pages stitched together, seemingly by hand. He touched it, and it was still warm. Soft. The leather binding was extremely old, but still felt soft. He left the etiquette book and reached for this one.

  Maybe “book” was overstating it. He turned the thin volume over in his hands. Not only was it warm, but he would swear it felt like it had a pulse. As if there were blood flowing beneath the smooth leather. He had always thought of books as friends, good company on quiet nights, but until now had never actually thought one seemed alive.

  Embossed on the cover in gold leaf was the title: A History of The Bloody and Heinous Act of Treachery Against Clan Donald of Glen Coe, A Massacre Perpetrated By Soldiers In The Service of King William, 1692. No author was given.

  Huh. An extremely old book, it would seem. Nick wondered whether this might be a real find. He glanced inside at the first page and found no price marked. This paper was terribly aged. More than just yellowed, the pages were quite brown and many of the edges flaking. And now he saw the book had not been printed, but was hand-written in a tidy script, the words carefully spaced, marching across the page like lines of soldiers. Rigid and tight. This volume was not just antique; it was one of a kind. The feel of the cover on his fingers was eerie. Too familiar, yet strange, and he had no idea why. Certainly this thing was valuable, and in this junk store it might turn out to be affordable. A flutter of excitement rose.

  Now Nick was really curious to know how much they wanted for it. If it was as old as it looked, what was it doing here? He closed the cover and smoothed his hand cross the front. The color was strange, as if age were the only coloring on it. The leather had never been dyed, and had an odd, translucent quality. Undyed and poorly tanned. Or weirdly tanned. As if it were still skin rather than leather. Creepy.

  He took the book to the display case near the door. Atop the smudged and discolored glass sat an adding machine and a book of receipt forms, so Nick figured this served as checkout. He looked around, tapping the glass with his fingertips in syncopation, then finally caught the eye of a young woman sitting on a stool nearby, staring off into space. She focused on his face and smiled.

  “Ready?” Lazily she rose, loose-jointed and languid, swaying as if from a nonexistent wind.

  Nick nodded, and gave the book on the counter a shove to indicate his choice. “I just need to know how much you want for this. There’s no price marked in it.”

  The girl was dressed entirely in black: long, black cotton dress with sleeves so long they covered her hands nearly to her fingertips, black work boots, thin black scarf looped around her neck, and black circles under her eyes. Her thinness was extreme, to the point Nick thought in another era she might have made a living as a circus freak. The Living Skeleton. Her heavily mascaraed eyes widened when she saw the book he’d laid on the counter. “Oh. That one.”

  He smiled. “Which one?”

  “That massacre book. From Scotland.” Her lip curled a little, and he wondered whether she’d read the book and hadn’t liked it.

  “How much is it?”

  “Ten.” Apparently she didn’t need to check on this. She knew the book.

  “Dollars?” She nodded. Ten dollars. No way to beat that price, if this thing was as old as he thought it was. Or even if it wasn’t. Just the weird leather made it worth that much. He reached for his wallet in his back pocket as she opened the receipt book. She took up a pen from the other side of the counter, and said, “Your name?”

  He faltered, unaccustomed to having to identify himself for a cash purchase. “Nick Mouliné.” He also complied when she requested his address and phone number, but balked at telling his email address. He hated being spammed. The girl didn’t seem to care whether she had the address or not, and continued filling out the form, chatting as she wrote.

  “Are you interested in Scottish history, or are you Scottish, like, on your mother’s side or something?” Her head tilted as she wrote slowly, in huge, curlicue letters.

  He shrugged. “I like to read. I’m interested in books.” On his salary the really good ones were an indulgence he could rarely afford. His first glance at this one suggested paying only ten dollars for it would be more like grand theft than purchase. “How old is this book, anyway?”

  The girl made a humming noise as she accessed her memory of the volume, then said, “About three hundred years, I think. It’s, like, a diary sort of.”

  Nick was curious now to know why she only wanted ten dollars for it, but didn’t want to press the issue lest he talk her into charging him more than he could afford for it without tapping his savings. Maybe it wasn’t as old as she thought. If not, then he was only out ten dollars, and a hand-written story about a massacre might be worth that just for the read. He wanted the book, and opened his wallet to pay for it.

  The girl continued, “Scotland. They wiped out my whole religion over there, you know.”

  Nick frowned, at a loss for a reply and wondering what in the world she could be talking about. “Huh?”

  “My religion. In Scotland they tried to destroy us a long time ago.” Anger tinged her voice, as if it had happened yesterday and she was choking on the whole, terrible ordeal.

  In his struggle to figure out what she meant, a movie he’d once seen about Elizabethan England came to mind, and he said in an effort to be pleasant, “You’re Catholic?”

  Her hand went to a small pendant he now noticed hung from a silver chain around her neck, a pentagram. “No, of course not! I’m Wicca!” Her tone suggested he was a dunce for not knowing all about this Wicca stuff.

  Nick was lost again, but he asked, “And Wicca was... destroyed?”

  “By the Christians. The priests came and killed all of us.”

  Nick blinked. He couldn’t tell whether she was accusing him personally, or just making casual conversation. Maybe she was trying to recruit him. He sure couldn’t tell, not that he had any particular interest in religion. “When was this?”

  She shrugged. “A long time ago.”

  “You don’t know when?”

  She shrugged again. “Everybody knows it. Christianity wiped us all out.” She held out a bag, open for Nick to drop in his book.

  He did so then took the bagged book, smiled, and said cheerily, “Well, you’re still here. Looks like they missed one.”

  She responded with a puzzled frown, and he turned to look for his sister. But the girl called after him. “That book.” Nick turned back, curious though he wanted to get the hell away. “How can you stand to touch it?”

  “What do you mean?” He knew exactly what she meant, but didn’t want to admit it.

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. It just gives me the creeps. I’ve tried to read it, but it’s... weird. Like the book doesn’t want me to read it.”

  Oh, boy. He gave her another bright, entirely false smile, and said, “It’s the book’s loss then. I wouldn’t take it personally.”

  The girl giggled. “No, seriously. I can sense these things, and I know what I’m talking about. The thing gives me the creeps.”

  Nick glanced at the bag. “Well, we’ll see if it lets me read it when I get home.”

  She nodded. “Don’t worry, it will. It let you buy it.” Her tone was light, assuring, as if she knew for a certainty he would be glad to hear it.

  So he replied, “Good.” Then he went to find his sister.

  The traffic was thick enough, slow
enough, and visibility bad enough to annoy. Nick decided to go by surface street to return Darlene to their parents’ house, and made good time in spite of stoplights and careful drivers moving slowly through the storm. He pulled up outside the house and waited for her to make the run through the rain from his car to the door.

  “Aren’t you coming in?” Twisted over the seat behind her, reaching into the back, she gathered the bags filled with her purchases from the day. It had been a long shopping haul, and there were lots of rustling plastic bags.

  Nick looked at the rather large ranch house ensconced among the junipers and rhododendrons, and he sighed. “It’s a trap, waiting to be sprung. I never get away without gnawing off my foot.”

  “Mom’s not that bad.”

  “Oh, yeah, she is. If I go in there she’ll want me to stay for dinner. Then TV. I won’t escape till midnight. You know I can’t say no to Mom. Nobody can say no to her.”

  The rustling of bags paused, and Darlene had one hand on the door handle, ready to run but wanting to settle this first. “And what do you have waiting for you at your apartment?”

  “Peace. Quiet.”

  “Yeah, lots and lots and lots of quiet.”

  Nick only nodded and didn’t take the bait. Living alone wasn’t the ideal situation, but he didn’t figure it was the great tragedy his family thought it, either.

  Darlene made a tisk noise, then said, “Okay. I’ll lie to her and tell her you had a hot date. Maybe she’ll hemorrhage and die, then we can stop being so bunged up over her.”

  “Not such a lie. I have hot dates sometimes, and am liable to have another before long. You never know. It could happen.”

  “Dad worries about you, you know.” That seemed to amuse her.

  Nick snorted and looked off into the rain. “Yeah. He thinks I’m gay.”

  “Are you?”

  “Darlene!”

  “I mean, it’s okay if you are.” A grin crept across her face, for she loved teasing him. He couldn’t help smiling, either, because even at eighteen she was still his baby sister and if she stopped teasing him he might think she didn’t love him any more.