Ghosts of Culloden Moor 18 - Watson Read online

  WATSON

  The Ghosts of Culloden Moor (No. 18)

  By L.L. Muir

  AMAZON KDP EDITION

  PUBLISHED BY

  Lesli Muir Lytle

  www.llmuir.weebly.com

  Watson © 2016 L.Lytle

  The Ghosts of Culloden Moor Series © 2015 L.Lytle

  All rights reserved

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  DEDICATION

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  EPILOGUE

  About the Author

  DEDICATION

  To Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

  …for Sherlock

  in all his incarnations.

  And to Mrs. Cumberbatch

  …you know

  what you did.

  A NOTE ABOUT THE GHOSTS

  The Gathering should be read first to understand what’s going on between the Muir Witch and these Highland warriors from 1746.

  The names of Culloden’s 79 are historically accurate in that we have used only the clan or surnames of those who actually died on that fateful day. The given names have been changed out of respect for those brave men and their descendants. If a ghost happens to share the entire name of a fallen warrior, it is purely accidental.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Battlefield, Culloden Moor

  It was a New Moon.

  The night was black as pitch and the air as still as the dead—well, the usual dead. But on Culloden Moor, nothing lay as dormant as it seemed. Even the dust, from long ago, found a way to live again, and again. All it needed was a wee dram of mystical Scottish rain to help things along.

  Soncerae, the young Muir witch, had come for another round of mischief. She summoned her white fire with a swish of her fingers, and the bright light danced among the jewels crusting the cuffs and hood of her ebony robe. If not for the flash of flame across the minuscule surfaces, the lass might have blended in with the inky night and appeared no more substantial than the warrior spirits waiting for her to call their names.

  79 Highlanders had now become 63. There was no rhyme or reason to the order in which she called them. They could only wait upon the whim of a sixteen-year-old lassie who held them all in thrall.

  Finally, she faced them, lowered her hood behind her dark hair, and grinned. “Trem!”

  Tremayne Watson, the 71st spirit to rise after the Battle of Culloden, stepped eagerly across the black pathway to Soncerae. Keen he was for his own quest to begin, and impatient he was to win his meeting with Charles Edward Stuart. The bonnie prince had lured him from his island home with promises of adventure and victory—had promised Trem, to his face, that together, they would storm London, if Trem would but give his all for Scotland.

  Thousands of Highlanders, braver and wiser than he, had also misplaced their trust in the prince as a leader. For, as it happened, the royal Scottish blood running through the man’s veins had ensured good judgment of neither battlefields nor advisors. And the whole of the country had paid for the man’s deficiencies—all but the prince, of course.

  Trem might have forgiven the man if he’d led the fight as he’d promised to do. If Charlie had fallen in battle, Culloden’s 79 might not have risen to haunt the moor in the first place. But the prince’s betrayal had left the ground too bitter to lie in.

  Soon, however, Trem expected to be serving up that bitterness to the prince, like a cup of soured wine. He only hoped that, once he’d forced the man to drink it down, Trem would be satisfied enough to move on to God’s judgment, as the wee witch said he must.

  At the moment, he felt a mite pessimistic. After so many years of haunting and stewing, it seemed unlikely that a short tête-à-tête could put it all to bed, even if he truly could sink his fist into that overly-bonny face. But with Soncerae involved, he would discount nothing. If the lass told him the very moon would crash into the Well of the Dead that night, he would stand back and wait for the water to splash, no matter what he believed of science and the laws of physics. For hadn’t she already proven herself capable of unworldly deeds? Removing spirits from the battlegrounds, for example, after they’d become a fixed part of the place…

  He’d haunted his last patch of moss and heather. It was his turn to go.

  Lord, give me strength.

  His eye caught a movement beyond Soni’s bright fire. A dark shadow separated itself from the side of the memorial cairn—a man dressed in black from his finely-cut leather jacket to his suede boots. He unfolded his arms as he strode, unflinching, through the fire itself and came to stand between Trem and the wee witch. Together, they formed a triangle. Following Soni’s lead, Trem grasped onto their offered forearms.

  It unsettled him to see this new ritual. Would his own quest be unlike the others’?

  Soni shrugged a shoulder. “I need Uncle Wickham’s help sending ye where ye must go, Tremayne.”

  “Yer uncle?” The man didn’t appear much older than himself, but after a long look into the other’s eyes, Trem bit back the rest of what he’d been thinking. Something murky and ancient stared back from those depths.

  Wickham’s head jerked. “Bid my niece farewell. And try to remember, soldier, that the past cannot truly be changed.”

  Trem couldn’t imagine what the man was referring to. Whose past? His own? Scotland’s?

  Who among Culloden’s 79 would not change history, if given the means to do it? But he’d waste no time on such foolish dreams. Wherever he was bound, he needed only to prove himself worthy by way of a brave deed, and he’d have his appointment with Charlie.

  He offered Soni a grin, hoping she knew just how much he’d come to care for her during her regular visits to the moor. Her answering smile seemed to convey the same. So he wrinkled up his nose and gave her a wink to let her know he was ready to go.

  “Watch yerself,” the lass whispered, and then she was gone. And along with her, the entire expanse of Culloden Moor disappeared in the twinkling of a witch’s eye.

  The sudden and sodden presence of a thick mist confused him for a moment, but when it condensed on his lips, he tasted the sea. The ground beneath his feet had been replaced by the rocking deck of an old ship, and he quickly widened his stance to keep from falling. For a lad who’d grown up beside the ocean, however, it only took a moment to get his sea legs.

  Fairly calm waters, it seemed. But which waters? And by the look of the ship, he couldn’t still be in the 21st century.

  Standing on the port side, a high rail was within arm’s length, so he set his hand upon it, just in case. The wood was new, the style as old as Adam.

  Where are ye sending me, Soncerae? And when?

  ~

  The Queen of Scots was a magnificent galleon bound from Glasgow to Boston. Every spindle, every decorative knob of wood was ornately carved. There was nary a sliver out of place, let alone a broken board or damage from battle. So Esme Forsyth reckoned the ship’s captain had a talent for talking his way out of trouble, or kept expert carpenters on his crew to keep the vessel in good repair.

  On the starboard side of the ship, Esme sucked in fres
h air as quickly as she could. Though she was grateful for a chance to be above deck, the hairs on the back of her neck, and those on her arms, stood out from her flesh as if warning of some danger. An over-reaction to the thick fog, perhaps, but still, she wasn’t one to ignore her senses.

  So far out to sea, the captain had assured them the chances of colliding with another ship were quite slim. He’d also promised they’d be sailing out the other side of the cloud in no time. His promises, however, were nearly an hour old, and still they were blind. Her instincts fairly screamed at her to run, but where could one flee when stranded on a ship?

  One more indrawn breath and she could dawdle no more. It was past time she was back inside her little closet of a room with the small rope loop slipped over a bent nail. It wasn’t tight enough to keep the door closed completely, and she was certain she was watched now and then through the narrow gap, but at least no one would be able to sneak in when darkness descended without making enough fuss to wake her. If that ever happened, she had her grandfather’s sharp blade to wield against any intruder.

  She turned from the rail but paused to watch a thick bit of white smoke glide across the bow like a specter. It moved through the rail and beyond, out over the waves like a ghost walking above the water. The sight sent a cold shiver up her spine.

  Though it was mid-summer and the sea was relatively calm, the water looked ever so cold and menacing. She could only imagine what lurked just beneath the surface. Did something look up at her? Watching her? Could that be the reason for her unease?

  She’d recently read a novel about a white whale that could have been the devil himself, ruling over and under the water, able to think and plot as well as a man. Were there such monsters hunting the sea lanes? Choosing their victims?

  Though she chuckled at her wild imaginings, she stepped back from the high rail in any case and bumped into someone in the doing. When she tried to turn, to beg pardon, she was shoved rudely against her shoulder and pressed close to the rail. Before she could react, a strong arm struck the front of her shins, knocked her legs out from under her, and lifted them up behind her. She grappled for a hold on the chiseled wood, but it was slick from the fog. The world turned on its head, as did she, and when she was upright again, she was falling into the very sea!

  The side of the ship had been high indeed to explain how impossibly long she fell. She had to bear down against the turn of her stomach. Then a quick breath was all she could catch before her feet broke the surface of the waves and pulled her down beneath them.

  Up! Up! Please, God, let me reach the surface!

  Blessedly, her body stopped falling through the darkness and began rising again, though slowly. She kicked her feet and, with her hands, forced the water down to her sides.

  Swim! Swim!

  Terror spiked through her when she realized she’d stopped rising. Her skirts were now well and goodly soaked, and they pulled at her as if hands reached up from the blackness below to collect her—that blackness that was home to unspeakable creatures!

  But she couldn’t allow panic to overtake her mind! She had to fight! All she needed was air, and air wasn’t far.

  Get to the air!

  She pulled up the hem of her skirt and shoved it into her belt, which gave her legs more freedom. But the act cost her a meter at least. There was no time to do more.

  With a sob she couldn’t control, her precious breath burst from her and she resisted her dire need to inhale.

  Inches more. Just inches!

  Blessedly, her face finally found air and she gasped, over and over again, still fighting her skirts, still struggling to keep her head out of the water. At first, all she could see was the cloud hovering over the water, but when she turned in a circle, she found the ship again.

  Her heart plummeted. How quickly it was gliding away! Already the stern was passing her by. No one had noticed her fall! No one knew! She would be left for dead!

  She pulled a deep breath into her lungs and screamed bloody murder, in the highest pitch she could muster. Then she did it again. Only this time, her head dropped below the surface and a rush of water filled her mouth, choked her. The ship disappeared into the mist before she was able to scream again, but she did, over and over. For what else was she to do with her last breath?

  CHAPTER TWO

  Trem sensed he was not alone in the mist, that someone else moved upon the deck, but it might have only been a play of vapor and shadow. Perhaps a sailor paced the boards, trying to stay awake until the bell was rung again. He heard a stumble, a short gasp, then nothing but the sea splashing against the hull—a reminder that they were, indeed, traveling through the water.

  The shadow moved again, toward the stern. Not the fog then. Someone else had come out for a bit of air and had changed their mind.

  Trem turned his face back into the moist breeze. A warm glow in the distance promised they were nearly out of the cloud. Soon, he would discover where he was headed.

  A gull screamed as if it had caught in the lines. Trem looked up, listened closely. It screamed again—no! Not a gull! A woman!

  He headed for the opposite side of the ship, then to the quarter deck. Once on top, he moved to the rear, searching for the mysterious woman with outstretched hands. He was certain the cry had come from behind. With his other senses useless, he closed his eyes and heard coughing, perhaps sobbing.

  Only the sobbing had come from the water, beyond the rail!

  “Man overboard!” he roared, fumbled for his belt, and kicked off his boots. “Man overboard! Lower a boat!” His belt released, along with his plaid and weapons, and the lot of them hit the deck as he clamored up onto the rail. Only after he’d already jumped did he worry the water might not be deep enough for his dive, for he seemed to fall through the air far too long.

  The surface slapped him in the head and the chill of it bit into his chest. After nearly three hundred years void of sensations, he felt it all—especially that frantic starving for air. But he couldn’t pause to appreciate it. No time. He had to find the woman!

  When he resurfaced, the mist was thick atop the water, but the movement of the waves ate at it, pushed at it, and he was able to see a good twenty feet ahead of him. But nothing bobbed on the surface.

  “Woman!” he shouted. “Where are ye?”

  Treading water in just his long shirt, he moved as quietly as possible, listening. No one answered.

  He turned to look behind him. A bell clanged five times, paused, then five again. He hoped it meant someone had heard his shouting. He looked to either side, then spun around again to search the ship’s wake. “Lass! Are ye there?”

  Had he imagined it? Had it truly been a gull crying out? And the sobbing just a phantom of a woman weeping aboard the ship somewhere? Or should he use all the energy he had in him to search beneath the surface?

  He took a deep breath to do just that, but he hesitated. A splash in the distance, then coughing!

  “Lass! Hold on! I’m coming!” He applied his swimming skills to tackling the waves, stopped to listen, then adjusted his course. Thankfully, the coughing grew louder, closer. “Where are ye, lass?”

  “I’m here—” She choked again, close by. But the water could do strange things with voices, so he turned his head this way and that, adjusted again, and swam for his life.

  Afraid he would pass her by, he stopped and listened yet again. But there was nothing. Spurred on by panic, he dove under the water like a veritable mermaid. The salt water stung his eyes, but he refused to close them.

  A shadow, God. Give me anything!

  She was easy to see, thrashing about a meter below the surface, struggling against skirts that billowed and twisted around her, forming swaths of bubbles that caught the light.

  He kicked and pushed the water out of his way, getting close just as she began sinking farther toward the darkness. He wrapped his hand firmly around her forearm and pulled. The clever lass renewed her efforts and kicked her legs furiously, and tog
ether, they breached the surface once more.

  Trem gasped air into his lungs and fought to keep them both afloat while she coughed water out of her mouth.

  “Ye heard me,” she choked. “I didn’t think anyone heard me.”

  The distinctive rumble of oars slipping into their outriggers was an encouraging sound, but it might have come from a league away, or a dozen yards. There was no telling. So Trem encouraged their rescuers with a shrill whistle, then a shout. “I’ve got her. We’re over here!” Then he whistled again. Someone whistled in answer and he grinned at the lass clinging to his arm. Somewhere in the distance, a drummer signaled General Quarters.

  The lass shivered and tried to mirror his excitement, but the color of her skin was downright blue, almost grey. And when she tried to smile, her eyes rolled back and closed.

  He shook her. “Hold on, lassie. Hold on.”

  She blinked and looked at him again, her eyes unfocused.

  He tried jesting with her. “I suppose ye regret it now, aye? Jumping over?”

  She frowned and shook her head. “Pushed,” she whispered. Then her eyes closed, her grip relaxed, and she sank.

  Trem took hold of her hand, pulled it over his shoulder, and started swimming. Against his back, her head would be out of the water for the most part, but there was no other choice. If he didn’t close the distance between them and the rescue boat, they both might perish.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Trem had to stop and switch shoulders before he could make the final push toward the dingy. Luckily for them both, he’d been an island lad and his muscles seemed to remember just what was necessary to swim through the waves. And thankfully, his form had been restored to the strength he’d enjoyed before he’d fallen at Culloden. He just didn’t know who he should thank for it, God or witch.

  Once again, he pushed forward, kicking with all his might, pushing the water aside with one arm, and working with the sea as much as possible. The tide pushed him slightly sideways, but at least it wasn’t coming at him head on. When he was certain the sailors had him in their sights, he stopped swimming altogether, to use his energy to keep them both afloat while the wee boat closed the rest of the distance.