Fisher Read online

  He needed to hear the whole of it and hoped it would repeat. Thankfully, it did.

  He’d ever had an ear for clever songs and had whiled away many a day singing to the fish, luring them to his father’s nets. The woman’s song would be just such a tune, he knew it. There must be words. Why didn’t she sing the words?

  And then she did.

  “Fisher Rankine.”

  He turned toward the memorial cairn and was unsurprised to find the familiar wee form of Soncerae standing near it. A single Highlander, McLaren, stood close by as usual. The dark uncle, along with the aura that usually attended him, lingered to the side of the edifice.

  But no fire. Why has she not lit her fire? And where are the others? He couldn’t possibly be the last!

  Soni began the tune over again. After a hasty glance at his bit of land, he started toward her, marveling that he’d not recognized the voice immediately. Of course it belonged to his wee witch. What other woman had ever drawn his attention, other than those approaching his deathbed with shameful intentions?

  Clever lass. She’d lured him away from his land.

  That tune. It made him feel giddy and yet alert. Slightly drunk and yet sober because his name had been called. His time had arrived. And though he was loath to leave his land unprotected, all worry was pushed aside. Calm descended on him like a light blanket of snow.

  His time had come. He would trust that God had an equally important bit of Heaven set aside for him—if he could but pass Soni’s test.

  Again, he noted the absence of a bonfire, and his curiosity had him abandon the pretense of walking. The distance between himself and the witch was suddenly gone.

  “Soncerae.”

  “Fisher.”

  He so loved to hear her say his name. “Is something amiss?” He nodded toward the usual location of white flames.

  “Nothing. I am unusually pressed for time this night, but I must send ye on yer way. All the stars are aligned, as it were. We mustn’t miss the window.”

  He accepted her reasoning, though it made little sense to him. She was a clever lass with his interests in mind. Worthy of his trust.

  “Ye’ll no longer be known as Number 4, my friend. Trust yer instincts and ye’ll do fine. I’ll see ye again in two days’ time.”

  Panic inflated his chest, but he forced with an imagined breath and forced a smile. “Wait, ye wee beesom,” he teased, “allow me to ready my weapons, at least. Ye wouldnae send me into this next battle without my sword and targe, aye?” His hands searched, but the weapons he had carried for two and a half centuries were gone.

  “Ye’ll not be joining that sort of battle.”

  She tilted her head slightly and nodded. Instantly, his heart burst into action. Blood pushed through his veins. Sensation spread through him to t he tips of his fingers, his toes. His face flushed warm though warmth was a sense nearly foreign now.

  This is the quickening. Alive again, just as promised.

  An incredible witch! What powers she must possess! God Himself must trust her. Who am I to not?

  Soni stepped close and rose up on her toes. He leaned down so she might place a kiss on his cheek. “Prove only that ye’re still a good man,” she whispered, “and it will be enough, aye?”

  With no one close enough to see, he allowed his false bravado to drop away. “No more proving myself in battle, ye say?” Tears filled his eyes, then dripped on her hair before she pulled back.

  “Only the battles ye choose.”

  He would have pulled her close for another quick embrace, but she waved her hand and sent him from the moor before he got a good hold on her. If Simon McLaren had protested, Fisher hadn’t been there to hear it.

  Soni’s whisper echoed in Fisher’s mind as he fought for balance on the ground changing beneath his feet. “Prove only that ye’re still a good man, Fisher. And it will be enough, aye?”

  A good man? It seemed a reasonable feat. If it did not win him a meeting with his former prince, it mattered little to him. He’d been thinking it over since summer solstice, when Soni had first promised the 79 ghosts they would have two days of mortality before moving on to the next life. And the boon he wished for, more than anything, was to find someone whom he could trust, or bribe, to have a plaque placed upon his deathbed.

  If a marker were there, others would be less likely to pour ashes upon his grave. They would assuredly choose another spot. And while searching for a worthy mortal to arrange such a marker, he could simultaneously prove he was a good man.

  The sky lightened before he’d finished his thoughts, but it was not the morning sun that did the deed. In fact, it seemed he’d been relocated to somewhere in the middle of the afternoon. It might have been mid-morning, but the air didn’t have that new smell to it. And the people bustling past him looked anything but bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.

  He stood on a concrete path beside a bustling city street. Few cars. Hundreds of feet shuffling in different directions. On the corner opposite him was a green metal railing around a hole in the ground that seemed to be the source of most of the pedestrians. They poured out one side while an equal number descended. It had to be the Parisian version of the London Underground.

  He took a few steps to the right in order to read the white letters on the red sign above the hole. METRO.

  He truly was in Paris! Soni intended to test him, then, for many a good man was forever tainted by the great city. Wouldn’t his uncle have been surprised to know that one day, Fisher would return?

  As he watched the flow of people in and out of the entrance, he checked his sporran for a random coin so he might join the masses below ground and perhaps take a brief ride on the trains. He’d been haunting the moor for seventy-odd years before trains had come to Scotland. He remembered well the newspaper that had reported the news. Some of his fellows had admitted it would take a brave man to ride such a thing and trust it not tipping.

  None of the descending Parisians seemed nervous, however. And none of them appeared to be any braver than he…

  Emerging from the same metro stairs, a flat white beret, sitting atop a head of straight blond hair, caught his eye. Above white trainers and denim pants, the woman wore a dark coat that tied at the waist and covered her backside. She was tall, so when others blocked his view, he could still see the white cap.

  He stood his ground and followed its progress through the crowd as it dispersed. The hat turned when the woman glanced nervously over her shoulder, then she raced on along the walkway as if fleeing something behind her.

  The hair at the nape of Fisher’s neck rose in warning. His first instinct was to follow and help if he could, but the traffic light changed and he was prevented from crossing the street. Instead, he shuffled to his left, parallel to the woman’s path, trying to mind the bodies moving against him while he searched the opposite sidewalk for what might be chasing her.

  It didn’t take long to find the dark-haired man in a pale tan jacket whose pace equaled the woman’s. The clever lass kept ahead of him, but the man was persistent.

  How was it no one else noticed her dilemma? Why did she not stop and cry out?

  She suddenly took advantage of the lull in traffic and crossed to Fisher’s side of the road. He stopped and prayed she would come his way so he might put himself between her and her pest, but instead, she ducked inside a shopfront. The dark-haired man was thwarted by traffic and could not follow. After staring for a long moment, he started making his way back to the metro station.

  Fisher exhaled slowly, then relaxed. The danger was over.

  He returned to the corner where he started and waited for Soni’s plan to present itself. All he had to do was prove he was a good man. A good man would wait where he was told to wait.

  Chapter Four

  Earlier…

  Martine checked the route three times before she dared board the metro. The idea of descending, willingly, underground seemed counter-intuitive. But hundreds of others were doing the same with
out blinking an eye, so she had to trust the French to know their own city.

  In her home town of Traverse City, their only source of public transit was either the bus or Schuster’s Trolley. Old man Schuster couldn’t bear to see his horse-drawn trolley car retired, so he pulls it around town with a John Deere tractor. One drawback is the speed or lack thereof. Another is the fact that he only drives it when he can afford the gas.

  And finally, unless you ask him to drop you somewhere specific, you never know where you’ll end up. If there was ever a specified route, Schuster doesn’t remember it. And he avoids the really popular destinations because he doesn’t like to drive in heavy traffic.

  The stairs to the metro grew wider as she went deeper. Her eyes adjusted to the artificial light and the surprisingly high ceilings chased away the claustrophobia she’d expected.

  Almost by accident, she found her way to the correct set of tracks and stood back to watch a crush of bodies flood out of the train, followed by the mob that hurried to take their places. She couldn’t make her feet move. Her heart pounded hard, then jumped when a horn sounded. One second later, the automated doors slammed closed.

  It would be another ten minutes for the next train to come along, but she thought it might take that long to get her courage up. What if she didn’t move fast enough and got caught in those doors?

  I’ll just have to step lively, like the Parisians do.

  While the minutes ticked by, she pulled her ridiculous white cap on tighter, tucked her inconspicuous blue bag under her arm, then held it with the opposite hand in a vise grip. Though she dreaded losing her wallet and passport, there was something more important in that purse today. Someone would have to rip her arm off to steal it because she wasn’t about to let a pick-pocket take off with Julia’s ashes.

  Her sister would end up haunting a trash can.

  The train rumbled into the tunnel, and her heart rumbled right along with it. She forced herself to breathe normally as she stepped forward and joined those who stood uncomfortably close to the edge of the platform. At ten in the morning, the commuters were fewer than expected, and everyone was careful to keep their distance from each other. But not even the locals, it seemed, wanted to risk those doors.

  A few bodies bumped into each other as they hurried off the train. Martine only felt a brush or two as she hurried to board when the coast was clear. She was fully inside the car when the horn sounded, which made her very happy.

  A young man dashed through the opening in the nick of time and the doors crashed behind him. He sighed loudly and those standing close smiled. But Martine noticed something odd. Though they shared the kid’s relief that he hadn’t been caught in the doors, they avoided eye contact with him, and with each other.

  They would share a laugh, but that was it.

  Martine decided not to judge their behavior, and instead, decided to do as the Romans did.

  She kept her attention to herself and caught her own reflection in the window. The similarities between her new image and her sister no longer surprised her. After the overhaul to her wardrobe and hair, she’d practically become Julia—even smiling more often, an effect of wearing brighter colors. How many times had her sister tried to convince her of that?

  As it often happened with twins, their personalities veered in different directions. Martine hadn’t been interested in smiling more, in wearing bright colors just for the fun of it, or anything else Julia tried to get her to try. But now her sister was gone, there was no one to be contrary to. No one to rebel against.

  So there she was, flying through the tunnels beneath Paris—a place she’d never cared to see, smiling and looking like Julia—and carrying what was left of Julia in her purse. The irony made her chuckle. Julia would have appreciated the joke, which made her smile even harder, and she looked up, worried someone might think she was nuts.

  A man across from her smiled back, a little too happy to share her private joke.

  She dropped her smile, remembering the same smirk on the hotel clerk’s face, that morning, when she’d turned in her key. Frenchmen it seemed were far too easily encouraged.

  Her private thoughts were forgotten altogether when she pretended to look out the windows but instead, watched the dark stranger in the tan coat watching her. He hadn’t dropped his smile, nor did he look away from her, probably waiting for her to notice him again.

  Also, in the glass, she checked out the people sitting around them. Lost in their own worlds, no one seemed to notice the creepy guy.

  “Anvers Station, Montmartre, Sacré-Cœur,” was announced overhead. It was her stop. It was the last stop. From there, the train would turn around and head back in the opposite direction. She had no choice but to get off the train or try it all again tomorrow. Was she going to let a little paranoia change her plans?

  The morning had been so emotional, knowing she had to say one last goodbye to Julia. Could she really go through that again? She’d gotten herself psyched up for this. She should do it and get it over with—or the three days she had in Paris would be spent whimpering in a small hotel room.

  She dreaded getting off at the same stop as the stranger who still stared at her. But he had to get off too, didn’t he? Yet he didn’t move. Everyone else was on their feet, reaching for poles, moving toward the doors. Creepy just sat there…like she did.

  The train slowed and everyone braced themselves for the sprint out the doors. But Martine couldn’t move. A woman glanced at her and smirked, as if she thought the silly-dressed American would be surprised when the train turned around and took her back the way she’d come.

  But she knew.

  And he knew.

  The doors opened and bodies scrambled off. A few others hopped on for the return trip. And as she waited for the horn, Martine held perfectly still.

  The horn blared twice. She grabbed the nearest pole to propel herself forward and flew out the door without looking back, even when she heard the doors slam—and heard a man’s sharp groan.

  She’d realized that being followed was a given, no matter when she got off. So better a busy station than one less crowded.

  She hurried for the stairs that led directly to the sunlight, like a drowning person fighting for the surface. A hand clamped around her elbow and held tight. She knew without looking who it was, but she had to turn, had to get rid of him.

  She pulled her arm, but his fingers held. Not quite painful, but firm.

  “You will join me for coffee,” he informed her with a heavy accent.

  “No,” she said, but she dared not stop. She felt like her safest move was to keep her feet moving. She had three or four inches on him. Her strides were much longer than his. She could leave him behind if she just kept moving.

  “You will join me for coffee,” he said again, like it was a phrase he’d memorized.

  Well, she had memorized a few phrases too, from a junior high school French class.

  “I’m looking for my father,” she said in French.

  He still didn’t let go. They were nearly to the street and he didn’t seem afraid of anything at all, not even her father, if he believed her. Neither was he bothered by the pair of soldiers standing at the top of the steps, scanning the crowd.

  She stepped to the right and pulled her elbow away. Thankfully, he lost his hold. Maybe he’d been intimidated by the soldiers after all. But she didn’t pause to look. And she didn’t want to call attention to herself. After all, she had human ashes in her purse, and she didn’t want to give anyone a reason to search her.

  Who knew what the law was about spreading ashes? She was lucky they’d allowed her to take the urn on the plane, though they’d taken it out of her luggage and loaded it separately, for safekeeping. For all she knew, the Paris police might consider it a health risk. She might even go to jail for it, but she hadn’t dared ask anyone what the rules were. She had to do this one thing for her sister. It was the least she could do. After all, it should have been her…

 
If Fate hadn’t screwed things up, it would have been Julia wondering where to spread her sister’s ashes. Somewhere close to home. Maybe at Cutcheon’s Creek, the one that flowed alongside their favorite running path. Her sister could have tossed in a flower every now and then.

  Then Julia would have been alive and well and busy doing important things.

  “Forgive me, Julia,” she whispered, just as she had a dozen times a day since the accident. It was then she remembered her would-be escort. She turned left then, and darted across the street, watching for cars while surreptitiously searching for him.

  He was only a few steps behind. Go now!

  She hurried out into a gap between waves of cars, knowing her pursuer would have to act fast or be cut off. When stepped up onto the opposite curb, she turned right and glanced again. He hadn’t tried to follow. Maybe he was remembering the feel of getting caught in the metro doors. Maybe he wasn’t willing to chance a whole car bumper.

  She continued to put distance between them, but spotted a clothing store and ducked inside. She hoped to be surrounded by a crowd of women shoppers with big heavy purses in case they decided to come to her rescue.

  Sadly, the place was empty except for an imposing, unhappy woman in a red dress covered with little white flowers. Her face was the color of her dress. She put her hands on her hips when Martine started looking through the clothes on a rack, making it clear that Martine wasn’t welcome in her shop.

  Off the beaten path. Not for tourists. Got it.

  But she couldn’t leave. Not yet.

  The woman said something in French. Martine answered with the French phrase she still had on her tongue. “Je cherche mon père.” I’m looking for my father.

  The woman mumbled something, rolled her eyes, and disappeared behind a curtain.

  Martine moved back to the front window and looked out. Her tormentor was headed back to the metro entrance, walking slowly.