The Mysteries (14 page)

This was not getting me any further. “Any idea
who
that love-talker might be, Mrs. Mac? Or where I might find Amy?”

“Yes, you must find Amy,” she said, suddenly fixing me with her faded blue gaze. “You must find her and take her away. Help her forget the ganconer. Maybe, if you can get her back to America, she won't have to die, not like Elspeth. America is a modern country.”

“Scotland's a modern country, too, Mrs. MacDonald,” I said, feeling embarrassed. “Girls in Scotland today don't pine away and die for love.”

“Girls today don't usually meet the ganconer,” she retorted. She lifted her cup to her lips, then, finding it empty, put it impatiently away. The cup clattered in its saucer as she set it down on the tea tray.

I shook my head, confused. “Are you saying this ganconer is a particular person? That Amy and your friend both met the same man?”

“Not a man. Not a
mortal
man, anyway. They used to say that if a maiden met the ganconer, she might as well begin to weave her shroud. He would appear to innocent country maids living in lonesome glens—the sort of place Elspeth and I lived as girls. There are still places like that in Scotland, and I suppose there must still be innocent country maids, too, in spite of the television. The glen where I grew up still doesn't get the television. No reception. The hills are too high.” She nodded, a small, satisfied expression on her face.

“
That's
the sort of place you'd expect to meet the ganconer, the sort of place you'll still find water horses, and a lad might find his way to Elfhame. Not here.” She cast a quick, contemptuous glance at the silent television in the far corner of the room before fixing me with her gaze again. “Not in a busy wee village like Aberfoyle, with the buses and the cars and all the visitors, and the hill walkers, coming and going at all hours. Doon Hill was an uncanny place once, but not anymore. Now the tourists come, the hikers, the dog walkers, whole families, young people in their strange clothes. Do you know, groups come to dance around the minister's pine? And they decorate the trees with hanging cloth.”

The younger Mrs. MacDonald came back in with my cup of coffee. It was some cheap instant stuff—I was willing to bet it was powdered, not even freeze-dried crystals—but I was grateful for the familiar taste and the caffeine. I felt about ready to nod off to sleep in the overheated room, only the irritant of Granny Mac's stories keeping me awake.

“Just give me a few minutes to make your bed,” said Mrs. MacDonald. “You'll be all right in here, talking to Granny, won't you?”

“Sure.”

“He's asking about Amy,” the old woman said. “That American girl who didn't go away with the others.”

“I know that, dear,” she replied, scarcely pausing as she went out. “And I've already told him that we haven't seen or heard from her since she checked out.”

The old woman looked at me as the door closed. “But I saw where she went.”

I looked at her skeptically. “Amy? When?”

“Late in the day. In the morning, she went with the others into the village. But in the evening, she came back. I was watching from my window. I saw her.”

“You're sure it was her?”

“I couldn't be mistaken. Not with that long, golden hair. Just like Elspeth's. They love golden hair, you know. And she was wearing her striped jumper. I'd seen her wearing it before when the evenings were chilly. It wasn't like her other clothes, it was handmade. She told me her own granny knitted it for her.” She paused, blinking and working her lips at the memory before she went on. “I suppose she imagined it would keep her safe, like her granny's love. But it was an unlucky color. Green. Her granny should have known. But perhaps in America it doesn't matter if you wear green.”

“I thought you said it was striped.”

“Green and purple striped.” She nodded, her eyes vague. “Not a usual combination. No one else would wear a jumper like that. So, you see, I couldn't have been mistaken. It was certainly Amy I saw going up Doon Hill.”

At last Mrs. MacDonald came back to tell me my room was ready and let me out of the stifling sitting room to take me upstairs. She pointed out the bathroom at the top of the stairs and turned left. “Here you are.

“Will you be wanting dinner tonight?” she asked outside my door.

I looked at her blankly.

“It's an extra five pounds for dinner, and I serve up at six o'clock. Plain home cooking, a family meal—but I need to know in advance how many to cater for.”

“Well, thank you, but I think I'll eat out,” I said. “I thought there were plenty of places to eat in Aberfoyle.”

“Oh, yes. You'll have no problem finding somewhere to eat.”

I was overcome by an uncontrollable yawn. “Excuse me. I didn't manage to sleep on the plane. I'm just going to lie down for a little while . . .” I stumbled into the room and scarcely had time to notice anything about it before I crashed out, fully dressed, on the bed.

I woke abruptly, with no idea where I was.

I'd been dreaming I was back in Texas, with Jenny. I came home from work one day, and there she was. She couldn't understand why I was so amazed to see her; she insisted she had always been there, in the next room, working on one of her rugs. When I followed her, trying to get an explanation for her disappearance, I found that this other room was connected to a completely different apartment, which I'd never seen before, but where Jenny had, apparently, been living alongside me, unsuspected, for many weeks.

“All you had to do was come through,” she said. “I thought you didn't want to. All you had to do, if you wanted me, was to open the door.”

I gazed into her warm, liquid, utterly honest eyes and was just about to tell her how much I really loved her when I woke up.

I sat up and looked around the room, in a state close to panic. What happened? Where was I? This wasn't the apartment in Dallas, and it wasn't my old bedroom in my mother's house. I stared at the window with its flowered curtains, at the looming bulk of a dark wooden wardrobe, at the pale green sink in one corner and felt sure I'd never seen this place before in my life. As I looked at the picture on the wall, a misty landscape of a lake and mountains, with shaggy cows wading into the water to drink, I remembered I was in Scotland.

I'd been asleep for several hours; it was almost six-thirty, and I was desperate to go to the bathroom. I found my way there without any problem, and when I got back, I shaved and put on a fresh white shirt and the smart navy blue linen jacket Jenny had insisted I buy on sale at Neiman-Marcus.

I put a photo of Amy Schneider and a small notebook with my wallet in the inside pocket, and checked that I had the keys to the rental car before I left my room. I didn't have a key to the house. Guests were requested to “make arrangements” with the MacDonalds if intending to be out past 11:30
P
.
M
.

My stomach was rumbling, and I was intending to make the short drive into Aberfoyle, but as soon as I got outside the house I changed my mind.

It was such a beautiful evening, the warm, still air filled with rich, golden light, that it seemed a crime to shut myself into a car and miss the best of the day. At home, it was dark by seven, but here the summer days lingered, dying slowly in the long twilight. In Texas, summer or winter, day turned to night like the drop of a curtain.

I walked slowly down the drive, breathing in the sweet, heady fragrances from late-flowering bushes that filled the garden, and listened to a bird singing—I imagined a blackbird, but I couldn't see it and really didn't know.

It seemed the most natural thing, to walk toward the hill. There was no traffic at all on the narrow road, which took me past a meadow dotted with the shapes of grazing sheep, then, gradually, into woodland. After a few minutes I saw a wooden signpost pointing to my left advertising
DOON HILL FAIRY TRAIL
, 1/2
MILE CIRCULAR WALK
.

The trail wound uphill through mixed, mostly deciduous woodland. On some trees the leaves were turning gold or brown. Occasionally a leaf would detach itself and drift slowly to the moss-covered ground.

It was damp beneath the trees even on this dry evening, and ferns and mushrooms grew in the dips and hollows of the leaf-strewn floor. The path wound upward, growing steeper, becoming more of a climb. My breath came harder, and between the pounding of my heart and the sound of my own breathing, I couldn't hear anything else.

For some reason, that bothered me. I was afraid of missing something.

I stopped suddenly and looked around while I struggled to control my breathing. I thought I saw something—someone—moving off to the side, but when I turned there was no one there. Movement glimpsed from the corner of my eye made me look the other way, but, again, nothing. The strange shapes of trees, the gathering shadows, the movement of leaves all conspired to tease and mislead. Was there someone there, or no one? Had I seen anything at all?

Darkness gathered as the sun went down behind the hill. Twilight was a tricky time. How much light was left? I didn't want to be caught there after nightfall. The sensible thing was to turn back immediately.

But I wanted to get to the top. Surely I could manage that before sunset. In any case, it wouldn't be pitch-black. All I had to do was stick to the path and it would bring me back. I started walking again, concentrating now on covering ground instead of fantasies glimpsed in the undergrowth. This was Scotland, not Transylvania.

When I reached the summit I had the brief, disorienting impression that a crowd of silent people waited for me there. Then I realized the grove of trees was decked with scarves, socks, and strips of material, and remembered what Granny Mac had said.

But I wasn't alone. There was a woman standing beside a tall pine tree.

She was half in shadow and too far away for me to see her face, but the last rays of the sun made her hair gleam gold. She wasn't as tall as I'd expected, and she wore a neutral-colored jacket buttoned over jeans and a pair of muddy boots, but she was young and blond.

I swallowed hard and walked toward her.

She stepped away from the tree and came to meet me, raising her eyes to my face, wearing a tentative smile.

She didn't look anything like the photograph in my pocket.

I asked anyway: “Amy?”

The smile died on her face. She thrust her hands into her coat pockets and turned away with a jerky, angry motion.

“I'm looking for Amy Schneider. Do you know her?”

“No.” It was a furious grunt.

“She's been seen up here. Do you come here often? Maybe you've seen her.”

“So what if I have? What do you care, anyway? You ought to leave people alone. I came up here to meet someone and now it isn't going to happen.” She was furious; she also had a strong Scottish accent.

“Do you live around here?”

“What does that matter to you?”

“Look, it's almost dark. I don't think anybody else is going to come now—” I realized she'd left me talking to myself and hurried after her. “Hey, wait a minute, I want to talk to you!”

“Maybe I don't want to talk to you.”

“I'm trying to find Amy Schneider.”

“I told you, I don't know her.”

“But you might have seen her. She's American, and she was supposed to go back home almost three weeks ago. Her mother sent me to try to find out what happened. Let me show you her picture.” I reached into my breast pocket just at the very moment when a rock slipped under my foot. Unbalanced, I fell heavily.

“Ow.”

The strange Scottish woman burst out laughing. “Och, I'm sorry! Are you OK?”

“I've got a bruise the size and shape of Scotland on my butt, but, apart from that, yeah, perfect.”

She laughed again, a soft, snorting sound, then gave me a hand and pulled me roughly to my feet. “Better mind how you go. You're lucky you didn't break something.”

“Thank you for that priceless advice. I suppose you work in one of the caring professions. Nursing? Mountain rescue?”

“You're the one who wants to rescue people, not me.”

The next bit of path was particularly steep, so I concentrated on negotiating it. When we reached a gentler stretch, where the path was wide enough for us to walk side by side, I said, “I'm only up for rescuing Amy if she
wants
to be rescued. She's old enough to make her own choices. Her mother just wants to know if Amy's all right. I told her I'd find out and let her know.”

“So you're not Amy's boyfriend?”

“Never met her. I wouldn't have mistaken you for her if I had. But you know her.”

“No.”

“You've met her, though. Seen her.”

She said nothing.

“Come on, why are you being so protective of somebody you don't know?”

“Maybe I just feel sorry for her. Maybe I'm just naturally sympathetic. Some people are, you know.”

“But you have no sympathy for me.”

I listened to the sound of our feet slapping and crunching down the trail. It was getting dark, but we were nearly out of the forest.

“Can we start over? My name is Ian Kennedy. I'm a great big stupid bumbling American, but I have a good heart. I mean well, honestly. I'm not going to hurt Amy. I just came out here to find out what happened to her, to try to set her mother's mind at rest. If she doesn't want me around, all she has to do is tell me, and I'll go away. May I take you out to dinner?”

“You want to take me out to dinner?” She sounded both startled and deeply suspicious. “Why?”

I sighed. I wasn't at all sure I did, if she was going to be such hard work. “I was just going out to eat. It would be nice to have company. I don't know anyone around here. Maybe you could recommend a good place to eat?”

She stopped at the edge of the road. It was too dark to read her expression, but she seemed to be thinking about it. “All right. You can take me out to dinner. But I have to warn you, I really
don't
know your Amy.”

“That's OK. You can tell me about Doon Hill.”

13. Rhys

Rhys and Llewellyn, two farm laborers in South Wales, were driving some horses back to the farm one night when Rhys stopped still and listened.

“Hear that music?” he asked.

Llewellyn strained his ears, but heard nothing out of the ordinary: wind in the trees, some late birds singing, a faint rush of water from a nearby stream. He shook his head.

“Someone's having a party,” Rhys declared, nodding enthusiastically. “There might be pretty girls.” He began to tap his foot. “I fancy a dance, don't you?”

Llewellyn was bone weary after a long day of plowing, and all he fancied was his bed. He shook his head.

“Well, I mean to find out where that music is coming from,” said Rhys. He gave Llewellyn a slap on the shoulder. “You go along home to bed, you. I'm for dancing, me. I'll tell you all about it tomorrow.”

Llewellyn watched as Rhys set off across the fields, following a music only he could hear. Then he shrugged his shoulders and plodded off after the horses. He slept soundly that night, as he usually did, and in the morning when he woke up and saw that Rhys's bed was still empty, he wasn't bothered. He figured that his more impetuous workmate had stayed out all night. Either he had found an accommodating girl at the dance, or had drunk too much to make his way back to his own bed. Surely he would turn up at work later in the day, boasting of his conquest or complaining of his sore head.

But Rhys did not turn up; not that day, or any other day that week, and no one else in the surrounding countryside had seen or heard anything of him. Llewellyn told his story to universal skepticism. There had been no parties, no music playing, anywhere in the region on the night in question. Why would a man lie, unless to cover up a crime? To his horror, Llewellyn was accused of murder.

Luckily for him, there was one dissenting voice. Another farmer (who didn't think Llewellyn smart enough to make up stories) recalled that there had been tales in the past of people who heard strange music. He suggested that Llewellyn should take them all to the spot where he had last seen Rhys. They arrived at twilight. And this time, when Llewellyn stood on the spot where Rhys had stopped and listened,
he
heard the music.

When the others stood close enough to touch Llewellyn, they, too, heard music—and saw a crowd of little people dancing in a ring. Among the crowd was the familiar figure of farm laborer Rhys, towering over his tiny companions.

Llewellyn called to his mate, but the man kept on dancing around the circle, a vacant smile on his face. The next time Rhys came near, Llewellyn grabbed him by the arm.

“Help me hold him!” he cried, and everyone else seized hold of Rhys and dragged him out of the ring. It took half a dozen strong men to keep hold of the mesmerized dancer and pull him away; not until they were several yards down the road did Rhys stop struggling, and ask, querulously, “Why won't you let me be? I only want a little dance!”

He could hardly believe it when they told him he had been dancing for nearly a week; it seemed to him that only a few minutes had passed since he had parted from Llewellyn.

Alas for Rhys, although his friends managed to rescue him, he did not remain in this world for long. He could never forget the sound of that mysterious music, and wandered the lanes and roads and fields at all hours, hoping to hear it again. He could not do his work, or think of anything else, and in a short time he pined away and died.