Bolstered by the gift Wickham’s wife had tucked into his pack, Sean had a sudden urge to sketch the scene in front of him. Wickham must have told her of Sean’s secret passion. ’Twas no use wondering how Wickham kenned it.
After a long drink of water from his flask, Sean pulled out his prizes: three charcoal pencils and a sturdy sketch book. Willing the tension from his body, he focused on thefeelof his surroundings. Could he capture the air of lost hopes and dreams cut short, with mere sweeps of charcoal?
Fleeting, wispy shimmers of movement in the air neither surprised nor distracted him. On the contrary, he expected them. He made a few tentative strokes, letting his hand move at will.
“Bugger this nonsense! ’Tis no’ a game. I demand ye show yerself!”
Sean jerked, dragging a dark, heavy line down the paper.
’Twas a woman’s voice. But from where? Eyes wide and wary, he studied the scene before him, but naught moved. He hadnae expected the spirits to speak and even if they did, ’twas no’ the type of greeting he’d imagined. Had he no’ introduced himself and made his benign intentions known right from the beginning?
A sudden, bright flash of movement came from his left, beyond the corner of the church where the ground sloped sharply toward the crumbling, outer wall. He scrambled to his feet but dinnae move from the kirk.
Wild copper curls tumbled down the back of what was most assuredly afemaleform,clothed in something that looked centuries old, mayhap no’ in age, but in fashion. By all appearances, older even than his own time. She appeared far too vivid for a ghost but seemed too out of time and place to belong in this earthly realm.
What then? Spirit or mortal?
A chill snaked up Sean’s back. He wasnae familiar with malevolent spirits. Could they present themselves in such pleasing forms, as trickery?
He watched her pace back and forth through what appeared to be an opening in the dilapidated outer wall where a gate might once have been, a look of desperation marring her lovely face. Nae. No evil there. Mayhap a lost soul, somehow unwelcome in this consecrated place?
“Pl-ease.” Her voice broke on a frantic plea. “ ’Twill be too late!” Her fractured sob hung in the air. “I must get back!”
Confused by her odd movements and the heartbreak in her voice, Sean stepped away from the kirk wall to see her more clearly. Who was she addressing?
“I’m positive ’twas here.Right here!” she cried, turning two full circles inside the opening. “What do you want? What must I do?” Her painful plea, made to naught but the stoic sky, was heart wrenching.
Obviously, the lass searched for something, but what? She continued moving back and forth through the gap. Inside to outside. Outside to inside. Pausing after each pass as if expecting something to happen. With each step she became more frustrated. More desperate. Until, on the last pass, she tripped on something in the grass and tumbled, face first, to the ground.
Several seconds passed but she dinnae get up. Dinnae move at all, as any self-respecting spirit would. Though any of The 79 might curl up in a myriad of fashions in their sleeping hollows, none would lay face down, flat to the mud, exposed for the mortal world to see.
Indecision tethered Sean’s feet to the ground for several seconds. But her deep, heart-wrenching sobs fractured the still air and settled in the recesses of his heart. The lass, ghost or human, was in pain. And he couldnae let her remain so.
Setting his pad and pencil beside his pack, he took several tentative steps toward her, then casting caution aside, strode boldly down the slope. He wouldnae allow prudence, fear, or even inconvenience, deter him.
Never again!Besides, had he no’ vowed to assist anyone in need? ’Twould appear the lass was indeed in need of something, even if ’twas naught more than a helping hand out of the dirt.
Closer now, he observed her shoulders shaking with soul-shattering sobs that bounced her spiraled curls. Her fingers dug into the loam as if ’twas all that held her in place. Her right foot was caught, twisted, on a rusted piece of metal mostly buried in the soil.
No spirit, this, but a heartbroken lass in search of something she couldnae find.
He dinnae wish to startle her in word or touch, but he couldnae just let her lie there. Poor lass, in her peculiar, ancient attire. Even her tattered slippers appeared to be from another time.
“Come lass,” he whispered softly. “Dinna fash so. Allow me tae help ye.”
She gasped and stilled. Ever so slowly she turned her head and peered up, as if expecting the Grim Reaper himself to be standing over her.
Momentary relief flashed in wide grass-green eyes before new apprehension took its place. She tried to turn, but her trapped foot prevented her movement. “Who are ye?” she asked. Trying not to wince, she attempted to disentangle her foot, but to no avail.
“I am Sean McCulloch and I only wish tae help ye.” He dropped to one knee and gently slid his hands around her tangled foot. “Relax, lass, so I can free yer foot. ’Tis caught in a piece of twisted iron.”
Her eyes rounded. “The gate?”
Surely this ancient scrap of iron couldnae be what she searched for? It certainly dinnae resemble any kind of gate he’d ever seen. “I dinnae ken what it is, lass, but whatever usefulness it had, is long past.” He glanced at the opening in the dilapidated walls. A gate seemed moot at this point.
Carefully, Sean slid the lass’ foot free and tenderly straightened it as she bit back a gasp. “My apologies.” He released her foot and leaned back but remained kneeling. “And ye would be?”
“I’m…Kenna.” With her lower lip caught between her teeth, and her breath hitched, she turned cautiously and sat up, staring at her upturned scratched and bloody palms. Another small scrape marred her chin and the tip of her nose. Seemingly unfettered by his presence, she pulled up her skirt and examined a knee. The shredded fabric of her stocking fell away, exposing torn and bloody skin peppered with small bits of gravel. “Nooo, this canna happen,” she whimpered, checking the other, equally damaged knee. “Not now! There’s no time.”
