Page 30 of Highland Spirit

“Now?” Caleb made a face and looked down to his trencher filled with food. “I am no’ done eatin’ yet. Besides, I wouldna ken how to make a distraction.”

“Oh, aye, ye are finished.” Ethan whistled for Trapper. The dog ran over to the table. “Go on, boy,” said Ethan, getting up from the table and nodding to Caleb’s trencher of food.

“Ethan, nay!” shouted Caleb, but it was too late. Trapper gladly put his paws on the table and started to devour Caleb’s food. Caleb yelled, the dog barked, and Slink jumped up on the table making a hissing noise. One of the servant women screamed and dropped a platter of food before turning and running back to the kitchen. The two guards ran over to the dais as well as Kirstine and Finn.

“Now that’s what I call a distraction,” said Ethan proudly, getting up from the table. This was his chance. He slipped back into the shadows, and while the commotion was taking everyone’s attention, he hurried down the corridor to look for Alana’s father. He was about to turn and go in another direction when a door to a chamber opened. He jumped back and stood with his back against the wall peeking out from around a corner.

“I’ll be back, Faither. Please get some sleep.” It was Alana. She left the room and hurried back toward the great hall.

Ethan stepped around the corner, checking the hallway to make certain he hadn’t been noticed. Then he quickly slipped inside the room that Alana had just exited, thankful the door was not locked. Stopping in his tracks, he laid eyes on a thin man sitting on the edge of the bed with his feet hanging over the side.

“Gil? Gil Chisholm?” he asked, thinking this man looked so thin and gaunt that it was hard to recognize him as the same man that was once almost his father-by-marriage.

“Who are ye?” The man’s head snapped up and he looked at Ethan. “Ethan MacKeefe,” he said under his breath, looking upset, quickly pulling a blanket over his legs. “What are ye doin’ here?”

“I think the real question is what are ye doin’ here?”

“What does it matter?”

“It matters because I think ye are in hidin’, ye thief and traitor. Ye will pay for the things ye’ve done. I will make certain of it.” His hand went to the hilt of his sword.

“Ye shouldna be on this isle at all. Ye must leave anon before it’s too late.”

“I’m no’ leavin’ before I get some answers.” Ethan walked closer to the open window and glanced out. He thought for a moment he saw the mast of a ship disappearing behind the rocks on the far side of the isle, then decided he must be mistaken. The cliffs were too jagged and steep. There was nowhere to dock a boat on the west side of the Isle of Kerrera. “What is goin’ on here?” he asked.

“There is nothin’ happenin’.”

“Why are ye even on this isle? And why are Alana and her siblin’s here? This is no place for them. Especially no’ for her young daughter.”

His head snapped up at hearing that. “She told ye about her daughter?”

“Why arena ye all back with yer clan?”

“Ye ask too many questions, MacKeefe. Now, go back to yer camp and dinna return. I canna make my past mistakes right and neither can I bring back my dead wife who died because of me. I canna expect ye’ll ever forgive me, and I’m no’ askin’ ye to. I dinna care what happens to me, but just please dinna let Alana and my other children or my grandchildren suffer because of the bad choices I’ve made in life. They are innocent and dinna deserve to live in fear and solitude because of me.”

“What do ye mean? What are ye sayin’?”

Ethan felt like he was finally going to get his answers when he heard a bloodcurdling woman’s scream from outside the open window. He ran over and saw a flash of white as something . . . or someone fell to the ground from the tower window.

“What was that?” Ethan’s heart sped up. He knew what it was. It was the ghost of the bride of Mad Murdock.

“That? Oh, that,” said Gil. “It’s just the ghost of the late laird’s wife of the castle.”

“Mad Murdock,” said Ethan under his breath.

“Aye. He killed her by pushin’ her from the tower to her death.”

“Then it’s true!” Ethan felt very uncomfortable. His memories of his childhood when he snuck into this castle and was frightened out of his mind rose to the surface. “How often does this happen?” he asked, feeling very unsettled. “And how can ye stay here with . . . with that? Doesna it bother ye?” He didn’t understand why Gil didn’t even seem upset.

“It happens a lot,” he said. “I dinna like it, of course no’. There are some frightenin’ things that happen here, usually at night. But it keeps people away and that’s why I’m here. After all, ye ken more than anyone that I am a fugitive now. What am I supposed to do?”

“Turn yerself in,” spat Ethan. “Or perhaps I should do that for ye?”

“If ye do, ye’ll be condemnin’ Alana and the others to a life behind bars for helpin’ me. Do ye really want that to happen to the girl who was once yer betrothed?”

Before he could answer, the door to the room burst open and the two guards rushed in with their swords drawn.

Immediately, Ethan drew his sword as well.