The Presence Part 24

"The difference?" Gina said. "Watch Eban! It's as if they're communicating back to him. Yes, Ryan, you and Toni speak to any mammal you come across, but you don't expect the animals to give you answers back!"

"'E's just a wee bit touched in the head," Thayer said. "I feel sorry for the poor old boy."

"I don't," Gina said, not even attempting to hide a s.h.i.+ver. "I feel.. .scared."

"I'm sure he's harmless," Toni said, yet she remembered how terrified he had made her, just the day before. But that had been because her imagination had gotten the best of her.

Had last night been her imagination, too? Or insanity. That morning, the door to the crypts had been bolted, just as it had always been. But she knew, if she insisted it be open, that she would find everything below just as she had seen it.

"Eban works very hard. We've seen him work!" she added.

"Thank G.o.d, I'm married," Gina murmured. "I think I'd be scared in my castle room if it weren't for Ryan."

"Great," Ryan said. "She keeps me around because she's scared."

Gina flashed him a warning stare, but Ryan just grinned.

"Eh! If the old man starts giving you too much trouble, la.s.s, remind him I'm around!" Thayer said, winking.

"There you go," Gina told Ryan.

"Well...if worse came to worst, David and I would let Gina have the old Duncan Phyfe sofa that's in our room," Kevin said.

Gina shuddered. "I don't think I could take the activity in your room!"

"All right, all right, the lot of you! Break up the l.u.s.t fest. A few of us--" Thayer paused, glancing at Toni. "Okay, maybe it's only me these days, but there's no one sleeping in my room, so I'd rather not hear about the writhin' and strainin' going on around me, eh?"

Gina burst out laughing. "Thayer, you could have your pick of girls! I've seen the way they look at you when we go in pubs and the like."

He shrugged.

"You're too picky," she told him.

He was thoughtful for a minute. "That I am. And I've decided I want an American la.s.s."

"And why is that?" Toni asked him.

He shrugged. "I like the American way. Free from the shackles of tradition, and all that rot."

Gina laughed. "But you were willing to go in with us on the castle?"

"Well, in truth, that's all changed now, hasn't it? It seems like we're on a borrowed pound at a roulette wheel, eh? Just trying to make back our bet."

"We'll make it back," Gina said determinedly.

"Thanks to the largesse of our host," David murmured, and he stared across the table at Thayer suddenly. "Hey, did you know that he'd been a cop?" he demanded.

"How could he have known he'd been a cop?" Toni demanded. "He hadn't even known that he'd existed."

"Oh, yes, right," David said.

"You're starting to sound Britis.h.!.+" Kevin told him. "Righto, cheerio and all that!"

David looked at him and sighed.

"Well, when in Rome, you know," Ryan offered.

"But Laird MacNiall--a cop!"

"Was a cop," Gina said. "I wonder what he does now," she mused, looking around at all of them.

"Hey, don't ask me!" Kevin said. "I didn't know that lairds Were...well, anything. I just thought they sat around being.. .lairds!"

"I don't think it works that way anymore, does it?" Toni asked Thayer, smiling.

"Well, these days, anyone who owns enough land collects rents," he said.

"Does he own a lot of land?" Gina asked.

Thayer shrugged, still looking at Toni. "The constable said that Laird MacNiall owned half the village, remember?"

"Hmm," Gina murmured. "So.. .he's simply rich."

"Strange, if he has money you'd think there would be servants swarming around the family home," David murmured.

"And instead, no one," Ryan mused.

"There's Eban Douglas!" Kevin reminded him.

"And he's weird!" Gina said again.

"So we're back where we started," Ryan said, standing. "Gina, we should get those doc.u.ments over to Jonathan's office."

"We were supposed to see Laird MacNiall's deed today, remember?" Thayer murmured. "I guess now we just have to accept that it's legit, huh? After all, he wound up not being with us."

Gina sighed. "Ryan and I will go to the constable's. I'm sure we have to fill out a police report, as well, but I imagine that, for the time, one of us giving the information and signing the report will be all that's required."

"Two of us," Ryan reminded her.

"Two of us. The rest of you can wander. Toni, you said that you wanted to walk around the old kirk and graveyard, right?"

David groaned. "Don't you want me to take the doc.u.ments to the constable's office?"

Toni stood up. "David, go shopping. And Kevin and Thayer...you can sop up some more ambience at the pub, if you like. I'm fine on my own."

"I would like to see if we can't find some.. .cla.s.sier paper products for our tea and scones," David said.

"They're definitely not into paper plates the way we are in the States," Kevin agreed. "But they've lovely shops. Maybe we can find something."

"I don't mind going with you, Toni," Thayer said.

"You sure?" she asked him.

"Not at all," he a.s.sured her.

"Well, then..."

"Hey! Someone remember to pay the bill!" Gina said. "And don't take more than a couple of hours. We'll meet at the pub at the base of the hill at four, okay?"

They all started out in their different directions. Ryan and Gina headed west, in the direction of the village square. David and Kevin went no more than a few feet before being caught by a store window, and Thayer and Toni headed east, slightly up a hill, toward the kirk and the surrounding graveyard.

Thayer seemed distracted. Toni set a hand on his shoulder. "You all right?" she asked him.

He flashed her a smile. "Aye, fine, why?"

She shook her head. "You've just seemed.. .not you, lately."

"Since our bubble was burst?" he asked.

"I guess."

He smiled, and pointed toward the kirk. "I can give you some local history. It was begun in the twelve hundreds, and the current structure and form dates back to the fifteen hundreds. Naturally, it was built as a Catholic church, and is now a part of the Church of Scotland. It has some remarkable stained-gla.s.s windows. It also has some beautifully carved tombs on the interior-- Italian artists were brought in to honor various statesmen, poets, knights and ladies, and so on. In the truly dour days of Cromwell, the reverend was a plucky fellow who managed to hide most of the treasures, so little was destroyed."

She smiled at him, impressed. "Have you seen it, then? I thought you'd never been in this area before we arrived."

"Never been in it in m'life, cousin. I looked it up on the Internet. They've actually got quite a decent Web page."

Toni laughed. "Great."

A small stone fence surrounded the kirk and the graveyard, and there was a white picket gate, which Thayer swung open for Toni.

When they entered the kirk itself, she was awed and amazed. For such a small village, it was really phenomenal. The stained-gla.s.s windows surrounding the length of it were in blues that would have done Tiffany's proud. Picking up a flyer at the rear as they entered, Toni read that the pulpit had been carved from a single huge oak in the 1540s, and she walked to it, marveling at the intricate lion designs that graced it.

"Incredible workmans.h.i.+p, huh?" Thayer whispered to her.

She nodded. "Gorgeous."

"Come see some of the MacNialls buried here," he said.

"I thought..." For a moment she hesitated. "I thought that they were buried in a crypt at the castle," she said.

He shrugged. "I'm sure some are. But come here. Look." Pointing, he showed her a fairly modern tomb that occupied s.p.a.ce against the western wall. "Our MacNiall's grandfather, or a great uncle, certainly. 'Colonel Patrick Brennan MacNiall, RAF, born April 15, 1921, died June 8,1944, on distant sh.o.r.es, serving G.o.d and Country. May he fly with the angels now.'"

"He must have died just after the D-day invasion in World War II," Toni said. "How sad."

"Very. For thousands of men," Thayer commented. "Look, here's an older one. 'Laird Bruce Eamon MacNiall, a great protector of men and honor, born October 4,1724, and gave his life for right and freedom, Flodden Field.'"

"They had a tendency to be on the wrong side of a battle, huh?" Toni murmured.

"History always decides the wrong side of a battle," Thayer murmured.

Toni nodded. "Quite true. And we have a tendency to romanticize many a lost cause."

"Shall we wander around outside? Or did you only want to look for MacNialls?" Thayer asked.

Toni was startled, but when she looked in his eyes they seemed guileless.

"I'd love to wander around outside."

"What's your fascination with cemeteries?" he asked her, and grinned. "I did this with you in Glasgow, too, remember?"

"The art, I think. And the poems and epitaphs."

"Like at the theme parks? 'Dear old Fred, a rock fell on his head, now he's dead, dead, dead,' or something like that?"

"Not that bad!" Toni protested. "The problem is, time erodes stone, lichen sets in and they're often difficult to read." They were outside now. The graveyard was the kind that always fascinated, with beautiful marble funerary art and huge stones rising at awkward angles created by the pa.s.sage of time. "Here's one!" she told Thayer, rubbing the mold from the stone to read it better. "'Justin MacClaren. Once I ran, fast and hard, had a wife, ignored the la.s.s. I gave all strife, ne'er went to ma.s.s, and now, lonely to this grave, I am cast.'"

"Hmm. That's almost as bad as dear old Fred with the rock on his head," Thayer said, making her laugh.

"But that s just it--they really give a little slice of life, as it was," Toni told him and smiled. Two young women had just entered the cemetery, wandering as they were, one a pretty redhead, her friend a brunette.

"h.e.l.lo," Toni said pleasantly. "Good afternoon."

"Ta!" the redhead said cheerily. "You're American then, are you?"

"I am," Toni said. "Thayer is from Glasgow."

"I'm from Aberdeen myself, but I've taken a cottage here for a while," the redhead said. "I'm Lizzie Johnstone. And this is my friend, Trish Martin, up from Yorks.h.i.+re to spend her holiday with me."

"Lovely," Toni murmured.

"Ah, the English are invading again," Thayer teased. He offered a hand to Trish first. She was very pretty, with large dark eyes, long pale hair and a beautiful peaches-and-cream complexion. He was, however, equally polite when he turned to Lizzie, who looked far more Irish with her wild red hair, spattering of freckles and bountiful smile.

"Thayer Fraser here. And the American invader," he added teasingly, "Toni Fraser."

"Ah, a couple are you then?" Lizzie said, obviously a bit disappointed.

"A pleasure to meet you," Toni told them. "And no, we're not a couple. We're cousins."

"Ah!" The young woman looked at Thayer with renewed interest.

Thayer smiled. It was a slightly awkward moment in which body language was too easily read. Lizzie liked Thayer. Thayer liked the blonde.

"So you like poking around old graveyards, too?" Toni said.

"You'd think I'd tire of them, but I never do," Irish said. "Much more interesting than the ancient sites that everyone is all atwitter about these days! They're nothing but rocks in the ground, while these old places..."

"They tell stories," Toni said.