I love Scotland. I love everything about the country, its geography, its people, and its history. Its a fantastic place if you’ve never been, and if you have, you know what I’m talking about.
My wife and I took a delayed honeymoon there in 2008, and it was worth the wait. I have been privileged to travel a lot with my family when growing up and I can honestly say that trip to Scotland was (and still is) the single best trip of my entire life.
So when I was casting about trying to decide where to locate the next book in the Wildfire Saga, Scotland was at the top of the short list (after all, Firestorm had already taken place on Skye, another of my favorite places).
When we toured Edinburgh, we took one of the ubiquitous ghost tours into the vaults—it was a great time and not only entertaining but educational. I kept those memories with me and when it was time to write The Regent, I knew exactly where Cooper, Danika, and Denny were going to find themselves.
And by the way, the tapping “ghost” that Denny feels is exactly what happened to me in the vaults on that ghost tour in June of 2008. We were standing as a group (I was toward the back because I was one of the bigger guys in the group and didn’t want to block anyone) and my wife was next to me, but on my other side was open air…one of those “side tunnels.” As the tour guide was speaking, I was snapping pictures with my camera (in the other direction, like some of the other tourists were doing) to get pictures of what a couldn’t see in the near pitch-black darkness. [spoiler alert: I got a lot of shots of brick and stone and dirt]
I paused between pictures and listened to the guide talk about the history of that particular vault (I kick myself now for not remembering what he was saying) when I felt two distinct taps on my shoulder (the one opposite my wife and the rest of the tour group). On instinct, I assumed it was my wife, who had moved to my other side and wanted to whisper something to me.
Then I felt her hand brush mine on the other side. I snapped a picture in the direction of where I’d been tapped and in the flash I clearly saw nothing but a half-wall and a shelf someone had stored supplies on in a previous century—there wasn’t even enough space for someone to stand there next to me.
Here’s the picture I took after being tapped on the shoulder…just an empty shelf!
In fact, no one was within three feet of me in any direction except my wife, who, as tall as she is, couldn’t have reached around my back and tapped my shoulder from where she stood. Not without moving—and on the crushed gravel/dirt floor, that would have been noisy. As a group, we sounded like a herd of wildebeests tromping through those tunnels.
The hairs on the back of my neck stood up and for the rest of the tour, I was on edge and looking over my shoulder into that black void. Afterward, I sidled up the guide at the pub we visited for a complimentary pint, and told him my story. Now this guy was a showman and he played up the ghost bit while we were down there—I have no doubt if it were part of some gimmick the guide company pulled, he would have made a big deal of it to impress the tourists. Instead he merely nodded and told me some of the experiences he’s had while on the job. It wasn’t a “och, weel, ye got yer money’s worth, laddie” moment, but rather like a “welcoom to th’ club” sort of conversation.
A few days later, I had a second paranormal encounter on that trip (on Skye) which convinced me even more what happened in the vaults was real (but that’s a different story, perhaps for a different book). That experience was so real, now it’s in The Regent and Denny got to experience a little of what I felt.
Marcus Richardson
24 February, 2018