Chapter Six

Lark washed her hands at the stone-encircled well set in the bailey, her gaze following a flitting bird. It looked as if the brown sparrow might settle on the dead willow tree, but then it swooped higher, avoiding the snapping reach of its leafless limbs.

Drying her hands in a tattered apron she had found, Lark walked around the tree, staying outside the dancing curtain. Her shoulders raised high as hairs on her nape rose. Although most of the trees outside the castle walls had green buds or leaves, the willow had none. Black knots sat where buds should have been sprouting.

She peered closely at a black-handled dagger that was stabbed into the trunk. The metal protruding from the slice was gritty with rust. She’d have sworn the tree was dead except sap still ran down from the wound, making it look very much like the tree was bleeding. A shiver gripped her shoulders as she stared.

“I would not touch it,” came a voice, making Lark leap back, her hand slapped over her galloping heart.

She twisted around to see the youngest brother, Eagan, standing with his arms crossed. “Holy Mother Mary, you gave me a fright.”

“Apologies,” he said, brushing his hair from his eyes. “Just…” He tipped his head toward the tree. “The blade is still sharp.”

“Why is it stuck there?”

His lips pinched tight as if he were afraid an answer would jump out. He met her stare for a long moment, waiting for her to look away, but she didn’t. Lark had inherited her mother’s penetrating gaze along with her red-hued hair and did not back down easily.

“A witch put it there a century ago,” he said. “It killed the tree.”

Another witch? She turned back to the tree. “Why?”

“We think the blade was bewitched with poison.”

“I mean, why would a witch stab your tree?”

“It is said that the willow was big and green and beautiful.” He shrugged. “To her it represented our clan, so she killed it.”

Lark looked between the tree and Adam’s brother. “A witch walked in here and killed your tree.”

“Aye.”

“Well, there has to be a reason she did that. Is that why everyone moved away?”

More birds flew overhead, avoiding the dead tendrils. Eagan turned away from her. “Ye have a lot of questions.”

“Questions are good,” she said, following him across the bailey. “I think we should all be asking more questions. Such as, should we bring women to our isle before the roof of the castle is whole?” Brows raised high, she pointed back at the tree. “Or why don’t we cut down the dead tree with a bleeding knife wound in the middle of the bailey?”

“We cannot cut it down,” he said, without looking at her.

“Why?” she asked. “Does it scream?”

“I…I do not know,” he said, picking up a bucket. “Ye need to ask Adam.”

At the moment, she didn’t want to talk to Adam. She might say something foolish like “I am leaving” or “Kiss me again.” Both demands had been jumping around in her thoughts all morning.

“Where is he?” she asked.

“Finishing up the roof in the last room.”

Good. Lark traipsed to a door set into the wall. It was only big enough for a man to go through. A heavy wooden bar sat across it, but she put her weight into heaving it across to drop on the ground and yanked the door open.

“Where are ye going?” Eagan called.

“You cannot answer my questions, so I cannot answer yours.” Yes, she was being spiteful, but her irritation at the lack of explanations was making her into a shrew.

“Rabbie and Callum hid the rowboat,” Eagan yelled down. “And the barge is too heavy for a lass to push.”

More anger licked up inside Lark as she traipsed down the path. “’Tis a good thing I know how to swim.”

So Adam did not expect her to keep her wedding vows. Blasted man. He thought she would run away without a word.

Clutching her skirt high as she marched toward the village behind the castle, she calmed herself enough to appreciate the way the recently found boots gripped the pebbles and damp boulders. Thank you, Lady Macquarie.

Lark glanced over her shoulder several times to see if anyone followed. So far, the path through the grass was deserted. Gylin Castle rose high, perching on the edge of the sea. Even with years of neglect, it was impressive, a formidable defense against…who? There was no one here. She huffed and continued, swinging her arms to help propel her up the rise. Stopping at the top, Lark surveyed the sprawling village below.

Air left her lungs slowly as her gaze scanned the remains of nearly forty dwellings nestled in the shallow valley along a winding pebble road. Thatching remained on a few, but most were missing their roofs, except for a handful she could see that had stone covers.

“There must be things to salvage,” she said to herself, clutching her shawl around her shoulders. At least she could pick out the chapel, its simple cross still in place on the apex over the open door. Perhaps she could find a cottage for Anna’s bakery. Maybe she and her sisters could come right away and live in the village. Would Roylin let them go? Pressure in her chest made it hard to swallow. I miss you, Anna.

The first rows of time-worn cottages loomed up on either side of the path, hiding the rest of the town from view as she walked cautiously. The wind blew between them, scattering last winter’s decay in small gusts. The loneliness of the empty village made her miss her sisters even more. She stopped, blinking back tears. I will write Anna a letter today.

A whistle made Lark jerk around. “The wind,” she whispered, her voice sounding odd in the hauntingly vacant place. She straightened her spine and peeked inside a roofed cottage at the wooden floors, some of them yanked up along the back wall. The dark hearth looked sound enough. Leaves lay scattered inside, and one of the windowpanes was broken. Was it a happy home at one time? Laughter and smiles, the aroma of fresh tarts baking and a da bouncing a wee one on his knee before the fire? She stared wistfully, bringing forth the old fantasy she used to create in her head.

She closed the heavy door of the cottage to walk on. Three more dwellings flanked her, their empty windows like eye holes in skulls. Something banged with a gust of wind, making her jump. “A broken shutter,” she whispered. But then her breath caught, a gasp perched on her tongue, at the sound of…giggling.

Lark’s gaze shifted, her wide eyes scanning the broken cottages. “Who is there?” she called, but her voice in the wind-washed silence just added to the tickle of unease teasing her nape. It had sounded like a child’s laugh. But what child would live out here amongst cottage bones? Could it be Grissell, the witch? “Come out,” she called. The shutter banged again several paths over, making her jump.

She spun toward Gylin, but halted on the balls of her feet, as a white cat ducked into the old church. Had a family of felines remained after Adam’s father had moved them back to Mull years ago? If so, the cottages would likely be filled with cats.

“Kitty?” she called, her voice sounding intrusive amongst the broken and abandoned.

Meow. The soft cry coming from the old church called her forward. “Kitty, kitty,” she said, her voice softer as if she did not wish to disturb any restless spirits. Giggling restless spirits.

The roof of the church was still intact, the windows blocked, making it pitch black inside. Lark held onto the open doorframe and leaned in, blinking for her eyes to adjust. “Where are you?”

Meow.

Hands before her, Lark took one step at a time inside. The room was even colder than outside, the night air trapped within, and she shivered, gooseflesh popping up under her sleeves.

Meow. Lark turned to the right, her arm swinging out as she caught sight of the cat’s white coat dashing between two rows of pews. Her hand caught something hanging in the room. Rough, it scraped along her knuckle, and she jerked back, eyes opening wide, terror lodged in her throat.

There before her, swaying ever so slightly, dangled the wrapped figure of a person.

…

Adam jogged down the three steps leading from the keep. Unfortunately, his brothers followed.

“Ye do not think she would actually try to swim, do ye?” Callum asked beside him.

Eagan shook his head, running forward so Adam could see him. “She turned toward the village, not the water, after I told her the boat was gone and she couldn’t push the barge on her own.”

Bloody hell. “Ye had to tell her that,” Adam said, frowning at his youngest brother. How would Lark come to trust him if she thought of him as her jailor?

“Fool,” Beck said to Eagan. “Now she really feels like a prisoner.”

“I am not the one who wanted to move the boat,” Eagan said.

“We can move the boat,” Beck shot back, “but ye do not tell Lark about it. She would have seen that it was not moored and come back to the castle.”

“She was asking about the willow tree and the blade sticking in it,” Eagan said.

“What did ye tell her?” Adam asked, stopping to turn toward the ugly monument to his clan’s failing. The long, dead branches blew in the sea breeze that dashed over the walls.

“Nothing,” Eagan said. “And that made her mighty mad.” He ran his fingers through his hair. “I told her she would have to ask ye about it. When she asked me where ye were, I thought she would go back in to find ye, but she marched in the opposite direction.”

“Mo chreach,” Adam swore and strode to the short doorway in the wall. He stopped in his tracks as a piercing scream tore through the wind, like an arrow shot straight into his gut. It was distant. It held terror. It was Lark!

“Foking hell,” Adam yelled, taking off in a sprint toward Ormaig. His heart thudded in his ears as warrior fire shot through his veins. His boots ate up the distance along the path that would lead to the shallow valley behind the castle.

“’Tis the curse!” Drostan yelled.

Where was she? “Spread out,” Adam ordered. “Yell when ye find her.”

Adam ran to the first roofless cottage. His hands caught on the doorframe as he leaned in. A sweep of his gaze showed it to be empty. Another scream rent the air, and he threw himself back. “Lark!” She was close, but where?

Up ahead a white cat trotted out of the old chapel. The creature stared at him, its tail high and flicking. Without any logical reasoning, he ran toward it, barely noting its hiss as he stormed into the dark room.

The chapel’s glass windows were covered with several layers of old cloth. “Lark?” he yelled, his voice filling the hallow vault.

“I am here.” Her voice caught his breath, and his face turned blindly toward the sound. Meow. The white cat slid inside along the one wall where an altar still stood. “Watch out for the…it is hanging…I fell. Down here.”

Adam turned in a circle, his gaze catching on an object swaying from a rope. He rushed toward it, sheathing his sword to catch the figure there. “Lark!” But the heavy, wrapped shape was cold. He backed away as it swung. “Bloody hell!” It was a body.

Callum ran up to the door. “Is she in here?” But before Adam could answer, his brother saw the swinging body. “God’s balls!” he yelled, running in.

“Lark? Where are ye?” Adam asked, turning his back on the macabre shadow. It wasn’t Lark. Lark was warm with life. Lark smelled of flowers and fresh spring wind, not decay.

“In a hole in the floor.”

“Keep talking, so I can find ye.”

“I…I followed the cat inside and saw…whoever that is hanging. I ran to grab the cat and fell. I am on…” Her voice wavered as if she was trembling. “Adam, I think I am sitting on bones.”

“Damnit! Light a torch,” Adam called to Callum as Beck showed up in the doorway. “Light a bloody torch.” Adam’s voice boomed in the echoing room. He dropped to his knees as his brothers fumbled with their flint and bit of wool.

Adam scanned the darkness and felt his way forward. The white cat trotted before him, and he followed the bright color where it stopped, hunched as if on the lip of a hole. “Keep talking.”

“I…I am sure they are bones,” she said.

“Here,” Beck called, running back in with a lit torch, dissolving the thick shadows in an instant.

Before Adam was a series of broken wooden slats that had been the chapel floor. Right over his great-great-grandfather’s remains. Och but Lark was sitting on the broken bones of Chief Wilyam Macquarie.

Lark focused on the light that poured down the hole. She didn’t want to look beneath her. When she’d first fallen in, she’d realized she’d broken through a wooden box, but it wasn’t until she’d felt the splintered bones that she’d understood it was a coffin.

Heart pounding, she clutched her hands to her chest and focused on Adam’s face far above. She’d never been so happy to see another human being in all her life.

“I will get ye out,” Adam said. “Do not move.”

“Move?” she said. “Where would I move?”

Beck’s face appeared next to Adam’s. “She broke through a coffin.” Behind him another brother cursed.

“Are ye hurt?” Adam asked.

“Your mother saved me,” she said, watching Beck’s frown grow to match Adam’s, as if they wondered if she’d lost her mind. “Her boots…well, I am assuming the boots I found were hers. I hit feet first, and the boots took the brunt of the fall.” I will be sore. And she would be taking another bath after sitting on someone’s century old bones. Although fresh bones would have been more gruesome.

“Please get me out of here,” she called.

Adam leaped upright. Behind him, something heavy hit the floor. Lark swallowed hard as Adam looked over his shoulder.

“Who is it?” she called, but the sound of something being dragged outside likely explained why no one answered.

“Use the rope,” another brother said, making her shiver. They were going to give her the rope that had wrapped around another’s neck. If curses were real, surely it would reside in a rope that hung a person.

“Is there no other rope?” she asked, as it dropped down, nearly hitting the top of her head. No one answered.

She rocked back to get her boots under her, without using her hands, and braced her feet to stand. Her boot heel slipped as one of the bones shifted under it, and she yelped, her hands grasping frantically at the dangling rope. She caught it, clutching it to stop herself from falling back onto the splintered remains.

“Put your foot in the loop,” Adam said. Rucking up her skirt, she did. The rope tightened around her foot like it had around the neck of the poor soul above. Keeping her leg straight and holding on with her hands, Adam and Beck lifted her out of the tomb. As her head cleared the floorboards, she realized the rope was long enough to loop over the rafter above the hole, so they were able to pull her straight up. Level with the broken floor, Beck braced himself, and Adam reached out toward her.

“Swing to me,” he said.

She caught his gaze. “Do not let me fall back in there.”

“I promise I will catch ye.”

Did she trust him? It wasn’t trust when one had no other choice. She nodded and took a deep breath.

“Lift your feet back and forth in the air,” Beck said where he clutched the rope with two hands.

Lark lifted her legs under the skirt and then pushed them back. “One…two…three.” Lark swung forward, and Adam’s strong hands grabbed her waist. He pulled her against him, holding her there, and she released the rope.

Lark dropped her face to his shoulder, taking deep breaths to calm her heart. The faint smell of rosemary soap and leather came from his neck along with warmth, making her realize how cold she was. She didn’t even know where her shawl had fallen. If it were down in the crypt, the skeleton could keep it.

Adam carried her outside, and she squinted against the bright daylight breaking through the clouds. “Are ye hurt?” He sat her down on the cap of an old well.

Lark blinked, focusing to stare directly into his stormy gray ones. They were growing familiar to her, and when he looked so intensely at her, a nervous energy rose into her belly. “I am well,” she said.

“Ye should not have come here alone.”

His words made sense, but the reprimand in his tone blew against the tendril of anger that still smoldered inside her. Lark shoved both of her palms hard against Adam’s chest where he crouched before her. “And you should have told me that someone could be hanging in the village.”

She hit him again. The force probably stung her palms more than it hurt the muscular wall of his chest, which only made her angrier, and she hit him again in rapid succession. “That there were graves to fall into…” She grabbed his shoulders as if to shake them but realized that she wasn’t able to move the mountain that was Adam Macquarie.

“Bloody hell,” she yelled, letting fury override her trembling. “Is there anything else you need to inform me about? Anything at all?”

“Adam, come see this,” Drostan called from where he knelt over the body.

She poked Adam’s chest with her finger. “Omission is lying. You are going to answer all my questions and even ones I do not ask.”

He gave a small nod and rose to walk over to the body wrapped tightly in a woolen blanket. How could someone hang themselves while all wrapped up like that? Or had a second person done it? The body was small. Could it be a murdered woman or, worse, a child?

Adam and his brothers crouched around the prone figure, pulling the blanket away. Beck stood, looking down. As the brothers sat back on their heels, Beck looked her way, his face still grim. “It is a poppet.”

“What?” she said, hurrying over even with the soreness in her knees. She stared down at the painted face of a doll. The blanket lay open, exposing sticks and clumps of peat tied together in the shape of arms and legs. Stones sat inside the blanket, giving it the weight of a human body. Grasses were braided, to look like hair, and tied to tanned leather that was painted to look like a face. Even though it was not a person, the figure was gruesome, and goose flesh rose again on Lark’s arms.

“Why would someone do this?” Callum asked, staring down at the doll.

“A better question is…” Lark lifted her gaze to Adam. “Who would do this?”