CHAPTER 13

 

Gussie arrived at Melrose to find Willie, Brose, Anna Mae, and Julianne standing in a line like guilty schoolchildren while a greenish glowing figure sitting on a long stone casket glowered at them all.

The banjo for once was silent.

"W—Wat—that green guy. Is that—?"

"Hush," Sir Walter's ghost said to her and to his foliage-fleshed forebear. "Greetings, kinsman."

A breeze seemed to flutter through the leafy apparition as it looked straight across at him and said, "And to you, bairn. I see ye found a steed to bear ye to me."

"Who's he callin' a steed?" Gussie demanded. "I may look like the old gray mare to you, buddy, but it isn't very damn polite to say so."

"The grave is nae a courteous place, kinswoman. Yer forgiveness—" The Wizard's voice was rough and rusty, the wind soughing through him.

"She's nae kin, Michael, but a visitor—"

"She's kin. She bears part of ye in her mak'up, bairn, or ye'd no be able to blend to her sae weel."

"Aye?"

"Yer dead, Walter Scott, and hae been dead lo these mony years, though fewer years than I. Long has yer body rotted in yer grave and long has yer spark been wi' yer Makker. But the wee bits of ye that were yersel'—yer cares and woes, the things that ye looked after—those things hae gone tae other wights. There's a Scott laddie who cares for yer family name as once ye did, there's a policeman in Aberdeen who is evenhanded wi' the law as once ye ware, there's this one and that one who carry on this or that bit of ye. This woman, whose great-grand-sire's wife was Laidlaw and a relation, bears yer ane love of story and ballad and yer ane lack o' voice to sing."

"I think the man's sayin' Gussie's your soul sister, Brother Walter," Brose said. "Ain't that nice? But the point is, Mike, this banjo here told us we have to learn us some songs and that right here is the root of 'em and we still can't find any. Back home, this banjo was lotsa help because it could give us tunes, but hell, every song you folks got over here has the same tune as six other songs."

"And as Faron said, every one of them can be sung to the tune of Gilligan's Island," Gussie added and then decided maybe she should have kept her mouth shut since the Wizard probably wasn't a big TV fan.

The banjo played a tune that could have been "Lady Margaret," "Little Musgrave," or the American version of "Omie Wise."

The Wizard said, "Aye, aye, ah'm weel aware of the limitations of yer implement. Tha's why it's fetched ye tae the bairn Wat and him tae me. T' Wizard Sam Hawthorne tawd me o' yer woes and o' the great conspiracy tae undo the bindings we set on t' world in sang shortly after he died and ah do understand the argency o' yer difficulty. Tha's why I fetched Wattie doon. It's his province amang ma folk, tae guard the char-ums. Tha's why he 'gan collectin' them when a' was bein' lost before."

"The collection is gone—they're all gone," Sir Walter's ghost said. "With the burning of Abbotsford the last copy of Minstrelsy, the last of Percy's Reliques, are gone. You feel it, don't you, Michael Scott? The loss of it—and my home, my books, my life's work destroyed."

"For a dead man yer aye too attached tae things of this world, Wat," the Wizard told him. "And 'tis true the collections are gone but 'tis true as well that when these people returned to their ane country, nane o' them but yer lass there"—he indicated Gussie with a pointing finger—"nane o' them would remember a thing. Too late noo for printed collections. The only way for them to learn the char-um songs is to live the char-um songs."

"Just what's that supposed to mean?" Willie asked. "How can you live a song?"

"Not easily," the Wizard said. "For those songs were nae written of easy times but of perilous times and woeful. Ye ken that peaceful, happy times may be easy on a body but they mak' bluidy puir sangs."

"Like the Chinese curse," Anna Mae said. "May you live in interesting times. But there's no way we can do that, is there? Live in those interesting times, I mean."

"If there warn't, d'ye think I'd hae risen frae ma rest and spend frae midnight tae cockcrow in counsel wi' ye?"

"Why until cockcrow, kinsman, when I may roam the day as well as night?" Sir Walter asked.

"Photosynthesis," the revenant Wizard said, raising a leafy arm. "Ah'd sore need prunin' were ah tae stay abovegroond the day. Not tae mention alar-umin' the tourists somethin' fierce."

"I did wonder at your shape, kinsman, for according to the ballads are we spirits not supposed to return in our earthly guise?"

"Under normal circumstances, aye," the Wizard said. "But this be a special case and ye've been deid lo these two centuries and ah lo these seven and there be no remnant of us either one large enough tae mak a rev'nant. Fartunately for me, mah enemies rejoiced and sang o'er mah grave and made these briers and rose leaves grow therein and from these I ha' shaped a boddie. For you, more than for the common man, the things o' the spirit was the sum of ye, and so yer disembodied spirit was able tae return as in the past they nivvair war. And when ye had need o' a boddie, why, the crisis itself sent ye the lass in which ye bide."

"Ain't it kind of a large coincidence that out of all the people in the world, one of us should turn out to be related to him—even distantly?" Brose asked.

"We Scotts got aroond. Ye'd be surprised tae find how many distant relations we have throughout t'warld. And as for the speck of Wat the lassie bears, why, bairn, I dinna think ye've the time nor the backgroond tae understand mah theery o' t'fission o'souls."

 

* * *

 

"I bet you're right about that," Anna Mae said. "But you were going to tell us—is there a way to reclaim the songs without the written collections?"

"Aye, there's a way, but it's a hard one and full of danger. To win the sangs, the four of ye maun live the tales behind them and live yet tae sing o' those same tales."

"Will ye mak' us a spell then, kinsman?" Walter Scott asked.

"If they agree, aye. They've no been given much choice in this matter and they stand tae forfeit this life and the next for tales long past and gone. For 'tis in earlier lives that the char-ums lie and the sang that maun bear the char-um."

"There you are!" trilled a familiar voice from behind.

"Wha's she doing here?" the Wizard asked, which was a relief to Gussie who was beginning to think he knew everything.

"This here is Miss Torchy Burns," Brose said. "She's been helping us out."

"Ach, aye?" the Wizard asked.

Gussie was disgusted to find her mind crowded with reverence and awe for the woman she thought seriously needed therapy, or at least a little growing up.

"And why, madame, have ye coom?" the Wizard demanded of her. "My business is theirs and none of yer ane."

"Now, how can you say that, Mick?" Torchy asked. "When the very stuff that covers you is my business?" She flipped her long and lovely fingers at his leafy coating, which didn't make much sense to Gussie, but then Torchy said, "And so are these coverings. You poor dears are freezing to death. The grounds keeper here is an old beau of mine and I 'appen to still have a key. I'm sure he won't mind loanin' you these and I took the liberty of making us all a thermos of tea."

"Mighty nice of you, darlin'," Willie said, clutching a plaid blanket around his head and shoulders like an Indian brave in a John Wayne movie. Julianne had two—Anna Mae wrapped the one Torchy gave her around Julianne as well. Brose tried to give Torchy a hug but she put him on hold with a flattened palm and began pouring tea into the cups she'd apparently also brought from the caretaker's cottage.

"Irrigation, Mick?" she offered. "Wouldn't want you to wither before you made us privy to this great scheme of yours."

The Wizard seemed to quail before her, which puzzled Gussie, who thought he must surely be the most magical thing in all of Scotland at that point. But Sir Walter's ghost didn't seem surprised. She wished there wasn't so much going on so she could ask him. From his mind she caught nothing but admiration and adoration for the blasted woman and she supposed she shouldn't find it strange that even dead men can make fools of themselves over a certain kind of female. But the caution in the Wizard's response was not admiration, nor was it reverence, though it was certainly respectful.

"It's nae sae mickle a scheme, lady," the Wizard said. "We've the implement amang us and a'. The danger is the being caught in the far realm and—weel, it's what ye maun call a reverse of my theery of fission of souls . . ."

"Can you explain it without the mumbo jumbo?" Brose asked.

The Wizard took out his nervousness on Brose. "Ye black and heathen hoond, do ye doot me?"

"Man, it's not that I doubt you, I just plain have trouble understandin' you," Brose replied. "I don't talk Scottish or tree either. How do I know this ain't some special effect or somethin'? You don't look nothin' like the ghosts I saw along the Oregon Trail. I think I like American ghosts better, pardon my ethno-cent-ricness."

The Wizard rolled his leafy eyes and looked around, as if searching for something. His gaze settled on Juli and he mumbled a few words and waited impatiently, tapping his book with a twiggy fingertip.

"Furthermore," Brose was saying, "It's too cold to stand around here while you jive us."

Julianne gasped and her hands sprang to her ears, feeling them, then cupping them, cleaning them with her fingers, and letting her fingertips linger for a wondering moment on her lobes. "Believe him, Brose," she said in a voice hoarse with emotion. "He's real."

Brose asked, "Yeah, so who is he really? The Jolly Green Giant?" before he realized that Juli had responded to his spoken remarks.

"He did it!" Juli said, pointing at the Wizard, then asked, "You did, didn't you? You did give me back my hearing?"

The Wizard shrugged and rustled as the leaves of his face arranged themselves in a modest guise. "Aye."

"Brose, I can hear. He restored my hearing. Is it permanent? Can I keep it?"

"It depends," the Wizard said.

"For Christ's sake don't toy with her," Anna Mae told him harshly. "The woman's a musician. Will she be able to hear or not?"

"In this life, aye, but to keep the music, she may have to give up many things and who knows but that her hearing may be amang them."

"And I expect the rest of us are gonna have to give up some stuff too, is that right? My daddy always told me you didn't get somethin' for nothin'," Willie grumbled and then said to Torchy, who handed him a silvery metal cup with something hot and smoky-smelling in it, "Thanks, darlin'. Don't suppose you have that flask with you with a drop of somethin' stronger do you?"

"Oh, I think you'll find it strong enough, luv. Try it."

The Wizard's eyes darted to her and he didn't object or interrupt while the rather rude exchange between Willie and Torchy took place, or while Willie gave her a little sideways, negligent hug, which produced a smug look on Torchy's face. At any other time, Juli might have thought of Torchy's expression as bitchy, because Torchy looked right at her, as if expecting Juli to mind what Willie did. Right now, Juli was so glad to have her hearing back that she beamed a beneficent smile at both Torchy and Willie. Willie gave her a thumbs-up. Torchy changed tack, and said sweetly, nodding to the silvery cup full of warm liquid she had given Julianne, "Well, I think your recovery calls for a bit of a drink, don't you, Juli dear? Don't be shy-y. Drink up, luvvie. The rest of you too. Do."

The Wizard glanced at her as if for permission to begin. She nodded graciously and again her expression was sly.

"Ahem, my theery of the fission of souls is as follows;" Michael Scott began, laying his book on the knees of his leafy gown and thumbing through the heavy pages, periodically murmuring to himself while Torchy Burns looked on in amusement and all the others shifted from one foot to the other. Gradually the fog began to lift and the darkness to lighten, just a tad, and still the Wizard leafed through his book, murmuring to himself.