Mums and Mayhem Page 22

  I told Craig what I saw.

  “You’re not going with me,” Craig said as he quickly pulled on his boots.

  “Yes, I am.” I stood at the door. I already had my wellies on and my coat over my pajamas.

  He walked to the door, and I didn’t move.

  “Fine,” he said. “But I go first.”

  I stepped away from the door. “Deal. Besides, you’re the one with the gun, so you should go first.”

  We went out the front door and walked toward the garden. I had a small flashlight in my hand, but the moonlight was bright, and I knew my way to the garden well enough that I didn’t need it.

  The grass was slippery from the overnight rains, and Craig and I took care to avoid the many smooth boulders poking up out of the earth.

  Just when the top of the garden wall came into view, a man screamed. Craig broke into a run, and I followed suit. I began to slip on the rocks, so I had to slow my pace out of fear of turning my ankle. Craig was far ahead of me now. When I came up to him, he stood over a man writhing in the grass and swearing so colorfully that he could have worked at the shipyard.

  I clicked on my flash and shone the light in his face. Carver Finley.

  He held up his hand to block the light. “Turn that off! Are you trying to blind me?” Beads of sweat gathered on his forehead.

  I lowered the light to his left leg, which was bent at an odd angle. “It looks like his leg is broken.”

  Carver swore again. “Yes, it’s broken.” He winced. “I will have to have it grafted together at this point.”

  “You don’t know it’s that bad,” Craig said. “In any case, we need to get him to the hospital. It would take too long for an ambulance to come all the way out here.” He frowned. “Do you think you could make the ride to Aberdeen?” he asked Carver.

  “I don’t think I have much choice, do I?” Carver snapped.

  “I’ll carry him back to the cottage,” Craig said to me.

  “You can’t carry me,” Carver said through teeth clenched in pain.

  “Of course I can,” the large chief inspector replied. “Now grit your teeth. It’s going to hurt like hell when I pick you up.”

  Carver nodded, and Craig picked him up like he was a baby. Carver screamed. The sound was made that much more horrible by the fog rolling in on the moor. The cry carried for miles, and I wondered if it might have scared Hamish and Duncan awake in Hamish’s bothy.

  I walked behind Craig as he carried Carver like he was a swooning maiden. Craig glanced over his shoulder. “Fiona, run ahead of me, grab my car keys from the cottage, start the SUV, and open the doors to the back seat so I can set him inside.”

  I took off without a word. When I reached the cottage, I flew through the door and found Craig’s key on the small dining table by the window. I did everything as he asked and waited while I saw him struggle up the slippery hillside with Carver in his arms.

  I glanced behind me toward the three pine trees that stood beside the cottage to break the wind that came off the sea half a mile away. The fox sat under the trees, watching me. “Thank you,” I whispered. I knew he had woken me because Carver was sneaking around Duncreigan. I also knew Carver was there because of my garden.

  Craig crested the hill and walked with Carver to the SUV. As carefully as he could, he put the man in the back seat.

  Some of the swear words Carver was saying I had never heard before.

  When Carver was in as best as could be hoped, Craig stepped back. He was covered in sweat from the exertion. “You did well, Fiona.”

  “All I did was get the car ready. You carried Carver over the moor like Superman.”

  He shrugged. “It would have been a lot more difficult if you weren’t here. You make my life easier every day.”

  From the car, Carver yelled, “This would never have happened if you’d just let me study your menhir, but no. It’s your fault that the garden is dead.”

  I gasped. “You cut the rose.”

  “Of course I did,” he snapped. “I needed a closer look at the stone and triskeles carved into its sides. I couldn’t see them with that plant covering them up. I just needed to move that flower. I didn’t know it would shrivel up and die. Maybe if you would have been a little more generous with your garden, you wouldn’t be in this place.”

  “You have no idea what havoc you’ve caused,” I said. “The garden may never come back.”

  “Then I could have plenty of access to the stone, which is all I want. I don’t care a bit about your flowers. Plants die. Stone and history live forever.”

  I glared at him. “I can’t believe you did this.”

  He shrugged. “I had to cut the rose away so I could make a rubbing of the etching in the stone. Perhaps I would have behaved differently if you had given me access to the garden.”

  “You can’t do that without my permission.” I held out my hand. “Where are the rubbings of the stone?”

  He laughed and then winced in pain. “I don’t have them on me, and even if I did, I wouldn’t give them to you. The etchings on that stone in your garden are much more interesting than I first believed. There are triskeles there, which are unusual for this part of Scotland. What I need to know is how they got here and how your stone does what it does.”

  And just what exactly does he think the stone can do?

  I didn’t bother to tell him that the MacCallister family hadn’t been able to answer those questions in the last three hundred years, so I didn’t see much hope that he would find the answer either.

  “You have to ask yourself, Fiona Knox,” Carver said through teeth gritted in pain. “Do you want to know the truth about the garden, or do you just want to spend your time in the garden puttering away? Do you want to understand your legacy, or do you want to be controlled by it?”

  I didn’t think I puttered away my time. The garden didn’t control me, did it? The work I did in the garden was important. Uncle Ian had told me that above all else, the garden at Duncreigan was a real garden and had to be treated as such. All the planting, pruning, trimming, and raking I would have done in a nonmagical garden needed to be done at Duncreigan as well. It was not the burden Carver made it out to be.

  “You’ll be sorry you did this,” I said, but how he would be sorry, I had no idea.

  “What are you going to do?” Carver challenged. “Trespassing? Bah, that’s a misdemeanor. I have no fear of that.”

  “Vandalism,” I snapped.

  He shook his head. “Have me arrested for damaging your garden? The courts would laugh at you.” He narrowed his eyes. “You thought you could keep me away from the garden by telling those MacNish brothers about me.”

  I frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “You told them I was the local historian and could help them learn their family history.”

  “An old man in the pub was the first person who brought you up to them,” I corrected. “And I would have thought you’d like someone showing interest in Aberdeenshire history.”

  “Oh, I am, but they were a little too thirsty for my taste. They would gladly take up all my time. I cannot be distracted from what I really want to know, and that’s about the menhir. I told them what I knew and sent them on their way.”

  I had opened my mouth to ask him another question when Craig put a hand on my shoulder. “Fiona, I have to take him to the hospital. If you want to press charges over the garden, we can discuss that later.”

  I nodded and stepped back.

  Craig closed the back door of the SUV on Carver’s complaints.

  He turned to me and kissed me in the middle of my forehead. “You will bring the garden back. I believe in you.”

  Something caught in my throat, and I couldn’t speak.

  He drove away.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  I went back inside the cottage, and Ivanhoe sat by his food bowl looking more than a little put upon.

  I looked down at him. “All right, you withstood the chief inspector
’s bear hug. The least I can do is feed you.” I filled his bowl with his favorite tuna-flavored pâté.

  He purred, and all was forgiven. I wished it were as easy to appease people as it was my cat.

  It was four in the morning, and my eyes were heavy. After feeding Ivanhoe, I stumbled back into the bedroom and lay down.

  I must have fallen asleep, because early-morning sunlight was coming through the window when I next opened my eyes. I had pushed the curtains away to see the fox and never set them back. I sat up and grabbed my phone. I needed to check on Craig. Had he made it to Aberdeen okay?

  There was a text message from the chief inspector in my inbox. Carver’s leg is broken. Not a bad break. He will be fine. I got checked out too. I’m fine.

  I let out a sigh of relief. I didn’t know what to text back, so I simply liked the text on my phone. He would see that I had read it then.

  I lay back down. It was still early, and I thought about everything that had happened the day before—my conversation with my parents, the fire, and Carver saying that his leg was so terribly broken that he’d have to graft it back into place.

  I shot upright. Ivanhoe, who was on the floor, hissed. The cat really didn’t care for sudden movements of any kind.

  “Ivanhoe, that’s it. Grafting. I can try grafting to save the garden!”

  He stared at me, with his flat ears and round eyes, like I had lost my mind. Maybe I had, but I had to try.

  I threw on some clothes, my winter coat, and wellies before rushing out the cottage door.

  Down the hill, the rocks and grass were still slick with rain and early-morning dew. I took care as I ran toward the garden. I didn’t want to end up like Carver Finley.

  Inside the garden, there was a small garden shed just to the right of the garden door. It was where Hamish kept all of his tools. I knew he would have grafting tape there. I grabbed the tape from the shelf and a small gardening knife.

  All around me the garden was still dead, but I couldn’t contain the excitement building inside me. This would work. This had to work. If it didn’t, I had no idea what option I had left to bring the garden back.

  I hurried around the dead hedgerow to the menhir.

  It wasn’t very big, as standing stones went. When one thought of a monolith, visions of Stonehenge came to mind, but there were hundreds of standing stones or menhirs across the United Kingdom and Ireland. They had been placed there by long-dead and unknown cultures to honor the dead or track the sun. At least, that was the belief. Their study was ruled by theories, not facts, and some men, like Carver Finley, spent their entire lives studying them, hoping to unlock their secrets.

  Thankfully, the yellow rose blossom was still there in its bowl of water. It was as yellow and vibrant as it had been when it grew on the vine.

  There were boot prints around the stone. I removed my phone from my pocket and held the photo I had taken of the first boot print next to these. They were a match. Carver had been there. More than once, I realized as I knelt beside the menhir. More proof of that were the black marks on the stone itself and a piece of black graphite I found at the base of the stone. I picked it up. This was what Carver must have used to make his rubbings of the carvings in the stone.

  The black graphite stained my hand, and it seemed to disintegrate in my wet palm. I was careful not to move my palm and destroy the piece. I knew it was important, proof I could use against Carver if I decided to press charges. I didn’t know if I would. Maybe the broken leg was enough punishment.

  Black graphite dripped from some of the engravings on the stone. I looked closer. Someone, Carver I assumed, had written on the stone. I looked at the piece of graphite again in my open palm. My palm was quickly turning black. I tucked the flashlight under my arm and held my hand over the graphite to protect it from the falling rain, not that I thought it would make much of a difference at this point, so much of it had melted away.

  Using my phone again, I took a photo of the piece in my hand before it was gone.

  I swallowed hard, and when I looked up again, the fox was there. He stood at the end of the hedgerow with his head cocked. Water dripped from his fur and from his pointy ears. He looked cold, wet, and miserable. I wanted to comfort him, but I stopped myself. I knew he was still very much a fox and might bite me, even if he was a form or part of my godfather too.

  “I don’t know if this will work,” I said to the fox. “Will it work?”

  As always, he said nothing.

  I placed the water bowl with the blossom next to me and picked up the delicate vine that had fallen from the stone. I cut a slice of the stem away. It was only a quarter of the stem. Inside, I was happy to see the stem was green and damp. There was still life there. I did the same with the tiny piece of stem attached to the rose blossom. I pressed the two pieces together with the cut portions touching and wrapped them with the green grafting tape. When I was done, I wound what I could of the withered vine around the stone. I took another tiny piece of grafting tape and taped it into place.

  It was only then that I noticed that the rose’s tiny thorns were digging themselves into the stone like tiny anchors. As they did, the vine began to slowly turn green. The magic was from the stone, of course; the way the rose seemed to drink the magic in through its thorns had taught me that. Through the rose, the magic could spread to the rest of the garden and the line of owners of the garden, the Keeper, me.

  As I touched the stone, I was pulled into a vision.

  I was inside the tour bus. Everything was in its place. I felt irritable. When I turned around, I saw my father standing there. “You’ve done well for yourself, Barley. I didn’t expect you to be here in the village when I came to visit my daughters. I wanted to apologize for what happened all those year ago. I know things did not end the way we all had hoped they would.”

  Was I Barley? I shook the thought away as I realized I was standing right next to Barley, but it seemed my father and Barley couldn’t see me. Suddenly, I felt angry. I glanced at Barley, and his face was red with anger. I wasn’t Barley, but somehow in this vision, I felt everything he was feeling.

  “We both know one of your daughters is not yours.” Barley’s voice was sharp.

  Dad took a step back. “That was a long time ago.”

  “Does Fiona know? Because I’m thinking she doesn’t.” Barley crossed his arms. “I was quite surprised when I met her and she said she was your daughter and called Ian her godfather. It was clear to me that you have been keeping the truth from the girl all these years.”

  I gasped, but neither man heard me. When I’d met Barley, he’d known exactly who I was and who my father was too.

  My father frowned. “Don’t worry about my Fiona.”

  “Oh, she’s your Fiona, is she? Not Ian’s? You and Ian made a pact on that, as I recall.”

  Dad shook his head. “I didn’t come here to argue with you. I just wanted to apologize for what happened. I know there were a lot of hurt feelings, and I’m sorry for that. But time has passed; let’s move on. We both ended up in the places we wanted to be in the end. I’m with my wife and family, and you have your music.”

  Barley sighed. I felt the anger flow out of me like hot air from a balloon.

  “Yes,” Barley said. “We have both ended up with the life we wanted. I accept your apology, and I should have handled everything differently. I know you all were in a difficult spot. I was only thinking for myself.” He paused. “I still think our band could have done great things.”

  “Maybe,” Dad agreed. “But things happened as they were intended to.”

  The two men shook hands. Relief washed through me, and a sense of peace. It was as if I had been holding on to something for a very long time and had just let it go.

  Dad left, and the door opened again. I turned around, but I couldn’t see a face.

  “If this is about the manor again, I don’t want to hear it.”

  “You’re going to have to,” a voice said back.

&n
bsp; There was a sharp pain around my throat, and everything went black.

  I fell back from the stone and had both hands at my throat. I panted, and the fox watched me. A bead of sweat ran down my cheek. I had just seen Barley’s murder in a vision, but the most important part had been missing: the killer’s face.

  I took another big breath and stared at the stone. I blinked and crawled over to it for a better look. There was one tiny green leaf on the vine. It was no bigger than my pinkie nail. It was green, vibrant, and alive. It was the little bit of hope I needed.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  The vision told me that the manor house was part of the mystery of Barley McFee’s death. How that was true, I didn’t know. As far as I knew, Barley had known nothing about the manor, but maybe I was wrong. I hadn’t known about the manor, but I hadn’t grown up in Bellewick like Barley had. Maybe he did know something about it and had a connection to it that I had yet to discover.

  The only person I thought might know was Kenda Bay, but would she tell me anything? She still wasn’t all that thrilled with me after she thought I lied to her about who my father was. I had a feeling she wouldn’t be too excited to see me this morning, but it couldn’t be helped. I needed answers. She was my last hope in reaching a conclusion when it came to Barley McFee’s death.

  After leaving Duncreigan, I went straight to Thistle House. After parking my car in the village lot, I walked over the troll bridge. I smelled cigarette smoke wafting from the back of the guesthouse, so instead of knocking on the front door, I walked around the side of Thistle House to the back garden. Kenda was outside, smoking on the stone garden wall. “You again? Don’t you have anything better to do than stalk me?”

  “I just have a few questions more about Barley.” I stepped through the garden gate.

  She blew smoke out the side of her mouth and flipped a braid over her shoulder. “I doubt that’s true. One question will lead to two and two to three, and so on. I know what people like you are like.”

  She was probably right about that, but I forged ahead anyway. “Kenda, did Barley ever talk about a manor near Bellewick?”