Page 59 of Highland Spirit

“Where are we goin’ to start lookin’?” asked Finn anxiously. “Mayhap the treasure is down by the cove.”

“I’ll help ye look there,” offered Caleb, throwing his crust of bread to Trapper and brushing his hands together. “Let’s leave now before the sun goes down.” He jumped to his feet.

“Wait, I’ll go with ye,” said Gil, pushing up from the table.

“Nay, Faither, ye are too weak to go down to the cove,” remarked Alana.

“Daughter, I’ll take a horse if I have to. But nothin’ is goin’ to stop me from findin’ this treasure, because I am doin’ it for ye and Finn and Kirstine. Even for little Isobel and Kirstine’s unborn bairn. I want to make certain ye are taken care of for the rest of yer lives since I willna be here to do it.”

“Da, dinna say that,” said Kirstine, looking very pale. “We’ve already lost Mathair and we willna lose ye, too.” She put down her goblet and held her stomach. “Please, stay here. I might need ye since I am no’ feelin’ well.”

“All right. I’ll search the castle for the treasure instead,” agreed her father.

Ethan was shocked by the way Alana’s family had chosen to stick together, no matter what happened. He admired that. It also made him feel a little left out since he’d grown up never knowing his father until he was already a man. Ethan was naught but the result of a tryst between two young people experimenting in the act of lovemaking. This had made him feel unwanted through the years. He looked over to his young daughter, feeling sad he’d missed out on so much of her life, but also feeling blessed because he would be here for her as she grew up. He wouldn’t give this up for anything. It meant more to him than any treasure.

“I’ll start searchin’ for what the key opens, startin’ in the tower,” said Ethan. He held out his hand to Alana. “Give me the key.”

Her head snapped up and she slowly swallowed, licking the crumbs off her lips with her tongue, about driving him mad. All he could think about was kissing her right now.

“I’ll go with ye,” she said.

“Me, too,” added Kirstine, trying to get up from the table, and then sitting back down. “Och, I dinna feel too guid.”

“Really?” Alana rushed over to her sister. “Are ye still feeling cramps?” she asked.

“Aye. I think the baby wants to get out.”

“It’s too early,” said Alana. “Ye need to rest so nothin’ happens to this one, Sister.”

“Mayhap ye’re right. I think I’ll go to our chamber and lie down.”

“I’ll take ye and Isobel there,” offered Alana.

“Nay, Mama,” said Isobel. “I dinna want to go to our chamber. That scary man comes out of the wall. He is tryin’ to get Olivia.”

“Ye’re just imaginin’ things, Isobel,” Ethan told her. “There is no scary man and neither is there anythin’ to be afraid of. Now, stay with Kirstine because she might need ye. Yer cousin will be born soon, and ye are goin’ to have to help with the bairn.”

“Me?” Isobel’s eyes opened wide.

“Ye’ll be the big sister in a way,” he chuckled. “Do ye think ye can do it?”

“As long as Olivia can help, too,” she said, kissing her rag doll on the cheek.

“Olivia can help, too,” said Alana, taking Isobel by the hand. “Ethan, I’ll meet ye in the tower. But why do ye want to start there?”

“It’s just a hunch,” he said. “Since that is where the lassie died, I figured somethin’ else might have happened there many years ago.”

“That’s where I saw the ghost,” whispered Alana, trying not to scare Isobel.

Ethan chuckled. “Enough with the ghost stories. Ye arena goin’ to scare me off. Ye are the only ghost around here.” Ethan started across the great hall with Trapper leading the way. As he headed to the tower, thoughts filled his head of the time he was a child and frightened out of his mind by what happened there.

Ten-year-old Ethan climbed out of the small boat with the burning torch gripped tightly in his hand. He eyed up the gloomy Blackbriar Castle that stood enshrouded in a thick fog in the night. His friends waited for him in the boat. As soon as he’d stepped foot on the Isle of Kerrera, he wished he hadn’t been so gullible as to be tricked into coming here because he could already feel it in his bones that this was a big mistake.

“Go on, Ethan,” his friend, Bram, coaxed him from the boat. “Or are ye a wench and too afraid to enter the castle?”

“I’m no’ scared,” retorted Ethan, really shaking in his boots but not wanting them to know. He’d heard the rumors of the crazy old man who lived here. Mad Murdock was a murderer, killing his bride on their wedding night, throwing her from the tower. Since that day so long ago, her bloodcurdling scream could be heard every night as she fell from the tower over and over again. In anger, the ghost of the bride of Murdock was said to walk the battlements in waiting, wanting revenge on the man who killed her.

“Remember, ye need to go all the way up to the tower and wave yer torch out the window so we ken ye are there,” his other friend, Clyde, reminded him.