Allegra Fairweather_ Paranormal Investigator - Janni Nell [45]
“I guess you get lonely,” I said sympathetically.
“Sometimes. Other times I make a new friend.” Her eyes sparkled again. I couldn’t guess who she meant, but I didn’t have to because she couldn’t wait to tell me. “He’s a lovely laddie.”
“Who?” I asked, thinking of Dr. Williamson, a widowed octogenarian who lived in the village.
She surprised me by saying, “Your friend Casper. We took a walk together along the loch. Didn’t he tell ye?”
I remembered Casper’s flippant remark of two days ago. I hadn’t really expected him to join her for a walk but apparently he had.
“Did you have a nice time?” I asked her.
“Yes, thank ye. He’s a fine young laddie, almost angelic. There aren’t many like him.”
She’d gotten that right.
“We had a long talk,” she continued. “About life and death. He promised to be with me when I die.” I spared her the usual protestations that she wasn’t going to die any time soon and she seemed grateful. “I’m quite resigned to it. In fact I’m looking forward. Especially with Casper at my side.”
Had he told her he was a guardian angel? Unlikely as that seemed, the twinkle in Mrs. Ferguson’s eyes told me she knew more than she was letting on. When I raised an eyebrow inviting her to tell more, she held a finger to her lips.
“Don’t ask. Don’t tell.”
So I asked something else. “Have you had any more dreams?”
Immediately the twinkle left her eyes.
“I have terrible dreams,” she said, “but when I wake I can’t remember the details—just a vague feeling that I’ve been kidnapped. It’s as though I am here.” She slapped a coaster onto the table. “And my family is here.” She slapped another coaster on the opposite side of the table. “I want to get back to them and I can’t.”
Remembering her little rhyme—dream times three, true it be—I asked whether she’d had the dream before.
“More times than I can count,” she said. “The details never become clearer but each time the longing for home is greater.” She fixed her sharp eyes on mine. “Of course there’s an obvious explanation for the dream. It’s because I miss my husband so much. But sometimes I think that’s too simplistic. What do you think?”
“It sounds perfectly logical. Did the dreams start soon after he died?”
She shook her head. “They started a few months ago. I don’t remember the exact date.” She glanced over my shoulder. I turned to see Bess moving toward us. “Here’s my dinner,” said Mrs. Ferguson. She leaned toward me confidentially. “I’m giving the brownies a wee rest tonight. Will ye join me for dinner?”
“Why not.” I told Bess I’d have what Mrs. Ferguson was having. Spaghetti Bolognese seemed kind of incongruous in this Scottish village but it tasted like heaven. So did the garlic bread.
When we had finished our meal I asked if Mrs. Ferguson would like another drink.
She had her mouth open to answer, when the banshee’s wail ripped through the room.
Not a soul moved as the mournful sound curled around us. Despite the fire blazing in the hearth, the most dreadful chill seeped beneath my clothes. I could feel it biting bone-deep.
A glass fell from someone’s hands and shattered. The banshee wailed louder. The room stank of fear as rank and pungent as burnt flesh.
Abruptly the banshee fell silent, and there was a collective out-rushing of breath. Douglas bent to sweep up the broken glass. Bess rushed to fill drink orders. The drunken conversation resumed louder than before but it took a long time for the color to return to the drinkers’ cheeks.
Mrs. Ferguson said, “I hope my time has come. I’m more than ready to meet my maker.” She was the only one who had showed no fear of the banshee. Draining her glass, she said, “It’s your round.”
I bought us both another drink and then, leaving her speaking with Dr. Williamson, who had come in for a pint, I worked my way around the pub until I could overhear Stuart MacDuff and Malcolm Melville. Apparently the remaining Two M’s had no intention of discontinuing their nightly visits to the pub out of respect to McEwen. Come to think of it, it was probably a mark of respect