Heather Song (39 page)

I
awoke freezing, then had to battle the progressive stages all over again—disbelief, thinking myself dreaming, the sight of Winny, renewed terror, hopelessness, and the final realization that I was going to die.

There was no sense of time, only the light of a lone flickering candle. How many times I dozed, waked, and dozed again, I had no idea. Time passed in a blur.

Suddenly it dawned on me that only
one
candle was still burning…and it was flickering low and about to reach its end. Quickly I held one of the others to it and lit a new wick.

They were burning too fast! I would have to use only one at a time. And be more watchful. I had been careless to use two at once.

Slowly I became aware of a physical sensation other than the cold—I was thirsty.

A lightbulb came on in my brain. I was
thirsty
. I would get thirstier and thirstier. I had no water. It was a simple enough truth, but it brought with it a string of further realizations.

Neither did I have food. Without water and food, I would soon weaken. How long could people live without water? Surely not longer than a few days, maybe a week. Even if it was two weeks, it didn’t matter. However long it took, no one could possibly find me, and I would eventually die. It felt like I had already been trapped for days.

I still was trying to make myself believe that eventually, against all logic, I would hear sounds of the door opening and Olivia would return and let me out. But if that didn’t happen, I had only a limited number of hours when I would have the physical strength to break out myself.

Whatever I was going to do, I had to do it
soon
, while I still had strength.

That realization woke me up. I stood and began examining the room again. There were no tools. Only stone containers sitting around the floor against the walls, some stacked on top of one another. Even if I could remove their stone lids, they were not tool chests but
coffins
! I knew well enough what was inside them. Almost feverishly I set about examining the crypt more carefully. All that lay about me were a few odd chunks of stone and granite. My eyes fell yet again on the door.

I couldn’t waste time sleeping and freaking out that the skull of Ranald’s poor daughter was staring lifeless at me from across the room. I had to get on with it, or I
was
going to die!

I turned on the flashlight and examined the door. This door was my only hope. It had seemed so old and dilapidated when I first saw it. Surely I could make a hole through it.

I grabbed the pole and banged the stoutest end of it against the wood, hoping to find a weak spot. But it jarred back with surprising force, stinging my hands with an electric jolt. The door was as solid as a wall of granite.

I banged and whacked and beat on it but only succeeded in shattering the pole into three pieces after twenty minutes. I tossed the wood aside and picked up a six-inch-square piece of stone and set about bashing it against the door for another half an hour, then whacked at the area around the hinges until my arms and shoulders were so spent I couldn’t even lift the rock for another blow.

I had accomplished nothing.

I could beat on this door for a week and it would not give way. In desperation I grabbed one of the pieces of wood and flailed and beat and yelled again, more like a child throwing a tantrum than for any good I accomplished. At last I collapsed in a heap at the base of the door in an agony of hopelessness. I hadn’t put so much as a dent in it! There wasn’t an inch of rot anywhere.

When I came to myself, my arms and shoulders ached. I looked at my hands. I hadn’t even known what I was doing—rubbing and picking at the door with my fingers, now half rubbed raw with blood and full of splinters.

“God, what should I do?!” I cried in complete exhaustion. “I don’t know what to do!”

I broke into sobs, which, with the extreme fatigue, soon put me to sleep. I woke again, lit another candle, yelled and beat on the door and prayed and cried once more…and fell asleep again.

A
s night fell on the second full day of my absence, Ranald and Iain spoke seriously, each probing their memories for
anything
I might have said, hoping against hope that
some
explanation would present itself. The Volvo unmoved, perhaps I had for some reason taken the bus into Aberdeen and Cora or Alicia had forgotten my mentioning it. Something had to turn up to explain it…
anything
. In their growing uneasiness, however, they found their thoughts increasingly hovering about the person of Olivia Urquhart.

Finally Iain and Ranald told Alicia that they intended to speak with Olivia. She wished them luck but wanted no part of it.

The evening was advanced. It was probably about nine of a dark, moonless night. A terrible sense of gloom had settled over the castle as its inhabitants prepared for their fourth night in a row with one of their two mistresses missing.

Sarah had just finished getting Olivia ready for the night when the knock came to the door of my former apartment.

Sarah saw the two men standing in the corridor. Her eyes widened with question and apprehension. She seemed to sense from their expressions that it wasn’t a social call.

“We need to speak with your mistress, Sarah,” said Iain, “alone. You may return to your room.”

Though Iain was not an official member of the household, Sarah knew well enough how things stood between him and me. He spoke with such quiet command, she did not hesitate but left the room.

“Who is it, Sarah?” croaked a weak voice from the bedroom.

Iain and Ranald entered the apartment and walked to Olivia’s sleeping quarters where the door stood open. Iain paused and knocked on the doorframe.

“It is Iain Barclay, Olivia,” he said.

“What are you doing here?” she spat back. The volume of her voice was weak, but not its intensity.

“I would like to ask you a question or two.”

“Go away. I have no interest in seeing the likes of you.”

Iain now walked into the room. Ranald followed.

Lying in bed, Olivia glowered at them as they entered, her eyes aflame at seeing her wishes so rudely ignored.

“I told you, go away. Get out, I tell you. Get out and leave me in peace.”

“Olivia,” said Iain, approaching and standing beside her bed, “I want to ask you one more time if there is anything you can tell us about where Marie might be.”

“Why would I know anything? I told them I had nothing to do with her. She can go to the devil for all I care, and take the two of you with her.”

“Where were you when no one could find you?”

“Where I was is none of your affair, Iain Barclay. I was nowhere. I told them I was here the whole time.”

“Sarah says otherwise—that your bed was empty for two days.”

“She’s an imbecile, a goose, a lying vixen! Who would you believe, a fool girl like that or me?”

Iain did not answer.

“Marie said nothing to you about going anywhere,” he said, “about taking a walk, about anything?”

“What she and I said to one another is none of your affair. But she will insult me no longer, nor will I put up with your insinuations. Get out of here before I tell Sarah to call the police and have you thrown out!”

“It would hardly go well for you if you tried,” rejoined Iain, growing a little heated, “seeing as you are here at the goodwill of the duchess, and we are trying to locate her.”

“The duchess! Ha! Ha! She’ll not long—”

She stopped abruptly, seemingly drawn by an invisible spiritual force. She turned toward Ranald where he sat staring straight into her eyes, his lips moving imperceptibly. She cast on him a glance of undisguised scorn.

“We shall see what song you sing,” she went on, forcing her attention back to Iain, “when I bring charges of trespassing against you after I am restored to my rightful position.”

She stared daggers at him for another moment, then they turned and left without another word. A shrieked volley of imprecations and curses followed them. It still sounded as they emerged into the corridor, finally ending in loathsome laughter that sent chills through the bones of both men.

They notified Sarah to return to her mistress, and to let one of them know if there was any change.

When they were alone again they held private counsel.

“She aye kens somethin’,” said Ranald. “Fan she cast upo’ me that glance, the luik o’ her een spoke evil. That moment I kennt wi’oot doubt that she’s seen Marie.”

Iain nodded. “My thoughts exactly. She is far too confident in being reestablished without Marie to contend with. She is not a woman in any sense of the word preparing to die.”

“I ken fae Marie’s ain words that afore she went missin’, nae a word had passed atween them.”

“That’s right. She told me the same thing the last time I saw her.”

“An’ noo Olivia’s hintin’ they hae spoken nae lang syne.”

Iain nodded thoughtfully.

“She knows something,” he said. “I’m sure you are right. We must keep careful watch. Is there any chance of a secret way out of Alasdair’s apartment, where she now is, that could account for the time she was missing and might also explain, I don’t know, where she has perhaps hidden Marie…drugged her…or worse?”

“I dinna ken, laddie. ’Tis mony a tale o’ secret passageways in the auld hoose, but I dinna ken.”

The result was an organized watch all night—the women who were willing taking turns in Olivia’s apartment outside her bedroom door, kept ajar, listening for movement, and the men taking shifts in a chair with strong coffee in the corridor. Their hope was that, after being unsettled by the interrogation, Olivia would try something in the middle of the night that would offer a clue to what she knew. However, morning arrived with only a universal sleepiness to show for the night’s watchfulness. Olivia had not once stirred from her bed.

The morning brought, if possible, a greater sense of urgency and the feeling that if they didn’t find me today, they probably never would. No one had seen me in two and a half days.

The police had by now widened their search and were everywhere. My disappearance may not have brought out the village nickums in such numbers, but a missing duke’s wife was noteworthy and had begun to be reported on the Scottish national news.

W
hen I awoke again, I was cold.
Very
cold. I had gone to sleep in a sweat and was now dreadfully chilled. I thought it must be night again, or the same night…or maybe day. Why would it be any warmer at one time than another? My mouth was parched and dry, my lips beginning to chap. I was so famished the hunger had actually diminished.

I tried to stand. My head swam a moment with light-headedness. It had begun. I was growing faint! I had been stupid to beat at the door so long. It had sapped too much strength. I had probably shortened my life by a day.

Yet what difference did it make? No one was going to find me. A few hours, a day, seconds…why not get it over with?

At least it would not be long before I saw Alasdair again.

Oh, and Gwendolyn! Dear Gwendolyn. She and I could play together again and—

No, what was I thinking? I wasn’t ready to die.

I ran to the opening to the sea, unsteady on my feet, and screamed desperately into it.

“Help…help…anyone…Can somebody hear me?…I’m beneath the church…Help…help!”

Crying out made me hoarse and more light-headed. I coughed and choked from the effort. The echoes of my frantic screams died away. A faint whistling breeze caressed my face. There again was the distant far-off whisper of the sea.

I remembered, as from a former life, the happy times of my first weeks and months in Scotland…wonderful conversations with Iain as I discovered the reality of God’s love. I remembered feeling for the first time the sensation of God speaking to me…of the revelation that the ocean’s tide was like the great Fatherhood of God, lifting and swelling and filling all humanity.

After those wonderful times, how had I become so involved with such evil? How could it have happened?

How long had I been here? I was weak. I was starting to go crazy, just as Olivia had said I would. Suddenly an even more odious thought occurred to me.

How did Olivia know I would go crazy?

Because she had listened to Winny, too, as she slowly died. She had seen it all before! Olivia probably crept back and was listening to me even now, smiling in evil pleasure as I slowly went berserk…without water…without food…soon without candles…losing hope by the hour.

I ran across the room to the door.

“Olivia, Olivia…please…You can have the castle, you can have all the money! Please, you can have everything…just let me out!”

Only silence met my frantic cries.

The candle flickered low.

I struggled to it and lit another. Only two left. What would I do then?

I crossed the room again to the little opening.

“Olivia,” I said through it. “Olivia, I know you’re there. I know you’re listening. Just tell me what you want. Please…I will do anything…please, Olivia.”

Again silence…only silence. If Olivia was listening to my dying pleas, she was keeping her laughter to herself.

I crumpled to the floor.

“God…please,” I whimpered. “God, please don’t leave me…help me.”