stairs. No doubt intent on mischief. His knees stuck out from beneath his kilt and his boots looked way too big. He must be at that awkward stage where his feet and hands were bigger than the rest of him.
Bannon walked to the end of the table and cleared his throat. “Excuse me? Do you know where I can find….”
The boy gasped, looked up at him, and…. It was a girl not a boy. Small breasts pressed against her thin shirt, and her hands were definitely not big. They were quite dainty and, well… female. She jerked her head around so fast, her long blond braid, which had been concealed before, swung around and wrapped around her neck. She put her hand to her forehead, her chest, her left shoulder, then her right—crossing herself.
“Umm….” He was speechless.
She rose up and came closer, putting her finger to her lips. Her cheeks were rosy and her eyes wide, giving her a pretty milkmaid sort of look. She wasn’t very old, maybe in her early teens. When she leaned forward, the scent of baked scones followed. “The bogles dinna like it when we’re loud and nae one is in here.”
“Bogles? Wait, we are in here.”
“Aye, spirits. And we dinna count. The bogles still come unless the hall is full.”
Okay. Primitive castle, check. Purple-haired witchdoctor, check. Crazy person, check. Maybe the MacLeans hit him harder than he’d thought.
The girl stepped closer, still whispering. “I’m Fiona. Ye must be Red.”
He wasn’t sure what stunned him more, the fact that she was whispering and looking around like an actual ghost was going to jump out at her or the fact that she’d just called him Red. “I… yeah.” Whatever. It wasn’t like he was going to be here long, so if they wanted to call him Red, then so be it, but the “spirits” thing he couldn’t let slide. “Fiona, there is no such thing as—”
“Bannon!” Louie stepped out of the room next to the dais in a flurry of swishing skirts that were not hers. She held what looked like a piece of bread.
Crash!
Out of his peripheral vision, he saw something fall to the ground behind Fiona, and his elation at seeing Louie quickly diminished. Only the three of them were in the hall, and none of them stood near the fallen wood dish.
Fiona screeched.
The hair on Bannon’s arms stood straight up, and despite his hurt knee, he managed to keep up with Fiona when she bolted. Ghosts… er, maybe? That trencher had not just fallen; the movement had been too quick for a simple fall. It was like someone had swiped it off the table. They grabbed for the big iron ring that served as a door handle at the same time and started pulling, but it was not easy; the blasted door weighed a ton.
Louie’s laughter rang out behind them, coming closer. “Why are the two of you running?”
Fiona jostled his hands out of the way and turned the ring. After that the door opened easily. She stopped pulling long enough to make the sign of the cross again, then continued to tug.
Once they saw daylight, Fiona decided to go through it at the same time as Bannon. Thankfully it was a large door. He didn’t wait around to answer Louie. He stepped out on the steps of the keep, and the possibility of ghosts didn’t seem nearly as important as the reality that stood before him.
He was in a real honest-to-goodness castle. Oh sure, he’d seen it from the inside and from the window, but somehow that had not captured the magnificence. Bannon stepped onto the grass and turned around, taking it all in. The sights, the sounds, the scents. Whew. Okay, the scents weren’t that good, but the rest of it…. He peered up at the keep and nearly swallowed his tongue. Like the inside, the stones were clearly hand-tooled. It must have taken years to build. The artistry was breathtaking. Why oh why didn’t I bring my sketchscreen? When would he ever see this again?
“I think the bogle is Laird Ewan,” Fiona said.
Bannon stopped gawking at the keep and looked at Fiona.
Louie stood next to Fiona, and Hamish stood behind the both of them with a smirk on his face.
Bannon sighed. He must have looked like a complete ninny running out of the castle. Maybe he could bribe Hamish to keep quiet.
Louie broke a piece off of the bread she held and stuffed it into her mouth.
“Hey, where did you