Page 25 of Priceless
“This is Mary King’s Close,” Duncan said, holding the lantern so the light scraped along the wet walls. “In the seventeenth century, plague hit hard. The city bricked it up, leaving the sick inside to die. Some say they trapped the healthy with them. If you listen… you might hear them yet.”
Everyone in the group stilled. Above us, I heard footsteps crossing stone, but then—between the echoes—something else.A faint, papery rasp. Not the wind. The American woman glanced at me, eyebrows lifting to ask if I’d heard it too. I nodded. And even though those sounds were probably staged, the hairs on my arms prickled.
We moved on. The mist gathered enough against my cheeks to start dripping and a warm drop fell down my neck and made me shiver.
Duncan stopped at an iron gate that guarded a steep descent into shadow. “Down there,” he said, “they found small bones beneath a tenement floor. No record. No name. The wailing stopped after the digging, some say. Others say it only woke them.”
Back home, there were plenty of old houses, old buildings, and abandoned mines with ghost stories. This was the same idea, but someone had the bright idea to package it all and sell tickets. Even so, I decided that for one night, I could pretend to be a believer, or at least have an open mind. When I got back to Denver, I’d at least have something new to laugh about over lunch with Whitney.
We wound into Greyfriars Kirkyard. The place was quiet, the atmosphere heavy with the smell of wet grass and still-thriving, thousand-year-old moss. The gravestones leaned at odd angles—forward and back and sideways, like so many flat-bodied drunks. The engravings of most would have been impossible to read in the light of day.
I couldn’t be the only one tempted to straighten them.
Duncan stopped and waited for us to cluster around him. “Auch, gather 'round and pay close heed. Just there is the Black Mausoleum, resting place of Sir George Mackenzie, better known as “Bluidy Mackenzie.” In life, he was a brutal judge and persecutor of the Covenanters, locking hundreds in a makeshift prison just outside those gates. Ironic that he should be put to rest so near the place where he committed his worst sins.
“They say his cruelty left a stain so deep, it couldn’t be erased. And in death? Well, they tried to lay him to rest in that grand stone tomb, but it seems Hell wouldn’t have him and turned him back out again. Since the 1990s, after a rough sleeper broke in to escape the cold and disturbed Mackenzie’s coffin, reports of violent hauntings surged. People clawed, bruised, even knocked out cold. The Mackenzie Poltergeist, they call it. The only documented poltergeist in the world with its own address.
“Tourists have collapsed right here from unseen blows.” He pointed to his feet. “And more than 500 attacks have been logged. Cameras die. Bruises bloom. Visitors wake with scratches they never felt. They sealed the mausoleum for a while, but the activity continued. Now, it’s said the angry spirit roams the Covenanting Prison itself, punishing the curious and daring.
“Think ye’re safe in the daylight? Think again. Some say Mackenzie was never truly human to begin with—too cruel, too fiendish.” He paused for effect. “If ye lean in close enough to that iron gate, ye might feel the breath of something ancient…and very, very awake. I never advise it, but touch the Black Mausoleum if ye dare—knowing that some folks that do dinnae walk away unchanged.”
Two men stepped forward, egging each other on. I hung back, watching the heavy black door, and suddenly feeling a million miles away from home. Back there, ghosts were costumes and plastic skeletons in people’s yards. TV shows that thrived on lies and overacting.
But I couldn’t promise that what I felt in that moment was only my imagination. And the idea of a Scottish witch bringing the dead back to life no longer seemed so impossible.
I couldn’t get out of there fast enough, but I had to wait for the rest of the group. I had no idea how many of them dared to touch the door. I felt, somehow, that I shouldn’t even watch or I, too, might never be the same.
As soon as we left the graveyard behind, however, the feeling passed. But I still wasn’t willing to accept that I’d imagined it all. I completely believed in the impressive power of suggestion, but now I wondered if I was ready to believe in other things too…
Next, a short, squat door beside a pub led us down slick stone steps and under a sign that readSouth Bridge Vaults. The air cooled as we descended, and I had the urge to glance over my shoulder—not because I thought anyone was there, but because this was the kind of place where it felt wrong not to.
“These tunnels were sealed for more than a century,” Duncan said. “When they opened them again, they found bones, pottery, the belongings of the people who’d lived and died down here. Ghosts aplenty.”
The tunnels seemed to swallow every sound, probably absorbed by that dark, ever-present moss that lived in every crack. The lantern’s light caught beads of water clinging to the walls, made shadows jump. Each drip from above landed with a snap that sounded like a footstep.
We entered a small chamber and stopped.
“This one’s the Watcher’s,” Duncan said quietly, then addressed me. “He’s not fond of women. If he’s about, ye might feel a touch on yer shoulder or a whisper in yer ear.” He lifted the lamp and looked around the room, waiting. And we waited for him to give up and move on.
He finally lowered the lamp and started toward the next doorway. I held back so I didn’t catch his attention again. Let someone else get the full brunt of his spooky charm.
While I waited to take my place at the back of the line, the air shifted behind me. My scalp tingled. And then—so close I could feel it—came one word.
Leave!
I spun around. No one stood behind me. When I looked back, the others hurried to get away from me, like I’d caught the actual plague.
Duncan nodded at me. “Looks he’d taken note of ye. Best hurry along I think.” He stood aside and motioned for me to exit ahead of him. I didn’t have to be told twice.
I suddenly found the American couple standing on either side of me. The woman put her arm around my shoulder and gave me a look that said she was sorry, that she felt responsible for me being there.
I chuckled and shook my head. “This is what we came for, right? For a little adrenaline rush?”
She relaxed and smiled back. “Exactly.” But she didn’t remove her arm until we were outside again, where the air was fresh and almost warm in comparison to the vaults. As we walked along, I tried to sense whether or not some presence was following me. But either my senses failed me, the ghost had stayed put, or it was all just a hallucination.
I tried to appreciate the fact that each store I passed was new to me. Each step I took, each breath I pulled into my lungs, was brand new. And I muttered under my breath, “We’re not in Kansas anymore, Toto.”
And in this new place, where the existence of ghosts seemed possible, even plausible, I wondered how long I would last before I tucked tail and ran back to the airport.
