Page 60 of Once Upon A Haunted Castle
He looked at her, grinning with big white teeth. “You could have probably climbed out,” he said. “It doesn’t look too deep. But that’s really amazing that you fell through. I haven’t heard of anything like that around here and I’ve lived in this area my whole life.”
Heather grinned. “Lucky for me that you do,” she said, extending her hand. “I’m Heather Monroe and you, sir, are my hero.”
The man laughed softly, taking her outstretched hand and shaking it firmly but gently. “You and I have something in common,” he said.
“What?”
“My last name is also Munro. Jim Munro, to be exact. It’s very nice to meet you.”
Heather couldn’t seem to keep her eyes off the man; there were sparks flying between them, enough to start a three-alarm blaze.
“Likewise,” she said. She just kept staring at him until she realized she was probably making an ass of herself. She pointed to the hole. “I need to call the cops or the hospital or something. There’s a skeleton chained to the wall down there.”
His smile vanished. “There is?” he asked, now moving closer to the hole to try and see what she was talking about. “Are you sure?”
Heather nodded. “Positive,” she said. “It looks like a really old skeleton chained to the wall.”
He simply stood there, looking down into the hole. Then, he suddenly lowered himself down into it as his dog ran back and began running circles around the hole, barking. Worried, Heather tried to peer down into the hole to see what he was doing. She couldn’t see him at all and the dog was going nuts, barking like crazy. She finally called down to him.
“Hello?” she said. “You’re still there, aren’t you?”
His voice was muffled. “I’m here,” he said. “But you’re right– it looks like a house of horrors down here. I’m pretty sure that whatever is down here is really old, but I’ll have to call it in.”
Now Heather could see his red head as he moved closer to the hole opening. The sunlight was hitting his hair again, a brilliant and deep shade of red. “Is there a police station around here?” she asked.
His head came up through the hole. “There’s one not too far away, but I’m going to call it in to my inspectors.”
She cocked her head. “Yourinspectors?”
He grinned. “James Munro, Assistant Deputy Chief Constable of Police Scotland,” he said. “My office is in Inverness. It’s not too far away.”
She looked at him wryly. “How convenient,” she said, standing back as he boosted himself out of the hole easily. With his size and strength, it was hardly an effort at all. “I guess it was rather fortuitous running in to you today. I needed the cops and here you are.”
He laughed softly. “It’s pretty lucky, all right,” he said. “I wasn’t even going to come this far today but the dog just kept running and here I am. A damn lucky meeting if you ask me.”
His dark blue eyes were twinkling at her and Heather, never one to blush, could feel her cheeks grow hot. There was something in his gaze, something heated, and it stirred her deeply, causing her to feel rather giddy. She hadn’t felt giddy in years.
“So now what?” she asked, pointing to the hole and hoping he couldn’t tell that she was flushing. “Do you need me to come in and make a statement? I didn’t kill that guy down there, you know.”
James laughed softly. “I know,” he said. “Like I said, it looks like that lad has been down there for a while. It’s not unusual to discover old archaeological finds around here, but this is certainly a strange one. Who knew that Findlater had secret chambers buried beneath?”
Heather nodded, her gaze trailing to the hole. “But he was all chained up,” she said. “I’ve seen stuff like that in the movies, but never in real life. What a horrible way to die.”
James nodded his head, looking at her as she was looking at the hole. He’d never seen such a beautiful woman in his entire life. She was American from her accent but he didn’t care; if she was on holiday, he was going to find out what he could about her and see her again. That ghoulish scene down in that dark, dark hole was going to give him the excuse he needed to do so.
Damn lucky meeting if you ask me.
“Agreed,” he said. “For now, I’ll need to get your contact information so I can follow up on this. I’m going to call my office right now and get someone over here, but I may have a few questions for you, if you don’t mind.”
He seriously has to ask that question? If I mind?“No, I don’t mind,” Heather said. “I’m here doing some filming but we’re staying at the Cullen Bay Hotel over in Cullen. I can give you my cell number.”
“That would be great,” he said. Then, he paused. “I should probably ask my questions while everything is fresh in your mind. Will you have time later on tonight?”
Heather nodded, perhaps too eagerly, so she tried to slow her roll. “I should,” she said, trying to sound ambivalent. It didn’t work; she still sounded eager. “If you want to follow me back to my car, I can give you my contact information.”
James nodded, moving away from the hole, following her back up the path. He didn’t have anything to block the hole off with so he couldn’t worry about it at the moment. Moreover, he was far more interested in the lovely figure of Heather Monroe walking in front of him. Frankly, he was thankful that his unruly dog had taken him to Findlater that day. It turned out to be a most eventful walk. The hole, he wasn’t so concerned about; Heather, he was.
It turned out that James had two great finds that day– Heather Monroe, a woman he ended up spending the rest of his life with, and a priceless archaeological trove beneath the sunken old keep of Findlater Castle. The room with the chained skeleton in it adjoined another room, which had partially collapsed into the hillside, containing the bones of twenty-seven more people, twenty-four men and three women, and the archaeologists from the University of Edinburgh would spend the next four years mapping and studying every single body.
A mass grave? A mass execution? No one was sure, but there were whispers that the legends of disappearing people at Findlater Castle had just become truth. The bodies ended up, eventually, being buried at St. Peter’s Church in Buckie, Scotland, including the skeleton that had been found chained to the wall and, in the same room, a pile of burnt bones that initially hadn’t been seen at all. Everything ended up in a mass grave in the churchyard at St. Peters, finally laid to rest.
Although the legend of Lenore’s ghost lived on, the white wraith was never again seen and a new legend eventually sprung from the old stones of Findlater. This legend was of a ghost who had finally found her lover and had finally come to know peace. It was a sweet tale of lovers reunited. It was something that the old men in the taverns near Findlater, taverns like the Three Kings Inn, reluctantly spoke of when asked about the legends of Findlater.
Somehow, ghost stories and tales of evil sounded so much better to the tourists who wanted to see an authentic haunted Scottish castle. Some of them even secretly cursed that American television hostess who had managed to poke holes in their local lore. But the truth was that even her show about the castle, and the alleged ghost, didn’t dampen the enthusiasm of the tourists who came to seek the white wraith.
Because in the long run, it really didn’t matter. Findlater retained its tales of ghosts and angry Vikings while down the road, in an old churchyard near the sea, the bones of the host’s victims finally found their rest and among them, within arm’s reach of her lover, Lenore finally slept peacefully.
To wander, nevermore.
The End
