Free The Murder Hole by Lillian Stewart Carl

of
Pitclachie House . . . No. The subliminal tickle was gone. It
hadn’t been sweat. It hadn’t been the wind. It hadn’t even been a
probing insect. Something perpendicular to reality—however she
defined reality—had come within range of her senses and now was
gone.
    She hadn’t realized how the sounds of music
and voices had faded until they returned, harsh against her ears.
No one on the terrace had skipped a beat any more than the drummers
at the Festival. No one here shared her sensitivity to ghosts.
    Goosed to her feet, Jean stood up and paced
down the flagstones into the twilight. She sensed nothing except
the wind stirring the bushes clustered along the outer rim of the
terrace. Leaves dipped, flowers nodded, tiny yellow broom petals
whirled away and vanished. There might be a ghost here, but ghosts
weren’t dangerous. Living people, they were dangerous.
    Beyond the grounds the dusk—the
gloaming—lingered on, the light growing thinner and more delicate
and, in that alchemy peculiar to these northern climates, more
polished. The opposite bank of the loch drew a black horizontal
line between the faint obsidian glow of the water and the Prussian
blue of the sky, clear and taut as a membrane . . . A solitary
spark shot up from the field above the castle.
    “Look!” Elvis leaped up on the low wall
surrounding the terrace. Martin followed, steadying him with a firm
paternal hand.
    The spark burst into bright red and gold
blossoms. Another spark, and another. Red and green and gold sprays
of light reflected in the water of the loch. In the village, the
band reached a crescendo, the high, clear skreel of the pipes
punctuated twice by the muffled booms of the explosives, once as
they went off and again when the crump echoed from the opposite
shore. Nessie probably thought she was being depth-charged.
    Grinning, Jean ordered herself to turn down
her emotional thermostat and enjoy her bit of a holiday. After all,
if she’d been a set of pipes, her drone would be anxiety, but her
melody would be anticipation.
    The adults oohed and aahed appreciatively,
and Elvis laughed and clapped his hands. “Look at that one! Look at
that!”
    Sparks drifted slowly down toward the bay,
faint trails of luminescence, like fireflies. Then a sudden spurt
of flame roiled up and out, larger and brighter than any spark.
Jean’s heart lurched against her ribs. “What the . . ?”
    “Brilliant!” Elvis shouted.
    Dave Duckett exclaimed, voice shaking, “Oh my
God!”
    A detonation rolled into the night, rattling
the windows of the house. Bits of fire fell back to the surface of
the bay, some winking out, others bobbing up and down. A flurry of
movement came from the other boats, and a cry went up from the
shore. Patti’s wail of dismay was much louder. The music squealed
and, raggedly, stopped, but the shouts did not. A siren began to
whine.
    “Oh,” said Elvis, his small face crumpling.
“That wasn’t right.” Martin picked him up and carried him
inside.
    Jean gasped for air. She shut her eyes and
opened them. But still she could see that where the expedition boat
had been anchored was now only black water, surrounded by burning
debris. An accident. The explosion was an accident . . .
    Roger had received anonymous letters
reminding him that the loch was dangerous, that men died there.
    Jean sank down on the wall and slumped
forward, dully, heavily, as the dark, cold, peat-stained water
seemed to close over her head and suck her down toward
nightmare.
     
     

Chapter Seven
     
     
    Without exchanging more than a polite murmur
with the Ducketts, who looked shell-shocked—much like she did, no
doubt—Jean slunk back to the cottage. Slowly, methodically, she
prepared for bed, and slipped between the chilly duvet and a bed as
hard and cold as a marble slab.
    And lay there. Behind her eyelids the boat
exploded again and again, in real-time, in slow-motion, in
animation. Each spark that extinguished itself in the unforgiving
waters