The Pictish Child Read Online Free Page B

after the one missed throw.
    But whether Molly heard Gran and ignored her or simply misunderstood was not clear, for she threw the talisman up again and this time it went too high, hitting a tree branch and ricocheting over the stone wall into the cemetery.
    For a stunned moment no one said anything. Then Molly wailed. “My tallyman!”
    â€œTalisman,” Jennifer muttered through clenched teeth.
    Gran said, “Guide us!” fervently.
    And the dog sat on his hind end and howled.
    â€œGran, Gran,” Molly cried, running back to them. “Do something. Mrs. McGregor gave it to me. I can’t lose it. I can’t.” She was close to hysterics.
    â€œOh, for goodness’ sakes,” Jennifer said, “it’s just a stupid stone.”
    â€œIt’s a talisman,” wailed Molly, this time saying it correctly.
    â€œI’m afraid she is right,” said Gran. “It would be a terrible thing to lose that stone. I feel that in my bones. Will ye go in and look for it, Jennifer, dear? The gate’s by the side there.”
    â€œIn the cemetery?” Jennifer didn’t know why that should so appall her. There was a cemetery called Willowbrook near their home in Connecticut, and she and her friends played in it all the time. But this cemetery was centuries older than the one back home, and something just felt strange about it. She had that same feeling of foreboding she’d had inside the Eventide Home. Only stronger. She wished Peter hadn’t left. She needed him. He was always braver about things than she was.
    â€œGo,” Gran said. “Now. I have my hands full here.” And indeed she did, with Molly and the dog making equal rackets.
    So Jennifer looked where Gran was pointing.
    Down a tiny lane that was much too narrow for a car, she saw a small ironwork gate. Taking a deep breath, she gave Gran her umbrella and went along till she reached the gate. Then she pushed on it with both hands.
    It made an awful creaking noise, like something out of a bad horror movie, but moved less than an inch. She wondered if it had been opened in years. But then, when she pushed on it again, shoving with her shoulder, it opened slowly, protesting all the way.
    She went in.
    There was a kind of hushed reverence inside the cemetery, made more intense by the fact that both Molly and the dog had suddenly and without explanation fallen silent beyond the wall.
    The cemetery was small, about the size of their backyard at home, and easily contained within the high stone walls. There was another ironwork gate on the other side, which led to the Eventide Home’s lawn. Jennifer could see a patch of green.
    The grass inside the cemetery had recently been cut and rolled flat. However, the forty or so gravestones were not so well tended. They seemed ancient, the inscriptions on them mostly obscured by moss or rubbed flat by the passing years. Jennifer could hardly read a word or date on each: “Drowned … 1745 … lost at sea … invictus … 1567 … salvation …” None of the stones stood up straight. They leaned like drunken old men.
    Jennifer went over to the wall that paralleled Burial Brae Road. A huge oak shaded the area, and several of its limbs overhung the wall. The corner was dark—much too dark for the time of day—and she looked around.
    A sea mist—which Gran called a haar—had come in sudden and thick and fast and was flowing over the wall. It was an odd grey, the color of stew left three days in the pot.
    The silence that Jennifer had noticed was suddenly muddied by a muffled roar, like a radio broadcast of a battle, not quite tuned in. She thought she heard faraway shouts, cries, and she turned around to see where the sound was coming from. But she was all alone in the grey mist in the graveyard.
    She kicked at the sparse vegetation under the oak with her wellies—and suddenly her foot must have connected with the little