He shook his head. “No. We mostly used this place to hide from the adults when I was young. We’d play cowboys and Indians from the programs we loved on American television. Not terribly politically correct these days, but the coolest thing ever, back then.”
He walked over beside me. “I’ll wager this is the sunstone, so maybe whoever placed it here marked it this way as an indicator. We used to lie on the grass and watch the sun move over it, as I recall.”
I looked up into the lightening sky. “Do you think the sun will rise over it this morning?”
He leaned against the rock. “Maybe, though I’m fair certain it marks the midsummer sun, somehow. Or—it might be the moon.”
“The moon was out the night I saw the ghost warrior, but I didn’t really notice where it rose. Too busy chasing phantoms.”
Jack cleared his throat uncomfortably. “Ah—yeah. About that night …”
He folded his arms across his chest and stared somewhere into the distance over my left shoulder. I looked at him expectantly.
“I believe I have a confession to make,” he said, at last.
I pushed my glasses firmly up my nose, but it didn’t really help me read his expression any better. So I just waited.
“I think it’s possible—I’m not totally sure, mind—but it’s slightly possible … thatImighthavebeenyourghost,” he blurted.
“Pardon?”
He shot an anguished look at me. “I didn’t actually put it together for quite a while, but one night when I was reading over your back blog posts …”
“You read over my back blog posts?” I interrupted. I felt so completely thrown by the direction the whole conversation had taken, I grabbed onto what I could. “I don’t think even Genesie does that, and I’m pretty sure she’s cyber-stalking me.”
He shrugged. “Hey, I’m only one of your followers. In my case it’s—well, maybe just a bit more literal.”
I thought about how grateful I had been to see him at the Wallace Monument. “Okay, never mind. You were saying …?”
He took a deep breath. “Well, I was at a cairn one night in March—the one near Culloden. It was late. I always go late to avoid having to deal with the tourists, same as with Ainslie Castle. So, I think it may have been me you saw. I know I left as soon as I heard voices.”
I leaned back against the cool silvery rock and felt a little shiver tingle up my spine at the thought of that night. “But why—why were you there?”
He crouched beside me, staring into the circle of stones, silent for a long moment. In the distance I heard the cry of a bird, clear against the dawn sky. He looked up then.
“A golden eagle,” he said, and turned round to search out the source. “There!”
When it became clear I couldn’t see anything, he stepped behind me and turned my shoulders. His arm reached around me, pointing high above the woods behind the center of the circle. “Right there—can you see her?”
And I could. The eagle glided high on the morning wind and then stalled abruptly and shot downwards. I lost sight of her against the trees.
“Breakfast for the wee ones,” he said, with a smile of satisfaction. “Full Scottish breakfast, if I’m not mistaken.”
With the eagle gone, he stepped away, and I shivered again as the warmth of him against my back disappeared. But he’d crossed his arms and leaned against the stone beside mine.
“I was there to pray,” he said, abruptly. “Or rather, to find a spot where Wallace might pray. I’d taken him through the fighting and anger. The war years—the deep triumph at Stirling Bridge and the sorry rout the following year. He had been a man on top, but over time, it had all burned to ashes in the flames of politics and deception. I’d finished writing the book, but Rebecca wasn’t happy with it. I was …”
“Just a minute,” I said. “Rebecca wasn’t happy with it?”
He shrugged and smiled a little. “Aye. I’m so lucky to have her, y’know. She’s a tough critic, but she’s honest. Ye need that in an agent, aye?”
I held up my hand again. “Wait a sec. Rebecca—is your agent? Not your girlfriend?”
He laughed aloud. “Well, she’s sixty, and has been married herself for thirty-some years, so no, she’s not technically my girlfriend.”
A warm glow that I could not attribute to the weather began to work its way through my body from somewhere south of my sternum. Jack had stopped telling his story, and was looking at me with a curious expression.
“A—about that circle,” I said, not really caring any more at all.