Chapter 1 #2
Out in the fresh air, she gulped down a lungful of the good stuff… and almost choked on it as she saw the same delivery guy still parked up on the sidewalk. His visor was down, but she sensed he was looking right at her.
A moment later, he revved the engine of his moped and roared off before she could even think to shout after him.
“I’m in North Carolina,” Nancy told her phone, connected to Emily’s voicemail, as a verdant landscape of thick-canopied trees and undulating hills flashed past the windows of the rental she’d picked up at the airport.
“And you’d better call me back, since it seems I’m doing your damn research for you. ”
Her tone was hard with anger, rather than the worry that simmered beneath the surface.
She couldn’t remember the last time she’d gone so long without talking to her best friend, and maybe everything was just peachy, but until she heard Emily’s voice or got a text back at least, her heart would stay restless.
There hadn’t been much information on the internet about ‘the Hawk,’ but forums had pointed her toward the Scottish Heritage Museum in NC.
She’d never known it was the state that claimed the largest Celtic heritage in the world, but that was the occasional beauty of the internet—coughing up gems of general knowledge.
“Don’t you dare disappear on me, too,” she added, before swiping to end the call.
For someone who knew her history, it was pretty crappy of Emily to just not reply to any of the texts and calls she’d sent since yesterday.
The town of Franklin looked like something out of a 90s movie, bathed in hazy spring sunshine, all red brick and colorful awnings and quirky shops and kids making trouble on their bikes. Nancy turned the radio down so she could concentrate, frowning at the GPS as it directed her to the museum.
To her relief, there was a parking spot right out front. She pulled in, took a second to paint a fresh swipe of lipstick on for confidence, then grabbed her phone, bag, and trusty notepad, and got out.
But she didn’t enter right away.
Instead, she stood for a moment, observing the displays in the windows: mannequins in various tartans, pictures and paintings of Highland scenes, Scottish flags flying from the side of the building, and storyboards detailing moments in Scottish history.
If they don’t know anything about this Hawk, I might have to go to Scotland myself.
She laughed inwardly, thinking of the measly number in her bank account. There’d barely been enough to get her to North Carolina, but, hey, that’s what credit cards were for.
A bell jingled as she headed inside, scanning the room.
She seemed to be the only visitor, the reception desk unmanned, the entire museum eerily silent, aside from the rumbling Scottish brogue of a voiceover telling a story about the Battle of Culloden Moor, as a projected presentation played on a screen.
“Hello?” she called.
When no one answered, she shrugged and began following the signs to the exhibits, passing waxworks depicting scenes of old-timey Scotland, until she reached a room at the back.
There, a huge tapestry took up an entire wall, depicting the kind of thing she doubted anyone should ever have woven into a work of art.
It looked like a bloodbath, a terrible fight, yet the setting wasn’t some bleak moor or churned-up battlefield.
It appeared to be a wedding, the tapestry showing the story scene by scene.
It began with a couple at the altar, the people smiling, embroidered sunlight shining down upon them.
It ended with a mighty figure, the same as the groom in the first, on his knees with a sword through his heart.
His expression, though worn with time, was proud and fierce, as if he had been glad to take the hit.
Behind him, in a position that suggested she, too, was about to fall to her knees, was his bride, her pale gown drenched in blood, her mouth open in a terrible, silent cry.
“Beautiful, eh?”
Nancy whirled around to find a young woman in a vibrant yellow sundress, adorned with flowers, standing just behind her. Blonde hair gleamed in a low bun, her blue eyes kind.
“If you subscribe to the idea that there’s beauty in human tragedy, sure,” she replied with a smile, recovering quickly. “The craftsmanship is definitely something. If I were the weaver that did this, they’d have to be stick people.”
The woman laughed. “The Hawk’s story is a tragic one,” she said, her laughter ebbing. “Hardly anyone has ever heard of him, but his story has inspired a lot of books. They just don’t give credit to the original.”
“Typical,” Nancy joked, as that name circled in her mind again, more vulture than hawk. “So, who was he, this Hawk guy?”
A little tingle ran down the back of her neck, the same shivers she got when she knew she was getting close to a big story.
“Well,” the woman said, affecting a tour-guide voice, “he was actually the Laird of Lochlann. A very mountainous, very isolated part of the Highlands. That particular region was almost like its own country, split between two or three lairds. He was known as ‘the Hawk’ for how dangerous and precise he was in battle, particularly with a longbow.”
Nancy didn’t think that sounded so special, and was about to say so, when the woman added, “He was killed on his wedding day, June 10th, 1710, while protecting his bride. A love so precious and an ending so tragic that it put an end to a years-long feud. She rallied his people to fight for her, and though she won, no one knows what happened to her afterward, just that there was peace in that part of the world at last.”
“Did he deserve it?” Nancy asked, gazing back up at the tapestry.
“Deserve what?”
“To be killed,” Nancy replied, frowning. “How many lives had he taken first?”
The woman chuckled. “I only know what archaeologists and archivists have discovered. I can’t judge a man who died all those years ago, but it’s an interesting question.”
“I bet you get all sorts of questions, working here,” Nancy said with a smile.
“Oh, I don’t work here. I just bring my students to look at the tapestries. It’s a lost art,” the woman replied.
“You’re a teacher?”
She nodded. “Art teacher. I suppose my hope is that I can inspire my students to resurrect these lost arts, though all they want to do is—”
“Miss Emma!” A little boy seemed to appear out of nowhere, jabbing an accusatory finger toward a corridor off to the right. “Ms. Emma, Tom is touching the tartans!”
The woman with the bright glasses rolled her eyes. “I guess that’s my cue. Enjoy the rest of the exhibit.”
She walked off after the tattle-tale, shouting, “Don’t touch the exhibits!” leaving Nancy in a state of shock that made her brain slow to catch up, delaying the question “How do you know so much about this tapestry, then?” until she was already out of the room.
Miss Emma? An art teacher?
Nancy could see the fragile, yellowed old note in her mind’s eye.
Tell Emma that Charlotte loved the drawing.
She didn’t believe in fate, because if it truly existed, then it had decided to deal her a truly dismal hand, but this was getting too weird to be a coincidence.
How come that woman knew so much about something that Google seemed to know nothing about, details that even the forums Nancy had searched knew zilch about?
She turned back to the tapestry, frowning from scene to scene, from the happy beginning to the tragic ending and every step in between.
Despite the art teacher’s reprimand to her students, Nancy’s hand began to reach for the old embroidery and woven threads, her fingertips resting gingerly on the sword that had killed the Hawk.
When no alarm started blaring, she lightly touched the poor bride behind him and whispered, “Who are you?”
Another missing woman that no one bothered to find? An ancient mystery, never solved?
Just then, the ground began to shake.
The spotlights illuminating the tapestry blinked wildly, and the room suddenly filled with a great, cracking sound that splintered right through her panicked brain. Children shouted in the distance, their terror feeding her own.
“Help! Help, someone!” she croaked.
Her hand grasped for the tapestry, as if that would be enough to protect her from an earthquake. But as she stumbled, she felt the heavy, woven fabric detach from the wall.
She might have screamed; she wasn’t sure. But as the enormous tapestry fell on top of her, it took her down with it, trapping her in the middle of a room that might tumble down, too.