Chapter Six
The Castle
Monday
Early Morning
To say that it had been an eye opening kind of a night would be an understatement. For Michael, after reading the notes, and then reading the book, he was fully caught up on the seven years, and the hundreds of years that had passed.
And he had learned something.
Everything happened for a reason.
Every single thing in the world was connected, and people made bonds that couldn’t be cut by time or death.
There was no doubt in his mind that he’d been brought here not only to work on this ghost situation, but also because of what was happening to himself and Graham.
They were absolutely running parallel with the other two men, and that was why they wanted him to read the letters.
They knew.
Now, he knew.
It was all too familiar.
They were each two soldiers thrown together in the midst of battle who found each other, and then fell in love. They were meant to be.
They were each two men who had to come to grips with losing the person they loved and cherished more than anything in life.
They were each two men divided by time and death but somehow were reaching back toward each other to handle the mess at Ravensmire.
Fate was driving this bus.
Not Elizabeth.
Not him.
Not Graham.
Along with that, this was meant to happen, and for good reason.
They had all been soulmates.
Maybe there was such a thing as reincarnation, and history repeated itself, but Michael knew that there were amends to be made.
From him.
Yeah, this was history repeating, and like with anything, if you ignored history, you were doomed to repeat the worst parts of it.
So, as he read the book that Ivan, Gryphen, Gabby, and Finn reconstructed with their time here, he was compelled to do the same.
He was no longer reluctant.
In fact, he wanted to dive in.
Head.
First.
Gryphen said there was still part of the mystery unsolved, and he believed that if he figured it out, he’d help bridge the way back to his own life.
To Graham.
If he could forgive him.
Michael was going to help figure out who was in the lake, and see if there were bones behind the wall. This was his leg of the mystery, and he’d make sure they got to their goal.
Resolution.
Not only with the dead, but with the man he’d hurt seven and a half years ago.
The man he hid from.
The man he’d abandoned.
The man he’d left behind to suffer.
Speaking of which…
To be near the man, he’d slept in a chair in the Master’s Suite for a few hours, making sure Graham was okay. The whole night, he didn’t move, and that was probably for the best.
Michael took care of him, making sure there was a small fire in the fireplace to chase the chill away until the sun had come up.
He put aspirin on the nightstand, and a glass of water beside it.
While Michael wasn’t sure how much booze he drank, he was going to say it was a lot. The man was either hiding in sleep, or he was conked out.
Well, he couldn’t hide forever.
At some point, they’d have to come face-to-face. All Michael could hope was that the man wouldn’t tell him to fuck off.
Oh, he deserved it, but he had to have hope.
With the time he’d been awake, he’d read the other four letters, and they talked about their dreams, and hopes they’d once had.
Graham wrote about adopting some moppet-haired children, living in a little cottage with a garden where they could laugh and love.
He spoke of how he wanted to go home to his parents one day, but he couldn’t because he was an outsider.
And Michael knew that feeling.
Oh, he knew it more than Graham would ever know.
In the letters, he found hope.
Did he deserve to steal that from them?
No.
But he would.
What he wanted was to wake the man up so they could talk, but he knew how shitty it was to wake up with a hangover and have someone in your face.
He’d give him some time.
There were things he could do.
Now, as the sun was coming up, he knew what he needed to do.
He made another small fire in the room for Graham, and left him a note on the nightstand. It was beside the water, and the aspirin.
Then, he grabbed his gear that was in the kitchen, and carried it down toward the water.
The world outside was peaceful and silent. It was bliss all around him as the birds chirped, and the grass was soaked with dew.
He could smell heather from the flat land not far from the water, and it was something he could get accustomed to.
Without a doubt.
Hell.
He wouldn’t even mind having to share a castle with some ghosts.
On the lake, when he reached it, the water looked like glass. Nothing moved, not even a bug landing on the water, or a fish coming up to seek out food.
Everything was still sleepy, and he wasn’t shocked.
It was damn early, but he liked being up and out in nature in the morning. He’d run to stay in shape, and maybe later, after his dive, he’d do just that.
As the sun flickered down onto the water, he hoped it wasn’t going to be too cold.
Then again, he had brought insulated diving gear just in case.
He had a job to do, and the sooner he got it over with, the quicker he could deal with Graham and talk to him about the letters he’d left for him.
Because that’s what they needed to do.
They had to have a conversation.
But up first, there was work.
Callen and Chris needed the bones to come up and to have pictures taken of them, so he was the man to do it.
Getting down, he stared into the water to see what kind of visibility he was going to have, and inside the water, it was calm.
That worked for him.
Spreading a tarp out on the shore, he would bring up the bones he found, and lay them out so they could take pictures and get the photos to Tony.
The bone nut would be on standby, waiting for them to come in.
No.
Doubt.
There.
Unpacking his things, he grabbed a wetsuit, and stripped down next to the water. He kept his boxer briefs on, and powdered the inside of the suit to get it on his big, bulky body.
With his toe, he checked the water, and it was cold.
Freaking cold.
Yeah, summer in the US was NOT summer in Scotland. That was for damn sure. It was bitching chilly in that water.
Well, he knew how to dive in cold water, and he knew how to rescue in it. That was one of his wartime skills, and in his gear, it wouldn’t be too miserable.
Oh, it wouldn’t be fun, but he’d live.
What was a little hyperthermia among friends?
Pulling on the aqua socks, he picked up his mask and snorkel. It had been a while since he dove in brackish water, but it was like riding a bike.
You didn’t forget.
Now, he had to hope that the water was deep enough that there were no adders lying around waiting to bite him in the ass.
Literally.
The last thing he wanted was to die from a snake bite in Scotland. If he didn’t die, Callen and Chris wouldn’t have to tell their wife, a woman terrified of snakes, that she had a pond full of them.
While Saint Patrick drove the snakes out of Ireland, the saints let the slippery little bastards stay in Scotland.
Apparently.
Placing his phone on the ground beside the tarp, he started walking into the water. He was up to his knees when the next step went DEEP.
There was one hell of a drop off, and while he wasn’t expecting it, the drop didn’t bother him.
Letting gravity work to his advantage, he held that deep breath, and began sinking in the water to the bottom.
Oh, and it was so cold too.
All around him, the icy water flowed around his body, and he could feel the undercurrent, and fought to stay out of it.
It was about fifteen feet down from the ledge, and nothing terrible was happening.
Yeah, he had this in control. While there was a pull of some water, telling him that there was a bit of a rip current nearby this place, too, it was nothing Michael couldn’t handle.
When his feet hit the bottom, he could feel something under his toes through the aqua socks.
Crouching down, he used his hands and a little waterproof light to shine on the items.
That’s when he saw bones.
Oh, this was going to be easy, and he couldn’t wait to get it done.
Gently, he picked one up, and it appeared to be a femur bone. It was long, and a little heavy to the touch. Pushing off from the bottom, he went up, and broke water to get the bone to the tarp.
His breath left puffs of condensation in the air as he stroked his way to the side of the lake.
Did it get colder outside?
Finding the ledge, he got his bearings and placed the bone on the tarp.
“Let’s see what else I can find,” he said, not noticing the mist that was rolling ominously over the other side of the lake or how the sun was tucked behind the clouds.
Yeah, someone was ignoring the signs.
The wind was picking up, and the water rippled with…something.
When Michael finally noticed, he looked around, and took in the scene.
There had to be a storm coming in.
That had to be it.
Instead of taking what Finn said to heart, he decided to go back down to get more of the victim. The sooner this was done, the sooner he could make breakfast for Graham, and sit down with him to talk.
As he sank down, he grabbed the next bone he could get his hands on, and it was the skull. His fingers went into the eye sockets, and he was able to get a grip of it that way.
As soon as he held it, fish swam out of it, scurrying away to save themselves. That’s when Michael moved up through the water.
At the surface, he moved the skull to the tarp, and stared into the eyeless face of the skull.
It was creepy.
To stare into the green, algae-covered skull and not be a little freaked out was odder. While he’d stared into death a few times in his life, once when he was shot saving Graham, and once when he was shot saving Christopher Leonard, that didn’t make it less scary.
Death was no one’s friend.
As the skull was saved, Michael wanted to haul ass. The skull was important. Blue Bennett would be able to give the victim a face back, and they might have the answers they needed.
Like who had been dumped in the lake.