The Unquiet Grave

Chapter One

Stepping through the pub’s shiny new oak and etched glass doors sent a jolt down my spine exactly like running headlong into a brick wall. Then my brain kicked in and began listing all the ways the barrier I had encountered did not resemble a wall at all. I could see right through it, past the scattering of tables and booths to the antique mahogany bar at the other end of the room. I checked my head and face. No blood, no lumps. I hadn’t been knocked unconscious, as far as I could tell. And a wall would have prevented the rest of my band, Red Branch, from entering as well as me. But when I looked up I could see them making their way to the stage in the back room behind the bar. Their voices, raised in eager discussion of our upcoming gig, wafted back to me like a tune played slightly off-tempo.

Then one of them paused and looked over his shoulder. I saw his face move from puzzlement, as he realized I no longer followed, to concern, as he saw me leaning against the front doors in a daze.

“Caitlin!” He dropped his gig bag and the case holding his bodhrán, the Irish frame drum, and hurried to my side. “Are you all right?”

Not a wall, then. I straightened and shook off the shock of impact, marshaling my senses in my best attempt to determine what had happened. My mind quested towards the point of impact with the caution of a bomb squad approaching a suspicious package. Almost at once I felt it again. Violent nausea leapt from the pit of my stomach all the way up my throat; I gagged and swallowed it back. My nostrils twitched. I couldn’t smell anything. All the same, I received the distinct impression of the sick-sweet stink of something old and rotten. The kind of smell that gets right under your clothes and into your skin, a clinging stench no amount of bathing will eliminate. It had no touch, and yet my skin crawled. I felt an almost uncontrollable urge to flinch away, or to curl up into a ball so as to present as little surface area as possible.

At the touch on my elbow I did flinch, jerking my flute case up in self-defense. I started to cry out, but in the next moment my vision cleared and I found myself looking into the twilight blue eyes of my husband and bandmate, Timber MacDuff.

“Watch it, aye?" He grabbed my wrist before the flute case could smash into his nose. His mouth opened, whether to deliver a rebuke or caution I’ll never know because just then he got a good look at my face and I saw the words drain right out of him.

“Caitlin, love! What is it?”

Timber gathered me into his arms and for a minute I rested against his chest, smelling the comforting smell of him: sawdust, woodsmoke, sage and sweetgrass, with the faintest hint of the fine whisky we all drank—in moderation, of course—before a gig. It blanketed the thick un-smell and his arms held at bay the horrible un-touch, giving me a much-needed space to pull myself together.

I took one deep breath and another. My stomach still heaved, but I felt stronger. With an effort, I detached myself from my husband’s torso and stood on my own two feet.

“Tim….” My voice came out in a squeak. I grimaced and tried again. “Timber, there’s something there.” I cocked my head towards the interior of the pub.

He regarded me for a long moment, irritation warring with resignation on his face. At last, resignation won and he shrugged, running a callused hand through his unruly, dark curls.

“Aye. Well, we knew that, didn’t we.”

I sighed and nodded.

With a shake of his head that said more than words, Timber reached for my gig bag. I relinquished it without comment. It helped, a little, to pass the black Gatemouth with its weight of whistles, microphones and various other musicians’ paraphernalia to someone bigger and stronger than I.