The Bagpiper’s Ghost by Jane Yolen

Author:Jane Yolen [Yolen, Jane]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

It was another fifteen minutes before the white-haired doctor got there, examined the still-sleeping Peter, and left a bottle of pills by the bedside.

“One when he wakes, and one every six hours after.” His voice was pleasantly English.

Mom nodded and sat down again by Peter’s side. Pop sat at the foot of the bed. Exchanging dark looks, Gran and Da stood in the doorway. In the hall, Jennifer shifted from one foot to the other. Only Molly wasn’t with them. She’d been sent off to a neighbor’s to play with their children for the day.

“Best to get her out of the way,” Pop had explained.

Jennifer thought they should have sent the dog with her, for he lay whimpering by the bedside, as if by remaining close to Peter he might undo all the damage he’d done taking them to the cemetery.

She felt like doing the same.

Gran and Da accompanied the doctor downstairs, their voices floating back up to Peter’s room.

“They will overdo when they come on vacation,” the doctor said to Gran and Da. “Youngsters always think they’re indefatigable. Especially American youngsters.”

“Nonsense,” Gran said as Da closed the front door behind the doctor. Jennifer could hear the latch click into place. “Pills and all. It’s nonsense.”

“Is it magic then, Gwen?” Da’s voice asked.

“Aye, ’tis.”

“There’s been an awful lot of that aboot since the bairns arrived,” he added. “First Michael Scot, then that lassie from the past, and noo this.”

Gran answered, “The twins seem to call magic to them. They dinna mean to, but it’s in the blood.”

Hearing that, Jennifer shivered.

“It’s too much fer them,” Da said sternly. “They being Americans with no sense aboot it, no control.”

“I’ll see it’s stopped,” Gran said. “Or finished.”

Jennifer started down the stairs just as Da went out the door after the doctor. Gran looked up at her and nodded, as if giving permission for her to leave Peter for a little while.

“What’s indefatigable?” asked Jennifer when she got to the bottom step. “Undefeated?”

Gran grinned. “Something like that, lass.”

Then they went in to eat their porridge, which—as Pop liked to say—was the real magic that stuck Scotland together.

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