Finding Fraser Read online

  I stared at him, completely without words. Everything in me—every drop of plasma, every cell, every follicle—wanted to scream my frustration into his neatly groomed face.

  Instead, I did what I have vowed to never do since I read Gloria Steinem’s autobiography in seventh grade.

  I burst into tears. “Everything-I-own-was-sto-ho-ho-len,” I sobbed, “and-I’m-living-on-my Vi-hee-hee-sa-card.”

  “Oh dear,” Matthew said, looking desperate for someone to take the sniveling wreck off his hands. Unluckily for him, the place remained pretty much deserted.

  He took a deep breath and pulled a pristine handkerchief out of his pocket.

  “I’m afraid we’re out of tissues,” he said. “I’ve just thrown away the empty box.”

  I accepted his handkerchief, wiped my eyes and then took a deep breath. It seemed to help. “I’m sorry,” I said, shakily. “I’ve had kind of a rough week.”

  “Look,” he said. “I can see you’re very upset and I wish I could assist. But I am not authorized to reschedule flights. You can try doing it online …”

  “My—my laptop was stolen, too,” I said, teetering.

  “Deep breath,” he said, hurriedly. “Try another deep breath.”

  By this time my glasses had completely fogged up. I pulled them off and used the only dry corner remaining of his handkerchief to wipe them. “I don’t even wear glasses in public, as a rule,” I said, pointing at my face. “But she even stole my conta-hac-hact lenses.

  “Your contact lenses?” he said, sounding truly horrified for the first time. “What kind of monster steals someone’s contact lenses?”

  Exactly. I sniffed and held up the hankie enquiringly.

  “Go ahead,” he said, looking resigned. “You can keep it.”

  I blew my nose into his handkerchief and took several more deep breaths. Something inside me felt broken. I had no idea what to do next.

  A steady clicking noise coming from the other side of the desk made me look up at last. The young man’s fingers were flying across his terminal, his brow furrowed in concentration. After a few moments of unbroken typing, he smiled, and leaned over the desk.

  “Look,” he whispered. “I’m not authorized to change your flight—I just don’t have the codes. But I can at least do a quick refund of your return flight cost, so you can rebook on your own. Do you have your credit card?”

  I did. Still in my hand from paying the taxi driver. I slid it over the desk at him.

  “Not that way, not that way,” he hissed. “Down here.” One of his hands emerged from around the back of the desk, out of sight of the CCTV cameras.

  Trying to affect an innocent face, I slipped the card into his hand.

  “This is the card you paid your initial booking on?” he whispered.

  I nodded.

  “And you swear you’ll rebook your return flight with our airline as soon as humanly possible?”

  I swore. In the legal sense.

  “Because I am NOT supposed to do this. If anyone asks me, I’ll have to tell them there was a mix-up or the machine failed or … something.”

  Mechanical error as the go-to excuse for an airline did not make me comfortable. But comfort was not going to put a refund on my credit card.

  “Works for me,” I whispered.

  “Punch your PIN in now,” Matthew hissed.

  After a few seconds, he slipped the card back into my hand and turned the key on his terminal.

  “I’m afraid we are closed for the evening,” he said, in a suddenly loud and somewhat stilted voice. “You’ll have to return tomorrow, Madam.”

  “I’ll do that,” I replied equally loudly. “Thank you, sir.”

  The only person who could possibly hear us was the man rolling his cleaning trolley down the broad aisle between the empty waiting room seats. It didn’t matter. The deed was done.

  Matthew winked at me solemnly, picked up his bag of trash and his keys and flicked off the light that illuminated the airline sign.

  I shouldered my pack and ran for the nearest bank machine. I had a withdrawal to make.

  Sitting on a bus rocking through the Highland darkness later that night, I contemplated my situation. I couldn’t see any other word for it.

  I’d become a fugitive.

  Of course, technically the money was mine, dogmatic airline rules aside. I hadn’t taken the flight yet, and I’d agreed to re-book. Just when I’d be able do so, though …

  Well, as soon as humanly possible. And in order for that to happen, I had to have enough cash, right?

  I looked down at the statement I’d printed off from the bank machine. I now had four hundred pounds on my credit card.

  Four hundred pounds.

  Even with my pathetic math skills, I was pretty sure that translated to nearly seven hundred American dollars. A person might live a long time in the wilds of the Scottish Highlands on that kind of money.

  So, yeah. I decided that for the present, I could live with being a fugitive, if it meant I could stay a little longer. Keep trying to find my Fraser.

  Maybe I was not so different from Susan after all.

  Fickle Fortune…

  10:30 pm, March 16

  Inverness Airport, Scotland

  Sudden, happy change of plans. Fortune has smiled on me! My circumstances have altered a bit, and the quest to find my Fraser carries on. Will report in at my next stop. Wish me luck!

  - ES

  Comments: 61

  SophiaSheridan, Chicago, USA:

  Well, thank god you’re all right. We’ve been worried sick since hearing about the robbery. Why won’t you call? Surely you will have to come home now. If you won’t call, perhaps you’ll send me an email?

  Gerald Abernathy, Ft. William, Scotland:

  Not sure you’ll remember me, Emma, but we met a few nights ago at the Clava Cairns. I promised you I would give you more information if I could on the subject we both care about. Just wanted to tell you that I found the circle, but no——ah——inhabitant. I caught a terrible cold that night and I’m actually typing this from the lounge at the hospital here in Fort William. If you do ever make it down to this neck of the woods, look me up. I’ll be happy to give you the information about the site. Maybe you’ll have better luck. My email is GAbernathy@ge*rgiabell.com

  HiHoKitty, Sapporo, Japan:

  Very relieved to hear you are well, Emma-san. Book club send luck!

  (Read 58 more comments here…)

  I woke in the gray dawn, swimming up to consciousness through the shreds of a terrible nightmare. American agents had forced me onto a plane back to the US at gunpoint. We’d gotten somewhere deep over the Atlantic Ocean before I discovered that there was no one flying the plane. I had to take the controls. The plane dipped and weaved, and finally flew the entire distance about ten feet above the waves. A whale spouted in the water beneath us, we were so close. Sharks swam below us, keeping pace with the plane. One of them had a laser beam strapped to his head, but even that didn’t give me pause. Land in sight, I brought the plane down safely to the rousing applause of the entire crew of the Pequod from MOBY DICK.

  I sat up in bed, my body bathed in sweat, adrenaline pumping. The cockpit dissolved around me into the shape of a drab little room, about the size of my closet at home.

  I wasn’t in an airplane with Captain Ahab. I wasn’t in America.

  I was in the town of Fort William, Scotland, population unknown. I had a hundred pounds of Scottish sterling safe in an inner pocket of my backpack. I had nearly three hundred and fifty more transferred from my visa card to my current account.

  And I had a journey to complete.

  The previous night, after a quick stop at the cash point, I’d spied an Internet-access-for-a-pound computer in the airport, so I had sat down to scope out accommodation. I thought she might offer me some compensation, but Mrs. Henderson had vanished with little more than an apologetic smile at the police station, so I was disinclined to ever darken her
doorway again. Still, nothing was going to bring me down. And just moments after I had posted the cheery blog entry, up popped the comment from Gerald.

  With my sudden change of fortune, at least it was a place to start. I shouldered my pack and looked for the signs pointing to the bus stop.

  Outside the airport, I ran across the parking lot and hopped on a bus that was idling but still had its door open. The driver informed me that he was heading north, but that a southbound bus should be arriving shortly. “It’s headin’ for Glasgae, mind,” he said, “but it’ll stop in Fort William for ye. Jes’ make mention to the driver, aye?”

  And that is what I did.

  Forts & Friendship…

  9:00 am, March 17

  Fort William, Lochaber, Scotland

  Today as I type these words, I find myself in one of the most beautiful parts of this country I’ve seen yet. Upstairs, through my bedroom window I can see the peak of Ben Nevis, Scotland’s highest mountain. And just south of here are breathtaking glens that roll away for miles between jagged peaks. Last night I couldn’t see any of this, but the bus driver filled me in on a few of the details, since it turned out I was the lone passenger.

  Not much call for midnight bus service to Fort William on an icy March night, apparently. Fort William was named for Prince William of Cumberland, a fact most of the Scots around here don’t really enjoy. “He were a goddamned butcher, ‘at he were,” was how the bus driver put it.

  And yes——there is a hostel in Fort William. How can there not be when this is the center of all Scottish mountaineering? But I am not there. We pulled in long after midnight and the driver took me to his auntie’s house before heading further south. I have already availed myself of a most excellent full Scottish breakfast cooked by the driver’s proud Auntie Gwen, connected with you——my fine friends——on her home computer, and now, on this beautiful almost-spring day … I go to see a friend in need.

  - ES

  PS Yes, I did notice it is Saint Patrick’s Day. And no——I will never celebrate the wearing of the green ever again.

  Comments: 56

  The truth was that Auntie Gwen’s breakfast had put me into a food coma from which I didn’t emerge until noon. I popped back onto her computer before I left for the hospital to see the comments had begun arriving pretty much immediately after I’d posted. They were almost to a letter all asking about how I was able to stay on in Scotland when I had been robbed. This made me a bit nervous. What if my nefarious deed got back to the airline? I decided that sticking with a general travelogue format on the blog was the best idea for the moment. It was important to engage my readers so I needed to keep the travel tips coming, but maybe I’d hold the more personal stuff to myself.

  Even after all that time, I wasn’t really clear on the finer details of posting to my blog about real people. I mean—was it okay to mention names? I’d been pretty careful about it so far. Even in the case of Gerald posting straight to my blog, I still wasn’t sure about using his name online. I decided to check with him when I saw him. Better take the safe route.

  Auntie Gwen’s place was gorgeous, and still smelled of bacon and warm bread. I couldn’t help feeling a pang of guilt as I headed out the front door, her hand-drawn map safely tucked into my pack. She’d risen at that god-awful hour to let me stay the night before, and even offered me winter rates, but the cost was still triple what I would have paid to stay at the hostel.

  I decided I needed to sort out the money as soon as possible. But I also I knew I was going to have to find a job to make up the shortfall, anyway, so a night or two of totally reckless spending wasn’t going to kill me. My ill-gotten gains had only fostered my rebellious spirit. I had no work permit, so under-the-table employment was going to be my only option. A pirate’s life for me, yes? I laughed out loud at the thought.

  Walking down the street, I could feel a real change in the air. There was a lightness to it that lifted my heart, even on the way to a hospital. The grass may not have been green yet, but I had a bit of my pirate gold in my pocket and the birds surely believed spring was on its way. The air was filled with feathered Bocellis, all singing their hearts out.

  After a twenty-minute walk, the roof of the hospital arose just up the road. It was the standard three-storey affair that I would have known even without the address. What is it about hospitals that they look so similar, regardless of where in the world they are?

  It turned out to be a good thing that I’d gone back for a post-breakfast nap, as visiting hours were only in the afternoon and the early evening. After taking a wrong turn into the maternity wing, I found my way into the ward where Gerald was staying. His bed was closest to the window, but he shared the room with three other beds, two of which were occupied.

  He hadn’t seen me at first, and my heart went into my mouth a little at the sight of his pale face against the pillow. The hospital smell didn’t help. Disinfectant, mixed with … what? Sickness and worry, maybe.

  A nurse was adjusting his IV, and Gerald caught sight of me just as she finished. “Emma! I can’t believe you’re actually here.”

  His smile lit up his face, making me hope he was less proximate to death’s door than he had first appeared. He patted the side of the bed, and the nurse returned to sweep a curtain around to give us a little privacy.

  “Sitting on the beds is forbidden,” she said sternly, and pulled in a chair from one of the other cubicles.

  Gerald stuck his tongue out at her back as she walked away. “I don’t like that one,” he whispered loudly. “There’s another who’s much nicer, but not on today, sadly.”

  I perched on the edge of the chair. “What happened?” I murmured, as the curtain wasn’t doing much to keep our conversation private.

  He pulled a controller out from under the covers, and held a button down so that the head of his bed slowly rose to bring him more upright.

  “Not much to tell,” he said, once he’d found a comfortable position. “I found the circle without any trouble at all.” He shot me a sideways glance. “Don’t you worry, none. I’ve kept the map for y’all.”

  “Oh—I wasn’t worried,” I insisted. “I just came down here to make sure you’re all right.”

  A wide grin spread across his face. “Ain’t you the sweetheart? Well, I must have caught something on the bus ride. Some woman had her snot-nosed kid with her, and he coughed all over me the entire trip. I moved right up to the front of the bus, but there was obviously no escaping his germs, the little bastard.”

  He coughed a little himself, and then began again. “By the time I arrived down here in Fort William, it was mid-afternoon. I got myself settled and then hired a car to drive up to the circle.”

  “A car?” I began doubtfully. The whole no-driver’s-license thing might become a bit of a problem.

  “Oh, don’t worry, hon. You can easily do it by cab. Anyway, I got there just at sunset, and sat there the night through.”

  “The entire night?”

  “That I did, honey. And it was a whole hell of a mistake, because first off, ain’t no ghost gonna come around when someone’s coughing their lungs up inside a stone circle. And second—by the end of the next day, I had pneumonia. Ah’m asthmatic, so they didn’t want to give me drugs and send me back to my hotel room. Been here since then.”

  “Oh, Gerald—I’m really sorry to hear that. Both of those things,” I added, hastily.

  He nodded and I could see that just the act of telling me the story had taken a toll on him. His hand was limply feeling around the bedcovers, so I leaned out of my chair and slid the controller within his reach.

  “Thanks, Emma,” he said, and pushed the button to lower his bed.

  “Are you okay?” I asked, as he sank away.

  He nodded. “I think I might just have a nap,” he said weakly, and then waved his hand at the bedside table. “Go ahead and take the map. It’s in the top drawer with my Ricola.”

  As I slipped the map out from under the p
ackage of throat lozenges in the drawer, his eyes fluttered closed. I shut the drawer as quietly as I could.

  “I’ll expect a full report,” he said, his eyes still tightly shut.

  “Of course,” I replied, and walked over to the opening in the curtain.

  “And not jes’ online—in person, y’hear?”

  “I promise, Gerald.”

  “Good.” He turned his face away from me and I crept out through the curtain. His voice carried after me, his Southern accent so incongruent in this setting. “And stay away from any of them goddamned germy kids, y’hear?”

  The nurse frowned at me and I hurried out the door.

  It was wrong to feel exasperated with someone who is ill. But I somehow managed it.

  As I walked back along the road to Auntie Gwen’s, I studied the map Gerald had given me. It was a printed map, the kind you get when you’re staying at a hotel or sometimes a restaurant in a tourist area. It encompassed the entire region of Inverness-shire, effectively from Fort William along Loch Ness, all the way up to Inverness. There were no real notes on the map at all, beyond a few hieroglyphic-like notations in red ink, and whether they were for himself or for me was unclear.

  Either way, they spelled trouble.

  There were two locations marked on the map. The first I found must have been the stone circle he’d talked about, where he’d spent the night and managed to acquire pneumonia. It was near a little town called Drumnadrochit. As far as I could tell, this was halfway back up Loch Ness toward Inverness, which had to be at least an hour away by car. The other location marked on the map was not as far—but as his red X ran through a site labeled Ainslie Castle, I couldn’t even tell if there was a stone circle at all.

  I checked my watch. It was 5:00 pm—a kind of dead zone in terms of time in the Scottish countryside. Just about everything in this part of Fort William appeared to have closed down, including the only Internet cafe I had spotted on my walk. I leaned against a tree on the corner of Auntie Gwen’s property and pored over the map again in the failing light.