'Has it got a ghost?' Josie's voice was shrill with excitement at the thought as she looked at the castle. As a castle it wasn't much, more of an old house with battlements and turrets. Still, it was a castle.
She had met Ian at college and they had clicked immediately. He had been studying for a degree in Business Management and only much later told her that he was hoping to expand his family's whiskey distilling business in Scotland. She was studying Creative Writing whilst working on her second book. On leaving college they moved in together, but a few weeks later Ian had been called back to Scotland as his father was ill. Ian's father only lasted another week. This was when Ian phoned Josie and told her that he was now the laird, and had a castle. It wasn't a big castle, but it was old. He proposed to her during the telephone call, and at the end of a whirlwind fortnight Ian was driving Josie to her new home as his bride.
'I haven't seen any ghosts, although there is a rumour that one appears whenever the laird is away. Sarah, the housekeeper probably knows more about it than I do.'
Like Catherine in 'Northanger Abbey' most of Josie's knowledge of Scottish castles came from fiction. She had expected the housekeeper to be a stern-looking thin woman wearing a black dress and a frilly apron. Instead Sarah was a short plump woman in her late forties dressed in jeans and a tee shirt emblazoned with the name of a designer brand. She soon found that Sarah was more of a member of the family than a servant. Seeing how tired Josie was after the long journey from the South of England, Sarah soon had her settled in bed with a hot cocoa.
Rearranging the house took time and energy, and Josie had little time to spend worrying about ghosts as she rearranged a small bedroom as an office for her writing, and spent some time finding her way around the castle.
'Sure you can manage without me, Darling?' Ian asked a few weeks later as he zipped up his suitcase.
'Of course I can. You know Sarah does most of the work anyway. I'll miss you at night though.'
'It's important that I secure this deal to get us into the Japanese markets. You know I have to be there. It's only for ten days.'
'I know. We'll keep your castle safe while you're gallivanting about with geisha girls.' Sarah laughed, accepting his kiss.
She sipped at the coffee had brought her as she watched him make the final preparations. She had thought he looked good in jeans and tee shirts at college but was now finding his broad shoulders and height made a suit look good too. As soon as he left the room she ran to the window, which overlooked the castle entrance and watched as he folded himself into the car and drove away. Josie knew the small car was practical but somehow it didn't look right in front of their grand front door.
Josie wasn't looking forward to sleeping without Ian at her side so she delayed going to bed until after midnight. She was deep in sleep when something roused her. She knew she had heard a noise, but she didn't know what she had heard. She listened and heard a rattling noise. She switched on the light and heard it again, coming from the direction of the kitchen. Looking for something, anything, to use as a weapon Josie opened the large cupboard in the hallway and pulled out Ian's old hockey stick. It would have to do. Holding the stick firmly she headed downstairs. With all the lights on, Josie checked that the front door was locked, then the back door. Both were secure, and all the windows were closed and barred. Ian's father had been conscious that the lack of immediate neighbours made them vulnerable, and made the house as secure as he could. Josie heard the rattling in the kitchen again, and cautiously tiptoed into in. There was no sign of anything which could have made the metallic noise she had heard. She laughed at herself creeping around a castle in the middle of the night. It felt like something from a horror movie. She grabbed a pickle sandwich and a hunk of cheese. Nothing scary could happen if she had a cheese and pickle sandwich. It was not until she was settled back into bed that she remembered her first day at the castle and Ian telling her that Sarah knew something about a ghost.
'Did you hear anything in the night, Sarah?'
'Yeah. That was Dorothy our ghost. She worries when the laird isn't in the house.'
'Tell me more.' Josie's voice showed eager excitement.
'As soon as I finish making breakfast.'
Josie waited impatiently until Sarah dished up cereal and coffee for both of them, and joined her at the table. Sarah sat with a smile on her face, teasing Josie.
At last Josie gave into the temptation.
'Come on, spill!'
'Dorothy was the lady of the castle back in ... oh, the eighteenth century I believe. She and the laird were loved by all the staff, and seemed to be a really happy couple. Every so often Dorothy would disappear from the castle for a week or two. Nobody knew where she went, and the laird never mentioned her absences.
The laird was killed in a hunting accident during one of the periods when Dorothy was missing. They tried to find her, but nobody could.' Sarah shivered. 'They found her months later, still in the castle. There was a hidden passage in the basement, which led to a dungeon with a tiny cage in it. Poor Dorothy must have starved to death when the laird didn't come back to free her. All the time he must have been imprisoning her regularly and she never told anybody but suffered in silence.'
Sarah watched Josie take in the story, her eyes wide.
'What did they do with the cage?' Josie asked.
'It's still down there. Several lairds have tried to remove it, but like magic it always resists any efforts to change it. In the end they just locked the door and left it there.'
'Can I see it?'
'Sorry, only Ian knows where the key is. It is passed from father to son with the lairdship.'
'Oh.'
Sarah was surprised at the disappointment on Josie's face. She would not have been surprised if Josie had disappeared into her office to write a story about Dorothy, but instead she seemed more interested in the cage.
Eventually the two women parted, each to her own work, and no more was said.
Josie waited until Ian had been back for a week before bringing up the subject that had been filling her thoughts ever since that chat with Sarah.
'Can I see your cage?'
Ian blinked at her, confused.
'Sarah told me about the ghost. She says the cage is still there, and only you have the key.'
'That's all in Sarah's imagination. There's no such thing as ghosts.'
'I heard her. She's real.' Something in Josie objected to calling Dorothy 'it.'
Ian rummaged through the drawers in his study, eventually finding a tiny key which he used it to open a larger box which contained an antique looking key, large and ornate.
'I suppose it won't hurt to look.'
Josie had expected the basement to be dark and dank; instead Ian clicked a switch which flooded the area with fluorescent lights. The room was very large, and most of it was filled with shelving units containing boxes, tools and gardening equipment. Ian led Josie through the room, and picked up a lantern before leading her down a darker passage. This was what she had expected; the passage had stone walls and floors, and an arched brick ceiling. As they progressed, she noticed that the walls were getting closer together and the ceiling lower. Ian had to bow his head as they reached the heavy iron door. It was old looking, but Josie knew enough history to suspect that it was imitation Gothic rather than the real thing.
'You sure you want to see this?' he asked in a dolorous voice. Sarah wasn't sure if he was teasing her or not. She nodded.
The space behind the door was more like a cupboard than a room. The cage was made of thick bars of metal. It was plainly made to fit the space, as there was barely room to walk around it. A padlock held the door closed, and a key hung from the padlock on a detachable chain. There was a patch on the floor as if something had dripped there a long time ago and stained the cage floor. Josie could barely contain her excitement as she unlocked the padlock and crawled into the cage. Ian watched her with amused bewilderment.
The cage was not tall enough to allow her to stand, or even to sit without bowing her head, but if she stayed on all fours like an animal she was fine. Josie guessed that was the point. She twisted herself around to face Ian and handed him the key.
'Lock me in.' She ordered.
'What?' Ian couldn't believe his wife had said that.
'You won't believe how much this is turning me on. Please lock me in.' She grinned and batted her eyelids at him sexily. 'I'll make it worth your while.'
