I own nothing that seems familar to you in this story, but you know that already. Holly is my own creation. Tristan is very irritated at me for this I assure you.

THANKS TO THE BETA TEAM! Leigh, Jo and Murt, this chapter wouldn't be what it is without your input!

Cyber Cookies to: Hazelelf1183 for guessing the right movie quote! Shadow's Interceptor for making a guess, and Storylover456 for guessing one of the books that I used for my inspiration!

"I can call spirits from the vastly deep."- William Shakespeare

Chapter 3

The sounds of smoldering wood popping in a well-maintained hearth, the rustle of skirts and the quiet tapping of a woman's impatient foot alerted Tristan that he was not in his own chambers. The tangible scents of medicinal herbs and powders and the low murmur of familiar voices coming from the far corner let him to believe that he was currently in the healing rooms. The dull throbbing ache in his skull and the faint metallic taste in his mouth also told him he was likely a patient.

He cracked open his heavy eyelids and peered about the room, noting with wry amusement and irritation that he had been correct.

"You're awake now, I see," came a voice. Reagan. Tristan inwardly winced, knowing full well that a note of irritation in her voice was never a good thing. He closed his eyes again, willing himself back to sleep, hoping she would leave him be and knowing that it was futile. Reagan didn't know how to let anyone be.

Again a rustle of skirts and an impatient huff let him know his charade had been all too transparent. A warm hand pressed to the side of his face and the scents of rich earth and mint drifted toward him. Reagan always smelled of herbs and dark soil and it never failed to stir something within him.

"You can't fool me, scout." Oh, he knew that all too well. At one time he would have secretly relished these attentions from her, now they only seemed to make him feel annoyed and increasingly worn.

"Leave me," he snapped, grimacing as the sound of his own grating voice shot pain through his head. Another impatient sigh, though this one sounded more indulgent, and Reagan drew her hand away.

"Fine," she replied mulishly. "Though you may wish to know your bird has made herself a nuisance since you've arrived here. Refuses to leave."

At her words the rustle of feathers sounded. Fionn was perched in the rafters. Tristan stirred then; she was keeping watch, good girl.

"I'm leaving her droppings for you to clean, my lord." Reagan finished before setting something solid down onto the table next to him. Tristan felt his lips curl into a faint smile. Reagan moved away from him then and he let out a breath. He dared to open his eyes fully this time and spied Fionn first. She cocked her head toward him, her yellow eyes blinking rapidly before she settled further on her perch, feathers ruffled, as if finding her assessment of him satisfactory. Then his eyes fell Dagonet.

The knight sat slumped on a stool in a darkened corner, his large frame filling the small space almost awkwardly. His eyes were closed and his head bobbed limply on his neck, jarring him awake. He sniffed, rubbed the back of his hand over his mouth and stiffly stood up.

Dagonet walked over to the workbench that was placed directly in front of the twin hearths. Tristan watched for some time as he rooted around for a set of particular bowls, admiring the economy and precision of the knight's movements. With Dagonet's back toward him and Reagan, ever the watchdog apprentice, gone for the moment, Tristan felt it was safe for him to get up.

Slinging his legs over the side of the cot, he realized quickly that someone had removed his boots and most of his clothing. He patted himself down, searching for his weapons, feeling naked without them. He ignored the pain splitting down the back of his head and the faint fuzziness at the corners of his eyes.

"Thinking of going for another swim?" Tristan looked up to see Dagonet leaning casually against the workbench, his massive arms folded across his chest, a stubborn glint in his eyes. Tristan lifted his shoulders carelessly.

"What would be the point? Can't swim."

"Funny, you didn't remember that fact last night." Dagonet's droll tone was not lost on Tristan. He didn't know how to reply to that so he chose to remain silent.

The memory of the previous night was still unclear to him, though Tristan now realized that his extremely hazy memories had not been the dream, or rather the nightmare, he had believed it to be. His presence in the healing rooms was proof of that. Dagonet turned his back on him again and began grinding something fiercely with a mortar and pestle. The fragrance of it wafted toward him and Tristan's nose twitched peculiarly.

"What herb is that?" He heard himself ask.

"Lavender," the healer tossed over his shoulder. "It's meant to put the nerves at ease." Tristan inwardly scoffed at that, as the smell alone was doing the exact opposite to him, and he wondered why.

"You're not giving that to me." At that Dagonet stopped his grinding and turned around again to face him, that damned look of concern crossing his features. Tristan hated it when Dag looked at him like that.

"Who said I was?" Both men looked at each other, one's expression unyielding, the other worried. Dagonet was the first to look away.

"My clothes - where are they?" Tristan barked. Dagonet shook his head, and wearily setting the bowl down a bit too forcefully, walked out to the back of the healing rooms. A muffled argument could be heard moments later. Reagan's protests were drowned out by Dagonet's calm, yet forceful attempts to dissuade her from something. Seconds later she stomped out from the store cupboard, red-cheeked and in a fit of obvious pique.

"You're not leaving, so don't even think about it." Tristan knew better than to cross Reagan when she was in a mood, but the thought of remaining here in these too-warm rooms, with the nagging sensation that he was supposed to be doing something--that someone was waiting for him just outside--was almost too much to bear. Dagonet crept back into the main room waiting to see if there would be a standoff between this brother-in-arms and his fiercely overprotective, new apprentice.

"I want my clothes, Reagan," he growled, but she looked unmoved at his attempt to bully her.

"They're still wet," she countered. "From when you fell into the pond and cracked your head open and almost drowned!" As if her reminder of his brush with death could have swayed him to obey her. He'd been on death's door before and he'd survived. One more visit wasn't going to make him any more vulnerable.

"Weapons and clothes. Now." His tone left no room for argument. He watched as Reagan took another deep breath, fighting her temper. Her blue eyes flashed and she gave Dagonet a beseeching look. The healer gave her a slight shake of his head in response and by now Tristan was getting tired of their nonverbal conversation.

At that moment Fionn let out a piercing cry and Reagan barely dodged having a nice size pile of droppings land on her shoulder.

She gave Tristan a dark glare and muttered something about "Sarmatians and shit," before turning to go back into the cupboard, and he barely succeeded in suppressing a grin. He looked at Fionn and she blinked at him innocently, so he tipped his chin to her, to let her know he appreciated her attempt at protecting him.

Reagan came back soon enough, sidestepping Dagonet with a pile of clothes wadded up in her arms. She dumped them unceremoniously into the scout's lap before she jabbed a finger toward the bedside table. "Clothes. Weapons." Tristan spied all of his knives and daggers neatly placed on the table next to his cot, lined up according to size just as he would have done.

"Did you disarm me?" She gave him a beguiling smile and Tristan was taken aback by the expression. "Who do you think took off your wet clothing? Need I remind you that you once saw all of my wares when I was oblivious of it." She looked him up and down in appraisal and if she had been anyone else Tristan would have taken the look at face value and acted upon it.

"We're even now," Reagan grinned at him, a cheeky glint in her eyes. No wonder Lancelot had been a hopeless fool for this woman, he thought. Ignoring her hovering, he shoved his legs into his still damp breeches, bending over to tie up his boots. His head felt heavy on his neck and he tried to unsuccessfully to blink away the black dots that swam before his eyes.

"I still don't think you should leave," Reagan said softly as she handed him the sharp dagger he kept tucked into his boot. Tristan took it, slid the knife into the hidden pocket and looked at her.

At his drawn-out and resolute silence, Reagan frowned, shook her head and stepped away as he stood up. Immediately Tristan knew it was a mistake. If his neck had felt heavy when he was sitting down, when he stood up it felt as if he had a large stone tied around it, pulling him to the floor. Tristan blinked again as the blackness crept in from the corners of his eyes, and dimly heard Fionn's piercing cry and Reagan's startled gasp before he fell over. It was a long moment before he regained consciousness.

Tristan groaned and opened his eyes. Reagan was standing over him with her hands on her hips looking indignant. Dagonet kneeled before him with that Gods-damned worried expression twisting his features.

"Still ready to leave?" he asked as he hauled Tristan to his feet. Before he could form a reply he was pushed bonelessly onto the cot and the dizziness suddenly stopped. He flopped an arm over his eyes so he didn't have to look at their expressions.

"I'm going. You can't stop me." Tristan heard another impatient sigh from Reagan and could bet that Dagonet was shaking his head again.

"You can leave when you can stand up without falling over," replied Dag.

"Give me until nightfall."

He had sounded so certain of his recovery Reagan couldn't help but ask "Why not wait until morning? You don't have to prove anything."

"Nightfall." His tone had been final.

"Why?" He heard Dagonet ask, and something in his voice made Tristan look at him.

"I need to know if it was real." The healer's brows gathered at this and Tristan refused to let the look bother him.

"It was real, Tristan, you drank too much and fell into the pond. You're not going anywhere tonight." Tristan glared at him knowing full well that was not what he was talking about. Dagonet looked at Reagan then. Again they shared some nonverbal cues and she left, red cheeked, her too big boots smacking against the floor as she went.

"What do you remember of last night?" Dagonet asked.

Truthfully? He thought to himself, nothing discernible, but he knew something had occurred. Something that even now had him crawling out of his skin to rediscover. Tristan could not escape the feeling that something was awaiting him. Something that had to do with nightfall and his glen- he had to get to the glen. If he told Dagonet he had dreamt of a woman shrouded in white, one who had reached for him, would he think him mad? Yes. But what did that matter? Most of the villagers thought him mad already.

He did not share his thoughts with Dagonet. What would be the point? Instead he turned away again, staring sightlessly out the window at the growing darkness and biding his time. Eventually Dagonet gave up trying to get an answer out of him and returned to his duties, leaving Tristan alone, just as he wished.

Madness or no, he had to know if what he'd found last night had been real, because for some reason he couldn't shake the feeling that it was, and that was what bothered him the most.

"Do you hear them, puça?" His mother asks, her face alight with excitement. Tristan shakes his head as the wind changes direction, blowing smoke from the blazing fire into his eyes and making them sting. He coughs, but does not wave the smoke away. His mother gives him a sharp look as if he's interrupted an important conversation.

It's the same thing every full moon. His mother will drag him away from the camp and the other boys and make him assemble a fire. Then they sit quietly until it grows very dark. His stomach gurgles in hunger but he ignores it. His restless legs twitch to get up and run across the empty field, to do something, but he doesn't. Tristan has learned to endure this; his mother is patient and he can be too.

He hears nothing, sees nothing, even as he watches his mother close her eyes and begin to hum. Tristan is spellbound by her: the way she moves, her draping sleeves making long shadows in the firelight, her dark hair rippling down her back. Chills run up and down his arms and suddenly he is very cold. Mother is not scared, and tells him not be frightened.

This is in his blood, she says, one day he too will be able to hear them and see them.

But he doesn't and he looks away, wondering if he really wants to. Some of the boys think his mother a mad woman--a witch. Tristan ignores them. How could his mother be mad? True, at times she is a bit absentminded, sometimes looking at him as if he weren't even there, yet she was always loving and kind and smelled sweetly of the sea.

During his seventh winter she had presented him proudly to the elder. The stooped old man had looked at him, grabbed his chin in a rough palm and stared at him. Tristan did not like the look the aged one gave him, and when he tried to pull out of the old man's grasp he was rewarded with a stiff, stinging slap. His mother had gasped, but did not pull him away. Instead he felt her fingers curl into his shoulders to hold him in place. The elder looked at his mother, gave her a crisp nod and he felt her possessive grasp on his shoulders tighten.

That had been the beginning of their full moon ritual. The following spring they had marked him. It had taken weeks for the stinging under his eyes to go away.

Now, however Tristan's legs twitch once more and he suppresses the urge to rub his arms to ward away the cold. His mother sits still as stone next to him and so does he. Her eyes are closed in bliss, her face bathed in moonlight.

"Do you see them, puça?" She asks again in that far off voice.

"No, Mâtar. I don't." Her eyes opened then, the rich color so much like his own, yet now so different swirling with memories and unseen faces, and the look frightens him.

"You will."

Tristan rapidly blinked the memory away, wondering what had brought it to mind in the first place. Naked tree branches swayed in the biting wind as he tucked the furs closer to his body. He'd sat in this glen for the better part of the week and had spied nothing so foreign as a rabbit scurrying into a hole. The glen was once more teeming with wildlife and he sometimes felt as if he were intruding.

There had been no sign of fog. No mist and certainly no rain to indicate that there would be. He couldn't remember a time when this accursed island had ever been this dry. Rubbing his nose on the back of his hand he prepared to wait another hour or so. Twilight had finally come and gone and the glen was enrobed in darkness. A low hanging harvest moon peeked through the branches above, a sight that pleased him. His mother in all of her eccentricities would have relished a night like this. He was half tempted to build a fire in her honor.

Fionn had long since left him. She had gathered her kill; a small brown field mouse, in her beak and flown away. Tired, apparently, of waiting for him to notice her. Tristan noticed her well enough, and idly wondered if his lack of praise for her fine catch was what had ruffled the bird's feathers. In any case, he was left alone, which suited him just fine.

Breathing deeply of the forest, he tucked his hands further into the furs and waited. His eyelids felt heavy, but he refused to close them, lest he dream again. There was something about this place that made him want to sleep. It had often lulled him into a doze that left him more exhausted than before.

Pressing his back straighter against the tree, Tristan pushed himself up, hoping this posture would keep him more alert. His thoughts shifted to the mysterious entity as they had so many times over the last few days.

Was she real or imagined? Tristan had often over the course of his life felt as if he were being watched. That had been the beauty of his glen. Here he felt welcome, at peace. It was a place to seek solitude, yet never had he truly felt alone. He had often seen things others did not, flashes out of the corner of his eye that turned out to be nothing. As a result he had held onto his own sense of reality by his fingertips for years.

Tristan knew what was real. The tangy sharp sweetness of an apple on his tongue was real. The crimson stain of blood on his hands was real. A cry of pain inflicted on an opponent was real. The sound of an arrow hitting its intended target was real.

She was not real.

To even question her existence would further seek to push him over the brink. He sensed mysterious ethereal figures every day, why did he think that she was any different? Because she reached for you…

She was not real.

Just as the dreams he had been having were not real. The reason for her is easy, he thought. She was perhaps a shard of memory, a person he knew when he was a boy or an illusion. Or, he cringed at the thought, something else. The first he could accept and move past. The second worried him, but he had seen madness in men before and was sure he was not that far gone. The last was unthinkable.

The breeze blew through his hair, obscuring his vision. It was colder this time, and Tristan smelled the telltale signs of snow and something sweet and fragrant stirring a wisp of memory. Lavender.

Instantly his skin prickled. Again, just as before, the sense of being watched was so oppressive that it forced him to his feet. Gone was the sense of peace he had been feeling. Now there was only need--it was an eagerness and yearning that clawed at him aggressively. His head throbbed, his heart pounded and the wind howled, bending the bare trees into submission.

He was supposed to do something. What, he doesn't know, only that he needs to do something… Anything. Pushing himself away from the tree, he strode into the middle of the clearing, turning in circles.

"What?" He yelled, at a loss as to what else to do.

"What do you want from me?" There was no subtle trail of mist this time, no blatant curtain of fog. Instead there was a flash of long white hair, the glimmer of steady unblinking eyes materializing out of nowhere, watching him intently. Tristan backed away unsteadily, watching with wide eyes as once again the woman he had seen before stretched a hand out toward him, staring at him plaintively. Then ghostly fingers curled into her palm as if she realized she'd done something wrong. Slowly she retracted her hand and backed away.

Tristan finally released the breath he didn't realize he'd been holding.

She was as transparent as he remembers, colorless, except for her eyes. Dead oak leaves tangled in her hair and swirled about her legs, they are the only substantial things about her. She shook her head at his retreat. She didn't want him to leave, that much he could gather. Tristan couldn't have if he had tried. He felt rooted to the spot. Her mouth opened and closed, and he realized that she was trying to speak to him and struggling. Could ghosts speak?

"…Heeearrrr… Meeeee…?" Her voice sounded faint, the words drawn out as if she had shouted them from far away. Something in his non-answer must have enlightened her and a sudden expression of delight crossed her features. She moved closer to Tristan and he doesn't shrink away as he had intended.

He waited and watched, wondering what she'd do next. Again she reached for him, this time with both hands, but she did not try to grab for him. Instead she smiled as if pleased that he didn't move away and extended two fingers toward him. They brushed against the marks under his eyes but he felt nothing but the barest hint of a caress. Her touch was icy cold and fleeting and all together surreal.

"…Seeeee…Meeeee…?" The question caught him off guard, echoing his mother's voice in his mind. The memory of her wild, haunted eyes slammed into the forefront of his mind.

"Do you see them, puça?"

Yes Mâtar, I do.

An: I know... another cliffy. I can has the problemz. Good news is chapter 4 is done! :) Thanks to everyone who reviewed/alerted/read chapter 2. It keeps me going. I'm sorry I didn't get to reply to everyone like I intended. To my lovely annon revewers: THANKS!

Also I feel I should mention that this story owes a very light hand to Kresley Cole's novel "Dark Desires after Dusk". Just as before it was part of my inspiration for this story, but it is by no means my template. It is however, a FANTASTIC book and if you love paranormal romance you should check it out.