For the second time in as many days, a row of silver pins were lined up methodically on the desk in JC's hotel room. Chris rearranged them mindlessly as he talked. JC hadn't eaten the day before, saying he wasn't hungry, yet Chris had had to sweep dried crumbs and what looked like the shell of an egg off the chair before he sat down. JC didn't eat eggs and he never left food in his room. None of it made sense, but it would have seemed even more strange if what JC was saying was not so incredibly odd itself.

"He was here. I saw him."

Chris wiped his hands on the front of his pants, then spoke, trying to keep a steady, sober tone.

“Listen to what I'm saying. You’ve been sick since we got here, and whatever the local quack cooked up yesterday must have knocked you out. You were dead to the world from about seven on. Either way, Justin was gone by nine. You must have been dreaming.”

JC stared past Chris for a minute and then shook his head slowly as if what he’d said couldn’t possibly be true. “Okay. Then I want you to call and make sure he got there.”

Chris hesitated. It wasn't that he didn't understand the mechanics of the request. He'd been the middle man before, when neither of them was willing to give in. So the task itself was simple, but the situation was different now. They hadn't been arguing. In fact, he'd noticed a sea-change in their relationship. On the flight from New York, they'd shared a row of seats, something they hadn't done in years. Justin had slept with his head in JC's lap and both of them had been so sound asleep when they landed that Chris had had to hold up the other passengers trying to get off the plane while he untangled them. On the limo ride from the airport, he'd have sworn they were holding hands.

Now JC was claiming to have seen Justin in a place he couldn't possibly, rationally have been.

“He caught the shuttle out of Edinburgh. He's in London. 400 miles away.”

JC's body reacted very subtley. Not a blink. More like a wince. And Chris realized that the JC who in the past had manipulated him into making calls that he should have been making himself, was not in this room. This JC was frightened.

Chris raised both hands in surrender. “Okay. Okay. We'll call. Maybe he’s locked in his room too.”

“Locked in his room?”

Chris heard the alarm in his voice and stopped it from going to panic. “Not Justin. I mean Lance. Since late yesterday. He’s holed up in his room. Something about the Hag of Dunsinane.” Chris waved his fingers in the air and trebled his voice. "He heard another ghost story from the barkeep downstairs.”

He bared his teeth fiendishly, then adopted a Scottish brogue.

“The Black Annis was a hideous hag with blue skin and a single piercing eye. She lived in a cave she’d dug out with her own two hands. A vicious sort, she’d leap from behind trees, devouring unsuspecting travelers. To this day, she can be heard grinding her teeth in the dead of night on the bones of her victims.”

The hissing sound that followed the tale made JC shiver.

“Jesus, Chris. Why didn’t you stop him? You know how superstitious Lance is.” Chris raised an eyebrow and JC set his jaw. “I'm not being superstitious. Look, I'll talk to Lance after we call Justin.”

Chris shrugged. “It won’t do any good. He’s not opening the door. Said he hears growling. In the hallway.”

JC waited for Chris to laugh, but he never did. In fact, his voice was even more serious than before.

“He said it’s there. Even if we can’t hear it.”

More than almost anything in the world, Chris Kirkpatrick loved a good practical joke, the kind that went on for days at a time. And they were in Scotland now, a place that for years he'd claimed to have ancestors that ranged from Braveheart to Mary, Queen of Scots. But if this was an elaborate hoax, it was beyond anything he'd ever been part of.

JC walked to the desk where Chris had been sitting and stared at the pins that had been pushed haphazardly across its surface.

“He's at the Mandarin Hotel. Call him. Please. I just want to know that he’s allright.”

Chris waited while JC scrabbled with the pins, then he touched his arm. “This was supposed to be a vacation, remember?”

JC turned toward him and Chris paused abruptly, his voice suddenly low, controlled.

“Dude.” He swallowed, then pointed slowly at JC’s face.

JC turned to the mirror above the desk, at first touching his cheek as if to convince himself that it was his own face looking back at him. Then he raked a slow hand through his hair, delicately tracing the triangle of bone that began just above the hairline then came to a soft point before disappearing into the curls behind it.

There was one on each side. A set of very small, pale horns.

JC squeezed his eyes shut. When he looked again, the image was gone. He caught a glimpse of Chris in the mirror. He too had closed his eyes.

They were still closed when JC left the room, quietly closing the door behind him.

-::-

Joey arrived on the morning flight.

“I think you’re full of shit, CK. I mean, c’mon. There’s a gift shop downstairs. They sell kilts and toffee, and have like four customers a day. It’s a hotel in Scotland, not a haunted castle. And we’re tourists here, tourists, not characters in some gothic novel.” He winked at JC, then pointed at a pin, stuck crookedly through the sleeve of his jacket. “What you got there, Heathcliffe?

JC looked down. When he reached as if to touch the pin, Chris stopped him.

“Wait. Did you put it there?”

JC shook his head slowly. “I don’t think so. At least I don’t remember doing it.”

Chris's voice was cautionary. “Then don’t touch it.”

Joey whistled through his teeth. “Now stop it. Both of you. What's going on here? And where the hell is Justin? I thought we were doing this sabbat thing together.”

“Sabbatical,” Chris corrected.

“Whatever.“ Joey looked back at JC, then started for the door. “Now hear this. I flew seven hours to get here. All I want is a couple of crop circles and the Loch Ness monster. I'm gonna take a shower and order a bottle of whiskey from room service. Don't let me sleep past five. And call Timberlake, will you? Tell him to get his ass up here and see if you can get Rapunzel out of his tower some-how." Joey stopped at the door and shook his head. "Growling."

The door closed and Chris looked back at JC. He was touching the pin on his sleeve tenderly, as if reliving some distant memory.

-::-

Chris had found it harder to reach Justin than he'd expected. He wasn't answering his cell and the operator at the Mandarin had insisted that he wasn't registered there. By the time they spoke, it was almost midnight. Justin had been unhappy about leaving in the first place. Now that it was late and he was obviously tired, Chris did a cut and paste on the details, leaving what had happened with JC out of the conversation. Lance and the Hag of Dunsinane was a much easier punch line to deliver.

“What am I gonna say? Stop! Please! My friend still sleeps with the light on.” He waited until Justin had stopped laughing, then went on. “Anyway. Lance is completely freaked out, but if I can keep a rein on things, tomorrow we're gonna go watch some guys throw telephone poles around a field.”

Justin laughed again, his voice delayed ever so slightly by the distance. The sound seemed to vibrate and there was an odd hum on the line. Chris could have sworn he felt a numbness travel up his body and then it was gone. Justin had started to speak, but Chris was so unnerved by what had just happened that he cut him off before he could finish.

“What did you say?”

“I said it’s called Caber Tossing. And you better watch out, man. Those guys are tough.”

“They wear kilts, J.”

“I'm serious. We saw it on ESPN. The pole is huge and it has to land a certain way. The guys that do it train for years. It's no joke. You'll see.

Chris snickered. “Well, at least Joey’s excited. He says we're going to the Boner Games.”

There were random voices in the background and Justin’s carefree demeanor suddenly disappeared. “Listen, I gotta go. Tell C to call me. I’ll get back as soon as I can.”

Chris had been trying his best to steer the conversation away from JC. He tried again. “We'll hit some balls when you get back. There’re a couple good courses between here and Edinburgh."

Justin's voice was serious. “I mean it, Chris."

"Okay, okay. Tonight we'll hit the pub in town and I'll let him talk. Chicken Soup for the Soul and shit. Just do what you have to do, man. He understands that you had to go. You only get one shot."

Chris segued into his own version of the song, playing loosely with the lyrics, but Justin didn't join in. At least Chris wasn't able to hear it. There was a vibration on the line again and he waited for the numbness to return, but this time there was nothing. And just as quickly as it had disappeared, the connection was restored.

He was about to ask Justin if he'd noticed anything strange going on when he heard the door open behind him. He motioned for Lance to come into the room, but instead Lance clung to the door, refusing to come any farther. His face was paler than Chris had ever remembered seeing it and he was holding the walking stick he'd picked up in a shop in the village square. His voice was a raw whisper.

"Did you hear it? Just now?"

Chris covered the phone with his hand. "Hear what?"

Lance gripped the stick and raised it protectively as his eyes searched the room. "The growling. It was right there. I heard it. Out in the hall."

Chris shook his head and pointed at the phone, lifting a finger to his lips in warning.

"Listen J, I gotta go. We'll see you in a couple days, okay?” Chris nodded a few times to himself, then closed up the phone. He could feel Lance watching him.

“Well?”

Lance bobbed his head slowly. His fingers were busy working the stick, the knuckles white. “I could hear it. The whole time. I can’t now.”

Chris tossed his phone on the bed and then dropped into the closest chair. “Jesus, Lance, you better be telling the truth. If this is some kind of payback, it’s fucking not funny.”

There was a clap of thunder and Lance shook his head, wrapping his arms around his body as if to ward off the cold.


-::-

JC checked the time, then crossed the room and fished the small square of paper out of the side table. Then he faced the long mirror on the wall and repeated the words again, exactly as he'd done the night before.

The room was suddenly, unnaturally bright, the flash of lightning followed by a clap of thunder. JC waited until the the room grew quiet, then tucked the paper back inside the ancient envelope the doctor had given him and put it back in the side drawer. Then he got into bed, fully clothed, and turned out the light.

He had no idea how long he'd been asleep, but when he felt the hand touch his face again, JC opened his eyes. He was no longer alone in the room. Justin was there again, moving in the dim light. He was completely naked as he had been the night before, his pale body an apparition that seemed at once solid yet transparent. JC rolled slowly to his side and watched as Justin again spread a layer of salt by the door, the grains pouring from his hand like water. The air in the room had been still. But when he walked toward the bed, there was movement in it, a charge of some kind that followed him like a wake.

As JC watched, he crawled from the foot of the bed, then stopped, sitting upright. No words were spoken, but somehow JC knew what he was supposed to do. Take off the clothes he'd laid down in. Slowly. Piece by piece. He could hardly breathe. Justin's gaze was hypnotic, his eyes somehow dark and bright at the same time. JC pushed the last of his clothing to the side and waited.

The specter had been absolutely still, watching him. Now it stepped off the bed and approached. JC had been touched only once, the hand to his brow to awaken him, but still his body was on fire with the memory of what was to come. He closed his eyes and something pulled at the center of his being, like he was being dragged across the floor.

And then he was on his back, and Justin was mounting him with the same breathless fury as the night before. JC swallowed back an ache of tenderness. It was everything the local shaman had promised, a glimpse of what could be. But it was nothing like being with the Justin he knew now. No brush of a hand desperate for even the slightest touch. No whispered intimacy. This was Justin's body in the room. But it was not him.

There was a wall of unbearable noise and lightning again filled the room.

In the morning JC was alone.

-::-

Joey finished the last of his coffee and then shook his head.

"Look, when I took the 'Which Buffy character are you?" quiz in US Weekly, I got Angel. That don't make me no vampire.You know what they needed here? A maze. One of those really big ones made out of hedge."

Chris exhaled loudly. "Like in The Shining."

"Yeah.like that."

Joey pointed at the check, then stood up and zipped his parka. "It's like the man said. They need stuff like that to keep the tourists happy. Lance just got carried away. Next thing you know, you're all acting crazy. It makes a good story to tell when you get back. Now finish up. We gotta be out of here by noon." He snatched the check from the table and started walking back toward the lobby.

Joey had been the last to arrive. Within twenty-four hours, one of the ancient bellmen had told him about the well, the six hundred year old one that sat on the north side of the building. Along with a dungeon, it was the only survivng part of the original castle. At night when the wind was right, the well seemed to howl, he'd said, long, plaintive wails echoing through the wing of guest rooms that had been built right next to it. Chris had admitted that it could possibly account for the growling Lance had heard in the hallway. But not for the strange noises on the phone. Or the numbness he'd felt.

Or the appearance of someone who should not be there.

Could not be there.

Lance was already flipping through a tabloid impatiently by the time Chris reached the lobby. Joey had settled the last of the bill and was giving the attractive desk clerk a piece of his mind for not having golf carts available for the guests to use.

Justin and JC were standing quietly by the heavy wood door that led to the gardens. They weren't just holding hands now. They were openly affectionate. Neither seemed to have any recollection at all of anything that had happened. Chris had stopped asking when JC broke his fast. That had happened the day Justin had returned. There had been no strange phenomena since.

And Chris had never seen the tiny, pale horns again.

By the time they got to the airport, he was beginning to think that maybe Joey was right, that they'd let the strange surroundings and their imaginations get the best of them.

They were in the boarding area when Lance offered Chris the folded the copy of The Star that he'd been reading at the hotel. They were comfortably settled in their seats when Chris noticed that Lance had turned down a page, marking it. He stared at the headline, awestruck.

Pop Star Goes Missing
Thursday, October 30 @ 22:52:38 EST

*NSYNC star Justin Timberlake was due to turn up at not one but two private parties while in London, one at Funky Buddha, the other at The Savoy, but the singer failed to show. A spokesman for the star said that he'd opted instead for a relaxing massage and an early night at the plush Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Knightsbridge. When contacted for confirmation, the hotel had no comment.

Timberlake returns to London for four sold-out concerts at Earl's Court Exhibition Centre on December 5th.

Chris looked up in time to catch Lance's eye before he turned away. Joey who'd been watching the exchange, snatched the paper and folded it, stowing in his duffel bag without even looking to see what was in it.

Chris leaned back against the seat and closed his eyes. "I thought you didn't believe in ghosts."

Joey slipped his bag into the overhead bin, then sat down heavily.

"I don't. Because there's nothing to it." He looked down the aisle to where Justin leaned against the row of seats that he and JC had staked out for themselves, then back at Chris. "Okay, so maybe there is. Just don't ask me to believe it. Whatever finally got those two together was real. The rest we just forget about, like it never happened. Because it didn't."

Joey looked first at Lance and then at Chris, waiting until they had both nodded before he looked away. Then he settled back into his seat and closed his eyes. Chris could feel Lance watching him, but he didn't look back, afraid of what he would see in Lance's eyes, that Joey was wrong, that it had happened.

All of it.

And not just to Justin and JC, but to all of them.

Chris had a sudden flash of the nightstand in JC's room, the line of pins, the crumbs of bread. He closed his eyes as the plane lifted off, squeezing the image away. He'd been a white knuckle traveler all his life because flying had just never made sense. There was no logic to a metal bird, with nothing to keep it from falling from the sky. He didn't understand, so he was afraid. It seemed so incredibly foolish to him now, now that he knew that there were other things so much more frightening. Things he would never understand in a hundred lifetimes.

Joey had begun to take long, slow breaths and Chris let his own body pick up the rhythm. He would sleep now and tomorrow things would look better. And in the next week, there might even be a day when he wouldn't think about it. Then somewhere down the road, he would begin to forget and things would go back to the way they had been before.

Before there were ghosts, and castles, and things that go bump in the night.

He opened his eyes one last time and glanced back to where Justin's long legs now filled the aisle.

Some of it would fade, but some things would never be forgotten. Like two friends who had wanted so desperately to be lovers that they had somehow found a way.

With no thought to right or wrong. Possible or impossible. Only what could be. Should be.

If not in this world, then in another.