A Wee Dose of Death by Fran Stewart

the left and pointed with my ski pole. “The one on that hill over there on the far side of town is the Inverness trail. The Dunbarton and Fife trails are behind us, on the opposite side of Lake Ness, and the—”
    He raised a hand to quiet me. We had dozens of named trails coursing up the mountains from this valley. Obviously he didn’t want to hear about all of them.
    â€œThere’s a cute little cabin in a clearing up ahead. It might be fun to go that far.”
    Dirk cast a dubious eye at the sky—or what we could see of it through the snow-laden braches of the trees surrounding us. “Are ye sure o’ the path?”
    â€œWe’re not going to get lost, if that’s what you’re worried about.” I twisted to gaze back over my right shoulder and pointed with the other of my ski poles. “Look. You can see Hamelin from here through the break in the trees. We’re not that far out of town.” I pulled the pink yarn out of my jacket pocket. It’s surprising how well wool compresses. “I’ll tie yarn on trees as we go,” I said, matching my actions to my words. “That way we won’t get lost even if the path gets totally snowed in.” I always carried yarn with me when I skied—as much a habit as fastening my seat belt in the car. “At worst, we can always just head downhill and we’ll be sure to run into Lake Ness—it’s not frozen yet, so we can’t miss it. Then we turn left, and we get to Hamelin. Anyway”—I pointed to the parallel dents that marked the snow ahead of us—“a couple of other skiers have already come this way. Maybe we’ll meet up with them.”
    â€œMayhap, but then I’ll not be able to say anything.”
    â€œIt’s never stopped you yet.” Carrying on a conversation while nobody else could hear Dirk asking for explanations of twenty-first-century words and customs had been somethingof a challenge in the months since I’d . . . acquired . . . him last summer. “You never seem to shut up when I ask you to.”
    He gave me one of those affronted looks, which was rather daunting coming from such a big ghost, but I turned away from him and from the tree I’d just yarned, and skied on.
    Quite a few pink-beribboned trees later, we came to one of my favorite spots on the Perth trail, and I glided to a stop. A wall of solid rock rose a good twenty or thirty feet to our right, with winter-withered ferns clinging to cracks in the granite. Come spring, they’d green up and look like a veritable nursery. “Look at that cliff.” I stopped and pointed to my right, and Dirk raised an eyebrow. I could almost hear him thinking,
Ye think I canna see it?
    â€œI love this place.”
    â€œI can see why ye maun.”
    â€œI come up here to picnic sometimes.”
    â€œWhat would be a
nick
?”
    â€œHuh?”
    â€œA nick. Ye said ye come here for to pick them. Is it a wee flower?”
    â€œPicnic. One word.” I spelled it for him. The explanation took considerably longer.
    The snow was trampled a couple of yards to the left of the path. When I finished with the English lesson, I nodded toward the mess. “Looks like at least one of the skiers in front of us had a problem.”
    â€œHe fell?”
    The answer was so obvious, I didn’t reply.
    â€œMayhap he tripped on this rock.”
    Dirk stood with one foot hiked up on top of a good-sized rock. Behind him—through him—I could see a rather large fallen branch. How could anybody not have seen those? “Sometimes rocks break away from the cliff face. Usually they fallstraight down, but this one must have bounced to come this far. How could anybody have missed seeing such an obstacle?”
    â€œMayhap he was looking at yon lovely cliff instead of watching his skees.”
    I studied the trampled snow. “It can’t have happened too long ago