I looked at Angus, incensed that he would bring up such a black chapter in our history, and in a court of law of all places.

"Answer the question, Dr. Wallace."

"My father… he was supposed to take me fishing that afternoon, only the drunk was too busy cheating on my mother to be bothered with his only child."

The courtroom buzzed with opinion.

"So you decided to go fishing without him?"

"Yes."

"In a rowboat?"

"That's correct."

"Had you ever been out on the Loch in a boat alone?"

"Once or twice."

"Tell us what happened to you on this particular occasion."

"Oh, and did I mention the waitress he was with was a minor? They should've arrested your client back then. If you ask me, he's got a lot of nerve judging Mr. Cialino."

The judged banged his gavel. "Direct your replies only to counsel's question, Dr. Wallace."

"My boat flipped over, and I drowned, as in I was legally dead. Lucky for me, the water bailiff at the time, Mr. Alban MacDonald, was in the area and saw what happened. He dragged me aboard his boat and resuscitated me. Literally brought me back to life."

More murmurs filled the courtroom.

"Let's talk about what happened while you were out on the Loch. How did your rowboat happen to flip?"

"It was struck by a tree."

"A tree?"

"That's right, Mr. Rael. As most real Highlanders know, Loch Ness was once surrounded by great forests of Scots pine. When these one-ton trees fell into the Loch, they became waterlogged and sank to the bottom, more than seven hundred feet down. In these great depths, the pressure increases to about twenty-five atmospheres, roughly sixteen hundred pounds per square inch, enough to power a steam engine. The composition of the Scots pine is high in petrochemicals. As the trees decay, tiny gas bubbles form inside the trunk. Eventually, the bubbles reach a point where the pressure within the log is greater than that of the depths, and the tree begins to rise. The higher it rises, the less the pressure, and suddenly the log becomes a frothing projectile that literally explodes out of the water."

'And that's what struck your boat?"

"Yes."

"You're certain of that? Because according to your testimony, you drowned."

"I drowned after my boat was struck. It was a log."

"Then you saw the log as it struck the boat?"

Images suddenly blinked in my brain—subliminal images straight out of my night terrors.

Black water, fog rolling in. The sky suddenly gone topsy-turvy, the rowboat exploding upward, flipping bow over stern.

"Dr. Wallace?"

"No, I… I never actually saw the log, but I felt its impact."

"Perhaps then, it was something else altogether, something much larger? Something alive—"

"Objection!"

"Sustained. Stop leading the witness, Mr. Rael."

"My apologies, my lord. Dr. Wallace, what happened after your rowboat flipped? Dr. Wallace?"