Highlander Cursed
A Scottish Time Travel Romance
Rebecca Preston
Illustrated by
Natasha Snow
Edited by
Elizabeth A Lance
Copyright © 2019 Rebecca Preston
All rights reserved.
Cover design by Natasha Snow
Edited by Elizabeth A Lance
Similarities to real people, places or events are purely coincidental.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Contents
VIP Reader Club
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
About Rebecca Preston
Also by Rebecca Preston
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Chapter 1
Delilah pulled her jacket a little closer around her shoulders, fighting the enormous, goofy grin that threatened to break out across her face. She shifted restlessly in her seat, body complaining about its long confinement. It felt like the twelve-hour flight had gotten longer and longer every time she'd looked at her watch — the closer she got, the slower the time seemed to pass. But it really, definitely, absolutely wasn't long now. Less than an hour. Fifty-three minutes, in fact. But who was counting? Certainly not her seatmate. The man to her right had passed out about ten minutes after takeoff and was still dead to the world almost twelve hours later. If it wasn't for his occasional snorting little snores, she would have been worried about whether he was still in the land of the living.
The flight attendant gave her a sidelong glance as she made another lap of the plane with her little cart of refreshments, inclining her head toward the bag at her feet.
Delilah guiltily shoved her backpack a little further under the seat in front of her — three books spilled out and she mumbled a curse, leaning forward to pack them away. God knew why she'd felt it necessary to bring so many huge books with her on the plane. She'd been far too excited to read any more than a paragraph since she'd stepped through the doors of San Francisco International Airport. Longer than that, even — the Uber ride to the airport, the sleepless night before, the months of preparation leading up to this day had all been absolutely suffused with the same giddy glee that she was currently fighting to restrain. She'd gotten more than a few odd looks from the other passengers. International air travel wasn't exactly the most exciting prospect — especially when you were flying coach — and to see a grown woman grinning and wiggling with the kind of enthusiasm usually reserved for children on their way to Disneyland, well, it was a little weird.
But Delilah Cortland was used to strange looks. She'd been getting them ever since she was a little girl. A strange, tall child with straight black hair, never seen without her nose buried in a book or some kind of improvised weapon in her hand. And it didn't help that they never stayed in one place long enough for anyone to get to know what lay beneath her strange first impression. Perhaps it was that which had given her what was possibly her greatest strength — a complete and utter lack of concern for what other people thought of her. As she'd grown through her gangly, awkward teenage years, her interests hadn't shifted — as with many girls her age — to appearances, to friendships and romances, to carving out a socially acceptable niche to live in. They'd just gotten more ferocious.
Stories. That was what she loved. Old stories, new stories, stories that hung around places like ghosts, passed on between children or between drunk people at parties, myths, urban legends, old wives' tales, and legendary family histories... all of it. She was obsessed. It had started with her mother, as so many things did. She had been six-years-old when her parents separated — amicably enough, all things considered, but still a huge upheaval. Her mother, a novelist, couldn't handle life on the road any longer — she craved peace, stillness, a workspace that didn't change month to month. But her father's military career allowed no other option — and neither parent was willing to relinquish their work. So they sat down with the children, Delilah and her brother Sam, and talked it out. Sam wanted a house and a garden and a dog more than anything else (he was eight at the time, and such things were essential.) But Delilah was already in love with travel, with long sleepy car rides, with new places and people and stories every day. So Sam stayed with their mother in Wisconsin, and Delilah went with her father to wherever he was called.
Their last day together as a family in Wisconsin, Delilah's mother had pulled her aside, and handed her an enormous book — the slight girl had staggered a little trying to hold it. Her fingers traced the intricate patterns embossed in the hardcover as her mother spoke. These were the stories of her ancestors... her great-great-great grandparents, who'd lived and loved and fought far across the sea in Scotland for thousands of years before they'd made the great voyage across the sea. Delilah had only recently learned how to read, and she stared with dismay at the tiny letters.
“You don't have to understand it all right away,” her mother had said softly, smiling. “Just read what you can. The stories will come to you when you need them.”
That evening, she'd clambered into the unfamiliar front seat of the car — previously her mother's domain, but now that it was just her and Dad, she'd been upgraded — and when her mother and brother had disappeared on the road behind them, she’d settled in to read the book. Her father stared straight ahead, silent. She'd already come to understand and respect that when he was sad, he was quiet, and she didn't want to interrupt the closest thing he had to an outpouring of grief. So she read, as much as she could. The book of Celtic folklore became her constant companion on the long drives that formed the backbone of her childhood.
And that book was with her now. Sentimental, maybe — and a little dangerous, as the poor old thing was falling apart. She'd had the binding redone a few times through her life, but it was getting ragged again. Perhaps she'd find a bookmaker in Scotland to give it a fresh binding. That seemed fitting. This was a work trip, of course — but it was also a personal pilgrimage, and she had more than earned the right to take a little detour for her own purposes. Perhaps she’d even find time to get down further south, to the bigger cities. Glasgow, maybe Edinburgh… it would be wonderful to stay on and maybe even get to the enormous theatre festival held in that city every year.
She had friends who often made the pilgrimage, took minimum-wage jobs working sixteen-hour days in theatres for a month and stayed in tiny crowded apartments just to be there in the midst of all the hustle and bustle of the festival. Maybe she could join them this time. Surely they’d appreciate staying with a friend rather than a stranger. And it would be great to hear some contemporary stories — theatre and cabaret and even s
tand-up comedy were all modern folklore as far as Delilah was concerned.
First she’d have to get started on the project that had brought her over here in the first place, of course — considerably more ancient than the kind of thing her friends went over to experience. The project she was working on now had a huge amount of promise — which was why the university had given her such a generous grant to pursue it. It helped, of course, that she was one of their most diligent and dedicated academics. Stories had been her life as long as she could remember, and the transition to a degree in folklore had seemed like the most natural thing in the world, for all that her father had baulked a little at the idea.
Also, swords. She'd always had a soft spot for swords. And finding the California branch of the Society for Creative Anachronism as an undergrad had sealed that fate. Folklore became her profession, her work, and (after a grueling stint as a starving grad student) her livelihood. But sword-fighting... that was her hobby. That was what kept her going when work was hard. Nothing better after a long week of sifting through ancient mythology than picking up a broadsword and making an earnest attempt to smash someone's head in. Fictionally, of course. She was proud to be one of the only members of the club never to have injured anyone while playing. It was a question of priorities, really — first of all, you had to decide that your most important task was to avoid doing any real damage. As long as you kept that groundwork solid, you could get as fancy as you liked. It was always men, she thought, rolling her eyes a little — always men who got carried away with being badass tough guys.
Perhaps if she had time, she'd see if the Scotland branch of the SCA would accept her for a session or two. It'd be good to at least meet them. She'd made a conscious decision not to bring any of her gear with her — she'd run into a few difficulties trying to take swords on international flights, and there was no way she was jeopardizing the outcome of this trip. Because this trip was the big trip. This was the trip of a lifetime. This was the trip to Castle MacClaran.
MacClaran had been the maiden name, her mother told her in one of her long, long letters, of one of their family's ancestors — and though genealogy was difficult to trace so far back, it was a reasonable certainty that the name belonged to the infamous Castle MacClaran. Situated a few dozen miles west of Inverness, the old ruin was hardly an uncommon sight in Scotland — the country was full of old castles in various states of disrepair. But what set this particular ruin apart was the prevalence of surviving stories that seemed to congregate around it, and the family who had lived there — story after story of mysterious women, of witchcraft and magic, of paranormal events quite unique even in a country that was full of such stories.
She'd written a paper in her undergraduate degree that made a rather ambitious argument that there was a thread in the MacClaran folklore that had a lot in common with science fiction. Stories of strange women coming from distant places — other countries, in some tellings, other worlds in others — stories of death and rebirth, of reincarnation across time and space. Ideas that were not mirrored in quite the same way, she’d argued, in any surviving folklore from any other part of Scotland. Delilah had been hooked since she'd read about it as a child. And now she was going there herself — she'd received special permission to visit the ruin, which was a historical site not accessible to the public, and to spend a month in the nearby town, going through their archives with a fine-toothed comb. She’d been looking forward to a project like this her whole life — and finally, she was almost there. She could hardly wait.
The pilot's voice crackled over the speakers, advising them that their descent into Inverness was about to begin. Startled from her reflections, Delilah felt that infectious grin begin to creep across her features again. They were here. She craned her neck, peering around the still-sleeping shape of her seatmate to see if she could catch a glimpse of Scotland through the window yet, then sagged back into her seat at the sight of the thick fog that obscured her view.
Never mind. She'd be seeing plenty of Scotland soon enough.
It felt like they were stuck on the tarmac for a hundred years — Delilah fidgeting in her seat, full of beans, quite at odds with everyone else on the plane. The other passengers were exhausted from the long flight, looking forward to getting to wherever they were staying to get some proper sleep… but nothing could have been further from Delilah’s mind.
It was a little after dawn in Inverness when Delilah Cortland strode out of the terminal, her backpack on her back and her wheeled suitcase gripped in her gloved hand. It was also absolutely freezing. She'd been warned, of course, that the weather was going to be frightful, especially compared to her home in California, but feeling it was a whole new ballgame. She tugged her jacket closer, frowning, then dove into her suitcase for the warm scarf she'd brought along. It had been a gift from her eminently practical older brother — her mother had chosen the tartan pattern, which had made Delilah giggle when she'd unwrapped it. 'You'll be a local in no time', the note had read. She'd meant to look up the specific tartan pattern before she'd left — knowing her mother, the choice of pattern may well have been significant — but hadn't gotten around to it. Still, she was glad of the scarf's warmth as she shivered, scanning the road for a cab. Her brother always did find a way of looking after her, even if they were miles apart. Thousands of miles, in this case.
She was headed straight to the village — she'd organized accommodation there ahead of time in a quaint little bed and breakfast that offered the crucial combination of free wifi and a big sturdy desk. The cab driver was happy enough to take the long fare, and chattered pleasantly away at her as they made their winding way through the streets. Delilah peered out of the window, trying discretely to understand the man's broad accent. By the time they were outside of Inverness, she was reliably picking up most of what he was saying.
“So you're a historian?”
“Not exactly,” she explained — it wasn't an unfamiliar question for people in her field. “My degree is in folklore — so I'm interested in the stories and myths of places, not just the facts of what happened when. There is a lot of history involved, though.”
“Oh, aye?” The man nodded thoughtfully. “And what're ye doing out here? Not enough stories to be gettin' on with in America?”
“I'm working on a project about Castle MacClaran,” she explained, resisting the urge to go into elaborate detail — she'd bored more than a few people to death when they'd made the mistake of asking her about her favourite subject at parties. “D'you know of it?”
“Oh, aye. The MacClaran witches are famous.”
“They are?” She leaned forward. “In what way?”
“My ma always said the MacClaran witches are what Shakespeare based the old crones in Macbeth on,” the cab driver explained, overtaking a tractor that was trundling its way toward the horizon. “There were dozens of 'em, back in the old days. They grouped together at Castle MacClaran and bewitched the strongest warriors in Scotland to protect them from the Church, so my ma said. She said they could see the future.”
“Just like the witches in Macbeth,” Delilah said thoughtfully. “Anything else?”
“Ah, just the usual witch stuff. They'd protect the warriors of Clan MacClaran by warding off disease and healing their wounds from battle, that kind of thing. Even the people in the village we're headed for fared better than neighborin' villages, because the witches would cast spells on their flocks and their farms to keep 'em healthy. There's a bit of nonsense about the castle being cursed with the ghosts of the witches and bad luck and all that, but I reckon most of that's about keepin' the locals away from it so historians like you can poke around.”
“Folklorist,” Delilah corrected him, smiling. “We're cooler than historians, I promise.”
He dropped her off outside a two-story building on what seemed to be the main street of the town, and wished her all the best with the witchcraft. Chuckling to herself, she wheeled her suitcase into the building, the cold air still
biting at her exposed skin. The town had looked tiny on Google Maps — not much more than a handful of houses, a local store, a town hall and this place, which from what she could make out was a combination restaurant, pub, and hotel. But it was enough for her — more than enough. She still couldn’t keep the grin off her face. She was here! She was actually, physically here in Scotland, only a few miles from the castle itself — the castle she’d been obsessed with for so many years. The entryway to the building was warm and inviting, with a fire crackling in a fireplace by a reception desk where a short, stout woman with a brilliant, wrinkled smile was already bustling out to meet her.
“You must be Delilah! All the way from San Francisco, I cannae believe it. Your room's all set and ready — you must be exhausted! And starved — breakfast's in half an hour, you're more than welcome to help yourself once you've settled in —”
Maggie (she introduced herself between exclamations) showed Delilah around the old building, explaining a little of its history — there'd been a tavern standing on this specific spot for as long as anyone could remember, reaching back hundreds of years, though of course it had been built and rebuilt a few times, most recently in the early 1930s when a fire had taken down everything but the original stone floors. Delilah's room was on the upper story, as cozy and warm as she could have hoped, with a window that looked out across a hill that rose and undulated toward the horizon, covered in the dull purple haze of heather. And, gloriously, an enormous wooden desk, smooth and worn with use.
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