Kip was already dismounting Griffin and walking him over to the nearest tree to secure him as Arran nodded in agreement, easily swinging himself down from Sheila as he patted the side of her neck. “It’s alright, sweetheart. Ye stay here with Griffin and Angus, and I’ll come back for ye shortly.”
Fear lodged securely in Arran’s gut. With each step closer, his fear grew. “Something isna right, Kip. I fear someone’s been in the stables.” He turned to see the old man slowing his pace, his face still and pale.
“Aye, I believe ye are right, son. I smell blood, lots of it. I doona know if I can make meself see. Would ye mind going on yer own? I’ll stay right here.”
Kip’s words did nothing to soothe Arran’s fear. He’d never known the old man to back away from anything, but as he saw the distraught expression on his old friend’s face, he knew that whatever he was about to see was terrible. Kip loved nothing in the world more than his horses, except perhaps Mary, and Arran could feel it in his bones that it would be best to spare Kip from whatever awaited him beyond the stable doors. He reached out and placed both hands on Kip’s shoulders.
“Aye. O’ course. I’m sure tis fine, but I’ll go and see by meself. Ye stay here and keep an eye on the others.” He nudged his head toward the top of the hill where Sheila, Griffin, and Angus, along with the other four horses they’d acquired, stayed tied to the trunk of a tree.
He turned and made his way to the side entrance of the stable. With each step the smell of blood became stronger, causing his stomach to churn uncomfortably.
Arran stepped inside the dark center walkway of the stables, grabbing the lighted flame from outside the entrance to set light to the first lantern in a long row that hung outside each stall door. An awful squishing sound echoed as his feet made contact with the cold, wet liquid that covered the ground. Hesitantly he walked from lantern to lantern, slowly illuminating the horror that filled each stall.
Every horse was dead. He knew it even before he gathered the courage to peek over into one of the stalls. It was too quiet, and there was too much blood for that not to be the case. Once he did look, he had to grab onto the blood-soaked post to his right just to keep himself steady. The sight of the decapitated horse, its head lying separate but close to the rest of its body, sent the contents of his stomach retching out onto the wooden floor.
He didn’t need to see the others right now. He knew it was all the same, and he would be forced to view the massacre later when he cleaned up the remains. He would do it himself to ensure that Kip didn’t make his way into the stable. It would be hard enough for the old stable master to deal with the death of his horses. There was no reason that he should ever have to see what had become of his beloved animals.
Somberly he made his way back to Kip, his face showing what he could hardly bring his voice to say. “I’m so verra sorry, Kip.”
“Ye canna mean it. What happened to them? I need to see, Arran. Perhaps ye are wrong.” The old man staggered forward, trying to force himself to make his way toward the stables.
“Nay, I’m no wrong. They were slaughtered, Kip. All of them. Now, we must clean up the mess and then find who did it. But, I willna be letting ye lay yer eyes upon a bit of it.”
Kip sobbed as he took another step toward the stables. “I doona want to see it, Arran, but I must. I’ve cared for all of those horses since they were born, and I willna disrespect them by leaving someone else to care for the mess of their death.” Tears rolled down the old man’s cheeks as he dragged his feet toward the side entrance of the stables.
Arran quickly moved to block Kip from taking another step, and doing the only thing he could think of to stop him, punched him square in the face. “Aye, Kip, ye can let someone else care for them. I’ll be the one to do it now.” Swinging the unconscious stable master over his shoulders, he turned to make his way up to the castle.
* * *
I had no idea how long we’d been screaming at one another. Half of the words he was screeching in my direction I had no meaning for, and I was equally sure the same could be said for the things I was saying to him.
I was holding nothing back now, screaming in my normal accent, using modern words for which I knew he had no context. I did everything I could just to talk and talk, hoping that he would eventually stop screaming long enough to listen to what I had to say.
It didn’t work.
And as we continued to yell at each other, he continued to try and forcibly remove me from the room. We played an odd sort of cat-and-mouse game: me dancing out of the path of his reaching hands, him bobbing out of the way so that whatever object I hurled in his direction didn’t bludgeon him in the eye.
He now stood in front of the door, blocking my path to any exit, while I stood on top of his bed reaching for some sort of metal object that sat beside it and chunked it across the room. He swiftly moved out of the way just as the door opened. The projectile flew through the open door just above Mary’s head.
“What in God’s name do ye think the two of ye are doing? Bri, get down from that bed this instant, and for God’s sake, stop throwing things! Eoin, stop ranting in Gaelic. The lass has no idea what ye are saying. It’s time we had a talk, all three of us, but I will have no part in it while the two of ye are acting like ye have gone and lost yer minds.” Mary stared us down from the doorway, an uncomfortable hush settling over the room.
Embarrassed, I slid off the top of the bed and moved to stand beside her. “I’m sorry Mary. He walked in on me while I was working in the spell room. I was trying to sound out the name of one of the books, and he saw me in my normal clothes. I’m pretty sure he saw my tattoo as well. Then he yanked me up and accused me of being a witch. He won’t listen to me.”
Eoin moved out from behind the door and, with both fists on his hips, looked at me and Mary. “Tattoo? Mark of the devil, ye mean. Why, I’ve never seen such markings in my life. And Mary, did ye just call her Bri? Do ye mean to tell me that ye knew that we were being fooled by this witch?”
Mary left my side as she moved in front of Eoin and slapped him right across the face. I couldn’t stop a grin from spreading across mine, and a giggle escaped my lips at the sight of his reddened face.
“Have ye forgotten just who ye are talking too, Eoin? Aye, I did call her Bri, because that’s the poor lassie’s name. But she’s no witch. And the only fool around here is ye, ye thick-headed, stubborn arse! Now ye are going to sit down and no say a word until the lass has finished telling ye everything she knows. Aye?”
Silently he nodded and sat down on the edge of his rumpled bed. I was definitely going to have to take lessons from Mary. She would’ve made one hell of a teacher.
A breathless voice screaming “Mary” from out in the hallway caused us all to file out of the bedchamber. Arran was struggling down the hall, carrying a seemingly unconscious Kip over his shoulders.
“What’s happened?” Mary ran toward Arran, grasping her husband’s arm as it hung limply down Arran’s back.
“It’s alright, Mary. He’s fine. I hit him to keep him from going into the stables. I’ll lay him in my room. Stay with him until I return. No matter what he tells ye, doona let him out of the room. He doesna need to see what’s down there, no matter how much he thinks he needs to.”
Eoin spoke now. “What’s happened in the stables?”
“The horses. They’re dead, brother. All but Griffin, Sheila, and Angus. Someone decapitated them shortly before we arrived back at the keep.”
“I’ll come with you.”
Everyone scattered very quickly. Arran and Eoin moved together to deposit Kip into Arran’s room with Mary following along behind them. Once they’d laid him on the bed to rest they quickly took off toward the stables, leaving me alone in the hallway.
My skin was clammy, and I reached out a hand to fan myself as the full realization of what was going on came to me. I remembered Mom pointing out a special site for horse burials down away from the ruins where she’d said the Con
alls had buried a group of their animals that had been slaughtered. She believed it had been done to serve as a warning for the darker trouble that was still to come to the Conall clan.
That was why I found myself in seventeenth-century Scotland. I’d spent all this time around the people my mother had spent years trying to learn more about, and it hadn’t crossed my mind until this very moment that I knew how it would end for all of them.
The fire at the wedding had been the first warning, the horses the second.
I’d been sent back in time to help change their fate, and if Mom’s research was correct, everyone I’d come to care about here was set to be dead within a month.
Chapter 23
I’d fallen asleep in a cushioned chair situated close to the fireplace in Eoin’s bedchamber; only waking when I heard the door open and close and his voice speak behind me.
“Alright, lass, I’m far too tired to scream at ye. Mayhap, now would be a good time for ye to tell me what’s going on.”
I sat up and reached backward to squeeze my neck, sore and stiff from sleeping in an odd position for far too long. They must have spent the entire night cleaning the stables and burying the horses, as light was already beginning to stream through the window on the other side of the room.
“Is everything alright?”
“Aye, at least for now. This will be a major loss for Kip, but Mary will help him through it. If only I could see some reason for such an act, but I can think of nothing that would cause someone to act so upon innocent animals.”
“I think I know why it happened,” I said cautiously, half expecting another outburst like I’d witnessed earlier. But he was far too tired for it now. I could tell by his eyes that it was all he could do to stay sitting upright.
“Do ye, lass? Did ye use one of yer spells to give ye the answer?”
I rolled my eyes as I leaned forward in my seat, staring at him straight on. The door swung open once more as Arran came to sit on the floor next to Eoin’s side.
“If ye doona mind, lass, I’d like to hear what ye have to say as well. Mary tried to explain a little, but I found I could no make sense from what she said.”
“It’s fine, Arran. I already told you. I’m not a witch. But it was one of your late aunt’s spells that brought me here.”
“And how exactly do ye expect she could’ve done that? She’s been dead for nearly thirty years.”
“I have no idea how she did it. All I know is that she did. Now, please, just listen to me. I guarantee you, I’m just as confused as you are about to be, so let me explain the best I can.”
“Aye. Go on.” He leaned back in the chair opposite mine, seemingly settling in for what he expected to be a long explanation. Truth was, I knew far less than he assumed I did.
“I’m not Blaire. I’ve never met or seen her in my life, but from what Mary tells me, we look very similar.”
“That ye do, lass. Exactly.”
“Right. Well, anyways. My name is Brielle Montgomery. Most everyone I know calls me Bri. I was born in the year nineteen hundred and eighty-five. I’m a kindergarten teacher in Austin, Texas. My mother is an archaeologist, someone who studies and tries to find objects from historical sites. She asked me to accompany her to Scotland, to help her with a dig on the ruins of this castle, nearly three weeks ago, in the middle of October 2013. Are you following me?”
“Nay, lass. I canna understand half of what ye say. What is ‘kindergarten’ and ‘Texas’?”
“Kindergarten is just a school for very small children. I teach five-year-olds how to read, count, and write. Texas is the name of a state in North America. It doesn’t exist yet.”
“Aye?” Eoin briefly scratched his forehead before exhaling loudly and leaning up into his seat so that our body positions mimicked one another.
I glanced quickly at Arran, who’d said nothing since entering the room and looked far more confused than Eoin. He saw me staring and nudged his head forward as if wanting me to continue.
“Yes. So anyway, we were digging at the ruins and found access into the old spell room. It held all of its original contents, unharmed by the fire and undiscovered during previous digs. We walked into the room, and I saw a portrait of myself, the same one that sits on the table there today. It frightened me terribly, and when I started to sound out the inscription written beneath it, something started to happen. I felt as if I was being torn apart and then everything went black. Shortly after, I woke up back here, with Mary looking at me as if I was an alien from outer space. She gave no real explanation at the time, and quickly rushed me upstairs to prepare for our wedding. Until you threw me in the dungeon, I thought perhaps I was dreaming.”
Both men sat unmoving, staring at me as if I’d sprouted three heads. “That’s all I know. I’ve been sneaking away to the spell room to try and find a spell that could get me back home. And get Blaire back here.”
Eoin was the first to speak. “If Mary dinna seem to believe ye, I’d think ye were the craziest lass I’d ever laid eyes on. Still, she seems certain that she saw ye appear here, and ye do speak verra strange.”
“Yeah, well, I can’t help it. Sorry.”
“Ach, lass. I’m sorry, too. I should no have screamed at ye so. I still doona understand, but perhaps we can all work together now to get ye home.”
“Please. And maybe I can help you as well.”
“What did ye mean when ye said ye knew why the horses were killed?”
“You remember that I said my mother studies things that happened in the past? She works to find objects that will help people understand things that have happened. She’s spent years working on the ruins of this castle, trying to find answers to who killed you all.” The words lodged in my throat, and I could barely get them out as I finished the sentence. It alarmed me how much the thought of that happening caused my insides to hurt and tears to fill my eyes.
“Killed, lass?” Eoin lifted his chin out of the palm of his hand and sat up to look at me more alertly. “The castle in ruins?”
“Yes. Your entire clan was destroyed at the end of December, this year. I think your aunt knew that and that’s why she cast the spell. Maybe we can stop it from happening. All we have to do is figure out who’s going to do it. They left no clues. It’s still a mystery even in my own time.”
“I assure ye that we will do all that we can to prevent it. But what do the horses have to do with this?”
“I think they were a warning or an omen of what’s to come. As terrible as it is, it’s nothing compared to what will happen to everyone else, unless we stop them. The fire at the wedding was the first warning, the horses the second, I don’t know if there will be a third.”
Eoin stood and grasped my forearms, lifting me so that I stood in front of him. He gently wrapped his arms around me in apology. “Thank ye for telling me all ye know, lass. I doona see how I have any choice but to believe ye, and I’m glad ye are no a witch. We shall work together to find whoever poses a threat, aye? And then once our safety is secured, we’ll find a way to send ye back to yer own time. Though, I must say, I will miss…” He said no more, letting his words span the distance now growing between us.
I allowed myself to fall into him, letting my head lie firmly against his chest as I wrapped my arms around his waist. “Deal. I’m sorry for not telling you sooner. I’d forgotten about the ruins, forgotten about everything but trying to get home.”
He placed one of his large hands on my head, calming me as you would a small child. “Hush, lass. I doona think I would’ve believed ye, unless I’d walked in on ye in these awful rags. The truth has come out as it was meant to. Now, we have no choice but to make the best of it. We are all too tired to speak more of this now. Let’s all find our way to our own beds and sleep a while. We can discuss this more at the evening meal. Today shall be a day of little activity around the castle, I expect. We’ve all had a day of it. Aye?”
I nodded against his chest and pulled out of his embrace as Arran
stood from his place on the ground, coming alive for the first time since I’d stopped talking.
“Does this mean Blaire is in the time and place that ye came from?” The pain and fear on his face was evident, and I finally understood why Arran had seemed so displeased with me over the past few weeks. He loved Blaire, and it had hurt him to see me so pleased in Eoin’s company when he thought her heart was his.
“I assume so. I expect she’s with my mother. If that’s the case, you have no reason to worry about her. She will be working just as hard as we are to get us switched back. I’m sure my mother’s also thrilled to speak to someone she’s devoted her life to learning about.”
“Forgive me, lass, if that does nothing to ease me mind.” As he turned and walked out of the room, I said a silent prayer that Blaire was safe and in the overbearing arms of my mother.
* * *
Present Day
“Is it really true what ye say about women reading and writing in this time? Can most of them really do it? I can, but only because I begged Father until he agreed to let me learn. Very few women are allowed to do so.”
Adelle grinned at what must have been at least Blaire’s one thousandth question of the day. Over the past weeks, they’d spent every day working through the contents of the old spell room, and while they’d learned that a spell had caused the switch, they’d yet to find one that would switch the two girls back. “Yes, all children are taught to read now, and they all go to school from the age of five until they’re eighteen. A woman doesn’t have to be married to find success in this time. I divorced my husband nearly twenty-five years ago, and haven’t been married a day since, and I think I’m doing just fine.”
“Aye, I believe that ye are.”
“I think we are both about to be doing even better, Blaire! I think that this might be the right spell.” Adelle stared down at the faded, aging page, double-checking to make sure she was translating the Gaelic inscriptions correctly.
Morna's Legacy: Box Set #1 Page 13
