When Morna pulled up in front of the pond, there had indeed been other vehicles at the castle, not around the pond where she parked, but up closer to the castle. A tourist attraction, just like Conall Castle and many of the castles in the surrounding area.
I wasn’t sure how much time passed in between tossing the rock and waking in the water but it only felt like seconds, and it was still broad daylight. It couldn’t possibly have been more than a few hours. Could the castle have closed for visitors in that time? If so, was it likely that every employee and security guard left as well?
Every second things just grew weirder, and I couldn’t stand to be here a moment longer. I glanced over at the horses. They seemed gentle enough, and I’d been on horses a few times. Maybe if I silenced myself, I could get away atop one of them. Unlikely, but I couldn’t just stand here staring at crazy one and crazy two.
Slowly, I backed away. Watching them argue, I crossed over to the horse farthest from them. I imagined I could see the chestnut colored mares’ sympathy for me in her eyes. She would cooperate, if only the men would keep arguing long enough for me to get away.
It didn’t work. Just as I jumped to wrap my arms around her so I could pull myself up, I heard Baodan turn as he addressed his brother. He’d known I meant to leave the second I started to back away.
“I’m going to see her to a room. Ye may make sure she’s cared for, but doona let her outside of the room. I fear she’ll try to leave if ye do so.”
Before I could pull myself up on the horse, Baodan grabbed me off the beast, flipping me over his shoulder so that my head bounced up and down against his back as he carried me off toward the castle.
Chapter 9
I stopped screaming once he stepped inside the main building. It did me no good anyway. He had a firm grip and, no matter how much I banged on him or hollered at the top of my lungs, he didn’t release me. Besides, the interior of the castle was so beautiful and quiet, it seemed quite wrong to disturb the atmosphere by screaming.
My silence seemed to bother him, and he reached up with his left hand that he wrapped around my legs and gave me a quick smack on the rear. “Did ye lose consciousness, lass? I dinna know ye could be so quiet.”
The smack elicited a yelp, and he laughed at the sound.
“Where are you taking me?” The words sounded broken, each step he took up the stairs knocking the air out of me.
“Did ye no just hear what I told Eoghanan? I’m taking ye to a bedchamber, where I will ravish ye before leaving on me journey.”
“What?” Screaming once more, I lifted my left leg and swung it down into his lower stomach just as hard as I could. “You will do no such thing. Sit me down. Now!”
He grunted at the impact but laughed loudly, pinning my legs against him giving me no chance of kicking him again. “Shhh, lass, I jest. I promise I shan’t touch ye. We are only going to have a little talk, ye and I.”
“I don’t want to talk. All I want is to find Bri, shake the crazy out of her, and then get on a plane back to the States.”
He stopped in front of a large door and released the grip on my legs with one of his hands so that he could open it. Once inside, he closed the door and set me down on my feet. Dizzy from being upside down, my head also pounded from the injury. He reached out to steady me as I got my bearings. “I doona know what a ‘plane’ is, lass. Just like I dinna know what a ‘car’ was when ye mentioned it earlier.”
I pulled away from him once my blood seemed to be running in the right direction. “Right, I forgot. We’re in the past. Do they have like cameras watching you guys all the time and if you break character they put you in a dungeon or something?”
Baodan squinted his brows at me and went to sit in a large chair across the room. “Ye are verra strange, lass. Half of what ye say seems like another language entirely. Why doona ye take a seat?”
I didn’t know if it was from hanging upside down, my confusion and rage, or just because it was genuinely warm in the room, but I grew very warm. With a head wound, I thought I better be careful. “I’m really hot. Can you maybe turn up the air in here a bit?”
Again, the same confused expression. I wanted to knock it off of his pretty face.
“I could open a window if ye like?”
I pinched my dress in between my boobs and lifted it up and down quickly to fan myself. Baodan regarded me as if I was doing a strip tease in front of him. “Yes, please do, but can you adjust the thermostat? Hasn’t this place been modernized? If you have visitors everyday, surely it has air conditioning.”
As he opened the window, I moved around the room looking for air vents. With the exception of the window, no source of circulation could be found anywhere in the room. I hadn’t noticed right away, but light from outside illuminated the room, not electricity. Sunlight and candles were the only source of light.
“Where did ye say ye came from? What is a ‘thermostat’?”
The only explanation I could think of was that they’d not modernized anything to preserve the historical value of the place. Regardless, it seemed odd that there wouldn’t be the slightest hint of anything modern in the room.
“I’m from the United States, and I live in Texas. I’m from the same place as Bri.” I moved to sit in the chair across from him. My head was starting to ache again from the cut.
Baodan leaned forward so that his elbows rested on his knees, and he clasped his hands out in front of himself, regarding me sternly. “Well, ye see lass, now ye have given me cause to worry over ye, for ye are either one of two things. Ye are either daft, as Eoghanan suggests, or ye are a liar.”
“Excuse me?” I leaned my elbow against the arm of the chair and allowed the side of my face to rest inside my palm.
“Aye, lass, now which is it? Bri doesna come from this place that ye speak of. She is the daughter of Laird MacChristy, a twin to be exact, although few people knew he had two daughters until recently. While I’ll admit that ye speak much like her, she spent her childhood living in many different places, traveling with a relative of her father. I doona know her well, but I have met her, and I know this to be true.”
I sat up and leaned forward so that we stared squarely at one another. “You don’t know squat, because all of that’s not even remotely true. I can’t imagine why she would have made that up, maybe you have to tell a cool story to get into this club, but it’s seriously time to give me a break. Haven’t I been through enough today? I got dressed up in this ridiculous garment, I rode all the way out here only to be knocked unconscious and somehow dropped into the middle of the pond out there, I cut open my head, and now I’m held against my will. Please. I am begging you, just cut the crap and tell me what’s really going on here.” I tried to look as desperate as possible, not that I found it hard to do. I started to feel panicked about the inconsistencies of everything that went on around me. None of it made any sense.
He reached forward and grabbed both my hands, his touch gentle. I didn’t have enough fight left to pull away. It reassured me to know that despite how crazy he seemed, he genuinely felt sympathetic to my plight.
“Lass, I doona know what ye wish for me to tell ye. Why doona ye ask me a direct question, and I will do me best to answer it. But doona use the strange words ye’ve been using or I willna be able to help ye a bit.”
“Fine.” I moved around in the chair, unable to get comfortable. With my dress still very wet, it grew heavy. “For starters, is there any woman around from whom I could borrow some clothes? Jeans would be nice, but if you all insist that I wear another costume dress like this, I guess it will suffice.”
He looked nearly as tired as I felt. “Ye did it again. ‘Jeans?’ I doona know what those are. I will send for someone to bring ye a new dress just as soon as I leave ye.”
“Leave? You said you would take me to Bri.”
“That I did, but ye are forgetting that I told ye I canna do it right away. I have promised me mother that I would see her to my aunt’s and
that I shall. It should take me no more than three or four days. Upon me return, I will take ye to Bri at once.”
I crossed my legs and arms while shaking my head. “Are you suggesting that I stay here for four days while you’re gone? You’re crazy. That is so not going to happen. You said she’s at Conall Castle, right?”
He glanced down at my chest disapprovingly, and I rolled my eyes. Crossing my arms pushed up my breasts and emphasized the cleavage in the dress.
“While I doona believe ye are from where ye say ye are, I do believe that ye doona come from here. I havena seen a lass sit like that in me entire life.”
Just to aggravate him, I squeezed my arms together, just briefly, to make them stand out even more. “Good grief. They’re just boobs, and what do you expect when the dresses are cut to hold them in like they’re being served on a platter?”
He laughed loudly, a deep, belly laugh so contagious I couldn’t help but smile in return.
“I dinna say that I doona enjoy the sight of them, but ye would be asking for trouble in the wrong company. ’Tis lucky that I found ye in the pond and no Niall and, aye, Bri is at Conall Castle.”
“Great! Then I don’t need anyone to accompany me. It will take me all day, but I’m pretty sure I can find my way there on my own.”
“I’m afraid ’tis no possible, lass.”
A knock on the door interrupted us, and the oldest looking woman I’d ever seen stuck her head inside the door.
“Yer, mother is awake and ready to leave as soon as possible.” The woman glanced over in my direction and took in the puddle forming at both our feet. “I’ll bring the lass a new dress at once. Will she be staying here?”
I stood and moved toward her. “No, I’m leaving as soon as I get a change of clothes.”
She paid me no mind, looking through me as if I’d said nothing. “Baodan?”
“Aye, she will stay in this room until I return. I have left her in Eoghanan’s care, mistake it may be, but please have men stay close to the door at all times, and make sure that she is well cared for.”
The woman nodded and left, closing the door behind her. I made to follow her but Baodan quickly moved to block me, looming in the doorway. “I’m sorry, lass, but ye willna be leaving without me. ’Tis too far to Conall Castle for ye to travel alone, and I doona trust me brothers to see ye all the way there.”
“Why?” He spoke of his brothers as if they were criminals. I didn’t have much experience with siblings or normal families myself, but his mistrust of them seemed odd.
“Eoghanan is negligent, and Niall would seek to woo and take ye for the sport of it. No, that ye will have a choice in it, but promise me that ye willna leave this room until I return.”
“You’re joking? I will do no such thing.” I tried to step around him, but he grabbed both of my arms, holding me still out in front of him.
“Aye lass, ye will.”
“Look, I appreciate your concern, but you don’t need to worry about your brothers. I don’t need someone to look out for me so even if Eoghanan is ‘negligent’ it won’t be a problem, and I am not all that woo-able so neither with Niall. While none of you seem to be, I am living in the twenty-first century and, just FYI, it’s completely illegal to keep me here against my will.”
Genuine worry spread across his face, and he released his grip on my arms. He seemed very sad for me, and it made something deep within me hurt. I didn’t want his pity, especially without reason for it.
“Ach, so Eoghanan was right then? Ye are daft. If that be the case, then I am sure ye are truly verra scared. I am verra sorry for that, lass, but ’tis all the more reason for me to keep ye here. Ye are right when ye say that ye are no mine in the way that ye meant, but ye are mine to care for ye until I deliver ye safely into someone else’s hands.”
He ran his hand down my arm like you would someone ill. It only served to infuriate me more. “What? You seriously think I’m crazy, don’t you? Well, I’ve got news for you, buddy. I am not the crazy one. Quit eating the food here, seriously, they are screwing with your head and you my friend, are the one who has lost it.”
He smiled at me pathetically and reached for the door. “Ye shall be well taken care of while I am away. When I return, we will travel to Bri’s. Perhaps she will know where and to whom ye belong.”
With that, he left the room, locking it securely behind him. I couldn’t begin to process all that just happened. Part of me wanted to laugh hysterically at his assumption but, at this point, I started to feel sort of crazed myself. Maybe the blow on the head confused me somewhat.
Only a few minutes later, the woman who entered earlier opened the door to extend a fresh dress in my direction. She said nothing and didn’t enter the room. As soon as I’d grabbed it from her, she closed the door and locked it.
I stripped quickly, eager to get dry and ready to rip open the pouch with the medicine. Morna had been right about one thing. I needed something to ease my aching head. The fact that she’d known I would require it disturbed and puzzled me to no end.
Turning the dress inside out, I pulled at the loose stitching around the pouch. It came open easily. Inside was a small plastic case filled with much-needed ibuprofen. Something else lay in the pouch, and I had to reach inside to grab it. As soon as my fingers touched the smooth, cold surface, bile built up in the back of my throat.
I pulled the object out and threw it onto the bed, truly frightened for the first time since the beginning of all this craziness. In the center of the bed now sat the shiny, black rock. The rock I sent skipping all the way to the bottom of the pond.
Chapter 10
The Grounds of Cameron Castle
They reached the castle grounds three days after leaving home. Baodan couldn’t help but notice that his mother seemed far less tired than he. While he took care with her, traveling much more slowly than he wished, she should not have been so full of life this far into their journey.
He couldn’t make sense of it, but Eoghanan was right. All it took was half a day’s ride and a shabby meal of pheasant to bring his mother back to her old self. She was still weak to be sure but, for the first time in months, light filled her eyes and she started talking as if she’d been starved of it for far too long.
They’d decided to bypass Cameron Castle itself, riding instead straight for his Aunt Nairne’s cottage so that he could settle his mother and leave at once for home. His mother could greet his cousins later in the evening, but the journey took longer than he’d planned. He was anxious to check on Mitsy.
What a strange lass. Completely mad, but he couldn’t help but like her. Perhaps all of her confusion could be put to her injured head, and he would return to find her at rights with herself.
He surely hoped so, for it seemed wrong of him to think of someone who was out of her mind in the way he thought about her. He spent every moment since leaving his home thinking of that mess of red curls and her whip-like mouth. He dreamed of tugging hard on those locks while claiming every inch of her lips with his own.
“I wish I hadna been sleeping so that I could have witnessed the arrival of the fiery lass who has so captured yer attention.” His mother laughed as she looked behind her horse at him. Baodan believed she could read minds. “I am worried for her is all.”
“I doona believe ye, although ye worry too much over everyone. The one ye should be worrying about is yerself.”
Baodan nudged his horse forward so that he rode next to his mother rather than behind her. “Why do ye say that?”
“Because ye are in danger of growing hard hearted, me son. Ye have seen more loss and anguish than most, but life is no worth living if ye close yerself off from it.”
He didn’t answer her. Even if he wished to change, he didn’t know how.
“That’s all I’ll say to ye about it. Now, tell me more about this girl. Ye said that she spoke of being from the twenty-first century?”
Baodan shook his head and smiled thinking back on it. The l
ass had a grand imagination, mad or no. “Aye, but she hit her head on a rock moments before. Perhaps it did more damage than she believed or than I realized at the time?”
His mother looked over at him and grinned nervously. “I swear to ye that me head is fine. I dinna bump it and I doona wish for ye to start to think that I am mad as well, but why are ye so inclined no to believe her?”
Surely she played some sort of trick on him. “Heh? I’m sorry, but what do ye mean by that? O’course I wasna inclined to believe her.”
“Dinna ye say that she said many words for things that ye have never heard of?”
“Aye.” He pulled back on the reins, slowing his horse. They grew close to his aunt’s cottage, and he wanted to hear what his mother had to say before they arrived.
“And dinna ye say that she mentioned a woman named Morna? Yer uncle Alasdair’s sister’s name was Morna, and she was a powerful witch.”
Baodan heard stories of her as a child, but most of his life he’d dismissed them as simple tales. He’d never heard his mother speak as if she believed the rumor to be true. “She isna a real witch, surely?”
“Aye son, a real witch. I dinna believe the stories either, no until our last visit to Conall Castle. Mary, ye remember her, doona ye? She told me the truth of it all. Bri is no more Laird MacChristy’s daughter than old Heather here.” She reached down to pat her horse. “She fell prey to a spell put in place by Morna many years ago, and as a result, she fell through time. ’Tis a verra long story and, to be honest, I doona remember all of it, but I spent enough time around yer cousin’s strange wife to believe her story. She is kind and has made a place for herself amongst the family, but ’tis verra clear that neither her nor the lass’ mother grew up in the same world as ye and I.”
Morna's Legacy: Box Set #1 Page 54
