by Ria Cantrell
“Och, well, I knew lookin’ at ye’. Already I could see the small swell of yer’ wee stomach. Of course I knew. Ye’ canna’ hide something like this from me.”
Morag tangled her arms around his neck and she kissed him then, of her own volition. He was her man and she loved him more than life itself; except maybe for the life that was blossoming within her. All her dreams stretched before her. Their world seemed full of wonders and endless possibilities. Morag thanked the One Power for this joy and she settled into the arms of the only man she could ever love.~
~~~~~
Ah, in the memories of the blessings received in the small things, a woman builds the reminders of joy and love. Sometimes, it was the simple things like a warm cooked meal shared with a loved one, or mayhap watching a loved one comin’ in from the field dirty and tired, but content with the work of his hands. Better yet, it is the sound of children giggling as they play, that is the best of all. Now as I look back on all the days I have lived, I know that all those things in my life and in the lives of us all make a collection of happy thoughts to console us in our old age. Aye, there is sadness mixed in, but I think that if ye’ could line up the joys, even the small insignificant ones, they would far surpass the things that wring tears and heartache from a soul.
I love thinking about the simple things that maybe even at the time, I took for granted. I try to remember each event in great detail so to pad my collection and to remind myself that my life was more than tears. Now as I tell ye’ my story, those memories play themselves out for me and I realize that it was so much more, indeed.
What I once believed to be ordinary, I look now to see the greatness in the moment, however small it seemed at the time. The smell of grass after a rain shower, or the taste of fresh milk, or mayhap the tugging of one’s skirt by the grimy hands of a child wishing to be held, or the gentle snore of your husband lyin’ beside ye’, ah the list of ordinary things that have become great are endless. Aye, and I hope that ye’ can see them as blessings in yer’ own lives, too.
Perhaps when ye’ are young, and yer’ days stretch before ye’ endlessly, these things can be lost or forgotten, but I tell ye’ that they give yer’ life meaning and that ye’ can count them each as blessings. I think that they are stored for us as reminders of pieces of perfect joy for times when tears seem like our only friends. At least that is how it is for me. Oh, my life is nay without blessings now. Nay, indeed! Sometimes it is in the living of life and the learning of lessons that the greatest of blessings are granted. Aye, my life is full of these blessings, and the most wonderful of these I will still tell, but not yet, for there are other stories that must be heard first.
Chapter Twenty-Two – Kiera Callum
Now, as a woman who can manipulate time, I have mentioned that I dunna’ know how it happens. Sometimes, I am called to a time not of my own choosin’. In fact, many times that I travelled between the worlds of today and tomorrow, I had little choice in the matter at all. So many occasions it seemed that I was pulled forward to an epoch to aid a soul in some way or another. One such time, I was sent or forced, for I know not which, to an era vastly ahead of my days here. It was in that century, however, that I was reunited with my childhood friend who had been placed as a Guardian.
Now, as I might have mentioned, a Guardian is neither a mortal nor a Spirit. More like, a Guardian is a combination of both and when he or she is needed in the Mortal Plane, he or she can manifest a human body, with human needs. The Guardian can eat and drink and can sleep and do everything, well most things; that he did while he walked the earth before his call to the hereafter.
Well, as I mentioned, Gavin Campbell became such a Guardian. The One God deems worthy individuals this elevation and I suppose that because of the man Gavin was in life, he was proved like gold in a fire and was sought to be part of the heavenly realm with others raised to Guardian. Sweet little Caitlyn McLeod also became one but I daresay, her role as one was to offer healing to the most broken. I know not how or why one becomes a Guardian, but I am grateful to have been blessed with the knowledge of their existence, especially if it offered me another chance to see my dear friend again.
Well then, when I was called to once again travel through time, I knew t’was a time that I had no knowledge of. I knew it was going to be a daunting place, and a person such as myself would need to see a friendly face. Imagine my surprise when I landed forward many centuries from this time and the friend I had lost so many years ago was there waiting for me!
It seems that when one becomes a Guardian, their transition into the centuries is immediate. Gavin already had the skills to survive in a time that was foreign to him. He helped me learn about all the modern things that I could nay even comprehend. He was there for me and if I so much as had to summon him, he would arrive and be a companion to me. It made being there not so frightening.
Ah, aye, even a woman as old as I, who has seen so many things, ye’ would think that nothing would scare me, but findin’ myself shunted into the days so far from my own time filled me with terror. And rightly so! There were things in that time that were not to be believed. Those great silver birds that flew through the sky with a roar so loud, the ground fairly shook beneath them that I had dreamed about when I was but a child, or these other things that sped by so rapidly. If a body stepped off into the lane, ye’ could be plowed over without another thought. But Gavin, ye’ see, well, he soothed my spirit and calmed my fears. He was once again the friend I had loved so well when I was but a youth. And in his status of Guardian, he helped me learn how to use some of these modern creations to my benefit.
It was odd to see my dearest friend from my youth in the capacity of Guardian but it was such a gift to be able to talk to him again. What I did nay know was that he was sent for two reasons; to aid me and to aid someone who had been lost for so very long.
I believed at first I was sent to aid in the brokenness of a young woman who I thought to be a descendant from my own beloved Clan MacCollum. She came to an inn actually near where Castle Campbell stood and the moment she entered the place, I could tell her spirit had suffered greatly. I did nay know much about how life was in that time, but I was soon had a chance to learn.
Aye, we, in this time, face many challenges and difficulties, but if I were to choose living now or in Kiera’s time, I would only choose my own. The difficulties and trials seemed so much harsher in that time, despite the things invented to supposedly make life easier. Indeed, those things, I believed made life much more harried and people seemed to have traded parts of their souls as a result of it. I think that in truth, they became slaves to the very things that pretended to offer them ease in life. They damaged the spirit as well.
Now then, this beautiful and feisty lass came seeking solace in her world of hurried living. I could tell by her sad smile that someone had sought to destroy her soul and in the process had broken her heart badly. While she was strong willed and intelligent, there were things about this woman that spoke to my heart. I believed that other people took advantage of her kind nature and for whatever reason, I knew not what, she lacked the fight when it counted most. She confided in me that she worked for a man who was relentless in his spoken abuse to her. I learned that she, like so many others who hid their gifts, was attuned to the world of the hereafter, but she had been mocked and scorned as a child, so she put that gift to the side. And then I learned the real reason I had been sent to this time so many centuries ahead of my own.
The Guardians had picked this woman to help release Derek Campbell from his purgatory of loneliness and loss. She was indeed descended from the long line of MacCollums. One thing is for sure, I know my own when I meet them. Well, most of the time I do; at times even a woman wise in her years can nay see what is stretched before her. Sometimes our own ghosts prevent us from seeing the forest from the trees. Anyway, this is not about my story at the moment, although all these threads are woven around me, to create the most intricate of tapestries, I must a
gree and now as I tell my tale, I know I would nay change a warp or weft of it. This part of the story is about that lass who I befriended in a world that was foreign and frightening to me.
The lass’ name was Kiera Callum. Somehow, o’er time, MacCollum had changed to the surname she bore. At any rate, she was a MacCollum, just the same and oh, what a stir that was going to cause for ye’ see, despite Derek being locked between the worlds of the living and the dead for so many untold decades, his feelings about all things MacCollum had yet to change. Not enough time, it seemed, had passed to sway his heart about his rival enemies. At least not until the lass found her way to the remote little village near Castle Campbell.
Upon Kiera’s arrival for her getaway, as she called it, I began to sense Derek’s life force. Aye, I felt it growing and I knew that the Guardians, in their infinite wisdom, had chosen this girl to restore Derek’s humanity. As the lass lingered in the village, Derek’s essence grew. He started to experience the things his mortal body once did. The curse of Arianne, his stepmother, was slowly being emulsified. He was regaining that which made him a man. Och, but he had a long battle yet to fight for in being a man; he had yet to learn how to love. His loneliness kept him from learning that lesson, I think, most of all. I dunna’ question the Guardians’ ways because they are omnipotent, but I will say that I wished they had not been so long in sending the one person who could finally unlock Derek from the prison of his deeds and more importantly; the prison of his heart.
I was nay sent for the girl. Nay, like Gavin, I was sent for the lad. The Guardians brought me forth into this treacherous time because I was the one who had begged for the second chance for Derek. While I could help the brokenness in the lass, t’was for Derek that I had made the perilous voyage to that time centuries ahead.
Now, I had mentioned the girl had the gift of seeing and sensing those who dwelt in the spirit realm. She had spent her life through ridicule and denial banishing the gift from her psyche. Only, like I have learned so many times, ye’ canna’ push that which is gifted to ye’ aside. Eventually, ye’ have to embrace it and all that comes with it. So it was for Kiera Callum. I think by having MacCollum blood running through her veins, she was more like my line than not. I had wondered, as I often do, when faced in another time, if she was in fact part of my own dear boy’s lineage. She did nay look like me, nay. She looked amazingly like Bronwyn’s daughter, Jenna. It even startled Gavin, a Guardian of the Most High. I realized she was not descended from my Tavish and it was proven some years later, but that is another story for another day.
Kiera was drawn to Castle Campbell and as luck would have it…well alright; not so much luck, but the manipulations of the Guardians, a position where Kiera could earn wages tending the keep and guiding visitors through its doors offered Kiera a reason to stay in the village. In fact, she would be able to reside within the castle’s walls. Ye’ see, sadly in the time forward from this, the keeps were no longer inhabited and oft times were left in ruins, but Campbell Keep was mostly intact, although greatly modified with modern things to appeal to people of that time. Ach, it was nay the grand place where people dwelled and lived; where life teemed throughout. Nay, it was more of a place where people just came to view it like a great thing on display.
Well, I had wanted to protect the lass, for I knew what, or rather who was waiting for her there. She was a MacCollum and even though he was much gentled since he began the journey of his soul’s repair, his hatred for MacCollum was deep. Mayhap it was even deeper than his chance to reclaim his mortality. But even the Guardians can nay stop what is destined and so ready or not; prepared or not, Kiera moved into the keep. I had wanted her to hone her skills as a Seer of Spirits, but it seems I dinna’ need to, for upon her arrival, she found Derek in her chambers and saw him as clearly as I can see all of ye’. He looked not like a spirit at all, but a man in the flesh.
After so many years lost between the worlds of the dead and living, Derek was not prepared for this new inhabitant of his home to see him. It seemed that so many had lived and gone from the keep and while he could see them, none could see him. His presence was felt and I daresay I think he made sure of it for I think it gave him a perverse satisfaction that he existed at least in some small way, but none could lay eyes on him.
None saw him neither as a spirit or a man. But Kiera Callum saw him and heard him as well. The only thing she could nay do was touch him, for he was still more spirit than man, I suppose. Again, I say that love makes us human and for that reason t’is why the Guardians are nay just spectral wisps sent to haunt a body. Nay, the Guardians carry the love that made them human and they can maintain a human visage if they are needed to.
For Derek Campbell; he had spent his mortal life fighting anything remotely resembling love. He could nay love his stepmother, nor her little girl, his half-sister; he could nay love his brother; well who could really, for he was a monster, and above all, he could nay love himself. In fact, he loathed his very existence and as he walked between the veil, he felt himself to be some sort of abomination. Ah, my poor, poor Derek. No one should hate one’s own self, but Derek did. T’was that self-loathing which caused him to hate most everyone else, as well. Only, he could nay longer feel the twisted poison that coiled in his belly after his years of solitude with nothing to keep his wits intact except his thoughts and conscience.
Upon Kiera being able to see him, he suddenly felt the need to interact with this human woman from a time so very distant and different from his own. It was that strong pull that enabled him to speak her language and to understand the things she said to him. Oh, and the fact that she was absolutely beautiful did nay hurt either. I must chuckle about that. For nay even a man locked between the living and the dead could deny the pull this unlikely beauty seemed to have on one like Derek Campbell. He soon forgot about his hatred for MacCollum for when his eyes beheld Kiera, the part of him that was very much male yearned for that which was woman. It seemed that when the heart speaks, there is nay a language it does nay hear.
So, Derek started to put aside his hatred and distrust of one named MacCollum. The clan division does nay seem to exist outside of family rivalry in the time forward. In fact, it seemed that clans were greatly reduced to surnames, without the separation of one from the other. It seemed to an old woman like me that in a time so many years in the future, that one was mostly just a Scot. This realization both gladdened and saddened my heart. While I was glad that the strife between clans seemed to no longer exist, the pride that each clan bore was lessened as well. Derek learned that, and so much more.
Kiera spent hours talking to him, after her initial shock of finding a strange man from worlds past inhabiting her quarters. She taught him about the things from her time and in their conversations, she eased a loneliness born from the solitude he suffered for nearly seven hundred years. Aye, that seems strange to tell, but the truth was he was caught between the past and the future, between mortality and spectral planes for so long; not so much as punishment, but because he was locked in his own barriers. Sometimes we keep ourselves from moving forward because it is easier to hold on to the past than to see what lies ahead.
With Kiera Callum’s unexpected friendship, Derek was at last, able to leave the past behind and put the lessons of the Guardians to use. He finally allowed the strange emotion of love to penetrate the thick wall surrounding his heart, which he had carefully built brick by brick; stone upon stone. He let this daughter of his enemy chip away at it until cracks crumbled to a deep chasm and she got in. The lass got into that place that had been so dark for so long and she filled it with light and warmth. Most of all, she filled it with love.
Oh, she had demons of her own to put to rest, there is nay a doubt about that, but in her brokenness, she was able to heal one who had been shattered in the moments of his own past. In the process, Derek learned how to love and he was loved in return. Love, remember, is what makes us human.
Chapter Twenty-Three – Darkness and Li
ght
So many lessons I have learned through my life all seemed to boil down to one struggle that we mere mortals face time and again. That would be the battle between darkness and light. Now, I dunna’ always mean evil and good, for darkness is nay always evil and light is nay always good. For instance, when my Ian was taken from me, I was plunged into a world of darkness, but I was nay surrounded by evil. In fact, I was nurtured by the clan and cared for by friends and kin, alike. In their offered love, I found solace in the darkest corner of my life.
And isn’t it like that through life? Aye, at times I must admit that the dark does represent evil but sometimes it can be masked by the Light or rather used under the guise of Light. I learned this costly lesson when my dear mother was tried, convicted, and condemned of sorcery by those who professed to walk in the Light. Only, they were so bent on their mission, they failed to see the evil they had embraced. These supposed men of the one True God; a God of love and forgiveness; used the most heinous acts to justify their cause.
I dunna’ believe for one moment that their instruments of torture were sent by the God I have learned to embrace. Nay! These men; these holy men, were truly evil in my eyes and in the eyes of so many like me who suffered at their hands. They took great pleasure in the agony that they inflicted on their fellow man…and my case, woman. I was only a girl, t’is true, but I think t’was the first time I truly believed evil lurked in the human heart. I watched their sardonic grins while they punished people like me. There was nay so much as a flinch from one of them even when the screams of those who suffered at their hands reached their ears. Evil, it was, in the face of Light.
People like me, who were raised in the Old Ways, also had a choice to embrace Light over Dark. Most of the people who I knew that practiced the Path had taken an oath to harm none. It just is the way of things. In the practicing of our Craft we vowed to follow the Ancient Ways for the greater good, whatever that good may be. We strived to nay use the Gifts of the Ancients for selfish gain, even though at times we stumbled with this aspect of the call.
