Helena glared into the darkness.
“How dare you, you stupid bitch. What do you know about us or what has been written? You aren’t even the real Andra. You have the two runes but you do not know their power, now hand them to me and I will be merciful to both you and the girl.”
Andrea felt the two small stones stored safely within her pocket.
“And Alex is not the real Alexhander. He is not your brother. The truth is that you two were not even of the same blood.”
Throwing back her dark hair, Helena laughed out loudly.
“Aha, so Miss Prim, and how do you know of all these details?”
“Geraldine told me, and I believe her.”
Helena was silent for a moment, the name of Geraldine sobering her for a second.
“The young nun and the old woman; she talked too much. Well I soon stopped her idle tongue. You should have seen her face when I sat with her at the Hotel. She knew her time had come. She was strong, but not strong enough. I only had to touch her to cause an embolism in her brain. It was fun to watch her frail form slip away before me, the spittle dribbling from her mouth like an imbecile.”
Alex could take no more. At the mention of his poor grandmother he lunged at Helena and felt his hands upon her throat. As he touched the pale skin he was almost knocked to the floor by a sudden surge of energy. The lights seemed to flash in front of his eyes and when he opened them again Andrea was standing before him with the child.
“You have seen sense Alexhander. You must come with me now as we regain our rightful place.” She held out her hands towards him.
“Alex, don’t!”
A voice rang out clear and loud from the darkness behind him. It sounded familiar but his head was foggy.
“Alex, it’s me Andrea, don’t be fooled by Helena.”
He looked at the woman standing before him. The face of his beloved Andrea, he was confused.
“Alex, it’s me Andrea, don’t go with her, it’s a trick.”
A figure stepped out of the darkness, the dark hair and the green eyes, it looked like Helena.
Helena struggled with her emotions. She must stay calm, but the young woman was annoying her. The spell she had cast over poor Alexhander would not last for too long and she needed him to take her hand willingly. She also must have the two runes that were in Andrea’s possession to give her absolute power.
“Alex, listen to me. You must fetch me the two runes from Helena. She is keeping them from me and stopping the both of us from gaining the powers which are rightly ours.”
Alex looked at both women; he was confused. Something was not quite right.
Helena was becoming bored with the charade. Soon the spell would wear off and she could not afford to wait.
“Alexhander, if we do not get hold of the runes then we will have to sacrifice Elizabeth to the Gods, it is the only way to appease them. Do you want to see your daughter slaughtered?”
He looked at the woman’s face. It looked like Andrea, yet the words she was speaking were not those of his wife. She would never harm one hair of her own daughter’s.
The lights shone once again in his head and he could barely think.
“Alexhander, fetch me the runes, I must have them!”
Her voice was shrill and demanding in his ear and he had no other option than to obey. He approached the woman standing in the darkness. She was calling his name over and over again.
“Kill her, Alexhander. Get the runes. Quickly now!”
His head told him to kill the woman. She looked like Helena but there was something in her eyes, and his heart was telling him something different.
He could feel his hands upon her throat, the pleading look in her eye.
“Alexhander, can you hear me? Take the runes, do what you wish, but you must save the girl, save our daughter Elizabeth.”
It was then that he knew, and the image of his beloved Andrea, of Andra and all that had been before merged into his head.
His Andrea, the mother of his child, would not talk about sacrificing her own daughter. The eyes, although they looked like Helena’s, did not have the same cold stare. He could see the fire burning deep in their depths. The woman he was trying to kill was not Helena, but his beloved Andrea. Forcing his hands from her throat, Alex summoned all of his strength to throw his body away from her and onto the ground. As he did the spell was broken and he reached out his hand to his Andrea; love had brought him to his senses.
Helena was livid and stood angrily at the altar. The spell seemed to have been broken and she held Elizabeth tightly by the arm as the girl reached out and sobbed for her parents. Helena had drawn a great knife from her belt and was pointing it at the child’s heart.
“Give me the runes.”
Alex could feel the pains behind his eyes, but they were nothing to the anger he felt within his chest. His wife, his child and his grandmother, he had to be strong for all of them.
Rushing forward he grabbed at the string of ancient stones that were strung around Helena’s neck, the source of her so called power.
The leather cord stretched in his fingers and she shrieked as the strong twine dug deep into her slender neck, before he felt it finally give and the ornament snapped in front of her. The sudden release pushed him back and Alex found himself reeling across the ground, knocking his head against a sharp stone plinth. He was out for the count.
The ancient stones scattered across the floor and around Helena’s feet, striking the slabs with a sharp click as stone met stone. As she scrabbled to retrieve them, she released her grip on Elizabeth who fled quickly, sobbing into her mother’s arms.
Without delay, Andrea bundled the girl against her cloak and fled quickly down the aisle and out into the storm.
Her arms ached with the weight of her daughter but she could not stop. The rain was still torrential and dragged down at her clothing, her feet slipping and sliding in the mud below.
Andrea could feel the other woman hot on her heels and she turned her head to see Helena almost upon her. She had tried in vain but it was all too late and as she reached for the gate her feet slid from underneath her body and she and the girl were sent crashing onto the muddy grass.
Helena was standing over both of them, a look of triumph on her face. She held the sacred stones in her hand and Andrea knew she would now stop at nothing to retrieve the runes. Everything had been in vain; all of their efforts useless. Everything that she, Geraldine, Alex and her grandma Betty had been through was all for nothing.
Helena lifted the knife from her belt and held it high, the blade glittering against the night.
There was a cry from the Abbey and Helena hesitated for a moment and looked around. It was Alex, but he was too late. He could not save Andrea or the girl now.
Raising the blade she stood in victory, ready to deliver the death blow. Andrea looked her enemy in the eye; like Geraldine she would meet her end with dignity, and she drew the girl closely towards her.
A great crash of thunder roared from the heavens as a bolt of lightning flashed across the sky, lighting up the shimmering steel of the blade in Helena’s hand.
The smoke swirled into the atmosphere as her pale flesh fizzled and crackled in the damp air. Andrea had thought that she heard a woman’s voice laugh out shrilly into the night as a second bolt of lightning hit the ground. For a moment she was blinded by the light.
***
An eerie calm settled on the Abbey grounds. Andrea opened her eyes slowly, afraid of the sight that would greet her. She was lying on the grass and the sky above her was blue. It was a cold day and yet the sun was shining; she could feel the warmth upon her cheeks.
There was a murmuring beside her and she glanced to see Elizabeth happily stirring in her buggy.
“Andrea!”
His voice rang through her head and she looked up into his eyes.
“You OK? I think we made it.”
Taking her hand, he pulled Andrea gently to her feet and kissed her
. They were home; all three of them had made it back to safety.
She could see that the ferry had just arrived into port and that the tourists were disembarking. They would soon be making their pilgrimage, down towards the Abbey.
There was so much to say, so many questions to ask, but for now they walked back home in silence, step by step into the Future.
THE END
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Beyond the Highland Gateway
Leela Ash
Copyright ©2016 by Leela Ash. All rights reserved.
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Table of Contents
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1.
Alisa Craig heaved a heavy sigh as she shelved the books left over on the cart. It was the end of the day, so everybody had left the library, which was normally a good thing. Today though, it wasn't. It meant that she was alone with her thoughts, none of which were particularly pleasant.
Things hadn't been going well at home. She had married her high school sweetheart, and had believed that they were the perfect couple. She was a librarian and he was an accountant; two boring, meticulous people who only had eyes for each other.
Lately though, she wasn't so sure. She had been getting a lot of signs that Carl might not be as honorable as she thought. He was being secretive and strange. She wondered if he might have hit his midlife crisis early. It was beginning to make her nervous. He had begun to surprise her with random gifts.
In most relationships it would be a nice way to spice up the marriage, but it just made Alisa nervous. She couldn't help but wonder if he was feeling guilty about something. Carl was a man who held on to every penny that came into his grasp, and to see him parting so easily with his money on trivial things like flowers and jewelry was a huge warning bell.
Alisa sighed. Where had she gone wrong? They had been married for six years, ever since they were both twenty. Maybe they had married too early after all, just as her mother had told her. But then, her mother had never really liked Carl. She said he was bad news, and claimed she knew through a mother's intuition. She took her Scottish roots seriously, and had a lot of superstitions that Alisa never really understood.
Normally she would be able to take comfort in her appearance. If he was being fishy because there was another woman, did he think she was slacking off with it? The thought was absurd. She still turned heads wherever she went. Her long, golden blonde hair fell over her shoulders, making her look glamorous even on the worst of days. And most men couldn't take their eyes off of her full pink lips, even though she never painted them in seductive shades of red. And she could always rely on her soulful blue eyes to hold others rapt in her attention for as long as she wanted them there. Her beauty wasn't a gift she had found particularly useful though, and thought it attracted too many questionable people to her.
She had been happy to settle down with Carl. He was the sweet, quiet guy of her dreams; a man she believed could see past her beauty and into her truest self. That was something he liked to pretend he could do, while the rest of the male population were busy tripping over themselves to check out her ass.
No, she hadn't slipped up on her appearance. In fact, she found that she was getting more attention than ever lately. On a daily basis she could count on at least three library patrons complimenting her or trying to get her phone number. Most of the men didn't care that she had a wedding ring on. She knew it made Carl madly jealous. Maybe he had finally become so paranoid that he convinced himself that he wasn't worth her full attention, so she must be having it off with some other man who was more worthy of her than he was.
It would make her furious if that was the case, and he was using it to justify cheating on her. She pushed a book into its place hard, nearly cracking the binding. She felt suddenly irresponsible as a librarian and pulled the book back out to make sure she hadn't damaged it, at least not too badly. When she saw the cover of the book, she was startled by a vibrant image of Scotland, a place she knew well from lore and paintings.
She had been craving tales of Scotland lately. She used to curl up with her mother for hours and listen to her speak about the mystical and mysterious place. She would have done anything to listen to another tale about her distant highlander relatives.
Unfortunately for her love of the old tales, her mother had shared the same love and succumbed to the deep, burning desire in her heart of hearts to use her retirement fund to move back to Scotland. This left Alisa alone, and saddened by the fact that she would no longer be able to listen to her mother weave the tales she loved so much.
Maybe this book would help her to fill the void. It also gave her a comforting thought. Maybe, if worst came to worst with Carl, a visit to her mom's wouldn't be such a bad idea. If her suspicions were proven true, it would be a nice excuse to escape life for a while and soak up the intoxicating tales her mother shared with her.
She flipped through the book, her eyes hungrily taking in the words. It seemed like a romance story, one that was captivating and engaging. It wouldn't hurt anything to take the book home. She could see to any repairs that might need to be made and use it as a way to distract herself from the emotional toll she was dealing with as a result of her suspicions of Carl's cheating. There was no way to know for sure, and sometimes she felt guilty for even considering it, but she was only human.
***
That night, Alisa sat in her study, fingering a piece of ancient tartan cloth that her mother had given to her. Her mother had always kept a huge sheet of it close in a wicker basket beside her chair. It was a family heirloom, she had told Alisa, and although she wanted to keep part of it for herself, she had cut it up and divided it among Alisa and her four brothers and bestowed it upon them with its tale when they each turned sixteen. She had been the last to hear the tale from her mother, and had kept the cloth close by her ever since.
As legend had it, a handsome Highland devil, Lord Blane Wyndham, had been traveling for days, hoping to wreak havoc on the lowland settlement that liked to try policing his clan's ways. He was rounding the bend, nearly there after his long journey, when he ran into a beautiful woman. She was unlike any he had ever seen, and her clear eyes held him still in his tracks. She saw he had a mischievous glint in his eyes. He could tell she was not highland stock, for she was scrawny and pale. Still, he had never seen anyone more beautiful.
“You up to no good, highlander?” she asked him.
“Aye,” he said with a charming smile.
As it happened, the woman was a noble lady, daughter of Blane's most hated enemy. They began a forbidden, elicit romance, one that nearly started a war between the highland clan and the lowlander's settlement. Finally, highlander and lowlander came to an agreement – a peace treaty, if the two young lovers would be allowed to live in their own way.
Everything was going well until, one day, the young woman was approached by a group of huge men.
“You're making a mistake, getting involved with Lord Blane,” the leader told her. “He is already engaged to be wed, and to a highlander. We don't need lowlanders contaminating our stock.”
“Nothing you can say will dissuade me from marrying him,” the plucky lass said, unintimidated by the three men. “He is my true love, in any time, in all ways.”
“This is Lord Todd,” the leader said, gesturing to a stern man. “His clan outnumbers Blane's by hundreds. If you don't make yourself scarce, he will attack, and the blood will be on your hands.”
The three men left, and the lass was left to ponder their threat. She wanted to speak to her betrothed about it, but before she reached him, she was intercepted by Lord Todd.
“You'd best keep your mouth shut lass, or we'll take care of you and your family. They'll regret making peace with the highlanders.”
The lady returned to her family home in the lowlands, where she tossed and turned, before finally falling into a fitful sleep. She had been having dreams of a faraway place, somewhere strange and different but so vivid that it seemed she could reach out and touch it if she tried.
The wedding was set for the next day, and she awoke feeling scared and concerned. There was nobody whose counsel she trusted, and so she held the terrible secret in her breast. When she walked toward her beloved to tie the knot, he looked at her with such love and tenderness that she almost fainted with worry. His life was in danger if she said yes.
The lass approached Lord Blane, touching his cheek gently, silently telling him her good byes. Tears streamed down her face and her hands trailed down his body, until they rested on his waist, fingering his tartan kilt. She knew she couldn't marry her beloved, not if it put his life in danger, but there was nowhere she could go, and no explanation she could give him that would be sufficient to break the peace treaty.
She heard a faint noise behind her beloved and looked up to stare into the fierce eyes of Lord Todd, who was hiding in the trees. He was gripping a broadsword, and she paled. In her fear and disdain, she remembered the vivid images she had seen while she slept and closed her eyes tightly. If only she could go where nobody would make such impossible demands on her, and keep her lover and his clan safe!
[Runes of Argyl 01.0] The Runes of Argyl Trilogy Page 17
