He found the others where he’d left them at the edge of the wood and ordered Munn to take the bairns on ahead to Castle Lachlan and then to meet him on the full moon two days hence at the faerie knoll.
Unbeknownst to Calyn, and without her unwanted hysterics, Stephen placed the witch’s talisman under the newborn’s cradle. Relieved to have provided protection for the bairn, Stephen rode with haste, a bone-chilling storm on his heels as predicted by the witch.
At the Fir-wood, he found Keita and Duff waiting. “Where is Munn?”
Duff shrugged. “The brownie sent us alone.”
“Then let us be about this mad business.”
Moments later, Stephen stood at the center of the Sithichean Sluaigh holding Keita and Duff’s hands securely, determined to travel to Jillian’s future time. They needed the faeries to look favorably upon them.
“Faeries dance round me, faeries sing to me. Upon this hill I am free of strife. From this sacred place I will ascend to a new life,” he quoted the words given to him by the witch. Excitement flared. The familiar sensation of falling overcame him. Things began to spin. But then to his dismay, everything stilled too quickly.
Stephen popped his eyes wide. Maclay charged toward them, a claymore gripped within his hands, intent on striking a killing blow. Stephen pushed the bairns away and in one brisk move, twisted to the side, freeing his sword and dropping its sheath and his plaide to the ground, ready to counter the attack. He couldn’t allow Maclay to travel to the future.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Anderson Creek, North Carolina
Jillian set aside the long water-wand and turned off the spigot. Water droplets dripped from hanging petunia baskets hooked on racks suspended over rows of plant benches containing a kaleidoscope of colorful bedding plants. She inhaled the mingling floral scents and savored the quiet of the greenhouse, glad the spring rush at Foxgloves had mellowed to a manageable pace. Tomorrow, the mid-summer gardening classes would begin and she was scheduled to teach several including her favorite, Landscaping with Containers.
If she gave her situation more thought than probably prudent, an emptiness within whittled away the false perception of wellbeing. She should feel better about her life. She made a good living at the garden center and enjoyed the work. Others in her position would at the least be content. More likely happy. But an anxious urgency rode Jillian daily. Inhaling a deep breath, she slipped past deserted potting benches—the staff having left early for the day—and out into the display garden where the scent of roses near to intoxicated the senses. Navigating one of the winding paths, she headed for the rear gate.
Sidestepping the pink foxgloves still blooming in the shade despite the heat, she gripped the metal of the grille with two hands and stared beyond the gate to the faerie mound, to the place where Stephen had vanished from her life months ago. He’d sacrificed so much to return to the past and make things right with Calyn, even though, as Jillian knew in her heart, he’d wanted to stay here with her. He was a good man.
They had both seen Calyn plump with child. The chances something else made the woman fat—a tumor perhaps—were slim at best, and it was wrong for Jillian to wish such a horrible thing on a person. She released a heavy sigh. When would she give up the daily pilgrimage and admit Stephen had a child with Calyn and would never return?
“Hey, sis, you need to stop torturing yourself. He’s not coming back.”
Jillian swung around, a palm clutched to her chest. “Kyle, you scared the bejesus out of me. What are you doing here?”
“I have a week’s worth of vacation time I need to use or lose.” He grinned and brushed strands of sun-bleached hair out of his not-so-innocent brown eyes. “Come on. Forget your vigil of the mound. Let’s go to the inn for a beer.”
“In a few minutes.” She turned back and peered through the gate.
“Jillian.”
“Yeah.” She glanced at her brother again, surprised by his unusual tone of voice and the strange look on his face.
“I’m thinking about taking another bike trip along the Greenbrier River Trail in West Virginia. Wanna come?”
“Can’t. Gardening classes start tomorrow.” Not that she would want to go anyway. She didn’t want to go anywhere near that old train tunnel.
Kyle tilted his head, an even odder expression scaring her.
“No,” Jillian pleaded. “You can’t intend to check out that time well. You just can’t. I would be devastated if I lost you, too.
“It was just a thought. I’m curious about how the portal works.”
Jillian shivered and looked away from her crazy brother to stare beyond the garden gate. The setting sun cast a golden glow over the mound. Kyle was likely right; Stephen wasn’t returning, but still—
Wait! She edged the grille open. There was something there, on the knoll. Someone. No. A watery image of three figures.
“Look!” She extended an arm and pointed. “Do you see them? Over there.”
The golden glow turned pinkish. A trick of the sun?
“What the hell?” Kyle moved to stand beside her and cupped a hand over his eyes. “I see something. I can’t make it out.”
“Must be Stephen and the children.” She raised a foot to step through the gate.
“No you don’t!” Kyle clasped her upper arm in a tight grip, halting her momentum. “I’m not losing you to this nonsense again.”
She wobbled, unsteady on her feet before catching her balance. The shimmer of color vanished, as did the image.
“There is something on the ground that wasn’t there before.” Her voice rose. She could hardly contain the excitement.
“Don’t even think of going onto that damn faerie hill.” Kyle, once again, stopped her from bolting through the gate. “I’ll go see what it is.”
Jillian bit her lip, waiting, eager to see what had materialized before their eyes.
When her brother returned, he held a plaid weaved by a MacLachlan craftsman. Stephen’s?
“My. God.” Jillian clutched the familiar tartan of red and green crossed with yellow against her heart. Brought it to her nose and inhaled. The wool fabric smelled of Stephen. Her mouth went dry. Had he tried to return, only to be thwarted by an unwilling gate?
A large hand settling on her shoulder made her scream.
“What is with you guys, creeping up on a girl when she least expects it?” she glared at Douglas who seemed to appear out of thin air.
He displayed no chagrin. “Where did you get Stephen’s plaid?”
She pointed to the mound. “We thought we saw him there and then he was gone.”
“Shite!” Douglas frowned. Fisted hands on hips. Strode off toward the trail for Finn and Elspeth’s house.
“What was that all about?” Kyle asked.
Jillian nipped the side of her bottom lip. Might Stephen be lost somewhere in time? “I think it had something to do with Stephen. Everyone is worried about his future in the past.”
“And you?”
“It is hard to put into words the many fears tightening my stomach when I think of what might be happening to Stephen.”
* * *
Fir-wood, Scotland
Stephen dropped his sword to a forward position warding Maclay’s cut with the flat of the blade. The resulting vibration shot up Stephen’s arm, stressing already bulging muscles. He twisted his wrists and counterstruck.
The men separated. Circled. From the corner of an eye, Stephen risked a swift check on the bairns. Keita huddled in Munn’s arms. Thanks be to the saints, the wee brownie deemed to make an appearance. Duff stood apart from the other two, straight as a rod, watching the fight with wide eyes, a heavy stick clutched in tense hands.
The distraction almost cost Stephen the fight and perhaps his life and that of the bairns. ’Twas only the practiced reflexes of a warrior that saved him when the next blow came. Stephen edged his hips back, avoiding a vicious slice to his gut.
“I kilt your wife, MacEwen,” his oppo
nent taunted.
Stephen couldn’t allow the goading to affect him. ’Twas likely Maclay spoke false.
“And what of your son?” he retorted.
The bastard’s face remained stoic. Cold. Unfeeling.
Could he have hurt Calyn and her bairn? Men who harmed innocents didn’t deserve to live.
Stephen reached within for a warrior’s calm and returned to the fight with a gruesome brutality. The clash of steel against steel echoed over the nearby hills as they each used their blades to find a weakness in the other. The metallic scent of blood rose from a slash on his arm. His strength began to wane.
Maclay tired, too. He panted. His chest heaved heavily with each breath.
Stephen needed to end this and soon. Releasing his left hand from the hilt of the sword, he struck his opponent in the throat with a fist—a move he learned from Finn several years prior. Maclay staggered backward, and Stephen plunged his blade into the man’s belly. Maclay made a gurgling sound; crumpled to the ground. Duff jumped in and bashed the fallen man on the head several times.
“Easy, lad.” Stephen grabbed the boy’s shoulder. “The bastard is dead.”
The lad dropped the stick and lunged into Stephen’s arms. Stephen held him close. Patted the lad’s back. Murmured words of comfort.
“Better?” Stephen asked when the lad calmed.
Duff sniffled and stepped away, cheeks flushed. Keita joined them, wrapping her little arms round one of Stephen’s legs.
“Are you well, lass?” he asked, rumpling her tousled curls.
She gave an abrupt nod.
“Then let us leave this place.” Stephen gripped the bairn’s hands ignoring the sting from the injury to his arm, and they walked to the top of the knoll to where Stephen had left the sheath and his plaide. The leather sheath was there, but not the plaide. No hum of magic vibrated in the air.
Munn stood off to the side, shaking his head.
“Faeries dance round me, faeries sing to me. Upon this hill I am free of strife. From this sacred place I will ascend to a new life.” Stephen said the words, desperate for them to work magic.
“Too late. This gate is nae longer open to you,” Munn cried, spun in a circle, and vanished.
Stephen swallowed disappointment. He’d suspected as much, but had hoped—
Keita tugged on his hand. “Did the bad man really kill Calyn and the bairn?”
“Dinna worry, lass. He probably just toyed with me, hoping for an advantage in the fight,” he assured her, but harbored an uneasy feeling about what they would find upon returning to the cottage in Dunadd.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Munn’s essence whirled over peak and glen, narrowing in on the wee loch in the wood he’d visited with Stephen and the bairns a couple days prior. He landed on his butt on the hard ground in front of the weathered wooden door of the witch’s dilapidated hut. A biting wind whipped his face.
“Witch, my arse,” he grumbled. “More likely a charlatan.”
The feminine giggle of a young woman came from within the structure. Huh? Odd. Yet he sensed the witch was alone.
Munn stood, straightened his garments, and pushed into the hut without knocking. He didn’t fear the old hag even if she had the ability to mimic another. What was a mortal witch to a seasoned brownie? To a brownie who’d survived the wrath of the Fae Queen? To a brownie who’d traveled to the future? Munn’s chest expanded with pride.
The old woman continued to giggle like a much younger lass. Like a female faerie…
“Should have guessed ’twas you,” Munn groused.
The hunched body before him stretched and thinned. Coarse gray hair lengthened and took on an auburn sheen. A smooth pert nose replaced a malformed one. The only thing the woman standing before him retained of the hag was the distinguishing emerald eyes. He should have recognized Caitrina sooner.
The mingling scents of peony and freesia and sandalwood wafted from her exquisitely garbed form. How had she concealed that cloying fae perfume while in the form of the hag so he hadn’t suspected ’twas she the previous time they visited? He should have smelled her from a great distance and certainly from the edge of the woods where he’d waited for Stephen with Keita and Duff.
“What are you doing here, wee man?” Caitrina stretched slender arms over her head—a gauzy, emerald silk gown molded to pert breasts—as if trying to grow accustomed to her true form.
With a frown, Munn adjusted his trews, not that he was attracted to the faerie or anything about her. Nor any other female. Definitely not.
“I came to seek help from the hag.” His voice came out higher pitched than usual.
“For what, pray tell?”
“The spell she…you gave to Stephen. It only sent his plaide forward through time.”
“Flaming balls of hell!” Her fingertips sparked. “How could you let that happen?”
“’Twas not my fault. Maclay arrived filled with blood lust. He claimed to have kilt Calyn. Stephen kilt him.”
“And Maclay’s bairn?”
Munn shrugged with a shake of the head. He didn’t ken what happened to the bairn. Nor did he care. The evil man’s son could come to no good.
“Grrr!” Caitrina paced to and fro.
Munn edged toward the door. There would be no help for him here. Caitrina’s glare stopped him with his hand only halfway to the latch.
Hands fisted on hips, her eyes narrowed. “How is it a wee brownie learned to sift time?”
Munn wrinkled his brow. “Nary a one amongst my kind kens the ways of the mound.”
“Yet you guided Stephen back through the time gate, away from Jillian.”
“Nae.” Munn opened the door, ready to spin out into the yard and to vanish.
Anger distorted Caitrina’s features. “Then who?”
He gulped. Her tone of voice was more frightening than that of the Queen of the Fae when having a temper tantrum. He shook his head. He didn’t ken who had interfered. He’d thought Caitrina had brought Stephen back through time.
“Never mind.” Her facial muscles relaxed as quickly as they’d soured. “’Tis only a matter of time before I learn who keeps thwarting me.” She rubbed her chin, shoulders relaxed. “There is another way to reunite Stephen and Jillian in the future. Take him to the spot in the forest where Jillian arrived and met the bairns of the wood. Push him into the time well, and I will see him through the portal to West Virginia.”
“Ach, aye.” Munn should have thought of the other time gate himself. He didn’t care for Caitrina bringing its existence to his attention. Not one bit. She would gloat over him for years. He kicked the dirt floor.
“Dinnae make this into more of a disaster,” she warned and disappeared into the nether.
Damn faerie always had to have the last word. Munn would show her; he’d see Stephen to the future and maybe he’d stay there himself. He liked the place when he visited with Archie.
Uh-oh! He didn’t actually ken where to find the time well. Shite! Munn spun in a circle, dissolved into specks of dust, and rode a bitter wind in search of Stephen.
* * *
Snowflakes dusted the ground as the two horses neared the village outside Dunadd Castle. Stephen signaled Duff to halt. “Stay hidden in these trees until we learn the truth of Maclay’s claims.”
The lad nodded, and Stephen handed over his reins. ’Twould be better for him to travel the remainder of the way to the cottage on foot. Keeping to the shadows, he darted from structure to structure, his extra plaide wrapped around his upper body and over his head both to ward off the cold and to hide his identity.
The door of the cottage hung open. Stephen crept close. No one seemed to be about. He slipped across the threshold. An acrid stench fouled his breath, leaving no doubt as to what he would find. The place showed signs of violence. Tables and benches were overturned. A chair had been smashed against a wall, leaving a hole in the surface and shards of wood on the floor amongst pieces of broken crockery.
&n
bsp; With unease, he stepped behind the curtain separating one of the sleeping quarters from the living area. The bed where Calyn slept remained unmade. The cradle empty. The foul smell strengthened and he covered his nose with the wool of his plaide. He rounded the wood frame of the bed, stopping short of the battered body on the bloody rush mat. Maclay had obviously tortured the lass before dispensing the final death blow.
A sour taste rose in Stephen’s throat, but he didn’t turn away. He tugged a sheet free of the bed and covered the poor lass. She might have lied to him and wrongly forced him into a handfasting, but nary a soul deserved to die in such a violent manner.
He wished he could kill Maclay again. Slowly and with as much pain as the lass had suffered. Or perhaps more. Payment for the man’s many sins.
Stephen shook off the bloodlust. Maclay’s punishment would come from the hand of God.
Where was Maclay’s bairn? Stephen lifted covers and sheets and pillows, but found naught.
Grinding his teeth, concerned he wouldn’t find the wee bairn, he strode into the main living area of the cottage. With hands on hips, he surveyed the carnage. A whimpering came from the second curtained off sleeping quarter. The one Stephen shared with Keita and Duff. He dashed across the chamber and shoved aside the hanging cloth. Naught had been touched within.
Silence. Nary a sound indicated the presence of the bairn. Stephen could have sworn he’d heard—
A murmur of a cry had him crossing to the wooden chest covered with one of his plaides. When he pulled the wool fabric away, he found a basket containing the bairn hidden behind.
Thank the good Lord, Maclay hadn’t harmed the bairn.
Pale blue eyes stared at Stephen before the wee bairn let loose a high-pitched wail.
Stephen wrapped the lad in the plaide and cradled him in his arms. He’d take the bairn to the castle and hand the lad over to Calyn’s family. Then Stephen would compel the faerie mound to hurl him, Keita, and Duff to Jillian in the future.
The clatter of someone rummaging through the debris in the outer chamber made Stephen twist his body in a manner to protect the bairn. Calyn’s da tore open the curtain. Her two brothers stood behind their da, blocking the threshold—the only way out of the cottage except for the bolt hole under the floorboards. If there was trouble, Stephen would have to push past them while protecting the infant in his arms.
Just Wait For Me (Highland Gardens Book 3) Page 19
