by L. L. Muir
Jillian gasped.
It was really quite funny, but to have them all admit it out loud, was a shock. No more pretending, no more suspecting but never daring to ask. No more testing them secretly.
People didn’t read minds. Nobody could. Except for Muirs…
Percy put his hands behind his back and gave himself a little pinch, just to make sure it wasn’t just a crazy dream he was having, that he hadn’t fallen asleep in Wickham’s truck.
The pinch hurt. It was true, then. And though he had heard Wickham’s voice in his head, he decided to keep that little tidbit under his hat…
“Witches.” The word whispered out of his mouth before he could stop it.
Quinn winced. “Aye, son,” he said quietly. “Though ye must have known all along, since we brought ye forward from the sixteenth century. All the changes ye faced. We’d hoped ye were young enough that ye’d forget, in time, what life had been like before. After all, ye took to video games as if ye’d been raised on them.”
“Mastered them much faster than I,” Monty grumbled. “Still do.” He and Ivar took turns rumpling Percy’s hair.
He tried to comb it with his fingers while avoiding their teasing hands. “But I never forgot. I remember everything. And I wish to return home.”
The room fell painfully quiet as if someone had died. In a way, he supposed that’s what he was asking for. If he went back to his Gordon home, in his own time, to these people, he would already be dead.
He shouldered his way back to Jules, then took her hands in his. “I’m grateful. I really am. This world is full of constant excitement. But… But I was never meant to be here.” He had to ignore her fresh tears or he would start greetin’ himself. “I remember my mother. Father let her take me to Mass on Sundays. Well, most Sundays. It was the only favor she asked of him. I remember, when she died, the priest left. But I’m sure there will be another.”
Jules caught her breath. “If your mother’s gone, why do you want to go back? You can’t possibly want to see your father—”
Quinn put a hand on her shoulder and she stopped talking. “We shouldn’t speak ill of the man—”
“It is not Father whom I miss. I have a brother, William, and a sister, Betha, who were always good to me. It makes me sad to think they’ve worried these four years.” He had to look away then. He would never be able to explain it well enough.
Wickham joined them. “Percy will always wonder, if we do not let him go back.”
“No!” Jules pulled him closer. “You don’t understand. They were going to kill you. We had to promise to take you away with us—”
“You said that before. But who was going to kill me?”
“The…the Muir clan. There were rules. I… We took you through a tunnel. But we didn’t know there would be a price to pay—”
“I remember a tunnel. It was the first memory of you, coming out of it, holding your hand. But I don’t remember how I got there, or how I met you. I thought you’d kidnapped me, so I played along and waited for a chance to run away. But by the time I had the chance, I had no idea where home was.
“Later, when I dared ask you to take me back, you took me to the ruins of the Gordon Keep. That’s when I realized you’d taken me too far away, that I would never get home again. But then, I started overhearing things. You all talked about the past like you’d been there, like you’d chosen to come and go. That’s when I started to hope.”
Quinn put his hand on Percy’s shoulder and turned him around. “Ye’ve obviously thought about this a great deal.”
“I have, sir.”
“I cannot persuade ye, perhaps, to wait a few more years, so that Monty and I might prepare ye, train ye?”
“I would never last. Truth be told, I’ve been searching Castle Ross for quite some time...”
Jillian and Jules gasped.
“…for the tunnel. Ye speak of it often enough, when ye think I’m not listening. I ken it has to be there, somewhere. I’ve also been inside the tomb. But there was no way out, no way through.”
Jillian walked back to the ottoman and collapsed on it. Monty was there to help steady her. He looked a bit ill himself.
Percy looked at Wickham and took a deep breath. He was about to confess what he’d been prepared to do, to blackmail them into taking him back. But the man shook his head as if to dissuade him, and Percy realized that the promise not to read minds was not being honored by all.
Wickham winked. Another reply to a question not asked.
Quinn exchanged a look with Monty, then nodded. “There is only one thing to do, then. As yer father in the here and now, it falls to me to take ye back. I ken the way. A bit of love and sacrifice is required, but I believe we have that covered, aye?”
Jules made a strange, mewling sound and wrapped Percy in her arms, pulling his shoulder from Quinn’s grasp. “I don’t want you to go,” she whispered. “You’re such a good boy. But even if you weren’t—you still feel like mine.”
“Even if I weren’t?” He couldn’t stop the accusation from coming. “Ye mean, if I suddenly turned into that monster ye’re always watching for—”
“Percy!” Quinn shook his head, confused. “What on earth are ye havering about?”
“I heard ye, last year, when I threw the Santa Claus into the fire. I came back to the house for my coat and heard ye talking in the kitchen. Ye said ye were always watching my eyes, to see when the anger might come back. Ye worried that it might happen when Emmie was about—”
“Percy,” Jules wailed. “Ye should have said something then. I can explain—”
“That’s enough, I think.” Wickham came forward. “I can do that explaining. And I must be the one to take him back. The tomb is not reliable enough. The timing is too important, for he cannot go where he has already been. He cannot return to The Gordon as a fourteen-year-old lad. He’ll be boiled in oil for witchcraft. Or burned.
“Or left in a dungeon to rot,” Quinn said. Percy assumed that the hate in his foster father’s voice was meant for The Gordon himself, who was capable of all sorts of horrid punishments where his enemies were concerned.
Monty stood. “I will come along. Ye’ll need a sword arm—”
“Nay, Laird Ross,” Wickham said. “There will be no need for swords.” He smiled at Jules. “Trust me.”
Chapter Seven
Before the gathering broke up, it was decided that Wickham and Percy would depart two days hence. Wickham needed time to get his affairs in order—which turned out to mean he had to get permission from his wife to be away for a while.
Though everyone thought it would give Percy ample time to say his farewells, it only made things worse. Jules constantly had to leave the room because she had dust in her eyes. He just wished to have it over with.
Emmie, who always seemed to sense when something was amiss, held his hand wherever he went. That last night, soon after she’d been tucked into bed, he found her standing just inside his bedroom with her favorite, though dour, teddy hanging from one hand, his feet dragging on the floor.
Seated on the bed, he stared for a moment, knowing he would always remember her that way.
“Percy?”
“Aye?”
“Promise ye’ll be here in the morning.”
He had to look at the ceiling to keep the water from dribbling out his eyes. “I promise I shall be here in the morning.” They weren’t to leave until ten o’clock, so it was the truth.
“Ye wouldn’t lie to a three-year-old, would ye?” It was a question she asked surprisingly often.
He laughed. “I promise that I will go nowhere without telling ye first. Will that do?”
“Aye. It will do.” She marched forward and held up her hands, bear and all, waiting for him to pick her up. He got to his feet and did as she wished. Her little arms reached all the way around his neck and she squeezed him tight before planting a kiss in the center of his cheek. “Goodnight, brother mine.”
“Goodnight, siste
r,” he whispered, for he was barely capable of breathing. His heart broke as she shuffled out the door, but there was another sister he needed to see to—a sister who might not be so lucky in life as wee Emmie.
The door swayed and he found the lassie hanging on the knob, giving him a wary look with one brow raised. “Ye ken that monsters will nibble yer toes at night, if ye lie to a sister, aye?”
He quickly swallowed a laugh, then nodded soberly. “I do indeed.”
She bobbed her head and disappeared. His door closed slowly, then snapped shut. She fumbled with something in the hallway, then it was quiet again. His curiosity piqued, he stepped carefully to the door and opened it. The lassie was gone. But standing guard over his threshold was her ever-serious teddy.
Percy woke the next morning to the cool touch of a tiny hand on his arm. Emmie grinned at him, pleased he’d heeded her warning about the monsters and kept his promise. No doubt she gave too much credit to her wee bear.
“Mumma’s cooked breakfast,” she said.
He had to be clever to ditch the child long enough to make it into the toilet alone. And after he was dressed, she was waiting in the hall to grab onto his little finger to escort him downstairs. As soon as breakfast was over, he explained that he would, indeed, be leaving. How long he would be gone, he could not promise.
In the end, Jules had to cut short their farewell in order to haul a heartbroken Emmie away.
Wickham waited on the trail that led up to the castle. Quinn insisted on walking with them. The path was wet from a night storm. Their boots patted against the wet mud, but nothing was said. Percy was nervous as a cat.
There were three cars already in the car park and Percy worried about the tour staff.
“We needed only to move away from watchful eyes at the house.” Wickham confessed. “No need to go inside the castle. Just behind the curtain wall will do.” He veered off to the right and the three of them made their way along a section of wall still intact. They stopped when there was nothing at all between the stones and the hillside. Even someone with a keen eye or a pair of field glasses could not see them where they stood.
Quinn held out his hand. When Percy took it, the big man pulled him close for a tight squeeze. “I will be waiting,” he said. “I will always be here, hoping ye’ll come back to us, aye?”
Percy nodded. “Thank ye. For all of it.”
The big man patted him on the back and let him go. “Godspeed, Percy. I hope ye can forgive us, for wanting to spare ye.”
“From the Muir clan?”
“And other things.” He gave Wickham a meaningful look. Obviously, they had already spoken of those other things. “Come back to us, son.” Then he stepped away, keeping his hands behind his back as if he might be tempted to stop him from going.
Percy looked about for the elusive tunnel entrance. “I’d never thought to look out here,” he said.
Quinn frowned. “For what?”
“For the tunnel.” He looked at Wickham. “We will be using the tunnel, aye?”
The other man shook his head. “Nay need. More than half a century ago, my twin brother sealed me into the tunnel itself. Not inside, mind, but into its very walls. He wished to be rid of me and believed I was well and truly trapped. But one day, he came back to try and steal my...gifts... And when he tried to take them, I was able to free myself.
“When I escaped—and mind, only family kens this—I also took with me a copy, if ye will, of the tunnel’s power. When it was constructed, it was imbued with the magic of an entire clan of Muir witches, including the ability to manipulate Time. So, in essence, I am the tunnel and the tunnel is me. Only, I have a wee bit more...dexterity...than long stone walls.
“I can go where I must, when I must, and I can take others along with me when necessary. Time is mine.” He held out his arms. “Hold tight now, Percy. For after this day, I doubt anyone will call ye young again. No man can see what ye’re about to see without leaving his carefree childhood behind.”
No longer a child? That sounded fine to him, so he placed his arms over Wickham’s and held tight, even when the man’s large fingers bit into his elbows.
“Last chance,” Wickham said, then waited.
Percy turned to take one last look at Quinn, but the large man disappeared before his eyes. He and Wickham were surrounded by a darkness, flowing and substantial as black water, though it stayed clear of his face. He concentrated on the strong arms beneath his, leaning to keep his balance, though he could not have said whether or not he was still standing on the ground.
And then suddenly, it was gone. The blackness was washed away by the harsh wind of the North Sea blasting in his face, giving him a taste of his true home once more. He sucked it in and presented the sun with a smile.
Wickham’s voice intruded. “Ye remember, then, do ye?”
“Aye. I do.” He opened his eyes and turned, knowing his home would be at his back.
And there it stood on a spit of land jutting out into the North Sea. It sat black and lifeless against the bright sunny sky and the blue sea beyond. The settlement was much larger in size than it had been, when Quinn and Jules had taken him to see the ruins three years ago.
“I’m home,” he whispered, then repeated it half a dozen times, trying to convince himself, trying to make it be true. He pinched himself. Though he barely felt the pain, it was pain nonetheless.
And pain meant he could believe it.
Chapter Eight
Not far off shore, a large ship bobbed like a balloon on the ever-stormy sea. No doubt the sailors on board were anxious to quit the place so their bellies could settle.
Swept up by the excitement of finally being home again, Percy hopped and waved madly, for no reason at all. The only thing that waved back was a small blue flag, but it only mattered that the loamy ground upon which he bounced was Gordon land.
“Auch, ‘tis true.” Wickham stood nearby. “Ye’re back where ye wished to be. But ye heed me. Ye cannot simply step back into the life ye had.”
Percy peeled his gaze from the Gordon Keep and looked at his magically gifted escort. “And why not?”
Wickham seemed disappointed by his question. “When ye said ye remembered everything, ye were wrong.”
He laughed. “How bad could it be, if I am home again?”
The man grimaced. “First, I must point out that, had ye never come back, there would have been no need to tell ye...”
That sounded ominous, and the urge to bounce ebbed away. “Out with it, then.”
“Before Juliet interfered in yer life, so to speak... Well, truth is, ye’d grown into a man. Of roughly twenty years. When she led ye through the tunnel—in self-defense—the tunnel took from ye.”
“Took what from me?”
“Ten years of yer life. Ten years of memories. That is why ye needed a home, and a family to care for ye. They couldn’t have sent ye to yer father, ten years younger. And they couldn’t have allowed the Muirs to execute ye, as they did any foe that emerged from that tunnel.”
“Any foe. So, I was truly the enemy.” He’d held on to a crumb of hope that he’d been wrong about that, but that crumb was gone.
“Aye. Though, in yer father’s time, anyone who was not a Gordon was yer possible enemy, and so it was with any clan. The Muirs were no different, but they had erected a clever trap for anyone trying to sneak onto their land from the Ross side of the mountain.”
“Self-defense, ye said? She fled from me, then?” He turned his face back to the sun and closed his eyes against the hurt.
“Aye.”
“That explains much, then. Why they questioned if I might turn back into something…dangerous. It was a wonder Quinn allowed me around the family at all.” Percy thought of Emmie and his chest felt like a towel twisted tight enough to squeeze water from his lungs.
Wickham reached for him, but let his hand drop when Percy stepped back. “Not true, lad. Ye were not some rabid dog. Ye were a laddie of ten. And the truth is I
believe both of them needed ye just as much as ye needed them.”
A pleasant idea, but not one he could believe. But now was not the time for dwelling on his twenty-first century life.
He sucked fresh Gordon air into his chest. “Weel. Since I will not be going back. I must know, can ye restore what the tunnel took?”
“That will depend.”
“Upon?”
“Whether or not ye still wish it, once ye’ve seen what I’ve come to show ye.”
Wickham took hold of Percy’s left arm and they were instantly inside the keep. Though it took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the dim light, Percy knew the place instantly. The great hall. His father’s chair was to his right, at the head of a hefty wood table hewn from the heart of a single tree. And his heart leapt when he realized the chair was occupied.
Since no one would expect to live long if they sat in it, the dark figure had to be his father—if Wickham had delivered him home to his own place in time.
“Aye, Percy. This is yer time, as ye’re about to discover.”
Percy cleared his throat, straightened his spine, and started toward his father.
“Come here,” the man barked, causing his bones to jump, but he kept walking. His father’s attention was on someone else, however, so he paused.
A young lad pushed away from the wall and hurried toward The Gordon. “Aye, father?”
“Ye’re Percy?”
“Aye, father.”
“Ye fancy going to Mass with yer mother, aye?”
The lad, who was clearly his younger self, scratched his head with a filthy finger, then nodded. “Aye. I suppose I do—”
“Well, there will be no more of that. She’s gone and died on me. Yer coward priest has fled.”
Percy froze like a heavy chunk of stone. He remembered that moment. He remembered well the feeling of standing before his own father and feeling completely abandoned. His mother was gone. The priest was not there to console him or explain why God had seen fit to take away sweet, patient Mary Aikens. And to add insult to injury, The Gordon barely remembered his name.
