The Sixth Labyrinth (The Child of the Erinyes Book 4)

by Rebecca Lochlann

  “The sea will bewitch you,” he said.

  She started. “In the dream, that’s what I want.”

  “Once she has you, she never releases you.” A frown deepened the lines between his brows. “The sea claims final possession.”

  “And leaves nothing behind.” She had no idea where those words came from. Searching for equilibrium, Morrigan placed both hands on the rock, closing her eyes and drawing in a deep breath of cool air to clear her head. “In the dream, I didn’t want to be released. I wanted to drown.”

  “She will take all of you without remorse.”

  His flat, bitter tone brought Morrigan’s eyes open. He’d edged closer. Was he still speaking of the sea?

  “What’s your purpose?” he asked. “Are you trying to make a fool of Curran?”

  “Why… why do you say that?” she managed.

  “Maybe it’s me you want to make a fool of.”

  “I don’t want to make a fool of anyone.”

  “Ah, so you’re already spoiled, and bored with your lot. Or a silly wean, ruled by selfish ignorance.”

  She exhaled, incensed. “I am searching my way through life. I am not ‘spoiled,’ or ‘bored,’ or a ‘silly wean.’ I am Morrigan— Morrigan Lawton Ramsay. What of you? What is your purpose?”

  “Mine? To follow. To fight. To die, and do it all again. To be God’s pawn.”

  “Pawn? How? How can you die and ‘do it all again’?”

  His gaze wavered then he glanced towards the water, shrugging. “I’ve had too much whisky.”

  Morrigan knew she should let the subject die. But instead she heard herself say, “I picture God with the face of my father, which is daft because Papa hated God. God was to blame when he and Nicky nearly starved and my mam died, so Papa renounced God. In retaliation God took Nicky… the child he loved. I often see God snapping his fingers and laughing as he brought death to both of them. My father was arrogant, and he paid the price.”

  She’d never said such things before. In truth, she hadn’t known they festered inside. She wanted to discover where this pain led, and instinct told her Mackinnon might be the only man in Glenelg who wouldn’t be offended. “This morning, Father Drummond talked of Paradise. He said Adam and Eve lived there, content, until God planted the Tree of Life in their midst.” She hesitated. “Why did he put it there, tell them not to touch it, then send the serpent to lure them? And of course it had to be the female who gave in to temptation. We’ve never been forgiven for that, and never will be.”

  “Some say the Devil tempted her because of her strength.” Aodhàn’s eyes reflected sparks from the nearby bonfire. “He knew if he could sway her, Adam would follow. Adam was easy.”

  She examined the idea, not sure if this was a compliment or another attack. “Was it a gamble, then? The Almighty and the Devil, wagering on how long it would take humans to commit the first sin? If so the Devil won, didn’t he, because Father Drummond says he was made king over us.”

  Futility descended like a shroud over Morrigan’s earlier exuberance. A moment ago, emotions had burgeoned, clear and fire-bright, insisting on a voice. Now everything seemed murky, out of reach. “If there is a God,” she said, feeling her way, “he must want us to suffer, to know only failure and sorrow. If he hadn’t given us to the Devil, there would’ve been no need for his son to be crucified. We’d not know the meaning of sin.”

  A midge landed on Aodhàn’s cheekbone— she brushed it away since he didn’t seem to notice. His prominent bones, coupled with the shadows, leant him a subtle predatory air. “So we have to refuse to be his pawns. That’s our revenge. I think I know why it’s such a sin to take your own life. God is furious, isn’t he, when we spoil his game by making our own choices?”

  “Stop it.”

  He sounded angry. She must have been wrong about him. Now she wondered, stiffening with a feathered edge of dismay, if he would tell William Watson of her blasphemy.

  “Don’t let anyone hear you say such things,” he said. “They won’t forgive or forget it. When will you learn to think before you speak?”

  “What?”

  He blinked and turned his face away. “The world has worshipped many things. Gods, goddesses, love, money, land. Since the beginning we’ve blamed our idols for all that displeases us. Everything from wars, plagues, bad harvests, to a poor gambling hand. It’s the way of cowards, to blame something or someone else for what we do.” An expression flitted across his features, too hard to define in this indistinct light. “And we have done things, things beyond redemption.”

  She recognized the self-hatred in his voice. She’d spoken the same way, echoing Papa, whipping herself for stupidity, laziness, and greed.

  Deep inside, the wild, secret Morrigan roused and took notice.

  “Once,” he said, “all I cared about was glory, fame, praise. Kleos, the Greeks call it. I would’ve done anything… did anything in bondage to it.” He stopped. When he continued, his voice had grown faint. “I’ve paid such a price. And so have those around me.” His jaw clenched, and clenched again.

  The wash of water intensified as the wind caused a surge of ripples to caress the shore. It felt like a language she’d once understood. “Mackinnon?” she asked.

  He returned then, to the night and the boulder by the sea. “If we were brave enough to admit who’s truly responsible for our actions, everything might change. The world might change. But it’s too hard. We’re too weak. I ask your pardon. You’re not a wean or a spoiled wife. You’re Morrigan Lawton Ramsay, searching out her way.”

  Even as she started to smile, basking in the still-unfamiliar sensation of warm acceptance, he leaned forward and kissed her, at first gently, yet there was a tremble to his lips. His hands descended upon her shoulders and he gripped them, hard, then harder.

  He lifted his head. His eyes were wide. She saw passion and longing, aye, but worse things too. Suffering. Regret. Horror. All swept past so swiftly she couldn’t be certain of anything, and didn’t know what to do.

  His hands were shaking. Instinctively, she lifted her own and pressed them over his in an effort to lend him calm if she could.

  He closed his eyes. “For as long as… as….” He drew in a choked breath. Pulling his hands free, he retreated.

  The man was confounding. He was meanly dressed, his hair coarsely cut, his beard untrimmed, but the way he talked was every bit as educated as Curran. Hadn’t he spoken Greek earlier? Most disturbing of all was how familiar everything about this man seemed, and when she’d rested her hands over his, she had felt that subtle tingling again.

  She longed to comfort him. But an inner voice shouted a warning, dragging her attention away.

  Silhouetted against the buttery light from the barn stood two figures. The glow made a halo of Curran’s hair. Next to him, Violet resembled a willowy tree-faery.

  They approached. Moonlight reflected off the scar beside her husband’s left eye. Morrigan couldn’t stop staring, as it almost seemed to pulsate.

  “What d’you think you’re doing, Aodhàn?” Curran’s voice was on the rougher side of courteous.

  “Handing out Michaelmas kisses to all the bonny lasses,” Mackinnon said easily.

  Violet regarded Morrigan, then Mackinnon, with trepidation. “Oh, there’s Da,” she said, and melted into the night.

  There was a tense moment or two more before Curran said, “Come, Morrigan, let’s get you home. In your condition, you need rest.”

  She slid off the boulder and smoothed her skirts, mortified that he’d brought up her pregnancy. “Good night, Mackinnon,” she said. “Happy Saint Michael’s Day.”

  Aodhàn inclined his head. His face now wore the usual impenetrable veil. But for that brief moment, she’d never have guessed what seethed behind it.

  What had he been about to say? Why had a kiss made him lose his implacable control?

  Curran escorted her to the gig, his grip firm on her arm. After assisting her onto the seat, he lit a cig
ar and threw the match away with alarming force. He climbed up and flicked the reins. The horse trotted from the gathering, leaving behind singing, bagpipes, fiddles, and many who would suffer splitting heads come morning. There might even be a new pregnancy or two.

  A silent, watchful Highland night soon fell around them, broken only by regular hoof beats. The cool air was scented with pine and cigar smoke. Morrigan drew her shawl closer.

  “Are you going to tell me?” he asked.

  “What?”

  “Why it is every time you and Aodhàn Mackinnon get a glimpse of each other, you run off and hide. Did he kiss you on our wedding day too, when you went outside with him?”

  “Of course not. And we weren’t hiding. I asked Mackinnon to take me outside, if you want to know. I was sick of watching you and Violet. You had plenty of kisses for her, and anyone else who wanted one.”

  He hauled on the reins, making the horse snort and stamp. “It’s the custom to have the winners share the wine and dance the Cailleach an Dùdain. It means nothing.”

  “Maybe it’s our marriage that means nothing.” What she said next surprised her. “The days when I had to endure whatever was done to me are past.”

  Curran faced her as the horse came to a confused stop. “It’s one thing to kiss someone in a barn full of folk, as part of custom, and another to go off into the night and do it.”

  “We were hardly alone. Malcolm was there, for one. And don’t you want me to be friendly with the folk you’ve telling me about since July?”

  “Friendly, yes. Letting men fondle you like a slut? No.”

  A slut! Branded again, now by her husband, and they’d only been married a fortnight.

  Later, when she tried to recall slapping him, she couldn’t. Yet she remembered her palm burning, and his head jerking to one side.

  He rose, towering over her. “You’re a wife now,” he shouted, “and you’ll conduct yourself like one. No more going off to the moor and charming a man out of his good sense!”

  Without blinking, she wrenched the reins out of his hands and snapped them against the horse’s rump, causing it to leap forward.

  Curran was thrown, cursing, over the side of the carriage.

  Morrigan sent the horse flying, leaving her husband sprawled out dead for all she cared.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  FIONNA POLITELY STIFLED her yawns as she listened to Agnes ramble.

  “I know,” Agnes said, partly to her, partly to Seaghan. “The lass is with child. No doubt you think that’s why he wed her.” Holding out her glass, she shook it in Fionna’s face, sloshing whisky. “But you didn’t see his face when she fell off that horse. Near daft he was with fear, and fury at that poor dog. He loves her. Malcolm used to have that same fire in his eyes.” With a heartfelt sigh, she added, “Marriage ruins the finest romances.”

  Seaghan’s cheeks turned bright as holly berries as he glanced at Fionna. She wanted to say, Don’t heed Agnes. She’s drunk.

  “You know, don’t you?” Agnes grabbed Fionna’s arm, shaking it for emphasis. “John made three weans on you. Was your life ever again what it had been? Once you have weans, that’s when your fine glorious love flees like a noonday shadow.”

  Fionna did mind how their first, Logan, changed things. John loved having a son, but the couple never again enjoyed an uninterrupted moment.

  What did that matter now? Her surviving children were grown. Why shouldn’t she and some braw strapping man enjoy this time of freedom? She regarded Seaghan, reveling in the slight quiver that crept through her knees. One of his hands could near span her waist; they were that big. When she stood next to him, she felt flighty as an untried girl.

  It was long past time for him to relinquish his attachment to Hannah. She hadn’t deserved Seaghan’s devotion, Morrigan’s mother or not.

  Tess joined the group. “You’ll never believe it,” she said. “Master Curran caught his new bride kissing Aodhàn Mackinnon.”

  “Saint Brigit save us.” Agnes made the sign of the cross on her breast. “That selkie has thrown a spell over her.”

  Fionna peeked at Seaghan. She hoped her expression didn’t betray the question she couldn’t help but think.

  Was Morrigan more like Hannah than anyone might care to realize?

  “Excuse me,” Seaghan said, and left them.

  * * * *

  He found Aodhàn eventually, staring out at the sea.

  “Is it my daughter you think you can amuse yourself with after these many years alone?” He felt as though someone had set off Chinese firecrackers in his gut.

  Aodhàn didn’t respond. He didn’t move.

  “What of Curran? What’s he ever done, to make you want to treat him this way?” Seaghan’s breath came hard. The pattern of his heartbeats raced then grew lumbering and heavy. The two had seldom disagreed about anything. “Well?”

  “There comes a time,” Aodhàn said at last, “when a woman is neither daughter to some man nor wife to another. You cannot jam her into a box to fit your idea of what she should be. You’ll lose her if you try.”

  “I’m not fashed for myself!” Seaghan slashed the air in a fury of impatience. “Don’t you realize Curran could throw her out of Kilgarry and keep the child? Few would blame him.”

  Aodhàn turned finally and met his old comrade’s narrowed gaze. “I’ll try to stay away from her. If you want, I’ll apologize. But I tell you, there’s been no life in me until she came.” As he spoke those words, his free hand balled into a fist and the knuckles of the other whitened around the whisky glass. “I might as well have been dead.”

  Seaghan’s anger subsided as he pictured the exultation on Aodhàn’s face the morning after the wedding. He’d been transformed. “What of your wife? You haven’t mentioned her since that day by the sea. Does she exist? If so, you have no right to call yourself a dead man without Morrigan. Your duty is to that woman, whoever she is, and wherever she may be.”

  Aodhàn stared at Seaghan then laughed. It was a choked sound, escaping from his throat like it burned. “Aye,” he managed at last.

  “You find this amusing?” Seaghan’s ire reignited. “God knows I loved Hannah Stewart. But after she ran off with Douglas, I wouldn’t let myself be her plaything. I told you she came to me once, days before the clearings. She begged me to run away with her, and swore her unborn child was mine. I didn’t believe her. I thought she was sorry for the match she’d made. I see now that maybe I was wrong. I have to live with the fact that my pride may have kept me from my own child all these years. Damn it, I don’t begrudge you happiness. You’ve had little enough. Many times I’ve thought you deserved better. But if you think you can take the laird’s wife from him, I’ll fight you with everything I’ve got. D’you hear me? I won’t see her harmed.”

  Aodhàn drank off his whisky and threw the glass into the sea, where it made a barely audible plunk before sinking. He stood there, saying nothing, giving no promises.

  “I see I’ll get nowhere with you. You have to live with yourself, but mark me, Aodhàn. I’ll do whatever I must to protect my daughter.”

  “If she is your daughter.”

  Seaghan, gritting his teeth and releasing a feral growl, strode away into the black night.

  * * * *

  Lost in a sticky jumble of anger, despair and betrayal, Morrigan gave no attention to where the horse was taking her.

  She’d not thought Curran capable of speaking such things. There could be more secrets, worse surprises. Like the unrestrained girl who lived inside her, he might have other personalities. For the first time, she feared the possibility of a Douglas inside him. Had she seen a glimpse tonight?

  Gradually she realized she had no idea where she was. She couldn’t recall what direction she’d gone after leaving Curran. Night drew a black, impenetrable cape over the world, preventing her from seeing if the road continued before her. She pulled the horse up and pounded her fist against the leather seat. How dare he reproach her after the way h
e’d acted? He’d insulted her and issued orders like she was his property, the same as one of his dogs. Yet in the eyes of the world a wife was nothing more.

  Cold air crept beneath her tartan shawl. She jumped out of the gig and paced, rubbing her arms. Wind fanned through pine branches and an owl hooted; she sensed it watching her.

  It’s what he deserves, for his child and me to die in this wilderness. Won’t he wish then he could say he’s sorry?

  Surely Kilgarry was close. Curran must have been heading for home.

  She peered into darkness that felt alive with watchful eyes and unidentifiable sound. The horse shook its head, jingling the harness.

  The hair on Morrigan’s neck lifted; at the same instant, the horse shied and reared.

  “Whoa, dearest, softly now.” She stroked its muzzle, but rather than calming, it snorted, jerked, and leaped forward. She had to jump to avoid being struck by the gig.

  “Stop,” she cried. She started after the wayward creature but tripped on the hem of her dress and plunged face-first onto pebbles and dirt. As she picked herself up and brushed off her hands, the rattle and grate of wheels and thud of hooves faded into the night until all was again silence.

  “He won’t run forever,” she reassured herself. “If I follow this road, I’m sure to come across the bloody beast.” Afraid to look behind her, of what may have startled the horse, she took one hesitant step then another, but there were too many pebbles, and every time her shoe landed on one, it made a scratching sound.

  Agnes Campbell had made it her business on Carrot Sunday to explain things she’d been sure Curran’s wife needed to know.

  “Never go out in a mist,” she’d said. “Mountain mists can be thicker than the blackest night. You think I’m exaggerating? Heed me, mistress. Folk have walked right over the edge of cliffs. If a mist comes when you’re out, don’t try to find your way home. It’s better to sit and wait for things to clear.”

  What of Agnes’s other warnings? The harder Morrigan tried to banish them, the louder they spoke… ravings about the glaistig, a frightful grey creature, and the ùruisg, part goat, part human with tangled hair and protruding eyes.