by Jane Stain
And then she heard everyone else’s voices from far down the hallway and knew the awful truth. Alfred’s voice was the loudest.
“We thought he came up here before we did. Are ye sure he isna up here with Kelsey?”
Eileen spoke in hushed tones when she answered him.
“Aye, we are sure. We left her alone up here with the children when we came down tae greet ye.”
Seumas spoke up.
“Och, there are several ways tae come up. Mayhap he came up another way and is sitting with Kelsey even now. The two o them seemed very friendly with each other just before the battle started.”
Isabel spoke to them softly.
“Hush nae. Let us pray we find him with her, but if we dae na, she will be verra distraught, sae dinna vex her.”
The children once more ran to their mother when the group came in, but this time she hadn’t been gone long enough for them to cling to her and yell out. It was late, and the excitement was over, and they were starting to show their sleepiness.
“Can we go home now, Maw?”
“I’m tired.”
“Aye, isna it after our bedtime?”
Eileen laughed softly at the children’s precociousness, but she ended it quickly, glancing over at her new friend.
“Aye, that it is. Alfred, can we take ye up now on that offer tae see us home? Kelsey, as I said before, ye are more than welcome tae come along.”
Kelsey looked over at Isabel.
“If it doesna fash ye ower much, I wish tae stay here till…”
Isabel came over quickly and put her arms around Kelsey.
“Nay, it doesna fash me at all. Ye are welcome tae stay. Come, let us gae doon tae the kitchen an hae some tea an scones while we wait for young Tavish tae come up.” She nodded her head toward the door while looking at the others. “Alfred, gae on and see Eileen and the children home. Seamus, gae see if ye can find yer friend Tavish. Mayhap he’s hit his head or some such and needs yer help.”
The others all took the hint and shuffled out of the room. Not even the children said anything.
Kelsey didn’t dare look up at them, though. The looks of pity she knew she would see on their faces would be just too unbearable. She sniffed and blinked the tears away as Isabel rocked her gently back and forth in her arms. And then she looked at Isabel with all the pleading she could will into her eyes and spoke to her through her sobs as she stood up, bringing the older woman up with her.
“Please, let us gae doon thare an speak tae some o the guard. What if Seamus misses Tavish lyin injurit and needing some men tae carry him up!”
Isabel nodded and kept her arm around Kelsey, leading her to the door of the nursery.
“Aye. That we shall do.” The motherly woman kept murmuring affirmations of Kelsey’s idea as they went down the hall, through the huge kitchen, and out into the Castle yard entrance to the dungeons. “Aye, there’s a good idea, lass. Aye, we shall send some guards back doon the other way from where Seamus goes.”
When they finally got to the guards, it had started to rain. Kelsey couldn’t wait for Isabel to get around to telling them what needed to be done. The only thing she could think to be thankful for was the fact that she was able to steel herself and speak without sobbing.
“Dubh! Luthais! Tavish is still doon thare! He hasna come up! I am sure he’s doon thare bleeding somewhere. Please, let me gae doon tae find him!” Without waiting for an answer, she was already pushing her way through them.
But Isabel stopped her with a gentle but firm grab of her arm.
“Kelsey, ye must stay up here with me, lass. Ye are tae tyrit.”
Suddenly Kelsey did feel tired once more, and she all but collapsed into Isabel’s arms. She looked up at the guards with her pleading eyes.
“Please, please send doon tae find him.”
Isabel held Kelsey and undid the brooch that fastened her thick plaid erasaid to her overdress so that she could put it over both of them to keep the rain off while she spoke to one of the guards.
“Aye, dae send some men doon, Dubh.” And then the older woman turned back toward the kitchen, gently tugging Kelsey along with her under the thick plaid. “Come, lass. Let us get in oot o the wet. The men will search. Ye hae done well seeing tae it.”
Just before they went in the kitchen door, Kelsey turned around to make sure Dubh was sending a search party. Only when she was satisfied to see him speaking to a squadron of guards did she allow Seumas’s mom to tug her inside.
Isabel parked Kelsey in a comfy chair by the fireplace. In a remarkable show of consideration, she turned the chair toward the kitchen door and propped the door open so that Kelsey could see through the rain to the underground castle entrance from where she sat.
“Just ye rest there nae, lass. Naught can happen but that ye shull see from here, ye ken? I wull brew us a nice pot o tea, eh?” She dipped a copper kettle in a large vat of water and then leaned over Kelsey to place it right on top of the hot coals that had been banked to keep the fire lit overnight.
Kelsey tried to get up.
“I’m far tae worried aboot Tavish tae just sit here and watch ye work. Let me help ye.”
But Isabel put a firm hand on Kelsey’s shoulder and held her down in the chair.
“Nay, nay.” She gently raised Kelsey’s chin until their eyes met. “An honor it is tae serve ye, Kelsey. Did ye think I didna mean it when I said I owed ye a debt for getting help in time tae save my sons?”
Kelsey relaxed back in the chair and gave Isabel an embarrassed and grudging smile.
“Dinna think o it, Isabel. If I’m tae be truthful, I did na dae it for yer sons at all. I was only thinking o Tavish.”
Admitting this brought the tears to Kelsey’s eyes again, and she broke down into a series of sobs, with Isabel patting her shoulder and holding her hand, and finally hugging her tight until her sobs wore themselves out.
Isabel made the tea and poured it into two pretty earthenware mugs, got out a matching earthenware plate, then winked at Kelsey and revealed where the scones were hidden, probably from the children, under a bunch of folded cleaning cloths. She sat down on the hearth and put the mugs and the scones there too, then took one of Kelsey’s hands in hers and bowed her head.
“Laird God, we pray for Kelsey’s dear friend Tavish. We fear we have lost sight o him. Howsoever, Ye dae know where he is. Wherever thon may be, please tak care o him for us until we meet him again.” She squeezed Kelsey’s hand. “Amen.”
“Amen.”
Kelsey smiled her thanks at Isabel and resisted the urge to throw herself into the woman’s arms again and hold close to the only person who was any comfort. Her mind wanted to go off into a panic about what she would do if she didn’t find Tavish again—if he…
But no. She would not allow herself to think about that.
Making herself believe that the men would find Tavish only slightly injured somewhere and bring him up again to her, Kelsey took a big bite of her scone and washed it down with half her cup of tea, all while staring intently out the open door at the empty entrance where she hoped he would come out any minute.
Huddling inside their tiny guard shack out of the rain, Dubh and Luthais grimly waved at her every few minutes, and she halfheartedly waved back.
The silence became oppressive though, so Kelsey made small talk with Isabel.
“Mmmm, this is guid tea. It’s no a kynd I hae tastit before. Whit is it?”
Isabel took a dainty sip of her own tea.
“Och, I hopit ye would like it. Alfred and Seumas say it tastes like soap, heh! Juist some flowers thon grow oot i the meadow. Sorcha has a name for thaim, but I can’t bring it tae mind right now. Dae ye like her scones?”
Kelsey had just taken another big bite of her scone. She chewed quickly and washed it down with the rest of her tea.
“Och, aye. And I dae think I taste… Can it be dates in them?”
Isabel slumped on her perch on the hearth.
“
Aye, dates they are! Och, I was gaun'ae have ye guess what they were. Wherever did ye hae dates before—and dae ye know how far they come from!”
Kelsey was starting to feel at home with this woman who was being so kind to her—in fact, sitting there by the fire all toasty, she had a warm fuzzy feeling all over—so she didn’t really think about what she said next, beyond what it took to say it in Gaelic.
“Ma maw loves dates. She puts thaim in all things. Aye, they’re a little dear, coming all the way from Arabia, but Da does na mind because they mak her sae happy.”
Isabel sat up and took notice.
“My, yer da must be well off, tae afford sae many dates. How did he make his fortune?”
Kelsey continued to watch out the door for Tavish’s return, but she felt grateful to Isabel for the company while she did so, and didn’t want the motherly woman to leave. Alfred was likely back by now from walking Eileen home. Ack, here was hoping he didn’t come in the kitchen. She felt way too tired for company right now.
“Aye, Eileen askit aboot thon earlier, and forsooth ‘tis quite a tale. My da is an excellent salesman. A merchant has attachit him, and he follows this merchant all ower the world, wheelin and dealin for him.”
Isabel looked even more impressed.
“Och, A had na idea! Sae yer da has been tae Arabia, then, and likely tae China and all!”
Kelsey nodded.
“Aye, he has.”
Isabel gathered up the dishes and washed them with one of the cleaning rags and some water from the vat.
“Sae that’s where ye get yer uncanny knowledge o sums, then, aye?”
Kelsey chuckled.
“Aye, I suppose it is.”
Isabel was drying the dishes and putting them back up on the board.
“I imagine yer da has telt ye some amazin stories from his travels.”
Sleepiness was taking Kelsey over, and it was a pleasant feeling. The comfy chair was just large enough for her to lean to the side and draw her knees up so that she could rest in a fetal position.
“Och, aye. One time he brought home kimonos for Maw and me, from Japan…”
Kelsey giggled one note at how funny this story was, and she really wanted to share it with Isabel, but it just seemed like too much effort. She closed her eyes for a moment, and then she was vaguely aware of something soft and warm being placed over the side of her away from the fire. And then she nestled into sweet nothingness.
Ceithir deug
Tavish woke up in a pitch black room, sore in every part of his body and with a pounding headache, lying in a strange bed. Where the hell was he? It was no place he’d been before, that was for sure.
The bed was almost too soft. And it was deep, so that he was lying on his side and only his top arm could reach out of the bed, which was more like a bowl full of blankets than a modern mattress bed. He’d had a friend in high school whose parents had a waterbed, and that was about as close to this as he’d ever heard of before.
He stretched out his top arm, looking for the edge of the bowl so that he could pull himself out. When he found the edge, he froze. The bowl was made of stone! Wanting to get out his flashlight, he reached down to where his sporran should have been—but didn’t feel it. Maybe it had twisted around on his body. He maneuvered around inside the blankets, patting all around his hips and waist area, but didn’t find it.
A surge of adrenaline rushed through his blood, but the only things he had to fight over the pouch and his belt were these blankets. He was wondering if it would be easier to struggle around inside the blankets to search the bowl, or if he should instead pull himself out of the bowl and dig the blankets out in his search—when he heard an unfamiliar man’s voice and saw candlelight dancing on the carved rock ceiling of what could only be one of the dungeons in the underground castle.
“Are ye looking for this, lad?”
Tavish yanked himself up and out of the bowl of a bed and was on his feet in seconds, reaching over his shoulder for his sword. When it wasn’t there either, he lowered his arms and studied the other man warily. Dressed in white robes and wearing his beard long, this man definitely had that evil wizard thing going on. In one hand he held up a candle, and in the other, Tavish’s sporran.
Tavish reached for it.
“Aye.”
His mind had nicknamed this old man Saruman, and he was surprised when he let him have it. He put it on and felt inside. So far as he could recall, all his belongings were in there. All except one.
“What about my sword. Where is that?”
Saruman put a sad look in his eyes and shook his head.
“Nay, thare wis na sword on ye whan I found ye knockit oot among the dead oot thare at the docks.”
Tavish looked around for the door out of the room, but didn’t see it. There had to be a door. Saruman had come through it with his candle just a moment ago.
“Och, well. I can get another sword in the castle armory. I thank ye for the… rest an all, but I must be gang back up tae the castle now. Will ye show me the way?”
But Saruman took his hand out of one of the pockets of his snowy white robes, opened it up under his mouth, and blew some kind of dust all over Tavish, who sneezed three times before collapsing into the bowl bed once more. This elderly man couldn’t really be an evil wizard, could he?
Through the growing haziness of his mind, Tavish searched Saruman’s face.
“Why?”
The man moved forward and covered Tavish up with some of the blankets. Tavish tried to reach out and grab the man’s hand, but found that he couldn’t even move. He was out before the man answered him.
***
But Kelsey appeared in Tavish’s dreams.
Instead of Gehrig’s wife’s long plaid dress, she was wearing the clothes he’d seen her in the most often: her Highlands costume from his parents’ Renaissance faire. Only in his dream, her long brown hair hung down, and she was wearing makeup.
“Tavish! You’re alive! Oh, thank God! Where are you?”
This sure was an odd dream. Oh well. Might as well answer her.
“Uh, I’m in a weird rock bowl bed in one of the rooms in the underground castle, and there’s this Saruman dude who just blew something in my face that made me go to sleep.”
As he said this, he appeared in the bowl-shaped bed in his dream, too.
Kelsey came over to the side of his bed and frantically looked him all over.
“Are you okay?”
Having her this close with her eyes all over him wasn’t good for his concentration. Forgetting how odd a dream this was, he pulled her into the bed with him. Suddenly, they were both naked. And the dream got really good. Who knew a bowl-shaped bed could be so useful? This allowed him to relax and really enjoy her company afterward, while they lay there in each other’s arms.
“I’ve really missed you, Kel.”
She pulled away just enough to look him in the eyes, and her eyes were full of pain, and brand-new tears.
“Then why did you drop out of my life?”
Guilt and pain assaulted his psyche on one side, anger and frustration on the other. He couldn’t stand it. He pulled her close to him and held her tight—truth be told more for himself than for her. He couldn’t hold her close enough.
“Please don’t be mad at me, Kel. I want to tell you, believe me I do. Believe me when I say I can’t. It’s not something I can choose to do. I literally can’t tell you.”
Hurt came into her voice, but she didn’t pull away from him. If anything, she held him tighter.
“We were so close, Tavish. I mean, I thought we were. I thought I knew everything about you. And you were never like this back then. Can you tell me what happened at least?”
He stroked her hair.
“I didn’t know back then, Kel. I didn’t know…” He tried to tell her, but the words just would not come out of his mouth, not even in a dream. Whenever that happened, he kept trying to speak to her about it until he found words he could s
ay. “And the moment my parents told me about it, I took myself out of your life. You deserve to find someone else and have children who won’t be bound by… some promise one of my ancestors made centuries ago.”
She must’ve found it easier to talk this way too, because she just stayed there in his arms and let him caress her, instead of pulling away and looking him in the eye again.
“Well at least I know you don’t hate me. That’s actually a really sweet reason for you to have left, and I’m glad I know. But Tavish, you should have had enough faith in me to let me decide if I wanted you bad enough to put up with this curse.”
He laid his head against hers, willing his thoughts, his love, his very being to radiate into hers somehow so that she could feel it.
“Yeah. I should have.”
Oddly, now she did break away and look him in the eye. As much as she could break away in a bowl bed, anyway.
“You know what?”
She looked so excited and enthusiastic he couldn’t help teasing her a little.
“No, what?”
She scrunched her nose at him in that adorable way she had.
“It’s kind of a good thing you shut me out for those seven years—but not for the reasons you think. Remember when you came back from getting me those clothes, and you thought I’d been invisible?”
He got his elbows under him and sort of sat up to face her.
“Yeah. That was even weirder than this dream.”
She paused briefly, and then laughed a little.
“Well I didn’t lie to you. You really were invisible to me, too—after Brian the Druid went away.”
“Brian the Druid?”
“Yeah, Brian the Druid. That’s probably who the Saruman dude is, the one who made you go to sleep. Anyway, he took one look at my ring and decided I was a druid too. He called me Priestess.”
“O… K… I don’t really see how that makes it a good thing that I had to fade out of your life seven years ago.”
“Don’t you see? If I’m a druid too, then maybe I can learn to remove your curse!”
