by Trisha Telep
He was married. He had a wife. This was how he’d wake every morning for the rest of his life. He felt … He tasted the feelings floating inside him … Happy. Humbled. Awed.
Yesterday he’d sworn a mad, rash vow and performed the most reckless act of a somewhat reckless life. It could have been the biggest mistake of his life.
He glanced at the girl curled up against him, her silky chestnut hair spilling over her shoulder, half hiding her face.
Instead she was the biggest gift.
He lay there, breathing her in, the scent of her; roses and woman. His woman, his bride.
Her eyes fluttered open and she smiled sleepily. “Cameron,” she breathed, and he couldn’t help it, he had to kiss her, and then, well, he couldn’t help himself again. He had no self-restraint, and apparently, neither had she.
Afterwards they lay entwined, their breathing slowing, skin to skin, gazing into each other’s eyes.
After a while she gave a shivery sigh. “That was the loveliest way to wake up.” She stretched and gave him a rueful smile. “I suppose this means the courtship is over.”
And she looked at him with that damned look in her eyes that shattered him every time.
Cameron took a deep breath and began, “My love is like a red, red rose that’s sweetly sprung in June, my love is like—” He broke off. She had tears in her eyes.
“What is it?” he said. “What’s the matter?”
“Rabbie Burns,” she whispered. “You’re quoting Rabbie Burns to me on my wedding morning.” Great crystal tears glittered on her lashes. What the hell had he done wrong?
“You said you liked poetry.”
“You said you didn’t.”
“Aye, well, I promised you a courtship. And you do smell like a rose, and so I thought …” He swallowed. “They fit. The words I mean. They all fit. All the words.” He scanned her face anxiously. Didn’t she see what he was trying to tell her?
Her mouth quivered. “Cameron Fraser, I know we’ve only known each other for a day and a night, and you’ll probably think it’s foolish of me, and premature, but I think I’m falling in love with you.”
She loved him. He wanted to shout it from the battlements. His chest felt full and heavy. He cupped her cheeks with his hands and kissed her. “It’s neither foolish nor premature, Jeannie Macleay Fraser, but a proper thing in a bride.”
“And you?” She gave him that look and waited. Och he was gone, he was truly gone.
“Perhaps I’ll one day come to rue the day I plucked a wee bog sprite from the mud and married her, but I doubt it. Right now I think it’s the cleverest thing I’ve done in all my life.”
She tried to frown. “A bog sprite?”
Cameron grinned and kissed her. “Aye but this wee bog sprite smells like a rose.” He kissed her again. “My bonnie lass.” And again. “My red, red rose.” And then because she might not have understood what the poem meant, “My love.”
After the Gloaming
Leah Marie Brown
Oh! Samhain, that wicked and perilous season has once again come upon us, when the barrier between this world and the orbis alia is dissolved and spirits roam free, wreaking chaos where once there was order; when the evil lurking in the shadowy chambers of men’s hearts is exposed, leaving the innocent vulnerable.
– Excerpt from Scottish journal
Scotland, October 31, 1513
Deidre Monreith clutched the edges of her hooded cloak to keep it from billowing in the wind gusting through the battlement of the crumbling tower and looked out over the vast, wooded domain that would one day belong to the man she loved.
To her right, the Solway Firth glimmered beneath the setting sun, reminding her of the angry, smouldering ashes that glowed many shades of orange in Potter Murray’s oven.
And to her left, rising majestically from the centre of a triangular-shaped moat, was Caerlaverock Castle. Constructed of thick, amber-hued sandstone and boasting a double tower gatehouse, it was the most impressive castle in all of the lowlands.
Perhaps in all of Scotland.
For hundreds of years, the wretched, wily English had been crossing the border, pillaging the lowland villages and laying siege to Caerlaverock. Yet still she stood! Rampallions be damned!
Truth be known, the pride that swelled inside her when she looked upon Caerlaverock was a mere trickle when compared to the torrent she felt for the man destined to rule it.
Robert Maxwell, eldest son of John Maxwell, the fourth Lord Maxwell, would one day be master of Caerlaverock and all the Maxwell lands. Brave, handsome, charming and clever, Robert was to be the fifth Lord Maxwell, laird of the Clan Maxwell, commander of the mightiest garrison south of Edinburgh.
For a certainty, ’twas a challenge she knew he’d rise to with little effort. Had he not already proven himself a champion in the lists, effortlessly vanquishing many a battle-tried opponents?
And to his prodigious roll of admirable traits, she would one day add steadfast husband.
For Robert Maxwell loved her – Deirdre Monreith, the humble daughter of his father’s bailiff.
Robert loved her! And soon he would climb the tower steps, take her in his arms, and whisper the sweet, wooing words that made her heart ache with gladness.
Ravaged by warfare and abandoned to nature, the derelict tower upon which she now stood was all that remained of the first Caerlaverock Castle. A forgotten place, nestled in the woods, it was where they met in secret, beyond the prying eyes of the hall.
The sound of a twig snapping somewhere beyond the tower walls drew her from her reverie and she suddenly realized the sun had set. She peered into the strange blue-black darkness that always followed the gloaming. Everything appeared to be as it should; and yet she could not dispel the pervasive sense of foreboding that had plagued her intermittently throughout the day. The ominous feeling had settled upon her, thick and heavy, like a mantle that could not be shirked.
Had something moved in the distance? Was that a light flickering near the water?
She leaned out over the battlement probing the thick, black forest and salt marshes. She searched for … something, anything that would disprove her ever-growing fears. But what could possibly be lurking in the darkness? She wasn’t a child, after all. She no longer worried about glaistigs. She smirked now as she remembered how terrified she had once been by her da’s tales of the nefarious spirit who rode under the cover of darkness, snatching unsuspecting souls from their beds, and carrying them away upon her headless steed.
Just as she was about to turn away, she noticed a dim, red light flickering in the distance.
“Beware the bean shìth, lass.” She could almost hear her father’s voice whispering in her ear. “The female wraith with eyes of blazing red who leaves her otherly-world realm to keen on the doorstep of one about to die.”
“God’s teeth! Deidre lass, have ye misplaced yer wits?”
She spun around and saw Robert standing near the top of the stairs, his ebony hair gleaming in the moonlight, his muscular arms crossed in front of his broad chest.
“Robert!”
“Come hither and move away from the wall before ye fall to yer death,” he snapped, his tone unnaturally cold.
Something about his manner frightened her, increased her mounting sense of doom. She obeyed and quickly stepped away from the crumbling rock wall.
It was his wont to greet her with a pretty word or sonnet so why did he not remark on her beauty or take her in his arms? Something was amiss.
“I am to wed Janet Douglas,” he confessed, confirming her suspicions in the worst manner imaginable.
The dagger-sharp pains assailing her heart, robbed her of breath.
“Nay!”
“Aye, ’tis true. We wed in six days time.”
He turned, meaning to quit the tower, but she darted in front of him, blocking his path, desperate to retain that which she held so dear if only a moment longer.
“What shall I do?”
He frowned, as if truly perplexed by her query, and his brow knit together.
“Do?”
Tears clouded her vision.
“What shall I do … without ye?”
“Perchance, ye shall marry a cooper, flesher or swineherd and give him a hut full of squalling brats,” he said in a tone devoid of warmth, a sardonic smile marring his handsome face.
“I pray ye stop,” she cried, pressing her hands. “This cruel jest wounds me.”
“I jest not. I mean to wed Janet Douglas.”
“But I love ye!”
“Verily?” He shrugged. “Love is but a festering wound that heals when properly tended.”
She stood in mute horror.
For a moment she feared an archer had fired a crossbow, for the pain assailing her heart was surely akin to that of an arrow to the chest. Who was this man standing before her, coldly sneering, as if they had never laughed and shared their dreams? As if he had never happened upon her in the bluebell woods nor secretly left those delicate blossoms upon her windowsill?
Something broke inside her, sending painful shards of light catapulting through her brain. Grief blinded her and muddled her wits. The grief abated, replaced by anger.
Fists clenched, she lunged forward. She meant to strike out at him, to inflict a fraction of the pain he had inflicted upon her, but he grabbed her wrists and shoved her violently from him.
Unprepared for the assault, she stumbled backwards until she felt the sharp edge of the top step beneath her feet. She seemed to hover a moment before falling into the yawning abyss.
She heard Robert cry out. She heard a sickening thud as her head struck the stone wall. She heard the rush of air roar in her ears as she made her spiralling descent and the curious crack her neck made just before she landed on the tower floor.
With blood filling her mouth and trickling down her face, she stared in stunned wonder at the shafts of silvery moonlight streaming in through the arrow slits.
And then, Deidre Monreith, daughter of Angus Monreith, bailiff to the great and mighty Lord Maxwell, heard no more.
Caerlaverock, Scotland, present day
Caden Maxwell sat in shades of darkness listening to the harsh, hacking coughs of the dying man and couldn’t help but marvel at the capriciousness of Fate.
He had once vowed never to lift a finger to find his father and now here he was keeping vigil at the emaciated man’s bedside.
Four months ago, Caden had been in his loft in downtown Seattle, enjoying the fruits of his labour as a successful day trader in the futures market. He had a tight-knit group of college buddies he met every Friday at Bad Albert’s Tap and Grill for burgers, beer and blues. He played football every Saturday morning at Brighton Playfield, met his mother for brunch on Sundays, and volunteered at his local Boys and Girls Club.
His hectic, fulfilling life left little time for thinking about his biological father and the hole his absence had once created.
Then he received a letter from a man claiming to be his father. In concise, contrite terms James Steward Maxwell had explained that he had recently been diagnosed with lung cancer, was not expected to live more than a few months, and wanted to spend his final days getting to know the son he had neglected.
Caden’s first impulse had been to crumple the letter and toss it into the waste bin, but years spent at a Catholic school, being taught the virtues of compassion and mercy by strict nuns, had instilled in him a disproportionate dose of guilt.
Cancer. Dying. Regrets. Final days.
He wrestled with his conscience for a few hours and then he remembered the words his mother often told him when he struggled with an important, moral decision.
“Listen to the voice in your heart, Caden, and do what you feel is right.”
Early the next morning, he dialed the number embossed on the bottom of the expensive, crested stationery, just beneath James Maxwell’s scrawling signature.
After a brief, awkward conversation with James Maxwell, he clicked on expedia.com and booked the next flight from Seattle to Edinburgh.
One 3,000-dollar Air France ticket, a thirteen-hour flight with a brief layover in Paris, an exhilarating two-hour drive down the A702 from Edinburgh to Dumfries later and he found himself at Blackstone House, James Maxwell’s ancestral home situated on six acres of parkland near Caerlaverock Castle and the banks of the Solway Firth.
James drew a long, wheezy breath that roused Caden from his musings. He sat up, leaned forwards, and studied the sleeping man, waiting for his chest to rise again. A moment later, James awoke from his narcotics-induced slumber, his eyes widening in terror, as violent coughs racked his body.
“I’ll get the nurse, but try to relax,” he said, in a calm voice.
Caden pushed to his feet and had barely made it a step when the door opened and the home health care nurse hurried in, syringe in hand. She jabbed the needle into the IV line connected to James’ hand and pushed the plunger.
“This will help relax the muscles and make it easier for you to breathe, Mister Maxwell.”
She checked her patient’s pulse and then turned to Caden.
“I’ll sit here all night, why don’t you get some sleep?”
“Thanks, but I’ll stay.”
Caden put his feet up on a stool, crossed his arms over his chest, and settled in for a long, uncomfortable night. Hades, James’s mangy looking but lovable Scottish deerhound trotted into the room, walked to the bed and rested his head near his master’s withered hand, then flopped down on the floor beside Caden’s chair, emitting a pitiful sigh in the process.
Caden’s eyes were just beginning to close when he heard strange, warbling as if someone were singing somewhere far in the distance. He assumed it was coming from the small, stone chapel located a few hundred yards from the manor and closed his eyes.
The warbling altered to an otherworldly keening; a deep and throaty moan that sounded like a woman grieving.
Hades ears perked up. He lifted his head, glared at the window and growled.
Caden stood and walked over to the window with Hades scrambling to follow. Pulling back the drapes, he peered into the darkness but saw only his reflection looking back at him. Then he saw something, a red light, flickering between the trees.
Hades growled deeper in his throat.
The light faded and a woman in an emerald gown with long platinum blond hair floating around her shoulders stepped out of the woods. She seemed to stare at him and as she moved closer, the light of the moon illuminated her features. Her moaning altered again, switching to a high-pitched screech.
Hades suddenly stopped growling. Reluctantly, Caden looked away from the woman to the frightened dog. Hades began to shake and a puddle of urine spread across the floor.
“It’s okay boy,” Caden said, patting his head.
When he looked out the window again, the woman had vanished.
The next evening found Caden resuming his bedside vigil. Outside, the wind howled through the naked trees surrounding Blackstone House, causing them to bend and sway like skeletons performing a macabre dance. Even the trees seemed to be portending James’s death.
He was about to close his eyes, when something outside the window caught his attention. A movement, a whitish smudge on the velvety ebony night. Jumping to his feet, he crossed the room and peered into the inky darkness, but saw only leaves skittering over the neatly clipped lawn and the dark woods beyond.
He dropped his forehead to the cool windowpane and sighed. What was wrong with him? Was he losing his mind? Had he imagined the mournful singing and the woman in the green gown?
Hades began to growl low in his throat. His ears pulled back.
“What is it, boy?”
But Caden knew.
Someone lurked outside James Maxwell’s bedroom window. The beautiful woman with the face of an angel and the voice of a demon had returned. Caden wondered if she was one of James’s jilted lovers or perhaps a long lost daughter?
&n
bsp; The warbling began again.
With Hades on his heels, he raced out of the sickroom and down the stairs, nearly colliding with Mrs Harriet in the dimly lit foyer. The elderly housekeeper clutched a heavy flashlight in her wrinkled hands.
“Do ye hear ’at unholy wailin’ the wind is making?” She placed the flashlight on the hall table and switched off one of the lamps. “It sounds like a bean shìth.”
Caden found it difficult to understand the woman’s thick brogue but he thought she had said bean sheath.
What in hell is a bean sheath?
Before he could ask her what she had meant, Mrs Harriet shuffled out of the room, mumbling something about age turning her into a ridiculous daftie.
The warbling grew louder, stronger and Hades barked and lunged at the door. Caden looked out the window and saw the same red light he had noticed the night before, flickering in the woods beyond the front lawn.
He grabbed the flashlight before wrenching open the front door and plunging into the moonless night. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust but he could feel Hades by his side, hear his heavy panting.
The strange light suddenly disappeared and the woman in the green dress stepped out the woods, her long platinum hair floating about her shoulders.
Hades barked ferociously but the woman did not appear frightened. She stood between the skeletal trees and kept her gaze fixed on James Maxwell’s bedroom window.
Hades took off running. The woman suddenly lifted her hand and the dog skidded to a stop. He spun in several circles, before stopping, bending his front leg, and pointing his nose in the direction of his master’s window as if obeying some silent command.
Hades knows that woman.
Caden sprinted across the lawn. The closer he got to the woman, the more in-focus her features became. She had a beautiful face with almond-shaped eyes fringed by long lashes and pouty lips that reminded him of Angelina Jolie.
She looked at him then. Her eyes widened and she took a step back. Caden was almost to her when she took another step back and disappeared into the dark forest.
