My Heart's in the Highlands

by Angeline Fortin

  “Mikah …”

  “No, look! Item 179. That’s my dress. I wore that dress,” Mikah said insistently. “All of these things are from my Cuilean. And look at the picture on the front. That’s the castle. It’s real. It’s all real.”

  “You’re starting to scare me, girl.”

  “I’m pretty terrified, too. But that was my life. I know every nook and cranny of a place I’ve never been.” A wide smile split Mikah’s lips. Perhaps the first real one she had felt since her return. “It wasn’t all a dream. It couldn’t be. So tell me, am I nuts or not?”

  “You are a mixed bag of cashews, peanuts, and almonds.”

  “Kris, come on!”

  Kris took the brochure once more and looked down at the cover, seeing the castle just as Mikah had described it months ago, and looked back up at her eager face, not knowing what to think. He had known Mikah since they were in kindergarten back in Oshkosh. They had been best friends ever since she had pushed him off the playground swings on the second day of school.

  Through all the years, she had stood by him. Through the worst of it, she had defended him against bullies and teasing in junior high and high school. She had held his hand tightly when he had come out seven years before and had never let go. They’d been there for each other during the good and the bad, through breakups and outright dumpings.

  But this was crazy. The queen of crazy.

  Unless …

  “There’s a history here of the castle.” Kris tilted the catalog toward Mikah for a second before reading the brief synopsis. Dùn Cuilean had been the ancestral home of the Earls of Maybole and the Marquis of Ayr until into the 1950s, when it had been closed up for almost thirty years. It had been reopened in the 1980s as an exclusive bed and breakfast. But with the struggling economy, they were closing and selling to Historic Scotland, who would open the castle as a museum.

  Many items found in the castle were being kept for display, but the bulk of the estate was being sold off to cover the owner’s losses.

  The rest of the catalog listed pictures and descriptions of thousands of pieces of art, furniture, and décor that were included in the auction. Flipping it shut, Kris stared down at the cover, smoothing his hand across the glossy picture. It had never occurred to him that this Cuilean was a real place. He shook his head stupidly. Why would it have?

  Neither had it occurred to Mikah.

  It had been a dream, hadn’t it? But how could she have dreamt of a place in such detail?

  Drawing his laptop onto his lap, Kris Googled Dùn Cuilean and Mikah leaned against his arm with an exclamation, wondering why she hadn’t thought to do the same. Immediately the screen was filled with options, proving that the castle truly did exist. Historic Scotland, the organization that funded dozens of museums throughout Scotland—including GoMA, Mikah pointed out—had their fingers into Cuilean. It was a national marvel, a fine representation of Adam’s work. There was a website for the B and B, for tours of Scotland’s greatest castles, for ghost tours. The list went on and on.

  Under the images tab, they found thousands of pictures. Some were professionally done, showing the exterior and interior rooms, while others were amateur shots taken by tourists. Clicking on the one for the bed and breakfast, Kris found a more detailed history of the castle and family. It detailed the history of the Mayboles, the Ayrs, and the Conaghams—and that’s when they found it.

  A story telling of the Third Marquis of Ayr, who had been murdered along with his wife of just a week. The story went on to detail how the marchioness’s father, the Duke of Beaumont, and another had been witness to the murders and apprehended the killer. The duke, who had been out of the public eye for several years, returned to London, using his influence and connections to push the trial through the courts. One Camron Kennedy was quickly found guilty and hanged for the murders.

  “That doesn’t seem right,” Mikah told him with a puzzled frown. “Hero’s father was a little off. Most people thought he was mad.”

  “Like father, like daughter?”

  Mikah nudged him irritably. “But it doesn’t fit. What else does it say?”

  “‘The marquis was succeeded by his cousin, Daphne Kennedy, who in the wake of her brother’s disgrace, lived quietly at Cuilean until her death in 1913. The title then went to a great nephew of hers, but the costs to maintain the property were so high that in the next generation, the castle was closed,’” Kris finished the paragraph aloud.

  “I don’t know, Kris,” Mikah said, worrying her lip between her teeth doubtfully. “Lived quietly until her death? I can’t see the Daphne Kennedy I knew doing anything quietly. She practically radiated crazy. What if I’m wrong?”

  “And history is always dead-on accurate,” Kris scoffed. Though there was doubt still lingering at the corner of his mind just because it was all so incredible, Kris was inclined to believe Mikah. As she pointed out, it was all right there, names and events that she knew, people she remembered. There was no chance that it was all a coincidence. So what then?

  “Google the Marquis of Ayr,” Mikah said suddenly.

  “Think there will be a picture of your man?” Kris said teasingly as they watched the results pop up. Wikipedia was at the top, and though Mikah normally didn’t go there for information, she reached over and brought it up.

  “That’s him?” Kris said skeptically. “That is not at all what I pictured.”

  “No, that’s not him,” Mikah said with rolling eyes as she reached across once more and scrolled down. “That’s the first marquis.” In addition to that one there was one of Robert Conagham, but none of Ian.

  “Guess they didn’t have time to do one before he died,” Kris said softly.

  “So you believe me then?”

  “Mostly,” he allowed. “It’s a hard pill to swallow.”

  “I know.”

  Kris got up and went to the kitchen to pour himself more wine, taking a healthy swig. He turned to return to the couch and thought better of it, retrieving the bottle and carrying it with him. “So you dreamed of people and places that are real and can describe it accurately right down to the paint chipping on the bedroom wall, so to speak.”

  “People and places that I’ve never known or seen,” she added. “It’s not like I had a coffee table book on the place.”

  “And Lord knows, you’ve had dozens,” he quipped, dropping down beside her once more. “So what does all this mean?”

  “I don’t know,” Mikah confessed. “I’m just glad to know that I wasn’t entirely delusional.”

  “Partially delusional is all right then?” Kris asked, staring at the computer once more, trying to wrap his mind around it all. “You know what Glo would say about all this, don’t you?” Gloria was one of their New Age friends who worshipped the Dalai Lama and was thinking of converting to Buddhism, causing her Catholic parents fits.

  “She’d say it wasn’t a dream at all,” Mikah said, and after a moment’s reflection added, “She’d say it was a past life. I thought so too at one point when I first got there, but I’ve never been a believer. The idea was so far gone, I thought I’d be saner being crazy.”

  “Most major religions adhere to the idea of reincarnation, you know,” Kris pointed out.

  Mikah laughed. “Yeah, but everyone is always like Joan of Arc in their past lives. Or Queen Elizabeth or Ghandi. No one is ever just a woman who …”

  “Who what?”

  “Falls in love,” Mikah finished sadly, leaning forward with her elbows on her knees to bury her face in her hands.

  Kris rubbed Mikah’s back in slow, comforting circles. “Why didn’t you ever say it like that before? You talked about this guy but you made it sound like it was just a fling.”

  “I was afraid I would sound even crazier,” Mikah said, picking up Kris’s glass and taking a long sip. “You already thought I was losing it.”

  “Had lost it, Mikes,” he corrected. “There was no question about you being only in the process. So what’
s he like?”

  “Oh, Kris,” Mikah sighed, leaning back and curling into the crook of his arm. “He was … incredible. Just incredible. All that with a bag of chips.”

  “Sounds tasty.”

  Mikah laughed, but it ended with another sigh. “I never knew it could be like that. That’s why I convinced myself that it was only a dream. No one is that perfect. He was beautiful, kind, and funny.”

  “And a marquis,” Kris pointed out. “Isn’t that like being a prince or something?”

  “A step down from a duke.”

  “Nice.”

  Mikah sat there for a while longer, sharing the rest of the wine with Kris until the bottle was empty. She thought about everything, starting at the beginning. So, while she was hovering between life and death, she had peeked into a past life. Though it felt as if it were all being experienced in real time to Mikah, it had all really been a memory crammed into the minute when Mikah had basically died herself.

  Dredging everything that she had ever heard about past lives from her memory, she and Kris talked it out while Googling what they could on the subject. Déjà vu moments were said to be glimpses into our past selves, reminding us of things we had seen or done in past lives. That was why Mikah had always favored Scotland, why she had felt so familiar with it when she was there.

  Hero had also died before her time and in a violent manner. One site theorized that those past lives that were the most turbulent and emotional were often the ones people would remember. Given the way it had ended, Kris could clearly see how it would have “haunted” Mikah over the course of her life.

  Then they found a website on past life regression, talking about how people might be hypnotized back into their previous lives. “One often visits a past life to repair a wrong, to set their path right,” Kris read aloud.

  “But I didn’t change anything! Ian died. I died,” Mikah whispered softly. “I’ve lost him.”

  A part of Kris wanted to point out that she hadn’t lost him, that it hadn’t been her life, but he could see that her pain was real, that, reality or not, Mikah loved this guy. Rationality in a situation like this wasn’t the play of a true friend. “So maybe you should do this past life regression thing.”

  Mikah shook her head with a shudder. “I want him back, but I don’t want him for a day or a memory. I already have those. So, I’m not crazy.”

  “Not certifiable.”

  Punching her friend lightly on the arm, Mikah cracked a smile. “So what now?”

  “You’re going to go to this auction.”

  “What for?”

  “To see it for yourself. To take some satisfaction in the fact that it is a real place. To pick up a souvenir or two,” Kris shrugged. “Do what you’ve got to do, but honey, when it’s over you need to put all this behind you and move on. You need to make your own life and stop living someone else’s.”

  “Ouch,” Mikah winced. “Thanks.”

  “That’s what friends are for, and to prove how good a friend I am, I’m going to come with you.”

  “I couldn’t ask you to do that.”

  “Who’s asking?”

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Dùn Cuilean, Scotland

  December 2012

  “Nice place,” Kris whispered as their cab dropped them off in the courtyard drive at the north side of the castle. “Wonder what the heating bill is every month.”

  “Probably a little more than your apartment,” Mikah told him as they entered Cuilean through the entry hall to find a small area that was now staged as a check-in area.

  A jovial Scottish woman named Mary greeted them and asked for their names and credit card. “I see you requested the Lady’s Chamber,” Mary said as she typed their information into the computer. “Are you sure you still want it?”

  Mikah did. When she had found out that the renamed marchioness’s chamber was available, she had jumped at the chance to stay in her—or Hero’s—rooms once again. “Why?”

  “We are expecting a crush this weekend with the auction,” Mary said. “There are a couple other rooms available that would be less … well, out of the way of our tours and the hallway traffic.”

  “Oh, no, that’s all right.” Mikah took the key and turned away, pushing Kris toward a connecting door that led to the armory.

  “Don’t you need directions to your room?” the clerk called.

  “Nope, I’m good!”

  “Pushy much?” Kris complained as Mikah pushed him into the armory. His brows shot to his hairline as he took in the thousands of firearms and weapons that were displayed in patterns on all four walls of the room and on the ceiling as well. “Wow, I wonder who’s for dinner?”

  Mikah laughed at that, thankful to feel some of the tension sliding away. She’d gotten a little shaken on the cab ride to the castle. When they had passed under the arched aqueduct and Cuilean had come into view, Mikah had been disappointed to find that the wide lawns in front of the castle were not sporting the tidy English hedgerows she remembered. The wide pool and fountain now sat alone on the lawns.

  There was also a huge wing attached to the south end of the castle that hadn’t been there before. At least that explained how the castle had been able to function as a hotel. There had been only ten bedchambers before, if one counted the nursery.

  Or had there been?

  The differences between what she remembered and what she saw had confused Mikah almost to the point that she hadn’t wanted to stay at all. Kris had had to pry her out of the cab.

  The armory, thankfully, didn’t seem to have changed at all, restoring Mikah to her previous calm … or the closest she had been to it since her five drinks on the plane. They walked through the library while Kris oohed and aahed over the room.

  It had been stripped of most of its furnishings, though, leaving Mikah again hovering between the familiar and the alien. Once they were in the Great Hall, though, Mikah sucked in her breath at the sight of the familiar oval staircase. Slowly Mikah climbed, running her hand over the rail as she went. She remembered dashing down those stairs with Ian and could almost hear the sound of an orchestrion playing. She could hear his laughter echoing through the hall, see his ghostly form disappearing around the columns.

  “You all right?” Kris whispered, taking her hand.

  “Yes, but I’m so glad you’re here.”

  He squeezed her hand as they reached the top, and Mikah automatically turned right toward the marchioness’s chamber, the one they now called the Lady’s Chamber, but her feet slowed and Mikah instead walked into the Long Drawing Room, with the Picture Room straight ahead. The walls were bare, stripped of the dozens of paintings she remembered. Saddened, she turned to the left and went through the connecting door to the Blue Drawing Room. There was but a quarter of the furniture there that Mikah remembered, but looking up she found the rondels as she remembered them, with the muses and their seductive smiles.

  Feeling a bit better, Mikah told Kris about lying on their backs to see them and pointed out the erotic nature of the paintings. Laughing, they returned to the hall to go to their room, but on the other end of the landing Mikah could see the doors to the Round Drawing Room standing open as if they were calling to her.

  Was it all just a coincidence? Or was it really a memory? She couldn’t decide if she wanted to believe in this whole past life bullshit or not. Then Mikah suddenly realized that there was one way to be certain. One thing in this castle that would tell her whether she was truly the reincarnation of Hero Conagham or just a woman flirting with the edge of madness.

  Purposefully, she led Kris to her chamber door and inserted the key. Turning the knob, she opened the door and felt a rush of feeling. The sensation that she was home once more. With so many parts of the castle stripped bare, this chamber had remained largely untouched. Of course the linens and most of the upholstery weren’t the same, but the furnishings were, and the colors were similar to those she remembered.

  Dropping her bag on the bed, H
ero slowly unwound her scarf and turned to the fireplace, studying the little carvings of flora and fauna that covered the elaborate mantel. If she were truly Hero, that little compartment would still be there … and if it wasn’t, Mikah knew she would have to accept all over again that it had all been nothing but a dream.

  Running her hands over the flowers, Mikah shook her head, recalling her first sight of Ian. She remembered thinking that it had to have been a dream because there wasn’t a man on earth who looked like that. There wasn’t a man on earth who could make her feel like that just by looking at her.

  Mikah’s hand dropped to her side. Which way was worse? Only dreaming of a moment with a perfect man, or knowing that you had had him and lost him forever? Looking back at the bed, Mikah imagined Ian there, his bronze skin contrasting with the white sheets, smiling at her as if the sun rose and set on her. Blinking away the burn behind her eyelids, Mikah pinched her nose between her fingers to ward off the tears she knew were coming again.

  Did it matter if he were real or only a dream? Either way, Ian was lost to her. Either way, she had experienced a magical, intense love that was gone, either to the past or to her dreams. Perhaps that was the worst part either way: now that she knew the story was over, now that she knew how it ended, the dreams had stopped. She hadn’t dreamed of him again.

  After a lifetime of seeing his face in her sleep, Mikah felt the loss of him even more. She had to know if it had been real at some point. That the love of a lifetime had been real for someone, if not her.

  “Nice room,” Kris said, unaware of her thoughts, wandering around to take a peek into the dressing room. “Nice bathroom. I can’t wait to use that tub.”

  He came back into the room to find Mikah at the fireplace. “Uh, what are you doing?”

  “It won’t move.” Mikah twisted at the flowers in the combination with no success. “They must have been painted over.”

  “Well, this place is hundreds of years old.”