Hannah laughed and held the door wide.
The room had looked sparse with no pictures on the walls, but one of the girls had tacked up a poster of Stonehenge, adding a little personality to the décor. Helen sat on the brown couch set against one wall. She was studying the photos of the skull Hannah had taken after Dr. Woo had recovered it from the base of the cofferdam. She spread them on the heavy coffee table before her.
Two chairs upholstered in an indistinct pattern of muted beige and brown stood on either side of the couch. Regan opted for the floor before the television so she could stretch out. Sheary walked around the island bar that separated the long narrow kitchen from the living room, a large bowl of popcorn held in the bend of her arm and two bottles of water in the other hand.
Helen stacked the pictures together and Sheary set the bowl on the table between them and smiled at Regan. “Has the loch given up any secrets to you, yet? You keep looking out at it as though t’will.”
Regan smiled. “If it tells me anything, I’ll be sure to share it with the three of you.” She shrugged her shoulders where they had stiffened. “I wasn’t being antisocial. I’m just a little tired and needed a few minutes to myself.”
“I can understand why,” Sheary said. “You worked like a demon today and showed up the rest of us. They were beautiful drawings you did of the stones, by the way.”
“Thanks.” Regan smiled. “I was just inspired with the dignity of them. Up until now I thought Ogham was like a Celtic shorthand to offer directions or inscribe bible verses. I never dreamed I would see it covering the stones like a kind of instruction manual.”
“How do you know that’s what they are?” Hannah asked, her words slurred as she munched a hand full of popcorn.
Regan hesitated. Once the epigraphic expert had a go at them, eventually they would all know what the stones said. “What else would be the purpose of it all? I believe, once the text is translated, it will offer us an insight into their religious beliefs and practices. And explain the purpose of the stones.”
Helen Kegan, the quietest member of the group said, “I hope you shan’t be disappointed. The symbols will have to be studied, copied, discussed, and finally the findings put on paper.” She propped her feet on the coffee table and crossed her ankles in a movement feline and graceful. “The lot of us won’t be about to see it while we’re here. Our summer contracts will be over long before someone in a stuffy academic’s office will publish a paper with the findings.”
“Don’t sound so bitter, Helen. Perhaps once we’ve finished at university, we can return to study them again. ‘Twill take years before everything is done.”
She would be long gone before anything definitive was discovered. Regan’s stomach clenched with anxiety. And what of Coira and Braden? How could she leave without discovering who they were and what it all meant? She needed to know now.
A niggling impression of having left something undone, something important, taunted her. She needed to hurry, but toward what?
And if she left the stones, left the loch, left Coira and Braden? A sadness bordering on grief struck her.
Sheary distracted her when she stretched, then groaned. She rolled her shoulders and flexed her arms. “I’ll have trouble moving tomorrow. You girls may have to pry me out of bed.”
Several murmurs of agreement followed.
“Pop the movie in, will you Hannah? I have a terrible need to lose myself in a different era than what we’ve been digging in for the last eight hours,” Helen said, raking her fingers through her chestnut hair and gathering it into a tail at the back of her head with a elastic band.
Regan reclined on the floor in front of the television. “I read somewhere that the word gladiator meant penis. Do you think that might be true?” A pillow hit her in the chest then bounced off onto the floor. She looked up to find Hannah grinning at her.
“No more academic discussions,” she ordered.
“I didn’t realize penises fell into that category,” Regan said with a laugh as she propped the pillow beneath her head.
“You must have a one track mind. You were just talking about bulging Roman body parts.”
“O-o-o I hope we get to see some,” Sheary said with a laugh and winked at Regan.
Talk of Romans reminded her of the coin Quinn had given her. She crammed her hand into her jeans pocket and removed the artifact. She should have taken it to the preservation lab right away but she’d wanted to share it with the others first. And she’d wanted to do some research on the time period from which it had originated. It appeared in good shape though the relief profile extending from the metal was worn. She ran a thumb over the image.
Weariness pressed down on her. Tomorrow. She’d do it tomorrow. Before the beginning credits of the movie had finished she could barely hold her eyes open. Somewhere between the first sword fight and the next scene her eyes drifted shut and the voices on the screen became a muddled jumble.
The smell of peat smoke woke her. She turned onto her back and lay for a time as she tried to decipher why tall grass surrounded her instead of the walls of her cabin. Where was she?
Fear prickled along her nerve endings like bee stings, and she rolled to her feet. The sod hut with its thatched roof stood before her. A full moon shone against the façade of the simple house, throwing the door and windows into shadow. A sound came from the hut, and she crouched down as the door opened a crack and someone looked out.
Coira stepped out of the cabin, her pale surcoat reflecting the light as she walked down the trail leading to the loch. Frowning, Regan rose. What if Coira should run into trouble along the way? Was she not wary of making her way in the dark? Where was Braden? Anxiety ripped through her. She strode down the path after the woman.
Trees and shrubs speckled the path with dark shadows, while the moonlight turned the open stretches to dull gray. She breathed in the moist, still air laced with the smell of damp earth and greenery as she strode along the path. She paused at the crest of the hill and looked down at the stones.
A shadow moved further down the slope, fleeting and indistinct. Regan followed, her pace slow, cautious. As she stepped inside the circle, Coira stood beside the altar in shadow. Moonlight angled across hands that lay palm up atop the slab in a supplicant gesture.
The woman recited words in Gaelic Regan didn’t understand, her accent laced with despair.
“What is it? What’s happened?” Regan asked.
The woman stepped forward into the light almost face to face with her and a fission of shock traveled through Regan, cutting off her breath. They were so alike.
“I need your help, Coira. And I believe you need mine.”
Coira showed no reaction. Her gaze focused beyond her.
A voice came out of the darkness. “’Tis late for you to be here, little sister.”
Regan jerked in startled surprise at the same time Coira caught her breath.
A man walked forward from the deep shadows at the base of one of the monoliths. Regan strained to see his face, but darkness slashed across his features, the pillar behind him blocking the moonlight.
“What are you doing here, Ross?”
He shrugged. “I needed a moment to contemplate what we are to do. I fear we cannot go on hiding the power you have managed to harness here, Coira. Just think how the people would react should they discover what you can do.”
“And what things would you be speaking of, brother? My knowledge of herbs and such can hold little threat to our people.”
“You know of what I speak, Coira.”
Though Regan couldn’t see Coira’s expression, something in her body language conveyed wariness.
“Nay, I do not. I but use the stones as a place of contemplation and prayer, just as you are doing now.”
“And what of the chamber?” he asked.
“It is just a room in which to store my poultices and tonics. ‘Twas not I who created it. Not even Nathrach MacLeod would be daft enough to believe that.”<
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“But those tinctures you create might be enough to damn you. You must be careful, Coira.”
“My tinctures are less likely to affect anyone more than the mead you brew, brother. If I am to be damned for caring for the sick, then every Scotsman from here to Edinburgh will be held guilty of brewing drink with more strength than my remedies.”
“Should something happen to you, the key to everything would be lost. Have you not thought of that?” The passion in his voice made his tone sharp.
“That is what you have children for, brother. ‘Tis to them we must pass the tales, the songs, the history, and the keys to the past so their future may be better than our own.”
“But Bryce is gone, Coira, and you have no other child to entrust it to.”
“There is still time. Braden’s and my prayers will be answered. And if they are not, you have time to see things through.”
Ross made a sound of impatience, his hand chopping the air in a negating gesture. “I am your brother. Your flesh and blood. What runs through your veins, your body, runs through mine as well. Why will you not share this with me?”
Coira remained silent for a moment. “If I could be certain your quest was for knowledge to help our people, and not the power it would bring you, I would. If I am such a threat, what would you then be?”
“What makes you think I want the knowledge for my own sake, sister? Do I not heal as many as you each day? Not as quickly or as well, but at least with as much care. Imagine what we could do, if we both understood what the stones could bring.”
“And if it is not the stones that heal, but something within me? What would you have from me then, brother?”
Ross remained silent for a moment. “I would ask you to teach me.”
Coira bent her head. The moonlight followed the slope of her hair and brushed like fairy dust over the shoulders of her tunic. “I will think about it.” She raised her face to look in his direction. “This is a place of the dead, Ross, not the living. A place to lay their bodies to rest, and to pray that those who suffer can be healed. There is no power here, but what can come from faith.”
“If that is true, I wonder why you did not tell me sooner.”
Coira drew the shawl more closely around her. “Because you have not wanted to hear it before.”
“It is you then, sister. And because we are of the same blood, perhaps I too can learn what you do.”
“Perhaps. But not tonight.” Coira turned away from him and stepped forward. Unprepared for her sudden movement, Regan stumbled back and felt a sensation like electricity traveling up her arm, and an ice cold burn where their wrists brushed.
She cried out and twisted aside as Coira did the same. Regan hastened to put the altar between them. The ground gave way beneath her and a scream tore from her as she dropped into darkness.
CHAPTER 12
“You scared the shite out of me last night grabbing my ankle as you did,” Hannah said as Regan gripped her shoulder and stepped into the hip waders.
“Me, too. I dreamed I was falling, so of course I had to grab something to break my fall. I didn’t mean for it to be your leg.” Regan forced a smile to her lips as she smoothed the gauze bandage around her wrist. “They say if you hit the bottom—”
“You don’t really believe that shite,” Hannah scoffed, pushing her glasses up her nose.
“No, I don’t.” It had been more than a dream that had left the burn on the back of her wrist though. The ugly red spot looked like she’d set a hot curling iron against her skin and held it there from several different directions. Despite the wrappings and the burn salve she’d used, it had taken on an angry red look, and it hurt like hell. What would have happened if she hadn’t awakened from the dream? Would she have continued to fall until she’d hit the bottom of whatever depression she’d stepped?
Regan pulled up the suspenders of the rubberized waders and hooked them over her shoulders. She looked out over the stretch of slimy mud between the scaffolding and the altar as she tied a rope around her waist.
Her attention settled on the stone in the center of the circle. The stone slab resting atop the base jutted out on each end like a tabletop. She’d never seen an altar quite like it. Even Dr. Shumaker, the artifacts analyst, had commented on the strangeness of its construction. The same symbols carved into the monoliths decorated the sides but not the top. Were they incantations or prayers? Or both?
“I think the altar looks like a sarcophagus instead of an altar.”
Hannah’s brows rose and she studied the stone, speculation in her expression. ”Wouldn’t Dr. Fraser or one of the others have said something if that were a possibility?”
“They probably thought it themselves, but it’s such an outrageous statement. They’re not likely to hang themselves off that ledge. They have to be cautious. It’s different if a student does it. We’re supposed to ask questions and make erroneous speculations. We’re learning.”
Hannah eyed her. “What do you propose to do?”
“I’m going to clean away some of the algae and debris so we can see all the markings instead of just a few here and there. Then I’m going to measure it and see if it could possibly be hollow. Once some of the mud dries, we can bring out some x-ray equipment and see if there’s anything inside.”
Hannah nodded. “What do you want me to do?”
“Hold the line I plan to tie around my waist in case I get bogged down in the mud and can’t get back. At least then the guys can pull me back to the scaffold.
“All right, I’m game,” Hannah said.
Regan nodded.
“You just can’t help yourself, can you? You’re so eager to make a discovery of your own.”
Regan shrugged. She was running out of time. There was something important she needed to know and there were too many pieces of the puzzle missing. “I have to have something to show my parents to justify this expensive education they’ve paid for.”
“If you’d really wanted to impress them, you’d have taken up something that would make a little more money.”
“There is that.” She pulled on rubberized work gloves, covering the bandage. “But if I made an important find, it would fund my own dig.” And make them proud. “That’s what all of us dream of, isn’t it?”
Regan jumped off the two-foot tall scaffold and the ground gave beneath her, splattering mud. She took up the deep bucket half filled with soapy water and stuffed a soft brush and a sponge inside it. As she attempted to step forward, the substance clung to her foot, stubborn as tar. She twisted, wrenching free of its grip and took a step. She soon learned to slide her feet forward with each step to break the suction. Her breathing came in gasps by the time she’d traveled the thirty-foot distance to the altar. Bending at the waist, she sank the bucket into the mud so it wouldn’t tip over and propped her hands on her knees to catch her breath.
“You all right, Regan?” Henry called from his position on the scaffold.
She waved and turned her attention to the altar before her. Despite the dried algae and mud that covered it, the top seemed smooth. Her heart thrummed in her ears as she removed her gloves and laid a hand atop it and waited. Nothing. Relieved, she shoved her hand back into the glove and ran it over the entire surface brushing away a thin coating of dried waste. Samples taken were being analyzed.
“Tell me what you were doing at the stones, Coira,” she said aloud. The only sound was the muted tones of some of the staff talking at the head of the scaffold where some kind of meeting was taking place. Cautious, her steps measured, she circled the altar looking for the hole into which she had fallen. The ground appeared stable, despite the mud. There wasn’t any crack or crevice she could detect. It had only been a dream. She touched her arm again. How had her wrist been burnt though? Had the coin Quinn had given her had anything to do with it? She shook her head.
If it had, she’d forfeited any possibility of discovering how, now that it was in the preservation lab and logged into the system.
She couldn’t have kept it. It was too valuable a find to hold on to, and what if she’d lost it?
Regan retraced her steps and kneeled before the altar to run a quick questing touch over the base. A thin seam became evident four inches from the edge. She fluttered the bristles of her brush over it and a crack where the stones met became visible. It was constructed like a box, just as she had thought, not a single thick block of stone. Had it been built that way just to hold the weight of the top? Or was it a burial chamber for some important person? If they opened it, would they find Coira or Braden inside?
She pushed away the thought. The couple was too alive for her to think of them interned inside the altar. She began cleaning the face of the structure from the bottom up. Where normal Ogham was usually carved along the edge of a stone, these were incised into the face of the slab, just like the others. Who had done all this? It would have taken years of dedicated determination to cover each block with words in an obscure written language that spoke volumes but hid its true meaning.
“How does it work Coira?” she murmured as she cleaned away the brownish gray residue with circular swipes of the brush dipped in the soapy water. Sticking the brush into the bucket to soak, she wiped the residue away with a sponge. She removed her glove and ran her fingers over the grooves of the inscription that ran down the center of the stone.
Power. The word came to her like a whispered.
Fear wove through every fiber of her body, turning her muscles to sludge. Dear God was she becoming unhinged like her mother had been? Was all this just in her mind? Tears burnt her eyes and she used her sleeve to cover her face, blocking out the stone before her.
Her wrist ached. It wasn’t all in her mind. The burn on her wrist was a real thing. Could someone’s mind cause a real physical injury?
She lowered her arm. It wasn’t just in her imagination or a figment of a mind suddenly demented. This was real. Every muscle tensed as she placed her hand on the stone again.
Power.
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