Rhys: A Highlander Short

by L. L. Muir

  The lad’s hand squeezed Rhys’ fingers even tighter than before, but to his credit, he walked bravely on. Rhys could do nothing less, though his stomach churned at the thought his time with the boy was over, even if it was only a few minutes early.

  Cora Huntly was a surprise. The woman was clearly in her seventies, perhaps older, with stark white hair placed in careful waves all over her head. She wore a pale orange suitcoat and skirt and appeared altogether too old to be the mother of Sarah. She spared Rhys only a glimpse, so intent was she on the wee bairn with fingers locked in his hair.

  “Isla, darling. I’m your grandma. How did you get way up there?”

  It was a pointed request to put her granddaughter down. Rhys paused long enough to let the woman know he could refuse her, then he did as she wished. He lifted the girl off his head, then set her on his hip for a moment, lifting her chin so she would look him in the eye.

  “Here we are, lassie. ‘Tis time to say our goodbyes, aye?”

  Her thumb popped into her mouth and all expression cleared from her face.

  “Now, this good woman—” He said the words like a warning, “is yer grandmother. And the best thing about grandmothers is that they must, under all circumstances, love ye as much as yer mum did. Isn’t that grand?” He poked her belly, hoping to lighten the mood. “Only grandmothers are allowed to give ye more sweets by half, aye? ‘Tis the law.”

  Albert’s eyes widened and he looked at Cora with new appreciation.

  Kristin stepped forward and cleared her throat. “I’m Kristin. Here are their coats.”

  “Did they behave?” the old woman asked, but she watched the girl with shrewd eyes. She hadn’t missed the fact that the children were clinging to a large Scotsman instead of her.

  “They weren’t any trouble,” Kristin confessed and nodded at Rhys. “They were just really friendly, and it was a long trip, so…”

  “I see.” Cora nodded at a man dressed in black, standing to the side. He pulled an envelope from his breast pocket and brought it forward, handed it to the girl and stepped back again. “Thank you, Kristin,” the woman said curtly. “Children, thank Kristin. Tell her good-bye.”

  The wee’uns did as they were bid, though Isla spoke around the thumb in her mouth. Cora considered that thumb for a moment but dismissed it. And Rhys was relieved the grandmother was wise enough to allow the lassie what comfort she could find.

  Cora held out her hand. He had no choice but to put the girl down in order to take it, but again, he paused, letting her know he recognized her game before he put Isla on her feet. “Hold tight to Albert’s hand, Miss Isla.” After she did as she was told, he straightened and shook hands with the grandmother. “My name is Rhys. I simply helped out where I was needed, aye?”

  “Thank you, sir. It seems they valued your help.”

  He could only nod without risking his voice breaking. He hadn’t expected to have a difficult time parting from someone else’s bairns. After all, he’d never married, never had children of his own, but he’d worried over Soni while she grew. But still, feeling fatherly at the moment was completely mental.

  And yet, he did.

  He lifted a dread-laden boot to take the first step away from the wee family but stopped. “May I just say…”

  Cora waited, then frowned. “What is it?”

  “The bairns like to talk of their mum. I believe it makes them feel better.”

  The woman smiled. “She was my daughter-in-law, if only briefly. I have some good memories to share with them. I appreciate you letting me know.” She nodded to the man behind her. “Go see about the luggage, will you? There should be four large bags.”

  She held out her hands and the children automatically took hold. When she turned to walk away, Isla wailed and ran back to Rhys. He scooped her up and she threw her arms around his neck. “Lummy! Lummy!”

  Her arms were so wee he barely felt them, but he carefully peeled them away and turned her to face her grandmother again, who was there to collect her.

  “Lummy! Lummy!” She strained for him again as Cora retreated and headed for the doorway.

  “She wants him to love her,” Albert shouted angrily, following in his grandmother’s wake. “Why can’t he love her?”

  Cora stopped and faced the boy. She was obviously amused, but there was also pity there on her face. “I’m sure the man cares for her, Albert, but he has places to go, too.”

  Rhys shook his head at the absurdity of what he was thinking, but he had to say it anyway. “Madam!” He closed the distance, and though Isla reached for him, he kept his hands behind his back. “The lassie wasn’t demanding that I love her, sweet as the sentiment might be.”

  “Then what does she mean?”

  “It is my name—er, was my name. Rhys Lumsden, ye see? I was called Lummy in my childhood.”

  “Oh?” Cora shrugged a shoulder and waited for more.

  “The quandry is how the lassie kenned it. When I told ye my Christian name, it was the first she’d heard any of it.”

  “So, she magically knew your childhood name?” One of her gray brows rose in suspicion.

  “Magically?” He shook his head in denial, even while he recognized Soni’s hand it in all. But even though they were Huntlys, they were still Albert and Isla. Sarah’s Albert and Isla. And he had promised… “Will ye bear with me just a moment?” He gestured toward a row of chairs sitting empty against a wall. “They need not hear what I have to say.”

  Cora nodded and carried Isla to the seats and told her and her brother to behave in a tone that brooked no argument. She then strode ten paces away and waited for Rhys to join her in a spot that meant no one could reach the children without passing them first.

  “Very well, Mr. Lumsden. Please help me understand what it is you’re trying to say.”

  With Sarah’s lovely face firmly in mind, he took a great risk and explained what had happened on the flight from Glasgow. He half-expected Cora Huntly to scream for a bobby before he finished, but to his delight, that gray eyebrow slowly returned to it’s place, and the doubt in her eyes melted into tears.

  She swallowed with difficulty. “What are your plans, Mr. Lumsden?”

  “My plans?”

  “Yes. Are you just in New York for a few days?”

  “I have no obligations. I thought I would see Nova Scotia and find a place to settle—”

  “Then you are in no hurry?”

  He shook his head. “No hurry.”

  “Then I have a proposition for you that I think Sarah would have approved of.” She bit her thin lips together for a moment while she assessed him from head to toe. “I’ve been scrambling to find…a nanny.”

  “A nanny? Like a governess, ye mean?”

  “Precisely what I mean. Albert needs a man about. Isla will need close watching, and they both deserve to have someone close who will love them as I do. I am a busy woman no matter what my over-protective children might believe. And if I put you in the guesthouse, they can’t put me in it and turn Huntly House into a Bed & Breakfast.” She laughed to herself. “They are plotting behind my back, you see, and they think I’m so old I’ll can be tricked into signing things.”

  “I did promise they would be well-loved,” Rhys said, half to himself.

  “No, sir. If I heard right, you promised you would love them well.”

  Epilogue

  Six months later…

  Rhys was as nervous as a nursemaid at the birth of a bairn when he took his seat for Isla’s first dance recital.

  “Did you get her crown on straight,” Cora whispered loudly, since the house lights had already gone down.

  “Aye. But there is no promising how long it will last, aye?”

  On the seat between them, Albert perched on the front edge and strained to see the stage. He’d helped his sister practice so many times he knew her routine almost as well as Rhys did, and they were both anxious to see how she’d do.

  Luckily, the Fairy Dance Troupe was f
irst on the program.

  The curtains parted and a couple of teenaged dancers helped the little girls walk onto stage holding hands. Thanks to the mandatory braided bun, it was difficult to discern which fairy was their Isla. But they soon noted the one crown tilted drastically to the right.

  “Blasted crown,” Rhys grumbled, but no one noticed with their attention transfixed on the brave wee darlings looking to each other for direction.

  The music began. Rhys tried not to hum the tune as the order of ballet movements played on his lips. The terror-stricken lassies moved hardly at all, as if the dance were completely new to them. Every now and then one of them would remember something and the rest would copy her. And each time they looked into the crowd for help, they were blinded by the spotlights.

  Clearly, Rhys needed to interfere.

  He jumped to his feet and moved over to the wall before he waved his arms about to get the lassie’s attention. Isla’s face turned to him immediately. He put his hands on his hips and shook them from side to side. Isla remembered and danced with him.

  Albert joined him beside the wall and the pair of them put their hands over their heads and performed the pirouette just a beat or two before it was time, and when Isla and the others followed suit, theirs were dead on.

  Short of lying on the floor and kicking their heels in the air, he and Albert nudged the fairies through the rest of the number, then congratulated themselves and took their seats. And it was only when they were leaving the auditorium, when they suffered the grins from dozens of adults, did he worry he might have made a spectacle of himself.

  When he went backstage, he found Isla standing among two other fairies…and one witch who squatted before Isla in order to present her with a small nosegay of pink flowers.

  His heart leapt at the sight of Soncerae, then plunged when he realized he’d been found. Soni showed no signs of gloating when she straightened, however.

  He hurried to Isla and praised her performance, then he asked one of the other mothers to take the wee bairn to her waiting grandmother before turning to face his fate. “Soni, I am pleased to see ye after all this time. Sure I am, but—”

  “Listen to me, Rhys. I only have a moment.”

  He stepped closer. Was she frightened? Was there a danger he hadn’t noticed?

  Soni chuckled lightly. “There is no danger, ye darlin’ man. Only my uncle who has given me only a minute or two before he will drag me back with him.” She smiled sadly. “I’ve come to say good-bye.”

  “Ye’ll allow me to stay? To live?” How could that be? “I have worried so, that I might be taken from the bairns as their mother was, and that they would be forced to face another disruption—”

  “Ye’re free, Rhys, to live the rest of yer life as best ye can. Ye earned it that first day when ye won the love of Sarah’s children, but I could not tell ye then. Ye wanted so much to outwit me and go beyond my reach, I wanted you to believe ye had. But I didn’t want ye worrying overlong, watching over yer shoulder, so I had my uncle bring me forward in Time.”

  “Forward in time? I dinnae ken.”

  “Two days ago, I sent ye to the airport. I came forward so ye could glory for a while in yer success, but to me, it has only been the two days. And I must get back.” She glanced at one of the mothers who tended to watch Rhys carefully at the dance studio. “But I must confess I see much more happiness in yer future.” She threw her arms around him and held him tight for a few seconds. “Fare thee well, Rhys. Ye’re a good man with fine instincts. Never forget it.”

  And while no one looked on, Soni vanished from sight, and likely, from his life.

  Cora’s face was pale as parchment when he joined her and the children in the foyer. Rhys hurried to her side and asked what was wrong.

  “Isla,” she said. “The flowers. She said they are from a friend of her mother’s.” She leaned close. “You didn’t see Sarah back there, did you?”

  Rhys laughed and shook his head, but he wouldn’t be surprised if Soni had brought another to watch the fairies dance. After all, what other reason would she have for coming forward to that very place in Time.

  THE END

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  L.L. Muir lives on the Utah side of the Rocky Mountains and loves nothing better than giving another character their happily ever after.

  A disturbing amount of nugget ice, three big cupfuls at a time, was consumed while writing this short ghost story.

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