"It's a r-rat," Laura stammered.
"Tis a verra wee mouse," said Deliah. "A verra young wee mouse."
"How..." Winston closed half the distance between himself and Deliah."...did you get it to go to you like tha'?"
"It knows I canna hurt it," she said with a hint of impatience. "Alby, have ye somethin’ we could make a home for the poor thing. For a time, at least."
"Yeah!" Alby said gleefully, and ran from the room.
"It's not a pet!" Laura cried, looking more horror-stricken than ever.
"Laura, look at it," Deliah insisted. She walked to the chair so Laura could see it better. "It willna bite ye. It be but a baby and all alone in this big house."
"That's comforting—it being alone, I mean," Laura muttered.
"Its parents be dead, and it doesna know wha' to do." Deliah made a cooing sound to the mouse then lifted pleading eyes to Laura. "It be hungry and frightened. Have ye no heart for it?"
Unsteadily, Laura climbed down from the chair and reluctantly stared at the nestled rodent atop Deliah's palm. Her features contorted in a grimace and she shrugged. "I guess it is kind of...cute. Not crazy about its tail, though."
Deliah smiled. "If ye name him, Laura, he'll seem less fearful to ye."
"Name him?' Laura asked blankly.
"Aye."
Laura offered a genuine grimace of disgust. "Name a rodent?"
"Havena ye ever had a pet?" Deliah asked her.
Laura nodded. "When I was a little girl. A cat."
"Weel?"
"Okay, okay." Laura gulped and warily eyed the mouse. Then a semblance of a grin lessened the strain in her features. "He is kind of cute, isn't he? I like the way his nose wiggles." She glanced at Roan. "Any suggestions?"
With a dubious arching of his eyebrows, Roan stepped next to Laura and regarded the mouse. "How abou'...Spot. We could pretend he's the family dog. But I don't expect he'll fetch the newspaper for us."
Laura playfully elbowed him in the midriff and Roan laughed.
"Wiggles," she said finally. She straightened her shoulders as if proud to have named something that moments ago had filled her with terror. "Wiggles. It's cute and wiggly."
Deliah held the mouse up closer to her face. "Wha' say ye, Wiggles?" She laughed and nodded to Laura. "Tis a fine name for him, it is."
"You've all gone daft," Lachlan grumbled by the doorway.
Deliah stiffened as her gaze cut to Lachlan. "This be Agnes' last few hours wi' us. I willna have ye spoil them for any o' us."
Lachlan scowled at Beth, who glared at him from Agnes' side. Agnes on the other hand, was looking at him with motherly compassion.
"Lannie," she said, stepping toward him, his daughter in her arms. "I would like you to be here for ma passing."
Lachlan ran his tongue over the smarting wound on the inside of his lower lip then shook his head. He could feel hot tears pressing behind his eyes as his gaze repeatedly moved between Agnes' face and the cherubic profile of his daughter. Brown curls were visible beneath her pink bonnet. He wanted to have a closer look at his children. Wanted to hold them. But something dark and suffocating swirled around his insides, terrifying him, creating an emotional wall between him and the people he loved in the room.
"Lannie?" Agnes took another step in his direction. "I didn’t mean wha' I said."
"Aye, Aggie," he choked, backing through the doorway. "I'll miss you, you old corbie."
"Don't go," Beth choked. "Lachlan, please."
Lachlan met her pleading gaze and stiltedly shook his head. "I canna do this. Fegs, Beth, I canna face ma mortality yet!"
He ran down the hall in the direction of the front doors, leaving Beth staring bleakly after him, her face damp with tears.
Chapter 11
During the celebration, laughter companioned Agnes' favorite stories of her life. Her accounts of her childhood with eight siblings in Edinburgh, and her single motherhood experiences raising her son, held the others a captive audience. All but Lachlan was present. Even Wiggles attended, although he remained in a small bird cage Kevin had found in the attic, and which was now perched on the sideboard. He feasted on bread and cheese, occasionally dipping into the tiny bowl of water that had been given him.
As dusk came and went, the mood of everyone around the dining room table grew progressively more somber. They boys were uncharacteristically quiet, now and then casting Agnes woeful glances. Laura remained tearful during most of the gathering. A wistful yet sad expression seemed a permanent fixture on Roan's rugged face. Beth held her son and was often lost in thought while studying his face—a face she could already see Lachlan's once cherished visage in. Dark hair and dark eyebrows, dark eyes, chiseled lips and cleft chin, all like his father. Her daughter looked more like Beth's mother. Pert nose and blue eyes, with dark brown hair, curly like Beth's.
Winston, although enjoying Agnes' stories, found himself, most of the time, watching Deliah from the corner of his eye. Before and since the cakes and snow cone treats, she held Beth and Lachlan's daughter. Not once had she looked at him. She acted as if he wasn't in the room, or that his being there didn't faze her in the least. He wasn't sure which irked him more. And he wasn't sure how he felt about the fact that, being a woman with no navel, her obvious love of babies bore an unmistakable maternal inclination.
Deliah glanced up at him as if divining his thoughts. He looked away and felt heat surge into his face. If he started thinking too much about her or dwelled too much on the maddening perplexities of her physical abnormality.
How could he not?
How many times had he racked his brain trying to recall other discrepancies she might have?
No others came to mind, but he wasn't convinced that she wasn't hiding something more from him. Something other than her origin.
"It’s time," Agnes announced.
A hush fell over the room. Winston's gaze crept to Deliah. He didn't need to be psychic to pick up on her sorrow. Despite her outward bravado, her eyes betrayed the depths of her despair. At that moment, he couldn't deny his love for her. He was determined to keep its existence to himself, but he could no longer deny it within the confines of his mind. Watching her and not caring that she was aware of his transgression, he marveled at her ability to appear so ethereal and innocent, especially in light of her fevered lovemaking the previous night.
No navel.
The thought brought a frown to his smooth brow. Animal, vegetable, mineral? Was her packaging an illusion?
Agnes rose to her feet. Winston sat back in his chair and observed the farewells with the same detachment he used when on the job. The boys collectively hugged her when she crouched and opened her arms to them. Winston absorbed wafting segments of their sadness. It was impossible not to take in some, but he decided to brace himself against too much of an influx. He liked and admired Agnes Ingliss, but he didn't know her well enough to show an outward display of emotion—contrived as it would have to be. And it wouldn't do if he absorbed too much of the others' morbidity and burst into tears like a silly old goose.
Laura was next. Sniffling but making a valiant effort to keep a firm rein on her emotions, she waited for the boys to group a few feet away then put her arms around Agnes' thin shoulders. During the exchange, through which Laura broke into sobs while listing all the reasons Agnes shouldn't leave, Roan slowly rose to his feet. One merely looking at him would have noticed nothing more than a calm demeanor with a tad of sorrow visible in his eyes. But Winston could see beyond the veneer. See deeply into the man's soul, and it disturbed him to trespass into that vast territory. He hadn't intended to scan his host, but it had come about as naturally as a breath.
Agnes' pending separation from her friends and living family, was a festering sore within Roan's emotional center. He'd lost his wife and young son to a fire. His parents and younger sister had left him to seek their fortune in the United States, and they had from what little Winston had learned from Roan. Roan was a man who expected litt
le from life, and even less from relationships.
Agnes had been his family lifeline since he was eleven years old, and now she, too, was leaving. Winston detected panic in Roan. Panic and doubt regarding his ability to measure up to family life without her guidance. This surprised Winston. Of all the men he'd known, including Lachlan Baird, he admired Roan the most. Unlike most men, Roan was outgoing and dirt honest, but inside, he was complex. Scanning Roan was equivalent to riding a roller coaster in the dark. Motion in the fast lane with no end in sight. He had no goals beyond securing Laura and the boys' futures, and no preconceived notions as to what the world owed him. Roan was the best mankind had to offer. A man of honor. A man of devotion. A man of heart to even a stranger such as Winton had been.
Winston glanced away when Roan embraced Aggie. The emotions in the room were closing in around him and he didn't want to react to their infusion in his psychic matrix. He felt a little queasy all of a sudden. Lightheaded. He forced breaths through his nostrils while he pinched his lips into a fine line. His vision went hazy. Dimly, he was aware of Deliah staring at him. He thought he saw something floating through the air then realized something was heading for his brow. It was a bright blue fiber worming toward him. As it got closer, he felt gentle waves of psychic energy emanate from it. His eyes crossed as he tried to watch it pass through his forehead. When the last of it vanished from his sight, he experienced a wash of heat. His queasiness and lightheadedness disappeared. It was as if he'd gotten a pure shot of adrenaline. His blood sang through his veins and he gratefully offered Deliah a lopsided grin.
Why? he mused, puzzled by her gift.
Because ye were abou' to succumb, she replied nonchalantly, stunning him with the clarity of her telepathic projection.
He stared into eyes as blue as the Mediterranean. Eyes which bespoke of timeless knowledge and fathomless secrets. He swallowed hard and straightened in his seat. The air stirred about him and he looked away from Deliah to find Agnes standing to his right. Her lined face was soft and maternal, her eyes glittering with hope, excitement, and expectation. She was eager to begin her journey.
Feeling awkward, Winston rose to his feet. At first he could only stare down into her wizened features. The last person he'd hugged who hadn't been or was soon to become his lover, had been his grandmother. He could not recall his parents ever touching him, and he hadn't been allowed to embrace them. And for the first time in his life, that cold wall they'd created between themselves and him, angered him. He resented the way they had physically and emotionally ostracized him. He resented having become only a portion of the man he should have been. An emotionally whole man, not just a man only capable of living through the emotions of others.
"I've only known you a short time, Master Winston, but I do know this abou' you," Agnes began in a soft tone. "Ye're a kind mon wi' a big heart, and wha' you do in the name o' justice is no wee wonder." Smiling faintly, she rested a wrinkled hand over his heart. "But life is short, young mon, and wi’ou' love, it’s damn lonely. So I tell you this, and you'll pay me heed because I've lived a verra long life, and I've learned a lesson or two to pass on.
"Open yer eyes before you get too lost in the darkness. Accept wha' yer heart tells you is true, and follow yer heart wherever its path leads you."
She stood on tiptoe and planted cool lips to his cheek in a kiss. Settling back on the heels of her flat, navy shoes, she broadened her smile. "You take care o' ma Deliah. She's a precious resource our world is sadly losin’. Promise me, Master Winston. I can’t leave her fate to the outsiders. Promise me you'll take good care o' her."
Her entreaty had speared him with panic, yet he heard himself say, "I will. You have ma promise."
Agnes walked around to Beth, whose head was bent over her sleeping son in her arms. Winston felt his chest grow tight. He could hear Beth softly weeping and it rocked him. Agnes stroked the back of Beth's head, her hand trembling and her chin quivering.
"I will miss you, child," said Agnes, emotion nearly strangling her words. "If I could have had a daughter—"
Beth shot to her feet. Angling the infant to prevent it from getting scrunched between their bodies, she threw her left arm around Agnes and clung dearly to her. Now, Beth's crying came in great sobs, seeming to echo in the room. Kahl leading the way, the boys ran to the parlor, and from there, to the hall and staircase. Roan sat in one of the chairs as if his legs could no longer support him. Laura seated herself on his lap and, also weeping, laid her cheek atop his left shoulder.
"Dammit, Aggie, it hurts to let you go!" Beth wept bitterly.
Agnes pulled back and tenderly ran the backs of her fingers down Beth's wet cheeks. "Ooh, I know, Beth. If I wasn’t so sure I was doin’ the right thing...."
"No. Forgive me, Aggie," said Beth tremulously. "You have every right to go to your son. I remember seeing him, now. They're only fragments of memory, but I do remember seeing him."
"One day, we'll be togither again." Agnes bobbed her head. "Aye, we'll all be togither. Meanwhile, you and Lannie—weel, you tamed tha' devil once." She laughed then drew in a pseudo breath and glanced at Deliah. "I feel the Light openin’."
Deliah nodded and stood. Walking around the table, she passed the infant she carried to Laura then stepped back. Her face pale and taut, her eyes dull, she said, "I must ask ye all to leave. Tis no' ma place to let ye witness the Light."
Roan was about to protest when he read the plea in Agnes' eyes to do as Deliah instructed. One by one, they filed out of the room, Beth lagging behind Winston. When there was only Deliah and Agnes left, Deliah numbly unfastened the back of her dress and let it fall to the floor. She stepped clear of the material, then initiated her transformation.
Agnes watched in awe as the young woman became a vision of wonder. Deliah began her clan's dance of passage and soon a white effulgence came through the ceiling and encompassed Agnes. The dance continued until the Light had vanished, taking with it the soul, the spirit, of a woman who had brought her own kind of magic to Baird House.
* * *
Not even death had been as cold as was this night. Cloaked in two wool, full-size blankets, sitting atop his grave with his back braced against the headstone bearing his name, Lachlan stared with devastation into the dark gray sky. It was no longer snowing, but the temperature had to be well below freezing. Still, it didn't compare to the arctic cold residing where his heart should be.
He'd glimpsed a flicker of light shoot down from the sky and pierce the house. He knew what it was. While he had sat out here, freezing his ass clear to his tail bone, struggling with indecision, Heaven had decided for him. Now there was no chance to say a proper goodbye to Aggie. No chance to tell her how much she'd come to mean to him. He'd let the opportunity slip away because of his asinine inability to come to grips with himself.
What was wrong with him?
How could he fear fatherhood?
A new beginning with Beth?
Life?
With a garbled cry of raw anguish, he buried his face in his hands.
"Aggie! Aggie, forgive me!"
He wept for some time to come. Wept until his body could no longer bear the cold, nor his conscience bear his ability to think.
Lachlan staggered toward the house, thoughts of his store of Scotch giving him the stamina to go on.
* * *
10:00 PM.
Winston couldn't sleep and he couldn't stand the silence in the house. He was still in the clothes he'd worn earlier, but had put on a bathrobe over them and haphazardly knotted the tie at his waist. Staring bleakly into the night, he stood on the tower with his forearms braced on a high section of the crenellations. He wasn't looking at anything in particular. Rather, he sought the solitude and the cold to better clear his mind. He needed to analyze what was going on inside him. Grieving for Agnes Ingliss didn't make sense. He'd hardly known her. She'd wanted to pass over. What puzzled him the most was, he was relatively sure what he was feeling stemmed from himself, but tha
t would mean he had an emotional core. Which was preposterous.
Sighing deeply, he looked off into the distance to his right. A few lights could be seen in some of the buildings in the town of Crossmichael. So, perhaps others were as restless as he. Why did he find that comforting? Loch Ken was barely visible, striking him as resembling a wide dark ribbon laid across the landscape. He tried to imagine how the lake would look on a spring or summer night, with moonlight dappling the water. Spring had arrived, but the weather mocked the official advent of the season. He promised himself he would do something completely out of character to celebrate the warming season when it arrived. Perhaps plant a tree. An oak tree.
A chill of awareness slued up his spine and he cut his gaze to the grounds in front of him. In the distance was the oak tree near the main road. He sensed movement and it raised his psychic hackles. His nostrils flared. His eyes narrowed and his features pinched with tension. Soon, he spied a figure walk around the rhododendron hedge and approach the house. From his position five stories high, she appeared tiny and but a silhouette against the stark whiteness of the ground. But he knew it was Deliah.
Communing wi' nature, no doubt, he thought bitterly.
Twenty or so yards from the house, she stopped and looked up at him. He couldn't make out the details of her face, but he didn't have to. He had long memorized her features and the set of each emotion they displayed.
Despite his resolve to purge her from his system, a familiar ache manifested behind his breast. His pulse quickened.
She entered the house and Winston straightened, his hands remaining on the cold stones of the higher level of the crenellations in front of him. If he stood on the roof hatch, she couldn't push it open and intrude on his temporary space. If he used his weight to bar her entry to the tower, he wouldn't have to look into her eyes and wonder how many seconds it would take before she weakened his resistance to touch her.
He turned abruptly and gasped when he saw her standing on the opposite side of the closed hatchway. His heart seemed to rise into his throat and cut off his oxygen. It wasn't possible she could have climbed to the tower in less than a minute. Not possible that she could have opened and closed the hatch without him hearing the faint creak of the hinges on the cold-stressed wood planks.
Love Everlastin' Book 3 Page 20
