Morna's Legacy 04 - Love Beyond Measure

by Bethany Claire

  “There is a tree near the back with a large branch that nearly touches the ground. I go there often to think.”

  “Often?” How could that be? He’d told me more than once that he lived quite far from Morna and Jerry’s. While it was a several hour drive, he’d spoken about his home as if it were much further away. Had he lied and that was why he’d been so hesitant to come here? “Are you from near here?”

  He turned suddenly toward me, blocking the path. “Aye, in a way I am from both verra near here and verra far away. Do ye believe in magic, lass?”

  What a weird question. I stuttered a little, unsure of what he meant by ‘magic.’ “Do you mean like a higher power or something? If so, yes, I do. If you mean like hocus pocus stuff, I’ve not ever seen it, so I would say I don’t know. I do think things happen all the time that have no logical explanation, and perhaps those things are the result of a kind of magic. Why?”

  Perhaps the magic he spoke of lay within him, for I couldn’t help but feel as if he’d read my mind. While the direction of the conversation made me uneasy, I had a feeling I would finally be granted some answers.

  He said nothing until we reached the tree. After he sat down, he pulled me in next to him. “I’d like to tell ye something…me surname is McMillan.”

  “Oh.” It seemed an odd build up for such a small piece of information; then I remembered where we were. “Oh. Ooohhh…” each time I said the word a little louder, as if some sort of grand realization came over me…it didn’t. “So, you didn’t grow up quite as far from the inn as I thought, although I guess that all depends on your perspective. Does your family own this? Your ancestors were what? Scottish lairds or something?”

  “Aye, they were, but no only me ancestors. Me brother is Laird of this castle now.”

  “Your brother.” It wasn’t so much a question, as a statement while I thought about what he could mean. It was the first I’d heard of a brother. While I supposed there could still be a laird by title if his family did still own the castle, I didn’t think it would be anything more than just that…a title. “Okay, so does your family live near here? Sort of oversee things?”

  Eoghanan began to cross his arms, but stopped as his shoulder pulled. “We doona live near it. We live in it, lass.”

  I quickly grew frustrated. I’d taken the same self-guided tour of the place as he had, and it was obvious that no one actually still lived in the castle. Furthermore, if they had, why hadn’t he said anything while we were walking through it? Told us stories, or talked about the castle’s history, his ancestors, anything?

  “Eoghanan, I walked through that castle just a few hours ago, and there’s no one living there now.”

  Eoghanan stood and started pacing back and forth in front of me. He looked as frustrated as I felt. “Do ye remember what Cooper said about me when ye first arrived here?”

  I pulled my jacket around me more snugly. There was little wind, but my body temperature seemed to drop suddenly. “Which part? When he mistook you for someone else? He thought he saw you at the airport, but obviously that wasn’t you.”

  “Aye, lass. It was.”

  *

  Cooper ran up to his dad, who stood by the pond, waving at Morna and Jerry as they pulled away from the castle. “Where are they going?”

  “They’re just heading back a little early so that Morna can get started on some dinner. We’ll ride back with Eoghanan and your Mom whenever they get back over here.”

  Cooper reached down into his pocket, turning the stone over and over, thinking about the magic. It was taking Mom and E-o too long. E-o had been right; his Mom was too much of a grown-up to believe. He would have to help her.

  He pulled out the stone, trying to remember what he’d heard Morna say. He couldn’t remember exactly, but it was something about the rock touching water. If the rock was magical, his Mom would be angry with him for sure, but it was the only way to show her. Besides, it might not do anything—just like the colored dinosaur eggs his Dad had gotten him once. They were supposed to hatch if placed in water, but they never did.

  If only grown-ups were easier to teach things to, he wouldn’t have had to take the rock in the first place. Rearing back, he let the rock fly; everything went black the moment it hit the water.

  Chapter 19

  “Uh, I’m sorry, can you say that again?” Obviously, he’d misspoken. There was absolutely no way he’d been in the airport. Jerry and Morna had both said Eoghanan had been at their inn for several months. He didn’t strike me as the type of man who would take off for a quick little “vaca” to New York.

  “Grace, I know that ye willna believe me. No until ye witness it for yerself. ’Tis my hope that ye will allow me to tell ye all that I know and then consider allowing me to prove it to ye.”

  “Witness what? Eoghanan, you’re freaking me out. Just say whatever it is you’re trying to say, plainly. Get on with it.”

  “I was injured by a sword, just as I told ye, but ’twas no in this time. This wound,” he paused to point at the scar that started on the side of his temple. “was given to me in the year sixteen hundred and forty-seven, in the verra castle behind ye. I am only in this time now, so that I can heal with the help of Morna’s magic.”

  “Alright.” I stood, tossing a hand in dismissal toward him as I took off back toward the pond. “I’ve had enough. You’re cra…”

  The word hung unfinished, my feet taking off the moment I saw Jeffrey running toward us, dripping wet, breathless and screaming for me to follow him. He turned back toward the direction he’d come as soon as he saw me running, screaming at me from over his shoulder.

  “Grace, I…Cooper’s gone.”

  “What do you mean, he’s gone?” My stomach churned, vomit threatening to come up at the panic that built within me.

  “I don’t know, Grace. He was standing right there. Right there, Grace.” He pointed at the grass next to me. He was crying now, tears flowing freely, his voice a panicked rasp. “I was right next to him. He just threw a rock. I swear. I didn’t turn away from him for a second. He just threw a rock and…” he shook his head as if he didn’t believe his own words, “he just vanished.”

  “Jeffrey, if Cooper put you up to this and you were stupid enough to go along with it, I swear to you, I will murder you.”

  “Grace!” He grabbed me roughly, shaking me so hard my teeth rattled. “Do I look like I’m joking?”

  He didn’t, not at all, and my brain simply couldn’t process the horror of what he said. “He’s gone.”

  “No. No, no, no, no, no, no, no.” I could say nothing else as I collapsed against him.

  “Hush, lass.” Eoghanan stood behind me, pulling me off of Jeffrey. He gripped my shoulders too tightly, but it was enough to make me do as he said. “Jeffrey, show me what the lad did.”

  He was so calm I wanted to slap him. I twisted away from his grip, whirling on him, my voice barely forming words—like in a dream where you want to scream, you need to scream, but it just won’t come.

  “What’s…what’s the matter with you? We don’t have time. We have to find him.”

  I jumped toward the water to search for him, but Eoghanan reached out, jerking me back against him with his left hand, wrapping it around my waist so that I couldn’t move.

  “Jeffrey, pick up a damn rock and show me what the lad did.”

  Eoghanan’s tone was deeper than I’d ever heard it. It was a direct order.

  I struggled against him, but he held me still as Jeffrey looked at him, confusion and shock muddling his normally flawless face. Slowly, he bent to pick up a rock. Shaking his head, he held his hand back, “He just…all he did was throw it.”

  Jeffrey’s rock went sailing toward the water. When it hit the surface and disappeared below the water, so did Jeffrey.

  I screamed. Something hard hit me on the top of the head causing my vision to blur. The last thing I saw before I lost consciousness was the sight of headlights barreling toward us.
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br />   Chapter 20

  The Inn Near Conall Castle

  Present Day

  “What in the blethering hell did ye do to her, Morna?”

  My eyes remained closed, and though I tried to open them, they wouldn’t budge. The same could be said for every other part of my body. Someone must have sedated me for I couldn’t lift my arms or legs, open my eyes, speak. I could do nothing but listen to all that they said.

  “Calm down, Eoghanan, I just put her to sleep for a while. We wouldna have been able to get her in the car, otherwise.”

  “Ye needed to explain to her what happened, no kidnap the lass.”

  I could feel Eoghanan running his hand through my hair, and I knew that I lay slumped against him.

  “Kidnap her?” Morna’s voice sounded appalled at the suggestion. “Doona ye blame me for this mess. I told ye no to bring the rock, dinna I?”

  “Aye, and I did leave it. Cooper must have picked it up behind me. I thought that ye had to skip the rock for it take ye back. Surely the lad couldna do that.”

  Cooper. His name jolted my memory of all that had happened, and I knew I was more than just physically sedated. I knew my son was gone. I’d seen Jeffrey vanish before me, yet the panic I knew I should be feeling wouldn’t come. I felt eerily at peace, unworried, sleepy. I fought the urge to sleep, listening intently to try and understand.

  “Aye, ’tis usually true, but I made the stone to allow those that needed to travel the ability to do so. Cooper must be meant to travel back if it allowed him to simply throw it and no skip it, nor float it like ye did.”

  “What about Jeffrey?” It was Jerry’s voice, speaking up for the first time.

  “Ach, ye saw how quickly I turned the car around. I felt it the moment Cooper traveled back and immediately spelled the other rocks so that someone could follow him.”

  “How did ye know one of us would throw it?” Eoghanan’s voice again.

  “I dinna know, ’twas all I could think to do until we got to ye.”

  “Aye, fine. When ye reached us, why dinna ye send Grace and me back right away?”

  All of this talk of ‘back’ made little sense, but I was unable to ask questions.

  “Eoghanan, ye know that ye are in no shape to travel so far back yet. Grace’s arrival has delayed yer progress. We have no been working at it consistently.”

  “It no longer matters if I am ready or no. Grace willna wait for me to heal to get to her son, and I willna let her go back without me.”

  “Aye, I know. ’Tis why I dinna send ye back there. If ye must go, which aye, I know that ye must, I will at least make sure that ye are as tended to as best ye can be before making the journey. Now, rest yer eyes a while, lad, we’ve much to do when we get back to me home.”

  As their voices quieted, so did my strength to stay awake. I allowed sleep to take me, hoping as I drifted that when next I woke I would be able to feel something other than the unsettling calm.

  *

  “Alright, lass, time for ye to wake up now.”

  Morna’s voice called to me from beside my bed. Slowly my eyelids flickered open.

  I lay in my bed at the inn with Jerry sitting at its end, Eoghanan on my right side rubbing my hand gently, and Morna on my left side regarding me closely.

  I concentrated on trying to open my mouth, pleased to find that motion had returned to it. After stretching my jaw a moment, I spoke. “You all need to tell me exactly what is going on. Where is my son?” While I could move my body, I still felt just as calm as before, and I hated it. Intellectually knowing that something was very wrong, but not being able to feel that emotion disturbed me greatly.

  “Aye, ’tis exactly what we intend to do. Ye may notice that ye feel a bit calm, ’tis only something that I’ve done so ye will sit still long enough to hear everything. It will recede slowly, but if ye lose yer cool, Grace, I’ll spell ye again.”

  “Spell me?” My tone came off as sarcastic, though after everything, I wasn’t all that inclined to disbelieve her.

  “Aye, lass. Spell ye. I’m a witch and quite a powerful one.” Morna extended a glass of water in my direction, and I took it, sitting up in the bed.

  “’Tis what I meant to tell ye, when…” Eoghanan trailed off.

  My thoughts went right back to Cooper and Jeffrey. “Where are they?”

  Eoghanan was nervous. I could tell by the way he kept fumbling with my fingers, though I didn’t understand why since, for the time being, I wouldn’t get upset no matter what he said. I was entirely incapable of it. As soon as I could feel again, I knew I would be spit-fire angry at being repressed in such a manner.

  “They’re still at McMillan Castle with me family, in the seventeenth century.”

  I nodded skeptically. “Of course they are. So Morna is a witch, you’re a time traveler,” I turned my eyes on Jerry. “What are you? A goblin?”

  The old man frowned at me, “I take offense to that, lass. Do I look like a goblin?”

  I didn’t answer him, instead looking at Eoghanan for further explanation.

  “’Tis like I told ye, Grace. I was only sent here after I almost died. Me brother is married to a lass from this time; her name is Mitsy. Morna sent her back as well. When I was injured, she knew that Morna could save me and sent me forward to her.”

  “Okay,” I couldn’t argue with him. No matter how ridiculous it sounded, no matter how unbelievable, I had seen Jeffrey vanish. There was no doubt in my mind about that. “So why were you in the airport? And the park? Before Jeffrey…you said that Cooper was right about seeing you. Have you been stalking us?”

  “No.” It was Morna who answered, rising quickly to Eoghanan’s defense. “Of course he has no been stalking ye. ’Twas me that sent him to ye.”

  She glanced over at Eoghanan, speaking to him for a moment. “Aye, ye heard me. I lied to ye. I do control where ye go on yer travels.”

  Returning her attention to me, she continued. “The span of time between now and his home was too great with his wound. The spell rips ye apart a bit,”

  I swallowed, thinking of Cooper, grateful for the first time that I couldn’t feel anything.

  Eoghanan must have been able to follow my train of thought, for he interrupted Morna thumbing my hand comfortingly. “Do ye really think that is what ye needed to tell her just now? With her worried about wee Cooper?”

  Morna nodded, dismissing him. “Aye, she needed to know so I could explain why ye dinna go straight home. Besides, she is no worried about anything at the moment.” I hated that she was right. “Back to what I was saying to ye, lass. I have been slowly building his strength in the travel, though it seems there is no more time for that. I know that ye are ready to see that yer boy is well. In just a moment, I will remove the spell from ye, and we will prepare Eoghanan right away.”

  “Prepare him?” After Morna’s description, I could just imagine Eoghanan being ripped apart, only to have his fragile skin not come back together properly. “If he’s not ready, I can go by myself. I just want to make sure Cooper is okay. I don’t want,” I looked at Eoghanan. “I don’t want you getting hurt. I can go alone.”

  He kissed my hand gently and reached up to brush a lock of hair out of my eyes. “Ye are mad if ye think I would let ye do that, lass. I’m going.”

  Morna stood abruptly, nodding as she waved to Jerry so that he’d follow her out the door. “As I thought. Eoghanan, stay with the lass and help her once I lift the spell. When she’s composed herself, both of ye come and find me. We will do the spell tonight.”

  I had one brief moment of confusion where I wondered why I would need help, then the spell lifted. Everything—my panic over my son being gone, my shock at watching Jeffrey disappear, my disbelief that apparently magic existed in the world, my worry over Eoghanan—it all hit me at once.

  As Morna and Jerry left us, closing the door behind them, I collapsed into a fit of sobs.

  Chapter 21

  I didn’t cry long. I couldn’t a
llow myself to waste time that way when all I wanted to do was use Morna’s hocus pocus to get my son back. I didn’t want to cry at all, but as soon as she lifted the spell, I couldn’t help it; the sudden rush of so many emotions sent me into a sort of mini-hysteria, and I gasped and cried and screamed in quick succession.

  I allowed myself five minutes of good, uncontrollable panic. Then I stood from the bed, swallowing all of it.

  “Ok, I’m ready.”

  “Grace,” Eoghanan twisted me so that I faced him. “I promise ye that he’s safe.”

  “Don’t.” I wrenched from his grasp, knowing that if he tried to comfort me, I’d start crying again. He looked as if I’d slapped him. I made haste to apologize, walking toward him and standing up on the tip of my toes, kissing him gently.

  It was the only intimate act between us since our first kiss and rather than the raw heat that had flooded my body last time, the touch of his kiss calmed me, comforted me in a way I’d never experienced before. I realized in that instant that it didn’t matter how little I knew about him, how short the time that we’d known one another—whatever this was between us—it was right.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, wrapping my arms around him, allowing my head to lean against his chest. “It’s just, I’ll lose it again if we talk about it. I don’t understand any of this and it…it scares me.” I let go and took half a step away from him. “Everything scares me right now. Cooper. Jeffrey. Morna. This…” I touched my chest and then his and he grasped my hand, holding it in place against his chest.

  “Ach lass, I have never been so frightened in me life. I know that ye canna understand all of this, no yet, but ye will when ye see it. I know that ye canna help but worry about Cooper, but Morna wouldna let harm come to him and neither would me family. He and Jeffrey are both safe, I’d stake me life on it.”