Born of Fire

by Kella McKinnon

  Bridei relaxed his posture a bit; he trusted the wise woman, and had always valued her advice. “What would you have me do? What have the spirits told you, woman?”

  Meara sat back in her chair, confident that she had the King’s full attention. “Our people are ancient. We have made our home in these lands far longer than any others, both our peaceful allies and the enemies that would kill us and take what is ours. Many people have come, and many more will. Things will change…we will change, and as our youth find mates among foreign tribes and new ideas are traded for old, we will lose much of what makes us unique. Our language, our customs, the knowledge of the ages we have lived on this earth, it will slowly disappear.”

  His brow furrowed; he knew she was right. He’d already seen it happening, in small ways. Already many of his people spoke Gaelic as well as Pictish. It pained him to imagine that their beautiful culture might one day be so changed that he wouldn’t even recognize it.

  “How do I stop it?”

  She smiled faintly. “Ah, you can’t stop it. But you can preserve it. We must gather all that we can into one place for safekeeping. A great cache. All of our knowledge, all of our scrolls, our language, our customs…it can be kept safe by one family, down through the ages. Guardians of all that is Pict. Keepers of our ways.”

  As the last scroll was copied and placed carefully into a sturdy wooden trunk to be placed into the keeping of the chosen family, Meara did not tell Bridei that she had added her own scrolls as well, ones that had been written by Fate’s own hand.

  If the lass was from the spirit world, then he wouldn’t be able to keep her here with him. Bridei found that he didn’t like that idea. “How do you know about the scrolls I gave to Domnall?” he demanded again.

  “I am part of that family. They are my ancestors”, Nessa told him.

  “Lass, you make no sense. I left instructions with Domnall only three moons past, and I know for certain that you are not of his line, because the man has only sons.”

  “I am though…just really far down the line. Thirteen centuries, in fact. I came here from the future…I think.” Angus had gone on once about parallel universes, but she was going to stick with the easiest explanation possible. “My uncle brought us both here through some sort of doorway, and it opened up into the well.”

  His eyes widened just a little and he leaned back, looking her over as if he were just seeing her for the first time.

  “So that is what you meant when you told me you fell through a hill, the first day we met. Are you are telling me that Domnall kept his word to me, as did his descendants, for thirteen centuries? How is that possible?”

  “I think they were all so afraid of the curse, that they didn’t dare not keep his word.”

  “What curse?” He looked a bit alarmed. “Has someone cursed you, Ashta?”

  “No! Or, maybe? You threatened Domnall’s line with a curse if they ever broke their word and failed to keep the language and stories and knowledge…all of that stuff.” She waved her hand to include whatever else was in that trunk. “I don’t know what the curse is though, Gram never told me exactly what would happen, if she even knew herself.”

  He laughed, a deep, almost melodic sound. “There is no real curse. That was only to be certain Domnall would do as I said. He is a very superstitious man. I knew such a threat would make him diligent.”

  Nessa eyed him cautiously. “So do you believe me?”

  Bridei looked at her long and hard while she squirmed under his scrutiny. Finally, he nodded slowly. “I suppose I have to. No one else knew about Domnall, and why else would you have thrown yourself into the well? I have to admit, I was a bit worried that you were losing your mind.”

  He believed her. He believed her! A wave of relief washed over her and she slumped in her chair a little. To finally have someone know what had happened to her…to no longer have such a weighty secret…tears stung her eyes.

  But there was still one more unanswered question, one that would affect the course of the rest of her life, however short or long that would be. “What are you going to do with me?” she asked.

  His eyes were soft and dark as he looked at her; his expression unreadable.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Meara!”

  Bridei burst through the door without waiting for an invitation, but there was no one inside the dark little house. He spun on his heel and went back out. “Meara!”

  “Over here!” called a voice from somewhere to his left.

  He found her tending her herb gardens in the yard. She was kneeling on the ground, and her hands were stained green and brown with soil and leaves. She looked up in acknowledgement and gave him a smile, but kept working.

  “Did you need something?” she asked.

  “Not long ago, Meara, you bade me have a scribe copy all of my scrolls and more and entrust them to a single family for generations to come.”

  “Aye.”

  “I did so.”

  “I know. And I’m glad.”

  “And do you know what came of it?” He suddenly narrowed his eyes. “Oh, aye…you must know. Is this your plotting and planning?”

  Meara drew her small knife across the stem of a plant, placing the fragrant greenery in her basket. “I’m not sure what you mean.”

  “Aye, you do! You must! The lass, Nessa!” He paced in a small circle and stopped again. “Did you know she would come?”

  Meara paused her work and looked up at him. “No. I didn’t know that. Suspected, maybe, but didn’t know. I only do what the Spirits tell me.”

  “But from another time? Did you know that hundreds of years had passed since I gave Domnall those scrolls?”

  She raised an eyebrow. “What are you talking about Bridei?”

  “She says she is Domnall’s descendant, Meara. From a time so far from now I can’t even fathom it.”

  Meara blinked, but looked otherwise unfazed. “Well, if she’s here now, then there’s a reason for it. There’s a reason for all of it.” She sliced a few stems from another one of the plants, and dropped them into the basket as well.

  “You will have to be patient until the reason shows itself.”

  “Patient? How can I be patient when apparently I have been cursed by some unknown hand!”

  “Cursed?” Meara turned back to her plants, but a little smile played across her lips.

  “Aye, cursed.”

  “How are you cursed, my King?”

  “I can’t stop thinking about her. Wanting her. It’s madness.”

  Bridei slid his hands through his long, dark hair, pulling at it in agitation. “I can’t get her out of my thoughts. I have the responsibility of thousands of lives and the freedom of thousands more, and here I am lusting after a woman. I have even found myself entertaining thoughts of making her mine. What sort of King am I, to be so weak? She is only a single woman, and I need to put my people, all of them, first.”

  “Ah, you are not weak. She calls to your heart, and the heart will always answer. It cannot be thwarted like the mind or the flesh. Perhaps she is the one, my king.”

  Bridei paused his pacing and looked at Meara for a long moment, considering her words—Domech had said the same thing not long ago—but then he shook his head in dismissal. “Even if she was, it isn’t the time for it. I can’t have a woman of my own when I’m mounting a war.”

  Meara laughed softly. “Love never comes at the perfect time. It happens only when you are ready. I can see that you are ready.”

  “I’m not ready. Especially not for her. Sometimes it hurts just to look upon her.”

  “And that is how you will know. A true soul mate will break you first, so that you can both build something new and stronger from the broken pieces. Together.”

  Bridei sighed. Perhaps he had hoped that Meara would tell him that he had been cursed, and that the curse could be easily broken. But if there wasn’t a curse, then his obsession was his own.

  He shook his head slowly. “H
ave you ever wanted something so badly that you can actually feel it making you crazy, each moment you can’t have it?”

  “What if it’s something that you can have, after all?” Meara asked. “After all, an insane king will not do a very good job of leading an army, I suspect.”

  “Nor will a king who cannot drag himself from a woman’s bed,” Bridei growled.

  Meara laughed. “It sounds like you’re in terrible need. Also not good when leading an army. It makes one cranky and easily provoked.”

  Meara was right, Bridei decided. Meara was always right. He had done everything in his power to keep himself from wanting what he shouldn’t want; needing what he shouldn’t need, and it hadn’t worked. If the lass had travelled here; if everything had lined up just right so that she was here with him now… Now. Then who was he to fight it anymore?

  He took the steps of the broch two at a time, his heart racing much faster than the physical exertion would have accounted for. His fingers trembled as he pulled the door latch. Even then, he knew in his bones that whatever came next would be different—more—than he’d ever known with a woman before. If he let something begin between them, he doubted he had the power within him to end it. He felt as if the rest of his life was about to change in a way he’d never imagined.

  Nessa was sitting on the bed, and though she had been gazing out the window, she turned when the door opened, her lips slightly parted in surprise.

  “I’ve spoken to Meara”, he told her.

  She sat up straighter. “Does she know why I’m here? How this is possible?”

  He shook his head, his lips curving into the beginnings of a smile. “No, though she did mention Fate.”

  “Does she know how I can get home again?” Her question was so hopeful…

  A sudden, unaccountable ache filled his chest, and his smile fell. Just because he wanted her, he realized, didn’t mean she wanted him in return. “I’m not certain I want you to go home.” He moved to sit near her on the bed, and he felt her body tense beside him.

  “But I thought you believed me.”

  “I do”, he assured her. This wasn’t going quite the way he had hoped, so he changed the subject. Perhaps he would have to woo her more slowly. Perhaps he had let his ego and his usual ease with women make him overconfident. “Tell me about your family; your home. I want to know.”

  She hesitated, and he picked up her hand, holding it in both of his. It was soft and smooth and trembled just a little. But it felt right in his own larger grasp.

  “Tell me.”

  She looked down at her lap. “There was only my grandmother and my uncle left. My mother lived far away, and I never knew my father.” He nodded his encouragement, and she continued. “My mother was only with him one time, and she didn’t even know his name. She didn’t want to not have the baby because of her beliefs, but she didn’t want to raise a child either. My grandmother raised me as if I was her own daughter.”

  “I don’t understand. How could she have not borne the child, once it was growing inside of her?”

  Nessa looked suddenly uncomfortable. “In my time…a woman who becomes pregnant can choose…she could choose not to have the baby at all. There are ways…medicines to both prevent and end the pregnancy.”

  Bridei couldn’t fathom such a thing. “Why? Is a child not a gift from the gods?”

  “There are reasons. Things are so different where I come from. The father of the baby might leave the woman with no support, and she might not have enough…wealth…of her own to raise a child. Or maybe the woman was raped, or just wasn’t ready to be a mother. It’s complicated.”

  “And your father was a man such as this, who would leave his woman and child to suffer?” He squeezed her hand a little tighter.

  She shrugged, as if it meant nothing to her. “I don’t think he even knows I exist. I was fine though. I had my grandmother to take care of me. I never wanted for anything.”

  There was a loud, urgent knocking at the door.

  Bridei glared at it in annoyance for a moment before answering. “Enter.”

  It swung open wide, revealing a rather frantic-looking Namet.

  “What is it?” Bridei asked irritably. He had only just gotten Nessa to start opening up to him.

  “Angus has been found.”

  Nessa jumped up off the bed as if she’d been burned, pulling her hand abruptly from his. “He has? Oh my god, where is he? Is he alright?”

  “Oh my god, Angus, where have you been?” Nessa rushed toward her uncle, wrapping her arms around him in a hug that most definitely said I thought I’d never see you again. He let her squeeze him for a moment, then impatiently pushed her away. Angus never was one for affection. “Where were you? I looked for you! Everyone was looking for you!”

  “I went back home…”

  “What?” Nessa froze. She hadn’t even considered, not for a moment, that he’d gone home. “You went back without me? You left me here?”

  He shook his head briskly. “No, no, I went for help. I didn’t think I could get you away from them by myself. They had you locked in that tower. How did you get out?”

  “Help? What do you mean you went for help? You didn’t bring anyone else here, did you?” She looked around furtively, but there didn’t seem to be anyone out of place. Without answering her, Angus switched subjects, as he often did.

  “We’re too early, Nessa. We have to go back…try again. This is only the year 685.”

  She put her hands on her hips. “We? Who’s we? I never thought this was a good idea! We are going home and staying there!”

  “But we…I…” Suddenly her uncle clutched at his chest with both hands, his face turning sickly pale right in front of her eyes. She gasped in horror as he sunk to his knees, reaching for her as if she could hold him up.

  “Uncle Angus! What’s wrong?” She quickly moved behind him, supporting his weight as she carefully lowered him the rest of the way to the ground. “Here, lie down!” She looked around, frantic. “Help! Something’s wrong with my uncle! Oh Angus…”

  Someone must have gone to fetch Meara, because she was beside them just moments later, kneeling in the dirt to put her hands-on Angus’s chest.

  “It’s his heart”, Meara said. But Nessa already knew that. In reality she’d known from the moment he went down. Damn junk food! She’d warned him! Hadn’t she warned him? Yes, a thousand times or more!

  “It’s okay Angus. It’s all going to be okay.” People survive heart attacks all the time, she told herself. “You just stay with me alright? Just take deep breaths.” She looked around at the small crowd that had gathered. “Doesn’t anyone have any medicine? Anything at all?” What she wouldn’t have given in that moment for a phone, an ambulance, and a state-of-the-art cardiac ward at a hospital. Instead, all she could hope for was a miracle. Maybe if she could get him to the well in time…

  Suddenly Angus made another small sound of distress, and before her eyes his complexion went from merely pallid to a deathly grey. His lips were turning an alarming shade of blue. Meara put a hand on her shoulder. “I’ve seen this many times before. He won’t live, Nessa dear. You have to say your goodbyes now and let him go to the Spirits that wait for him.” Her fingers went to the pulse point in his neck and she shook her head. “He’s already gone. I’m sorry.”

  “No…CPR…I need to do CPR…”

  Everyone looked on in silent bewilderment as she began pressing on his chest and blowing into his mouth. She heard a few vague mumblings. ‘She’s trying to blow the life back into him. It won’t work’. ‘Some people lose their mind with grief.’ ‘Someone should stop her so the man can go to his rest. The spirits will be already waiting for him.’

  She continued the chest compressions, even knowing deep down it wasn’t going to work. As the realization slowly sank in, she pressed harder and harder against his silent heart, until she was practically beating on him.

  “Damn it! I told you to take better care of your health, but d
id you ever listen? No! What am I supposed to do now, huh? Just look at this mess you’ve gotten me into, and then you go and die on me?” Tears were streaming down her face and she couldn’t quite catch her breath.

  She hadn’t even believed him.

  “You can’t just go back in time and change the world—it would be—I don’t know—you just can’t!” She had finished lamely. Uncle Angus wasn’t listening to her anyway. He was fiddling with a long, clear, shining crystal that was jutting out from the side of some contraption he had been working on.

  “Of course I can”, he said simply.

  Nessa sighed. There was no use arguing with him, because he didn’t think like her, or anyone else for that matter, and the strange contraption wasn’t going to work, anyway. How could it? You couldn’t just travel through time with something you built in the back room; that was impossible.

  “I followed the instructions exactly, Ness. The ancients knew what they were doing. They knew how the universe works much better than we do today. They paid attention to things.”

  That was probably very true. Not many people paid attention to much more than their cell phones and televisions now days. Who knew what they were missing? Trees could be talking out loud and no one would notice.

  “I need to test it and maybe tweak a few things if it doesn’t work right. Can you take me to Clough Hill tomorrow? Tomorrow is Wednesday”, he reminded her. They always spent Wednesdays together.

  “Okay, if that’s what you want to do. It’s a nice walk.” She grabbed her purse and keys off the table. “I’m going out, but I’ll be home in time for dinner, okay?”

  “Aye.”

  She turned at the door and stuck her head back in. “But don’t start cooking until I get back, okay? The last thing we need is another kitchen fire.”

  Clough Hill had turned out to be a doorway.