Chapter Twenty-Two

Queasiness gripped her, stomach threatening to overturn water she drank in place of breakfast. She could have grabbed some toast or poured herself a bowl of cereal before leaving the flat, but after half a year of rising after noon, food first thing in the morning was easy to forget. By the time she realized food would serve her well, nerves kept her from doing any more than sipping from the bottle as she traveled north.

Mouth suddenly dry, she reached for the half-full bottle and gulped the remains down. Still in hand, she twisted the top on and then back off. Her hands needed something to do, the churning of her stomach impossible to ignore. She’d planned to stop for some lunch on her way back to St Andrews. Either it was good she was half-starved—she wasn’t vomiting a toasty onto the gravel parking lot—or a terrible mistake.

She fidgeted under his gaze. He waited for her to say something. Anything. But she had nothing to give him. Her entire identity was crumbling around her, chipped and hacked away until she didn’t even recognize herself. What was she supposed to do with all of this?

Curling up in his lap didn’t seem like the right answer, though it held a certain appeal. Being with him was easy, and it would be nothing to forget fighting with him on the street only a few days prior. All he would have to do was wrap her in his arms and soothe the fear away. Perhaps they could travel back to the cottage in the forest and never leave. Lost away from time, hidden from Mora and Iain, from history and the future.

But how could she ignore Elizabeth or Ailsa or whatever her name was? Accepting that she was linked to the woman took a considerable leap of faith. And if she did, what did that mean for her and Alec?

Who did he really want? Evie? Or Elizabeth?

Maybe she wasn’t ready to find out.

“I think I need to be alone, Alec.”

“Evie.”

“I just… I can’t do this right now.” She turned watery eyes to him. “I can’t be who you need me to be right now. Ever. I can’t be Elizabeth.”

“Evie, I don’t want you to be Elizabeth. I want—”

The desperation in his voice tore at her, but she held a hand up to stop him. “I just need time, Alec. I need time to figure all of this out. Alone. You being here… I can’t wrap my head around it with you breathing down my neck.”

Her words came out far harsher than intended. She heard it the minute they passed through her lips but couldn’t take them back. Wasn’t sure she wanted to.

Alec deflated before her eyes, the color draining from his face and the brightness in his eyes dimming. Slowly, he nodded and then leaned down for his bag. He pulled out a skein of red wool wrapped tightly in a sandwich bag and placed it on the dashboard. “I hope that someday you follow this back to me.”

He opened the door and walked into the coming storm.

As Alec disappeared from view, Evie wondered if she would ever see him again.

****

Evie stared at the yarn for a long moment before plucking it off the dashboard. Rolling it from one palm to the other, she tested its weight as it passed over the plastic. What hurt more? She cupped it in her left hand. Losing Calum? It fell into her right. Or intentionally pushing Alec away?

The yarn didn’t have any answers. She huffed, dropped the bag into the passenger seat, and reversed the car. Sarah’s preferred music—electronic dance music—played over the speakers, the bass vibrating up through the seat upholstery. The tracks on the playlist all sounded the same, but Evie turned the volume up, anyway. Losing herself to the rhythm and her thoughts might distract from the dull ache somewhere in the vicinity of her heart.

Ailsa. Was she still there? Could she reach into the dark recesses of her mind and find the other woman curled up and hiding like a sleeper cell? Would she hear her voice? Her thoughts? Would she be like some sort of spirit guide, pushing her from one otherwise ill thought out decision to another? Or were she and Elizabeth one in the same?

That gave her pause. Was she this other woman, slipping through life by another name? Evie wished she’d demanded more information about the dead who pass through the Otherworld’s solstice kingdoms.

Or perhaps there was the third possibility. None of it was real.

Why she couldn’t latch onto that option? Knowing in some way she was once Elizabeth Meyner Carlisle gave her a sense of peace she hadn’t expected. And the thought of it all being a fairytale left her unnerved. Her fingers gripped the steering wheel as the snow began to come down harder and faster, obscuring the markings on the narrow country road. She considered pulling over but knew as long as she could keep the center line in her field of vision she would be okay. She was close, just the Leuchars roundabout stood between her and the last stretch of road that would take her back to the flat on Hope Street.

Outside, the wind whipped the long grasses covering the hills into a frenzy. They buckled and swayed, shuddering as strong gusts heaved up the coast. The wheel jerked in her hands as the car rocked against them. Only a few more miles.

She slowed as she came to the roundabout and carefully checked all directions for traffic. But she was the only driver stupid enough to be out on the roads during a winter storm. She and a small flock of crows staring her down from the grassy center of the intersection.

Alarm bells rang inside her head.

Beware the crows.

No sooner did the memory fill her mind than a pair of headlights flashed in her rearview mirror. She slowly pulled into the traffic circle, and the other car settled in close behind.

She tried to keep her eyes on the road, but the rearview mirror taunted her, and she flicked her gaze up to it.

Mora had found her, that much was certain.

But why? What was so special about Evie? Why was Elizabeth of such value? Nothing Alec told her was enough to form a theory,

She sped down the road, slowing only as she entered town to creep down the street. She pulled in next to the rose garden outside the flat and turned off the car. The bright lights followed her, the soft purr of the other engine rumbling in the quiet, snow-strewn street a few car lengths back.

She would never know what her value was to Mora.

Unless she asked.