LOCH MORAR, SCOTLAND
The Past
“Was that…that…man, your father?”
Clarion was silent a moment, too caught up in the horror of what he had just witnessed to speak again just yet.
Finally, he turned haunted eyes on me, and nodded.
“Aye, that was my sire.”
“Why did he do that?”
“I can no know his thoughts, but I could see his actions as ye witnessed as well.”
“I feel like I am going to be sick.”
“Aye,” he said. “I feel the same.”
“So, he made the dagger to use it against her?”
“Aye, it would seem so.”
“But why did he do it?”
“I can no say. Greed, lust, something sinful to be sure, but what his true intent was I do no know.”
“That was the gypsy that sent me back in time. Granted, she looks different, older, but I know it was the woman. But how can that be?” I asked more to myself than to him.
“I believe she is trying to seek her revenge.”
“Yeah, I get that. But what do I have to do with it?”
“Mayhap ye were no part of her plan and jes got mixed up in it somehow. Mayhap anyone would do. I do no know.”
I still felt sick. I couldn’t seem to get the awful vision from my mind. “That poor woman.”
“That thing is no real woman, lass,” Clarion said suddenly. “She, or rather, it, is something else entirely.”
“Well, maybe she is not, but what they did to her was unforgiveable.”
“Aye,” he agreed as a deep sadness settling upon him. “It is unforgiveable.”
I felt sick for Clarion, and myself, and that poor woman, or whatever she was; she didn’t deserve what they did to her. “But it wasn’t your fault…”
“I may not have been the one who did the foul deed to her, but I will be the one ta pay for it, I fear.”
“Wait. What?”
“I have ta get the dagger else my kin will all die.”
“And what does this have to do with Gavin?”
Clarion lifted his haunted eyes to hers. “He is my brother.”
I also knew that answer before he gave it to me, or rather, I was almost ninety nine percent sure of the answer but it still did not lesson the blow of hearing him say it out loud. “Oh, God.”
“Nay, lass.” He shook his head solemnly back and forth. “God has nothing ta do with this…this… foul business. It is much darker, I fear. It is evil.”
I gulped reflexively. “And what do you plan on doing?”
“It is an either-or situation.”
“What does that mean?”
“Either I kill the creature or the creature will kill not only me but my kin till our line is extinguished forever.”
“I see.” Actually, I didn’t see at all. Nothing made sense. Creatures, monsters, horrible things done to that poor woman that no woman should ever have to endure and for what? What? It didn’t make any sense, but neither did me traveling to the past in the first place and why did she send me here? Where did I fit in to all this…evil?
“Lass,” he said and then cleared his throat, seemingly finding it hard to talk suddenly. “She sent ye here for a purpose and I can promise ye, her intent was no pure. Do ye ken what I am saying ta ye?”
Oh, I kenned all right, but it still didn’t make a bit of sense to me and I said as much, “It still doesn’t make any sense.”
“I understand yer plight, however, ye are now part of this business whether ye want ta be or not.”
“So, um, what does that mean, for me and Gavin,” I said, and added, “And you…”
It took a moment for him to answer but when he finally did, I kind of wished he had lied. “We have ta kill the creature, or we will,” he stressed, the last, “die.”
“Including me?” I covered my mouth ashamed of my own selfish question.
“Aye, lass, including ye.”
“Oh.” I lowered down to the ground, trying to take a breath. I felt sick, and tired, and too many other things to list.
Clarion lowered to ground at my side and took hold of my cold clammy hand. “Lass, ye will be fine. I promise.”
That didn’t assuage my fears as much as I would have thought considering my previous albeit, very selfish, admission a moment ago. “I don’t want you or Gavin to die, either.”
His lips tilted up at the corners into a small sad smile. “I know.”
I curled my fingers around his and placed my other hand on top as if to hold them in one place for my hands were both shaking something fierce.
He put his other hand on top of mine and turned to look out across the field of grass shifting in the breeze.
His profile was so like Gavin’s it was hard discerning the two from one another with the exception of his eyes and that he had a ragged scar on the side of his neck.
“How did that happen? “Disentangling one of my hands from his hold, I reached up and touched the puckered skin with the tips of my fingers.
“Morag tried ta slit my throat.”
I gasped in horror. “Why would she do that?”
He shrugged indifferently. “I was no acting the way she wanted.”
“The full blood moon will be rising soon.” He stood.
I stood too and brushed off my skirts. I reached out and touched his arm. Underneath I could feel something moving under the tips of my fingers and jerked my hand away. “What is wrong with your arm?”
He turned his head but not before I saw the look of sadness cross his face and then I immediately felt horrible all over again.
“I…” He shook his head.
I grabbed hold of his arm again, purposefully putting my hand over the mark that was moving and as soon as my hand landed on top, another vision assailed us both.
♦
The wind tore at my hair, making it stand on end as the boat weaved and bobbed in the tumultuous waters. The men, the ones I had seen in the cabin in the previous vision were making their way up on the deck. The woman, or creature, or whatever she was, was with them. Each of the four men had hold of either her arms or legs as they carried her to the upper deck where the storm was in full gale. Without a word they hoisted her up. She was steadily chanting some kind of gibberish that I could not understand.
The man named Nathanial lifted the hideous dagger in the air as the wind and rain sliced against him, he too said something but I couldn’t understand what it was.
And then to my horror, just like Callum and Muir had done to me at the loch, with a ‘heave ho’ they swung her out and released her body from their grasp, tossing her into the black swirling water below.