By tacit agreement neither Giles nor Beth mentioned their knife wounds when the helicopter lowered the doctor to the ground. It was obvious it could not take them all and it had been equally obvious that Liza and Ken should be the ones to go with Adam. Liza’s indomitable spirit had not flagged, but the whiteness of her face and the shakiness with which she had at last stood up had alarmed Beth.
As they stood watching the machine rise into the air and swing away towards the south, Giles put his arm round her shoulders. ‘I’m sure Brid has gone,’ he murmured. ‘Courage?’ he grinned at her.
‘Courage,’ she agreed. She knew it was not what she felt.
Without delay they set off, turning their backs on the cross-slab with its enigmatic carvings, every nerve tensed, each waiting in spite of what they had said, for a growl from the trees, or a glint of a knife in the dark. Ahead of them Moira plodded determinedly on, not allowing herself to think about the white, strained look on her husband’s face as the doctor listened to his heart or the way he had reached out to take her hand as the stretcher had lifted him from the ground.
‘Are you okay?’ Giles caught her up and then stopped and waited for Beth, trying to catch his breath. His arm was back in the sling, he had a sharp pain under his ribs and his left shoulder seemed to have gone numb.
Beth wiped the rain from her face. ‘Can we rest a minute? Are you sure this is the right way?’ There was no sign of movement behind them. If they could get into the trees at least they could have something at their backs, anything other than this vast expanse of heather and scree and blackness.
They reached the treeline at last, where the path dipped dizzyingly downward into the larch and spruce which clung to the hillside in the narrow ravine. There they managed to find the moss-covered trunk of a fallen tree where they could sit, their backs to a solid boulder, and fight to recover their breath.
Moira grinned at them shakily. ‘I’ve been up here dozens of times. Don’t worry. It’s easy, even in the dark. Shall I go first?’ Her hair had whipped free of her scarf and framed her face in a tangled mass of rain-glossed curls.
Giles swept the beam of the hand-held halogen spotlight, which the doctor from the helicopter had given him, around them and nodded. ‘Once we reach the burn we can follow it down. It should be easy then, shouldn’t it?’ He gave them a determined smile. ‘Keep your chins up.’
Slowly they retraced their steps, stopping frequently to regain their breath. Once Beth looked at Giles and reached out to touch his arm. ‘Are you okay?’
‘Sure.’ He nodded. He looked up at the sky. Lightning was still flickering amongst the clouds, although he thought the thunder had abated. The storm was drifting north. ‘I’m fine.’ He breathed a silent prayer: Give us the strength to get back. We can’t do it on our own. And, please, keep that witch away from us. He thought he could make out the path now, in the heather; a streak of darker mud and rock, where on summer days a steady stream of visitors would make their way along the signposted path towards the cross-slab on the hill.
He wasn’t sure what made him turn suddenly. An instinct he hadn’t known he possessed gripped him so strongly that already as he whirled round he had raised the lamp clubwise in his fist. In a split second he saw Brid so close behind them he should have heard her – would have heard her if she had made any sound at all – and he knocked the knife from her hand.
She stopped and he saw her waver. She shook her head slightly as though puzzled, then before their eyes she began to fade. In a moment she had gone.
‘Giles!’ Beth cried out. ‘Are you all right?’
‘In the name of Jesus!’ Moira tumbled up beside them, her feet slipping on the muddy rocks. ‘Say that if she comes again: “In the name of Jesus!”’ She swung her torch round. ‘Where’s the lamp? What happened to the lamp?’ Her voice rose hysterically.
‘I dropped it.’ Giles was gasping heavily. ‘It must have gone out.’ His hands were shaking. ‘Oh God, I hope it’s not broken!’
Brid had been close enough for him to be able to see the jagged bruising on her forehead, and those strange unseeing eyes, fixed not on him but on Beth behind him. He swung Ken’s rucksack off his shoulders. Swallowing his fear he searched the rough canvas with cold frantic fingers, looking for another torch. He found, rattling round at the bottom, an old Swiss Army knife. Slipping it into his pocket he went back to feeling for the torch. His fingers closed over a heavy square shape and he drew it out and glanced down at it. A pen flare kit. Why in God’s name hadn’t Ken remembered these flares when they thought the phone call had not got through?
‘Giles!’ Moira’s strangled gasp brought him to his feet abruptly, his heart thundering with terror.
Brid was there again, only a few feet from them.
Beth’s scream was cut off by Moira’s voice. Her confidence and her faith were strong. She was very calm. ‘In the name of Jesus go, woman. Leave us alone. Go away.’ She stepped forward and put her hand out towards Brid.
‘Moira, be careful!’ Giles’s shout had no effect. Moira stepped forward again.
Brid’s attention was suddenly full on her. She narrowed her eyes. She had not touched the priest; his power was no doubt as strong as Broichan’s, though she had not felt it, but this was the priest’s woman. She was of no importance. She had no power. And she was in the way. The silver knife was back in her hand. With a faint smile she raised it and struck.
Moira’s piercing scream was cut off short as the blood spurted from her throat.
A surge of power shot through Brid and with the dripping knife in her hand, she turned her attention once more towards Beth.
Paralysed by shock, Giles stood between Moira’s body and Beth. The flare gun was still in his hand. Somehow he had freed his arm from the sling again. With fingers almost too weak to move, he tore off the launcher and screwed it with shaking hands into one of the flares, his eyes never leaving Brid’s face. She had taken a step closer and he could see the look of wild exultation in her eyes. He pulled the flare off the clip and began to push back the spring.
‘Giles, help me!’ Beth had picked up a flat piece of rock and was holding it in front of her. She was beyond fear.
Brid smiled, her eyes still fixed unswervingly on Beth. She raised her hand and they both saw the glint of metal from the knife’s blade, still streaked with Moira’s blood, as she began to move.
The spring was too hard. Desperately Giles pushed it back with his thumb. His hands were slippery with sweat, his strength gone. It was their only chance. With one last effort he had it back full. He pointed the flare straight at Brid and let go.
The burning ball of magnesium caught Brid full in the chest. For a moment they saw her, her clothes in flames, her face a mask of fear and pain, then she had gone.
The blackness once the flare had died was total.
‘She was going to kill me.’ Beth closed her eyes. She felt as though she was going to be sick. ‘You saved my life. Oh God, Moira!’
She glanced round in terror. She couldn’t see her. Panic-stricken she groped around for the dropped torch. When at last she found it, she ran a few steps back to where Moira was lying huddled on the path. ‘Moira, are you all right?’ The light beam fell on her and Beth could see the blood soaking through her clothes, pooling on the wet rock, seeping into the grass. There was no doubt that she was dead. ‘Giles!’ Beth’s shout came out as a whisper. Suddenly she was crying.
‘Christ. What do we do now?’ Giles stood looking down. ‘Oh Beth.’ He knelt beside Moira and took her cold hand, feeling hopelessly for a pulse. There was none.
He glanced up into the rain. ‘Poor Moira.’ He took a deep breath. Then he looked round again. ‘I’d better go and see what’s happened to Brid.’ Forcing himself to stand up he took a step forward. Then another. His legs were shaking so much he could hardly move.
Moira’s torch in his hands, he walked slowly back up the track till he reached the spot where the burned branches and scorched grass showed where the flare had landed. He searched round with the help of the torch, shining it over the edge of the rocks, down into the water, up amongst the lichen-draped spruce, into the rocks. There was no sign of Brid.
‘She’s not here. There’s no trace of her. She’s gone. Back to wherever it is she came from.’ He went back to Beth. ‘Are you all right, darling?’
She was leaning against the rock, her face white in the torchlight, tears pouring down her cheeks. Slowly she opened her eyes. She took a long, deep shuddering breath. ‘Are you sure she’s gone?’ She was trembling violently.
He nodded. ‘There’s no trace of anything. No clothing. Nothing. If she had been burned by that flare she would have been unconscious or screaming. Believe me, she has gone.’ He put his hands on her shoulders and gave them a hard, reassuring squeeze. ‘At least for now.’
Adam had nearly made the mistake again.
Each time he had found himself out of his body, his shock and surprise that the technique had worked, and then his subsequent elation and sense of triumph, had been so great he had rebounded straight back into it again and lain there, his heart thudding against his ribs, wondering if he were going to have a heart attack.
At first he had treated Brid as a spirit, a ghost who could be conjured from the dead, and he had wasted precious months practising from ancient texts on necromancy. Then his brain had kicked in. She was a priestess. An initiate of one of the most powerful magical traditions the Western world has ever known. She was not dead. And she was not undead in the vampire sense. She was a time traveller and still very much alive!
The technique had taken a long time to perfect. Different books gave different instructions. None of them gave enough. He suspected many of them, especially the ones he categorised as Celtic California, had been written by people who had never tried it themselves at all. But he had persisted in his studies. If Brid could do it, so could he. Using modern terms and techniques, self-hypnosis was the key to the intentional out of body experience; creative visualisation with a bit of magic thrown in. But he had studied reproductions of Grimoires as well. And John Dee. And Crowley. And Castenada. And finally he had done it. He had found himself poised somewhere near his bedroom ceiling and for the first time stared down at his body, seemingly asleep on his bed. He had learned cautiously to move – drift, really – and then to explore the house room by room. Finally he had plucked up courage to go out and drift around above the garden. One thing terrified him still. In all the literature, fiction and putative fact, there was a silver cord – the link which remained between body and soul, the lifeline by which the traveller could find his way back to his body. He did not appear to have one, or if he did, he could not see it.
There was more to learn of course. He needed to be able to travel vast distances, and he needed to be able to travel in time. And still he did not see how Brid could bring with her on her travels a solid, real body.
This, he suspected, was where the stone with its mirrored sign came in. It was the gateway, the place where the parallel planes somehow interconnected. Perhaps all standing stones marked gateways such as that. By tradition the countryside was full of such sacred places. Water-courses, fords, crossroads, special venerable trees, unusual rocks, hills. They were numerous and well documented. He remembered the time when as a student he had allowed himself to be lured down to the Eildon Hills by Liza to the place where Thomas of Ercildoune had slipped into Elfin Land and stayed there lost for seven years. Try as they might they had not found the exact place!
The first time he tried it up by the symbol stone he had risen from his body, but the old panic had set in. The second time he had drifted quietly in a mood of solemn practise round the stand of Scots pine, and had gone a little way down the burn, following the water, but not too close. To get back to his body he had only to form the intention and there he was. It seemed simple. Too simple.
Halloween was a time when traditionally the veil was thin. It was a shame the weather was so foul, but needs must. He could not wait another year. Carefully he had made his preparations, rehearsed his words, and set out for the stone. His mind had been so totally on the journey to come he had not noticed that he had failed to latch the door properly behind him. Nor had he noticed the prowling cat still waiting in his drive, obsessive, blind, fixated on revenge and hate, trapped in his time as surely as was the victim she waited for, yet not seeing the very man she yearned for and sought so hard.
He was aching in every limb when he reached the stone, and shivering violently, but his excitement was intense. Some part of him, still the highly-trained doctor and twentieth-century man, noted that he would probably die of hypothermia and that he was undoubtedly out of his mind. The rest of him was determined to press on. He sat down, leaning with his back against the stone, and fixed his mind on Brid’s time. On Gartnait and Gemma, and Broichan. Above all on Brid, as he had first known her, young and carefree and wild. It should be easy. After all, he had been there before.
‘He’s in a coma.’ Liza glanced up as Beth and Giles made their way into the intensive care side-ward and stood looking down at the still body on the bed in front of them. At his side the steady electronic beep of the life support machine was the only sound in the room. Adam had been transferred to Edinburgh in the early hours of the morning.
‘Will he be all right?’ Beth asked quietly. She stepped forward and put her hand on the old man’s thin white fingers.
Liza shrugged. ‘No one knows. They can’t find anything wrong now that his temperature has stabilised. He’s just not there.’
‘And you can’t tell them where he is?’ Beth gave a rueful glance at Giles.
Liza shook her head. ‘Hardly! But I’ve asked them to see if they can get hold of Ivor Furness. He took care of Brid many years ago when they had her in a psychiatric hospital in North London somewhere. I remember Adam saying he was the only person who had worked out what might be happening. He had actually watched Brid go into a coma and out of her body and then come back. She murdered one of his nurses.’
Beth shuddered. ‘Murder seems to come very easily to her, doesn’t it.’
She and Giles had spent hours with the police when they had eventually staggered down off the mountain and directed the search party back to where Moira’s body lay, covered by Giles’s jacket. By unspoken agreement they let the police assume that they had been attacked by someone lying in wait in the trees. The only thing which the police found hard to understand was that Moira’s murderer was a woman. She had, they assumed, fled under cover of the explosion of the flare. They were still waiting at Ken’s bedside to tell him of his wife’s death when he was sufficiently recovered from what was thought to be an angina attack.
Liza stood up wearily and stretched. ‘I don’t suppose she was killed.’
Beth shook her head. ‘I don’t know. She just vanished. Completely. No trace.’
Liza looked back at Adam. ‘Perhaps by now she has found him?’ She touched his forehead gently.
Behind them the door of the ward opened and closed again softly. No one turned round. Their eyes were fixed on Adam’s face.
The figure behind them was hazy, almost transparent, as it drifted towards the bed. Her clothes were torn and blackened, the knife sheathed at her girdle. Her gaze was fixed on Adam as he lay motionless on the white sheets.
A-dam.
Liza frowned. It was the merest whisper, somewhere in the back of her head. In the hot room with its relentless hum of air conditioning and electronics, Liza felt a slight draught brush against her skin. She looked up. ‘Beth!’ The fear in her voice made Beth jump. ‘She’s here.’
‘She can’t be.’ Beth backed away from the bed, staring round.
Giles put his good arm round her and pulled her against him. ‘We shouldn’t have come. We’ve brought her with us.’
‘We can’t have.’ Beth shook her head. ‘Oh God, I hate this. Grandfather!’ She looked at him helplessly. ‘Please, come back.’
‘He can’t hear you, Beth.’ Giles was looking at a spot a few feet from the bed, near Liza. He could feel the hairs on the back of his neck standing on end. ‘She’s there. Look.’
The two women stared at the place he was pointing at, and first one and then the other saw her – no more than a faint shadow. Liza stood up and backed away. She was conjuring up the protective light, visualising it around them all, but it wasn’t working.
A-dam, come back to Brid. I love you, A-dam …
‘He hasn’t found her, then.’ Beth’s voice was very sad.
At the sound of it, Brid looked up. She half turned and before their eyes her shadow seemed to become stronger. She looked straight at Beth and her hand went to her girdle, freeing the dagger from its leather sheath.
‘No!’ Beth backed away, clutching at Giles’s arm.
‘Not again.’ He pushed her behind him. ‘Why can’t the bitch leave you alone?’
‘Go away, Beth,’ Liza said quietly.
‘But what about you?’
‘Don’t worry about me. Just go. Take her away, Giles. I’ll follow. She won’t hurt Adam. And don’t call a nurse. She doesn’t like nurses.’
Leave A-dam, child of A-dam’s child!
The voice seemed to echo through all their heads as Brid launched herself across the small room, the knife raised.
A stand holding a plasma drip hurtled sideways against the sink and toppled over. One of the visitors’ chairs was pushed against the bedside table and suddenly an alarm rang. The door flew open and a nurse appeared, behind her a doctor. As they stared, startled, into the room there was a vicious growl.
‘It’s a cat!’ The doctor gave an astonished cry as, with a shriek of rage the cornered animal shot past him out of the door.
‘Leave it, see to the patient!’ The doctor shouted as another alarm went off in the corridor. The ward seemed to be filled with the sound of running feet.
In his bed Adam slept on oblivious. Where he was it was cold and raining, but he had spotted the warmth of a fire down by the edge of the stream outside Gemma’s hut.
The tea shop was small and crowded. It smelled of warm bread and cake and was extremely cosy. Seated at the little round table Liza and Beth and Giles looked round at the other customers – mainly ladies who had finished their shopping and were carefully shepherding treasured carrier bags full of trophies from a hard afternoon’s spending. There were one or two men – exhausted and stressed – but all were cheerful and relaxed in the warmth. Every now and then the shop door would open and they could glimpse outside the dark evening, the wet pavement, with its reflections of street lights and the hiss of car tyres on the road.
Liza picked up her cup and drank from it thankfully. ‘I couldn’t believe it when they accused us of smuggling a cat into the ward!’
‘How else, logically, could it have got there?’ Giles was piling cream and jam on to a fat, crumbling home-baked scone. He felt as though he had only just stopped shaking. Glancing at the two women he knew they felt the same.
Liza rubbed her face with her hands. She had just phoned home again. She wanted Michele there beside her in Edinburgh. Except Michele didn’t come. Her phone calls to him had gone unanswered and their donna delle pulizie had said she did not know when he would return from Rome.
‘I wish I knew how to contact Meryn,’ she went on, shaking her head in frustration. ‘He would know what to do. Listen, I want you two to go back to Adam’s house.’ She reached over and poured herself another cup of tea, noting grimly that her hands were still trembling. ‘Two reasons. I want you to be there in case …’ She hesitated. ‘In case Adam is there – up there, by the stone. All alone.’ She glanced at them both. ‘You understand, don’t you? If he managed it, to travel out of his body, and is trapped somehow.’ She shrugged. ‘I can’t bear to think of him all alone. I don’t know which is him, the man in the hospital bed or the man travelling somewhere out there amongst the stars. And the other reason is that if Brid is going to hang around Adam here in the hospital, you’ll be safer there, well away from her. Out of her reach.’
In the street outside, Brid moved closer to the window. She could see them through the condensation-streaked glass. She remembered Edinburgh, this street, even perhaps this café from when Adam was young and a student and she had been befriended by an old woman called Maggie.
People hurrying through the rain to catch their buses and find their way home barely noticed the shadowy dark figure on the edge of the patch of light which spilled from the window. Without realising why, they parted and moved round her, leaving her alone in her circle of dark stillness, then they moved on, part of the noise and the bustle of the early evening rush.
Brid smiled to herself. The woman Beth had taken refuge inside the café, but she would have to come out soon. She would have to go away on her own and leave this big man who seemed to follow her everywhere. And then she would kill her. Then she could make the blood flow; the blood of the child of A-dam’s child would be rich and strong and full of energy and be perfect for saving A-dam’s life.
The wind was lashing round Shieling House, making the windows rattle. Draughts played across the floor and Beth, huddling in front of the stove, was shivering violently. The place was damp and cold, and there was a strange atmosphere of fear and anger in the air.
‘She’s been here.’ Beth looked round the room after they finally got the wood-burning stove lit. ‘I can feel her. It’s like a poison.’
Giles followed her glance. He could feel nothing but the rather stale, unlived-in feeling of a house that has been shut up for several days without any heating on.
‘I don’t think so.’ He grinned at her. ‘Let’s not worry about Brid. She’ll be in Edinburgh with Adam if she’s anywhere.’
She glanced at him doubtfully. If only she was as certain as he was. She changed the subject. ‘Giles, when are you going back to London to sort it out with Idina?’ She didn’t look at him. ‘You can’t just pretend she doesn’t exist any more.’
‘Why not? She’s pretended I don’t exist often enough.’ He was leafing through one of Adam’s books at the table. In the pool of light beneath the desk lamp the drawings of the symbols were stark. He glanced up as somewhere nearby there was a sudden sliding noise followed by a crash. ‘It’s all right, it’ll be a slate from the roof,’ he said reassuringly. He had seen the immediate terror on her face.
When his phone rang they both looked at it for a moment, then Giles picked it up. Beth watched him anxiously.
‘You gathered what that was about.’ Giles came over to her and put his hand on her shoulder after he switched the phone off. ‘It was Ken. He’s home and he wants to talk about Moira.’
Beth bit her lip. ‘Poor man. Giles, I’m not sure I’m ready for that. I would cry and make things worse.’
Giles nodded. ‘Listen, I think I should go down and see him. Would you mind? Will you be all right on your own up here for an hour or two?’
She wanted to say yes, I do mind, she wanted to scream at him don’t leave me, but she shrugged and forced a smile. ‘No, of course I don’t mind. Poor Ken. It must be so awful for him. You go. But come back before it gets dark. Please.’
Giles turned to the door and reached for his coat. ‘Lock up after me. I won’t be long, I promise. And I’ll leave you the phone.’
She stared at the door after he had gone. The wind seemed to be stronger than ever now, screaming in the eaves, roaring across the hillside like a train. Shivering, she threw some more logs into the stove and went to stand looking down at the book Giles had been studying. It showed a series of rather beautiful stylised Celtic animals and symbols. She stared down at one, a comb and a mirror. Adam had ringed the mirror and scribbled in pencil: Denotes female burial spot or clan totem. Next to it was another rough note – Mirror used in fortune-telling; scrying; necromancy; magic; signifies one world and its mirror image. Then he had drawn five ornate question marks.
‘I wish I knew about this stuff. I wish I could help Grandfather.’ She turned the page. Listening. For what, she wasn’t quite sure. The wind? Voices? The sound of ghostly hoof beats in the dark? Brid?
She shivered and suddenly making up her mind, she walked to the back door and pulled it open, staring outside. There was an icy sharpness to the wind, a fresh clean bite against her face which indicated snow, but the afternoon was empty. There was no one out there.
She tensed. Behind her, in the house, Giles’s phone was ringing. She turned and ran back inside, the door banging behind her. As she reached out for the phone, it stopped. She shrugged. Suddenly she didn’t want to talk to anyone anyway.
Brid felt the pain as though it were in her own chest. She tensed and fought it, not knowing for a moment where she was. She could not focus. She was distracted. Part of her had been on the hillside near the house, watching the child of A-dam’s child standing out there in the garden, her hair blowing in the wind, the other part was with A-dam in the hospital, unseen as doctors and nurses crowded round the bed.
The flat line had appeared on the screen at three p.m. to the accompaniment of a shrill alarm. Frantically they were trying to resuscitate him. Brid wept quietly in the corner, Beth for the moment forgotten. Where was A-dam? Why had he left his body? Surely he would not have risked going back to look for her in a place where Broichan waited at her bedside.
‘He’s gone.’ The voice by the bed was sober.
‘One more try.’ The doctor had picked up the paddles. ‘Stand back, everyone.’
As Adam’s body arced on the bed and the ECG picked up the faintest beat once more, he leaned against the hill-top tree which had supported him as he began to fall and put his hand to his chest, surprised at the agonising pain which had shot through him.
He closed his eyes and tried to breathe calmly. Now was not the time to dive back into his body. Things were getting too exciting. He had seen Gemma come out of her hut to stand by the fire. She was older than he remembered, her hair white now, and her face lined, and she was talking to Gartnait in quick, frightened tones. Adam drifted closer. He called out to them but they did not seem to hear him. Gartnait looked smarter than Adam had ever seen him. Gone was the dusty tunic and leggings. Instead he was wearing an embroidered cloak fastened with a silver brooch, leather thongs criss-crossed his calves and at his waist hung a serviceable-looking sword. They were speaking their own language but he found he could understand them easily.
‘He intends to sacrifice her to the gods. If I do not rescue her, she will die and so probably will we. Don’t you understand, Mother? We have to act!’
Brid! They were talking about Brid.
‘He is waiting beside her day and night. The moment she reenters her body he will seize her and then she will die up here, by my stone. I marked it with her symbol and by doing so I ordered her death with my own hand.’
Gemma shook her head. ‘She will not return. She is not so foolish.’
‘She has grown weak. She is no longer rational, Mother. I’m sorry, but she was not sufficiently trained. She was a fool. A besotted fool.’ He smacked his fist into the palm of his hand. ‘If I could only reach her, out there in the land of dreams, before she tries to come back.’
‘No, Gartnait!’
‘What else can I do? Do we sit and watch Broichan lead her to her death?’
‘If you go to the other world, you may not find her. You may be lost too.’
He turned and stared down into the fire. ‘I shall consult the omens. If I watch the birds I shall know whether to fly with them after Brid into the sunset or turn my back on her and fly towards the dawn.’
‘Gartnait!’ Adam stepped forward and stood above him on the bank.
Gartnait did not turn.
‘Gartnait, I am here, in your time. I came to find Brid!’
It was Gemma who turned and faced him, her face alert like a dog scenting a rabbit. ‘There is someone there!’
‘Gemma! Can you see me?’ Adam stepped forward.
‘Who is it?’ Gartnait turned and looked straight at Adam, and through him. He frowned. ‘Is it Broichan?’
She shook her head. ‘I don’t think so. Beware, my son. We are not alone.’
‘Gemma! Gartnait! Please, it’s me.’ Adam stepped down nearer to them and stood by the fire. The flames dipped and flared a warning and he saw Gemma watch it, wide-eyed, as though listening to its message.
‘Take care. Take care.’ She put her hand on Gartnait’s arm. ‘Broichan is near and he has spies everywhere. Go. Quickly.’
He looked down at her as though trying to read the message in her eyes, then he nodded. ‘I go, Mother. Let your gods go with me.’ He leaped onto the bank where a few seconds before Adam had been standing and he began to run towards the stone.
‘Gemma. You can see me, can’t you?’ Adam moved closer to her. ‘Please!’ He was desperate.
She paused as she was about to go back inside her hut and looked round again, shaking her head as though trying to rid herself of the sound of his voice. Then at last she stopped. ‘A-dam, is that you? I cannot see you, boy, nor can I help you. Go back to your own people, A-dam. Brid is lost. She is no longer with us. She followed you into your time and she is under Broichan’s geas, his curse. She is lost to us all, A-dam. Lost.’
She paused for a moment, as though listening for his reply, then she turned and ducked back into the hut.
Adam stared after her, then down at his own body. Boy, she had called him. To himself he looked as he had looked when he sat down at the foot of the stone in his own century, an old man in a worn waxed jacket with under it two thick Shetland sweaters and a shirt; an old man, with drawn, wrinkled skin and wiry hands and wild white hair.
Turning he scrambled out of the hollow and hurried after Gartnait. He had to reach the stone before him. He had to make himself understood. He had to travel back with him, then they could search for Brid together.
The stone was wreathed in mist. Panting, he slid down a gully and climbed up the other side. In front of him, hurrying away from him into the darkness, he could see a figure. ‘Gartnait!’ he shouted. ‘Wait!’ The figure did not hesitate; it moved on, swiftly, skirting a soft boggy area of ground and then leaping up over some rocks. ‘Gartnait!’ Adam could feel his chest tightening. He was beginning to gasp. He was forced to stop for a moment, doubled up, trying to regain his breath. When he straightened he could barely see the figure in the distance. He hurried on, and then as he came to the top of the last outcrop before the pine wood he halted again. He could see Gartnait now, his sword catching a stray ray of light escaping between the low-lying clouds. It would soon be dusk.
Adam stiffened. There was a movement near him, in the rough heather moorland to his right. Someone else was following Gartnait to the stone. Adam went cold. He dropped to one knee to make himself less visible and craned round, trying to pinpoint the movement again. Perhaps it was a stag, or a fox in the heather. It was a man. He saw him now, clearly. He was obviously following Gartnait, bending low, hiding, ducking between pieces of cover as he drew closer to his quarry. ‘Gartnait!’ Adam’s warning was only a whisper. What could he do? Crawling now, he made his way laboriously towards the stone, as quietly as he could.
Gartnait reached the small plateau where the stone stood and touched it with his hands, tracing the carvings lovingly, obviously remembering each and every one, the hard work of months in the open with his precious tools. He stooped and Adam saw him put his hand on the carving of the mirror – Brid’s sign, the sign of a priestess who could summon the power to travel to other planes of existence. Then he stood up again and raised his hands above his head. He was staring up, Adam realised suddenly, at a skein of birds flying low over the hillside towards the westering sun, studying their flight. It was the sign. The birds had told him to follow his sister towards the light.
For a moment he stood there, and Adam watched him carefully. Gartnait seemed lost in thought, his eyes closed, his face still. He put his hands, palms flat, against the stone, and he had gone. Adam gasped. Where Gartnait had stood there was another man – a tall man with wild hair and a long black robe which blew against his legs in the wind: Broichan. In an instant, he too had gone, following Gartnait out of sight.
‘Oh my God!’ Adam sat down, his hand pressed against his mouth. He stared round, checking there had been no one with Broichan. As far as he could see the hillside was empty. He glanced over his shoulder. If only he could speak to Gemma, tell her what had happened. But it was no use. She could not hear him. There was only one option. He had to try and go back. He had to rejoin his body, lying still by the stone but in another time, and see if he could see Gartnait there. Cautiously he stood up and made his way across the grass and scree towards the great finger of stone where it pointed up towards the sky.
As he laid his hands gently on its surface as he had seen Gartnait do, he had no way of knowing that his body, the vehicle of his dreaming, questing mind, had gone.