Promise of a Highlander

by Baker, Katy

  She turned a corner and found a crumbling wall blocking her path. It looked like it might once have been the gable-end of a large building. It reached at least two storeys and ended in a point at the top. Most of it had collapsed though and now it formed a skeletal arch through which she could see the gray sky.

  She frowned. That archway looked like it could fall any minute – a definite safety hazard. Why hadn’t the site safety report mentioned it? She’d need to get it roped off and a team out here to take a look right away.

  She turned around, ready to head back to the mess tent—and nearly collided with somebody who was standing behind her.

  She jumped, letting out a little shriek of surprise, and pressed her hand to her chest. A short figure was standing on the path, wrapped in a thick coat. A wizened hand reached up to pull down the hood and Lia started in surprise as she recognized the wrinkled features and iron-gray bun of Irene MacAskill.

  “Close yer mouth, dear,” the old woman said with a smile. “Or ye might catch some flies.”

  “Irene?” Lia said incredulously. “What...how...why..?”

  Irene smiled, making the skin around her eyes crinkle. “My, that’s a lot of questions, dear. Which one would ye like me to answer first?”

  Lia shook her head, trying to gather her thoughts. “What are you doing here? Nobody told me you were involved in this project.” Then a thought hit her. “Wait a minute. You were at the firm’s headquarters. I met you in the elevator. Were you there to see Howard MacCarthy? Are you the contact from our European office that he spoke to? Is that why you’re here? Is that why I’m here?”

  Irene pursed her lips. “Even more questions, lass. My head is fairly spinning! But only one is important: why are ye here? Isnae that obvious? Ye are here because of the choices ye made. Now ye face another one.”

  Lia forced a laugh. “Of course I do—which cookies to have with my coffee! Come on, let’s get out of this rain.”

  But Irene didn’t move. Her gaze was hard and penetrating, seeming to see right into Lia’s soul. A shiver walked down her spine and it had nothing to do with the rain dripping down her neck.

  “You’re... you’re not here about the project are you?” she said with sudden certainty.

  Irene cocked her head. “I am here to restore the balance. Will ye help me?”

  Lia blinked. What on Earth was she talking about? Lia ought to laugh her words off. But she didn’t. The back of her neck suddenly prickled. She spun around, staring at the archway and realized something strange was happening in the space between its pillars. The air shimmered like heat-haze, rippling and contorting. Then, as Lia watched, images began to coalesce as though she was suddenly looking through a window.

  Lia saw a castle perched on a rocky coast. Two men were standing on the shore as waves lashed around them. One of the men reached out to the other but shadows sprang up, engulfing him. He disappeared, leaving the other kneeling on the wet sand, his head bowed, auburn hair falling forward to cover his face. Suddenly the man looked up, met her eyes, and Lia gasped as she was pierced by his powerful gaze. She’d never seen this man before but she was certain, more certain than she’d ever been of anything, that she knew him.

  Shocked, she stepped back a pace. “What is this?” she gasped. “What is going on?”

  Irene watched her steadily. “I think ye know, lass. It is time to make yer choice, my dear. Will ye walk through the archway? Will ye walk towards yer destiny with yer head held high, in full knowledge of the difficulties ye will face along the way?”

  Lia’s stomach churned. She couldn’t get the image of that man out of her head. Even though she hadn’t seen him clearly, the image of him on his knees, head bowed on the sand, seemed seared into her brain. She found herself taking a step towards the archway.

  This is crazy, she thought. Turn around and go back to the mess tent! What the hell are you doing?

  But she took another step and another until she was standing right beneath the arch. She glanced back, found Irene MacAskill watching her. In her dark coat, and with the back-drop of the cloud-wreathed sky behind her, she seemed to be part of the storm itself, a force of nature.

  Turning to face the archway, Lia stepped through.

  Chapter 3

  Lia’s stomach knotted with a sudden sensation of falling. For a second she was certain she was about to throw up but the sensation passed as quickly as it had come. She staggered, throwing out her arms, and one hand sank into spongy ground.

  She pushed herself unsteadily to her feet. What was that? What had just happened? She pressed a hand to her forehead, looked around, and started in surprise.

  Irene MacAskill had disappeared. The walls that had risen out of the ground around her only a moment before were little more than piles of stones sticking out of the turf. But worse than this, there was no sign, no sign whatsoever, of the abbey or the building site that surrounded it. Instead, there was only an empty hillside scoured by rain.

  Lia blinked. What the—? She squeezed her eyes shut, scrubbed at her face with the heels of her hand, and opened her eyes again. The scene remained the same. The only recognizable thing was the arch rising above her, the flimsy remains of a gable wall, looking like it might collapse any minute.

  Lia turned in a slow circle, eyes roving over the landscape, trying to figure out just what was going on. But no matter which way she turned the view remained the same: the rain-drenched Highland hillside and a biting wind.

  “Irene!” Lia yelled, cupping her hands to her mouth. “Irene, can you hear me? Where are you? Where am I? What have you done to me?”

  The wind tore the words from her mouth and scattered them like leaves. No answer came back.

  Holy shit, Lia thought. Am I dreaming? Or have I gone completely crazy?

  She pinched herself. No, not dreaming.

  Think, Lia told herself, fighting a rising panic. Think this through. You felt ill a moment ago. Sick and dizzy. That’s it. You must have gone out to check the site, been taken with a fever, and imagined the whole incident with Irene. You’ve wandered off and gotten lost. The site won’t be far away. Ring Brian. He’ll come fetch you.

  Calmed a little by this logic, she fumbled in her pocket for her cell and pressed it gratefully to her ear. Nothing happened. She glanced at the screen to see the icon flashing to tell her there was no signal.

  Lia threw up her hands in frustration. Fabulous! Just absolutely freaking awesome!

  She was lost in the Highlands with no phone signal and it was raining hard enough to crack dinner plates. With an exasperated huff Lia pulled her coat tighter around her.

  It was then that she spotted someone watching her. A teenage girl stood about fifty paces away, staring with wide eyes. The girl was dressed strangely in a thick woolen dress with a threadbare shawl wrapped around her face to keep out the rain.

  “Hi!” Lia yelled, waving a hand. “Don’t suppose you’ve got a cell signal have you? Mine’s gone dead.” She held up her cell phone, the display seeming ridiculously bright in the gloomy day.

  The girl took a hasty step backwards.

  “Did you hear me?” Lia cried. “I’m working on the abbey site and I’ve gotten lost. Could I borrow your phone?” She took a few steps towards the girl.

  The girl’s wide eyes darted from Lia’s face to the cell phone and back again. Then she turned and ran.

  “Hey! Wait!”

  But the girl hurried down the hill, glancing back over her shoulder with a terrified expression on her face. Lia stared after her, puzzled.

  She noticed a narrow trail that wound down the hill through thick clumps of heather. With any luck it would lead Lia back to town or at least to a place where she could call Brian to come pick her up. Hunkering down into her coat and bending her head against the rain, she set off.

  She found herself descending the hill towards a valley. Chimney smoke curled into the air in a series of dark columns, defying the rain’s attempt to dampen it. Lia breathed a sigh o
f relief. Smoke meant a village, and a village meant people.

  She hurried her step. At the bottom of the hill the trail leveled out, becoming a muddy track rutted with gouges that looked like they’d been made with some sort of farm cart. Rain was quickly turning these ruts into muddy puddles forcing Lia to step carefully to avoid getting her feet soaked.

  She rounded a bend and spotted a village in the distance, a cluster of houses grouped around a central courtyard. She halted in surprise. The houses were small, wooden built, with roofs of thatch. Tightly drawn shutters covered the windows, and the courtyard was little more than a muddy open space in the village center. There was no sign of a shop or a pub or post office.

  Lia frowned. The place seemed rustic in the extreme. Where was the road that led in and out of the village? Where were the cars?

  Who cares? she thought. As long as there’s somewhere I can get dry and a phone I can use!

  “That’s her!” cried a voice.

  A group of people emerged into the village square. One of them was the girl who’d ran from Lia on the hilltop. Several men and women accompanied her.

  Lia waved. “Hello! I’m lost! I was hoping I could use your phone!”

  The villagers glanced at each other uneasily. A man stepped forward. He was thin and grubby-looking with lank hair falling onto his shoulders.

  “Who are ye?” he called. “What do ye want?”

  “My name is Emelia,” Lia called, walking forward. “I’m working on the abbey site on the hill but I seem to have gotten a little lost.”

  “She’s one of them!” the teenage girl cried, shrinking back against an older woman. “She just appeared out of mid-air! I saw her!”

  Lia halted. What was the girl talking about? And why did these people seem so wary? Hadn’t they ever met an American before?

  “Look,” she said, spreading her hands. “I don’t want to upset anyone. If you just let me use your phone, I’ll call my boss and have him come pick me up. I’ll be out of your hair in no time.”

  The thin man gaped at her as if she’d spoken in Japanese. His pale eyes roved over her, taking in her clothing. He made the sign of the cross on his breast.

  “What do ye want with us, witch?”

  Lia blinked. “I beg your pardon? What did you just call me?”

  “Who else but a witch would appear out of thin air wearing clothes fit for a heathen?”

  Lia was sure she’d misheard. Was this some sort of joke? “You’re kidding, right? Okay, very funny, make fun of the foreign girl in town.”

  She took a step forward but the man held up a hand.

  “Come no closer!”

  Two other men stepped up behind the first. They were big, burly men, obviously used to physical labor. Now that she noticed, Lia realized they were all wearing traditional Scottish dress of tartan plaid over linen shirts and knee-high leather boots. Their clothing looked dirty and a little ragged and the men were unshaven.

  A little trickle of alarm slithered down Lia’s spine. What was this place? More villagers clustered behind the men, watching Lia with expressions of fear and distrust on their faces.

  “Okay,” Lia said, taking a step back. “I’ve obviously made some sort of mistake. I’ll be on my way.”

  “Don’t let her get away!” the girl cried. “She’ll put a curse on us!”

  Lia began backing away but the two burly men sprang forward and grabbed her arms.

  “Take your hands off me!” Lia shouted in outrage.

  The thin man, who seemed to be the leader, turned to the girl. “Why dinna ye tell us exactly what ye saw, Rhonda?”

  The girl swallowed thickly and pointed a shaking finger at Lia. “I was on my way home, taking the short-cut across the hill, when I saw her. Appeared right out of thin air, she did. One minute the hill’s empty, the next she pops out of nowhere as though magicked there by some spell. And that's not all! She has a magical object. She was looking at it up on the hill. It glows with an ungodly light. It's right there in her pocket!"

  The man turned to Lia. "Magical objects? Is that how ye were going to bewitch us?"

  Lia gaped at him. The man had lost his mind. They all had.

  He stepped forward and dug his hand into her coat pocket. Outraged, Lia struggled, trying to kick him.

  "Get your hand off that, you stinking thief!"

  He dodged out of the way and backed off, holding her cell phone in the palm of his hand. The display glowed brightly in the gloom as he raised it up for all to see. A murmur went through the crowd.

  "It’s just as Rhonda said! This is a thing of dark powers if ever I saw one! This is proof!"

  "Proof?" Lia snapped. "Of what exactly? It's proof I don't have a damned cell signal—which is what I've been telling you all along. Now give me back my phone!"

  "It is proof ye are a witch!” the man cried, spittle flying from his lips. “That ye are in league with the Devil!" He turned to the crowd with his arms outstretched. “Nobody but a witch would carry a magical object like this!”

  The crowd broke into a chorus of yelling and jeering. Panic bubbled in Lia’s stomach. They were serious! Dear God, they were serious!

  "Chain her up!" the man cried. "Chain the witch!"

  A mix of outrage and fear coursed through Lia's veins as she was dragged into the middle of the square. A tall pole stuck out of the ground and Lia had first assumed it was a telegraph pole but now she drew closer she saw that it was nothing of the sort. A set of iron manacles were attached to the post, rusty and seeming well-used.

  Panic flared in her gut, making her vision spin. "What are you doing?" she cried. "Are you all totally crazy? I'll have the police down on you all for this, goddammit!"

  Her captors dragged her unceremoniously over to the wooden post. The rusty manacles swung slightly in the wind and the post creaked as she was thrust up against it. Her arms were yanked roughly over her head and the manacles snapped around her wrists and attached to an iron pin. The men backed away, leaving her dangling there like some trussed up side of meat in a butcher’s shop.

  Her heart was hammering wildly in her chest now. She could hear blood roaring in her ears and she feared she might faint. Sucking in breaths through her nose, she tried to calm the terror that threatened to send her thoughts scattering.

  The villagers gathered in a mob about ten paces away, close enough that they could jeer at her, but not too close, as though they thought she was some sort of rabid beast who might lunge at them if they came near.

  “Please!” she cried desperately, hating how her voice shook with fear. “Let me go!”

  The skinny man spread his hands wide and addressed the crowd. “This woman thought she could come amongst us and work her evil! Shall we show her how wrong she was? Shall we show her how we deal with witches?”

  The crowd broke out in a chorus of shouting and hollering, sounding for all the world like a pack of hounds baying for Lia’s blood. Then the girl—Rhonda — stepped forward, pulled back her arm and threw. Something wet and slimy connected with Lia’s cheek and the stink of rotting vegetables suddenly filled her nostrils.

  Emboldened by Rhonda’s actions, more of the villagers stepped forward and soon Lia was being pelted with rotten fruit and vegetables as though she was part of some deranged coconut shy.

  She screwed her eyes shut and tried to make herself as small as possible. They would stop in a minute. They would. They would realize this was all some big mistake and come to their senses.

  But they didn’t. Their shouting and jeering became more frenzied, bordering on hysteria. But suddenly, the rotten food stopped coming. Lia opened her eyes to see they’d run out of fruit and vegetables. But her relief was only momentary when she saw Rhonda bend and pick up a stone instead. Following her lead, other villagers did the same.

  “No,” Lia whispered. “Don’t do it. Please.”

  She looked around at the villagers’ faces, trying to find some spark of sympathy or compassion. There was none. Their
eyes were full of hatred. What had she done to earn this kind of treatment? Would none of them help her? From far away she heard a dull drumming sound like the thud of hoof beats but she wasn’t sure if it was only the sound of her own thumping heart.

  “Rhonda,” Lia said, eyeing the stone in the girl’s hand. “I don’t know what you think you saw up on the hilltop but you’re wrong. I’m not what you think I am. You don’t have to do this. Please.”

  For a fraction of a second, the girl hesitated. Then a look of determination crossed her face and she threw.

  It wasn’t a large stone, little more than a pebble really, but the shock of the blow as it struck Lia on the temple was enough to make her cry out. The other villagers stepped forward, hefting their stones, and some of them weren’t pebbles this time.

  Lia’s legs turned to water. Cold terror drenched her. “Help!” she screamed. “Somebody help me! Please!”

  The skinny man grinned, bounced a rock in his hand a few times, and then made ready to throw. But as he pulled his arm back a huge black horse suddenly burst through the crowd of onlookers. The horse’s shoulder thumped into the skinny man, sending him crashing onto his backside with a bellowed curse.

  The horse’s rider, a big man with auburn hair, pulled the horse around to face the crowd. The beast reared and pawed at the air. The crowd of onlookers scattered, dropping their rocks as they fled to a safe distance.

  The rider calmed the horse, brought it to a standstill and jumped to the ground.

  "What is the meaning of this?" he bellowed.

  "Naught that concerns ye!" the skinny man snarled. "This is village business! Keep yer nose out!”

  The red-haired man grabbed him by the front of his dirty shirt and yanked him to his feet. “Village business? An innocent woman being set upon for no good reason? Ye call that village business?"

  "She's a witch!" the villager snarled. "She's come to bewitch us! And ye are in league with her!" He made a slight gesture with one hand and his two henchmen—the burly villagers who’d chained Lia to the post— advanced on the red-haired man, hands curled into fists.