“A Dhilein.” She looked around, searching.
Shaking took him, and tears stung his eyes. “A Chait.” His feathers ruffled and the winter wind blew them all around. Her voice was inside him, all through his body. He vibrated with her presence. His chest heaved as he gulped air and clung to the sill with clawed feet.
“Dylan, where are you?” Fresh tears came.
“I’m right here, sweetheart.” His throat was so tight he could hardly make a sound.
But she was confused. He could feel it. “Where? Where are you? I cannae see you. Dylan, we’re needing you. It’s fearful here. So very fearful. I cannae see you.” She began to cry. “Dylan, I miss you so much since they took you. I miss you. . . . Oh, Dylan . . .”
“I’m not dead, Cait. They didn’t kill me. I miss you, too. How can I come back? Tell me how to get back.”
“Get back?” There was a pause, then the sobbing grew louder. He sensed she was confused and couldn’t understand. She couldn’t know what was happening, nor even where he was. “Come to us.”
“I can’t. I’m trapped here by magic. I have no way home.”
“Make them let you come back. Ask the wee folk. They’ll ken. Go to the Sidhe. The faerie folk will help you. Please. Hurry. He’s like to kill us. The danger is great.”
Then suddenly she wasn’t there. The emptiness was appalling. With a wild rush, he snapped back over the years and miles. He couldn’t breathe. Pain shot through him. The separation was unbearable. A cry split the night air in Tennessee. He slumped over, and Brigid fell to the dirt. Tears ran down his face, and sobs took him. “Cait.”
He knelt on all fours with his forehead pressed to the dirt, and his body shook with sobs until he thought he would break into small pieces.
He didn’t belong here. Probably, he never had. He belonged with Cait, in whatever circumstance he would find himself when he got to her. It was what he was for, and always had been. He needed to find Sinann. Whatever it took, he needed to find her and make her send him . . . home.
CHAPTER 25
Dylan had his will drawn up the next day. He had no children—no living children, he reminded himself—so as soon as he was declared dead the bulk of his property would go to his mother. And according to Tennessee law his father would not automatically acquire control over any of it. In the testament part of the document he stated his hope that his mother would leave the abusive sonofabitch and live in the apartment over the dojo, but that was up to her. All he could do was make the property available to her.
Ten percent of the business went to Ronnie, and the will stated Dylan’s hope that his assistant would continue to teach after Dylan’s passing.
His jeep he left to Cody. To facilitate the bequeathal, and as an excuse to talk to her, he called and asked her to keep it at her house while he made a trip to Scotland.
There was a very long silence on the other end, then she said, “You’re not coming back, are you, Dylan?”
He hesitated before answering, but said, “I hope not.”
There was another long silence, and he realized she was crying. She said, “I’m going to miss you.”
“I must do this.”
“I know. You won’t live to see the twenty-first century, but I think you were never meant to. I think you always were meant to live back then. I hope you find what you’re looking for.”
He thanked her, but knew it was entirely possible he wouldn’t find anything at all. “I’ll miss you. I did in the years I was gone.”
She laughed through her tears. “You’ve been my best friend my whole life, Dylan. I’ll never forget you. Hey, try to be famous so I can read about you in a book somewhere, okay?”
He had to laugh, because talking had become impossible.
There was little to pack for the trip. Just a few days’ travel clothes, a new linen sark like the one he’d worn to the Games, his leggings and dirks, a bag of cinnamon jawbreakers, and a large bottle of aspirin.
He visited his mother the day before his flight to London, while Dad was out, to tell her he was going to Scotland.
“Oh, how nice!” she enthused, and hugged him. “Have a wonderful time, dear. Take pictures, and you’ll have to tell me all about it when you come back.”
His heart broke. Of course he couldn’t tell her he wasn’t coming back. There was no way for him to tell her goodbye the way he wanted. All he could say was, “Sure.”
But there was one thing he needed to address. He sat on the sofa and she sat in the Lesser Chair, though Dad’s chair would have been closer. So he moved to the other end of the sofa. “Mom,” he hoped this wouldn’t upset her, but knew it would, “have you ever thought about leaving Dad?”
She made a noise, and he couldn’t tell if it was of anger or just surprise. She looked flustered. For a long time she sat, and a crease grew in her brow. He waited. Then she said, “Dylan, I have no place to go.”
“If you did, then what?”
“Your father and I have been married for a long time, Dylan.”
“Mom, he beats you. He humiliates you. He deserves to . . .” Dylan never finished the sentence. He knew if he weren’t leaving he would eventually kill his father, and that would be the worst of all. “Mom, just promise me you’ll think about it. And if the opportunity comes to move out, take it.”
“Dylan . . .”
“Do you want to be free of him?”
Her fingers twisted, and she shrugged. “I would like him to stop.”
“No, Mom. Do you want to be free? Because he’s never going to stop. He’s going to keep it up until one of you is dead. And it’ll probably be you if you don’t leave. Promise me, Mom. Tell me you’ll move out if you can.”
There was a long silence, and he waited again for a reply. Finally, she said, “All right, but I don’t see how that will ever happen.”
“You never know. Sometimes things are meant to happen and they surprise us.”
She sighed. “All right, dear, I promise.” Dylan knew she thought she was humoring him, but he also knew she would remember the promise once she’d inherited the dojo.
“And there’s one other thing.” He realized this was beginning to sound like a final goodbye, but he had to say this. “You know that guy I was named after?”
“Bob Dylan?”
He chuckled. “No, the other guy. Black Dylan Matheson, the Scottish highwayman Grandfather Matheson used to talk about. What do you know about him? Where does that story come from?”
Mom thought for a moment, then said slowly, “I think . . . I think it was in World War II. When your grandfather was stationed in England. He said he met an RAF officer there with the same name as his: James Matheson. They got to know each other and were talking about the history of the clan, and the other James told your grandfather about the highwayman in his family tree.”
Dylan’s pulse picked up. “Was the officer a direct descendant?”
She shrugged. “I’m afraid I don’t know.”
He lowered his head to hide his disappointment. “Have you ever thought about finding out more about Black Dylan?”
“No, not really.” There was a puzzled edge to her voice.
“I hope you will. And try looking under the Gaelic for it, Dilean Dubh. I mean, I’m not certain but I think you might find out some interesting stuff.”
“All right. I’ll do that.”
When he told his mother goodbye, he knew it would be forever. He hugged her and kissed her cheek, then hugged her again. It puzzled her, he could tell, but he was then able to make his trip without looking back.
He tried to sleep on the flight over to England, but fidgeted the entire way. Some sleep was to be had on the train from London to Glasgow, but it was intermittent. After Glasgow, his pulse picked up and he had to take deep breaths.
He’d come five thousand miles in a little over a day, and knew that soon such convenient travel would be impossible for him. Not to mention instantaneous long-distance communication would end,
so would shopping off the rack, fresh fruit, and sanitation. But what he was going toward made all those things unimportant.
In Glasgow he rented a car and continued his journey north. The scenery rolling past was familiar, but strange. The mountains hadn’t changed, but the moors and glens had certainly. Some forests were gone, and others had popped up, the land covered with Christmas-tree-looking firs that seemed out of place. The road, which hadn’t existed even as a track in his time, crossed lands he’d traversed on foot many times, then went farther north, across the Highland line.
As he approached Ft. William, tension crept up his back and he had to shrug his shoulders and stretch his neck to keep his muscles from bunching into a knot. He’d not been back this way since his escape, and just being in that part of Scotland gave him the creeps. Though the town had changed so much as to be unrecognizable on any level, he recognized the surrounding mountains and knew the road was taking him straight to the fort.
Then he spotted the low, grass-covered stone walls on his left, and realized the thing had been torn down and the road ran straight through where it had been. It was gone. The place of torture where he’d almost lost his life hundreds of years ago was truly history. Only decayed remnants were left.
In shock, he buzzed through the two roundabouts beside the ruins, and pulled over in front of a fast-food restaurant. He sat at the side of the road and leaned forward on the steering wheel to compose himself and bring under control a sudden fit of shaking, thankful and relieved that awful place had been destroyed. Looking back over his shoulder, he saw the site was now occupied by a grocery store and a train station. He was glad.
Finally he went back through the roundabouts and headed back up the road toward Inverness, up Glen Mór, then zagged to the northwest, then northeast again to the eastern tail of Glen Ciorram, where he again turned to the west and south. But he didn’t go all the way into town. He didn’t want to see it as it had become. He’d passed signs indicating to tourists directions to the castle, as well as the local whiskey distillery. The road and scattered houses he saw dotting the glen floor indicated the village itself would be far more changed than he wanted to see. He passed an historical marker bearing the words, “Queen Anne Garrison, 1707” and an arrow pointing along a road that meandered to his left. He shook his head and figured that nasty little bunkhouse must have changed a lot for it to attract tourists now.
On the approach before the curve in the glen, before coming within sight of the Tigh, he turned off at the little black and white sign with an arrow that indicated “Broch Sidhe.” He parked in the small lot at the mouth of the tiny glen, got out of the car, then took from his pocket his passport and wallet, which he emptied of money and credit cards then dumped on the floor of the car. With his sgian dubh, which was still sharpened for shaving, he put a small slit in his left forearm across the old scar, and bled for a moment on the steering wheel and seat. Closure for Mom. He didn’t want her to spend the rest of her life looking for him. Then he tore a strip of cloth from his T-shirt to bandage his arm, and left the car door hanging open.
He picked up his overnight bag to follow the flagstone walk, which looked quite old. It may have been there as long as a hundred years, but it was new to him. The tower had been preserved almost exactly as he’d last seen it, though the oak tree had grown and spread till almost the entire tower floor was now in shade. The grass was neatly groomed, mown and Weed-wacked to perfection, and the black fungus made a delicate design in the green. Dylan poked a finger into the sod at his feet and found the dirt below just as red as ever. Even the fallen pieces of stone from the walls looked the same as before, though one section of wall was now held up by steel rods set into the ground. The parking lot had been empty, and so was the tower. The sun was about to set, and this time of year, this far north, it set quickly.
“Sinann.” Did he expect an answer? She had to still be alive, and still be there, simply because any other possibility was unthinkable. “Sinann. Please don’t play games. I need you.”
There was a long wait, then he said again, unsure now, “Sinann?” He sighed in disappointment at the silence.
“So you’ve learned my name.” Her voice made his heart leap. He spun to find her perched on the steps just below the oak branches. Relief washed over him.
“Sinann, I want to go home.”
“You are home. For two years, all I heard was Send me home, I wish to go home, and now you’re home and you’re still saying it.” She looked tired. There was no aging on her body, but her eyes were weary and her shoulders sagged. “You were right, you know. History cannae be changed. Naught would be accomplished by going back. The English would still own Scotland, and the clans would still become a thing of the past—a gimmick for selling plaid undergarments to gawking tourists from the colonies. The language is dying. Scotland is slave to the English government.”
“That’s not true.”
Her eyebrows went up, but that was all. Her reaction was alarming for its lack of her characteristic energy whether of agreement or disagreement. “Indeed?”
“Oh, aye. Ask any American of mixed Scottish and English descent how they identify, and they’ll tell you either English or Scottish but rarely do they say British. Ask why many of the most courageous and loyal soldiers in the English army wear kilts and until recently wore them into battle. Ask why the place is known as Scotland and not North Britain as it was during the Clearances when sheep became more important to the English than people. Ask why, though the Sassunaich tried to destroy the language after the ’45, it’s still not dead and in fact is being taught in schools for the first time in centuries. Modern books are being published in Gaelic . . . children’s books and poetry, not just the Bible. Ask why, Sinann, after almost three hundred years, Scotland finally has its own parliament again. It’s because we who were not part of the system fought against it as long as we could, and they . . . our descendants . . . still fight within the system for the right to be who we are, and distinguishable from the English. The resistance succeeded because it prevented complete subjugation and genocide. Sinann, we did save our people.”
“If it’s accomplished, then why go back?”
Dumb question. “Cait.”
“You want to steal her away from her lawful husband.”
“I want to rescue her from a man who despises her. And my son. I want to be a father to my son.”
Sinann leaned toward him, her hands on her knees. “Would you like to know what happened to them?”
“No! I want to be there!” His gut knotted, and his wound ached so he pressed his hand to his side. Breathing became difficult. “I want to make it happen and watch it happen. I want to raise my boy and make sure he’s safe from . . .” The horror of the persecutions during Ciaran’s lifetime slammed into him and his throat tightened. “I have to make sure he’s going to live. Just like every other Scot who fought the English and their bigotry, I have to make sure my child doesn’t suffer subjugation and . . . genocide.”
What Sinann had said earlier struck him. She’d finally admitted history couldn’t be changed. If that were the case, then she would already know whether or not he’d returned to the past because she would remember seeing him there. He looked around at the stone blocks that were where they’d always been. The large one under which he’d hidden his guineas lay exactly where he’d left it. He went behind it and dug his fingers under the edge for purchase.
“What are you doing?”
“Just checking.” He pulled hard to dislodge the stone from its seat, then took a deep breath and lifted. His side ached, and the pain sharpened as he strained, but slowly the stone tilted up to stand on its side.
“What’s under there?”
“Something you don’t know about.” He dug through the muck where it had lain, and found no coins. But what he did find took him by surprise. A piece of cellophane stuck to his fingers and he pulled it from the mud. Some spit and a wipe across the grass revealed printing on the plast
ic. It was the wrapper from a cinnamon-flavored jawbreaker. He stood and said to Sinann, “You’re going to send me back.”
“How do you figure that?”
He threw his modern cash and credit cards into the mud under the rock, to add to the appearance he’d left of his murder, then went around and shoved the stone back down where it had been.
He turned toward Sinann and sat on the chunk of stone as he wiped his muddy fingers on his jeans. “You said you can’t change history. You were waiting for me here, and I’ll bet you knew I was coming, which you wouldn’t have known if you hadn’t sent me back. You didn’t know about the gold pieces I left under this rock the day I was arrested. Nobody did, not even Cait.” Then he held up the bit of plastic in his fingers. “This is a wrapper from a cinnamon jawbreaker, which is one of my few weaknesses, and it’s been there a long time. I’m willing to bet it was left by me after my return to the past.”
“You dinnae ken that.”
“But you do. You know I was never meant to see the twenty-first century. You know there are no accidents, and you were meant to send that sword after me. You also know you’re going to send me back, but you just want to give me grief before you do.”
A tiny smile curled her mouth. “As you modern folk would say, I’m busted.” Her smile left. “But what you also dinnae ken is this: you see, young Dylan, I was there the day you died for true. It was a black, terrible day, and all that heartened me was I knew I would see you once more when you would come to me now. After I send you back, I’ll not be seeing you ever again.” She paused and looked up to the purpling sky. Her eyes shone with grief. “I’ve had a long life, and the ending of it will be lonely. The faeries left in this world are too few, and mortals no longer ken the Sidhe. I’ll be missing you terribly.”
A lump rose to his throat. “I hadn’t realized—”
“Of course not. You humans all think the Sidhe have nae feelings.” Tears spilled to her face and her voice tightened. “Go. Leave me.” She raised her hand to do it.
Son of the Sword Page 36