They succeeded.
“Thank you for bringing me here,” Lilith said, pulling him out of haunting memories and into the present. Aodhàn heard his daughters giggling as they chased their puppy around the nearby trees.
They lay on a large blanket in a secluded clearing beside a swift-moving stream, surrounded by towering black firs and pines, and the greenest grass he’d ever seen. Not far away was the beautiful little schloss Aodhàn had ferreted out and acquired with the money John Gordon had given him for his successful managing of the Balnabodach clearings.
He and his family had enjoyed their seclusion in the Black Forest for nearly three months, and none had yet expressed a wish to go home.
Aodhàn’s endless high-strung tension melted slowly into hesitant contentment.
A distant mutter of thunder floated from the west as he leaned over and kissed his wife. “You could be shopping in Paris.”
She snorted.
“You’re a daft, unco lass,” he said, in his best Highland accent. “I think you must be a selkie, and no’ a girl at all.”
“Because I cannot bear crowds, stink, gossip, and noise? This is heaven, lying here, with no sound but the wind, and my weans laughing, and you, persecuting me.”
“Persecuting you? Is that what you call it?”
“Who wouldn’t? I cannot take a breath without you making your tiresome demands.”
He grabbed her shoulders and tickled her until he had her gasping.
A sigh of pure, joyous relief built in his lungs. He held Lilith tightly and placed his mouth on the side of her neck, knowing how sensitive she was at that spot. Kissing her there never failed to initiate the response he wanted.
No more Harpalycus. And, in this life at least, the threat of Menoetius eliminated.
Dare he allow himself to think it? If the last eight years were a sign, maybe he could also say No more Athene.
Aodhàn breathed in the clean essence of pine, tinged with rain, and his wife’s musky scent. Reclining on his back with one arm crooked under his head, staring at the clouds with drowsy fascination, he realized the old, tightly strung nervousness was gone. Fear was gone. Astonished, he said without thinking, “I’ve won.”
“What?” Lilith squinted at him. “You won?”
He faced her, and ran a stem of grass over her cheek. “Nothing has happened. I never let myself hope, but now I think I can. Nothing will happen.”
“What are you talking about?”
“She’s not going to punish me. It’s been eight years.”
“Eight years since what?”
“Since Daniel died, and you decided to love me.”
Her expression darkened, and her head drew back slightly. She’d never said it, but Aodhàn knew that as happy as she was with him, any thought of Daniel still brought almost unbearable pain. He caught her sometimes, holding the bronze ring Daniel had given her, staring blankly and weeping. At those times, he wasn’t certain which was worse— the jealousy, or the guilt.
“What did you think would happen?” she asked. “Who did you think was going to punish you?”
He shrugged. “Never mind. This place bewitched me for a moment. I feel I’m in a dream— or here it would be a Viking tale, I suppose.”
Curling her fingers into his cravat, she pulled him closer. “Aodhàn,” she whispered.
Enthralled as ever, he kissed her, but she pulled away before he could begin unbuttoning her blouse. “There’s something you’re not telling me,” she said. “No— don’t deny it. You have nightmares, Aodhàn. All the time. You have no peace.”
“And you want to fix me, like your beasties.”
“Of course I do. You’re in pain, or something. D’you mind last night?”
“What about it?”
“I had to wake you. You were shouting. I thought you might frighten the children. You don’t remember, do you?”
“No.” He sat up, scraping back his hair, wanting to reassure her, to tell her she had fixed him, had made him whole again. But— “Where are the weans?” he heard himself say instead.
“Don’t try to— wait. Where are they?”
He and Lilith stared at each other, realizing they hadn’t heard a sound in a long while. They scrambled to their feet.
“Claire! Evie!”
“Claire!”
“Here, Da,” came Claire’s distant reply.
“That way,” Lilith said. She and Aodhàn ran towards the voice, entering the dusky shade beneath the trees. “Claire?”
“Here. Here.”
“Over there, I think,” Aodhàn said, taking Lilith’s hand. “Come out,” he called.
“No, Da,” the child returned.
“What the devil?” Aodhàn said. They pulled apart some underbrush and what they saw left them staring, first at their daughters, then at each other.
Claire and Evie were squatting at the foot of a pine tree. Between them crouched another girl, a small, skinny, pale child, nearly naked, with a scratched and dirty face. She held Evie’s puppy against her chest.
“What the devil?” Aodhàn repeated. “What is this?”
“We found her. She’s alone… I think. We can no’ understand her.”
Aodhàn knelt. “What’s your name?” he asked gently. He sensed Lilith startle and stare at him as this was the first time he’d spoken German around her; but she would simply think he’d learned it at Eton, and that was true, for the most part. She wouldn’t remember that they’d lived north of here, six hundred years ago, or that she’d spoken the language as fluently as he, though in those days, it was altogether different.
“Romhilde,” she said, gazing at him with enormous, frightened eyes.
“Romhilde,” he repeated, smiling. “Are you lost?”
She nodded.
“Are you hungry?”
Again she nodded.
He rose. “This is Lilith,” he said. “My daughters, Evie and Claire. If you will come with us, we have food.”
She didn’t hesitate for long, reassured by the two girls who nodded and patted her hand.
Lilith led the child back to the clearing by the stream. She sat beside her on the blanket and fed her cold chicken, cheese, and rye bread from the basket they’d brought along. Claire fetched a cup of water from the stream. The begging puppy also received some chicken, which made the foundling smile.
“Ah, she’s so thin,” Lilith said to Aodhàn as she combed through the child’s tangled hair with her fingers. “See if she’ll tell you how long she’s been here.”
“How long have you been lost?” Aodhàn asked the girl, who was shoving food voraciously into her mouth.
She merely shrugged.
“Can you tell us who your parents are?”
She stopped chewing. The gaze she turned onto Aodhàn caused Lilith to bring the child onto her lap and hold her tight.
“What is it, Engelchen,” Aodhàn asked her. “You’re safe with us.”
He listened to her broken, tearful story, asked a question now and then, and reassured her again and again that she was safe.
“I think she must have been stolen by gypsies,” he told Lilith. “She says she’s been with them as long as she can remember, used for labor, cooking, and cleaning. She says her guard drank too much one night, “many nights ago,” she says, and forgot to bind her, so she ran away, and has been alone ever since.”
“Oh, poor, poor child,” Lilith said, stroking the girl’s hair. “She doesn’t remember who her parents are?”
Aodhàn shook his head. “She can’t even mind what they looked like. She doesn’t know her last name, only “Romhilde.”
“Can we keep her?” Evie asked, turning wide eyes up to Lilith and tugging on her arm.
“Aye,” said Claire. “Can we take her home with us?” She reached out and clasped the child’s dirty hand. “She needs a home.”
Aodhàn regarded Lilith, who returned his gaze, brows lifted. He knew that look. Both of his daughters gazed at him, ope
nly pleading.
The child stared at him too, from Lilith’s lap. Hers was the face that secured the answer.
Right or wrong, they had a third child.
The Eavesdropper
* * * *
September, 1853
XXI.
Lilith shrugged out of her wet apron and tossed it onto a nearby shrub before gratefully dropping into a high-backed wicker chair next to Aodhàn’s. She accepted the glass of wine he offered, which he told her was called Liebfrauenmilch.
The warm evening, with its quiet dove calls and the heady scent of some flower, soon soothed her mind and brought her down from the giggling and screeching, and the soapy mess her children had made in their bath. Aodhàn ran his hand over her forearm and poured himself another glass.
“You speak German,” she said.
He sent her a sideways glance. “We learned it at Eton, as well as Greek and Latin. Are they in bed?”
“Aye, bathed and tucked in, though I doubt they’ll sleep.” She rubbed her forehead. “Evie’s already using German words, and will hardly let go of the wean’s hand. She can’t say Romhilde, though. She’s calling her Romy.”
Aodhàn smiled. “Our mother-in-making.”
“Poor wee starveling. She’s so thin, Aodhàn.”
“You’ll soon have her fattened up.”
“I want to take her home with us, but shouldn’t we try to find her kin?”
“How?”
“She can’t be more than seven. Someone is still looking for her.”
“I’ll go to the village tomorrow and make inquiries.”
Lilith perused him. “I’ve been wondering all day what you meant, when you said you’d won.”
“Nothing. Nothing.”
His whole demeanor changed. It was easy to see how her question unnerved him. “It meant something. You said it.”
“I did? I don’t remember.”
“Mackinnon. Don’t lie to me. ‘She’s not going to punish me,’ you said. Who?”
He tipped the bottle, pouring himself a third glass of wine. Lilith set hers down, still half full. “Well?”
He shrugged, rubbed his jaw, and stared out towards the forest. In the bright rising moonlight, she saw his jaw muscles clench.
“Does it have something to do with this?” The silver pendant glittered as she pulled it out and dangled it between them.
His shoulders slumped a little, and he sighed. But still he said nothing.
“I’ve waited a long time for you to finish the story,” she said. “I want to know more about the queen who wore this. The woman as loyal as she was courageous. I want to see her palace— Labyrinthos— clearly in my mind. Is it that woman you think can punish you?”
She waited, stiffening with shock as she watched a single tear fall down his cheek. She’d only ever seen him succumb to tears one other time, years ago, before they married.
Then he said, softly, “Her name was Aridela.”
* * * *
Evie pattered swiftly down the wide stairs, sure-footed though there were no lamps lit. She ran her fingertips along the banisters, reveling in her ability to move from place to place as silent as a mouse.
Claire and Romy wouldn’t stop talking. Evie was sleepy, but they wouldn’t put out the lamp. Their voices and giggling kept her awake. Resentful of their already-close friendship, Evie ran from the room to find her mam. Mam would make them be quiet.
Her eyes filled with tears on command. She’d long known that no matter how vexed Mam was with her, tears softened her right up.
Her parents’ low murmuring had floated up to Evie’s open bedroom window, so she knew where they were. She ran along the corridor to the back of the schloss and through the kitchen. She went out the postern door leading to a terrace where there was an arrangement of cushioned chairs and tables, and a glass overhang, and columns, wound with cascades of honeysuckle that filled the night air with a glorious smell.
Padding on her bare feet, she approached, ready with excuses and tears, if needed. But she paused as she heard her father’s voice.
“I think it was a volcano,” he said. “From everything I learned at Eton, and what I was told when I traveled to Sumbawa, it matches. I met some men who saw what happened with Tambora. They described it to me, and that’s how I remember it. I think the mountain on Callisti was a volcano. When it erupted, it destroyed the island, and nearly destroyed Crete as well.”
Evie watched, her mouth falling open, as her father placed his hand on her mother’s cheek.
“We hid underground, but not far enough. A wind, made of fire, burned us, you worse than me. Your hair was almost completely burned away. You carried the scars for the rest of your life.”
Carefully, so as to make no sound, Evie dropped to the paving stones. She’d lost all desire to interrupt them. Her tears dried up.
She loved stories, and this one was especially good.
* * * *
“What is this?”
It was her mother’s voice, bringing her up from sleep. Evie rubbed her eyes. She was lying on something hard, uncomfortable. And she was cold.
“What are you doing here?” Lilith picked her up and snuggled her close. “Why aren’t you in bed?”
Memories returned slowly. “I wanted you to make Claire and Romy be quiet,” Evie said. “But then I wanted to hear Da’s stories.”
“You were listening?”
Evie nodded. Quickly she squeezed her eyelids closed and worked on forming tears, for Mam did sound annoyed.
Ah, it worked. Fat tears rolled over her cheeks. “You were other people,” she whispered. “Da said so.”
Lilith hugged her and ascended the stairs. She came to the room all three children were sharing, and tucked Evie into her own bed. The other two were asleep by now.
“Were you that queen? And that lady, Eamhair? And that other one… I forget her name.”
“You know how your da likes to tell stories,” Lilith said. “That’s all it was, dablet. He’s our own seanachaidh, our tale-teller. Now go to sleep. Tomorrow you can help me make a cake.”
Evie smiled. “Chocolate or lemon?”
“Which do you want?”
“Lemon.”
“That sounds grand. And after, we’ll play in the forest. Maybe we’ll find a unicorn.”
* * * *
As Lilith shrugged her nightgown over her head, she mused. “I wonder if Daniel was a part of all this.”
Aodhàn said nothing. She finished arranging her gown and tied the ribbons on the bodice. “What is it? Why are you angry?”
“Why d’you think he had anything to do with us?”
“Because of the color and the lightning. Remember when I told you I saw colors around you, and you said the same of me? You said you saw color around Daniel, too. When I first met Daniel, I saw color around him. It was mostly blue. Remember when you showed me how you could touch me and make it feel like sparks? Daniel could do that too. I know I never told you, but it’s true. Mackinnon— I wasn’t trying to vex you. Why are you so angry?”
“Nobody shares what we’ve shared. Nobody else. Just us. You and I— we’re linked, we come back, I always find you. Daniel isn’t part of that, I don’t care what kind of tricks he had.”
“Calm yourself. I was just wondering. I know you don’t like it, but he and I were close. I loved him. And in many ways, what he and I shared was similar to what you and I share. It’s the truth.” Her mouth slid into a sideways smile and she picked up the necklace, admiring it in the candlelight. “I think she’ll cast her moon spell over us tonight,” she said, and fastened it around her neck. She turned her gaze to Aodhàn and let down her hair, drawing it over one shoulder. “Come, m’ annsachd. Show me how Chrysaleon, the Lion of Mycenae, makes love.”
Owen Bides his Time
* * * *
October, 1853
XXII.
The steward of Barra brought his family home in October, as the season veered toward winter, an
d another crop of potatoes was lost.
Owen Anderson had his first glimpse of Aodhàn Mackinnon and his wife, Lilith, the very day they came home. He was standing on a dirt lane not far from the pier, among a group of men. Gloaming had fallen. They’d all been drinking.
“Well, will you have a look at that,” said Peter Bateson, the man Owen was living with. “’Tis Barra’s factor, gracing us with his presence again, at last.”
Owen hardly heard the man. A piercing headache spiked through his temple, accompanied by a deafening hum in his ears. His fingers and toes vibrated. He squinted and stepped forward, inhaling like a carnivore scenting its prey.
There it was. The faintest mist-like glow. It dissipated almost immediately.
Finally. Two of them, at least, were here. That swagger suggested Chrysaleon, and of course, the woman was Aridela. Finally. He’d been here almost four months; boredom had almost convinced him to leave. All this time he’d felt they were here, but they weren’t. The exact same thing had happened at Glenelg, and he’d lost all patience for it.
He grinned.
“What is it?” Peter asked. “D’you know the man?”
“No.” Owen schooled his features. “No. I was simply thinking of all the tales I’ve heard. Now here they are, and I can see for myself.”
“See the devil’s horns sprouting off his forehead?” Peter laughed.
“I thought you said they had two daughters.”
“Aye, that’s true.”
“Then why do I see three?”
Peter whistled. “They weren’t gone that long.” He shook his head. “I cannot say.”
“Eh, she must be a witch,” Owen said, just loud enough so that Peter would hear.
The man’s attention sharpened. He stared at the couple and the three children, who played, laughed, and raced about like they’d known each other all their lives.
“Aye,” Peter said, slowly. His tongue lingered on the word like it was made of whisky.
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