She ran to him and grabbed his wrists, holding out his arms and turning his hands to look for the source of the blood. She felt his side and found his bandage to be in place, and there was no blood on his shirt. She looked up at him, trying to get him to see her.
“She’s dead,” he said, then shook his head and winced.
Piper could see he’d only just realized it when he said it out loud and she pulled him over to a wooden bench near the wall of the cottage. She managed to get him to sit.
“Are you sure?” she asked.
She gripped his shoulders when he didn’t answer her, then started toward the house. He grabbed her by the wrist, then groaned when he saw the smear of blood he left on her sleeve.
“Piper, I’m sure. Ye mustn’t go in there.”
He stood up and strode to the well, and with a few turns, pulled up a bucket of water. He splashed some over his hands then set about watering the goat. Piper watched in dismay as he found a little stool and sat down to milk the goat, absently letting a good deal of the milk splash onto the ground. His face was stony with suppressed rage.
“Lachlan?” she said when the milk stopped flowing.
He patted the goat and turned around, looking broken. And, she was alarmed to see, truly afraid. She started shaking and he stood up to steady her.
From a fold of his kilt he took out a scrap of parchment and held it out for her to see. She reached for it but he pulled it out of her grasp.
“I think ye must no’ touch it,” he said. “Can ye understand it?”
Heart pounding, she leaned over to inspect the blotchy ink spattered piece of paper. There were some scrolly lines and then a scrawl of words in an eerily familiar hand. She couldn’t understand them, not to read them, but knew if she placed the tip of her finger on the paper, she would be flooded with their meaning.
Unable to breathe, she looked up at Lachlan and knew as well as he did who had left it there. Vision closing in on her and a thunderous roaring in her ears, she reached for him. He helped her to the stool, first pulling it away from the curious goat.
“Daria,” she gasped. She took a heaving breath to keep from vomiting. “It’s a spell.”
He nodded and crumpled it in his fist. “The witch is alive,” he said. “I dinna know if she used these wicked words to overpower Agnes, or if it was something after ... she - she killed her with an axe.” Lachlan’s voice gave out and he dropped his head into his hands.
She sat in stunned silence, unable to let his disjointed words fully absorb. She struggled to keep them at a distance, but they jabbed at her, sharp as needles. Axe, kill, wicked. Had she known, had any inkling from the beginning that Daria might still be alive? Bile rose in her throat.
A muscle in his jaw worked as he took her by the arm and pulled her up from the stool. He led her around to the front of the house, out to the low wooden fence that surrounded it. She kept her eyes on the ground as he pulled her along, horrified to see they were following a spotty trail of blood.
On the other side of the fence, he pointed to a small cleared area in the grass. Knowing and not wanting to know, she shook free of his hand and marched up to it. In the cleared circle there were bones. Eleven of them, stained with blood.
With a surge of panic, she threw herself at Lachlan. “Where did she go?” she screamed. “Where is she?”
He tried to get her to be still, but she jerked free of him, wanting his arms around her and at the same time, feeling suffocated by her fear and needing space.
“The barn fire,” she said, counting back how many days ago that had been. “My sheep.”
Had the insane witch gutted her sheep? She started to cry and sat down on the ground. Appalled at how close she was to the finger bones she scrambled away from them.
Lachlan dropped to the ground and pulled her to him, ignoring her feeble struggles. She collapsed against his chest and buried her face in the rough wool of his plaid, not wanting to accept what was in front of her.
With a jolt of fresh fear, she thought of Evie and Sam. Thinking they were safe and sound in the present, they were probably worried about her and Lachlan in the scary past. And now had the scary past come to them?
Her frazzled nerves solidified with the need to act. She pulled away and stood up, hurrying over to the bones. They were bloody and bits of flesh and sinew still clung to a few of them. She coughed, trying not to gag or let her mind take off.
Pushing aside her revulsion, she gathered them up, wrapping them in the pretty scarf she’d been using to cover her hair. The thought of that evil hag being in her house, on her land, near her friends, made her blood boil with a rage she’d never before known.
“She went back,” she said with utter certainty. Lachlan was looking at her warily and she put the bone bundle on the ground and tried to at least appear calm. “She killed my sheep, and tried to burn down my barn.”
She stopped and looked at Lachlan, feeling the terror brimming over to near hysteria. “Do you think it was her who sent Pietro back?” She began to pace back in forth in front of Lachlan. “When do you think Agnes ...?” she asked.
He rubbed his face and pushed the hair off his forehead. “Perhaps right after we left,” he said.
With a shudder, she imagined a gruesome scene in the cottage. Could Daria have been here when they were? Watching them from behind the trees? If she hadn’t been so eager to set off for the village, might they have kept Agnes safe? She shook off the futile thought. It wouldn’t help them with a plan of action. It wouldn’t bring her back.
“You said you didn’t think anyone ever got pulled into your spell, your way of travelling.” She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to piece it all together. “Maybe you were right. Pietro could have been brought back when Daria did her spell.”
Trying to muddle through when things might have happened helped to calm her for a second, but then she started thinking about when and where Daria might be now. Forcing herself not to cry anymore, she reached out wildly.
Lachlan grabbed her hands and held them, looking into her eyes.
“We dinna know any of this for fact,” he said soothingly. “She took Agnes’ books. She may have just wanted to keep the knowledge for herself.”
“Why kill her?” she wailed.
Agnes was an old woman. She could have easily been subdued. Daria could have waited for her to go to the village and just taken the books. She knew without hearing Lachlan’s answer that Daria was just that cruel and bloodthirsty.
He shook his head, and dark anger flashed in his eyes. “Madness. Grief. She must have seen that Brian was killed when she made it out of the fire. She knew she couldna return to her family for fear they learned what she was.”
“Do you think Evie and Sam are safe? It’s them she knows. She’ll blame them for Brian’s death.”
At that, Lachlan’s eyes flickered with shock. She could tell he hadn’t even thought of them until that moment, and was now afraid for them, too. That was all it took for her to make her decision. She reached down for the bones.
“We have to go,” she said, voice rising as the hysteria she’d been fighting began to bubble up. “We have to go now.”
The spellbook was in the saddle bag, and she stalked away to get it. After she retrieved her things, she untied their horse and swatted it in the direction of the village, knowing it would find its way to the stable there. She untied the goat next and watched with tear blurred vision as it meandered off after the horse. Lachlan didn’t stop her, but merely followed her to the back, found a shovel and began to dig.
Piper sat huddled on the wooden bench while Lachlan buried his friend. She’d tried to help him, but he’d looked at her as if the honor of his family would be besmirched if she so much as touched a shovel.
He said some things in Gaelic when the body was at last covered, then silently stood at the edge of the grave while Piper laid out a bouquet of wild roses she’d picked from a shrub in the yard.
She stood next to him, try
ing to absorb some of his sadness through the force of her will, hoping that being there by him gave him some comfort.
Putting his arms around her, he drew her close and sighed. “Whenever ye are ready, love.”
His tired, broken sounding voice cut into her heart, but she couldn’t think about that now. She couldn’t spend time mourning the dead when she needed to make sure her loved ones were still living. Every minute that had passed since she made the decision to get back to her own time had been grating torture. When she was sitting in the kitchen with Sam, Evie and Mel, then she would cry for Agnes.
She turned in a circle, taking in the cottage and small yard, the tiny shed and chicken coop. Agnes’ home. Piper could tell how much the woman had loved gardening by the vast variety of herbs and vegetables that grew in neat and well-tended plots.
None of it would be here when they landed back in the twenty-first century. Not the hearthstones or a scrap of fence. The sadness of it almost overwhelmed her. She reached into the folds of Lachlan’s kilt and under his shirt, wrapping her hand around the pendant she hadn’t let him remove. He kissed her forehead and began clearing a spot for her to begin.
Even in her urgent desire to get home, she was slowed by fear of the spell. Every time she used the book something happened to her. A burning need to understand it and conquer it welled within her. She was sick of being afraid of whatever it was that was in her. If it was power, she would need to know how to wield it.
When they returned, she would study the book instead of locking it away. She would find the witch and vanquish her.
She shivered at her dramatic musings and sat down in the cleared patch of dirt with Lachlan. He looked at her expectantly, and a little nervously.
With one swift nod of her head, she reached across and pulled him to her, kissing him fiercely. Then she set to work.
Chapter 23
Piper opened her eyes to find Lachlan sitting on the ground a few paces away from her, his head in his hands.
“Lachlan, honey?” she rushed to his side and took his hands. His eyes were screwed tightly shut and he groaned. “Are you okay?”
He blinked and nodded slowly. “Aye, I think so.” He smiled at her. “I like hearing ye call me by an endearment.”
“Have I never done it before?” she asked, leaning in to kiss him.
She savored the feel of his lips against hers, running her hands down the sides of his neck and gripping his shoulders. She felt vibrant and alive, not weak and disoriented like the first time. She fairly crackled with something like electricity, a shimmering sensation rolling up and down her skin, making her nerve endings hum.
“You’re all the endearments to me,” she laughed. “Honey, baby, darling, angel. You’re all of them.”
“Have we made it back?” he asked, standing up and pulling her up with him.
She turned in a circle and saw no sign of Agnes’ cottage. Momentarily sobered from her strange elation, she shrugged.
“I hope so,” she said and started walking in the direction of the road.
All her aches and pains from the past days caught up with her, multiplying with every jarring step she took through the forest. Her gown was still slightly damp around the edges and was beginning to offend her with its odor. Or maybe it was her that smelled so bad. She prayed they were home.
At the edge of the forest she nearly cried with relief when she saw the asphalt road winding its way toward the village. Lachlan started walking along the highway but she sat down on a boulder, refusing to take another step.
“Sit with me, Lachlan,” she said. He furrowed his brow in confusion at her seeming resistance to keep going, when she had been so insistent on leaving the past immediately. “Just wait and see,” she said, resting her head against his arm when he finally sat down on the rock next to her. “We’ll know in a few minutes if we’ve made it to the right time.”
The sentence was barely out of her mouth when a car came around the bend, heading toward the village. She jumped up and waved her arms, nearly walking into the path of the vehicle. She would be damned if she had to walk all the way to the village in her own time.
The driver pulled over and rolled down her window, her mouth agape at what she saw. Piper smoothed her dress and tried to take charge of the situation.
“Mrs. Buchanan, hello!” Piper said.
“Piper Sinclair? My word, it’s been a long time. What … Where have ye been?”
Piper tried not to show her impatience. She’d seen the woman at the shops not a week past. She waved her hands at Lachlan and at her own outfit and shrugged.
“Have ye joined up with the historical reenactors, then?” Mrs. Buchanan conveniently answered her own question and Piper nodded, glad she’d sowed that seed a few days ago.
“Yes, I couldn’t resist seeing what it was all about. It’s so interesting! The thing is though, I want to get to the estate in a hurry but they’re such sticklers about modern things. May I borrow your phone to call Elliot to bring the cab around?”
She shook her head. “Certainly not, lass. I shall drive ye myself and no argument.”
Piper raised her eyes heavenward, then grinned at Lachlan as she hurriedly opened the back door of the sedan. “God bless you.”
“Och, it’s nothing. I’m so glad to see ye well and in the area again. Ye must tell me of yer travels.” Mrs. Buchanan put the car in gear and began driving, looking expectantly from her to Lachlan.
Piper relaxed into the plush seat of the car, and when the heat made its way back to her she almost purred from all the luxury.
She spent the next twenty minutes volleying questions, trying to redirect all the unwanted curiosity, and felt more exhausted than ever when they finally arrived at the castle. She asked the sweet lady to take them around back. Some of the lights were on, so she figured at least Mellie would be there.
When she opened the kitchen door and slipped inside, her heart soared happily to find Evie sitting at the plank table with her nose buried in a pile of books. She pulled Lachlan in behind her and cleared her throat.
Evie looked up, alarmed at first, then her face went completely white and frighteningly still. After a moment, she slowly covered her mouth with her hand as if to stifle a scream.
“Evie?” Piper said, taking a tentative step forward. “We’re back.”
A keening noise came from behind Evelyn’s hand and she stood up, shakily making her way over to where Piper stood and gripping her by the shoulders. The dam burst and she started to cry.
“What’s the matter?” Piper asked, seriously afraid.
Evie grabbed the edge of the counter and leaned over, trying to breathe. “You’re alive,” she said through the wracking sobs. “I was starting to think I’d never see you again.” She straightened up and grabbed Piper into a hug, shaking her and squeezing her arms as if to convince herself she was really there.
“Oh, Evie, you shouldn’t get so upset,” Piper said, patting her friend’s violently trembling back.
“Everyone thought you were dead,” she said. “I didn’t though. I kept looking in all the books like you said to, but didn’t find anything.” Evie rested her head on Piper’s shoulder and kept crying. “I can hardly believe it. I’m so happy you’re back.”
“I’m happy to be back, too,” she said with a laugh, pushing Evie away and looking her over. “Is it the pregnancy hormones that’s making you so sappy?”
If it was possible, Evie went even whiter. “What?” she asked, aghast.
Lachlan went to sit down at the table and stopped in his tracks when he rounded the bar. His eyes grew wide and he looked at Piper in a way that made her stomach sink.
A mewling sound came from behind the bar and Lachlan sat down hard on the bench. The sound grew more insistent and with a stricken look, Evie took Piper by the elbow and led her around the bar. She pointed her shaking hand at the source of the noise.
Piper blinked rapidly to try to accept what she was seeing. A beautifully craft
ed bassinet was sitting in the middle of the kitchen, with a squirming, blue wrapped bundle in it.
“That’s Magnus, my son,” Evie said, her voice breaking.
“But we’ve only been gone three days,” Piper said, wanting to race back outside and into the forest, go back and start again.
She shook her head back and forth, feeling tears streaming down her cheeks. Lachlan moved next to her and pulled her close.
“Oh, Piper,” Evie said. “You’ve been gone eight months.”
She reached into the bassinet and took out the bundle, proudly showing him to Piper.
Piper cried harder when she saw the adorable little face. He looked exactly like Sam, except tiny, and shaped like a potato. She shook her head some more. This meant she’d missed Evie’s entire pregnancy, the birth, probably her and Sam’s wedding.
“Were you huge?” she asked. It was the first question she could think of, her mind was so full of jumbled thoughts.
Evie laughed. “Big as a house, big as this house,” she said, putting the baby back down as she was still shaking with emotion.
“Oh my god, did you really name him Magnus?” Piper asked, hiccuping as she laughed and cried at the same time.
“When we found out he was a boy, we called him that as a joke at first, and it helped, you know, to think of you. But then when he was born, it just stuck. I mean, look at him. He couldn’t be anyone else.”
As they were admiring the baby, Piper tried to accept how much time had been lost. She didn’t know if it was her haste in doing the spell, or all the fear and worry she’d felt when she was doing it, or just bad luck that had made them jump so far ahead.
She tried to concentrate on how wonderful Magnus was and not the bitter anger that threatened to consume her. She knew she’d have to find out if anything else had happened while she was gone, and tell Evie the news that Daria was alive and possibly full of vengeance, but that could wait a little while longer.
The kitchen door opened and Mellie came in. When she saw them all gathered around the table, she dropped the bags of groceries she was carrying. Cans of tomato sauce clattered and rolled in all directions and a carton of eggs popped open and splattered.
Reunited (Book 2 of Lost Highlander series) Page 19