by Allie Mackay
Before he’d fallen so desperately in love with Mindy.
A woman whom, he now knew with surety, he would never see again.
Ghostly magic made anything possible, but the divide between the true fourteenth century and her day was a barrier he couldn’t cross. It was a truth that tore at his heart. Every moment he’d had with Mindy was now damned to be no more than a memory – even the sweet lass herself.
She was no longer here, and he could never again be where she was.
It was as simple and terrible as that.
For the first time in seven hundred centuries, Bran of Barra felt cursed.
He didn’t think he could bear it.
***
Weeks later, Mindy stood alone in the bailey of Bran’s tower, taking the most difficult farewell she’d ever had to make in her life. Completely restored to its former strength and glory, the tower with all its outbuildings and curtain walls truly appeared as if it’d never been anywhere else except here, on this tiny spit-of-a-rock island where it was first built so many long centuries ago.
Jock MacGugan and his men had done beautiful work.
And, she knew, the whole of the Hebrides stood in awe of the speed with which he’d done the next-to-impossible.
MacNeils’ Tower was magnificent.
Only Mindy knew how much more grand it’d really been then.
With each passing day, it became more difficult to believe that she’d really been there. That Bran had taken her across the bay in a medieval coracle, leading her up the same tiny stone jetty where Jock MacGugan had dropped her off an hour ago, reluctantly accepting her wish to spend the afternoon alone on the islet.
She needed to make her goodbyes in private.
For what was surely the thousandth time since she’d entered the tower, she fished around in her jacket pocket, retrieved her damp cotton handkerchief, and dabbed the tears from her cheeks.
This was why she’d wanted to be alone.
She didn’t want anyone, not even a man as kindly as Jock, to see her fall apart.
And she was breaking.
Everywhere she looked, she saw Bran. She saw him standing in the shadows of the door arches. Or she’d see him striding across the cobbled courtyard. He was up on the battlements, too. She saw him there as she knew and loved him: a big, brawny man, looking out to sea, surveying his world.
Then he’d turn and see her. His face would light with his wicked smile and he’d tear down the stone steps and run at her, his arms held wide. He’d grab her by the waist, lifting her in the air and twirling around and around until they fell, laughing and dizzy to the ground.
He’d reach for her again, this time bracketing her face with his strong, calloused hands as he kissed her and kissed her.
She’d throw her arms around him and kiss him back. She’d hold him as tightly as she could and never stop kissing him because she absolutely couldn’t bear to let go of him.
How sad that when it came to it, the choice hadn’t been hers.
Or his, she was sure.
She knew he loved her with the same fierceness. And knowing that he did just made everything even worse.
“Oh, Bran…” She drew a ragged breath, pain sweeping her. The agony of losing him felt like a being pierced by hundreds of scorching, razor-sharp knife blades.
She. Just. Couldn’t. Stand. It.
Needing to sit, she dropped onto a stone bollard near the newly-restored chapel. She closed her eyes and tipped back her head, taking long, deep breaths and releasing them slowly. She’d always been good at grounding herself, and she made use of that skill now. Finally, when the sharpest edge of the pain eased, she reached down to touch the bollard.
Worn smooth and shiny by the lines that had held countless MacNeil galleys, or so she’d been told, the bollard dated to Bran’s time. Sitting on it made her feel somehow closer to him. It was, after all, something he would have passed, and seen, every day.
Can we get more maudlin, Menlove? When did you sink into self-torture?
“I haven’t,” Mindy grumbled to the wind. “I’m trying to heal.”
To that end, she shifted on the bollard, seeking a more comfortable perch. Then she started glancing about again, her greedy gaze taking in everything.
Much of the castle belonged to later centuries. As so often which such places, each generation of chieftains had added his own embellishments. So she’d decided to spend her time searching out the special spots that, she knew for certain, hailed from Bran’s day.
Such as the little stone bollard.
She was making memories.
Not history as Bran had assured her they’d do on their fateful last night together. She was touching, seeing, and absorbing images she could cherish later, when she returned home.
“Damn!” She reached for her crumpled handkerchief again, wishing she’d brought more than just one.
Who would have thought she’d come to think of Barra as home?
But she had.
It was going to rip her soul to leave in the morning.
Her last tie to Bran, gone.
Not wanting to think about him – not able to - she turned her face into the wind. She wasn’t surprised that her last day on Barra was also the most beautiful. A fine brisk day, full of sun and with only a light chop on the bay. Such weather seemed like the final indignity.
She’d come to love gray, wet days of mist and rain.
This day dazzled.
She would have preferred wild and blustery.
Mindy sighed. Somewhere a dog barked. The sound was faint, so it must have been a dog on the shore. Much closer, she could hear the waves hurling themselves against the rocks that edged the base of Bran’s curtain walls. Just above her, several sea birds wheeled and dipped, their shrill, lonely cries almost seeming as if they’d come to say goodbye.
Too bad she hated to go.
At least Margo would offer her a sympathetic shoulder. Sisters were good for that and hers was the best. She had missed Margo and would be glad to see her. Perhaps someday they could return to Scotland together and – if she could bear it – she would even bring Margo here, to Barra.
She knew Margo would thrill to see the Hebrides.
But just now…
Mindy swallowed the heat in her throat. It was too painful to think about returning to Barra when she knew in her heart Bran wouldn’t be here.
“Damn!” she cried again, this time not bothering with her hankie.
No one could see her tears.
Or that she was clenching her fists so tightly that her nails were digging into her palms.
Nor could anyone guess that she was taking great gulps of air not just to calm herself, but because she hoped that when she was stateside again - and so many of her breaths would taste of traffic fumes and city smells - she could then remember sitting on a stone bollard at Barra, drinking in clean, cold air that smelled of the sea.
“Gaaaah!” She pressed a fist to her mouth, not wanting to sob.
This was killing her.
No, she’d died the morning she’d wakened without Bran at the Anchor.
She might not look dead, but she was. Her soul had bled out and she’d never be the same again. Not after having met and fallen so madly, wondrously in love with the man she knew was meant to be hers.
How horrible that their centuries hadn’t matched.
And how annoying that Jock had forgotten his promise not to ferry anyone else out to the islet until she’d said her farewells and was gone.
An old woman was poking about inside the chapel.
Not that Mindy had planned to go inside the little stone building. Even though she knew very well that the chapel was of Bran’s time. For that very reason, she’d decided not to enter it.
The chapel would have been where Bran would have married her if she had been able to stay with him in his time.
So-o-o…
She swiped a hand across her cheek again. She knew what was good for her and wh
at wasn’t.
The chapel was out of bounds.
But it still annoyed her that someone was there.
She’d so wanted – no, she’d needed – to spend this time here alone.
So she sat a bit straighter on the bollard, folded her hands in her lap, and stared down at the cobbles, pretending she hadn’t seen the woman.
But when a shadow fell across her and she found herself looking at two, very small black boots with red plaid laces, she couldn’t ignore the woman any longer.
It was the Hansel and Gretel crone from the Oban ferry.
The tiny, black-garbed old woman who’d vanished from the ferry deck. And whom the red-haired girl had called the Goodwife of Doon.
As she remembered, a shive raced down Mindy’s spine.
She jumped off the bollard, staring at the woman. “I know you.”
“So many folk say.” The woman smiled, her blue eyes twinkling. “That be a fine bollard, eh?” She hobbled over to it, taking Mindy’s seat. “I enjoy a good sit-down here myself, I do.”
“Then please don’t let me bother you.” Mindy clutched her jacket tighter. The day felt suddenly colder.
The old woman gave her the willies.
“You needn’t fear me, lassie.” She gave a little cackle. “I’m on your side.”
“My side?” Mindy’s eyes rounded.
“So I said, just.” The old woman lifted a gnarled hand and clutched a fist, meaningfully.
For some strange reason, Mindy’s heart started to pound. As if the old woman knew, her wizened face wreathed in another smile.
It was a rather cheeky smile that lifted the fine hairs on Mindy’s nape.
“I don’t understand.” Mindy’s mouth was going dry. “I’m just here to say my fare-”
“Och! I know fine why you’re here.” The old woman placed her hands on her knees. “And what you’re searching for.”
“I’m not looking for anything. I’m just-” Mindy’s heart slammed against her ribs. Something about the old woman’s words electrified her.
She set her hands on her hips. “Since you seem to know so much, why don’t you just tell me-”
“There be no need. You’ll see soon enough.”
“You’re not making any sense.”
“Nae?” The old woman cackled again. Turning her head, she glanced at the ancient stone chapel. “Thon is a sacred site. Perhaps you should visit there.”
“The chapel?” Mindy didn’t think so.
The crone nodded.
Then she pushed slowly to her feet and hobbled away in the direction of the jetty. Mindy wasn’t sure, but she thought the woman was chuckling to herself as she went.
As soon as she disappeared around a corner, Mindy hurried to the chapel. She’d wanted to avoid going in there. Small, damp and musty, and reeking of age, it was exactly as she’d imagined it would be. Right down to the strange dreamlike atmosphere that seemed to hang in the air, almost a soft, bluish haze.
It was freezing in the chapel, too.
Mindy turned up her jacket collar and wished she’d brought gloves. In fact, it was too cold – and dark - to stay in the little building any longer.
She’d come. She’d seen. And she hadn’t found anything earth-shaking as the old woman had implied she would. So she shrugged deeper into her jacket and turned to leave. But the floor was an uneven mix of broken stone and earth and she tripped as she neared the low-linteled door.
“Owwww!” She slammed hard onto one knee, sure she’d cracked her kneecap on a rock. But when she pushed to her feet and looked down to brush at her pants, she saw that it hadn’t been a stone that had jabbed into her so painfully.
It was the corroded black hilt of a rusted sword.
Half-buried in damp, hard-packed earth and half-hidden by slabs of cracked, mossy stone, the sword was clearly hundreds of years of old. It was also in terrible condition.
Mindy dropped to her knees in the dirt, this time carefully.
She stared at the sword.
It looked as though it would crumble if she even touched it with a finger.
No way was it Bran’s fabled blade.
But there was something about it. And it did have a rounded pommel. Biting her lip, Mindy pulled out her cotton handkerchief and tried to smooth away the worst mud and grime from the hilt. When her efforts revealed a crystal gemstone, she clutched a hand to her breast, almost afraid to breathe.
The sword was centuries old, many centuries. It’d surely belonged to an ancient warrior.
It could be the Heartbreaker.
When the crystal suddenly turned brilliant, luminously blue, she knew that it was.
“Oh, man!” She began to shake, pressed trembling fingers to her mouth. “Oh, man, oh man...”
She started digging, scraping away the earth and pulling at the stone slabs. But her hands were shaking too badly to get much accomplished and her eyes were streaming now. She couldn’t recall ever having cried so hard. She shed hot, fast rivers of tears that poured down her cheeks, spilling onto her jacket and her hands, dripping onto the rusted sword.
She blinked hard, not understanding how or why the sword was here. Perhaps it’d been buried in the chapel ground all these centuries and the rebuilding work loosened the earth around it? Or maybe it’d been lodged deep in the recess in a stone or underground crevice. Perhaps now through some magic she couldn’t explain, it was showing itself to her?
Whatever the reason, she worked harder and harder to dig the sword from the cold, hard-packed earth.
Finally, she lifted it free, taking it carefully from the ground. It didn’t crumble as she’d feared. But it felt so light and brittle, so old, that holding it was agony.
Could this piece of thin, rusted nothingness really have been the gleaming steel at Bran’s side?
That the blue crystal remained relatively intact, and still so valiant and loyal despite the years and damage, tore her soul.
Holding the sword against her heart, she folded her hands around the gritty, age-roughened hilt. She let her fingers close over the crystal, as she’d seen Bran do. Only she knew he’d done so in desperation, hoping to resist the sword’s magic.
At first, anyway.
Later…
Mindy took a deep breath, aware that touching Heartbreaker was now the closest she’d ever again be to Bran. So she held the blade reverently.
“Oh, Bran.” She squeezed shut her eyes, pain wracking her.
From a great distance, his words flashed across her memory: “Just so there aren’t any doubts in your mind, the Heartbreaker only lets MacNeil men know where the woman of our heart is waiting for us.”
She tightened her fingers over the crystal, her heart splitting. She hadn’t just heard the words. She’d also heard Bran’s voice saying them. His buttery rich burr, so deep and seductive.
A beautiful voice she’d never hear again, unless the Heartbreaker’s magic could work in reverse. Not leading a MacNeil man to his woman, but taking her to her MacNeil man.
It was worth a try.
Before she could think of a prayer, some chant, or whatever, the sword started slipping from her hands.
“Agggh!” She grappled with it, losing her balance and nearly toppling over. She couldn’t let it fall. But it was so heavy, the hilt so smooth. Slippery as an eel, the blade felt almost alive, and was already sliding out of her grasp again.
“Oh, no, you don’t!” She held the sword with both hands, gripping the pommel gemstone as tightly as she dared. It felt hot now, almost blazing, but she kept her fingers clenched around it. Until – she gasped – she was holding nothing.
The sword was gone.
But the soft, blue haze in the little chapel was everywhere.
Thick, swirling, and full of brilliant sparkles, it nearly blinded her. As did the bright gleam of the sword that winked at her from the hip of a tall, broad-shouldered man limned in the chapel’s open doorway.
The sword was the Heartbreaker.
And the man was Bran of Barra.
But it was neither the sword’s glint or the whirling blaze of blue mist that blinded her now. It was the grin spreading over Bran of Barra’s face and the hot tears stinging her eyes.
“Bran!” Mindy scrambled to her feet, running to him. “It’s you! You, you, you! You’re here-”
“Nae, Mindy-lass, ‘tis you who are here.” He caught her to him, crushing her against his big, strong Scottish body as if he wanted to squeeze the breath from her. “You’re with me on Barra, in my time, and I say you welcome! Praise all the powers and whate’er magic brought you back to me!
“I’ve near lost my mind without you.” He grabbed her face between his hands and kissed her deeply. “I couldnae breathe, wanting you. Dinnae you e’er leave me again. The world will become a very dangerous place if you do.”
“I’m not going anywhere.” Mindy wrapped her arms around him, holding on for dear life. “Never, not for any reason. I promise. I’ll be like flypaper-”
“Flypaper?” He raised brow.
“Never mind.” Mindy shook her head, laughing. “Just kiss me, you great big handsome Scot!”
Bran grinned, seeming happy to oblige. Pulling back at last, he bracketed her face again, his own suspiciously damp. “Sakes, but I’ve missed you!”
At his side, Gibbie barked, letting her know he’d missed her, too. Leaping forward, he jumped at her, nearly knocking her down in his enthusiasm.
“Ah, Gibbie…” She dropped to her knees to hug him, accepting his tail wags and kisses. Rubbing his ears heartily so he’d know the love was mutual.
“Enough!” Bran clicked his fingers, calling off Gibbie. “He can have you later. Just now, you are mine. I’m ne’er letting you go, lass. I cannae.”
“I don’t want you to.” She didn’t.
Then, much as she’d fantasized on the bollard, he seized her by the waist, carrying with him from the chapel and out into the bailey, where he hoisted her high in the air and twirled in a circle. He laughed, kissing her again and again as they spun around.
Except, when they stopped, Bran of Barra being, well, Bran of Barra, he didn’t look even slightly dizzy.