by Editor
Serena heard a single chirp overhead and saw Chiriklò, more with mind and ears than with eyes. He sat above a hinged door in the wall of the building. The bird darted in and out between the bars of a small window in the door. Serena tried to reach the window, but she wasn’t tall enough. She stopped struggling and followed the path of the bird with her mind as it moved from cell to cell down the straight inner corridor. Some of the cells were empty. Others were not.
Serena slid her mind past each inhabitant, their resentment, their fear, their pain. One had stolen food for his children and he worried about them now. One was locked inside for a murder. Bleak desperation clung to two others. At last she found William. She focused her thin thread of power over him and through him. He was somewhat conscious. Fear and confusion mingled together, accented by sharp stabs of anger and pain.
“I’m coming, Shoshòy,” she whispered and forced the head of one key into the rough lock. She tried to turn it, but it wouldn’t budge. She tried another. One had to fit, it just had to fit.
Chiriklò flew back to the window and chirped once. Bawdy laughter from the front of the jailhouse danced back to her on the breeze, twisting her stomach. Finally. The third key turned and the door swung inwards.
The stench of bodily waste and decay slapped against her face. She staggered, catching herself on the slime-molded wall, and then hurried ahead. Ignoring the brush of something against her foot, she slipped down the side of the corridor to William’s cell. Her senses open, she felt the wavering hope as one of the inmates watched her go by. Would he betray her? Would any of them betray her? None but the one had seen her so far. She moved to the man’s cell and tried one of the keys. The lock clicked open.
“Keep silent if you value your life,” she whispered and pointed to the back door that still stood ajar. He nodded and crept toward it.
Chiriklò sat across from the man’s cell at another door. His thoughts flitted to her. She should open as many cells as she could. With all the prisoners missing, not just William, the tribe wouldn’t take the full brunt of suspicion.
“On the way out,” she thought back to her pet. The same key turned easily in William’s cell. Serena pulled him off the filthy straw scattered over the stone floor. Rustling and squeaks came from a corner as something bit at her leather shoe. She kicked out at the dark lump, eliciting more squeaks.
“Àngelas?” William asked wearily.
“Shh.” She braced him to lie across her shoulder and upper back. “Can you walk?”
“Yes, not well though.” He grimaced. “My shoulder…”
“Shhh,” she instructed.
“Àngelas, I didn’t…”
“Hush, I know.”
She held his weight as they shuffled along the corridor, step by step. He was large, a man now. His weight made her clumsy, and she fell against the stone wall several times. As she reached each door that held a prisoner, she jabbed the key into the lock and turned. She’d leave it up to the surprised occupants to find their way out. Serena was almost to the end when she saw the man in the last cell looking at her through his bars. He looked to be the age of King Will.
“How about me, lass?” The thick voice held the rolling brogue of a Scotsman. This man had murdered someone, she was certain. She didn’t have time to probe more, for reasons or justifications. But he would probably give her away if she left him. Serena pushed the key in and turned it, stumbling again under William’s weight. Her brother had lost consciousness again with the pain and loss of blood. Serena grunted with exertion as she moved closer to the cracked back door. How would she ever make it out into the woods? The other men had staggered past her and out the door, only the murderer remained behind them.
Serena’s burden lightened as the stranger transferred William’s weight to his own back.
“Ye willna get far that way, lass.” He followed her out into the night.
Once they stepped out into the moonlight, Serena turned to the prisoner. His fuzzy beard covered much of his face, giving him a rough look in his torn, ragged clothing. The filth layered onto him made him difficult to see, but his eyes reflected the brightness of the moon. There was kindness in them, kindness in the man’s heart. “I will take him, thank you,” she said.
The man shook his head. “Ye canna carry his weight.” He shifted William across his back. “Ye willna leave him?”
“He’s my brother.” She touched William’s shoulder where her scarf still held the blood. “He’s been shot.”
The prisoner shifted William again so that he didn’t press on his injured shoulder. “I will carry him where ye want me to.” He stared into her face, and the side of his bearded mouth went up in a grin. “A kindness repays a kindness.”
She hesitated for only a moment and waved him after her as she moved swiftly into the woods. She didn’t know where to go. It had to be far enough away from Leeds Gaol, but close enough for Keenan Maclean to find them. She certainly hoped the Highlander knew how to track. If he didn’t find them, what would she do? Her heart thumped wildly from the need to run. This was a race, a race to save her brother. Her pulse thrummed so loudly that she could hear it. Its tempo propelled her forward on light feet through the night like a doe caught in the scent of the wolf.
The man behind her bore his burden silently. Only the slight sound of William’s toes touching a tree every so often could be heard. The man was taller than she had at first estimated. Even without the sound, she could smell his nearness. The pungent odor of unwashed filth wafted from him. How long had he been in the gaol? Serena didn’t have time to discern his thoughts as she continued to scan ahead. She didn’t want to run into anyone except Keenan.
After walking for what felt like half a league, she motioned for the man to put William down next to a fallen log. “Let us rest while I see how William fares.”
The prisoner put her brother down and sat on the other side of the log. “Would ye have any food, lass?”
“No, I’m sorry,” she said and really felt it. “I’ve known hunger before...I’m sorry. I have nothing with me.” The man nodded then leaned back against the log.
Panic hitched in Serena’s stomach. She really had nothing, no food, no money, and she had broken the law to save William. Serena breathed deeply to loosen clenched muscles. She bent over William, searching in the darkness. The binding was dry. The shot must be removed and the wound washed and cared for.
Although Serena’s eyes had adjusted to the darkness, she still needed light to work. She looked around. Where were they? Would it be safe to light a fire? Where was Keenan Maclean? She knew practically nothing about him yet she had thrown him trust out of desperation. She had learned not to trust promises, when she could read in their hearts what they really felt and thought. Promises were just words and words meant very little to Serena.
The prisoner studied the night sky peeking through the tops of the tall oaks around them. He breathed deeply. “Ahh, the smell of fresh air.” He sighed as if savoring a precious meal. He looked at her. “I must smell worse than a carcass.” He smiled in the moonlight. His teeth looked white behind the scruff of beard.
Serena grinned slightly. “You could use a bath, sir.”
“Robert is the name, Robert Mackay. And I be thankin’ ye, lass, for freeing me from that hellhole. Ye are an angel.”
An àngelas? But what type of man had she released on the world? The type of man who had helped her, by carrying William farther than she ever could have dragged him. Even without opening herself up to Robert Mackay’s mind, she knew his actions were honorable.
“Thank you for carrying my brother for me. I have naught to pay you with, but you may have your freedom. You don’t need to stay with us.”
“Now, lass, what will ye do out here if I dinna stay to help ye?”
What would she do? Serena ran fingers through her hair to rub at the dull ache. She’d never held such responsibility before. What if they were truly all alone?
Chiriklò’s high-pitc
hed chirping pulled her eyes to the right. Hoof beats thudded against the road, a drum beat to the bird’s song. Serena reached out to Chiriklò with her mind and concentrated on their location in relation to the bird’s song. Chiriklò’s chirping grew louder. He flashed her an image of the Highlander who followed his song through the woods.
“Help is coming, Robert Mackay,” she said and felt the beast of worry lift off her chest. “Help is coming, William.” She kissed her brother’s forehead and a faint smile touched her lips. Serena’s head fell forward, letting her hair drape them both. A single tear dripped down onto William’s pale skin, and Serena wiped it away with her thumb. Help was coming. Keenan Maclean had kept his promise.
Chapter 3
Luck was a fickle matron, but today she smiled on them. Keenan Maclean stood in the crude doorframe of the warm two-room cottage looking out at the slanting rain. Lazy jailors hated to hunt in the rain, and tracks vanished into mud. He’d been surprised to find a prisoner, Robert Mackay, helping Serena and her brother in the forest last night. But the prisoner had a sister who was generous, accessible, and knew how to remove a pistol shot. Aye, luck smiled on them.
Keenan’s gaze shifted to Serena where she lay in exhausted sleep next to William, a brother who looked nothing like her. Who was this ivory-skinned, auburn-haired gypsy woman? Serena Faw was definitely not ordinary. She hadn’t complained or pouted as they rode and walked through the forest all night. She hadn’t shied away from helping Robert’s sister remove the shot. Serena Faw was different.
The lass slept on her back now, one arm flopped over her stomach. He watched the swell of breasts rise and fall, lips relaxed in slumber, partly open. He remembered the kiss at the gaol. It had been a perfect distraction for the jailors and had given him a topic to discuss with the lusty English bastards while she sneaked around back. But the feel of her yielding lips, the press of her warm body against his, haunted him.
Turning, he peered out through the grey sheets of rain. If he were honest, he would admit that he wanted another taste of her, perhaps more than a taste. But what was the point? His life was not his own, nor his heart. The dark prophecy that shaped his every move and strategy owned his life. Keenan ran his hand along an eave, catching the cool rain, letting it run down his bare arm. At present he was too tired to be honest.
Robert Mackay’s sister, Gena, placed a hand on his shoulder and whispered, “Go find yer rest. Ye will have to move them once the rain stops.” She was a stout, older woman with gentle eyes and steady, strong hands, a solid Yorkshire widow. The concern for their party etched deep lines in her forehead. She sighed long. “It’s too easy to find ye here.”
“As soon as the rain stops,” he said. She nodded and walked to her stool near the fire.
Keenan rotated his shoulders. He stretched out onto his side on the blanket next to Serena. She rolled towards him, and he inhaled. He caught her warm scent in his lungs and held it there until he was forced to release it. He rubbed his fist absently over the ache in his chest. Och, he wanted to touch her doe-like skin, pull her full, soft body to him. The memory of their kiss moved through his mind, and he rubbed a hand over his mouth and jaw, wiping away the feel of her lips. Mo bhean. My woman. The thought echoed inside him and he snorted softly. Ridiculous. He had no woman. He had nothing except duty and honor and death.
Her lips were so close that he could imagine the warmth of her breath. Even without the Rom coloring, she was exotic. She had an air of secrets, of magic. Pinpricks of warning ran down Keenan’s back, cooling the rush of lust her smell roused in him. Magic already played havoc in his life.
Her blue bird flew in through the window and settled near Serena’s shoulder. The strange sight sent a prickle down Keenan’s back. What color eyes would Serena have in the sunlight? Keenan rolled away from her and forced himself to rest while listening to the cadence of her sleep.
****
They left Robert’s sister when the rain stopped and traveled all night. Close to dawn, they halted at a small abandoned hut near the Scottish border. Serena insisted that William be allowed to lie flat and sleep solidly. She changed his dressing and frowned at the redness around the wound. “He will rage with fever, no doubt,” she said and looked up at Keenan in the dim light of the hut. “We need to get him to your home as soon as possible so he can battle it without moving. How long?”
“With good weather, and few stops, four days.”
Four days. Serena cringed inside. She brushed the matted hair back from William’s forehead and placed a kiss there.
Robert carried chunks of peat cut from the moors nearby and plunked them into the grimy hearth. He peeked up the chimney warily.
“If it doona crumble down on us, we may have a nice fire.”
Keenan shook his head. “No fire during the daylight. We’d be too easy to spot. When the sun goes down, we can start a fire to cook some meat right before we leave.”
“Aye, of course.” Robert walked over to William. He looked at Serena. “How goes the lad?”
“Lucky to have you cradle him so carefully on your mount,” she answered sincerely. Robert Mackay had turned out to be a blessing. Upon meeting his sister, Serena had picked up on her relief and guilt. Robert had killed an English taxman who wanted more from his sister than her money. She lived alone and Robert had swooped in during the attack. He now paid the penalty for saving his only surviving kin. Serena had nearly left him in his cell because of her first impression. Perceptions, even with her powers, could be wrong, she thought humbly and smiled at the man.
“He will rest now, that’s all that can be done without supplies,” she said.
Robert patted her shoulder and turned toward a corner of the dirty room. “Time to lower these weary bones to the floor, then.”
The man’s snore whooshed through the room within minutes. Serena’s exhaustion lay upon her shoulders. Her head ached with worry. She didn’t know much about healing a pistol wound nor a dangerous fever, and she didn’t have Duy’s herbs.
Serena lowered her body next to William. She threaded out a thought toward Mari, telling her they were alive and as well as could be. Serena didn’t know if Mari could hear, but she would try. Her poor duy must be worried, both of her children gone. As the infinite number of hopeless thoughts piled in, Serena felt a heavy blanket drop. She looked up in time to watch Keenan walk back out of the door. She closed her eyes and fell into oblivion.
Her body floated along through dark images of the shooting, the dankness of the jailhouse, the strong arms of the Highland warrior. Just as her mind began to relax and retreat into comfortable blackness, she felt a familiar tug. The tug pulled from the dragonfly birthmark near her bellybutton. It had been pulling at her for years to go northwest. Serena felt it in dreams and sometimes when she was awake, staring off into the woods or sky. Wanderlust, Mari had suggested. It worsened the farther north they’d traveled and changed to a westward pull. The tug barely intruded on Serena when they traveled south of London. But now as they made their way into Scotland, the thread inside her jerked taut as if someone in the west wound it like a rope from the other end.
Serena’s body lifted on the breeze and blew past William and Robert where they lay on the floor. Out the door she moved. Was this real or just a dream? She didn’t see Keenan as she walked among the trees, over branches, across a narrow road. She stopped in a clearing of ancient, gnarled trees as if the person who pulled stopped winding.
Serena turned in the circle of trees. She spread arms out wide and tilted her head back. The birthmark tingled against her skin. Sun slanted down through a hole at the top of the dense canopy to fall upon her upturned face. She squinted at its brightness. The smell of fresh earth after a spring rain surrounded her. The stuttered flight of hundreds of dragonflies darted among the trees towering overhead. What an odd sight.
“I am here,” a woman’s smooth voice came from nowhere and everywhere at once, perhaps inside Serena’s head, she couldn’t tell. Serena snapp
ed back down out of the trees. The crone stood tall, wispy white hair braided. Her robes looked white, but then translucent and then full of every color imaginable as she moved. The many lines etched into pale skin gave her an ancient and wise look, much like the trees around them. Dragonflies zipped around her head like fairies.
“Who are you?” Serena asked.
The woman smiled. “I know you well,” she said, but her lips did not move. She spoke to Serena in her mind. “I am Drakkina, and I knew your mother.”
“You know Mari?”
“No child, your birth mother, Gilla. And your father, Druce.”
Serena was about to ask more when the crone’s thoughts stopped her.
“William will die,” she said inside Serena’s head. Fear twisted into Serena, and she almost turned to go back to him.
The woman held up a deeply lined hand. It looked old, yet it seemed to possess so much strength, strength to stop Serena’s trembling emotions until she could finish. “William will die unless you give him something now to fight the battle his body has begun. He cannot wait until you reach the Macleans of Kylkern. The poison creeping within his blood will have spread too far by then.”
Although Serena was certain that the old woman could read her mind as well, she spoke out loud. “What can I do? Can you help him?”
“I am helping him,” she spoke wordlessly, a mysterious smile spreading across her thin lips, “by helping you.”
“Then tell me.”
The old woman spoke out loud into the clearing. Her voice sounded older than the voice in Serena’s head, but it was the same. “You must seek another, one with great powers to heal.”