Well, almost nothing.
“Maggie?”
She turned toward the voice that had come from the dark of the nearby bushes. She knew the voice.
“Iain?”
He stepped from the shadows. “Aye. It’s me.” The dim light of the distant streetlights played off his chiseled features. Somehow, his blue eyes shone even in the dark.
Maggie closed her own eyes and shook her head slightly. “What are you doing here? Why aren’t you in Edinburgh with Bonnie?”
“Heather,” Iain corrected quietly. “And because we need to talk.”
“So you thought attacking me from the bushes in the dark of night would be a good way to talk?”
“I’ve been here all day, Maggie,” Iain explained. “Sitting on your steps waiting for you to get home. I was just leaving when you pulled up.”
He glanced toward the street. “Who was that with you?”
Maggie winced. This wasn’t what she had planned right then. “That was Philip. He’s just a friend.”
Iain smiled. “Aye, just a friend. I know the feeling.” Then he asked, “The same Philip that Ellen was going on about?”
Maggie sighed. “Yes. But it’s not exactly what she made it out to be.”
That added some warmth to Iain’s forlorn smile. “Oh? What is it then?”
Maggie ran a hand through her thick hair. She was really, really glad to see Iain. And it was really, really a bad time. She had a hunch. And she needed to do some research. She wasn’t very patient when she had a hunch and needed to do research.
“Look,” she said. “I do want to talk, but, um, can this wait?” It was late. “Are you here tomorrow too?”
Iain frowned a bit. “I was planning on driving back tonight.”
Maggie nodded. “Oh.”
“I suppose I could stay over,” Iain said. He didn’t quite manage not to look toward Maggie’s flat when he said it.
No, she thought, you’re not coming inside right now.
“It’s just,” Maggie felt the need to explain, “I know we need to talk, but now isn’t the best time.”
Iain thought for a moment, then smiled. “It never really is with you, is it? Always something else occupying your thoughts.”
Maggie felt a sting from the comment. “What, you want my thoughts consumed by you?”
Iain laughed slightly. “No, I’d prefer they weren’t. I’m not sure how kind those thoughts would be any more. No, I’m just saying, maybe you should share some of those thoughts.”
Maggie crossed her arms. She didn’t like being told what kind of thoughts she was having about him. They were pretty damn complicated thoughts, thank you very much. And he’d earned every one of them.
“Share them?” she challenged. “With who? Someone who ran away when he first saw them?”
“I didn’t run away when I saw them,” Iain retorted. “You never shared your thoughts. I ran away when I saw, well, what I saw.” He thought for a moment. “And I didn’t run away.”
“No,” Maggie sneered. “You walked. Big difference.”
Iain crossed his arms. “This isn’t what I wanted to do. This isn’t why I came.”
“Why did you come then?” Maggie asked, her patience growing thin. She had things to do, and this wasn’t how she wanted this conversation to go either. “To hear me apologize? To beg for your forgiveness? To supplicate myself to the great and powerful Iain Grant for being so bonny well wonderful for deigning to speak to me after I dared not tell him everything about myself? Well, too bad, buddy, because I’m not apologizing. You proved you couldn’t handle the truth. You’re the one who should apologize for abandoning me. And beg me for another chance.”
“I’m not here to beg for another chance,” Iain replied stiffly.
“Well, maybe you should be,” Maggie answered. “Or maybe you should just leave.”
Iain didn’t say anything. He rubbed the back of his neck and shuffled his feet. Finally he said, “I don’t know what I want to do.”
Brìghde’s journal was still inside. Maggie was still outside. She didn’t have time for this any more.
“Well, when you figure it out,” she said, turning back to her door and pulling out her keys. “Let me know.”
Then she went inside and left Iain Grant out in the cold.
40. The Truth Hurts
She’d learned a thing a two about hiding books. The best place was on a bookshelf behind another book. She tossed some dime-store legal thriller off the shelf and reached behind it, her hand wrapping around her prize. The personal diary she had discovered months earlier beneath the floor of the kirk at the Castle of Park.
She turned immediately to the entries she’d studied before her trip to Visegrád. She’d read them before with one thing in mind—finding a kidnapped child—but now she needed to read them again, with something else in mind. Something terrible.
When she did, new words jumped out at her. New phrases came to the fore. New meaning attacked her and forced her to understand.
Monday, 22 December, A.D. 1645.
It was one year ago today that Margaret was burned as a witch. The time for mourning is now past. The time for action is now here. We must ensure nothing like this ever happens again. I shall send out coded missives calling together the coven. We shall meet in two moons here at Park. We must unite to eradicate the darkness which consumed my daughter lest someone else’s daughter also be consumed in flame. We carry the torch of the Shining Folk, but we must shine without burning.
+++
Thursday, 18 January, A.D. 1646.
Margaret would have been twenty-six today. I spoke with mother. She said the magic feels weaker somehow. I do not feel it myself. Still, I shall be sure to raise the topic with my sisters next month.
+++
Tuesday, 26 February, A.D. 1646.
The meeting went well. We are united in purpose. We shall use our resources and our abilities to battle the dark magic and strengthen the light magic. The others reported that they felt no weakening of the light magic. All agreed to keep watch for any signs of such weakening.
+++
Saturday, 29 May, A.D. 1646.
I visited with Rhonwyn ab-Morgan today. She was in Inverness with her husband on business. She convinced him to stop at Park on their way back south. She asked how I was doing since Margaret’s death. I told her what I could. I also told her of mother’s concerns. She said she thought she felt it too, but was uncertain. She spoke of a Welsh prophecy in which the magic eventually disappears. She stated her belief that the disappearance of the magic was connected to the phrase ‘The Celtic Continent.’ It was agreed that she would return in the summer with details. I shall reconvene the coven for then.
+++
Monday, 4 June, A.D. 1646.
I spoke with Catherine today. She suggested calling for envoys from the other Celtic lands—‘our sisters abroad’ she called them—to see if they know anything of this prophecy. It was agreed, but we shall forego an envoy from Brittany just now given that the prophecy threatens to come to pass on ‘The Celtic Continent.’
+++
Friday, 1 August, A.D. 1646.
The coven was convened today. Ambassadors were also present from Wales, Cornwall, Ireland and Man. Rhonwyn brought word of the prophecy. If it is true, then the magic shall eventually abandon the Celts, and we shall be helpless against our enemies. It was resolved: our mission is now two-fold. We shall contain and destroy the dark magic even as we protect and preserve the light. As the prophecy is not meant to come to pass until centuries hence, a blood oath was taken. Each of us shall pass our charge, mother to daughter, as long as necessary. I shall pass mine to Margaret’s daughter, Catrìona, when she is old enough to understand. The coven shall meet every seven years, or more often as is necessary to track our progress. I can only hope the day never comes where the dark arts of blood and death have survived while the light arts of soul and healing have perished.
+++
&n
bsp; Saturday, 1 August, A.D. 1647.
I had the most horrible dream last night. The light magic was gone. And a traitor, a Judas, had wrestled control of the coven, leading them toward the well of darkness, destroying all we will have worked for generation upon generation. It happened well beyond my lifetime or even Catrìona’s. And so now I am tormented by two questions: Who will this Judas be? And will my own descendant be up to the challenge of stopping her?
Maggie set the journal open on her dining room table, then dug through her backpack for Stuart’s ‘The Unabridged History of Science’ book. He’d insisted she take it after their trip to Edinburgh, since she’d missed some of the exhibit “searching for the loo.” The only reason she’d agreed to take it was because she knew it was a library book and she thought that maybe, if she didn’t return it, Stuart would lose his library rights, or at least get a big fine.
She set it next to the journal and opened it too, comparing dates and events.
In 1646, Brìghde felt the magic weaken. Just a few years earlier, in 1642, Galileo—recanter of the truth—died and Newton—revealer of the truth—was born. What was it that plaque in the museum said?
When Newton published his Principia, in 1687 he laid the groundwork for our modern science-based world.
And the groundwork for the destruction of the old, magic-based one, Maggie realized.
She swallowed hard and thumbed through the advancements that followed Newton’s uncovering the most fundamental understanding of how things—all things—worked.
Scientists mastered astronomy, harnessed electricity, unleashed industry.
Scientists invented steam power, discovered diesel power, unlocked nuclear power.
Scientists built machines to travel under the waves, through the sky, to the moon.
Mystery fueled curiosity. Curiosity led to science. Science supplanted mystery.
Science replaced magic.
She recalled Stuart’s words in front of that stupid sheep exhibit:
“There’s something special, intangible, almost magical about life. Humankind has always longed to create life, to resurrect the dead, the beat back the natural and inescapable cycle of life and death, whether it was Mary Shelly or the Scottish scientists who cloned Dolly. The dream has always been the same, to unlock the greatest scientific mystery ever: life. And this is exactly when they did it.”
The year the white magic finally died, fully supplanted by the cold logic of science. There was no further need for white magic to short-cut the rules of physics; the rules of physics could take care of themselves just fine now, thank you. If you wanted to fly, you didn’t need a levitation spell; just build a spaceship. If you wanted to see something on the other side of the world, you didn’t need a divining spell; just look at the satellite images. If you wanted to unleash the power of a million fires, no need to delve into arcane arts; just take the simplest thing in the universe, a Hydrogen atom, and crack it open.
The white magic died and, within a year, so did her mother. Heart failure, they said. Now Maggie knew better. Or rather, now she knew why. And her own heart broke.
She slumped to the floor and tried to deny the undeniable. She considered the rush she always got when she used the dark magic, totally worth the ensuing nightmares. What must it have been like to wield the white magic? Just as powerful, but positive, with no ill effects? Rather than nightmares of Hell, did you dream of Heaven? What must it have been like to feel that magic ebbing? And what must it have been like to have been the last one to know the magic, weak as it was, and then feel it disappear forever?
It must have been unbearable.
She turned and spotted the photo frame across the room. She raised her hand and unleashed the levitation spell. The frame flew across the room and smacked into her outstretched hand. She glared at the image with welling tears. It was her as a child, standing beside her mother and her grandmother. Before her mother died. Before her mother abandoned her, a child of only eight. And for the first time ever, she looked at the photo understanding why her mother had left. She finally understood.
But she didn’t have to forgive.
She’d fought her whole life against the hate she wanted to feel at her mother for not staying alive. She could win that battle when the reason she died was something out of her mother’s control. When it was just that something happened, something medical, something unavoidable.
But now Maggie knew it wasn’t medical. It wasn’t unavoidable. It didn’t just happen. Her mother lost the magic and she gave up. On everything. On Maggie.
And Maggie finally released the hate.
The frame shot across the room and smashed against the wall. The photo inside burst into flames. She carefully picked up Brìghde’s journal and cradled it in her arms. Then she lowered her head and unleashed her fury.
Books flew off her bookshelves. Frames crashed against the wall. Light bulbs exploded. She curled into a ball and sobbed as if all her books and belongings and treasures and memories flew over her head to break and burn and die.
41. Destined to Fail
She passed out. She must have. When she woke up, she was laying in the middle of her flat, debris everywhere, her head throbbing and her heart racing, and Brìghde’s journal still clutched in her hands.
But first, before she woke up, she dreamt…
It was raining. Not a downpour, but more than a drizzle. And the rain was cold. The drops pierced her linen sleeves and drove into her skin like needles. The ground remained parched though. The raindrops sizzled and popped into steam as they hit the cracked earth, filling the air with an ear-splitting buzz and a foul-smelling mist as Maggie marched across the broken plain toward the stone fortress at its center.
She didn’t have much time. The gray clouds above her were melding into a darker, almost black ring of clouds which was closing in over her head. The storm was coming. She needed to get to the keep before it was too late. Before everything was lost, forever.
She could feel their eyes on her as she strode toward the castle. They didn’t attack her this time. They just watched, either afraid to engage her or, more likely, aware they needn’t bother. This was the endgame. She knew it. They knew it. She would be allowed into the castle. They had no intention of letting her out again.
The demons flitted invisible in her peripheral vision, disappearing into the ether when she turned to look at them directly. She couldn’t tell how many there were, except to know there were too many.
She lowered her shoulders and marched on.
The castle loomed at the center of the parched plain. When she reached the structure, she looked up at the iron drawbridge. It was up. But she knew it would drop for her.
A clap of thunder echoed across the darkening sky.
Then she heard a loud clank and the drawbridge started to descend, its heavy chains rattling as the entrance lowered itself directly toward her.
The rain grew heavier. The demons danced in the corners of her eyes. The ground crackled with steam and fire. And the drawbridge slammed to the ground right in front of her feet.
A dare.
She stepped onto the bridge and walked across it and into the castle.
She knew the demons followed behind. And more awaited within.
Inside the castle, the ground was lush. A thick blanket of emerald grass stretched over the entire courtyard, and a tall, twisted tree rose from the center of the yard, its tangled branches reaching toward the last spot of gray being swallowed by the black clouds swirling above.
Maggie walked directly to the tree. As she approached, thirteen huge, crooked rocks pushed up through the grass, forming a stone circle around the tree—and her. She stopped. The ground directly between her and the tree opened up, spilling down into itself to create a perfectly rectangular hole at her feet.
A grave.
Her grave.
Or so they intended.
She stepped around the grave and reached the tree. That’s when the demons revealed them
selves. A mob of demons, dozens deep, surrounded the stone circle, pressing against the cairns, but not entering. They weren’t there to attack her. They were there to prevent her escape.
The sky was completely black now. The rain drove down in torrents, freezing her clothes and skin. From within twelve of the thirteen stones stepped a beautiful young woman, each dressed in a different style of the same cream-colored linen dress. The rain didn’t seem to hit them. They remained dry and glowing and beautiful. They all raised their hands and stepped toward her.
“Maggie,” they said in unison, their voices bypassing her ears to echo directly inside her mind.
She raised her own hands—into a fighting stance, and glared at the illusions.
They stopped. Then they disappeared.
The background chattering of the demons rose into a high-pitched screech. The earth shifted beneath her feet. The cairns—and the ground within their circle—began to spin, like a calliope, with the stones as the horses and the demons as the crowd of onlookers waiting for the next ride. The spinning accelerated—faster and faster. The tree’s branches sliced through the air as it orbited the grave at the very center of the circle. The rotation distorted the grave from a clean rectangle to a gaping oval, a mouth opening to swallow Maggie. The stones began to rise at the edges, but the grave remained low and at the center, turning the calliope into a funnel. Maggie began sliding toward the grave, slipping on the grass despite her best efforts to stand her ground.
The spinning went even faster. The stones rose even higher. Maggie slipped even more relentlessly toward the grave. Her grave. She dropped to the angled ground and dug her heels into the thick grass.
She stopped herself just short of the opening, her heels and fingertips deep in the grass, keeping her—just barely—out of the abyss.
Then the spinning suddenly stopped. The earth was flat again. The grave was rectangular again. The tree branches rustled as they skittered to a halt. The rain stopped. Even the demon-screech went silent.
She exhaled and relaxed her grip on the grass.
Last Rite (Maggie Devereaux Book 3) Page 18