“Still, there were those who believed in the old way, who were not eager to see it die. The MacLeods of Dunvegan were one such mighty clan. Their ties to the world of faery go back as far as recorded time.”
Katie suppressed a shiver and sipped her tea.
“They took me into their fold, and I was Thomas the harper to them for a goodly number of years,” Tom went on. “But a man once touched by fae cannot call his life his own. I was duty bound to follow whenever two messengers of the faery came for me. And that’s where the Erl-King comes in.”
“Is it true that his legend was Scandinavian in origin?” she asked.
“Aye,” Tom said. “The Erl-King did come over with the Northmen. He was a plague to them, and a plague to the Highlands as well. He feared no priest, feared no man, and with the Sluagh at his command, he ravaged the unwary who were out after dark. He stole children and turned them into goblins just like the one that nearly took your Miss Sally tonight.
“The mothers of the Highlands feared for their bairns. They called to the priests of the White Christ to help, but the priests just said it was devil talk, and told the women not to be hysterical. Told the menfolk not to tolerate such pitiful superstitions from the women. The priests vowed in the name of God to stop fire festivals and fertility festivals and planting festivals as pagan lore. But as those protections fell to the wayside, so did the hardships begin.
“‘Twas just after the massacre at Glencoe that I had a longing to visit my old land. The Chieftain of MacLeod granted me leave, though in truth, had the faery called me, I would have been forced to answer. And surely, as I set out on that journey, they did.
“Now the Seelie had always had a bit of trouble with the Unseelie, but things seemed worse now than ever. Goblins were becoming a plague on the faery folk as well. ’Twas Lord Micheil, a chieftain of the Elf Queen’s army, who learned the cause was none other than the Erl-King himself. It seemed the dark one had a terrible plan, and it had much to do with the MacLeods of Dunvegan.
“According to legend, the MacLeods of Dunvegan were the owners of a flag given them by the faery wife of one of their former lairds. Whosoever waved the flag in times of danger, would find the Host of Seelie come to aide their battle against evil. Many MacLeods carried pieces of the flag into battle with them for luck without ever knowing that the flag had another property. If waved like a banner, it gave its bearer command of all faery until it was put away.
“Now, the Erl-King coveted this flag, for he knew he could use it to control his lighter cousins and keep them out of his way. He made plans to steal it, and though Micheil was ready to face the Erl-King in combat, Micheil knew he could not defeat the monster should it take possession of the flag. Nor could he stop the foul master of darkness from finding access into Dunvegan Castle to do so. He was at a loss, and called upon me to say sooth for him on this matter. What I said did not set his heart at ease. I told him that if ’ere a piece of the flag reached the new world, that the Erl-King would have it all. Micheil knew not what to do, but I did. You see, the one thing I learned in my life among the faery was that they could not resist a challenge. Gambling was lifeblood to them, and of course, winning was their greatest pleasure. Make the challenge stiff and the prize sweet, and they could not resist.”
“You challenged the Erl-King?” Katie’s eyes were wide.
“Aye,” Tom said and grinned. “I challenged him to a duel of harps. Who ever could rouse the warriors in the cave in Eildon Hills to some emotion while they slept would win. The Erl-King could not resist, especially when I offered to steal the flag for him if I lost.”
“You were going to steal the flag?” Katie shook her head. “How?”
“Well, I had no mind to that matter at all,” Tom insisted, “For I had no intention of losing.”
Braggart, she thought.
“It was a merry time. We went to the cave in Eildon Hills, and there we played the music for many a day. The Erl-King was good, but his songs were too much like him, all ragged and scratchy. So long as he played, the warriors were unmoved, though there were some who thought they saw a flicker of amusement. But my music was so powerful, it made the warriors weep in their sleep when I played songs of sorrow. They cheered to my songs of heroes and sighed to my songs of love. It was clear that I was the winner.”
“And the Erl-King’s offer?”
“In his arrogance, he made the mistake of believing he would not have to keep that bargain he struck.”
“What was his bargain?” Katie insisted.
“He would allow himself and his Host to be locked beyond the mortal realms by means of a gate, should he lose—which he did.”
“Where was this gate?”
“The gate is,” Tom said. “Where signifies little when one speaks of an opening between this realm and the next. For the most part, it can be found under an oak or a hawthorn tree, but that is of no matter. Suffice to say he was trapped in his own darkness, and there he was forced to stay until you set him free.”
Thank you for that reminder, she thought. Tom seemed to read her expression all the same.
“Oh, it’s not as grim as it sounds, lass,” he said. “You’d know that had you read the rest of the predictions in my book.”
“Whoa, wait a minute,” Katie said, bolting upright in her chair. “You’re Thomas Lachlan MacKenzie as well?”
“In the flesh,” he said with a grin.
“Then you must have shaved.”
“Aye, well, Victorian beards and whiskers went out with that gracious Queen.”
“Too bad,” Katie said. “You always made me think of Gandalf the wizard in that old painting in the library.”
“Who?” Tom said, his bushy brows drawing closer.
“Gandalf,” she repeated. “He was the wizard in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. Surely, you’ve heard of Tolkein and his Middle-Earth tales.”
“Can’t say as I ever met the lad or his lore,” Tom said, shaking his head.
“Never mind,” Katie said. “Just how did you come to be T. L. MacKenzie?”
“Well, after the battle of harps, I settled down in the village of Erceldoune. I had faery gold enough to buy property there, but I didn’t dare use my old name, for even then, I knew by all the locals said, I was a legend, and the kirk takes unkindly to those who claim to be one purported to have been a wizard. And since I had known a few of the MacKenzies in some of my Highland wanderings, I felt certain they would not take offense to my borrowing the family name.
“I was there for some time. ’Twas just before the battle of Culloden that two messengers of the faery arrived at my door. Trouble at Dunvegan was all I could make of it, and Micheil thought I’d best come. Tired as I was of being beholden to the Seelie, I could not bring myself to refuse. I’d been around Berwickshire long enough for folks to start to wonder, so I told them I was traveling abroad to visit my son...”
“You told a lie?”
“Not really, for I did have a son and a wife once, and lands. Of course, I didn’t actually say so to them, for my son was by then long dead. Rather, I left them with reason to believe it could be so. After all, after several hundred years, one learns there are ways to speak true and still twist the truth.”
“So I’ve noticed,” Katie said with a grin that made Tom look all the more perturbed.
“Once I got to Dunvegan, I learned the current laird was upset because one of his younger sons had left in anger and gone to the new world to follow a lay preacher of the Presbyterian faith. None knew what path he’d taken, but what they did know was that he carried the means to all our woes—a means you carry even now, Katie MacLeod.”
Katie made a face, not liking the implication.
“I followed as best I could,” Tom went on, “I arrived in the New World around 1750, but there was a war between the French and the British in the mountains that kept me off the track for more years than I care to count. Indeed, I had traveled most of the eastern coast of this new countr
y until I finally found where MacLeod had come to live. Many a good Highlander had come to this place, some to find religious freedom, others to find land and work. And after all that, it was Micheil himself who gave me the clue I so vitally needed. He had seen the MacLeod himself almost a hundred years before I settled into this wonderful little town. He laughed to tell the tale of how the MacGreeley thought Micheil an angel of the White Christ.”
“Why didn’t he get the flag then?” Katie asked.
“Because he had more important matters to concern him, and the faery are fickle. Blood was being shed too close to a gate to the dark realm, and besides, he only sensed it briefly. At the time, he did not even know the lad was a MacLeod, only knew that there was a hint of fae doings about the young man.
“At any rate, by then, Queen Victoria was on the throne. Her long rule was already half over when I settled in Mercyville. The tree was strong in those days when I built my home and used my magic to dig the cellars about its roots. But time and nature have taken their toll. I kept watch as was my new duty, but as years passed, I knew it would be impossible to explain my lengthy life. And the MacGreeleys were starting to wonder. I had to disappear, but I could not leave Mercyville, for I had given my word to the faery that once I found the wee bit of faery flag, I would stay to protect the gate and hopefully keep my own prophecy from coming to life.”
“What about this Micheil? If he came to defend the gate once, why can’t he come now?”
“Time has taken a dreadful toll on the magic we once knew as well,” Tom said with a sigh. “As mankind has ceased to believe and grown narrower in its thinking, magic has suffered. The Seelie cannot come unless they are called, and even then, they can only be called by one of the old blood who still believes in the old ways.”
“What? A witch or a sorcerer?”
“Nothing of the like,” Tom said, and his smile held a wistful quality. “Just one who has never ceased to believe, in spite of all odds. One just like you, Katie MacLeod. You are the keeper of the flag, and though there are many who bear the name and share the blood, you are the last of your line. You have the power to call forth the Seelie armies and drive the darkness back to its own realm. In your heart, you know there are realms mankind will never understand.”
Katie looked at the flames, her face flushing. She had always believed, and she knew it. As a child, and now, as an adult. She had carried in her heart the fervent desire to prove the closed-minded masses wrong. Up until the death of her family, she had never been afraid to boast of her views against censorship and book banners and over zealous religions. And she had thought that when they died, crushed under tons of rock, that she would never have it in her heart to believe again.
The world became a cruel and practical place for her then. Reality said there was no time for childish fancy. She had bills to pay, a house to keep. Oh, yes, she still pursued the dreams of her career as a writer, but even that dream was taking a battering.
“You know,” she said. “If I were to tell this story to Dan or Mr. Durgan, they’d think I’d gone as loony as they believe you are. Even Lonnie, my own cousin, who still greets the sunrise in the old way each day, thinks I’ve lost my wits.”
“Their lack of belief does not end the threat,” Tom said.
“Why not? I mean, if the fact that mankind has ceased to believe can keep the faery realms closed away and weaken magic, then why should I do anything at all? Why won’t it just fade away on its own?”
“Because, as long as there are those who do believe, the other realms will never cease to be, and dark powers will never relent their desire to rule. As for magic, it has never really gone away. One has only to watch the birth of a living creature or seen a flower blossom to know that there is still some magic in the world. Science just knows how to explain it is all. Come to think of it, science is nothing more than sorcery aided by technology and chemistry is mere alchemy with the math to prove it works.”
“Say that to the fundamentalist, and you’ll give them meat to chew for ages to come,” Katie said with a short laugh. “They’d just as soon abolish all science as well as all myth.”
“Aye, well, religion has always been a funny thing,” Tom said. “I prefer to think, it’s not what you believe in, but the fact that you do believe that counts. After all, when you get down to it, Christianity is just another myth.”
I’ve said that for years, Katie mused. For that matter, so had her father. Maybe it was his fault Katie had been born with such an open mind. He’d married a woman whose ancestors still revered their ties to nature. He encouraged his daughter to study folklore, to write down her comparison between Celtic and Cherokee lore and pen her own versions of fairy tales. She’d done that since she was able to clutch a pencil in one hand, and even now, as she stared at the fire, her eyes glistened to recall those winter nights when she would curl up in his lap and tell her own mutated versions of the old stories he once told her while mother sang softly in her Cherokee tongue and rocked baby Adam to sleep. Happier times, to be sure.
She wasn’t aware that Tom had moved until he knelt before her and looked up at her with those merry green eyes.
“Katie, ye must decide,” he said. “The fate of all mankind rests in your decision.”
“Great, the world is my responsibility.”
“You let them free.”
“You gave me the key,” she insisted.
“Aye,” he said win a weary voice. “I had hoped that you would read only all that I’d written, and know that you had one chance to stop any of this from happening.”
“What chance was that?”
He sighed. “Had you burned the faery flag, you would have broken its power to unlock the magical doors I set to keep mortals out of the cave and away from the gates. But because you have the flag, you were able to pass all barriers. All magic there reacted to you, and by that reaction, its spell was broken.”
“Is that what happened when I touched the harp and my hand was healed.”
“You touched the harp?” Tom said, looking aghast.
“Well, yes. Lonnie found it, and I stroked it, and there was all this light, and I could see these people, and they disappeared...”
Katie paused, remembering how the light had concentrated itself into a pinpoint to enter the locket she wore. She picked up the locket, staring at it. The faint whisper of sweet voices and the chime of silver bells hummed inside her and warmed her soul. Tom rose from the floor and threw up his hands as he paced away.
“Wonderful!” he cried. “You touched my harp, and you stole its magic when you did!”
Katie made a face. “Then why did you leave it where I would find it?”
“A clear mistake on my part,” Tom agreed as he paced the room. “Now all the magic I had that I could have used to help you put an end to this is gone.”
“No it’s not,” she said as she held up the locket. “It’s in here now.”
Tom stopped his rapid march to wheel about and stare at her. “With the flag?” he asked as though not daring to believe.
She shrugged. “My father gave this to Adam with some story about how it connected us to the MacLeods of Dunvegan. There is a piece of old brown silk in it that looks like a good wind would turn it to dust.”
“Oh, no,” Tom said. “Only by fire can it ever be destroyed.”
“Then what’s to stop us from burning it now?” she asked. “Surely, if this is what the Erl-King’s after, then burning it will keep him from ever using it.”
“Oh, that it would, but you can’t burn it now,” Tom insisted. “You’ve got to use it to call the Seelie.”
“And how do I do that?”
“We’ve got to get back to the gate,” Tom said and looked thoughtful.
“Then, let’s go,” Katie said.
“Not yet,” Tom insisted. “Dawn is approaching, and neither of us has slept. There’s much you will have to be told concerning the magic you stole from my harp... and we will need help.”
>
“From who?”
“From the MacGreeley sister, for starters.”
“What?” Katie came out of her chair at that. “Those bible-thumping book burners?”
“Faith, Katie,” Tom said. “It’s as important as anything now.”
“Right,” she said. “What good are they going to do?”
“They hold a key as well.”
“Another key?”
“Aye, the key I gave their ancestor, the one that opened the old locks to my main doors. It matches the key you have, and one must have both of them to open the real way to the gate.”
“There is more than one way to the gate?”
“You didn’t think I would have only one, did you? The path you found was a back door, if you will.”
“Great, and how are we supposed to convince the MacGreeley sisters to give us that key?”
“You want it for the display,” Tom said.
“That would be a lie,” Katie insisted.
“Aye, that’s why you’ll have to tell it,” Tom said.
“For a man who cannot tell anything but the truth, you sure know how to get others to fib for you,” she said.
“‘Tis an art,” Tom agreed.
ELEVEN
Katie rose a few hours later, feeling the kinks of having curled up on the bed in an immobile knot to snatch back what little sleep would come. The sun was already well up by the time she pulled on jeans, a sweatshirt and sneakers to bump down the stairs and make coffee. There were cinnamon buns in the freezer. She thawed a few of those and scrambled some eggs and mixed up a bowl of grits, and had it all on the table when Tom came into the kitchen. His disposition was far more sunny than she felt.
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