“And these.” He rose from his chair slowly, as if it pained him, and walked stiffly but regally to stand before her. He lifted Bonnie’s face with a gentle hand under her bearded chin. “They’ve nae spell upon them? They follow you of their own free will?”
“Yea.” Then Evelyn winced. “All but Robert, I should say.” She lifted her arm to indicate the hare draped over it. “He rode in his hutch. I’m afraid I didn’t think to turn him loose.”
“Robert.” Angus smiled, looked at the sheep. “And this is…?”
“Bonnie,” Evelyn answered. She reached into her pocket and withdrew the wriggling mouse. “Whiskers. And Sebastian is perched on yonder door frame.”
“How do you do?” Angus said with mock formality. Then his wise old eyes met Evelyn’s. “But where is the black one?”
Instantly the mental image of Alinor sprang into Evelyn’s mind and her chest tightened. “We had come a long way together and…she was”—Evelyn had to pause—“ill. She could not continue. Mayhap she will yet come…”
The Buchanan smiled sadly, as if he knew but was too kind to say.
“My sister foretold of your coming, Eve.” He paused. “Eve. Like the first woman. I knew your arrival would herald Minerva’s death, but I anticipated it all the same. We are in dire need of the great and humbling peace you bring.”
Evelyn wanted to believe the old man’s words about this wondrous prophesy that made her arrival at the Buchanan town cause for celebration, but she was sick of lies and half-truths. Mayhap her coming had been foretold. Evelyn did not know what was fantasy or reality anymore, but she would propagate no illusions about her own purpose in coming.
“I bring you no peace,” she said respectfully. “Indeed, you may refuse me once I explain the reason I have journeyed to your town. But I swear to you, ’tis true that I…that I am of no home.”
Angus Buchanan cupped her face in cool, wrinkled palms. “My child, I could nae refuse you, never. Welcome.” He kissed both her cheeks, then brought her to his own chair. “Now, rest. And tell me, where is your man? The father of your bairn? Nae dead, I hope.”
“Nay.” Evelyn squirmed in the seat of honor in which she’d been placed. “He returned to his home. He doesn’t want either of us.”
“Och, now, what kind of man is that, I ask you?” the old one said in furious outrage, dragging another chair to Evelyn’s side. “A fool of a man!”
“A MacKerrick man,” Evelyn said, bracing herself. “Conall MacKerrick.”
Angus gave a wheezy gasp as he stared at her and slowly his hand went to his chest, clutching and splaying. “MacKerrick?” he gurgled. His eyes bulged, and then he fell into the chair, unconscious.
The gray haunted them on the path through the long valley, mirroring their journey like a ghost in the underbrush. They saw no sight of him, but his presence was constantly felt like a persistent icy drip of water down the back of their necks, or an ache in their teeth, dull and throbbing and maddening.
Conall in particular was consumed by thoughts of the beast. Indeed, his brain swarmed with dangerous ideas. Eve under the shadowed evil of the curse, and the demon who had unleashed it now traveling with the party to her side. As fast as Conall hiked, so with the same speed went the gray. A race with no winner, save death and destruction. Fear. Pain. Regret. Conall could taste each emotion on the air of the valley.
I have kept my promise. Your son is safe.
Lana’s proclamation had stayed the beast from attack, true, but the words now strangled the three travelers like a noose. Lana MacKerrick would not explain her words to either Duncan or Conall, although Duncan still hounded the woman, stomping and cursing and demanding answer. Conall was silent.
He had already solved the riddle on his own. He was no imbecile, after all.
Conall and his brother looked nothing alike. Since Conall’s earliest memories, Duncan had been doted on, protected by, Lana. Indeed, when Conall had left the MacKerrick town after the successful hunt, hadn’t Lana seemed all too eager to see him go? Conall now knew why: so that Lana’s son—her true son, Duncan—could rule in his proper place.
Conall was certain his father—or Dáire, he should think of him now—never knew the truth either, else Conall would never have been groomed to become the MacKerrick. Dáire had chosen the stronger son, the bigger, the swifter, as his successor. But he had chosen against his loins.
Of course the gray would haunt Conall. Minion of the woman he cursed, Minerva Buchanan, his real mother.
It explained the improved state of the MacKerrick town. Although Eve was, in truth, not Buchanan, Conall was. And as soon as his seed had taken root in her womb…
Until a Buchanan bairn is born to rule…
Conall still did not understand why Nonna and their girl babe had been lost, though. So many unanswered questions. He supposed he should be grateful Eve was not a Buchanan, for if she had been, their coupling would have been incestuous.
He huffed a dark laugh, drawing an anxious, guilty look from Lana. Conall did not meet her eyes. Could not. The lies, for so many years. The unnecessary guilt. Lana had promised to explain all once they reached their destination, and so Conall would wait.
He did not know where he belonged now. Not the MacKerrick town, but surely not with the Buchanans either. His very identity had been stripped.
He was now just a man. A man desperate to reach the two people who were undoubtedly his—Eve and their child.
A narrow pass now loomed high above them and, as if by unspoken agreement, the three stopped and stared at the steep, rocky path ahead. As if they knew that beyond it lay their unchangeable destinies; the past forever done, the future uncertain.
