Tamhas walked toward them with a surety reflected in his swaying stride. His polished staff marked each footfall, sliding easily through his gnarled hand. “There is no game this day, MacKenna.” Tamhas took his place beside Granny with a sharp nod at Gray. “’Tis time ye saw the truth of the night that changed yer life.”
Gray ripped his gaze from Tamhas and turned to Granny. The pale blue of the old woman’s eyes had taken on an eerie golden glow. Her lips barely parted as she stared down at the waters of the small pond and slowly lifted her hands.
“Show us the truth,” Granny commanded in an eerie whisper.
An unholy chill rippled up Gray’s spine. The very air tingled across his flesh. A sense of uneasiness crackled in the wind.
“Wash away smoke and flame. Dust away time gone by. Connect us with those we seek. Show us the reason why.” Granny pressed her hands against her chest, then shoved them away as though releasing a stream of energy out over the reflecting pool.
Gray glanced back and forth between Granny, Trulie, Tamhas, and the shimmering surface of water. All looked to be imbued with an unexplainable luminosity. Three sets of eyes and the gently rippling pool burned with inner fire.
A hissing sizzled around the water’s edge. The wind picked up. High-pitched moans echoed through the garden.
Gray ducked as something brushed his shoulder. He unsheathed his sword as another force shoved him to one side. He squinted through the debris-filled wind whipping all around them, unable to see anything. The air was thick with ... what? He couldn’t make out what swirled all around. All he knew was that he couldn’t see a damn thing.
Then everything went silent. Suffocating darkness crashed around him. He slashed his sword through the air, groping through the darkness with his other hand. There was nothing there. It was as though nothing he had ever known existed except darkness.
A flash of light jolted through his awareness. He made out the unmistakable crackle of flames somewhere in the distance.
“Alastair!” A frightened voice called out—a woman’s voice.
Gray’s heart nearly stopped.Máthair.That wasMáthaircrying out forAthair.
“Isabeau!” his father shouted back.
“Máthair!Athair!”Gray groped deeper into the darkness. The sickening stench of suffocating smoke forced his arm across his face. Terror surged through him. It was that night. The night of the fire. What unholy power had Trulie’s grandmother unleashed to send him back to that terrible night?
As he fought against his rising panic, his parents appeared before him.
“Alastair.” Gray’s mother held out her arms to his father. “Come to me,mo luaidh.Take my hand afore it is too late.”
“Mo chridhe,” his father said as he took her hand. “Are ye sure? Is there no other way?”
“’Tis time.” Isabeau smiled while clutching his hand to her chest. “Gray is strong. He will be all right. Tamhas has promised to guide him.”
“Then I am ready.” Alastair nodded.
As one, they stepped out onto the narrow balcony jutting out from his mother’s bedroom window high above the jagged stones of the moat surrounding the tower. A narrow banister, barely ankle high, surrounded the shelf meant only for housing pots of herbs and flowers when the weather was kind enough to grow them.
“Nay!” Gray shouted into the vision. Neither of his parents turned. “Halt!” Gray shouted again. He tried to rush forward, tried to reach out, but his arms and legs refused to move. Gray roared against the paralyzing darkness. “Release me! I must stop them!”
Alastair and Isabeau looked into each other’s eyes, smiled, and stepped off the ledge into the arms of the darkness.
“Nay!” Gray roared, his scream catching in his throat.
Instead of plunging into the stone courtyard below, his father and mother slowly evaporated into shimmering clouds of golden dust soon scattered by the wind.
Gray’s knees buckled. He collapsed into a huddled mound in the center of the velvety darkness. What had he just seen? What did it mean? He raged against the raw pain of renewed loss ripping through him.
A soft touch brushed the side of his face.“An toir thu dhomh pòg?”
Gray scrubbed the heels of his hands against his eyes. He had surely lost his mind.
“An toir thu dhomh pòg?”his mother’s voice repeated.
“How can I give ye a kiss,Máthair?” Gray didn’t bother opening his eyes. Why should he? All that surrounded him was darkness. “Ye are dead,Máthair.Ye left me. Or have ye forgotten?”
“Gray,” his mother softly chided. “Ye ken better than to speak to me with such harshness.”
