As the kettle started to gurgle and hiss out a column of steam, he wiped a weary hand across his face. He was doing the right thing. He felt that in his bones. But Goddess help him, how was he ever going to survive it?
CHAPTER 14
In the place she always feared.It had to be up here in the attic because she had always hated spiders. Still did. With her shoulders wedged between two of the main trusses, Rachel tried one more time to reposition the crowbar and loosen the oblong floorboard haphazardly nailed to the beam. Once again, the crowbar slipped and nearly dinged her right between the eyes as it popped free. “Shit!”
“If ye’re having so much trouble removing that board as a woman grown and wielding a piece of iron, how in the world would ye have hidden your grandmother’s wee book there as a mere lass of seven summers? Especially if ye hid it in haste?” Emrys’s tone held a distinct note of sarcasm that irritated the living daylights out of her. “And I still canna understand how ye could nay remember where ye put it.”
“Traumatic childhood memories are best kept buried and forgotten,” she snapped, even though she agreed with him. She didn’t understand how she could forget something so important either. “And if you can’t help with anything other than snide remarks, go away.” She had searched the house high and low ever since the night in the woods when Granny’s spirit had visited her. She knew in her heart if she could find that book, shecould keep Caelan and Emrys in this time. They would all stay here in the year 2007 and live out their lives in relative safety withmodernconveniences and medicines. Raise their babies without the worry about them dying from illnesses already researched and resolved. Granted, this time held dangers all its own, but not so many as the past.
This way, she could also protect Caelan and her sons from Scotland’s bloody history. She paused and rubbed her stomach like a wishing stone, tears burning her eyes at the thought of her sons and the future they would have if they were born in fourteenth century Scotland and grew up in the past she had so carefully researched.
“Ye canna be thinking anything good with that look on your bonny face.” Emrys’s gruffness tore her from her worries as he gently pulled the crowbar from her hand.
“I just want to find Granny’s book to take back to Scotland with me,” she hurried to explain. “I’m frustrated because I can’t find it. She blinked away the tears and moved to another corner of the attic. “You said I couldn’t take anything through the portal but myself and the dogs. Surely the Fates would allow me to bring my grandmother’s book.”
“Perhaps.” Emrys narrowed his eyes at her and scratched his beard. “Ye seem more than a little obsessed about it, ye ken? Even got your aura glowing a bright purple. Highly charged with energy, ye are.”
Rachel wanted to tell him tohushbut bit her tongue before the words slipped out. He was much harder to fool than Caelan, and it made her nervous.
“What about that wee box over there? See it wedged under that eave?” The old druid pointed. The corner of a barely visible wooden container was shoved so far back beside the chimney that it looked to be part of a supporting beam.
“That’s it!” The memory flooded back to her. She made her way over to it, dropped to her knees, and worked at the tightly wedged box until she was able to wiggle it free. It refused to open once she held it in her lap. Years of dirt, debris, and good old Kentucky humidity had caused the lid to seal itself better than any glue.
“You are going to open,” she told the box. She grabbed the crowbar, wedged the end of it into the box’s wooden seams, then whacked the container against the floor as hard as possible. As it splintered into pieces, a worn leather book slid to the floor. Rachel lifted it with reverence, dusting pieces of wood and dirt off the cover. Happiness filled her as it warmed to her touch. “Hello, Granny.”
She carefully opened it and turned the pages. Memories of her grandmother flooded her mind and heart as scents of spices and florals wafted up from the small leather tome.
“A precious book,” Emrys said while peering over her shoulder. “Makes me yearn for me own library back at the keep.”
“I thought druid rituals were never written,” Rachel said without looking up from the yellowed pages. “Taught from master to apprentice by memory and rote only?”
“Aye, it is,” he told her, still sounding wistful. “But with no apprentice and as old as I’m getting to be, I began recording things years ago.” He worked his hands as though itching to touch the precious grimoire. “Now that ye’ve found the wee book, what do ye mean to do with it?”
She smoothed the worn leather cover shut again and hugged it close. With her thumb mindlessly rubbing back and forth across it, she tucked her nose closer to the spine and inhaled Granny’s scent as she closed her eyes. “I’m going to keep it with me to share with my sons. That way, I can at least introduce them to the one good ancestor from my side of the family. I’msure their father has lots of tales of the brave warriors on the MacKay side.”
It wasn’t a lie. She would use the book to introduce her sons to their great grandmother. Now just wasn’t the time for Emrys to find out her plan to keep himself and Caelan with her here in the future.
“Aye Caelan will have many tales for the lads.” He cleared his throat and turned away, as though overcome with emotion.
Rachel eyed him. His behavior had turned decidedly odd. “Are you all right, Emrys?” What was the man hiding?
“Fine, lass. I’ll be going now to see if Caelan’s come back from town yet.” He moved carefully across the exposed beams toward the ladder, his gait slow and uncertain.
“Okay. Be careful on that ladder.” Rachel pulled in a deep breath as she reopened the book. While thumbing through the soft, worn pages, she found herself smiling.
“Here,” she said in a breathless whisper. She tapped the page and ran her finger slowly down a column of faded, flowery scrawl. She squinted at the paragraphs in the attic’s poor light, barely able to make out the words.
“Tonight should be close enough to the full moon, but I have to get them up to the pond.” She caught her bottom lip between her teeth and read the passage again to be sure.
“This is definitely the way. I know I can get Caelan there.” She nervously chewed on her lip. “But Emrys has to be there too.”
Downstairs, the screen door slammed, startling her from her plotting. She closed the book and tucked it into the crook of her arm. As she picked her way across the attic floor and headed for the ladder, she kept mumbling under her breath, “Come on, Granny. Tell me how I can get them to the woods. What would get Emrys moving at midnight at analmostfull moon?”
Rachel carefully backeddown the ancient attic ladder, only holding on with one hand as she held tight to her grandmother’s book with the other. A surprised squeal escaped her as Caelan scooped her into his arms before she made it halfway down.
“Woman!” His face dark as thunderclouds, he turned her in his arms and gently stood her in front of him. “What the devil goes on in your head? Ye’ve no business climbing up and down such a rickety contraption in your condition! Ye might fall and injure yourself or the babes or both! Can I not leave ye alone for five minutes?”
“Calm down,” she laughed, while patting him on his chest. “I’ve climbed up and down that thing a thousand times.” She turned away to head to the kitchen, a sudden pang of hunger reminding her she’d forgotten to eat lunch.
