“Did she sayye?” Aspen wondered, frowning at everyone in confusion.
“And where’s she going?” Willow wondered.
“I don’t know, but it looks like she knows her way around,” Hazel noted.
“It does, does it not?” Adlin piped up, as curious as the rest of us, as we followed her.
Villagers looked at Ellie curiously as she made her way along, as if she’d done it hundreds of times, smiling at them and muttering something about him hurting himself yet again.
“Should we assume she's referring to you, brother?” Broderick wondered.
“It certainly sounds like it.” Lucas grinned at me. “You were accident-prone before I taught you how to wield a blade correctly.”
“Indeed,” Sloan agreed.
“I was wielding it just fine,” I muttered, but they were right. The question is, how did Ellie seem to know that? Was her inner witch at work? Her dragon? It was impossible to know, as she headed down a path, clearly knowing her way around, before stopping at one of the many community gardens full of late-season herbs that would soon be harvested.
“Och,” she muttered under her breath as she bustled around, eyeing things with dismay. “I cannae say I am all that pleased with the selection.”
“Did she just speak with a Scottish brogue?” Hazel whispered, intrigued by Ellie's decisive selection as she picked this and that.
“It certainly sounded like it,” Adlin said, with that never-ending twinkle in his eyes. “Howintriguing.”
I was about to frown at him because I strongly suspected he understood what was happening here, but my attention was caught by Ellie as she began softly humming a familiar tune. A song I hadn’t heard in years because it had only ever been sung by Elowyn. Something she claimed her inner witch had made up, and it always sounded so lovely. For a flicker of a moment as I gazed at Ellie, I swore I saw Elowyn picking herbs in this very garden years before.
“I dinnae ken,” I whispered, trying to make sense of things. “Whatisthis?”
As though that snapped Ellie out of her reverie, she abruptly stopped singing and looked around, confused, as if she didn’t know where she was.
“I think this is a much longer conversation, son,” my mother said softly, giving my shoulder a supportive squeeze in passing as she went to Ellie and assured her all was well.
“Oh no,” Ellie said softly, gazing from the garden to the herbs in her hand and then to my wound. “What did I do?”
If I didn’t know better, there was a look of resignation in her eyes as she sighed and did the last thing I expected.
Something that would soon turn my world upside down.
Chapter Nine
–Ellie–
IF I WERE smart, I would have found a way off Tavish’s horse and away from MacLeod Castle, no matter what it took, but I knew when he finally caught the scent of my arousal, it was too late for that. The pull between our inner beasts had grown too strong, and it only intensified after reuniting with my sisters and meeting his family, when I became solely focused on his wound.
After that, I lost time until I stirred to awareness in one of the MacLeod’s herb gardens with a handful of things I would have picked for him in my last life to heal his wounds. Not just that, but I knew by Tavish’s baffled expression as everyone watched me, that I wasn’t going to be able to leave this place without him knowing the truth about me, because somehow the Hereafter was forcing my lives to merge.
More pointedly, forcing me to be honest with him.
So when his mother, Chara, joined me in the garden, gentle and nurturing, trying to lend me comfort, I pressed the herbs into her hand. “You can try magic on his wound, but something tells me making a poultice out of these will work even faster.” I met her eyes, wondering if she recognized me yet, because if anyone had the power to do so, it was her. Seeing his kin again had been emotional, because they didn’t recognize me.Especially Broderick and his parents, because Chara and Marek had been like parents to me after my own died when I was young. “It worked wonders on him when he was a boy.”
“I know,” Chara said softly, a warm smile curling her mouth as she clearly saw all of me. “I cannae tell ye how glad I am to see ye again, lass.” She pressed the herbs back into my palm, gently curling my fingers around them, and blinked back tears. “It should be ye who treats him as I suspect ‘tis only ye who can truly heal him both inside and out.”
“I dinnae ken what is happening here,” Tavish said, his tone harsh, as he frowned at Chara then at me before he asked me the same question he had the night before, his brogue thick with emotion. “Whoareye?”
I squeezed Chara’s hand in thanks, then looked at everyone else. “Tavish and I will join you inside in a bit.” I looked at Tavish. “First, you and I need to talk...there are things you need to understand.”
Knowing he would follow me, I made my way out of the garden and headed down a path I had walked countless times in my past life and in the Hereafter. That’s how I knew my cottage was vacant and had been since my death nearly a decade ago. I also knew Tavish often stayed in it whenever he was home, seeing to its upkeep, so he could remain close to me, the only way he knew how.
I felt his confusion and rising tension displayed in the stiff way he walked as he followed me down a path that ran along the far side of the castle until it branched off into a secluded little woodland area overlooking the rugged, sweeping sea. I blinked back tears as I took in my thatch-covered cottage and inhaled the scent of sea salt, brine, and incoming snow.
