Once over the threshold Bree planted her feet. A great red-haired man sat at a long table, head bowed, staring unseeingly at the stone floor.
Kieri whispered. “That is Sir Garlain.”
Morla entered the room and immediately went to the table, placing her hand on Garlain’s shoulder as if she was his protector.
He didn’t appear to notice her touch. Bree strode to him and fell to her haunches. “Dad?”
The man who was her father sat before her, his tunic crushed like it had been slept in, his red hair long, messy, and knotted. His emotions, if he had any, were hidden behind the rampant facial hair.
“Garlain,” Bree said, hoping his birth name would rouse him. “Horland needs us.”
No recognition at the name showed in his eyes; they still stared at her, vacant and dark.
“He doesn’t understand you,” Morla said, her gray eyes the color of a stormy sky. “He was lucid earlier, but it never lasts long. In his grief, he goes to a place where none can reach him.”
Bree shook his knee with her hand. “Garlain.”
But he still didn’t look at her, preferring instead to keep staring at the floor through her.
Bree stood up and moved to Morla. “It’s a long story, but Iamhis daughter. You’re supposed to be a seer or something like that, aren’t you? Why don’t you read my mind?”
“I cannot read minds.”
“But you can decipher if someone is telling the truth, my lady,” Kieri said, her eyes wide with hope. “Please, see that she is an honest woman so that we can help Sir Horland.”
Morla threw a sad glance at Garlain and sighed. “All right.” She held out her hands. “Take my hands.”
Bree did and Morla seemed to search Bree’s eyes, her face, the shape of her head, but after long minutes, her gaze returned to Bree’s eyes. “I sense great heartache and your visage is very much like Patricia’s. Your hair is much like Sir Garlain’s. I know of Mark and Dianne’s arts.” She let go of Bree’s hands and shook her head. “Perhaps you tell the truth.” She again searched Bree’s face and her eyes widened. “Patricia was your long-gone mother. YouareGarlain’s daughter.”
“I told you that. Now can you use your powers for good and get my father to help Horland?”
“I have tried for four seasons to encourage Garlain to stay in the land of the living, but he prefers to stay with Patricia.”
“Why is he even here? Why isn’t he at the castle being tended to by a physician? You do have physicians in this time, don’t you?”
“When he first left Pradwick castle, we thought he had returned to the future to be with Patricia and his child. We were happy for him. It was only by chance I found him here. This is my place, my sanctuary from society and family. Imagine my surprise when I arrived to find Garlain here.”
Morla sucked in her lips and her eyes saddened. “In those first several days, he talked to me, told me how he couldn’t imagine living his life without Patricia, but as the days wore on, he became more and more reclusive, preferring to keep his own company and avoiding me. Then one day, I foundhim, staring without seeing and no matter what I did or said, I couldn’t reach him.” Tears brimmed in her eyes and flowed down her face.
“I used my gift and tried to bring him back but no matter what I did, I could not penetrate the fortress he had built around himself. He was but an empty shell of the man he used to be. He has returned several times, but for short periods only. The last time was the longest he was himself, but still he lapsed back into his own world.”
Bree glanced at Garlain. “I’m sorry. I know you care for him a great deal.”
She let out a self-deprecating laugh. “I fancied myself in love with him at one time, but when he married Patricia and I saw how happy he was, how in love with her he was, I grew out of those young girl fancies.”
“What about a physician?”
“Father brought one here, but he could do no more than I. His only prescription was to leave Garlain be and he would return when the time was right.”
“Well the time is right now.”
Bree moved to the front of Garlain and again squatted before him. “Garlain. Father.”
His eyes, his entire face was vacant of emotion, vacant of feeling.
She slapped his face, not hard but enough to sting a bit.
He kept staring, unseeing.
