“Nessa baby, I thought I heard you coming down the hall. Come in.”
“Hey Gram, how are you today?” She leaned over to plant a kiss on her wrinkled, papery cheek.
“I’m dying, lass”, the old woman sighed, but not without her customary good humor.
“Grandma, I…”
“No, Nessa honey… shush. You know I am. I know I am. Dying is just another part of living, so don’t you worry about me. I’m old now. I’ve lived my life, and I’m ready to go.”
Nessa pressed her lips tightly together and nodded. There were no words, and she didn’t want to cry. She wanted to be strong for the woman that had always been there for her.
“But before I go, I need to talk to you about something. Sit.” Nessa obediently sat down in the hard chair next to the bed.
Her grandmother looked at her with a determination she’d never seen before, and Nessa leaned forward with anticipation.
“You are the only one left to carry on our line. My son…he’s never going to marry or have children. I’ve known that for a long time now. He’s…well, it’s just not his purpose in this lifetime.”
Nessa gave a little sound of protest, but she knew it was true. In all her life, Gram had never said one negative thing about her Uncle Angus, even though everyone knew he was different. She had always treated him just like everyone else.
“That’s why you, Nessa, are so important.”
“What are you saying?”
“It’s a big responsibility, but I know you can do it. In fact I’m counting on you.”
A nervous laugh escaped her throat. “Okay, no pressure there, Gram.”
“There’s one more thing you should know before I go, something I never told you. I didn’t want to scare you, and there always seemed like there would be more time…” The old woman’s voice trembled with emotion, and Nessa fumbled for her grandmother’s hand under the blanket and held it in hers. It was so thin and frail…
“What? What didn’t you tell me?”
“There was a curse”, Gram said with a sigh. “Placed by the great king himself, if we should ever fail to keep the sacred knowledge.”
“What? What kind of a curse?” Not that she believed in curses, but just in case, she wanted to know what she was dealing with. “Why would a king curse the family he entrusted with the knowledge of his people?”
“I suppose he wanted them to take the job seriously. And it worked, didn’t it? Here we still are today.” She laughed a little. “All those centuries and no one ever dropped the ball.”
Nessa relaxed a little. Gram might be superstitious enough to believe in things like curses, but Nessa was born in a new generation, one that mostly scoffed at the old beliefs in magic and such, or considered them quaint at best. “I’ll do my best Gram, I promise.”
“I know you will.” She squeezed Nessa’s hand. “Now tell me what’s been going on at home. What am I missing?” Her lips curved in a brave smile, but Nessa didn’t miss the sadness just behind it.
“Well, Angus is building a time machine”, Nessa said with a slight grimace. “To go back to ancient Scotland. He says time isn’t linear, it’s more like a blanket that can fold in on itself in certain places. He’s taken over half of the house with all of his books and papers.”
“Time travel, hmm? Perhaps he’s right. Perhaps we’re all closer together than we even know.”
“Do you really think so?” That would mean that Gram would never be far away, and that was a comforting thought to cling to.
“I think that there is more to the universe than we could ever even begin to imagine. And sometimes, we just have to take it on faith that it leads us where we need to be.”
They talked for a long time after that, mostly about her ideas for the farm and about her plans with Nathan, but eventually Nessa stood up and stretched.
“I have to go…I need to turn on the sprinklers because it hasn’t rained all week.”
She wondered if it had rained since. There had been—would be?— an uncommon dry spell in the highlands.
Much later, Nessa fell into bed—well, not a bed exactly, but the sheepskin rug on the floor with a big furry pillow of dog—exhausted after a day of hard work. Her hands were dutifully tied to the post by Namet, though she thought maybe he left her a little more slack in the rope than usual. She gratefully drifted off to sleep before she could think about what she would do the next day. And the one after that.
The next morning, it was Veda that untied her. They ate breakfast together, then went back to work in the gardens. After hours in the soil and sunshine, they headed back, making a stop at a long, low building. As she walked down a few steps, Nessa realized it was a root cellar, and it was full of vegetables. In the dim light streaming from the open door, she could make out piles of cabbages. And were those some sort of squash against the far wall?
