“Is she any better, Da?” Guinn asked, her voice barely above a whisper.
“She made a sound just now,” I replied, unable to keep the hope from my voice.
Bess moved to the edge of the bed, her small face intense as she studied Murieall. Without hesitation, she reached out and placed her palm against Murieall’s forehead, much as the healer did when checking for fever. The gesture was so adult, so practiced, that it caught me off guard.
“I think she’s dreaming of her sister and Mama,” Bess announced with quiet certainty.
My breath caught in my throat. Four days ago, I would have dismissed such a pronouncement as childish fancy. But now, after all that had happened, after hearing Isabella’s voice myself in those desperate moments in the forest, I did not doubt that Bess might be right.
I looked back at Murieall, at the still features that had just shown their first sign of life in days. Was it possible? Were the dead speaking to her even now, in her fever dreams? Was Isabella there with her, guiding her back to us?
“She can take as long as she needs to dream,” I said, surprising myself with the certainty in my voice. “But then she has to come back to us.”
Chapter Twenty-Four – Murieall
I floated in a place between worlds, my body weightless yet somehow rooted. The pain that had consumed me receded like the tide, leaving behind a strange clarity I hadn’t felt in years. Sunlight dappled through ancient oaks, casting golden patterns across a glen I had known in my childhood. The heather swayed in the warm breeze, and the distant calls of birds echoed with an otherworldly resonance.
Was this death? This peaceful, beautiful place held no fear, no pain, no voices clamoring for attention in my mind.
“Ye always did prefer places with open skies,” a voice called from behind me, and my heart seized in my chest.
I knew that voice, though it had deepened with the years I’d lost. When I turned, the sight of her stole my breath away. Lisette stood before me, no longer the child who’d drowned while I watched from the shore, but a young woman with Mama’s height and our da’s gentle eyes. Her copper hair, so like my own, tumbled past her shoulders in waves that caught the sunlight.
“Lisette,” I whispered, her name a prayer and a plea upon my lips. “Is it truly ye?”
She smiled, displaying the gap between her front teeth I recalled from childhood. “Aye, ’tis me, sister.”
“Have I died, then?” I asked, my voice strangely steady despite the enormity of the question.
Lisette moved toward me with the grace of someone comfortable in their own skin, a confidence I’d never seen in the child she’d been. “Nae yet,” she said, reaching for my hands. Her touch was real, warm, and solid. She winked. “Though ye came perilously close.”
I clasped her fingers in mine, marveling at their substance. “I’ve missed ye,” I said, the simple truth of it making my voice break. “Every day since ye left, I’ve missed ye.”
“I ken it well,” she replied with a shake of her head. “I watched ye carry the weight of my death as if it were a burden ye could nae put down. I was glad when ye met him, and ye finally released the foolish guilt.”
She drew me into a hug. “It’s time to go back, Murieall. He waits for ye. He needs ye.” She released me and rose to her feet. “It’s nae yer time. Ye have much yet to do, many souls yet to help.’
The mist thickened around us, and Lisette’s form began to waver like a reflection on disturbed water. “Wait,” I called, reaching for her. “Do nae leave me again.”
“I’ve nae ever left ye,” she said, her voice already fading. “Ye just did nae ken how to listen for my whispers, and now ye do.”
Then she was gone, and in her place stood Morgana, silver hair flowing around her as if caught in an invisible current. Her silvery-purple eyes glinted with ancient knowledge as she regarded me with a raised brow.
“So ye’ve finally learned the truth of my gift,” she said, her voice carrying the same commanding presence I remembered from our meeting in the forest. “Though ye took yer sweet time about it.”
“Aye,” I said, rising from the log to face her properly. “I thought it a curse for a long time.”
Morgana’s laugh was rich and deep, seeming to vibrate through the misty air around us. “It was always a gift, waiting for ye to recognize it as such, but I suppose when ye can nae see something for the gift it is, it might seem a curse.” She moved closer, and I caught the scent of herbs and earth that clung to her. “The dead speak to those who will listen, but few can hear them as clearly as ye.”
“I wanted the voices gone,” I whispered, ashamed about that.
“And now?” Morgana asked, studying my face with those unnerving eyes.
“Now I understand,” I said. “The voices were nae ever the problem. My fear was the problem. My need for control.”
Morgana nodded, a smile playing at the corners of her mouth. “Ye’ve fulfilled the terms. If ye wish me to silence the whispers, I can.”
I did not have to think about it even for a breath. I shook my head. “I choose to hear them,” I said, my voice steady and certain. “I choose to help those who need it. I choose a life without carefully laid plans.”
