“Oh, like you wouldn’t believe.”
“Tell me about it.”
“What do you want to know?”
“I dinnae ken. Tell me about your necklace.”
“What about it?”
“How did you find out its powers?” He leaned forward to turn the makeshift spit. The rabbits dripped onto the fire, making it hiss loudly.
“I didn’t. It just happened. It came in the mail. I mean a messenger brought it to me in a locked box.”
“How did you get in the box?”
“I found the key after the funeral.”
“Whose funeral?”
“My mother’s. Well, not my mother, my adoptive mother. I was at her house after the funeral when I found a box from my real mom. It had a tartan blanket in it just like that tartan you wear.”
“Like this?”
“Yep. That and a key with an M on it. The key opened the box. The box had the necklace in. I put it on and then bang, I’m here with you.”
“I’m sorry about your mother.”
“I didn’t get on with her.”
“I didnae get on with my mother either. Didn’t stop me hurting when I saw her head on a spike.”
Rachel looked up suddenly. “Sorry, back up. Your mom’s head was on a spike?”
“Aye, both my parents. There was a siege. We would have been all right if it wasn’t for the fire. They burned their way in then got them both. I barely escaped with my life. For months I had to see their heads on spikes before my people retook the castle and freed us.”
He pushed the memory away, having no desire to relive it. The fire racing through the village outside the castle walls, the scream of his mother as she was torn from him. He picked up the rabbits, letting them cool for a moment before slicing meat from one and tossing it to Rachel.
“Eat,” he said, chewing his own food slowly.
“I’m sorry about your parents,” she said quietly.
“It’s in the past,” he replied. “Now, eat, then we must sleep while we can.”
He stamped out the fire, settling down on his side by the embers, once more wrapping around Rachel to help keep her warm as the night drew on. She was soon asleep and he couldn’t help but breathe in her scent. It helped distract him from thoughts of the past.
The next morning he was up early, feeling groggy. Several times in the night he had to comfort Rachel. Ever since he’d met her she seemed plagued by nightmares, moaning and shifting in her sleep. She awoke a while after him, sitting up in time to see him returning from fishing.
After they’d eaten, they moved on. It took most of the day to reach Tallis on the shore of Loch Kirrin. The loch itself was close enough to the sea to have tidal currents and the island could not be swum to, the current itself too strong.
“That is Tallis,” Cam said as they stood looking down upon the village on the shore of the loch. “The people are still there at least.”
“Why has he not attacked them?”
“Perhaps because this place is so well hidden. Or perhaps because it has always been a sacred place. God might protect them from harm. Let us hope He does the same for us.”
They walked down the slope to the village, passing by onlookers who stopped to stare at them as they went forward. By the time they reached the middle of the village a large crowd had grown.
From it emerged the village elder who Cam recognized from the time of his blessing.
