So she had to wiggle her way in. To Brone, Campbell, Arran, and Dallin’s everlasting horror, Meghan dogged even their shadows. That was how desperate she was to be with them.
They had found her such a nurgle that they worked harder to keep her out.
One summer, on a visit to the Isle of Skye, she had followed them to the Neist Point cliffs. Reckless as only lads with only summers and no responsibilities were, they had moved like a herd of Highland ewe. They scrambled reckless over jagged rocks, pushing and pulling at one another to get to the peak.
Their pace had been impossible for Meghan to match. As she scrambled along the same rocks, the roar of the surf and the distant echo of laughter and fading cries—half terror, half triumph—as they hurled themselves one after the other into the inlet below pushed her harder and faster.
Until, breathless and winded, Meghan reached the top. All her kin had jumped. She stared out, the wind whipping about her. The seabirds screeched encouragement. And then, at a full run, she leapt.
The earth fell away, and she went hurtling over, plummeting some ten meters in a plunge that spanned a life but lasted a single second.
With Meghan in nothing but the coverlet August had hastily tossed over her, her gown just beyond reach, and Brone, Campbell, Cousin Arran, and Captain Tremaine framed in the shattered doorway—time did the same thing now.
The still lasted forever. Nobody moved.
The McQuoids, movers by nature, conquerors of still and quiet, were still, guns and swords drawn. All leveled at a barefoot, shirtless August. In surrender, he held his left palm up and set his gun down.
The minute the flintlock pistol hit the floor—
Click.
The turf and waves folded over Meghan, and her skin instantly numbed. The brutal shock sucked the breath from her lungs and propelled her back into the correct march of time.
Meghan just managed a gasp and lunged for her dress as the room came alive.
Brone dropped his pistol.
A shout torn from the bowels of hell exploded through the room. As Brone dropped the pistol and his right arm reared back, he charged first.
“I will kill you!” he screamed.
His fist connected with August’s cheek with a force that sent him flying against the foot of the bed where Meghan lay.
The sickening sound of flesh meeting flesh. The sharp crack, devastating.
And a blade as sharp as any cut across Meghan’s heart.
Vomit burned Meghan’s throat.
August’s eyes—his right nearly swollen shut—touched hers.
“Stop it!” Meghan screamed, her throat raw. “Stooop!” She sobbed.
Brone shoved August at Campbell.
“You bloody son of a whore,” Campbell rasped. With violence she didn’t believe him capable of, he unleashed a series of rising blows to the chin.
August’s head whipped backward and forward in rapid succession.
“Nooo!” Meghan cried, releasing the blanket.
She jumped to put herself between August and Brone’s next attack, but it came too quick, and someone dragged her back.
A whoosh of air fell about her shoulders.
As Meghan struggled to shove her shaking arms into the jacket Arran thrust around her, Brone hauled an unresisting August to his feet—only to hit him with the same force to the other cheek. That blow turned August around on his feet with a sickening grace.
He spun in a grotesque dance—
