I sink back down onto the heather, my movements slow and careful, like I’m carrying something fragile inside me. Understanding, maybe. Or forgiveness.
“If Janet thought her lover was still alive, her desire to return to Scotland makes sense.” The thought lands differently now, less bitter.
My chest aches with an emotion I can’t quite name. It’s like discovering a door in a house you’ve lived in all your life. A door you never noticed before, leading to rooms you never knew existed. Only these rooms are where my mother might’ve kept her grief, her love, her longing.
I lie back down, trying to process, but my body feels too light, almost untethered. The Highland sky wheels above me, vast and blue as endless possibility. “Was her plan always to find a way to travel back in time? She might’ve aged nineteen years, but she still wouldn’t be too old for Gregor.”
My mother. Pregnant. With another man’s child. I can’t make it make sense. “Are you sure it was Gregor’s? Couldn’t Campbell have?—”
“Not possible. The old man can no longer…you know…run his flag at full mast.” Crimson washes over Callum’s cheeks as he quickly adds, “Aoife will tell you. All those herbs you grow in the garden? They’re all so the laird might once again, uhh, set his pike. That is to say?—”
I put up a hand. “I get it. And no, I willnotask Aoifefor details, thanks.”
He gives me a sly smile. “Can’t blame a lad for trying to avoid the thing, can you?”
“Oh, can’t I?” I don’t even know what I mean by that, and nowmycheeks are turning hot. “So how does this story end?”
“Can you not guess? In her rage and jealousy, Donag sent Janet as far away as she could. To a time when the Craignish Campbells are no more.”
“To the future.”
“Aye, just so.”
“But one thing doesn’t make sense.”
“Just the one?”
I give his shoulder a playful shove. But not because he’s bothering me. Mostly I want to touch him again. “What I don’t get is, after all that, why did Donag try to call my mother back?”
“Campbell wanted Gregor dead. But don’t be mistaken. The laird loves your mother. When she disappeared, he lost his mind with grief. He’s convinced she was kidnapped by the MacGregors. But the custom with kidnap is for a body to appear.”
“Nice custom.”
He smirks. “Aye, and he’s not seen Janet’s body. The man is haunted by the notion that she’s alive, held prisoner this past month, suffering at their hand. And so Campbell torments his tenants, hoping bloodshed will terrorize the truth from them. Until then, he bides his time hunting and killing MacGregors. Donag fears that soon he’ll run out, and it will be our turn.”
“So she tried to call Janet back.”
“And you came instead.” Callum’s voice changes, taking on a rhythmic quality that makes the hair on my arms standup. I recognize what’s coming—the words that pulled me from my world into his. He closes his eyes, as if reading the spell from memory:
“We summon a lass, hair red as kite’s wing,
Nae young nor old, in her nineteenth spring.”
The words seem to hang in the air between us, carried on the breeze. My fingers find their way to my hair, unconsciously touching the copper strands that marked me as the spell’s target.
“Fair as the dawn, with roses on her cheek,
Yet fierce as the sun, her spirit not meek.”
Callum’s voice grows stronger. The cadence reminds me of church hymns, of ancient things passed down through generations. Each line feels like it’s being carved into the air, into memory.
“Her heart’s true longing lies on Scottish land.
Come to us now, beside kin take thy stand.”
My chest tightens. Even now, hearing these words again, I can feel their pull. Like hooks in my soul, drawing me across time itself.
“Come thee, bold lass, whose soul burns steadfast.
