“Fine,” I say through gritted teeth. “Thenyouhelp me.”
“I’ll do no such thing,” she says blandly.
“Please. You can. I’m begging you.” I get to my knees and shuffle toward her. I’ve got nothing left, not even my pride. Startled, she backs up a step but I keep scooting closer. “I need to get home. I didn’t do anything. I’m one of Janet’s victims, too. Do you think she loves me? Me disappearing isn’t a punishment for her. She probably hasn’t even noticed I’m gone. Or if she has, she’s probably relieved.”
“Get up.” Donag glares down at me. “Even Janet’s too proud to beg.”
I scamper to my feet. “So you’ll help me?”
“I am helping you,” she snarls. “I put a roof over your head. Food in your bowl.”
“I mean help me get home. Why do you want to keep me here?”
She curls her lips into an exaggerated frown. “Think you can just appear then disappear? The Campbell would set my head on a pike if another lass vanished from under him.”
“But. No.” The words come out pathetically weak. I can’t believe what I’m hearing. I thought Donag had warmed to me, that we’d reached an understanding and maybe she’d help. “I thought?—”
“Stop.” Her voice lashes me, cold as iron. “Enough whinging. Forget where you came from. This, here, now”—she waves her hand, taking in the cottage—“thisis your home.”
“But I don’t want to be here.”
She sucks on her teeth, gaze scouring me from head to toe. “I dinnae want you here neither, trust me.”
This disdain, this feeling of not being wanted, the familiarity of it hardens me.
“I don’t care what you want,” I say, finding my voice. “I’ll figure it out, with or without your help.”
Her voice plunges an octave, booming, “You?” The room grows dimmer as she steps toward me. “You’ll do as I say or swim in the bog.” She nudges the amulet with her foot, muttering, “Unbiddable lass. I should’ve guessed—blood will tell.”
Blood will tell.Is she saying I’m like my mother?
Am I?
The question hauntsme for days. Every time I see Donag, her words echo in my head.This is your home. I can barely stand to be in the cottage. I throw myself intokitchen work, staying late, arriving early, doing anything to avoid her withering stare.
I’m lost in these bleak thoughts when Callum finds me in the kitchen one evening.
His broad frame materializes beside me, sliding next to me on the dining bench like he’s always belonged there. The moment his thigh bumps mine, it’s like a switch ignites every cell in my body.
I tell myself it’s because he startled me.
“Christ and all the saints,” he exclaims. “You’re harder to find than a hen’s tooth.”
I want to sag into him. It’s been a long, lonely, miserable time. And Donag’s renewed ire isn’t helping.
Forget where you came from.
This, here, now, is your home.
It takes two tries before I choke down my bite of stew. “If you’re looking for the cook staff, they’re up serving dinner. A special mass thing, I think. For some guy named Martin.”
For a moment, he looks perplexed. Then his expression shifts—first to realization, then amusement. “Do you not celebrate Martinmas where you’re from? For Saint Martin?”
He’s amused. I’m not.
My throat tightens. Yet another thing I don’t know. Another thing that makes me feel impossibly alone and far from home.
I stare into my bowl. “Never heard of him.” I stir my stew mindlessly. “Well, the cook should be back in an hour or so.”
