With much love, Colin
Nora’s heart sank as a cold sweat washed over her. Colin hadnot figured out the curse, as he died only a few days after he wrote the letter. Marjorie and Flora had not had children, making good on their promise to their mother to end the curse by not carrying on the bloodline. Which meant they hadn’t known Edith was pregnant. She had kept it a secret, marrying the doctor quickly, covering up the pregnancy.
Nora reread the letter, stopping at the lineI understand why Mother made us promise not to have kids, as one of our grandchildren would be afflicted with the curse. Then something hit Nora like a freight train when she realized what it all meant. She grabbed the little red book and flipped to the last handwritten page.
“The curse was cast upon me as Cora in 1667, and I was reborn in 1775, separated by one hundred and eight years—twenty-seven times four is one hundred and eight,” Nora read aloud. Nora’s mind raced as she grabbed her notebook and pen, feverishly adding up the numbers. “1883 plus 108 is 1991. No. No, it can’t be!” she gasped, her voice trembling with disbelief. How had she not seen this before? How had she not put two and two together?
Born in 1991, Nora was the sole descendant of Cora’s bloodline born during that year, as her father marked the end of the lineage. A tightness gripped her chest, and a familiar energy radiated from her core, filling her like an overflowing chalice. Panic set in, her breath coming in short bursts as the room began to spin around her. The last image she saw before the world turned dark and caved in on her was her hands pulsing with the same blue glow as the books.
Chapter Sixty
Echoes
She awoke to the sensation of frost biting at her legs and feet as she found herself sitting on the cold, unforgiving ground. Her gaze fell upon James, cradled in her lap, his face pale and his lips tinged with blue. An ache in her chest pierced through her, unlike anything she had ever experienced, and she cried out in agony. She tried desperately to draw him closer, to bridge the unfathomable distance that now separated them. No matter how tightly she held him, all she could feel was the cold emptiness that surrounded her. She closed her eyes, seeking comfort in the darkness, hoping to ease the sting of her tears.
When she finally dared to open her eyes, she found herself standing on the cold sands of a rocky shoreline. Before her stretched a fierce sea, turbulent waves lashing at the shore,relentlessly pulling chunks of land back with each receding wave. The sky above was thick with cloud cover as dark as coal. A mix of rain and ice pelted her from the harsh gales, forcing her to shield her eyes as she peered out toward the horizon where the sky met the sea. Far off in the distance, a ship emerged. At first, her heart swelled with joy at the sight, knowing her love, Peter was aboard. It had been a month since their last meeting, and their reunion was just miles away.
As the ship drew closer, however, the storm intensified, causing the sea to become more wild. Initially filled with hope, her heart began to race furiously as she watched the ship thrash violently amidst the towering waves. She held her breath as it tipped back and forth. Then with the sweep of one giant wave, the ship capsized.
Amidst the brutal storm, she stood helplessly on the shore as the vessel carrying her love sank to the depths of the ocean floor. Tears stung her eyes, but she refused to look away, clinging onto a sliver of hope that someone may have survived. Yet, deep down, she knew no one could endure the icy waters of the Atlantic in such a tempest. She felt the moment his life ended as her heart ceased to beat momentarily. When it started again, the world around her felt different—darker and filled with an emptiness bearing the weight of a thousand worlds. Resting her head in her hands, she sobbed for what seemed like an eternity, her hands turning to ice and her feet growing numb with cold.
When she pulled her hands away, she found herself standing on a beautiful stone bridge overlooking a frozen river. Soft snowflakes fell gently from the sky, and rays of sunlight pierced through the thick layer of clouds, casting a serene wintry glow over the landscape. By her side stood Charles, a handsome man, his fingers intertwined with hers as they gazed out at thebreathtaking scenery before them. The river flowed through the valley, flanked by majestic snow-capped mountains on either side. Although there was little snow on the ground, a thin layer of ice covered the river’s surface, concealing its icy depths.
Charles drew her in for a kiss, and she felt a surge of joy swell within her. In his embrace, she felt whole, at peace. As he pulled away, a smile illuminated his beautiful chestnut eyes, reminiscent of her favorite time of year—late autumn. She smiled back when a sudden gust of wind sent her bonnet flying into the air. Without hesitation, Charles lunged forward to catch it, not realizing how close he was to the low wall of the bridge.
She watched in horror as his foot caught on one of the uneven stones that made up the bridge. He stumbled, losing his footing, and fell over the bridge’s low side into the icy river below. Rushing to the edge, she peered down, but there was only a gaping hole where he had broken through. Climbing down the steep embankment, she searched frantically for any sign of him, but the hole revealed only a raging river below. At that moment, the realization struck—he was gone. As she fell to her knees, grief consumed her.
Then she saw it—her bonnet, resting on the frozen riverbank. In a fit of despair, she tore at it, trying to rip it into pieces as she screamed into the void, unleashing her pain. Her eyes remained fixed on the dark hole in the pristine ice, knowing that he was lost to her forever.
Suddenly, the scene morphed, and she found herself sitting on the edge of Loch Duich with the cottage behind her. Twilight had settled in, casting a serene hue across the landscape. Tracks led down toward the water on the other side of the staircase by the cabins, drawing her gaze. Following them with her eyes, she spotted the silhouette of a man standing at the water’s edge, his gazefixed on the center of the loch. As he turned, revealing his sharp jawline, she recognized him immediately. She called out to him, but her voice was lost in the wind, barely audible even to herself.
As the sky began to darken further, a sense of urgency gripped her, moving her down to the water. Carefully navigating the icy slope, she made her way to the shore’s edge and stepped out onto the frozen surface. The cold seeped through her thin shoes, chilling her feet. Peering down she noticed movement beneath the ice, something large stirring below, yet it did not scare her but instead gave her a sense of peace.
Then a voice called out her name on the wind—“Cora,” “Marion,” “Awen”—or was it “Nora”? She realized it was her soul being summoned by the voice of an old woman, raspy and brittle, whispering urgently, yet she strained to make out the words. Stepping farther out onto the ice, she strained her ears, longing to hear the secrets being carried by the wind. As the ice beneath her began to crack, she pressed on, determined to hear the old woman’s message. Just as she felt she was on the verge of understanding, the world shifted, and another sound pierced the cold air.
“Nora! Nora, please,” she heard the voice call. She touched her cheek, which was wet despite the fact she had not gone into the water. She heard the pleading voice again.
“Nora, please come back. Come back to me.” She spun around, but there was no one there. She closed her eyes to focus on the voice.
“Please,” she heard the voice say again, and this time she recognized it as Alistair, and he sounded distraught. As she opened her eyes, Nora found herself lying on the sofa in front of the large windows of the cottage’s living room, alone.
Chapter Sixty-One
Icy Whispers
Nora sat bolt upright, her heart pounding feverishly in her chest as the heartache and pain of her past lives flooded her consciousness. She felt as if she were being torn into tiny pieces from the inside out. Tears slid down her cheeks and landed like heavy rain on the little red book resting in her lap. The realization that she was the reincarnation of Cora had sparked a torrent of memories from previous lives, rushing in with unforgiving force.
She remembered writing the story as Cora, and having it printed into a book as Marion. Her mother had given it to her as a gift on her eighteenth birthday as Awen, but she never even opened it. If she had, she might have saved herself the anguish and stayed far away from love. Now she held it as Nora, and it was too late for that notion since she had already fallen in love withAlistair. Even though she had tried to fight it, she now realized it was beyond her control. Alistair was James’s reincarnation, and she was destined to love him, just as she had in every lifetime.
Suddenly she realized Alistair wasn’t in the cottage. A sinking feeling came over her, and she felt as if she had just been violently pulled down by an undertow. Her breath caught in her throat as she stood up quickly and limped to the windows overlooking the loch. The once sunny day had turned to a cloudy twilight, and thick snow was falling yet again.
Even though it was nearly dark, she could make out his silhouette down near the water’s edge on the other side of the cabins. He was yelling, and her eyes followed the direction of his gaze to see Lochland out in the center of the loch, standing on a patch of ice so thin it looked like a black hole.
The tragic deaths of all her loves played out in her mind like a movie on fast-forward, Alistair’s looping at the end. Her heart leapt up into her throat, and she darted toward the door. She could already see that Alistair had begun to venture out onto the ice. She slipped on her boots and tried to sprint out the door, but her ankle slowed her down. She got to the stairs and yelled, “Alistair, no! Don’t go on the ice!” but the storm had intensified, and the fierce wind carried away her words. There was no way she was going to get to him in time before he ventured out too far.
Then she heard the fairy’s song drifting through the air, a haunting lullaby that filled her with an unsettling sense of dread. It was the same song she had heard in the forest. It was then she realized that the fairy had been lurking in the shadows, patiently waiting to claim its due.
“No!” she cried out into the deafening wind, the words eaten up by the air around her.
