Page 34 of A Fine Scottish Spell (The Magical Matchmakers of Seven Cairns #2)

E mily drew the heavy shawl closer around her while sitting on the ledge of the large bay window of her sittingroom—a room Gryffe had ordered tailored for her in an astonishingly short amount of time, for when her sanity needed to escape the United Kingdom of Scotland’s alternate eighteenth century.

Another winter storm howled across the land, bringing more snow, ice, and bitter cold.

A heavy sigh filled with sadness escaped her.

Even if Gryffe transported her to Seven Cairns, and she portaled through to the twenty-first century, it was doubtful she could book a flight home for the holidays since the weather was probably doing the same there.

And it usually did. That was one thing she had noticed when first arriving here.

The weather was the same across the realities.

Perhaps nature didn’t have time to juggle things any more than it already did.

“I promised Mama and Papa I would be home for Christmas.” She scraped the shape of a heart in the thick layer of frost coating the glass, then drew a jagged line through it, breaking it down the middle.

Even though a fire roared in the hearth, the room still possessed a noticeable chill.

“They are going to be so upset with me. I’ve disappointed them again. ”

“Lady Emily, come away from there. Sit here by the fire where it’s warm.

” Tayda gently tugged on her, as if coaxing a toddler or an elderly patient away from the edge of an abyss.

“Mairwen and Ishbel swore to have yer Jessa speak with yer parents, so they would not worry. From all ye have told me about Lady Jessa, I am sure everything will be fine. Come spring, ye can visit with all of them in Seven Cairns before the blessed wee one comes this summer. The prince said so, remember?”

Hearing Gryffe referred to as the prince still took some getting used to.

Emily wondered if they’d made a new enemy in his step brother Roric since the truth of that ancestry had become known.

Hopefully not. They didn’t need any more enemies than they already had.

Besides, Roric still ruled the mortal kingdom of Britannia here on this plane.

Hopefully, that would be enough for him.

“My lady—Please?”

To pacify Tayda, Emily rose and meandered closer to the hearth where Grimalkin was stretched her full length in front of the fire.

“Would ye like to paint, perhaps?” Tayda paused by the shelves filled with brushes, parchment, and palettes of dried pigments only needing water to come to life. “Or are ye of a mind to continue yer yarn work? Forgive me, but the word ye called it escapes me.”

“Crochet.” That activity had brought Emily some comfort, not only bringing back the many happy memories of learning the stitches with her grandmother but also by doing something useful.

She had already made several pairs of baby booties in various neutral shades since she didn’t know how accurate Gryffe was about insisting she carried a son, and then Tayda smugly argued she carried a son and a daughter.

With her abs as muscular and flat as always and only a few days past what should’ve been the onset of her menstrual cycle, she struggled with hoping against hope that she really was pregnant.

Believing in the unbelievable was still a work in progress for her.

But she’d get it. One way or another, she would get it.

She crouched down beside Grimalkin and scratched the great cat under her chin. “It’s a restless sort of day. I can’t explain it, but I feel like something is about to happen. It’s like the air is stretched too tight and about to snap.”

Grimalkin rolled to her back, exposing her belly for a good scratching.

“Yer fine cat there would sense if something was wrong, my lady.” Tayda fetched a basket from the table beside the door.

She seated herself with it in her lap, pawing through the many different colors of yarn within it.

“Come see these newest shades the dyers sent up for yer inspection. These threads are quite lovely—maybe ye could make blankets for the wee ones’ cradles? ”

Emily rose from the floor, ignoring Tayda, and returned to the window. There was something out there making a noise that sounded so familiar—but not. A calling of her name, maybe? A voice she hadn’t heard in a very long time, but it was outside in the storm. “Do you hear that?”

“’Tis nothing more than the song of the wind.” Tayda held up a skein of yarn. “See here, m’lady. Is this not the prettiest shade of green? ’Tis like meadow grass during the first warming of spring.”

Uneasiness washed across Emily, taking her closer to the frosted pane. The broken heart she had scratched into the frost was gone, replaced by a large eye shedding a tear. She stepped back, her vague uneasiness changing to an ominous sense of doom. “Is Gryffe back yet?”

Tayda didn’t answer, causing Emily to turn and discover herself alone in a bleak, empty room she didn’t recognize.

Don’t panic. Hands fisted against her middle, she swallowed hard and forced herself to pull in a deep breath and then slowly exhale.

Shock and fear turned to irritation, that quickly flared into rage.

She was so done with being manipulated by forces outside her control.

“I am really getting tired of this shit!” she told the glaringly bright emptiness of the place.

“Allow us to reset ye, child,” said a trio of women’s voices that echoed as if they were talking inside an empty bucket to try to sound even more ominous. “All will be well, and ye willna recall a thing—all yer painful memories will be gone.”

“No.”

“No?”

Emily slowly turned, eyeing the area that suffered from a complete lack of color.

“No, is my final answer. Is that not plain enough for you?” She had a pretty fair idea of whom she was dealing with, but couldn’t tell for sure.

She’d never studied pagan religions and their gods and goddesses all that much.

She only knew them from a book about Scottish legends she’d read back at Seven Cairns and her firsthand experience with the vile Morrigan.

“Put me back where I belong. I promise you’ll regret it if you don’t. I know you know about the blood vow.”

Laughter filled the air like soft music. It was not taunting or cruel, merely amused. “We dinna mean ye harm, child. We merely offer ye relief from the pain of yer past and protection from the pain of yer future.”

“Everyone has pain. That’s what makes us who we are.

How we use it makes us stronger.” Her mother had told her that once.

Right after the miscarriage. Emily had thought it sounded pretty hokey back then, but now?

Now, not so much. She finally understood the truth of it.

Everything she’d been through, everything that had touched her—be it good or bad—had prepared her for now.

Prepared her to fight. “Your offer is weak for those who call themselves mothers,” she told the voices.

“Would you choose to forget your children just because they caused you pain? I never want to lose the memory of holding my sweet daughter in my arms. Send me home. Now.”

“Why should we?”

“Why shouldn’t you?” She could play their stupid, cryptic games just as easily as they could.

“I’m just a mortal, remember? Gone from the earth in the blink of an eye by your standards.

No wonder you don’t care about us. We don’t live long enough for you to get attached.

We’re like goldfish that you continuously flush down the toilet. ”

Deafening silence filled the strange formless space, making her stick her fingers in her ears and swallow hard to pop them. “Gryffe will come for me. So will Nicnevin.”

“Ye should have never bound yerself to him, child. Him and his kind bring nothing but sorrow.”

“The same could be said of many kinds that populate the worlds. That doesn’t mean any one kind is better than the other or deserves a better shot at surviving.”

“Ye dinna love him.”

“You are wrong about that, and you know it.”

“We created ye. We created him. We ken well enough who ye should love and who ye should not.”

“My heart tells me who I love—not you or any other myth or legend.”

“Ye canna bear this child.”

“I can, and I will.” Emily jutted her chin higher. How dare they threaten her baby.

“Ye canna bear this child—and live. Ye will never survive the birth.”

“Is that your latest scare tactic?” She refused to flinch or show any weakness. “You’re going to have to do better than that. I don’t fear you, but you should fear me.”

“What harm could ye possibly bring to us?”

“Disbelief. I have learned not to believe in just anything.” Emily turned in a slow circle, then stopped.

The disconcerting whiteness, the inability to tell the walls from the floors and the floors from the ceiling of the room made it hard to keep her balance.

It was like floating in a bank of clouds.

“If no one believes in you, you cease to exist. Have you failed to notice I refuse to even say your names, even though I know who you are? The Dreaming taught me that. What I believe in is real. What I don’t believe in—is not. ”

“Ye are but one mortal of millions and millions.”

“But how many mortals from my original time truly believe you are anything more than a myth? I know some worship you, but not nearly as many as there once was, or as many as I am sure you wish there were. What would happen, how many fewer still would believe in you, if Jessa and I concentrated on erasing your names from history? How would that affect your believers in the future?”

“Ye will not survive the birth of this child.”

“All that matters is that my child lives. Gryffe will be an adoring father, and I am sure Nicnevin will be a doting grandmother.” Already feeling more certain that all would be well, Emily stood taller. “If I can’t see my babies in this life, then I shall see them in the next.”