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North Salem, New Hampshire

Five Months Later

–Aspen–

I COULDN’T HELP but smile when I pulled up in front of the colonial that my sisters and I purchased and found the old aspen out front vibrant with yellow leaves ignited by the setting sun. Everyone claimed it was an oak tree, but I only saw my aspen.

More so, I only saw the adventure that lay ahead.

Only saw my Scot of Yesteryear, as I had always lovingly called him.

Before I headed inside, I pulled out the Seedling Turned Letter from Storm that found its way to me after my father’s funeral and reread it, cherishing every word. I was eager to meet the man I had only ever thought was part of my fanciful imagination. A hero Storm had spun in her letters who had become so very real to me.

Now it seemed he truly might be.

More incredible still? He was a living, breathing Scottish laird living over six hundred years in my past.

“Assuming this is real, aren’t you the least bit nervous?”

Hazel had wondered, troubled because my sisters had received similar messages from Storm, though at different times, and learned they had soul mates living in medieval Scotland.

Had a part of us always suspected our heroes were real? Yes. Every last one of us. Did we believe my letter when it claimed they were our soul mates, or fated mates, to be precise, needing our help, or Scotland’s history would be altered? Not so much. What difference could four modern-day women possibly make?

Quite a bit, according to Adlin MacLomain.

Ah, yes, I skipped that part, didn’t I? It just so happened my letter included the address for this colonial, which was, coincidentally enough, for sale. Better still, as if he had been waiting for my call, our realtor, Adlin, picked up the phone on the first ring.

And things only got crazier from there.

When I showed up to look at the property with its gorgeous aspen and barn across the dirt drive, he looked nothing like a realtor but something straight out of Lord of the Rings, with his long, white robes cinched at the waist and his long, white beard. Most might say he was in some sort of costume, but I knew better the moment our eyes connected.

He was a wizard.

He knew what I was, too, despite my blue jeans, heeled boots, and fur-trimmed plaid jacket.

Actually, he knew more about me than I did.

“So he confirmed we are witches?”

Willow had wondered when the four of us talked about it later.

“Real witches?”

“He did,”

I replied.

“Just as I’ve said time and time again,”

Ellie had muttered, frowning at Willow because she’d never taken our gifts seriously.

“Why do you think we thrive in Salem?”

She sighed and shook her head.

“Salem, Massachusetts, not New Hampshire.”

Salem, Massachusetts, had been renowned for witchcraft since the Salem Witch Trials in sixteen-ninety-two. Most considered it a complete farce because witches didn't really exist, but Ellie claimed there had indeed been some truth to it, however sad and criminal the trial's outcome.

As to the topic at hand, and moving for the sake of finding love across time? Ellie could give us that stern, big sister look all she wanted about where to find authentic witches, but after all was said and done, she’d received a similar letter, so there could be no doubt witches thrived here just as much as they did back home.

“And we’re half dragon?”

Hazel had said.

“You’re sure? Adlin said that?”

“He did.”

I’d cringed a little as I shared that bit of information, not because the concept frightened me but because of our father. And it only got more daunting from there.

“As are the Scottish Highlanders supposedly destined for us.”

We had tossed that idea around for a while, some of us more accepting of it than others, but what choice did we have? Even though some fought the premise, there was no denying we were drawn to this old colonial more with each passing day.

More drawn to wherever it would lead us.

Now, here I was, striding toward the house we purchased, finally fully moved in, and anxious for what came next. Should I be nervous about time travel? Especially to the turbulent medieval period? You bet. Anyone in their right mind would be.

Yet I was not.

All I felt when I stepped through the front door and inhaled the fresh scent of apples and cinnamon was a surge of excitement and the feeling of being exactly where I was meant to be.

“Just in time,”

Hazel said from the kitchen as she pulled freshly baked apple crisp out of the oven. She offered me one of her brilliant smiles, the sort that tended to put people at ease, and gestured at the table.

“Join me for some?”

“Sure.”

I hung my jacket on the coat rack, poured myself coffee, and sat, eyeing my overly cheerful sister, knowing she was more on edge than she let on. Hazel was what I would call an old soul, taking on the role of a wise protector for me and my sisters despite typically running quieter with an introspective nature. Unlike me, she wasn’t prone to confrontation or facing things head-on but sat back and watched before setting us on the right course in a roundabout way. She did get confrontational every so often, though, and watch out when that happened.

“How are you doing, sis?”

I wondered, fully aware she already had my coffee to the temperature I liked despite our reasonably simple coffee maker. One of the many mystical gifts that came in handy when she ran a successful coffee shop with homemade baked goods before selling it to move here.

“I’m fine,”

Hazel replied with a bit too much pep, scooping steaming apple crisp into a dish and setting it in front of me.

“Just trying to find my footing, I suppose.”

She grabbed her tea, sat across from me, and sighed.

“It’s strange not being at work keeping busy. Instead, I’m sitting around waiting for…you know.”

I did know, and to a degree, I couldn’t agree more. For me, who not only excelled at embracing change but had also come to enjoy it, I was eager for my grand adventure. Anxious to see where fate took me and to meet my Scot of Yesteryear. Yet Hazel, who preferred consistency and routine, tried to hide her trepidation at such profound change and uncertainty.

“Whatever happens, it will be okay,”

I assured her, without knowing if that was true.

“Because, if nothing else seems certain, we’ll all be there together.”

“So you assume because they’re all MacLeods,”

Hazel countered.

“That doesn’t mean they’re all in the same place or even necessarily, the same era.”

“Now you sound like Willow,”

I pointed out.

“The sister determined to avoid all this, even as she’s drawn to this place.”

Like me, a few years ago, Willow had bought a place in Salem, Massachusetts, but rarely resided there. As a pilot, she preferred to be in the air, flying. Neither of us was a huge fan of locking ourselves down to any one location, but Ellie had insisted, claiming we should live close because it would matter someday.

Little did we realize just how close that would eventually be.

“I know I can’t avoid all this,”

Hazel said softly, her gaze dropping to her tea as if drawn there because, without a doubt, it was.

“It’s…they’re coming for all of us.”

Troubled by the way she said that, I cocked my head.

“What did your last letter from Storm say, anyway?”

I shook my head.

“Because I didn’t get the sense anyone was necessarily coming for us. If anything, I got the feeling we were going to them.”

“I know, and maybe,”

she began but trailed off when something in her tea caught her attention.

I leaned over and peered into her cup but saw nothing unusual.

“What is it?”

Hazel was notorious for catching signs or symbols in her tea that, one way or another, foresaw the future.

“I’m not sure,”

she murmured.

“It looks like a spiral. Circles within circles, but all one line, leading to a central point.”

“Interesting.”

I whipped out my phone to Google it, but the insistent tap of a tree branch on the window caught my attention. Most might only see a branch swaying in the wind, but I saw more. Felt more.

“It’s trying to tell me something.”

The same sense of anticipation I’d had when the seedling landed in my palm washed over me again.

“Show me something.”

I yanked my jacket back on and headed for the door, eager to see what secrets the tree held because I was certain it had to do with my Scot. Certain my destiny was right around the corner. Sure, I was a little nervous that it might be happening so soon, but mostly just ready for what came next.

“Wait,”

Hazel exclaimed, flying after me.

“I get that you’re eager, but we talked about approaching all this cautiously and not rushing into anything.”

“Yet you were the first to move in,”

I reminded, stepping out into weather much like I’d left it. Calm and chilly, with barely a breeze. There certainly wasn’t enough wind to sway the branches that much. Proven by the fact the leaves overhead were barely moving.

I was about to comment on it when something snagged my attention.

“When did you appear there?”

I murmured, crouching to touch the small spiral carved into the trunk.

“That’s it!”

Hazel crouched beside me.

“That’s what I just saw in my tea.”

“I know,”

I said softly, recalling a forgotten dream. One of several I’d remembered over the years that were lost to me until something triggered a recollection.

“I carved it…someplace else.”

“Where?”

Hazel wondered, understanding I referred to a dream rather than an actual place.

Yet it was an actual place.

I just wasn’t really there…or was I?

“I dreamt about this spiral shortly before I received my first letter from Storm,”

I murmured.

“That young, then?”

“Yes.”

We started getting Storm's letters when we were relatively young, arriving in ways that kept them hidden from our mothers. While occasionally tempted to share them with our moms, we never did and couldn’t say why, other than we felt they were meant for only us. Secret fairytales designed to appeal to each of us individually.

We had never met Storm, but we trusted her like a sibling. Not surprising because, in some strange way, we had grown up with her before she ultimately brought the four of us together. I had asked Adlin about her, but he had been vague in his response, offering nothing more than a twinkle in his light blue eyes and cryptic words said with a distinctive Scottish brogue.

“I couldnae say, lass, other than she sounds like someone you can trust.”

However, he admitted he was familiar with the MacLeods and that they were on the right side of history. A clan to be trusted.

I rarely saw him after that initial meeting, but my sisters had seen him here and there, and they all had differing opinions of him. Some liked him, while others distrusted him because he was so cryptic and hard to get in touch with. That made sense to me, given he claimed to be from the same era as the men from our letters.

“What did the place look like in your dream?”

Hazel wondered, pulling me from my thoughts.

“Where was the tree you carved this symbol on?”

Throwing caution to the wind, I ran the tip of my forefinger along the spiral from the outside in, caught by the warmth that spread through me, and whispered.

“It was close.”

Hazel responded, but it sounded like she spoke from down a long tunnel because her words echoed.

“But where was the tree? What did you see around you?”

My breath caught when my finger reached the center. The air suddenly seemed different. Sparser. Everything blurred, and my ears popped like the pressure changed before everything sharpened again, and I saw what lay beyond the tree.

“I see a castle on a cliff,”

I gasped. Cold wind gusted against my face, and the scent of pine and sea salt filled my nostrils. “I see…”

That’s all I got out before the castle swirled away like the carving beneath my fingers, and everything went very, very dark.