Page 25 of Love Beyond Time (Morna’s Legacy #1)

I’d fallen asleep in a cushioned chair situated close to the fireplace in Eoin’s bedchamber; only waking when I heard the door open and close and his voice speak behind me.

“Alright, lass, I’m far too tired to scream at ye. Mayhap, now would be a good time for ye to tell me what’s going on.”

I sat up and reached backward to squeeze my neck, sore and stiff from sleeping in an odd position for far too long. They must have spent the entire night cleaning the stables and burying the horses, as light was already beginning to stream through the window on the other side of the room.

“Is everything alright?”

“Aye, at least for now. This will be a major loss for Kip, but Mary will help him through it. If only I could see some reason for such an act, but I can think of nothing that would cause someone to act so upon innocent animals.”

“I think I know why it happened,” I said cautiously, half expecting another outburst like I’d witnessed earlier. But he was far too tired for it now. I could tell by his eyes that it was all he could do to stay sitting upright.

“Do ye, lass? Did ye use one of yer spells to give ye the answer?”

I rolled my eyes as I leaned forward in my seat, staring at him straight on. The door swung open once more as Arran came to sit on the floor next to Eoin’s side.

“If ye doona mind, lass, I’d like to hear what ye have to say as well. Mary tried to explain a little, but I found I could no make sense from what she said.”

“It’s fine, Arran. I already told you. I’m not a witch. But it was one of your late aunt’s spells that brought me here.”

“And how exactly do ye expect she could’ve done that? She’s been dead for nearly thirty years.”

“I have no idea how she did it. All I know is that she did. Now, please, just listen to me. I guarantee you, I’m just as confused as you are about to be, so let me explain the best I can.”

“Aye. Go on.” He leaned back in the chair opposite mine, seemingly settling in for what he expected to be a long explanation. Truth was, I knew far less than he assumed I did.

“I’m not Blaire. I’ve never met or seen her in my life, but from what Mary tells me, we look very similar.”

“That ye do, lass. Exactly.”

“Right. Well, anyways. My name is Brielle Montgomery. Most everyone I know calls me Bri. I was born in the year nineteen hundred and eighty-five. I’m a kindergarten teacher in Austin, Texas.

My mother is an archaeologist, someone who studies and tries to find objects from historical sites.

She asked me to accompany her to Scotland, to help her with a dig on the ruins of this castle, nearly three weeks ago, in the middle of October 2013. Are you following me?”

“Nay, lass. I canna understand half of what ye say. What is ‘kindergarten’ and ‘Texas’?”

“Kindergarten is just a school for very small children. I teach five-year-olds how to read, count, and write. Texas is the name of a state in North America. It doesn’t exist yet.”

“Aye?” Eoin briefly scratched his forehead before exhaling loudly and leaning up into his seat so that our body positions mimicked one another.

I glanced quickly at Arran, who’d said nothing since entering the room and looked far more confused than Eoin. He saw me staring and nudged his head forward as if wanting me to continue.

“Yes. So anyway, we were digging at the ruins and found access into the old spell room. It held all of its original contents, unharmed by the fire and undiscovered during previous digs. We walked into the room, and I saw a portrait of myself, the same one that sits on the table there today. It frightened me terribly, and when I started to sound out the inscription written beneath it, something started to happen. I felt as if I was being torn apart and then everything went black. Shortly after, I woke up back here, with Mary looking at me as if I was an alien from outer space. She gave no real explanation at the time, and quickly rushed me upstairs to prepare for our wedding. Until you threw me in the dungeon, I thought perhaps I was dreaming.”

Both men sat unmoving, staring at me as if I’d sprouted three heads. “That’s all I know. I’ve been sneaking away to the spell room to try and find a spell that could get me back home. And get Blaire back here.”

Eoin was the first to speak. “If Mary dinna seem to believe ye, I’d think ye were the craziest lass I’d ever laid eyes on. Still, she seems certain that she saw ye appear here, and ye do speak verra strange.”

“Yeah, well, I can’t help it. Sorry.”

“Ach, lass. I’m sorry, too. I should no have screamed at ye so. I still doona understand, but perhaps we can all work together now to get ye home.”

“Please. And maybe I can help you as well.”

“What did ye mean when ye said ye knew why the horses were killed?”

“You remember that I said my mother studies things that happened in the past? She works to find objects that will help people understand things that have happened. She’s spent years working on the ruins of this castle, trying to find answers to who killed you all.

” The words lodged in my throat, and I could barely get them out as I finished the sentence.

It alarmed me how much the thought of that happening caused my insides to hurt and tears to fill my eyes.

“Killed, lass?” Eoin lifted his chin out of the palm of his hand and sat up to look at me more alertly. “The castle in ruins?”

“Yes. Your entire clan was destroyed at the end of December, this year. I think your aunt knew that and that’s why she cast the spell. Maybe we can stop it from happening. All we have to do is figure out who’s going to do it. They left no clues. It’s still a mystery even in my own time.”

“I assure ye that we will do all that we can to prevent it. But what do the horses have to do with this?”

“I think they were a warning or an omen of what’s to come. As terrible as it is, it’s nothing compared to what will happen to everyone else, unless we stop them. The fire at the wedding was the first warning, the horses the second, I don’t know if there will be a third.”

Eoin stood and grasped my forearms, lifting me so that I stood in front of him.

He gently wrapped his arms around me in apology.

“Thank ye for telling me all ye know, lass. I doona see how I have any choice but to believe ye, and I’m glad ye are no a witch.

We shall work together to find whoever poses a threat, aye?

And then once our safety is secured, we’ll find a way to send ye back to yer own time.

Though, I must say, I will miss . . .” He said no more, letting his words span the distance now growing between us.

I allowed myself to fall into him, letting my head lie firmly against his chest as I wrapped my arms around his waist. “Deal. I’m sorry for not telling you sooner. I’d forgotten about the ruins, forgotten about everything but trying to get home.”

He placed one of his large hands on my head, calming me as you would a small child.

“Hush, lass. I doona think I would’ve believed ye, unless I’d walked in on ye in these awful rags.

The truth has come out as it was meant to.

Now, we have no choice but to make the best of it.

We are all too tired to speak more of this now.

Let’s all find our way to our own beds and sleep a while.

We can discuss this more at the evening meal.

Today shall be a day of little activity around the castle, I expect. We’ve all had a day of it. Aye?”

I nodded against his chest and pulled out of his embrace as Arran stood from his place on the ground, coming alive for the first time since I’d stopped talking.

“Does this mean Blaire is in the time and place that ye came from?” The pain and fear on his face was evident, and I finally understood why Arran had seemed so displeased with me over the past few weeks.

He loved Blaire, and it had hurt him to see me so pleased in Eoin’s company when he thought her heart was his.

“I assume so. I expect she’s with my mother. If that’s the case, you have no reason to worry about her. She will be working just as hard as we are to get us switched back. I’m sure my mother’s also thrilled to speak to someone she’s devoted her life to learning about.”

“Forgive me, lass, if that does nothing to ease me mind.” As he turned and walked out of the room, I said a silent prayer that Blaire was safe and in the overbearing arms of my mother.

* * * Present Day

“Is it really true what ye say about women reading and writing in this time? Can most of them really do it? I can, but only because I begged Father until he agreed to let me learn. Very few women are allowed to do so.”

Adelle grinned at what must have been at least Blaire’s one thousandth question of the day.

Over the past weeks, they’d spent every day working through the contents of the old spell room, and while they’d learned that a spell had caused the switch, they’d yet to find one that would switch the two girls back.

“Yes, all children are taught to read now, and they all go to school from the age of five until they’re eighteen.

A woman doesn’t have to be married to find success in this time.

I divorced my husband nearly twenty-five years ago, and haven’t been married a day since, and I think I’m doing just fine. ”

“Aye, I believe that ye are.”

“I think we are both about to be doing even better, Blaire! I think that this might be the right spell.” Adelle stared down at the faded, aging page, double-checking to make sure she was translating the Gaelic inscriptions correctly.

“Do ye think so? What will we have to do?”

“Yes, this is it. She even wrote notes in the margins about what she intended to use the spell for. It’s amazing really.

She knew that Bri would be born, and that the two of you would look identical.

She hoped that by switching the two of you, Bri could help stop the tragedy that befell everyone at Conall castle all those years ago. ”

“Do ye think that she can?”

“I don’t know. I hope she’s listened to me speak of this enough to know that she’s approaching the time of the tragedy.

But I don’t intend to wait and see if she stops it.

We are switching the two of you back as soon as we can gather the materials.

” Adelle didn’t miss how Blaire’s smile shifted into a rather uncomfortable position at the mention of returning home.

The girl’s heart was hurting from something recent, and although Adelle didn’t know the cause of her pain, she’d seen the same expression on her own daughter’s face enough times to recognize it.

“What do we need?” Blaire moved about the small room, trying to look as helpful as possible.

“Most of the items shouldn’t be too difficult to find.

Herbs and things grown locally, which I’m sure Gwendolyn will have no problem helping us locate.

We also need the portrait, which we already have.

The only thing that we don’t have is Alasdair’s ring.

Morna says here that she gave it to him, and that he would’ve passed it down to Eoin.

We didn’t find any such item in our original dig, so we better hope that it’s down here in this room somewhere, or we may have a problem. ”

“Oh, doona worry yet. We’ve spent our time looking through the books that could hold the location of the ring.”

Adelle leaned to the left as Blaire approached her right-hand side, giving the girl a better view of the spell.

“Adelle, did ye see this? It looks as if the spell may only work for a short time.”

“What?” Adelle leaned forward to stare down at the page once more, her veins suddenly flooded with panic.

Sure enough, scribbled in tiny Gaelic letters, the paper stated that once the original spell had been set into motion, it could only be reversed until midnight of the night before the anniversary of the massacre.

One month from today.

* * * 1645

Just passing through on his way back to Kinnaird Castle, the stranger sat silently in the back of the tavern. He watched as Arran Conall downed one goblet of whiskey after another, until he couldn’t begin to contemplate how the lad was still conscious, let alone rambling on as he was doing.

“I doona think I should give ye another, lad. Ye are far enough gone into the cup as it is, aye?”

The stranger listened in as the tavern master tried to discourage the lad from drinking more.

“Nay, not nearly far gone enough,” Arran argued. “We shall all be dead within the month, according to my brother’s wife, and I dare say I’ve no had nearly enough to drink to let me forget that.”

The stranger stood and slipped quietly outside into the cold night air. It was time he finished his journey with haste.

He had very interesting news to share with his master.