Page 19 of Proven By The Highlander (Highlander Forever #15)
CHAPTER 19
T he rueful smile that was spreading slowly across Caelan’s face was a beautiful thing to see. She covered her mouth to suppress her giggles, feeling a dizzy sense of relief that he wasn’t furious with her for telling him off like that.
“I’m glad to hear it,” she managed, trying to affect a regal disposition. “Personal hygiene is important.” She tilted her head, suddenly curious about his life out here. The tension between them was still strong… maybe it would be best to talk about less loaded subjects than his brother for a little while, to see if she could win him over a little more, get his guard down some more. “Is that how you’re feeding yourself, too? Did you bring food?”
He shook his head, gesturing toward his rucksack. “What food I brought is long gone. I did bring fishing line, though, and that’s been enough to keep me fairly well. This cove is a very good place to fish.”
“I’m surprised you haven’t been discovered, then.” She gestured back over her shoulder, towards where she’d seen a few signs pointing towards the cove. “I’d imagine a good fishing spot would be popular with the locals.”
He shook his head, a shadow passing over his face. “A few too many sightings of the Monster made the locals superstitious about this place. They avoid it now, some of them out of respect, some of them out of fear. Same thing, as far as I’m concerned. Hard to fish if you’re worried about getting eaten.”
She hesitated for a moment before asking her question. “And have you ever been… I mean, you fish here regularly, right?”
He nodded.
“Has the Monster ever bothered you while you’ve been fishing?”
“I fish only during daylight hours,” he said, his face closing over. “I’m not a fool. The beast comes out at night, and I ensure I’m well clear of the water by then. That is, unless I hear mad women talking to it,” he added, and she saw the flash of a teasing smile in his eyes though his expression remained stoic.
“So you’ve been living on fish in a cave for years?”
“Sometimes I trade some of my catch for supplies with the farmers who live further out than the village,” he said, shaking his head. “Repairs on my clothing, bread and cheese, that kind of thing. They don’t ask questions about where I’m from. Not everyone around here is as loyal to Clan Grant as the village folk.” There was an odd catch in his voice there, and she looked at him closely.
“You are, though. You’re still loyal to your family.”
“Why else would I be out here?” he snapped, eyes burning. “It’s loyalty to my family that put me on this mission in the first place. To my brother—” His voice caught, and he broke off, turning his gaze down to the fire and prodding at it moodily with a stick.
“What happened?” she asked, feeling an odd need to hold her breath. “To Bram, I mean?”
The sound of his name seemed to shift something in Caelan. He looked up at her sharply, but the expression on his face wasn’t angry. Quite the opposite. He seemed almost pleased that she knew his name, pleased to hear it.
Grief was like that, she thought faintly, thinking of her father. For the longest time, she’d dreaded every reminder of him, knowing it would be accompanied by the crushing pain of his loss… but after a while, she’d started craving conversation about him, itching to bring him up with anyone who’d known him even in passing. Memories weren’t as good as having the person there, of course… but they were better than nothing at all. The silence stretched out for a long time, but Leanne knew better than to pry any further. Let him speak if he was ready. If not… well, she didn’t have anywhere to be right now.
“He was always clumsy,” Caelan said finally, so quietly that for a moment she was worried she’d imagined it. “I was always telling him to take care in high places. When we were children, he fell down a steep cliff into the Loch and nearly drowned before he could swim ashore. Such poor balance… and such a lack of care in dangerous places. I suppose it’s no surprise he fell off that blasted boat.” He sighed, rubbing his forehead. “The Watch were out searching for an Unseelie Fae they’d received reports of from fishermen. The Captain thought it was a Selkie, but it was proving difficult to catch from the shoreline, so the men were trying to sneak up on it from the water. I don’t remember if they ever did find it,” he added. “But they were sailing back across the Loch in the dark — I remember seeing the ship from the Keep. I was on guard on the wall at the time. I saw him standing on the prow of the ship with a torch in his hand. Stupid thing to do, really. Must’ve been avoiding rowing. There’d been a storm brewing all night, and they’d turned back when the rain had started. By the time they were halfway across the Loch, the water was getting wild. And then—” Caelan’s eyes were far away, and she could tell he was reliving the story he was telling her. “Then, I just saw him fall.”
Leanne caught her breath, thinking about the vast, black coldness of the Loch. Even on the relatively still night she’d found herself out there, the water had been choppy and unsettling. Without the Monster’s help, she wasn’t sure she’d have been able to find her way to shore. The thought of being out there in a storm was terrifying.
“I watched from the wall while they searched for him,” he said softly, his expression drawn. “The ship stayed out there as long as it could, but within an hour of him falling, the storm had made it far too dangerous to keep searching. And he was gone,” he added with a shrug and a twisted smile that made her heart ache. “There was no point searching any longer for a man who’d certainly drowned.”
“I’m so sorry, Caelan.” Her voice felt small and weak, and she winced at how tiny that gesture was, how insignificant in the face of what he’d lost. She could picture him now, standing on the wall, watching with growing desperation as the men searched for his brother in the choppy water of the Loch… he gave her a frail little smile.
“So am I, lass. So am I.” He exhaled. “I did see one thing, from up there, something none of the men on the boat saw from their vantage point. But from the wall, when the lightning’s flashing, you get a better view of the depths. And I saw the creature,” he said, his voice hardening and his expression growing cold. “I saw its long neck and its horrible vast body. I saw it circling around where the men were searching for my brother, deep under the water. I know it was there.”
“Isn’t that where the Burgh is?” she asked gingerly, not wanting to antagonize him. “Doesn’t it guard the passageway between the Fae world and this one?”
She’d put that information together from the stories the other travelers had told her about their own arrivals here, and the adventures that followed. Nancy had actually been to the Burgh door in person, using her scuba skills to investigate an increase of Unseelie Fae coming to the area — that had been one of the times she’d met the Monster, which had been guarding the doorway every night for years.
“Aye, that’s what I assumed, too. You must understand, Leanne, I didn’t jump to this conclusion overnight. When I saw the creature in the water, the first thing I felt was relief. I thought — there she is. She’ll help my brother, wherever he is. She’s famous for helping stranded swimmers, isn’t she? But that’s not what she did this time.” His face twisted. “After that night, the Watch combed the coastline of the Loch, searching for my brother’s body. We never found a trace of him. Not his boots, not his armor, nothing. She took care of every last trace of him.”
Leanne shuddered at the image, despite her conviction that the monster couldn’t have done what Caelan thought she had. “You think she ate him?”
“A beast that large couldn’t live on fish alone,” Caelan said dismissively, shaking his head. “I think she supplements her diet with humans more than we think she does. Sure, she eats Unseelie Fae for us too… but spiders eat flies. That doesn’t mean I’d trust one not to poison me.” His expression was grim. “But Brendan wouldn’t see sense. We searched for Bram’s body for weeks before he finally called the search off. Very apologetic he was, broke the news to me personally. Said that they couldn’t afford the manpower — organized a memorial service without his body. But I knew, by then. I knew what had happened. I’d been talking with the villagers, you see, during our search. I’d heard stories about the Monster that weren’t as friendly as the ones the Fae would have us believe.”
The villagers… Leanne bit her lip, remembering what she’d heard about the locals, who had a considerably different attitude to the Fae world than the people who lived and worked in the Keep. Half of them didn’t believe the Fae even existed, for a start… and of the other half, many of those attributed their actions variously to witchcraft and demons and the like. It didn’t surprise her at all to hear that they didn’t trust the Monster.
“You really think she’s malicious?” she asked now, her voice quiet. “You think she attacked the Watch on purpose?”
Caelan shook his head slowly, his eyes dark. “No, lass,” he said heavily. “I wish I could blame her more for what she did. The truth is, she’s a wild animal, nothing more. I don’t blame a wolf for killing sheep… it’s simply what wolves do.” The shadows moved across his face, and Leanne felt a chill run down her spine. “But when a wolf is stalking a flock, that’s when you take action.”
And he rested one hand on the iron blade that was resting at his side.