Page 22

The tour bus to Skara Brae slowed as the road narrowed and led into a parking lot.

Pedestrians crossed to and fro, not seeming to take much notice of the enormous vehicle bearing down on them.

On the other side of the parking lot sat a visitor center where people, some of them clearly in tour groups, swarmed around the doors.

Skara Brae was Orkney’s most famous prehistoric human settlement—not as old as the settlement on Jorsay, but more complete.

It consisted of ten flagstone houses, some of which still had their original stone-built furniture.

There was even a primitive sewer system.

Even with her head and heart in a whirl, Madeleine was excited to see it.

Once off the bus, Madeleine led the way into the center and purchased two tickets.

“Do you want the dual admission?” she asked Haera at the window.

“The one that also lets us into Skaill House?” She nodded at a picture of the seventeenth-century mansion that sat on the Skara Brae site and required a separate ticket.

Haera looked at the stately house that loomed judgmentally over the flat, green land.

“I’ve never been in a house that large.”

“Then let’s go. My treat.” Madeleine gave her credit card to the cashier.

“Is it a long tour?”

“Self-guided,” the cashier said brightly.

“Take as long as you like.”

Madeleine gave Haera a wry look.

She didn’t seem the type who’d want to spend hours looking at antiques.

“I warn you, I’m a history teacher. I take my time in places like this.”

Haera shrugged and picked up a brochure.

“I don’t mind. Time passes faster when it’s with you.”

Madeleine’s face caught fire.

Haera just glanced over the brochure as if she hadn’t said something that was almost—almost romantic .

Something that made Madeleine’s heart race again.

“Aww,” murmured the young woman at the counter, wearing a little smile as she gave Madeleine her card and receipt.

She’d assumed the wrong thing.

Madeleine should correct her.

Except nobody had actually said anything that needed correcting, nobody had said that Madeleine and Haera were…

together, or something like that, so what was there to correct?

Madeleine, her face hot, shoved her wallet back into her purse.

“Right, let’s move.”

“The exhibit starts there.” Haera pointed at a corridor that led toward the back of the building.

Madeleine eyed the door that led directly outside to the settlement.

You had to go through the gift shop to enter and exit, of course.

“Uh, maybe we should just get straight to it.”

It was warm.

The crowd, probably.

Fresh air was just the thing.

“But the exhibit tells you all about the things we’re going to see, doesn’t it?” Haera sounded confused, but Madeleine wasn’t about to look at her face.

She could visualize it perfectly: a slight crease between Haera’s dark eyebrows.

“And they’ve got things from the settlement you can see up close. You said you were looking forward to that.”

“Well, I…”

“Come on.” Haera patted Madeleine’s back.

“We’ve got all day. It’s this way.”

She kept her hand on Madeleine’s back, between her shoulder blades, as they made their way toward the corridor.

Torture ensued.

When they sat down on a bench for a brief movie about the settlement’s history, their thighs and knees pressed together.

Haera seemed fascinated by the large screen, propping her elbows on her knees as she leaned forward and watched the grainy, black-and-white footage of the site’s excavation.

The narrator’s voice seemed low and far away, although maybe that was just the blood roaring in Madeleine’s ears.

Haera smelled like the outdoors, all wind and earth.

Her thigh felt firm, even through the layers of their jeans.

It’d be even firmer without the jeans, probably.

If their legs were bare, then Haera’s muscles would?—

Without warning, Haera turned and leaned in until her mouth was almost brushing Madeleine’s ear.

Madeleine’s heart stopped.

What on earth? Was Haera about to kiss Madeleine’s cheek?

Or—if Madeleine just turned her head a little bit, their mouths would?—

“I didn’t know it was uncovered by a storm!” Haera whispered.

Madeleine looked dumbly at the screen.

It showed black-and-white photos of the site’s excavation, images of both men and women standing in the newly uncovered pits.

The narrator’s voice was saying something about how female archaeologists had been there too.

“What?” she said. “I didn’t catch that part.”

“How’d you miss it? They said nobody knew the site was even here until a great storm stripped off the earth in 1850. I’ve never heard that before.”

At least one of them had been paying attention.

In fact, even in the low light, Haera’s eyes sparkled with excitement.

“It’s pretty amazing,” Madeleine managed.

“Let’s go. You don’t want to finish the movie, do you? You don’t seem interested in it.” Haera rose and turned to stand in front of Madeleine.

Her tall form blocked the light of the screen, sending her into silhouette, her face no longer visible.

For a moment, Madeleine’s head spun for a different reason.

Haera above her…in silhouette, her face invisible…

why did it seem so familiar?

Haera held out her hand.

Maybe Madeleine was dreaming.

Maybe that was why she took Haera’s hand and let herself be pulled up instead of rising on her own.

Maybe that was why she let Haera keep her hand, tugging her toward the rest of the exhibit that would eventually lead them outside.

The strange feeling of déjà vu faded.

Their hands fit so well together.

As if they were meant to curl in one warm grip wherever Madeleine and Haera should go.

Madeleine had been looking forward to seeing the display: ancient tools, pottery behind glass, preserved articles of clothing.

Now, instead of admiring human ingenuity, her entire consciousness was in her palm.

After an eternity that wasn’t long enough, they emerged from the exhibit into the open air that would lead to the actual site.

But first, there was a replica to explore: some anthropologist’s best guess as to what one of the huts might have looked like.

Haera let go of Madeleine’s hand.

That wasn’t the loss it might have been, because a narrow stone tunnel required her to stand close, her warm front pressed to Madeleine’s back.

Close enough that Madeleine could feel the rise of her breasts.

In Madeleine’s dream, Haera had declined to unbutton her shirt, as if even Madeleine’s subconscious couldn’t figure out what her breasts looked like.

They wouldn’t be big.

Maybe they were proportional to her frame, which was lean and muscular instead of curvy.

They’d be as pale as the rest of Haera’s skin, although now Madeleine knew that skin could flush too, turn pink and—presumably—warm.

There wasn’t enough air in this tunnel.

Her lungs ached from trying to breathe.

Everything ached. She hadn’t been this close to a woman since…

since…

Return to me .

Madeleine bit her bottom lip and trembled.

Since her angel had lain atop her, kissed her, and turned her life upside-down.

Now she was practically plastered to a mortal woman who seemed determined to upend everything yet again.

They emerged from the tunnel back into the fresh air.

Thank heavens for the breeze.

It cooled her burning face.

“There it is! The real thing.” Haera grabbed Madeleine’s hand again and tugged her toward the path that led to the settlement.

“Hurry.”

Even through the magic of Haera’s touch, Madeleine could think clearly enough to ask, “What’s the big rush?”

Haera kept her eyes firmly forward.

“Why shouldn’t we hurry? Don’t you want to see what’s ahead?”

Part of Madeleine would give anything to see what was ahead right now—the future and whatever it held.

That wasn’t given to people, though.

Goodness knew what rash or foolish decisions they’d make if they knew what was coming.

She held Haera’s hand tighter.

It seemed her human shell had unexpected benefits.

Even if Haera were a Stormhorse, looking down at Skara Brae from the sky, she might never have known its history.

She definitely wouldn’t be here now, beholding her father’s work up close.

The storm had happened in 1850, when Alban was a young Stormhorse.

His wings would have been part of the gale that blew the sand away and uncovered the settlement she was looking at.

How could she ever have imagined she’d have the chance to see something like this?

Yet again, her human eyes stung with saltwater.

She blinked, but that only made more of it.

Her throat grew thick too.

Father, she thought, if only I could speak to you one more time.

You’d have wisdom for me.

You always did .

She still didn’t know how he’d died.

The former Sire had said only that his body had been found torn to pieces, as if how it happened didn’t matter, and now that Sire was dead too.

Haera would never know the truth, but something of her father had returned to her.

Here on land, of all places.

He’d been able to do this because he’d eaten that sea captain, the one he’d spoken of so fondly.

Alban had said that, in battling and consuming his chosen human, he’d truly become himself.

In fact, he’d spoken far more generously of humans than the rest of their kind did; Haera had overheard her mother chastising him for that.

Beathag had warned him not to “fall under a human’s spell,” as if such a thing was possible, as if?—

“Remarkable, right?”

The soft voice startled Haera out of her memories.

Madeleine, standing next to her, gazed into one of the pits.

There were eight in total, called the “houses.” Flagstones supported and surrounded them.

Side recesses showed more stones from ancient, collapsed roofs; evidence suggested the buildings had been rather sophisticated for the time.

Around them all, the tourists looked down from rolling knolls of grass.

“We’ve come a long way,” Madeleine said.

Their jacketed arms touched.

Haera’s heart thumped.

This was the first time Madeleine had stood so close to her of her own accord.

“Think about it,” Madeleine continued.

“They sat around stone fire pits and burned seaweed for fuel. Now, ask me how central heating works, and I couldn’t tell you.”

Everyone Haera knew used radiators, but to be fair, she didn’t know how those worked either.

“I don’t think people are so different now.”

The ancient house had beds, a gathering place, containers, a privy.

It wasn’t wholly unlike the stone cottage she’d first lived in with Jonathan, or even the more modern quarters they shared now.

“Not in some ways,” Madeleine acknowledged.

“But our fight’s always been to improve on what we’ve got. Thousands of years after these people lived, I have a hand-held device that can tell me nearly everything I want to know.” She held up her mobile.

“It’s not always a good thing, but we don’t like to remain stagnant.”

Clouds passed overhead, rendering the color of Madeleine’s eyes as changeable as the sea.

The sea never remained stagnant either.

The Each-uisge were different, though.

In all its history, had the herd ever changed its customs?

For how long had mares been forced to subject themselves to a violent mating cycle and the interminably long pregnancies that followed?

For how long had males been forbidden to take partners if they failed the Stormhorse trial?

Haera had been told that these were facts of existence itself, unchanging and unchangeable.

But humans changed. They had changed enough that while once they’d been easy prey for the Each-uisge , now they had to be avoided because they’d become so dangerous.

They’d devised aeroplanes that could fly in defiance of nature, they’d created weapons that could kill from far away, and they’d built stronger houses that could resist most storms.

What had her father said about humans, all those years ago?

The same father whose presence Haera could sense now?

I find much to admire in them.

The sea was so near.

It was the source of Haera’s strength and the place to which she sought to return.

And for the first time in six years, she thought: Why?

She’d spent as much time as she could in isolation from the rest of the herd, and the rest of the time trying to prove herself.

Her only dream had been one that would let her break with generations’ worth of precedence.

Suppose she was allowed to return without being executed.

If she couldn’t become a Stormhorse, her fate would be a cycle of mating with one so he could breed her for centuries.

Each pregnancy lasted roughly ten years, and only one foal was born at a time, which was why her kind’s numbers were so few in spite of their long lifespan.

Why in the Great Mare’s name would she risk that for the slim chance at a dream?

“Are you okay?”

Madeleine was looking up at Haera with wide eyes; she wore an expression of concern, of caring.

Because Madeleine cared about Haera.

As did Jonathan. People here on land cared about Haera, while her own family had attempted to kill her.

Why go back?

Because you have no choice, she told herself.

Because you aren’t human, no matter what you look like.

The only land creature who understands you is an underground trow.

“Haera?” Madeleine prompted.

“What’s wrong? You look like you’re a thousand miles away.”

A thousand leagues underwater, perhaps.

Haera should say nothing was wrong: a human custom that had been easy to pick up.

“This place reminds me of my father,” she heard herself say instead.

Madeleine blinked, and then her face softened.

“You don’t mean Jonathan, right? You mean the man who raised you.”

“The one who raised me, yes.” Haera looked restlessly over the pits and the swarm of tourists.

“I can imagine him here.”

“He liked this kind of thing? Archaeology, history?”

“Yes.” As Haera said it, she realized it was true.

Her father had taught her much of the history of the sea, the herd, and humans too.

Beathag had approved of the first two, but not the last.

She should stop now, before Madeleine began to ask questions she couldn’t answer.

Especially because, for the first time, Haera wanted to answer those questions.

That was a bad idea.

If anything could make Madeleine stop caring about her, it’d be the truth.

She began, “Shall we?—”

Madeleine put a hand on her forearm, and Haera ran out of breath to speak.

“It’s strange what makes us remember, isn’t it?” Madeleine asked.

Her gentle voice wound around Haera’s heart like a leafy vine.

“I miss my family too, although some of the things they taught me…” She seemed to hesitate.

“Well, never mind that. I lost them a long time ago, but even now something will remind me of them when I’m least expecting it. It hurts, even though I’m glad to remember.”

A sudden breeze ruffled her hair, and she let out an “ooh!” It must be a cold breeze.

Haera wasn’t the best judge of temperatures that bothered humans.

Because she couldn’t yet speak, she angled her body so that she stood between Madeleine and the wind.

“Better?” she asked.

Madeleine’s hand still rested on her arm.

How strange, that the touch could anchor Haera to earth at the same time it made her feel light enough to fly without wings.

“Yes.” Madeleine sounded breathless.

“Very chivalrous of you.”

Haera didn’t know the word chivalrous , but she could guess from the context.

It was clearly a compliment.

“If you’re cold, we should go inside that big house you got the tickets for.”

“You’re done looking at the ruins?”

“I think I’ve got the idea.” Haera tilted her head to the side.

“I’m ready to see something newer, if you are.”

“I…” Madeleine took a deep breath.

“I’m ready to move on, yes.”

“Then let’s go.” Madeleine might take her hand off Haera any moment now.

Best to prevent that if she could.

Haera placed her own hand over Madeleine’s and tucked it so that it rested in the crook of her elbow.

“Your hands are cold.”

Madeleine’s face had reddened.

“I should have brought gloves. I keep forgetting.”

Haera squeezed her fingers.

They were cool indeed—and long, so maybe their circulation wasn’t good.

Maybe Madeleine’s blood traveled too slowly in her veins to keep her warm, and it needed coaxing.

“You don’t need gloves.” She rubbed Madeleine’s fingers gently.

“You’ve got me. Let’s go somewhere warmer.”

Madeleine said nothing, but she didn’t take her arm from Haera’s either.

Together, they walked toward Skaill House, turning their backs on the ancient past.