Page 41 of Wild Highland Rose (Time After Time #4)

He pushed a hand through his hair. "Probably." There was a certain satisfaction in saving a life, but right now he wasn't thinking about that. He was thinking about his memory.

It called to him, waiting for him to open the doors and let it all back into his conscious mind. He felt panicked suddenly. Too much was happening too fast. He had to think. Alone. "Marjory, I need to be alone right now." His voice came out more harshly than he had intended.

Hurt washed across her face, but she quickly masked it. "Fine, I'll leave you then. I want to check on Fingal, anyway." She rose and with a last worried look in his direction, hurried from the hall.

Cameron looked around him. The great hall was empty, food and drink abandoned on the tables. He vaguely recalled someone telling everyone to leave. With a grateful sigh, he buried his head in his hands and waited for the memories to come.

Marjory stood in the doorway of Fingal's chamber.

Firelight mixed with candle flames to cast dancing shadows across the walls, the effect making the events of the evening seem even more ominous.

Grania sat on one side of the bed and Aimil on the other.

Fingal lay sleeping, the rise and fall of his chest, exaggerated by the blankets covering him, giving mute testimony to the night's miracle.

"Is he all right?"

At the sound of her voice, both women looked to the door. Aimil's features were drawn, her face ragged and harsh.

"He's resting comfortably." Grania rose as she spoke, crossing the small chamber to Marjory's side. "'Tis naught that ye can do now, child. Let's leave Aimil with her brother. Come the morning I've no doubt that we'll find Fingal in fine form, asking fer his porridge."

Marjory allowed the older woman to draw her from the chamber.

When they returned to the great hall, it was empty, the remains of the feast looking like the carnage of a fierce battle.

She stared at it all in a daze, her mind trying to take in the miracle that had saved Fingal's life.

"What…what happened here tonight? Cameron tried to explain, but his words were strange and his manner even more so. "

"I know, I know." Grania drew her across the vast hall to the bench by the fire.

Marjory sank down on the hard wood, her eyes falling on the discarded bagpipe. "Cameron said he was a physician."

"So his name is Cameron, is it? Appropriate in an odd sort of way." Grania frowned as she contemplated the thought. "Judging from what happened tonight, I'd say that he's no' only a physician, but a verra good one."

"But, Grania, physicians canna do what he did, surely." She reached for the older woman's hand, desperate for human contact.

"Well, if I remember correctly, there are some who can perform a tracheotomy, but none that can do it with accuracy and success. 'Twill be more than four hundred years before the procedure is perfected and another fifty or so before it is standardized."

She spoke quietly, almost to herself. "And quite truthfully, I'd have probably used that bit o' bagpipe.

" She pointed in the direction of the abandoned instrument.

"It was too big and might have damaged the vocal cords, but I'm no' sure that I'd have thought to use the wee pipe.

" She trailed off, turning her face to the fire.

Marjory frowned, things suddenly coming clear. "You're more than a healer aren't you?"

Grania nodded, without answering.

Marjory pressed forward. "The pump, Bertram didn't bring it from England did he?"

"I never even knew Bertram."

Marjory felt dizzy as revelations came faster and faster. "Never knew Bertram?"

"Nay, I came after he died. Your father found me wandering in the woods. Yer sweet mother just assumed I was Grania. I saw no need to tell her the truth."

"Are you from Cameron's time, then? Is that how you know about pumps and trach-e-o-to-mies?"

"Aye. 'Tis true," the old woman admitted in a whisper hardly loud enough to hear.

But Marjory heard, her head spinning with the impact of the words. "Then you're a physician, like Cameron?"

"No' any more. There is too much I've forgotten, but once, a lifetime ago, I was a surgeon, too."

"You've traveled across time?"

"Aye."

"And nobody else knows?"

"Nay. Cameron has guessed I think, but I've ne'er told a soul."

"Why no'? You must have been so confused and afraid."

Grania smiled. "All of that and more, but unlike Cameron, I had my memory and so I knew without a doubt who I had been.

And I knew, too, that there was no one here who would have believed me.

I wasna willing to take the risk of exposure, and in time, I grew content with my life here.

I found a peace that I'd ne'er felt before. "

The women sat in silence, their hands still joined, each lost in her own thoughts.

Marjory tried to make sense of it. All these years she had lived with Grania and never even noticed that she was different.

She'd merely thought her gifted, perhaps a bit eccentric.

Seen from this new light, however, Marjory was amazed that she'd never guessed.

She almost laughed. Until Cameron's confession, the thought would never have entered her mind. Now it seemed there were two time travelers at Crannag Mhór.

Unable to deal with the enormity of that thought, Marjory concentrated on Cameron. "He's remembered, hasn't he?"

"'Twould seem so, or at least a part of it. Amnesia is a funny thing. 'Tis often the result o' the mind trying to protect itself. I think Fingal's trauma forced Cameron to remember who he was. As to whether he remembers whate'er it was that caused him to forget in the first place, I canna say."

"Do you think…" Marjory whispered the words, praying for the answer she so desperately wanted. "Do you think that he might stay, now that he knows who he is?"

"I canna say, lass."

"But you stayed."

"Aye, that I did, but I came to realize that the woman I'd become was a far better one than the woman I had been."

"Maybe Cameron will come to the same conclusion." Her words sounded empty even to herself.

"It could happen, but ye have to remember, child, that a man is very different from a woman.

His identity is everything to him. In the world Cameron comes from, the worth o' a man is often based solely on his profession.

Physicians are revered, especially surgeons.

'Twould be a hard thing to let go of. Dinna be misled by my words, 'twas no' easy, even for me. "

"Did you try to get back?"

"Aye, that I did." She smiled with the memory. "But I couldna remember where it was that I arrived. I wandered about for quite a while before yer dear father found me. There was no way o' knowing where it was I first awoke."

Marjory felt her stomach lurch with dread. "Cameron knows the exact spot where he arrived."

"I know." Grania turned away from the fire to face Marjory, placing her free hand over their entwined ones.

"Marjory, sometimes the hardest thing to do is to let go of the ones that we love.

If you really love him, then you may have to face the fact that he'd be better off in his own time.

He has a life there. Perhaps even a family. "

Marjory felt tears slide down her cheeks.

With an angry hand, she wiped them away.

"'Twould seem 'tis my lot in life to have to let the ones I love go.

" She pulled back her hands and rose from the bench, intending to go, but she stopped, seeing the older woman's face in the firelight, wet with tears.

Somehow she'd never thought that blind people could cry.

"Grania?"

The woman turned in the direction of her voice.

"What was your name? I mean, your real name?"

For a moment Grania looked startled by the question and then, with a smile that lit the chamber, she answered. "My name was Eileen Donovan Even."