Authors: The Last Highlander
“Can we hurry?” she asked as she got into the car. “Alasdair decided to walk.”
Only then did Morgan notice that Blake didn’t need much encouragement to put the pedal to the floor.
Morgan waved to Frances, then stared out the passenger window as though she were fascinated by the dusk falling over Lewis. She hoped that Blake wouldn’t notice she was upset.
Morgan knew that Alasdair would never be hers, no matter how much she loved him. Still she had to try to make him happy, simply because she did love him.
Which meant that she had to send him away.
Forever.
Auntie Gillian had always said that life had no interest in playing fair, but that one had to make the bets of it. Morgan bit her lip, blinked back her tears, and determined to make the best of this. She would do whatever she could to give Alasdair his one desire.
She would help him solve this, even if it meant spending the rest of her own life with an aching heart.
* * *
But Alasdair wasn’t at the bed-and-breakfast.
Morgan paced up and down the porch for a good two hours, purportedly watching the sun set, but he didn’t show. She finally concluded that this place was too resonant of the present for Alasdair to escape to the past here.
After all, there was a bed-and-breakfast built virtually on the site of his home.
She remembered how Alasdair had pointed to the standing stones, the first thing he had seen that was precisely as he recalled it.
With that recollection, Morgan knew exactly where to find him. He would have sought out familiarity – she knew it.
Morgan raced back inside, startling Justine and Blake from the whispers they were exchanging over their after-dinner coffees.
“I need the car!” It wasn’t much of a greeting, but it got their attention.
Blake frowned. ‘You’re sure you can handle driving on the wrong side and all that?”
“No,” Morgan conceded. “But it hardly matters. There’s not much traffic here. It’s a good place to practice.”
“Uh huh.” Blake clearly didn’t share her optimism.
“At night?” Justine demanded. “Where are you going?”
“To get Alasdair. I think I know where he’s gone.”
Blake and Justine exchanged a glance, then Blake got to his feet. “Look, I can take you there.”
Morgan’s tone was firm. “No. I need to go alone.”
She knew this as surely as she knew her own name. Justine and Blake understood her determination because they conceded the point immediately.
“All right. But let me show you a few things,” Blake said. Morgan turned to hurry to the car.
“And be careful!” Justine shouted after them.
* * *
All Morgan could think about was getting to Alasdair, so she felt that Blake was determined to teach her every nuance of the car’s operation. She was impatient with his thorough tutorial, resenting every passing moment, but she soon regretted that.
She particularly regretted not paying much attention to what Blake had said about using the manual choke.
Morgan did well enough on the paved road – and thankfully, divine intervention ensured that very few of the residents of Lewis were subjected to her habitual drift to the right side of the road.
She repeatedly corrected her course in the glare of oncoming headlights.
Fortunately, she didn’t have that far to go.
Soon, Morgan saw the standing stones rise ahead and sighed with relief. The Micra skipped along the gravel road littered with a jarring quantity of potholes.
Even worse, it was hard to anticipate them. Morgan was jostled and bounced in the driver’s seat. She ground the gears more than once. The little temperature gauge nudged upward as she kept her foot hard on the gas pedal.
The Micra bottomed out twice with a jolting grin, then lurched into a spectacularly deep hole. Morgan miscalculated whatever she should have done and stalled the car.
She couldn’t get it started again. The Micra was apparently not interested in enduring another round of torture. Morgan cranked the ignition over and over again, gave it a good shot of gas, and heard the engine choke to oblivion.
She had flooded it.
She supposed she shouldn’t have been surprised. She looked around herself, becoming aware for the first time how completely dark and silent it was here. Night had fallen with incredible speed, a night that was blacker on this island than anywhere else she had ever been.
But Alasdair was out there alone. He needed her help, whether he realized it or not. Morgan gathered up her bag, then turned on the headlights to give herself at least an idea of where the road went.
A dark shape lurched across the road. Morgan’s heart missed a beat and she flicked on the high beams.
Just to find a tall, golden highlander striding toward her.
Morgan collapsed against the seat in relief as Alasdair hauled open the door. He bent to duck his head inside, bracing his hands on either side of the door. Though he smiled, his gaze was somber and Morgan knew he hadn’t missed her moment of fright.
“You cannot be surprised to see me, my lady,” he mused, despite the opposing evidence before his very eyes. “Only this wee chariot could make such a riot of snorting and farting. They likely have heard you all the way to Edinburgh.”
Morgan took a deep breath. “I came to find you.”
“Aye,” Alasdair said, his voice low and silky. Morgan was painfully aware of how very close he was, and her desire for his touch hummed to life.
“I came to help you go home,” she said quickly hurrying over the words before she could think about them too much. “You came forward in time, so it only makes sense that you can go back. We just have to figure out how.” Morgan looked up to find Alasdair’s gaze intent. “You just have to tell me exactly how you did it before.”
“’Twas the witch as done it,” he acknowledged slowly. “And ’twould seem clear that you are indeed no sorceress.”
There was no censure in his tone and Morgan smiled tentatively. “No. Just an illustrator.”
Alasdair’s smile flashed in the darkness. “There is no ‘just’ about it, my lady. Your talent is rare in its power.”
Morgan was dismayed that she blushed so easily in his presence. “You don’t have to call me ‘my lady,’ you know. I’m just an ordinary person, not nobility or anything.”
“There is naught ordinary about you, Morgan Lafayette.” Alasdair said her name deliberately, as though schooling himself to address her correctly. “And never believe anyone who tells you otherwise.”
Before Morgan could absorb his words, Alasdair extended a hand to her. “Come, my lady. ’Tis time enough that you saw the standing stones that so intrigue you. The moon will rise full this night, and my gran oft said ’twas then that magic happened within the circle of stones.”
Morgan looked at his proffered hand, strong and broad, and knew there was nowhere else she would rather be than with Alasdair beneath the stars.
Even if she was destined to lose him in the end.
* * *
The night sky was filled with a bewildering array of stars. Morgan was amazed that once she stepped out of the car, her eyes adjusted quickly to the darkness. There were no houses nearby and no lights other than the starlight.
Which was surprisingly bright. In fact, Morgan had never seen so many stars. Alasdair caught her elbow with a chuckle when she tripped because her gaze was so fixed on the heavens above.
His touch recalled her to what she had to do. “So, what happened? What is your last memory of your own time?”
Alasdair’s thumb began a slow caress of Morgan’s elbow and he frowned as he walked. “Robert the Bruce had granted us the task of winning Edinburgh keep from the English. ’Twas one of two they yet held, the other being Stirling. We heard tell of a way up the outside wall and climbed it, under cover of darkness.”
“I remember the guide talking about that!” Morgan declared excitedly. “But then, once you and I met, no one remembered it.”
Alasdair slanted a considering glance her way. “We had taken the guards by surprise and easily won the keep. We had been long at camp, and the English had ample stores of both food and whisky. We indulged ourselves, then explored the keep.”
“That’s why you were drunk.”
“Aye, fou as a puggie we were when we met the wee witch. She claimed we would interrupt the slumber of Morgaine le Fee, of whom we all had heard ample tales. It has long been said that her cavern lies beneath Edinburgh keep and that her pet dragon, a most ferocious beast, is doubly fearsome if awakened to defend his mistress.” Alasdair grimaced. “The witch dared us to meet her mistress unflinchingly.”
“And you took the dare,” Morgan guessed.
“Aye. In truth, I believed it to be whimsy. I feared she knew another way into the keep, or that she was one of the English aiming only to frighten us away.”
“But she wasn’t.”
Alasdair shrugged. “’Twould seem not.”
“What happened when you took her dare?”
“She ran. She led me to the top of a tower, then granted me the gemstone from the regalia and a tuft of white heather. She bade me turn thrice while she chanted a Gaelic ditty.” He glanced at Morgan. “I believed I fell down the staircase, but I awakened at your feet.”
Morgan chewed her lip. “And everything changed. The men you were with must have abandoned the keep.”
“Aye. ’Twould seem so. They would be fair spooked when a man disappeared without trace.”
“And that turned the tide against Robert the Bruce.” Morgan tried to sound businesslike. “Well, we just have to figure out how to send you back.”
“My lady, I fear ’tis impossible.”
“It is not. You came forward, you can go back.” Morgan’s tone brooked no argument, and she heard a vestige of Auntie Gillian there. “We just have to replicate the circumstances. If it’s a spell, we just need all the right ingredients to make it work again.”
A twinkle lit Alasdair’s eyes. “For one who is not a sorceress, you sound an authority on such matters.”
“I watch
Bewitched
reruns.”
Alasdair frowned and his grip tightened on her elbow. “But, my lady, this is no jest...”
Morgan fixed him with a stern eye. “I thought you wanted to see your son again.”
Alasdair shut his mouth. He was obviously still skeptical but fighting valiantly against his impulse.
“Do you truly believe it can be done?’ he asked finally, his tone revealing his hope.
“Yes,” Morgan assured him. “And we’re going to do it.” She rummaged in her bag and pulled out the crystal, which sparkled in the starlight. “Look, here’s the stone. Which hand did you have it in?”
Alasdair hesitated, then took it in his left hand.
Morgan dug in her bag and found the battered scrap of heather, the one that Alasdair had given her on Moot Hill. She turned it in her fingers, letting herself remember that afternoon, before she handed it to him. “And this is white heather. Or at least it was.”
Alasdair’s eyes lit up and his conviction visibly grew. “And it grew near the Stone of Scone. The wee witch said as much of the piece she granted me. This might indeed be successful!”
“Well, there you go. Now, all we need is the Gaelic verse.”
Alasdair’s face fell. “I do not recall the verse.”
“Then, we’ll just have to do some experimenting. You must know some Gaelic verses?”
“Aye.” Again that glimmer of hope lit his eyes.
Morgan’s heart hurt at the evidence of how much this meant to him and she had to look away. All the same, she hoped that they could make it work. “We’ll just have to try them all. Maybe it’s the Gaelic itself. Was the tune familiar to you? Or did it remind you of one you know? Think hard – maybe you can remember at least part of it.”
Alasdair pursed his lips. “’Twas a merry chant. ’Twas not unlike a song my gran sang when I was a babe, though these words called to Morgaine.”
“You’ll just have to come as close as you can.”
What other variable could they control? He could turn three times in place easily enough, although they were far from Edinburgh’s towers.
The orb of the moon crested orange on the horizon and gave Morgan sudden inspiration. “What was the phase of the moon that night? Doesn’t that sort of stuff matter in these things? In the story of the smith, it was full.”
“Like this night,” Alasdair agreed, then thought for a moment. “Aye! On that night, it was full and riding high. I feared we would be seen because of its light.”
Morgan’s mouth went dry that things were moving so quickly. “So, if we don’t try tonight, we’ll have to wait another month.”
Their gazes clung for a potent moment, and Morgan finally averted her gaze. She took a step back and tried to sound encouraging. “Go ahead and do whatever you did then.”
Alasdair’s expression turned grim. “’Tis not so simple, my lady. There was something about the tower place – she called it a portal. We need to find a portal betwixt the times.”
“Like that to the domain of Morgaine le Fee.”
“Aye, a place where Faeries are said to gather. I have no doubt that there was a history of odd doings in that tower.”
“Like the hill in the smith’s story,” Morgan said.
Their eyes met in sudden understanding, and Morgan knew they were both thinking the same thing. They turned as one to eye the circle of standing stones not two hundred feet away.
“My gran oft said...” Alasdair began, his voice oddly strained.
“Somewhere Faeries dance,” Morgan breathed.
It couldn’t be a coincidence that one of the most magical places in the British Isles was right beside them. Morgan tried to swallow the lump in her throat without success. She couldn’t avoid the fact that everything was falling into place with dangerous ease.
This was the night that Alasdair would leave her for all time. Just the thought made Morgan feel empty inside.
“Yes,” she said firmly. “That’s where we have to be.”
Without another word, they walked toward the standing stones of Callanish, Morgan fighting to hide her trepidation from Alasdair.
* * *
Morgan could not wait to be rid of him.