Interloper at Glencoe Read online

  Finally she gave up and returned the book to the shelf. Throughout the day the tears returned from time to time, and her heart ached for her family and her clan.

  When Nick arrived home, immediately when he walked through the door and found her sitting on the sofa and listening to one of her Celtic CDs without a book in her hands he asked, “What’s the matter?”

  “Naught.”

  “Don’t lie. You’ve been crying.” He stepped closer. “Hell, you’re still crying.”

  “’Tis naught.”

  His weight shifted to stand hipshot in irritation. “Not if it made you cry, it’s not ‘naught.’”

  It was impossible to not smile when Nick made a joke, even a mild one such as that, and when she smiled it seemed to relieve him. With a smile of his own, he set his briefcase down and went to the bedroom to change out of his work clothes. “What’s for dinner?”

  “Supper.”

  “Oh, aye. Supper. What’re we having?” He always asked, though he never complained nor commented on what they would eat of an evening. It was a puzzle to her that he bothered asking, but he always did and somehow she always rather liked it.

  “Chicken bridies, with carrots the way ye like.” She had no doubt he’d never had a bridie pie before coming to Glencoe, but he seemed to like them if she put vegetables in with the meat. She hadn’t yet mastered the pasta, for it always turned out too hard or too soft.

  “Cool.” He emerged from the bedroom in just his cutoffs, and went to set the table for supper. Beth’s tears were forgotten as the smell of the meat pies indicated they were just done, and she went to pull them from the oven.

  That night she lay beside Nick in bed, listening to him breathe the deep, rhythmic sighs of sleep. His chest pressed against her back with each breath, and one arm lay beneath her head. It was warm and safe there, cradled by his body and caressed by his skin on hers. But her heart was too troubled to sleep. The memory of that scream resounded in her head, the voice of her father coming again and again to haunt her thoughts. Tears rolled across her nose and dropped to her pillow. Her eyes shut, and she prayed, “Dear God, please allow me to know what happened to them.” The moon had set and by the time she slept only a distant street lamp gave light to the room. Her last thought as she drifted off was an observation that there was never any real darkness in Nick’s time.

  But then her eyes opened on it, and she knew this was no ordinary darkness. The magic was all around; she could smell it. Like the air before a sudden rain, the world was alive with an energy that raised the hairs on her arms. And the evil was thick around her. It swirled about like something alive. She waved it away, but it swarmed back at her. She peered about, and for an instant thought she saw something move. “Hello?”

  “Hey.” The voice was Nick, behind her. She turned and found him with his arm raised to fend off the swirling blackness, a dark look on his face and an edge of terror in his voice. “What are you doing here?” He took her arm and held it tight. Both as skyclad as they always were when they slept, as he’d been when she’d seen him in the faerie ring, now she knew this was how he’d made the trip back in time. The quality of the darkness was freakish, the swirling thickness at odds with the air in the immediate vicinity of their bodies. Not truly light, but a dim not-darkness that came from nowhere but was simply... there.

  “I dinnae ken.”

  “You found the book.” His fingers dug into her upper arm, and it hurt. She writhed and tried to pull free, but he held on.

  “Aye. I found it, but was unable to read it.”

  That seemed to mollify him, and he relaxed his grip. “Lucky you. That’s not a book you want to know well.”

  “No, ’tis not.” From the darkness came the voice of an old man, and she turned to find a stooped figure wearing a tattered and worn uniform of the English Army. His countenance was of infinite sadness as he looked at Beth, and his eyes glistened with tears. “Do not do this.”

  “Do what? Who are you?”

  His mouth opened to speak, but only gaped. It was with great effort that he finally produced sound and uttered, “I am your killer.” Then he broke down with sobbing, collapsed to his knees, and faded into the darkness.

  Panic shook her, and she moved closer to Nick. “A Neacail...”

  Nick folded her into his arms and looked around, peering into the inky distance. “There’s got to be a way out of here.”

  “You don’t know how to leave?”

  He looked into her face, and she could see he was thinking of lying. But then he said, “I don’t control this.”

  “Who does, then?”

  “That would be me.” The voice was a man’s, but high and excited for a man. “I control it, for ’tis my magic.”

  “Fionn,” said Nick, his voice sharp with challenge.

  Beth looked to see where he was looking, and found what she could only take as a faerie. His dress was a tunic of ancient cut she’d heard tell was worn by the wee folk, short and ragged to the point of being nearly useless. He was black of hair and blue-eyed so brightly that they shone with their own light in this place. Frightening to look at, and she ducked her head toward Nick. “Who is he?”

  “I’m Fionn Coigreach, of the Tuatha De Danann, and I control the magic and I control yourselves.”

  Her eyes flickered toward him, but she couldn’t look straight at him. “Coigreach. Fionn the Stranger?”

  “’Tis what they call me. And I heard your wish to return home.”

  “No!” There was a note of terror in Nick’s voice that sent a chill down Beth’s spine.

  “I do what I like, ye arrogant bastard, and I’ll send her back if I’ve a mind! And I’ll be the one she’ll—”

  “Don’t be stupid!”

  “Stupid?!”

  Beth turned to Nick and said under her breath, “A Neacail, I must know what happened to my family.”

  “See, she wishes to return. Now, stand aside or ye’ll go with her and be trapped there forever.” Fionn raised a hand. “Or die in her stead. A prospect I fairly relish, truth be told.”

  “No! Don’t!” To Beth Nick said, “I can tell you what happened. What will happen, if you go back. They will kill you. That guy, the old soldier, wasn’t kidding. He will run you through with a sword, and he’ll do it in your father’s house. The Campbells will do it while they are guests.”

  “He lies, Ealasaid, for he doesnae love ye. He wants to keep you from your family, and that is all.”

  “Shut up!” Desperation choked Nick’s voice, and all his skill at discussion crumbled in it.

  “See,” Fionn’s voice took on an ugly quality of triumph. “He doesnae wish for you to hear the truth.”

  Beth laid a hand on her belly. “He wants to protect the baby, I think.”

  Fionn went still, shocked. Then he spoke, his voice a low, angry growl. “Baby? Child? There is a child now?”

  “Leave her alone, faerie!”

  “Whore!”

  “Fionn! Let her go back to the bed! Leave her alone, and let her live!” His voice trembled, and he said through clenched teeth, “For God’s sake, let her live!”

  “Aye, she’ll return to the bed, and won’t ye both just enjoy that! In fact, I expect I should send ye both, and see how the two of ye face yer fates!” He raised a hand, and suddenly they were standing on Nick’s straw mattress in Beth’s father’s house.

  Beth was struck breathless and reached for Nick. He held her close and muttered some ugly, angry words, but then whispered into her ear, “Hurry. Get your nightgown on and go back to your bed. We’ll figure out later how to get back home.”

  She bit back a comment that she was already home, for now she was frightened to be here.

  Chapter 16

  Nick mentally cursed that stupid faerie, and helped Beth on with her nightgown. It had become tangled in their urgency during their first time together, and his heart warmed with the memory of that night.

  “What happened?”


  “I think we pissed him off. He didn’t like that you and Gòrdan were together, and now he doesn’t like that you’re with me.”

  “For what does it concern him?”

  “You said yourself the wee folk are daft. The guy is nuts. We need to be afraid of him. Now, hurry. Get in your bed before we get busted by your father.”

  That made her chuckle in spite of the confusion in her eyes. “Busted. The language of the future amuses me, mo Neacail.” She stepped from the straw mattress, then turned back to give him a quick kiss before tiptoeing into the area where her father and brother snored away in their bunks. Then he pulled his linen shirt over himself and lay down on that blasted, lumpy mattress under the length of plaid wool they’d given him, and which he’d thought he would never see again.

  They’d been gone from this place for quite a while, and it broke his heart to be back. And with Beth due to deliver in about six months, the thought of staying very long drenched him with cold sweat. He lay on the mattress and pretended to sleep until the other men awoke, then when they stirred he pretended to wake up. It was going to be a long, ugly day.

  He fumbled with the kilt, struggling to remember how to put it on, and got it around himself well enough. Beth came from the bunks just as he was about to take buckets to the stream for water, and Dùghall was to carry feed for the animals in the byre. He watched her to see if she was all right, but she gave him a slight frown and indicated with a glance the others in the room.

  Nick looked away, for she was right. They couldn’t be seen so much as looking at each other, for many fundamental things had changed between them during this three-month-long night. Things that would bring repercussions from her family if they were known, and the father and brother would surely see it if he wore his worry on his face. Beth’s pregnancy wasn’t showing yet, and would be easily disguised by her dress for a while after it did, so there was time to prepare. He left with the others to do the morning chores before breakfast.

  The weather had turned snowy during the night, and Nick pulled his coat around himself against the cold. The Scottish winter pierced him to his bones after the California summer he’d just left. The shivering took him. Like a turtle he pulled his neck hard into his coat and turned up the collar, but the effort was as useless as pissing up a rope and the shaking went on uncontrolled.

  That stupid faerie. He would have been oh, so pleased to kill the creature.

  Toward the end of the day, once the animals were fed, the byre mucked out, cow piss collected to make ammonia for cleaning, a repair made in the roof thatching, and similar things done in the village up the road for the laird, Nick found himself done for the day, away from the house, and still with some daylight left. Having spent the day fantasizing about throttling that Fionn, it occurred to him he was not far from the faerie ring. It would be good to have a word with him. Maybe even to actually kill him if the opportunity should present itself. He slipped off down a small trail and headed for the spot where he’d first landed in Glencoe.

  Of course there was nothing in the forest clearing but ferns—bracken as Beth called them—and a rough circle of dead grass sprinkled with snow. It was melting off a bit here near the river, though thick banks of it still clung to the steep mountains surrounding. There were no toadstools visible any more, but he remembered where they’d been. He went to stand in the middle of the area.

  “Fionn!” He knew the anger in his voice was not a good idea, and he cleared his throat to try again. “Okay, Fionn. You win.” The only sound was a blustering wind in the bare oaks and twisted pines all around. “Fionn!”

  What would it take to summon this guy? Now Nick wished he knew more about the wee folk and what made them tick. Not that he thought anyone really had a handle on them, but the stories he’d heard from Beth and her family...

  Skyclad. It seemed that every time anyone performed a ceremony or spell in those stories, they stripped first. An involuntary groan rose, but he needed to at least talk to that faerie and it was worth a shot. He quickly removed his coat and unbuckled the kilt, then carefully set them atop a gorse bush to keep them off the wet, snowy ground. He kicked off the shoes, and went to stand in the center of the ring, exposed to the elements and shaking like a battery-powered child’s toy. “Fionn Coigreach! Come to me!” The wind cut straight through him, and he figured he’d give it about thirty seconds before—

  “What is it ye want?” The faerie appeared, crouched on his heels atop a chunk of granite sticking out of the ground near a scotch pine beyond the clearing. Chin rested on the heel of his hand and elbows to knees, he wore a big, cheesy grin.

  Oh, good. Nick reached for his kilt.

  “Nae so fast. Ye’ll talk to me skyclad, or not at all. It amuses me to see how long ye might last.”

  Nick swore under his breath, which turned white in the air before him. His voice shook as he said, “Return us to the future.”

  “To what end?”

  “To save Beth’s life, you fucking...” He drew a deep, chest-piercing breath and steadied himself. “Because if you don’t, she’ll die.”

  “She’ll die in any case. ’Tis what mortals do, and truth be told it’s what they are best at. And I’ve already sent ye both once. Are the two of ye balls of sheep’s bladder to bounce this way and that across the centuries?”

  “Your future self sent us back.”

  “Well, then, who am I to naysay my own self? I’ve great respect for the wisdom I own and wouldnae care to contradict what I would do. Besides, I would send only yourself if I would send either of ye, as I did the first time.”

  “No. If you only send one, send her.” Nick knew she would be safe in the future Los Angeles. She would have a chance to survive, which did not exist for her here. “Send Beth if you send either of us.”

  “And why would I send her and leave you here with me? Do you think I’m so enamored of your scintillating company?”

  “You’ve got to—”

  “I’ll send neither!” Sudden anger colored the faerie’s face bright red. “Ye dinnae tell me what to do!”

  “Please! Let us go home!” The freezing air was like a knife in his chest, and the prospect of seeing Beth die drove the pain into his heart.

  “This is home! She’s happy here! Her family is here, and if you dinnae think so, then ye dinnae understand her and ye therefore do not deserve her!”

  “I told you, she’ll be murdered if she stays!” Panic rose, and the shivering rattled his bones until he could barely speak.

  “Says you! I dinnae believe it!”

  “Then why did you send us to the future?”

  “I sent you there! She wasnae supposed to go!”

  Nick hugged himself against the cold, but it was useless. The soles of his feet burned with the freezing, and he knew if he didn’t get his clothes back on soon he would slip into serious hypothermia. “You were jealous.”

  “You’ve no business with her.”

  “She loves me.”

  “Nevertheless, she would have forgotten you, had ye simply disappeared the way you’d come. Particularly, she would have made great effort to forget you, had I donned yer clothes and made tracks away from the house in them.”

  “That’s why you made Gòrdan think he’d seen you with Beth while they were married. You wanted him to trash her reputation, so nobody would want her.”

  “He wanted to be free of her.”

  “Everyone was free of her after that. Except her father. You certainly couldn’t marry her and give her a home of her own.”

  “I could.”

  “Not in her world. Not among humans. And you couldn’t lure her away from her family.”

  “As you couldnae, if she asked to come back.”

  That struck Nick’s heart, but he was forced to admit it was true. “She’s a loyal woman.” Suddenly he felt extremely tired. The cold didn’t seem so bad now, and his arms dropped to his sides. Then his legs buckled. He looked at the ground and thought it might be good to
sleep.

  “Och, ye thin-blooded idiot! Put on yer clothes before ye freeze to death!” With that, the faerie disappeared.

  Nick groaned and struggled to his feet, for the faerie was right. He was no longer shivering, and the back of his mind knew that was very bad. Shaking his head to clear an overwhelming lethargy, he reached for his kilt to wrap it and his coat around himself. Then he pulled on his socks and shoes, and hurried to the house of Seòras MacDonald to get next to a fire before the cold would kill him.

  Before entering the house he belted and yanked his kilt into a vague semblance of order, a challenge in any case but even more difficult with his fingers numb with the cold. Then he went inside and straight to the fire, where he knelt close and nearly embraced the small flame. Seòras and Dùghall were already home, and their talk halted at his sudden appearance. Nick struggled to not look cold, but it was plain to everyone in the room he was suffering. In a moment he was warmed enough to begin shivering again, and his frame shook hard. His warming skin could feel the chill deep inside, and he wondered how low his body temperature had become.

  “Yet shivering, are ye?” Dùghall, of course, was first with a dig.

  Nick threw him a sideways glance, and his irritation and discomfort threw a perverse mischief into him. “I was waylaid by a faerie. He made me strip to my skin and then told me secrets.” As if to prove the veracity of his tale, he stood, dropped his coat to the floor, and began adjusting his badly disarrayed kilt.

  Seòras chuckled, and bent to the horse collar he was repairing with long bits of straw soaked in water, but Dùghall watched Nick in all seriousness. “Why would the wee folk tell secrets to a Sasunnach?” Now Nick glanced at Dùghall. The guy really did believe in faeries. Of course, Nick did, too, these days.