Sue-Ellen Welfonder - MacKenzie 07 (11 page)

Though at times, she'd swear she loved these hills even more.

So with her heart full, she reached for an earthenware bowl and tipped its contents - freshly harvested sphagnum moss - onto her work table.

Outside the window, the branches of her crabapple tree rattled in the rising wind.

Already the bright sky she'd so admired was darkening and she could hear the higher waves smacking against the garden's seaward wall, just behind the herbarium.

Well used to such sudden Highland storms, she puffed a strand of hair off her face and began sorting her bog mosses. First she divided the moist, springy clumps by color. This batch - collected by one of her husband's youngest squires -

proved particularly varied, including fine mosses of bright green, deep brown, and rich blood-red.

She pressed a finger into a plump bit of the blood-red moss, pleased by its bounce and rich color.

Long experience told her that the red sphagnum, when boiled and steeped in water, made a wonderful soak for weary feet. Her lips twitched on the thought. As a certain ill-humored someone had been prowling the battlements of late, oftentimes even missing his dinner, she considered the possibility that a surprise late-night foot bath might improve his mood. So she set these mosses aside and concentrated first on the green and brown ones.

These more common varieties would make excellent wound dressings once she'd picked away all the embedded bits of dirt, leaves, and twigs. A task she always saw to herself, not trusting anyone else to clean the precious medicinal moss as thoroughly as she did.

Even so, she'd let the squire carry the prepared mosses up to the workshop's drying loft. Much as she tried to ignore the discomfort, her knees weren't the best in recent years. She knew better than to scramble up a ladder in the darkest corner of the herbarium.

And it was dark.

A glance out the window proved it.

Shimmering curtains of rain now obscured the view. Her beloved hills were gone, the awe-inspiring peaks and corries hidden by gloom. Even the air had chilled, turning so icy she wouldn't have been surprised to see her breath emerge as white puffs.

"Ah, well..." She tightened her shawl around her shoulders and picked up another wet clump of red sphagnum, adding it to her pile.

She also fought back a smile.

The rushing wind and rain would drive Duncan down from the battlements.

Unlike her - she did enjoy a good storm - her formidable husband preferred the comfort of his hearthside in such wild weathers.

Knowing he'd deny any such hint of softness, her smile deepened and she reached for the one remaining bit of red moss. But before her fingers could grasp it, the color changed. No longer the deep blood-crimson of wine, the sphagnum shone with an emerald brilliance she was certain hadn't been in the squire's gathered assortment.

The green peat mosses spread across her work table were a lighter, less rich shade.

At least, they had been.

Now each clump of sphagnum winked back at her, dark green and unfamiliar.

Her little pile of red sphagnum had vanished completely.

Linnet blinked. She pressed a hand to her breast as the work table also disappeared and a smaller table loomed in its place.

This table, too, held peat mosses.

But these were dried and filled a wicker creel.

Linnet's heart began a fast, frantic hammering. Somewhere - too close to her ears to be outside - the shrieking wind and hissing rain became a high-pitched, deafening buzz.

It was a sound she knew well.

Even as she recognized the familiar herald of her visions, Arabella's face and shoulders appeared, hovering above the wicker creel. More beautiful than Linnet had ever seen her, Arabella's remarkable eyes glistened and her lips were curved in the sweetest smile.

But a strange luminosity surrounded her and her skin was whiter than milk.

Deathly white.

Linnet's chest squeezed as whirling gray mist swept in through the window to whip around and disperse the image. The fast-spinning mist quickly blotted everything but the little oaken table set with a single wax candle and the basket of dried moss.

Wound dressing moss.

The basket began to glow, the innocent clumps of healing sphagnum getting brighter and brighter until their meaning burst through the darkness swirling around her.

Arabella was in danger.

Injured or... worse.

"No-o-o!" Linnet's legs buckled and she sagged to her knees, some always coherent part of her making her grab for the edge of the work table.

She clung tight, grateful the sturdy table was there even though she couldn't see it. The buzzing in her ears reached a fever pitch and she gripped the table harder.

But it wasn't her own work table that she held so fiercely.

It was the little oaken table.

And, she could see now, the hands clutching its edge weren't her own.

They were age-spotted and knotty, the fingers thin and withered as claws.

Linnet's breath froze.

Chills sped up and down her spine. She began to tremble and the fine hairs on her nape lifted. Though she knew she was kneeling, she could no longer feel the cold, earthen floor beneath her.

Nothing around her existed.

The ancient hands intensified in clarity.

She could see them clearly. The mottled, papery skin shone so brightly there could be no question that the hands were of great significance.

Linnet shook her head, trying to break the taibh - the frightful vision she didn't want to see - but even as she squeezed shut her eyes, rebelling, a deeper part of her soul knew she couldn't banish the image.

As a taibhsear blessed - or cursed - with second sight, trying to deny what her gift wanted her to see could spell terrible disaster.

But when the hands moved to dip clawlike fingers into the glowing basket of wound dressing moss, pure dread flooded Linnet's heart. The swirling darkness lightened a bit, giving her a look at the owner of the hands. It was a bent-legged old woman, garbed in black and with a whirr of iron-gray hair.

Devorgilla.

Relief shot through Linnet until the crone turned and hobbled right past her to vanish into the swirling mist.

The old woman wasn't Devorgilla.

She was a stranger. But her watery blue eyes had been kind. And her ancient hands, though shaky, had clutched great masses of dried sphagnum. Wound dressing she wouldn't have needed if Arabella were...

Linnet couldn't finish the thought.

The buzzing in her ears was growing even louder, the whirling mist darker. The little oaken table was gone now, though the single candle remained, its golden flame flickering and dancing.

Linnet bit her lip, tasting blood.

Something sharp and hard dug into her knee - perhaps a pebble she'd fished out of her peat mosses - and she gasped, though she couldn't hear her own cry.

She did hear the crackle and hiss of the candle flame.

Almost a roar now, the noise rose above the horrible buzzing, getting louder and louder as the golden flames grew and spread into a large and glowing heart.

Linnet's own heart stopped and then slammed against her ribs.

Arabella was inside the golden heart.

Whole, beaming, and naked save for a swath of unknown plaid.

Linnet stared.

Arabella was so close she could almost touch her. And she looked so blissfully happy.

So in love.

At once, the terrible buzzing stopped, replaced by the loud and joyous ringing of bells. The sound filled Linnet's ears and welled inside her. Then the pealing rose to a crescendo when a tall, powerfully built man stepped into the flaming heart.

He took Arabella in his arms, pulling her close with such fierce protectiveness that Linnet's own tears kept her from seeing the man's face.

Then the bell ringing stopped and the image vanished as if it'd never been. The dark mists glittered brightly and then spiraled away, leaving Linnet slumped against her work table.

She took several long, deep breaths and lifted a hand to knuckle her eyes.

Slowly her world came back into focus.

Then from somewhere behind her she heard a loud bang and a crash.

"Saints, Maria, and Joseph!" The roared curse could only be Duncan.

Linnet tightened her grip on the table - she was still too weak to stand - and twisted around, not surprised to see him towering just inside the threshold.

There was only Duncan.

Her heart's mate and father to her girls.

Fists clenched at his sides, he stared at her, horror all over him. His face was grim, blacker even than the storm that was no more.

Behind him, the workshop door swung on its hinges, testimony to his furious entrance. A three-legged stool lay toppled on its side, the large earthenware pot it'd held smashed in jagged, irreparable shards.

Linnet sighed.

She'd planned to steep the red sphagnum in that pot.

"By the Rood!" Duncan kicked aside the stool and strode across the pot shards toward her. "You've been seized by your taibhsearachd again! And" - his brows snapped together - "you've been crying! Are you unwell?"

"I am fine. But - " Linnet's voice cracked. Her throat was still too thick for words.

Before she could swallow and try again, Duncan was upon her.

"What did you see?" He pulled her to her feet, dragging her against his iron-hard chest. His heart thundered so loudly she could hear every hammering beat.

He drew back to look at her, his midnight blue eyes almost black with worry.

"Was it Arabella?"

The dread in his voice cut to her soul.

"Yes." Linnet couldn't lie. "She's been... she is - "

"What?" The blood drained from Duncan's face. "What has happened to her?"

"She is well... now. But - "

"Now?" Duncan turned even whiter. "What do you mean now?"

Linnet leaned into him, not knowing where to begin.

Searching for the right words, she stared past his shoulder out the window. The world was still now, windless and quiet. Mist still clung to the hills, but the sky was once again a dazzling, cloudless blue and the low evening sun turned the loch's smooth, gleaming waters to a mirror of pure molten gold.

Once again she saw the flaming golden heart.

She drew a deep breath, encouraged.

It was now or never.

Duncan had stepped back and was glaring at her, a muscle twitching beneath his left eye.

The MacKenzie eye tic.

A terrible sign if ever there was one.

Linnet smoothed a hand down the front of her gown, seeking calm.

Then she lifted her chin.

"Our daughter has been injured." She spoke quickly, needing to finish before Duncan started yelling too loud to hear. "I do not know how or what happened, but I did see that she's well tended. There's an old woman with her. And a man - "

"A man?" Duncan's bellow shook the herb bundles hanging from the rafters.

"A man!" He roared again, his face turning scarlet.

The tic beneath his eye went wild.

Linnet stepped toward him, one hand extended. But he leapt backward, waving his arms. Doing her best not to frown, Linnet kept on, wanting to soothe him.

"He's a good man." The surety of it filled her, giving her confidence. "He is - "

"He's a dead man if he touches her!" Duncan grabbed his sword hilt, whipping out the blade with an ear-splitting screech. "As for Captain Arneborg and the fools I sent along to protect her" - he waved his sword in the air, cutting down three bunches of dried mint - "I'll have their heads on spits!"

"My love." Linnet started forward again, heedless of his weaving steel. "It isn't as you think. Let me think on what I saw before you rile yourself."

"Rile myself ?" His eyes rounded. "I will do more than that! Wait until I rally my men. We'll sail on the morrow, at first light!"

He jammed his sword back in its sheath, his face livid. "I'll find our girl if I must scour every living rock in the Hebrides!"

"Duncan, please." Linnet pleaded. "I'm sure she is well. If her injury - "

"I'll kill the bastard who hurt her!" He grabbed his sword hilt again. "Did you see his face? His name?"

"Nae." Linnet shook her head, wishing she had.

But not for Duncan's reasons.

She twisted her hands in her skirts, his terror breaking her heart. "My dearest...."

She tried so hard to reach him. "The man I saw had nothing to do with Arabella's injury. I'd know if that were so. But I do think he - "

She broke off when he spun around and shot through the door, leaving her to stare after him as he tore through her garden and then pounded across the bailey.

Not looking back, he ran for the keep and, she knew, the unsuspecting men who'd be gathering in the great hall for the evening meal.

It would be a night like no other.

Linnet sighed.

Determined to do what she could, she hitched up her skirts and hastened after her husband. Already, she could hear his shouts and rants echoing from the keep.

He was in a dreadful state.

So she quickened her pace, her feet flying across the cobbles. If the gods were kind, she'd reach him before he made a fool of himself.

And - she hoped - before he cost Arabella the love of a lifetime.

"Father's gone mad!"

Lady Gelis, Linnet's youngest daughter, burst from the shadows of the hall's entry arch just as Linnet reached for the door's heavy iron latch. Home to celebrate her pregnancy before travel became too difficult, her cheeks were flushed and her bright red-gold braids askew. In truth, she was radiant, more beautiful than ever before. But she also looked agitated, rushing forward to grab Linnet's arm, preventing her from opening the door.

She tightened her grip on Linnet, panting. "If I didn't know him, I'd be trembling in fear. I swear he has fire coming out his eyes. He's raving about Arabella and some man - "

"I know he is, dear." Linnet softened her voice. Gelis shouldn't be distressing herself. "I was visited by a taibh a short while ago. Arabella has been injured, yes.

I believe something happened on the merchant cog. But she's in caring hands. I am sure of it and I told your father as much. Sadly, he only heard - "