Chapter 20

20

H is own hands shook as he unwound the recently placed bandage from the boy’s arm. Not quite sure what he’d find, he held his breath. He didn’t believe that Caitlin could heal with her touch but he also couldn’t begin to explain what he’d witnessed a few minutes before. How could he shatter her belief in herself? What could he say?

Moira watched from across the room with those eyes that saw everything and knew even more. She believed in her daughter’s abilities to heal. What would she say when this sham was exposed?

The last layer of linen came loose from the still-moist ointment and Gavin’s arm lay before him.

Unmarked.

No swelling.

No sign of the surgery that he and Caitlin had performed.

Not willing to accept what his eyes saw, he lifted the boy’s arm and turned it, examining it closely. Douglas searched for the marks of the scalpel and needle, for the tear in the skin over six inches long from the rock.

Nothing. The skin was as flawless as the day the child was born, soft and unscarred.

And he knew he must be losing his mind. He’d accepted many things, very strange things, in the last month but this stretched him more taunt than he could stand.

Douglas squeezed the area where the break had been, applying a moderate amount of pressure and waiting for the boy to rouse due to the pain. His breathing hitched once or twice but he never stirred. How could this be? How?

“’Tis her gift, Douglas, as I tried to tell ye afore.”

Damn her! Moira read the question in his mind again. Well, he must have been here too long for he was actually beginning to accept all manner of paranormal experiences. Or this was a bad dream and he would awaken from it soon, feeling tired but none the worse for wear.

He closed his eyes and shook his head, not quite sure if he wanted it all to disappear or not. The cottage was the same when he opened them again—the boy lay sleeping in front of him and Moira stood across from him. Caitlin was still on her pallet recovering from whatever she’d done.

“You told me she was a healer.”

“And, because ye were unwilling to accept my words on their face, ye took a different meaning from mine.” Gesturing toward the worktable, Moira continued, “Ye thought I was talking about her gift as an herbalist. Ye hiv refused to see the rest of it.”

“But, it doesn’t work that way. Healing with the touch of a hand is impossible.” His organized, thoroughly modern mind rebelled at the thought of something more than medicines and treatments.

“Impossible as traveling through time, Douglas?”

He was completely overwhelmed. Of course it was. Impossible. Shaking his head, he dragged his hands through his hair and held his head. What could he do? How could he survive in this bizarre place with its strange powers and gifts? How could he fit in at all?

“Yes. I mean no. Oh, I don’t know what I mean!” Douglas moved away from the boy and strode to the door. He needed some fresh air, the room suddenly felt too close for him. Grabbing his cloak, he pulled open the door and escaped. And it did feel like an escape.

The wind whipped his cloak around him and slapped his now-long hair against his face. He walked unseeing down one path and then another. Not knowing, not caring where he headed, Douglas soon found himself in that place where he’d stopped the first day he was here. On the edge of a fairy-tale village, he stood in awe once more as the reality of the people and the place hit him.

Dear God!

He really was here and that young woman in the cottage back there healed people with her touch!

And all of his work over the last weeks had been worthless. Caitlin wasted his time and hers trying to show him how to get back to being a healer, someone who treated a patient and not a disease. He’d started caring again, about what he did, how he did it and those on the receiving end of his work. Caitlin, who had given him back his soul, had now taken it from him. Why bother learning about which herbs to use when she could place her hand on an injury and make it go away?

Wait a minute. Faced with the incredible ability to heal someone without medical intervention, he was feeling sorry for himself? He’d never felt so stupid and selfish in his life as he did at this moment. A young woman who defied all his knowledge and used her gift for others and he was worried about his wasted time?

If Mairi could see him now, she would tear him up one side and down the other. He’d really lost his soul in these last few years. In order to protect himself from the death and disease he treated, Douglas had built a wall around himself, around his soul. And he’d lost track of the reason he’d become a physician in the first place. He’d lived for the money and the respect and the good life medicine provided for him.

How could he face Caitlin? She lay suffering herself now from the effects of sharing the healing energy with anyone who needed it. Her only goal was to help others. And wasn’t that why he’d entered medicine?

As he stood on the edge of that village, realizing his insignificance in this time, he shook from head to toe. And it was not the cold causing the ripples that went through him. It was fear. He feared not knowing his own place in this world... or in his own.

“You frightened me.”

She’d just opened her eyes when he sat down next to her on the low pallet. Trying to sit up and failing, she stayed where she was. Carefully, she tested her arm to see if the pain had passed yet. Feeling nothing but a bit of stiffness probably from holding it so tightly against her, she stretched it out above her. Douglas’s grasp startled her.

He took her hand in his and waited for the same thing she did. When the pulsing began, he rubbed up and down on her arm, massaging it, loosening up the muscles. After a few minutes, her arm felt so warm and comfortable that she hesitated to reclaim it. She dared to look at him as he worked. She’d seen his face for a moment when she came to after healing Gavin and wasn’t sure she wanted to face him. Or his disbelief... or his questions.

“How did I frighten ye, Douglas?” He pulled on the hand he still held and helped her to her feet. She wobbled a bit in those first few moments but then felt much steadier on her feet. She let him guide her to the bench next to the table.

“I thought you were having some type of seizure when I came back in. Your eyes were empty and staring but you didn’t see me.”

“I thought ye would be gone for some time.”

“So, you were trying to deceive me?” He crossed his arms and stood before her. His face was grim and she could see him clenching his jaws even from her seat.

“Nay, Douglas, no’ trying to deceive ye but to avoid—”

“Avoid telling me the truth about you?”

“A truth ye werena willing to accept about me.” She heard his scoffing words before and her heart hurt with each one he uttered.

“You’re right, of course. I couldn’t accept your truth. It defies everything I know and believe. Or should I say don’t believe?” Douglas reached to the table and slid a mug over to her. “Your mother will have my head if you don’t drink this before trying to go anywhere.”

Taking refuge in the silent act of drinking the mixture that her mother had left for her, Caitlin dared a peek at his face. He didn’t look angry; stunned was a better description of his expression. Poor man. After everything else he was again faced with something out of his realm of knowledge and experience. He had no faith in himself so he had no faith in anything else.

Now, after trying to help him find his faith in himself by finding the healer hiding deep within, she’d failed. He thought that belief in her gift wiped out anything he could accomplish through the use of his own healing skills. He was wrong, of course, but how could she tell him... show him?

“Douglas, I hiv always held back using my gift unless the time was right. Mam said it should be used only when our herbs and other healing ways didna work or when the person’s life was in danger.”

“Gavin was in no danger. He would be in pain but his life was not threatened.” His jaw was clenching again. This was not going well.

“Ye hiv the right of it, Douglas. Gavin would suffer from some pain and a bit of bruised pride, but no lasting damage.” She paused and patted the bench next to her for him to sit. It was difficult to explain this with his standing over her like a guard. He looked at her and hesitated. Finally, he uncrossed his arms and sat down. “I waited too long with Mildread. Her bleeding seemed gone so I didna use my gift on her. By the time I reached her that day, I was too late to do anything.”

Her throat tightened and tears threatened. “I decided to not wait anymore, to try to use the gift anytime someone was in need, no matter...” She hesitated.

“No matter what?” he asked.

“No matter the cost to me. Saving someone else is worth the pain and exhaustion it causes me.”

“Does this pain and exhaustion come every time you use your gift?”

“Aye, but it varies as to the task involved. A more serious ailment or injury takes more of my strength and more time to recover.” She could feel her mother’s brew taking effect—her head felt much clearer and her arm pained her no longer.

“So, when you did this to me...” His face paled as he realized that she had touched him in this way and suffered for it. “I’m not sure what to say to you? Thank you doesn’t seem enough.”

“Ye dinna hiv to thank me, Douglas. The gift is to be used. That’s why I hiv it.”

He stood and walked toward the hearth. Pacing back and forth a few times, he kept glancing at her and then away. Again and again, words seemed on the tip of his tongue but wouldn’t come.

“What do ye wish to ask me?” The clan was used to her using the healing touch but it must be a great shock to someone who just a bit ago would never have admitted to the existence of such a gift.

“So, you choose whom you heal?” His eyes were the color of midnight now, so dark and intense as he tried to understand the way of it.

“Aye and nay. Like my maither and her gift of sight, I feel a call when ’tis time.”

“A call? Did you have this when you healed me?” He was still trying to be open to this, she could feel his struggle.

“Aye. Ye were doing just fine with the herbs. Yer fever was lessening and Mam had repaired the gash on yer head.” He nodded at her words. “Then ye began to fail. Ye fell deeper and deeper into that unhealthy sleep and I kenned that I must do something right then to call ye back.”

“I heard you!” She’d thought he’d lost all his color before but now he was truly ghostly. “Through the flames. In the dream, I heard your voice calling my name. How?”

“I amna certain how it works, only that I clear my mind and think about the healing. I place my hands on the injury if there is one and speak to the person.” Some of this was not clear even to her; when she began the healing, she lost all touch with the world. She saw and heard only the person she laid hands on.

“You didn’t speak when you healed Gavin,” he pointed out to her. His eyes showed his confusion. He stayed on the other side of the room as though not sure of her.

“I called to him.” He shook his head in disagreement .

“Aye, lass, but ye speak only in yer thoughts and no’ with yer voice.”

“Mam.” Caitlin stood to face her mother. “I’m trying to explain to Douglas about the healing.”

“I ken, daughter, but is he ready to hear ye?”

“Ready as some and no’ as ready as others, Mam,” she answered as both she and her mother looked at him.

“Did you feel the call to heal Mildread?” he asked, his question bringing back memories of her friend’s death.

“Nay, I didna feel it, Douglas, and so I hesitated too long.”

“That’s why you said her death was your fault?” He didn’t wait for her answer, they both knew it was the reason. “But, can your gift work if you don’t get that feeling, that pull?”

“I didna ken, the call has always been there when I’ve healed in the past.” But she had not felt it for Mildread. Or Gavin. That’s why she’d tried today with the boy. She hadn’t used the gift since she healed Douglas and a part of her feared that it was gone. Caitlin had believed they were destined to be together and that her healing of him was the final step in that drawing together.

“’Twas why I tried to heal Gavin—to see if I could call the gift to me. I was”—she looked at her mother and then at Douglas—”afraid that I’d lost it with yer healing.”

“Lost it? But why would you lose this ability after my healing?” He ran his fingers through his hair in that gesture of bewilderment and looked up at her for answers she wasn’t sure she had.

He blinked then and she saw him get tangled in his own thoughts. He was remembering something but she had no idea of what it was. Then he shook his head and finally saw her again.

“I need some air. I’ll see you in the morning.” Caitlin watched as he grabbed his cloak by the door and left.

Her heart felt as if it were tearing apart. She’d told him the truth about her gift and he’d left. Clasping her hands together to stop their trembling, she raised tear-filled eyes to her mother. He didn’t understand .

“Give the lad some time, Caitlin. We’ve thrown so much at him in the short time he’s been wi’ us. It will settle in his mind and all will be well.”

“And the archway? Ye hiv seen it open again?”

“Aye, lass, on the night of the solstice the arch will open for him. ’Tis his destiny.”

“And mine?” She held her breath, wanting and not wanting to hear her mother’s answer.

“And yours as well.”