Chapter Eighteen

Not once, since she had died nine years ago in the dungeon of Dunvegan Castle, had Lady Janet MacLeod felt like a spirit, until today. With desperate urgency, she flitted through the hallways and corridors, the secret passageways, and parts of the old keep that were still under renovations, trying to locate something, anything that did not belong in the castle. To save time, she vanished through one wall, only to appear on the other side, sometimes startling the residents who were unaware of her frantic activities.

To be thorough, she even checked the dungeon where she had died, finding nothing but horrible memories of a much darker time in her existence. As she moved about the castle, she wondered not for the first time why she had become a ghost at all.

Her husband had been responsible for her death, tossing her into the pit and allowing her to waste away in the darkness until she had begged for death to claim her. As reality had slipped from her at her last breath, instead of seeing a bright white light, she had seen a grey mist forming around her, cocooning her in peaceful serenity, as though softening the harshness of death.

And then, her body had floated up through the slats that covered the pit, stuck in a sort of half-life where she retained her emotions and her memories, yet a lingering sadness settled about her at the thought that her children could still be in harm’s way with a father who was no longer rational, and extremely dangerous.

Lady Janet remembered with a hint of amusement how she had taken great pleasure in haunting her husband. Her ability to interact with the physical world had been taken from her, but she had done everything in her power to make certain he did not harm her children.

Since her husband’s death, she had started to change. Slowly at first, she had regained small abilities as her children returned to Dunvegan. She could sense their emotions, hear them speak, see them clearly, touch them, and feel their warmth echo against the mist that comprised her form. The thought brought a smile to her lips.

In the last few months, she had been able to not only see all her children again, but also to touch them, hold them, love them as she had longed to do for years. If the opportunity to rid her family of Oberon and his continued vengeance against them presented itself, she would gratefully sacrifice what sliver of her life remained to keep them safe. Nothing mattered more than her children’s lives and happiness.

*

Morning gave wayto the afternoon as Graeme, Tormod, and Callum added drops of Lottie’s sleeping draught to four cases of whisky bottles they had brought up from the cellar. Tormod opened, then resealed another bottle, setting it aside. Later that afternoon, he and Graeme—dressed as peasants—would secretly take a wagon and two horses along the coastline of the loch before turning them back towards the castle. It would appear to the lieutenant’s men, setting up camp outside Dunvegan’s walls, that he and Graeme were making a delivery for the festivities that night.

“Are you certain you’ll be able to outrun the regiment who will set upon you?” Callum asked, uncertainty in his voice.

“Aye,” Tormod assured his younger brother. “We’ll cut the wagon loose, leaving the whisky behind, and disappear into the woodlands. Once they stop chasing us, we’ll head back to Dunvegan the way we left. What can go wrong?”

Callum frowned. “The men could use their cannons before you set that trap. They could surround the wagon, making your regress impossible. They could shoot you from a distance before you have time to retreat. Shall I go on?”

Tormod chuckled, trying to lighten his brother’s mood. “’Tis all right, little brother. Graeme and I both know what we must do. We are aware of the risks. And when all this is through, I will show you the best places to hide both in the woods and along the shoreline should you ever need to secrete yourself in the future.”

The promise of Tormod sharing his knowledge seemed to lighten Callum’s spirit as they filled the final bottle. Tormod stood, then lifted one of the heavy crates. “Let’s get these loaded in the wagon. The sooner we implement this plan, the better for us all.”

*

In the kitchen,Mrs Honey had provided Rosalyn with a saucer of cream, which her newfound friend had eagerly lapped up until his tiny belly had hardened. When the kitten sat back on his hind legs and stared at her with those big blue eyes and a face smeared with cream Rosalyn could not help but laugh. She picked up a nearby towel and cleaned the wee little beast’s face. While doing so, she managed to get cream on the bracelet at her wrist. She removed the bracelet and was about to wipe it down when the kitten tottered near the side of the table.

“Hold on there, little one,” she scooped the kitten into her arms and held him before her. “You should be more aware of your surroundings.” The kitten wiggled in her arms until Rosalyn let him jump down to prowl about the chamber.

“Do ye have plans for the little beast?” Mrs Honey asked.

Rosalyn shrugged. “I had not given it much thought. I have never had a pet before.”

A smile brought out the wrinkles around Mrs Honey’s kind eyes. “We’d welcome the little beastie in the castle tae help with the vermin, if ye’d like.”

“That’s very kind,” Rosalyn replied, watching the kitten play with an acorn that had fallen to the floor from a basket nearby that Mrs Honey had been cracking and chopping to add to the stuffing for their supper that evening. The nut rolled across the stone floor, and out the open doorway, with the kitten following right behind. “I had better intervene,” she said, chasing after the black and white ball of fur.

Outside, the kitten batted the acorn towards the old keep. Before she could catch up with the animal. Someone must have left the latch not firmly set as the kitten disappeared inside. Rosalyn followed.

A chill came over her as she entered the older section of the castle that Keiran had told her was being restored. She could hardly see a thing in the murky light. “Kitten. Where are you?” Rosalyn searched the darkness and saw a streak of white heading up the stairs.

Instead of chasing the little beast, she paused. Perhaps she should go outside and find a torch or a lantern to light her way. She turned around to do so, when an ungodly yowl came from above. Ignoring her first instinct, she lifted her skirts and raced up the stairs in the hazy grey light.

The sound came again from down the hallway. She entered a chamber that had a soft blue glow inside, yet she could not see any source of light. Another cry came from a doorway in the panelling. Rosalyn reached for her dagger and peered inside.

There inside the hidden passageway was the kitten, sitting quite contentedly in a circle of blue light. The acorn rested at the animal’s feet.

She sheathed her weapon before heading inside the passageway. “Come here, you mischievous little trickster. I should name you Hermes for all your cunning and trickery.” She bent to pick up the fluffy beast, when it leapt backwards, and instead of a passageway of stone, the scene before her changed and instead of on cobblestone, the kitten ran through a lush green forest.

Rosalyn looked behind her only to find towering trees, their bark gnarled and weathered. Yet it was to their roots that her attention shifted. Colossal and sinuous, they writhed outward from the trunks, forming thick, earthen buttresses that snaked across the ground like slumbering titans. The kitten teetered as it walked along one of the buttress edges.

“What happened? Where am I?” She shuffled backwards, only to trip over the edge of a buttress and fall to the mossy ground. She inhaled slowly, then let the air slide from her lungs. She concentrated on the chill dampness seeping into her body from the bizarre, unexplainable forest floor that had somehow appeared at the hallway’s edge. And curled her fingers into the moss. At least the chill and the moss were real, tangible. Nothing else seemed that way at the moment.

Everything had started to change when she had rescued the kitten from the gate. Rosalyn’s gaze narrowed on the creature. “Who are you? What are you? Because I begin to understand you are not a cat.”

The kitten growled, then vanished in a swirl of grey mist, only to reappear and take the shape of a man.

Rosalyn shuddered. “I should have suspected it was you.”

“Hermes?” His deep voice rumbled around her with all the power of thunder from the sky overhead. “You would name me after that paltry Greek god? Why not Loki, the shapeshifter? Or Zeus, the god of the sky and thunder?”

Rosalyn scrambled to her feet, and flexed her hand, ready to reach for her dagger. She swallowed hard and asked, “What do you want?” As the fairy king stepped forward, Rosalyn shifted back, careful to avoid the roots of the trees this time.

“The MacLeods seem to have a soft spot in their hearts for you, especially Keiran.” The fairy shrugged. “So you are going to help me take my revenge on him and the others for trying to destroy me.”

“I will do no such thing.” Rosalyn’s mind raced. She had a weapon, but the chances of her using it effectively against the fairy king were minimal. He had magic that he could use to manipulate her a thousand different ways. Her greatest weapon was her mind. She had proven that with all that she had taught herself over the years. Could she use intelligence to meet the fairy king on equal ground? She had to try.

“You say that Keiran and the others tried to destroy you, but it was the opposite from what I heard. Aria, Pearl, and Gille gave you their magic to save you from dying. They were the heroic ones, making that sacrifice for your benefit.” Shaking her head, she continued, “You were the one who reneged on their sacrifice by draining the very life forces out of their bodies.”

His lips pressed into a thin, hard line. “It was my due.”

“Was it?” Rosalyn asked. “Or was it you who pushed all the fairy folk to do what came next... when they all rebelled against you?”

His gaze narrowed, and with a flick of his hands the forest vanished and instead, an instantly distressed Rosalyn found herself on a towering rock, in the middle of a foaming sea. The shale beneath her feet was wet, and she had to widen her stance to keep from slipping off the rock and plunging into the sea. The fairy king hovered above the rock, watching her through his slitted gaze.

With a thunderous roar, a wave crashed against the defiant monolith. Water exploded against the rock face, sending an icy plume skyward. As it did, the spray caught the light, briefly creating a dazzling rainbow before it was whipped away by the wind, leaving white foam to ripple around the rock in a frenzy of bubbles.

Rosalyn shivered at the spray that drenched her clothing and the salty spray that stung her face. “It is a brave man who can admit he was wrong.”

“I am never wrong,” Oberon said, glaring at her as another wave crashed against the rock. “And when you die in your dreams, you die in life.”

“If this is a dream, can I not just wake up?”

“There is no one to wake you.” He smirked. “They are all fighting their own battles. When I take revenge, I am thorough.”

She was not the only one caught in Oberon’s trap? The weight of her situation and those of the MacLeods felt like a crushing weight on her shoulders. She looked around her for an escape that simply wasn’t there. The air vibrated with the raw power of nature as another wave crashed over the rock. The shale beneath her feet was slick and smooth, giving her nothing to wedge herself into or grasp for support. She could feel her feet being inched backwards towards the edge of the rock. It would not be long before she tumbled into the sea.

Keiran was not coming to save her. No one was coming to save her. If she was to survive, she would have to save herself.

*

As the minutesticked past, Lady Janet continued her frantic search for Rosalyn. When she approached the old keep for the second time, it was to see that where the grand structure once stood, colossal vines grew like emerald ropes wrapped around the stone building, keeping all who approached out, and trapping anyone inside.

Fortunately for her, such barriers were easy to breach. With ease, she sailed through the roots and stone. Oberon had to be inside, as did Rosalyn. The fairy king would not have gone to such extremes if she were not.

Floating up the stairs, Lady Janet saw a strange blue light emanating from a room down the long hallway. She hurried inside, searching, then paused at the open door to the secret passageway.

Rosalyn!

A chilly dampness leached onto her mist, feeding the dark cold that hovered around her. If she’d had a true body, she would have shivered as she moved towards the blue light, fearing the worst, preparing for anything.

When she saw Rosalyn standing there on the cobblestones, something inside her soared. Rosalyn was unharmed, standing as though she were waiting for something. Yet as Lady Janet moved closer, her elation turned to fear. Rosalyn stood frozen in place, her eyes open, but her focus was on something that was not of this realm. The young woman neither blinked nor breathed. Was she dead?

Lady Janet instinctively wrapped her arms around Rosalyn. The cold surrounding Lady Janet deepened. Poor dear. What has Oberon done to you? From within her mist, Lady Janet could sense an awareness, a presence still inside the frozen body that she held so tightly, hoping to convey some comfort, some warmth. After a long moment, she pulled back as a strange sensation further twined with her mist. The sensation blossomed and grew, until she could recognise the emotion that did not come from herself, but from Rosalyn. Sorrow. The young woman had communicated her sorrow.

Lady Janet gasped and released Rosalyn only to bring her hands up to cover where her heart had once beat. She had always been able to sense the emotions of others, but never feel them herself. Sorrow reverberated within her mist. Emotion. At the intensity of it, she closed her eyes and felt moisture gather behind her eyelids. A tear slipped down to fall on her translucent cheek. I must find Keiran. Rosalyn is in terrible danger.