Chapter 14

Chapter Fourteen

J umping from ancient Japan to the great hall at Dun Ard meant Julianne found herself standing in the middle of the evening meal with Shaw, both of them half undressed, while hundreds of clansmen stared at them. She shifted closer to her lover to hide the fact that he had his hand inside her robe while she tried to discreetly haul his pants up over his bare butt.

"Let me handle this," she murmured to her lover. "Everyone likes me better."

He gave her a look only a guy in that situation could give, and sighed as he reached for his pant laces.

"Hey, clan people, we're back," Julianne announced in her most cheerful voice as she waved at the men, and then at the women sitting at the laird's table. "V, you would not believe how amazing Japan is in the twelfth century." She rewrapped the front of her robe. "Look at this kimono they gave me while they were washing my clothes, Lark. Pretty, isn't it? I think it's silk. There's silk in the twelfth century, right? Like that road thing?"

Connal rose from his chair. "Guards."

As guys with swords came toward them Shaw stepped in front of her. "'Twasnae her doing, my lord. I bid her take me from the island."

"I don't think they're mad at me, Chief," Julianne mentioned to him. To the laird she said, "Your bro did great, Lord C. Like he didn't turn oil slick even for like a sec. He's been completely chill and no one died, I promise. Bring me a stack of bibles and I'll swear on them."

"You're talking too much, lass," Shaw told her, although he was looking at the laird as if he wanted to punch him.

Nyall joined the guards, and inspected both of them before he looked back at the laird. "'Twould seem the chieftain wishes report on what occurred, my lord. Permit me some time that I may speak with him."

Connal nodded, and the guards backed away as the captain and Shaw left the hall, but then followed them. Julianne considered going after them, but that might make matters worse. She should probably tell the laird and the ladies more about what they discovered during the two jumps off the island, which should make things better for her lover. She walked over to the laird's table and sat across from Valerie.

"So you're back, Jules." Caroline came and perched on the seat next to Lark. "Did you have some fun with Shaw while you were gone?"

"Fun, no. I had druids in my face, and a scary nightmare, and then this Japanese monk with his scrolls of doom seriously got on my nerves." She saw the diver's expression and grimaced. "It's a lot to tell, but at least I found out more about Shaw's Pritani spirit thing. Buster isn't as bad as everyone thinks, you know."

"I beg your pardon, what did you call it?" Valerie asked.

"Buster." She waited until Lark stopped giggling before she added, "The spirit told me his real name, but that reminds me of a fish, so I gave him a nickname. Anyone know what Bàs means?"

One of the maids setting some food on their table shrieked and ran from the hall, while all the MacMar near them started muttering. When Valerie turned around to glare, a guard at the next table said, "'Tis the old word for death, my lady. Mortals yet fear speaking the name out loud."

"Jules, you gave Death a nickname?" Caroline seemed impressed. "And I thought I was ballsy for punching a shark shifter in the mouth. Good job."

"I didn't know it meant death," Julianne admitted, "but okay. Buster is way better than that."

The laird's wife cleared her throat. "So, do you think Shaw and the spirit will get along now?"

"I don't know. Shaw's hated him for a long time, and Buster is all about the darkness, you know." She shrugged. "But that's just his job."

"His job," the diver echoed, her brows drawing together.

"Like V is a teacher, and Lark a seamstress, and I'm a lifeguard. We're other stuff, too, but we really like what we do and think of ourselves as that, don't we?" As the other women nodded Julianne grinned, happy they understood. "Buster's the same way. He's the end of stuff, and he really likes his job and has gotten uber good at it. But for sure he's also lonely and worried about Shaw and me and maybe this enchantress chick coming to the island and doing his job for him. He's pretty picky about who or what he ends. They like, have to totally deserve it."

"Julianne." Lark took hold of her hands. "You can't fall in love with Buster. I mean, Bàs. He's not a man. He's the immortal spirit of a Pritani god."

"Do you think he wanted to be Death, if that's what he is?" she asked. "I mean, say you're like a little dude god spirit, and they tell you to pick your job. Would you say ‘Oh, yeah, I want to be a speedy black oil slick that makes people poop their pants when I show up' and stand in that line?"

"Poor Buster," Lark said, and sighed. "I bet he didn't get to pick."

"Rilke believed that everything terrible might be something helpless, that wants help from us," Valerie said, her expression growing sad.

"Mr. Rogers said it was love or the lack of it that's at the root of all things," Caroline put in, nodding. "I believe that."

The seamstress sat back in her chair. "Alexander McQueen thought there was beauty in everything, even what most people think is ugly."

Julianne knew they were softening toward Shaw's Big Bad, which was a good thing. The nightmare she'd had in the borderlands still bothered her, however. Her stomach then growled, reminding her that she hadn't eaten since leaving the island.

"I think we should let our lifeguard refuel, ladies," Caroline said. "Here, Jules. Have some of Brochan's honeycakes. There will be nothing better to eat on the planet until my people steal baklava from the Turks." She handed her a plate piled with them.

Duncan appeared next to Julianne, and gave her a sharp look. "You returned with naught amiss, my lady?"

"I'm good, thanks, Doc." That reminded her. "I found this in that petrified forest when Shaw took me there. It was just hanging from a branch, so I thought it was a leaf." She took out the stone pendant and offered it to him. "If you look at it long enough the outside starts shimmering."

"'Tis likely a Fae object of power," he said, studying it. "Sometimes the golden eagles from the ridges pick up shining things from the bay shore. 'Twas likely how it landed in the Stone Forest." He tucked it into a small pouch. "With your leave I shall sequester the object in my cabinet. That should null any lingering enchantment."

She sensed that was the right thing to do with it, as if he were supposed to have it all along. "Sure, no problem. It's been making me uber nervous anyway."

"If you desire a calming brew, come to the infirmary." Duncan bowed and left.

Valerie peered at her for so long that when she frowned at her she said, "Sorry for staring. You seem a little different now, Julianne, but I can't tell what's changed."

"Might be that my brain got bounced around during the jumps. I got a concussion once when I was in training, and that made me dizzy and cold like I got in Japan," she admitted. "The only thing that made it go away was when Shaw rubbed my, um, new ink."

The laird's wife tensed. "You mentioned you had a very bad nightmare. Can you remember any details?"

"Some of them." She described Eva and the two blobs of light, and how much her head had hurt when she woke up. "I don't usually get salty about dreams, but this one seriously creeped me out—and it hurt me, too. When I woke up I'd scratched me and Shaw really bad. I've never done that before in my sleep." She pulled up the kimono sleeve to show them, but the scratches had already disappeared. "They're gone. Huh. I guess they weren't as bad as I thought."

"Did the lights or Eva speak with you in the dream?" Valerie asked.

Julianne nodded. "My bestie wanted me to talk to my Aunt Klee for some reason. She sounded scared. Also, she's like living in Canada now and I didn't even know. The blue-green blob said I saved her husband's bro, and something about butterflies. The darker light…" She winced as a sharp pain ran up the back of her head and split in two to hammer at her temples. "I don't remember what that one said."

"Your best friend is someone that you completely trust?" Lark asked. When she nodded she said, "That may have come from your subconscious. Maybe you were telling yourself you need to talk to your family."

"Maybe." She glanced at the laird's wife. "The second one sounded the same as the woman's voice I heard when I rescued Shaw in the future. Do you think that was Lady Joana?"

"It's possible her spirit may have used the ring to communicate with you again, " Valerie said, her expression growing thoughtful. "She was a wonderful woman who sacrificed herself to protect my husband and the clan."

Her voice dwindled as she kept talking, but all Julianne heard was the last thing the dark light had told her in the dream.

You no longer need my protection. Shed it when you wish.

Shed meant get rid of it, so she closed her eyes and made the wish. Quit protecting me, then.

The pain in Julianne's head shut off, so abruptly it made her gasp. At the same time a part of her mind that had always been dark opened and brightened. She sensed she was falling into that brightness, and everything else around her was fading away, but she couldn't stop herself. Dizziness made her press her hands over her eyes until everything went still, and the air grew warm and fragrant with lavender.

When Julianne lowered her hands she found herself standing in the family garden at the farm. Lavender from the patch her mother always planted for sachets perfumed every breath she took. Butterflies flitted around her, landing on the white, fragrant blossoms of the lemon trees and the silk spilling from the baby ears of corn.

"If this is heaven, I'd like to stay," she murmured, walking through the rows of tomato and cucumber plants. "I just need Shaw here." She saw someone moving through the peas and stopped in her tracks. A sweet scent drifted to her, one she'd smelled several times before now. "Dude, is that you?"

"Your lover is not here, sweet girl," a melodic voice said.

Klee emerged from the tangle of vines, dressed in a wide-brimmed straw hat and overalls. Barefoot as always—had she ever seen her aunt wearing shoes?—she carried a basket of radishes and carrots. Small brown rabbits followed her, hopping around her feet like puppies hoping for a treat. The sweet scent coming from her grew more intense, like that of candy apples.

Klee always smelled of candy apples. Why had she forgotten that?

"You were at the courthouse, and in my nightmare too?" Julianne knew she hadn't left the twelfth century, so this only meant one thing. "Oh, come on, I can't be dead."

"Hmmm." Klee scrunched up her face. "As a mortal you can die, of course, and someday I expect you will, but that wasn't my plan when I emerged with you. Don't ask me what that plan was, either. I can never remember such annoyances."

She glanced around her. "Where's Shaw MacMar?"

"Back on that enchanted island of his, I imagine." Her aunt knelt down to distribute the carrots she'd picked to the rabbits before dusting off her hands and setting the basket on a stump.

A thousand amber and bronze lights swirled around her, changing her appearance from that of a human woman to a being with dark green hair and huge, dreamy brown eyes. She no longer looked entirely human, as she had long ears like a rabbit, and her eyebrows resembled short green quills more than hair. Crystals hung from her ears and glittered around her neck, wrists and fingers, but they seemed more liquid than precious stone. She smelled intensely of candy apples now.

"You don't have hairy feet, do you?" Julianne demanded.

"No. That would be disgusting." Klee laughed and held out her arm. "Come and take a walk with me, my sweet girl."

Julianne's stomach did a few flip-flops as she tucked her arm through her aunt's, and accompanied her out of the garden and into the orchard where her father grew a small variety of heirloom apples. The ground, spangled with the fallen blossoms, glittered with the same amber and bronze lights that had transformed Klee. Even the air seemed to change now, growing warmer and richer, fragrant with a thousand delicious scents of flowers and fruits and endless greenery. Yet the fire that had killed her parents had burned all this to charcoal, so it had to be a hallucination—or maybe Klee had done something to her.

I don't want it to stop. I miss the farm.

"I know you're not human," she said to her aunt as they came to a stop on the edge of the kitchen garden. "So what are you?"

"I am too old for such definitions, child, but my true name is Chlíodhna. As a little one you could not say that, so I became Klee for you." She extended her arm and smiled as three brightly-colored birds landed on it. "I'm not your aunt, of course, but I regarded your adopted parents with great fondness."

Now Julianne's blood turned to ice. "Are you, like, my biological mother?"

"No, dear girl. I cannot do such a thing. Your birthing mother sought sanctuary in my forest as she tried to escape some very unpleasant raiders. I'm afraid she lured them away to keep them from killing you both. Her noble sacrifice prompted me to bring you to live with me for a time." The older woman sighed. "I knew my kind did not foster yours, but I did not understand why until after I kept you for some time. Centuries pass without meaning in the world inside my forest, you see. It affected you as well."

Julianne remembered Shaw's story about the melia trapping a fisherman inside the Stone Forest. "What time am I from?"

"This time, of course, my sweet girl. Your birthing mother came from a place called Nóregr. The raiders who enslaved her killed her husband and took you and her on their final raid on Scotland." Klee swiped her hand across the air, and an image of an older Julianne dressed in furs and with hundreds of braids in her hair appeared. "Her name was Maja, and yours was Jorunn."

Maja held a squirming bundle against her chest, Julianne saw, and kept glancing over her shoulder as she hurried through a dense forest. "What happened to her?"

"She freed all the other slaves on the boat while the raiders attacked another village." Her aunt sighed. "She tried to run away with you as well, but she was weak from her injuries. When the raiders caught up with her in my forest, she left you with me and ran away."

Julianne pressed her fingers to her temples as a rush of memories came through her head. The ash tree opening, and two long-fingered hands reaching out to take her from Maja's arms. "She gave me to you."

"Yes. That is why I brought you inside my forest world, and there nurtured you. I taught you the ways of my kind, and how you should protect the helpless, as we do." Klee smiled sadly. "I even shielded you with my magic so you would not be harmed by anything. Yet mortals were never meant to live in the forest world, so it changed you."

She gaped at her. "You mean, living there made me stupid?"

"Your mortal body grew very tall, but your mind never developed as it should. Perhaps it was because time has no meaning in my world. You always remained sweet and trusting." She made a sweeping gesture. "Once I saw how the magic of my world changed you I consulted the oracle of my kind. I learned you were meant to come to Caladh as a castaway slave, and there you would be, ready to help the chieftain when his clan freed him from slavery. By accepting you and protecting you, I not only damaged you, I kept you from your destiny."

"But not on purpose, right?" When Klee nodded she sighed. "So, okay, what happened next?"

"Once I understood the mistakes I had made, nine centuries had already passed," her aunt admitted. "That was when I brought you back to the mortal realm and gave you to Jack and Sarah Scott. I'd hoped among your own kind that the effects of living in the forest world would fade, but that never happened."

"So you took away my memories of my life with you." When Klee nodded she almost shrieked with frustration. "Why didn't you ever tell me any of this, Auntie?"

"Your parents wished you to have an ordinary life after I brought you to them. I but respected their wishes. I also thought you were happy with them." The older woman reached out to rest a hand against her cheek. "Your druid blood meant you were an old soul. I simply did not understand how old you are. As it happens, you and my kind have met many, many times before this latest incarnation of yours. I believe some part of me recognized that when your mother gave you to me."

Now the conversation was just becoming bizarre. "Please don't tell me that you and me and Shaw all reincarnate together. I don't want to have a breakdown."

"Be at ease, my sweet girl. Our kind have long been allies. That's why my instinct to protect you was so strong." The older woman sighed. "I enchanted you with a shield to keep any other Fae from harming you, which is why it pains these halfling folk to touch you. I gave you the gift of languages, and I also put on a compulsion to keep possession of your parents' farm in the spell, as that is my land, and forever your safe haven."

"The orchard, that's your forest." Suddenly she understood. "You never went anywhere on those trips. You went inside your trees."

"I do not exactly exist in the mortal realm, and I cannot long abide with your kind." Her expression darkened. "I should have guessed what Mitchell wanted the first time he came to the farm, but he deceived me as well."

She went still. "He's never been to the farm."

"Your former husband went there three times while you were away training, and offered Jack and Sarah any price they wanted for their land. When they refused to sell, he set fire to the farm, hoping to ruin them. He did not set out to kill them, but he showed no remorse when he learned they had died in the fire." Klee's expression darkened. "I could not leave the world of the forest and cross into the mortal realm until my tree healed. By the time it did, he had married you."

Julianne swallowed hard. "You still could have told me."

"At the time you were so much in love with Mitchell, I knew you would not believe me. He knew how to control a woman's heart." The older woman rubbed her hand over her back. "Nor can we ever see our own fates, or our roles in that final outcome, or I'd have shown you. I also knew you had entered the final turn of your fate, and were destined to soon find Shaw. If I had interfered, you might never have come together with your chieftain, or gone with him to the island. Now you must return, for the time has arrived for you to act."

A new stream of memories roared through Julianne, and she watched events unfold near Caladh for the second time. When she blinked she was back in the great hall at Dun Ard, with everyone around her acting as if she'd never left. Although she thought she had spent close to an hour with Klee, only a few moments had passed here.

…time has no meaning in my world.

She jumped to her feet. "I need to see Shaw, right now."

Sailing from Insii Orc to pursue the escaped Norsemen kept Speal standing at the bow of the merchant trader. Scanning the endless dark blue of the sea for any sign of the longboat occupied her mind, and prevented her from dwelling on any undesirable thoughts. Although their sovereign had retreated into the captain's cabin, the euphoria created by her over-indulgences back on the island would eventually dwindle. Once she emerged from the stupor created by hunting, tormenting and slaying the mortal raiders, Derdrui would again become aware of all they thought; even now she could be delving into their minds.

We must capture the Norsemen alive so she may take her time with them, for her pleasure and our convenience.

While the enchantress amused herself with the raiders, Speal would sail to the cove on the mainland where she had agreed to meet with Fiacail's new master, Duxor. She knew depending on the sovereign's mood the parlay between them could end only in a few ways. Derdrui would either agree to provide anything in exchange for the location of Caladh, or use her power to force the immortal merrow to reveal what he knew of the MacMar's island. If the merrow's magic proved a match for that of their sovereign, then they might end each other.

All Speal wished was to free her sisters, and bring Fiacail back to rejoin the Cait Sith. If she had to die to see that done, so she gladly would.

Mace came to join her, and wrapped a woolen shawl around her broad shoulders.

"You neednae conceal your thoughts just yet, Sister. The effects of our princess's gluttony shall last until sunset, surely." She leaned against the railing as she peered at the horizon. "We should sail for the meeting place. By now the Norsemen likely landed in their homeland."

She shook her head. "They abandoned most of their crew, and their slaves, they're too small to row. With but a single sail on their longboat I expect we shall overtake them shortly. How shall we deceive the Norse so they believe us their raider brothers, escaped from Insii Orc?"

"Vikings all look much the same." Mace's body blurred, growing taller as braided white-gold hair fell around her now-manly features. She then refined her appearance by adding a light coat of soot to her flesh, and brown-black bloodstains on her rough raider's garb.

"I've a better idea." Speal closed her eyes, shifting into the form of a slender, golden-haired Norsewoman who had been gutted and left for dead in the highlands nine centuries past. Dispatching her had been a kindness, or so she had thought until she absorbed her memories. "We shall play escaped slaves and lure them close."

"Then we must hurry our changes." Mace nodded toward a small patch of red, white and brown that had appeared on the horizon. "Look there."

For a moment the temptation to change direction and ignore the longboat almost overwhelmed her. Then she thought of the lash wounds on the otherworldly lad, and how the raiders had left behind their brothers to be slaughtered. "Bid our sisters bring a brazier and all their bows on deck."