Chapter 4

CHAPTER 4

M ary lay beneath the beautiful sky and wondered what she was going to do. Would she wake up? Could she? She had no idea. It still stood to reason that if she could find the monster who stole her body, then she could get back into it and wake up. That had to be the key to ending this nightmare. But how to go about it?

She lifted her hand and looked at it. With her new ability to see in the dark she could easily see that these gray appendages didn't belong to her. And yet she could feel the leathery texture of them, see the gray, warty skin of them, and they moved and wiggled as though by her thoughts.

“This can't be real. It simply can't be” she said as she touched her face. She screamed at what she felt. “No!”

Beneath the fingers that didn't belong to her, was a face she didn't know. A nose that was much too large and hooked like that of a parrot, only it was fleshy, not hard like a parrot's beak. She ran her fingers over her face, feeling the bumps and crags of the face she now wore and wanted to cry.

This absolutely could not be real. It was impossible. Her hand moved over her face again and again trying to understand what had happened. Nothing made sense. She sat up and looked down at her feet. They were huge. Double the size at least of her human ones. And they were gray as well and covered in warts. Even her legs weren't her own. These legs were very short, and thin. This entire body was short and compact, it was all so unnatural that it just couldn't be real.

She looked at the water and saw the reflection of the moon. At least that seemed normal. The moon was in the sky and there were trees on the horizon and grass on the ground. Looking at the reflection she decided that the water was still enough now to use as a mirror.

Filled with trepidation, Mary moved to the edge of the water to look at her reflection. She closed her eyes the closer she got, because she wasn't quite ready to see what she'd felt beneath the fingers that weren't really hers. Taking a deep breath, she opened her eyes and stared at her reflection. “I'm hideous!" she gasped. "What's happened to me? This isn't real! This can't be real,” Mary rasped.

Panic and fear loomed deep within her. She was terrified and that terror was turning into an energy deep within her that she couldn't control. It seemed to build bigger and hotter inside her belly.

She released a primal scream. In that moment she felt a burst of energy leave her and the land seemed to shake all around her. In the distance a cloud of dirt circled along the ground. It was small but as she screamed out her anger, the cloud grew until it was a fairly large dust devil that moved across the ground away from her. Mary stopped screaming and watched it in shock.

Hamish Grant was on a mission. He and his group of fellow watchmen were on patrol of the main road that led from the Keep to the local village. It was a few miles of a ride, but with the various Unseelie Fae who liked to cause havoc for the townspeople, it was the job of the watchmen to make sure the roads were kept safe and secure.

Hamish took pride in his job as a watchman for his clansmen and women. He'd worked his way up through the ranks to become the lead of his patrol. "We should check out the woods. With the moon full, we should be sure no goblins or other creatures are lying in wait," he spoke to his second in command.

"Aye, would be a good night for the little demons to cause some mischief. I'll take two of the men on this trail and we'll meet you where the road bends toward Loch Ness."

Hamish nodded. Their group included six watchmen, so that would leave him with two others in case they ran across any trouble. "Give a shout if you come across something you cannot handle, Sean."

"Aye." Sean nodded. "Callum, Errol, with me."

Hamish watched as they took the small trail big enough for a single horse to ride through the trees. The trail he knew led to a meadow and was often a place where weary travelers made camp but was also where their Laird's lady had once killed an Unseelie wolf that had been terrorizing the people. She was a bonnie lass, still was actually, but he'd been much younger and hadn't joined the watch yet, so he hadn't gotten to see her in action.

If fact, all of the women brought to them through the burgh were quite bonnie. Always brave, willing to help fight the Unseelie creatures, even if some of them were a bit unconventional.

Suddenly the ground shook and their horses grew skittish. It didn't last too long, but it took a full minute to get the horses to calm.

"Hamish, what's that?" Leith, who's horse was pulling a small wagon with an iron cage, pointed down the road.

Hamish followed his direction and noticed a large swirling cloud of dirt. "Odd… let's go have a look. Cautious now, we don't want to be ambushed by whatever creature made that."

He, Leith, and Shaw rode toward the massive swirling cloud. The closer they got, he began to hear the piercing cry of something unearthly. He motioned for the men to stop and then dismounted. He pulled his crossbow from the holder on the saddle and with a hand signal, gestured for Leith and Shaw to follow him.

They left the horses on the road away from the swirling dirt cloud. He knew they wouldn't leave the area, they were too well trained to do something like that. On quiet feet, the crept along the tree line toward the shore. He could tell the scream which had finally ended, had come from near there.

He wondered if it was Nessie, but then he'd not seen or heard her in a number of years. She'd been injured by a reckless idiot who had thought she was the cause of their grief and ever since then, she'd kept mostly to the depths of the Loch, unless Maggie or Lady Nancy called to her. Not that they ever did when anyone was around. Nessie was much too skittish to come if there were others about.

As they reached the shore he noticed a figure sitting on the bank about fifty yards away. He held up a finger to his lips to keep his men quiet, and then nodded toward the figure. The figure was in shadow, so he wasn't quite sure what he was looking at, but he nearly called out to them in excitement, thinking perhaps it was another lady from the future brought to them through the burgh. However, he kept his counsel and moved stealthily toward it, and was glad he did. It was no beautiful woman from the future on the bank. Instead it was a hideous goblin!

He raised his crossbow which held an iron arrow, aimed at the creature's head, and said, "Don't even think about moving!"