“That’s why you could spell the car back, though? Because the witch is dead in this time, so you have power over it now?”
“Aye, but I’ve never used it, never looked there because there’s been no reason to. The discovery of such a portal is news to me. Once I saw ye all coming, Jerry and I made haste to leave. ’Twas all simple enough magic. We arrived in New York only a plane ride ahead of ye.”
“But why even come to New York? Why make the effort? You could have just waited for us to arrive.”
“Ye needed to come, lass. Ye needed to see that ’tis yer choice to stay in the past, and I needed the time to find a way to tell ye what I must.”
My heart seemed to stop and then thumped painfully in my chest as thoughts of Isobel flooded my mind. If she died while we were away, I didn’t know how any of us would bear the guilt of leaving her.
“She’s already gone, isn’t she? We left and she died.”
Morna reached out and grabbed my hand, sympathy washing over her face.
“No, lass. No. She holds on well enough. ’Tis only that I doona know if I can help her. I doona know if I should.”
“Don’t know if you should? Morna, she will die without you.” I couldn’t imagine anything making her feel that way. That seemed a much better use for her magic than a trip to New York or disappearing cars.
“Aye, I know. Isobel is no a descendent of mine, but I could see her path well enough when ye first met her to know that this illness is meant to kill her.”
CHAPTER 35
I spent the plane ride back to Scotland in quiet reflection, analyzing every relationship I’d ever had, every person I’d ever cared for. What I realized was that, for me at least, love and hope were two emotions that went hand in hand. I couldn’t love another person without having some sort of hope for them.
Even my father, whom I loved with a unique blend of love and hate, I held onto a certain kind of hope for. I spent every day hoping he would wake up differently the next—that with a new day, he would become more warm, more kind, more present, and less of everything that he was. He was no longer a real part of my life, and yet that hope for him still lived on inside me.
For Cooper, my favorite person in all the world, I had endless hopes—hopes for his future, for his heart, and for the world that I knew he would touch in an unimaginable way. I would love and hope things for him even after I was long gone from this earth.
As far as I could tell, I needed both love and hope to get myself up in the morning, but those emotions also had the power to leave me utterly devastated.
I loved Isobel. She was a friend, a confidant, and an example of true strength in my life. Until Morna had said the words out loud to me, I never truly believed she would die. Logically I had. I even tried to explain that to Cooper, but the part of my heart that she occupied had never let that knowledge in.
It was a devastating notion and one that I didn’t think I could make my peace with, not when the solution that would heal Isobel was tucked safely away in my possession.
By nightfall, we would be back in the seventeenth century, and I would have to have my mind made up whether or not to use what Morna had given me. But as I sat in my chair, my arms wrapped tightly around my waist so that I wouldn’t cry, all I wanted to do was damn Morna’s warning straight to hell. For how could I be the one to let Isobel die?
*
We arrived at Morna’s inn by noon. After an hour of stretching, restroom breaks, and some lunch, we said our goodbyes and loaded up to make our way back to Cagair Castle. Morna said nothing to me as we left, but the look in her eyes as she patted my pocket and the potion that lay within it said more than enough. She hoped I wouldn’t go through with it.
She gave me the cure out of sympathy for Isobel but, for once, Morna didn’t want to be the one to make the decision. She believed all her choices and all her meddling had been to help fate along, but healing Isobel, she said, would be to defy it.
Now, I held Isobel’s life in my unworthy hands, and the responsibility of it was all I could think about on the way back to Cagair Castle. My initial reaction to the end of my conversation with Morna was that there was no decision for me to make—of course I would give it to her. Of course I would help, but was anything really all that simple?
If Isobel’s death was fated, as Morna so adamantly believed, what balance would I be upsetting to save her? Would the universe right itself in some unfathomable way—perhaps, by demanding the life of another? I had no way of knowing, but I knew Isobel well enough to know that she would not want to live on at the expense of someone else if that’s what her life would cost.
“Unless ye wish for us to knock on their front door, I think it best ye walk the rest of the way, lass.”