“What in the blethering hell did ye do to her, Morna?”
My eyes remained closed, and though I tried to open them, they wouldn’t budge. The same could be said for every other part of my body. Someone must have sedated me for I couldn’t lift my arms or legs, open my eyes, speak. I could do nothing but listen to all that they said.
“Calm down, Eoghanan, I just put her to sleep for a while. We wouldna have been able to get her in the car, otherwise.”
“Ye needed to explain to her what happened, no kidnap the lass.”
I could feel Eoghanan running his hand through my hair, and I knew that I lay slumped against him.
“Kidnap her?” Morna’s voice sounded appalled at the suggestion. “Doona ye blame me for this mess. I told ye no to bring the rock, dinna I?”
“Aye, and I did leave it. Cooper must have picked it up behind me. I thought that ye had to skip the rock for it take ye back. Surely the lad couldna do that.”
Cooper. His name jolted my memory of all that had happened, and I knew I was more than just physically sedated. I knew my son was gone. I’d seen Jeffrey vanish before me, yet the panic I knew I should be feeling wouldn’t come. I felt eerily at peace, unworried, sleepy. I fought the urge to sleep, listening intently to try and understand.
“Aye, ’tis usually true, but I made the stone to allow those that needed to travel the ability to do so. Cooper must be meant to travel back if it allowed him to simply throw it and no skip it, nor float it like ye did.”
“What about Jeffrey?” It was Jerry’s voice, speaking up for the first time.
“Ach, ye saw how quickly I turned the car around. I felt it the moment Cooper traveled back and immediately spelled the other rocks so that someone could follow him.”
“How did ye know one of us would throw it?” Eoghanan’s voice again.
“I dinna know, ’twas all I could think to do until we got to ye.”
“Aye, fine. When ye reached us, why dinna ye send Grace and me back right away?”
All of this talk of ‘back’ made little sense, but I was unable to ask questions.
“Eoghanan, ye know that ye are in no shape to travel so far back yet. Grace’s arrival has delayed yer progress. We have no been working at it consistently.”
“It no longer matters if I am ready or no. Grace willna wait for me to heal to get to her son, and I willna let her go back without me.”
“Aye, I know. ’Tis why I dinna send ye back there. If ye must go, which aye, I know that ye must, I will at least make sure that ye are as tended to as best ye can be before making the journey. Now, rest yer eyes a while, lad, we’ve much to do when we get back to me home.”
As their voices quieted, so did my strength to stay awake. I allowed sleep to take me, hoping as I drifted that when next I woke I would be able to feel something other than the unsettling calm.
*
“Alright, lass, time for ye to wake up now.”
Morna’s voice called to me from beside my bed. Slowly my eyelids flickered open.
I lay in my bed at the inn with Jerry sitting at its end, Eoghanan on my right side rubbing my hand gently, and Morna on my left side regarding me closely.
I concentrated on trying to open my mouth, pleased to find that motion had returned to it. After stretching my jaw a moment, I spoke. “You all need to tell me exactly what is going on. Where is my son?” While I could move my body, I still felt just as calm as before, and I hated it. Intellectually knowing that something was very wrong, but not being able to feel that emotion disturbed me greatly.
“Aye, ’tis exactly what we intend to do. Ye may notice that ye feel a bit calm, ’tis only something that I’ve done so ye will sit still long enough to hear everything. It will recede slowly, but if ye lose yer cool, Grace, I’ll spell ye again.”
“Spell me?” My tone came off as sarcastic, though after everything, I wasn’t all that inclined to disbelieve her.
“Aye, lass. Spell ye. I’m a witch and quite a powerful one.” Morna extended a glass of water in my direction, and I took it, sitting up in the bed.
“’Tis what I meant to tell ye, when…” Eoghanan trailed off.
My thoughts went right back to Cooper and Jeffrey. “Where are they?”
Eoghanan was nervous. I could tell by the way he kept fumbling with my fingers, though I didn’t understand why since, for the time being, I wouldn’t get upset no matter what he said. I was entirely incapable of it. As soon as I could feel again, I knew I would be spit-fire angry at being repressed in such a manner.
“They’re still at McMillan Castle with me family, in the seventeenth century.”
I nodded skeptically. “Of course they are. So Morna is a witch, you’re a time traveler,” I turned my eyes on Jerry. “What are you? A goblin?”
The old man frowned at me, “I take offense to that, lass. Do I look like a goblin?”