He now stood in front of the door, blocking my path to any exit, while I stood on top of his bed reaching for some sort of metal object that sat beside it and chunked it across the room. He swiftly moved out of the way just as the door opened. The projectile flew through the open door just above Mary’s head.
“What in God’s name do ye think the two of ye are doing? Bri, get down from that bed this instant, and for God’s sake, stop throwing things! Eoin, stop ranting in Gaelic. The lass has no idea what ye are saying. It’s time we had a talk, all three of us, but I will have no part in it while the two of ye are acting like ye have gone and lost yer minds.” Mary stared us down from the doorway, an uncomfortable hush settling over the room.
Embarrassed, I slid off the top of the bed and moved to stand beside her. “I’m sorry Mary. He walked in on me while I was working in the spell room. I was trying to sound out the name of one of the books, and he saw me in my normal clothes. I’m pretty sure he saw my tattoo as well. Then he yanked me up and accused me of being a witch. He won’t listen to me.”
Eoin moved out from behind the door and, with both fists on his hips, looked at me and Mary. “Tattoo? Mark of the devil, ye mean. Why, I’ve never seen such markings in my life. And Mary, did ye just call her Bri? Do ye mean to tell me that ye knew that we were being fooled by this witch?”
Mary left my side as she moved in front of Eoin and slapped him right across the face. I couldn’t stop a grin from spreading across mine, and a giggle escaped my lips at the sight of his reddened face.
“Have ye forgotten just who ye are talking too, Eoin? Aye, I did call her Bri, because that’s the poor lassie’s name. But she’s no witch. And the only fool around here is ye, ye thick-headed, stubborn arse! Now ye are going to sit down and no say a word until the lass has finished telling ye everything she knows. Aye?”
Silently he nodded and sat down on the edge of his rumpled bed. I was definitely going to have to take lessons from Mary. She would’ve made one hell of a teacher.
A breathless voice screaming “Mary” from out in the hallway caused us all to file out of the bedchamber. Arran was struggling down the hall, carrying a seemingly unconscious Kip over his shoulders.
“What’s happened?” Mary ran toward Arran, grasping her husband’s arm as it hung limply down Arran’s back.
“It’s alright, Mary. He’s fine. I hit him to keep him from going into the stables. I’ll lay him in my room. Stay with him until I return. No matter what he tells ye, doona let him out of the room. He doesna need to see what’s down there, no matter how much he thinks he needs to.”
Eoin spoke now. “What’s happened in the stables?”
“The horses. They’re dead, brother. All but Griffin, Sheila, and Angus. Someone decapitated them shortly before we arrived back at the keep.”
“I’ll come with you.”
Everyone scattered very quickly. Arran and Eoin moved together to deposit Kip into Arran’s room with Mary following along behind them. Once they’d laid him on the bed to rest they quickly took off toward the stables, leaving me alone in the hallway.
My skin was clammy, and I reached out a hand to fan myself as the full realization of what was going on came to me. I remembered Mom pointing out a special site for horse burials down away from the ruins where she’d said the Conalls had buried a group of their animals that had been slaughtered. She believed it had been done to serve as a warning for the darker trouble that was still to come to the Conall clan.
That was why I found myself in seventeenth-century Scotland. I’d spent all this time around the people my mother had spent years trying to learn more about, and it hadn’t crossed my mind until this very moment that I knew how it would end for all of them.
The fire at the wedding had been the first warning, the horses the second.
I’d been sent back in time to help change their fate, and if Mom’s research was correct, everyone I’d come to care about here was set to be dead within a month.
Chapter 23
I’d fallen asleep in a cushioned chair situated close to the fireplace in Eoin’s bedchamber; only waking when I heard the door open and close and his voice speak behind me.
“Alright, lass, I’m far too tired to scream at ye. Mayhap, now would be a good time for ye to tell me what’s going on.”
I sat up and reached backward to squeeze my neck, sore and stiff from sleeping in an odd position for far too long. They must have spent the entire night cleaning the stables and burying the horses, as light was already beginning to stream through the window on the other side of the room.
“Is everything alright?”
“Aye, at least for now. This will be a major loss for Kip, but Mary will help him through it. If only I could see some reason for such an act, but I can think of nothing that would cause someone to act so upon innocent animals.”
“I think I know why it happened,” I said cautiously, half expecting another outburst like I’d witnessed earlier. But he was far too tired for it now. I could tell by his eyes that it was all he could do to stay sitting upright.