“Jerry, ’tis time for us to make ready once more.” Morna stood, stretching after her dream as she smiled wide. It would be fun to tweak her spells, and necessary if the new lass was to cross paths with the one she was meant to.
“O’course, love. What have ye seen?”
“We need to make our home visible once more, but it shall be different from the times before. The redhead is headed our way.” She smiled, knowing Jerry would be pleased. He loved company, and he’d taken a liking to the fiery lass who’d come so valiantly in search of her friend.
“Ah, ’tis verra good news, but why should this be different? Do ye no think that the lass will stumble across the spell on her own? Bri and Blaire managed quite nicely.”
Morna shook her head. It was unlike any dream she’d had before, but she was certain as to its meaning. “Nay, ’tis no that. The lass will find the spell, but she canna use the same one that’s been used before. For while me spell room shall be her portal, it doesna need to be her destination.”
“How do ye know?”
“Because one of our lassies has already caught sight of the lass elsewhere, even before she’s actually arrived. It seems that a force more powerful than meself sees fit to warn the Conalls of the girl’s arrival.”
A Conall Christmas – A Novella
Chapter 1
Conall Castle, Scotland
December 1646
There’s nothing quite like the soft thump against your palm as you press it against the swollen belly of pregnancy, allowing the small infant tucked safely away in its mother’s womb to kick at the inside of your hand. The surreal experience filled me with joy as I pressed my hands flush against my daughter’s stomach, smiling widely as tears brimmed against my eyes. I’d felt the child’s movement more than once, but it didn’t matter. I seemed to have the same reaction every time. My baby’s baby had completely captured my heart, even if it would still be weeks before I would know she could be safely delivered without the conveniences of technology and medicine from our own time.
“All right, Mom. I’m going to step away from you now. You simply cannot keep your hands glued to my stomach every moment of every day.”
I smiled as Bri stepped away, grabbing the end of the blanket as she tossed the other end in my direction, signaling at me to help fold it. “Oh, but I wish that I could. I think the babe moves even more than you did, dear, and you were quite active.”
“Really? Well, I sincerely apologize. I’m beginning to feel miserable.”
As if to emphasize her point, she collapsed onto her freshly made bed and threw her hands up over her head as far as her dress would allow. I kicked off my own shoes, hiking up my dress as I sat crisscrossed on the end, pulling her feet into my lap and removing her shoes so I could massage her swollen and, what were most-assuredly sore, feet.
She sighed as I rubbed her, wiggling her toes as I squeezed them, and I suddenly saw her for the little girl she’d once been. She was more than ready and capable of taking care of a child, but I found it hard to believe that she’d grown so quickly, not to mention that I was old enough to be a grandmother.
I continued to knead the arches of her feet and heels until she drifted. Once she snored lightly, I carefully lifted her legs so that I could scoot out from under them and crawled off the bed as gently as I could. I walked to the fireplace, poking the wood until the flame took a firm root over the logs once more. I curled into a small wooden chair that sat before it as I gazed into the flames before glancing about the room.
Every inch of the castle oozed magic. It could be sensed in the air. As I sat with the fire warming my shoeless toes, I could almost feel Morna’s eyes watching over us across the centuries.
No surprise really, I imagined it only made sense that magic be palpable throughout the castle. It had, after all, brought Bri and me both to live in this place and century when we’d been born hundreds of years in the future.
Before I traveled into the past, I’d been an archaeologist who specialized in Celtic finds and history. The Conall Clan was my specialty, the last twenty plus years of my life spent trying to find and solve the mystery behind who’d murdered them in December of 1645.
My continuing efforts to solve this mystery brought me and my daughter to the ruins of Conall Castle only one year ago, in the year 2013. I’d pestered her until she’d agreed to accompany me, not knowing that a spell cast by a beloved Conall ancestor, Morna, would rip her from our time and bring her into the past to live with the Conalls right before the devastating massacre.