CHAPTER 7
The next afternoon we all sat together like old friends in the Learys’ tiny home. Alison and Roy, who had been my host
parents during last summer’s student-exchange trip, were happy about the unexpected visit. Before we could even explain
why we’d dropped in unannounced, we found ourselves sitting at a nicely decorated table with a steaming pot of tea and
slices of a delicious fruitcake called black bun. The beautiful china cups and delicately embroidered linen napkins
looked lovely and very old, and when Alison noticed my admiring looks, she explained full of pride, “Family heirlooms.
At first I didn’t want to use them, but then I thought what a waste it would be to let it all gather dust in the
cabinet.”
Payton was way too restless to participate in our discussion of fine china and fancy napkins. After all, we had come
here hoping that Roy knew something that would help us. Sean had stayed back at the castle to dig deeper into Nathaira’
s books.
Roy, a red-haired mountain of a man with a skeptical look on his face, sat opposite Payton and turned his head to this
side and then that, while Alison went to get an extra chair from another room.
“Well, don’t you seem to attract bad luck, aye?” Roy turned to Payton once we had laid out our request as best we
could.
I frowned but didn’t respond.
Payton, who seemed to be drained of all energy today—because of the curse?—gave him a cynical grin.
“So, can you help me? You knew things before that nobody else could have known. I really don’t care how you come to
know all this stuff. But please, just tell me if there’s any hope for me.”
All of a sudden I felt queasy. When I arrived yesterday, Payton wasn’t showing any weakness at all. But the
hopelessness I heard in his voice right now hit me like a slap in the face. I didn’t understand why destiny was so
cruel to us.
Payton and Roy ignored the world around them, staring at each other. There was a strange kind of tension between them.
Alison sipped her tea as though not having noticed how extraordinary that moment was. And I tried to make sense of the
few words spoken between the men—some in Gaelic, some in English.
Finally, Roy reached for a piece of fruitcake, and I wondered whether I had just been imagining the whole thing.
“Aye, very well, who’d have thought that Vanora’s daughter would be capable of that. Nathaira is what you said,
right? Did you know that Nathaira is an old Celtic name meaning ‘snake’? It’s as if they’d known since her birth
that she’d possess evil powers,” he reflected.
“So what now?” I asked impatiently. “Can you help us, or what?”
Roy leaned back in his chair and shrugged apologetically.
“No, I won’t be able to help you. All I can do is tell you what I’ve heard and what I know. Whether or not you will
find a way to change Payton’s fate…well, that’s not up to me. And, to be honest, I can’t imagine that you will find
a way.”
Payton’s body seized up.
“All right, then, let’s hear it. We have no time to lose. Just tell us everything you know, Roy,” he begged.
Roy nodded, wiped his fingers on his napkin, and closed his eyes. He seemed to be sorting through memories, digging up
the required information. Then he spoke in a calm and quiet voice.
“The power of the Fair Witches is transmitted from generation to generation. This is the only reason Nathaira was able
to speak the curse in the first place—because a witch’s supernatural powers runs through her veins. But Nathaira’s
blood is not pure. She lacks the purity of heart that the men of Fair Isle possess, and that is passed on only from
father to daughter. Nathaira would never have been able to achieve Vanora’s strength without this purity of heart.
Which is why she turned to evil. She did not have the control and guidance of a loving mother who could have taught her
how to use her gift for good.
“Having said that, it is lucky for you that she’s missing this important other half of her powers. I don’t know if
you’re able to use this to your advantage, but I’m sure she was not as powerful as her mother. She carried within her
Vanora’s blood mixed with Grant’s blood, and so she had the power to speak the curse. Vanora’s blood mixed with
Payton’s blood—now that would probably be strong enough to lift the curse. Yes, I suspect that only Vanora’s blood
can save Payton’s life,” said Roy, concluding his odd monologue.
In the stillness that followed, all I could hear was the hiss of the teakettle Alison had put on again.
“There’s no hope at all, then,” I established at last, because neither Payton nor Roy seemed to want to state the
obvious.
“I told you I didn’t know whether this would help, aye?” Roy admitted.
“Vanora is dead. Her blood was spilled centuries ago,” Payton muttered flatly.
This couldn’t be the end of it! There had to be a solution! Why would destiny bring Payton and me together if we weren
’t allowed to live happily ever after? Or was there a way to save him, and we just couldn’t see it?
Buried in thought, I stared at the colorful embroidery on the old-fashioned linen napkins. I couldn’t make sense of the
play of colors. It looked like flowers that had been lovingly hand-stitched on the fabric. I carefully touched the fine
needlework and followed one of the threads with my finger. It was the most conspicuous—a vibrant red and the highlight
of the entire image, outshining the prettiest of all the flowers with its intensity. And then I noticed it—a faulty
stitch, a rough, black thread overlying the delicate red one. It seemed to be jealous of its beauty and covered it
almost entirely.
Driven by an impulse I couldn’t comprehend, I traced the thread to the end. A small knot held it together. Gingerly,
probingly, I pulled on it and—little by little—I loosened a faulty stitch. Then another one, and another one. I saw
how the brilliant red unfolded its beauty. When the whole thread finally came away and disappeared inside my palm, it
was as if the sun itself had offered the flower her radiance, as if the color red had never been so perfect before. It
was a true bloodred.
My head started spinning and my ears started ringing. The length of thread slipped from my hand as I closed my eyes and
barely noticed how I slid from my chair into the darkness.
Pain spread like wildfire through my arm all the way to my fingertips, which were completely numb. I gasped for air. The
smell of copper filled my nose and mouth, making me sick to my stomach. Then slowly, as feeling returned to my fingers,
I opened my eyes and stared down at my hands. Blood, hot and slimy, gushed onto the dagger—and onto me. I clutched the
knife in my hand. I had thrust it in so deep that my fist touched the man’s lifeless chest, and I could tell that the
heart beneath my fingers had stopped beating. A single word flashed through my addled brain: betrayal.
With a panicked cry, I came to. I found myself lying on the floor with my head in Payton’s lap. My heart was thumping,
and I was sweating all over.
I had to blink several times to get rid of the powerful images in my head. I didn’t understand what had just happened
or why I was so queasy. Somehow my arm still hurt, and I tried to massage away the pain.
“Mo luaidh, are you all right? You passed out.”
I swallowed hard. Was I all right? I had no idea. What I really wanted to do was cry. All eyes were fixed on me, with
Alison holding out a glass of water. Because I still felt unable to get up, I took a sip. My hand around the glass was
shaking, and Roy wore a worried frown.
“Should we call a doctor?” Alison said.
A doctor? Oh God, no. It was hard enough to recall the images that had been so vivid only a moment ago. They had faded
as quickly as they had come, and a second later all I was left with was a nervous tightness in my chest. I clenched my
teeth and scrambled to my feet. Payton held my arm and wouldn’t let go, even after I assured him that I felt much
better, thank you very much.
After the good fright I had given everyone, we all seemed almost glad to turn to something as morbid as a curse. At
least nobody found himself in immediate danger anymore, so we allowed Alison to pour us another cup of her delicious
Earl Grey tea.
Roy kept his eyes glued on me, and his worried, wrinkled forehead did not bode well.
“Are you sure you’re all right?” he asked.
I gave him a reassuring smile because I really was feeling much better. The images I’d seen when I fainted were still
there, hidden deep inside the recesses of my mind, but I couldn’t seem to grab and hold on to them. Oh, I was fine all
right. Only my nerves were acting up. All that talk about blood, curses, and dying would give anyone nightmares. I
wanted Roy to concentrate all of his energy on Payton instead.
“Don’t worry, Roy, I’m okay. But where were we? Did I miss anything?”
“No, you didn’t miss anything,” he replied. “There is no solution. Vanora is dead, and all hope of saving your
boyfriend has died with her.”
I saw the pain on Payton’s face—that sense of hopelessness and dread he’d been hiding so well.
“Roy? Is that true?” I asked, my gaze fixed on the great scholar.
But it was Alison who spoke. “I think you’re giving up too quickly. Vanora has been dead for a long time. And Payton
should have died long ago, too—or am I wrong?”
“What exactly do you mean?”
“Well, I might not be familiar with Roy’s mysteries, but I have ears. People from the Highlands have been telling one
another legends for as long as I can remember. And this young Scot right here who looks like he’s in his early twenties
—when exactly was he born?” With her eyebrows raised and finger extended, she demanded full disclosure.
“In 1721,” Payton replied with a glimmer of hope in his eyes.
“So there you have it. That’s the stuff legends are made of. There are gaps in the fabric of time, ken? Roy, how many
legends talk about creatures from another time traveling to visit the human realm?”
“Well, there are a few.” Roy nodded, only to object right away. “But those are old stories without any tangible
proof.”
“Ha! That’s where you’re wrong! When I was a child, my mother always warned me to never play too far away from the
house. Otherwise the fairies would come and get me—just like they had this American lady who disappeared without a
trace by Craigh na Dun. Three years later, dressed in rags, she turned up at the exact same spot where she had
disappeared. It caused a real sensation and was all over the papers at the time.”
“Still, that’s no proof at all.”
“All right,” Sam said, “let’s pretend for a second that Alison is right and that there exist tears or openings in
the fabric of time. How would we go about finding them? And how would we operate them? How could we possibly find
answers to these questions?”
I couldn’t believe that we might waste our energy on something as silly as that, especially with Payton’s life on the
line. On the other hand, a Scottish boy, damned to eternal life, was enough for me to look at outrageous things like
time travel and witches as something within the bounds of possibility. As I had experienced firsthand, more things
existed between heaven and hell than we could possibly imagine. Something like time travel almost seemed trivial in that
regard.
“None of us has any knowledge of such things, but we can try to find out if there is a chance,” Roy declared. “Maybe
we’ll get lucky and uncover something, but even then there’s no guarantee that it’s true and that Payton can in fact
be saved. But it’s worth a try, so let’s get to work.”
Two hours later back at the castle, Payton and I sat with Sean in the Great Hall. Old books and scrolls were piled high
on the big banquet table in front of us.
Since we now had a starting point, we all felt much better and had quietly decided not to give up. A freshly delivered
pizza was to feed us for the next few hours so that we could put all our focus on our research.
“Time travel?” Sean pondered. “That seems a bit unrealistic, even to me. Are you sure we’re not wasting our time
here?”
By now Payton had lost all color in his face, and he frequently needed to stop for a break. His fever ran high, and the
medication didn’t seem to work at all. We had to hurry.
I pulled the next big tome close to me and flipped open the heavy leather binding. The first page was beautifully
written in quill by an artful hand, but I couldn’t decipher any of it. Those Gaelic or Celtic words, written in narrow
letters and spread across the entire page, made me groan. I wasn’t of much help, given that I didn’t speak any of the
old tongues.
“Anyway, what are we going to do if we really do find a tear in the fabric of time?” I asked, grabbing a slice of
pizza.
Sean looked up from the book in front of him and, in turn, snatched a slice of pizza from the box. Payton, who was
soaked in sweat, walked around the table and sat down beside me. I thrust my half-eaten pizza slice into his hands and
took a fresh one from the box.
“I would of course try to get Vanora’s blood somehow,” he said out loud.
“How do you imagine that?” I asked. “Do you want to walk up to her and tell her you’ve come from the future and that
her blood is your only hope? Makes no sense! Besides, what would you then do with her blood? Drink it? Eww!”
Payton shrugged. “I don’t know.”
Sean was already on his second slice and pointed the floppy end of it at his brother. “That’s not how it would work.
Right now you’re in no condition to pull off something like that. Travel back in time? I mean, look at yourself! You
need to conserve your energy, and there’s no way you’d be able to face any of the dangers that we used to experience
back in the day. No way.”
“But I have to at least try. I have no other choice!”
I pressed Payton’s hand in encouragement. If we got to a point where we found a way, he would be capable of doing
whatever was necessary. I was sure of it.
We kept working for a while without any real results. Then Sean suddenly stopped.
“Did you find something?” I asked, jumping from my seat. Even Payton looked up anxiously from his papers.
“No, unfortunately not. But I was just thinking what would happen if one of us really were to travel back in time.
Imagine if we could save Kyle’s life! Maybe even stop the attack on the Camerons. Wouldn’t that be fantastic?”
“Fantastic…sure, but maybe also disastrous, wouldn’t you think? I mean, who knows what might happen if someone were
to change history,” I reminded them.
“I’m not sure. What do you think might happen? Could we perhaps undo the terrible harm we did that night?” he
reflected.
“Yes, but then what about me, for example? I’m a descendant of Muireall Cameron. She married an American after she
escaped. If she doesn’t escape, if she never makes it to America, will I even be born? And what about my parents and
grandparents? Will I meet you guys? Or, I should rephrase my question: Would I even have met you last summer? You two
wouldn’t be alive today if the massacre had never happened and Vanora had never spoken her curse. I think it’s very
risky!” I pointed out, slowly getting angry. Because, seriously, all I needed now was a sudden end to my existence
thanks to a change in the historical timeline.
“Sam’s right,” Payton agreed. “If we do find a way to accomplish the unimaginable, we will also need to think about
the personal responsibility that goes along with it.”
I suddenly remembered something else that lacked any scientific evidence whatsoever but seemed logical all the same.
“Um, I’m not sure, but I remember that in Back to the Future, Marty McFly was not supposed to meet himself. What do
you think about that? Shouldn’t we be extra careful, too?”
Payton smirked. “Oh yeah, sure—there it is: definitive proof that time travel is possible. After all, Michael J. Fox
did it several times!”
Even Sean burst out laughing before burying his nose again in the book on his lap.
“You guys are idiots!” I shouted. But I couldn’t stop myself from laughing, either. “Seriously, though, we have to
try to not leave any footprints.”
Payton stared at me in disbelief.
“What do you mean ‘we’?” he called out. He’d raised his eyebrows so high that they almost met his hairline. “You
don’t seriously think that I would agree to your doing something this crazy and highly dangerous? Let me be very clear
about this, Sam, mo luaidh. I am in this…let’s call it a regrettable circumstance that will soon lead to my demise…
because I saved your life. And now you think that I would agree to your carelessly risking your life for me? No, my dear
Sam. If necessary, I will personally lock you up in the dungeon that—yes—does exist in this castle. I will do that if
it’s the only way to stop you from doing something stupid. Am I being clear?”
He stood with his hands on his hips, glaring at me furiously.
Sean’s barely restrained laughter from behind a discolored parchment scroll destroyed the poor illusion of Payton
uttering a threat, and I gave him an amused wink.
“All right, all right. Calm down already. But do you think you and Sean could maybe try not to reinvent life on this
planet by way of some history-changing, space-time-bending maneuver?”
Sean peered at us over the edge of his document and decreed, “I will lock both of you in the dungeon, because I’ll be
going alone. And yes, I’ll make sure your cute little butt doesn’t dissolve into stardust.”
With that, he turned his attention back to his parchment.
“What do you mean you’re going alone? Are you nuts? Did you forget that I’m the one who needs this blood?” Payton
exclaimed. He walked around the table and reached for the document Sean was hiding behind, when Sean suddenly stood up
and shrunk back.
“Wait, wait! I’ve got something!” he called out, wiping several papers off the table to make some room.
“Here, take a look at that! Maybe it’s something!”
We immediately stuck our heads together to examine his find. The old document might help us save Payton. My palms began
to sweat from the excitement. That inner Indiana Jones of mine was sick of dusty old books. He was ready to pull out his
bullwhip and fight. Payton and I looked at each other over Sean’s head. I took his hand, and his smile made me
incredibly happy.
“Come on, you guys, look!” Sean demanded, pointing at several words he deemed important.
“What does this mean?” I asked.
Payton was fully immersed in the content, silently mouthing the words he read on the parchment.
Without looking up, he explained, “It’s an old legend. The legend of the five sisters of Kintail.”
“A legend about what?”
I silently cursed my ignorance. What the heck was written in that text? It was like pulling teeth with these guys!
Payton had already advanced by a few pages, and when he reached the end, he smiled at his big brother.
“Yep, there could be something to it,” he admitted.
“For crying out loud, will you tell me already!” I demanded. “What secret are these five sisters guarding?”
Talking about the old legend in detail made time fly for the three of us. It was deep into the night when we finally
parted, tired but full of newfound hope.
Payton and I crawled into his warm, cozy bed and cuddled up to each other. We were unable to find sleep despite our
exhaustion.
“Tell me again,” I asked, afraid of missing anything significant. Besides, the legend was so extraordinarily beautiful
that I’d almost cried when Sean had translated it for us.
I caressed Payton’s chest, touching the scar under his heart. It was still fresh and pink. His chest trembled as he
started to talk.
“The legend of the five sisters talks about a long-ago man who lived near Kintail with his five daughters. People said
that he was a druid. He was also said to be so protective of his daughters that they grew up full of innocence—but also
very unaware and ignorant. All of them were said to be exceptionally beautiful. So beautiful that no man from around
there would ever dare to talk to these girls. Men were also very afraid of the girls’ father.
“One day, the man sent his daughters to the loch to catch some fish. That day was to become the tragic day of their
doom, because evil awaited them in the shape of two handsome men. The two oldest sisters had stayed behind on the shore
and, when the men approached and introduced themselves, the girls immediately fell for their flattering words and good
looks. Because they had never seen the face of evil, they were unable to recognize it. It was easy for these warriors
from a faraway place to deceive the beautiful girls and steal their hearts with false promises.
“Several days later, the sisters again went fishing. The youngest sisters rowed into the lake, while the two oldest
again stayed behind on the shore. Every single day thereafter, the men returned and continued to gain the girls’ trust.
Not only did they steal the fair maidens’ innocent hearts, but they finally took their bodies, too. In their virtue and
purity, these girls trusted the warriors’ whispered words. They mistook the warriors’ advances for true love. And so
the two men made these lovely, naive girls their brides in a traditional handfasting ceremony.
“When the sisters returned the next day, the handsome warriors were gone. The girls realized their mistake, and their
broken hearts screamed in so much agony that it almost killed them. Bound by their intense love for one another, all
five sisters felt the betrayal equally—and all of their hearts seemed lost forever. They didn’t know what else to do
except confide in their father. The father blamed himself for his beloved daughters’ misfortune. He could not bear to
see them in pain. Their pure hearts were unable to cope with the wicked betrayal, so he did the only thing any loving
father would do to relieve his children’s misery. He saved their hearts and released them from their suffering.
“He turned his daughters to stone to keep them safe from harm for eternity. As unique and beautiful as his daughters
had been, he sculpted the mountains to honor each one of them. And when the time came that they felt as strong as the
rocks surrounding them, they would only have to raise their golden voices to turn themselves back into the happy,
carefree maidens they had been before looking evil in the eye. Then they’d be able to follow the rose-lined path that
he would hold open for all time so they could return and forgive him for carrying the terrible guilt of their pain and
sorrow. For as long as the roses will bloom in the shade of the mountain sisters, their path back to life and youth and
their father’s loving arms shall always remain open.”
As Payton finished, my tears fell onto his chest.
“Isn’t this the most wonderful story?”
I found it hard to make my voice sound even and strong. That was how deeply the sisters’ fate had touched me.
“So it is, mo luaidh.”
We lay in silence, and our hearts beat as one. Silvery moonlight fell through the window, shining on our bed, and I saw
the five mountain peaks before me—five souls, safely locked away from the world within hard, eternal rock.
I thought about the path that the father had vowed to keep open for them. Could it truly exist?
“How would we go about finding it?” I whispered, saying my thoughts out loud.
“I have an idea of where we might start,” Payton replied sleepily. A moment later, his regular breathing told me that
he had fallen asleep. I lay awake for a long time, watching over him and praying for a future with this wonderful man by
my side. Because there was nobody in my life who could turn me into stone and take my hurt away, if it came to that, I
would have to suffer through the pain.