Chapter 37
B ethany had to be sure. She had to know for certain, beyond doubt, that this was the right decision. She paced around Comgall’s sitting room, trying to weigh up the pros and cons of each time period. She found some writing supplies in a small wooden box and sat down to scribble out her ideas. Matthew’s education and health care. Freedom from Lucan and from her overbearing family. The chance to be with Comgall. Hot showers. Fast food. Freedom. Indoor toilets and running water.
Comgall peered over her shoulder.
“You write impressively well,” he said. “I learned to read as a boy, but I’ve always struggled with writing.”
“I suppose that writing is quite a rare skill here,” Bethany said absently, staring down at her list.
“Dubnus did most of our writing,”Comgall said gloomily. “That’s something else the new priest will have to take over. Do most people know how to write where you come from?”
“Yes, most people,” Bethany said, running her hand through her hair and tugging it loose from the long braid.
Comgall whistled in appreciation.
“What a wonderful thing that would be,” he said. “Just think of everything we could do. Perhaps I should found a school here at Dunadd. Matthew could be the first pupil.”
Matthew grinned at him.
“Yes!” he said, his Old Irish pronunciation perfect.
Bethany almost stopped breathing. She fumbled with her ear, and pulled out her language chip. In English, she asked Matthew how much Old Irish he understood. He shrugged.
“I always understood,” he said. “You just didn’t realise.”
Bethany tried to stay calm as she stared down at her clever, impossible son. He was the son of a druid. She must expect him to be a little different from the ordinary. It would just take some getting used to. But she had adapted to a whole new time period, hadn’t she? She could adapt to this.
It gave her a lot to think about, though. What else could Matthew do? She thought about home – about her grandmother’s little cottage, with the kettle whistling on the stove, and the rain pounding against the window.
“Is there a stone circle near here, or a standing stone?” she asked Comgall.
“A stone circle?” he asked, looking confused. “Yes, I suppose so. There’s one just a few miles to the north.”
“Can you tell me how to get there?” Bethany asked. “Matthew and I have to see it.”
“I can do better than that,” Comgall said. “I can take you there.”
The three of them rode out together, Comgall holding Matthew in front of him on the horse. It was a damp, grey day, but Bethany didn’t mind. There was something refreshing about the soft rain on her face.
They rode until they reached a wide circle of waist-high stones. The surrounding hills loomed over them like silent watchers, closing the stones into their own private valley.
“This is it,” Comgall said, pulling his horse to a halt. “Do you need to get closer?”
Bethany nodded.
Comgall helped Matthew and then Bethany down from the horses.
“Could you wait for us here?” Bethany asked him.
It was his turn to nod.
He looked so serious, so nervous, that Bethany could not resist. Impulsively, she stretched up on her tiptoes and kissed him.
“Will you be coming back?” he asked her, his voice a little hoarse.
Bethany bit her lip.
“I don’t know,” she admitted.
She took Matthew’s hand in hers,and they walked towards the stones.
“Lay your hand on the stone,” she said to Matthew. He silently obeyed her as she did the same, pressing her hand against the surface of the rock, slick and smooth from the rain. It felt nothing like the blazing power of the footprint but, when she concentrated, she could sense an echo of that same sensation, hidden deep within the rock.
“Think about our own time,” she said to Matthew. “Think about that little cottage, and all stories I told you about it.”
Matthew nodded, screwing his small face up in serious thought.
Bethany drew her own thoughts back to the cottage. But her mind slipped a little, and she found herself thinking not of the house but of her grandmother. She thought of all their adventures together, out in the hills and wild woods of Scotland. The cakes her grandmother had baked her, the letters she’d sent when school restarted and Bethany had to leave.
As at Dunadd, the stones began to shimmer and waver as time shifted around them. The faces of ghostly men and women flashed past – perhaps the people who had built this place. Or perhaps people yet to come. And then Bethany heard a familiar voice. In her shock, she let go of the stone. The flickering transition froze, as if they hovered between times. Outside of time.
Bethany’s grandmother stood in the centre of the stone circle. She looked as Bethany most wanted to remember her – white-haired and wrinkled, but still standing tall, with a smile on her face.
“So, you found your way at last,” she said. “You have found your place here, Bethany, as first and last of a long line of wise women. Guard the cottage well, child. One day, your daughters will need it.”
With tears in her eyes, Bethany reached out a hand. She knew that her grandmother couldn’t really be here, but there was nothing in the world she wanted more than to once again feel that loving hand holding hers. Her grandmother did not reach back. Instead, she smiled and tipped back her head, letting the wind flow through her hair. Right before Bethany’s eyes, she changed, her wrinkles fading away and her hair darkening until she was a beautiful young woman. And then she vanished entirely, fading into nothingness until the circle was empty.
“Let’s go home,” Bethany whispered.
“Home,” Matthew echoed .
Everything snapped back into place. They were standing beside ordinary stones, with empty hillside stretching all around them. When Bethany turned around, Comgall was running across the grass towards her. She smiled, and stretched out her hands to him. Out of all the times they could have chosen, she and Matthew had agreed on this one. Home.