Chapter 22 #2
“It sounds awful, I know, but it’s sort of magical.
Maybe that’s just the archaeologist in me, but bones are romantic,” Jane said, chuckling.
“As for me, some of the things carved into the ruins of this castle were done by me, and some of the artifacts were left by me, but I was looking at them three hundred years in the future, with no idea that I was the one burying treasures. I, too, was always meant to come here.”
Time seemed to slow in the comfortable guest room with the astonishing view of the twinkling sea, now calmer beneath the moonlight. It wasn’t just a chill that ran down Nancy’s spine this time, but it was as if every vertebra had become a block of ice, shattering.
The bride in the tapestry… Oh my God, the bride in the tapestry!
There were about three weeks to go until Hunter’s death.
Regardless of how handsome he was, there was no possible way that he was going to find another bride in so short a span of time, not when he already had a fake fiancée.
So, either her arrival had already changed things irrevocably, preventing some other woman from being his bride, or the woman in that tapestry, the figure she had gently touched before the earthquake, was her.
And was always supposed to be her.
“What’s wrong?” Jane asked, reaching for her hand.
Nancy shook her head, words evading her. She could hear her blood rushing in her ears and her heart drumming a frantic beat, her head swimming with the terrible possibility.
“Nothing,” she forced out. “Nothing. I just… well, you see… I… I need you to tell me how to get home. I need you to teach me, so I can leave before the wedding.”
Her voice became manic, her mind no longer swimming but racing.
If she went home before the 10th of June, then maybe she could change Hunter’s fate.
If she really was the bride in that tapestry, then maybe it was the only way to save him, and to ensure that Freya didn’t grow up the same way she had: all alone, with no parent to rely on.
“What’s wrong, Nancy?” Jane pressed, her tone more serious. “What is it?”
Nancy squeezed her eyes shut and gripped Jane’s hand tightly.
“It’s just that… he has a baby, the sweetest little girl…
and I know something. From the future. I know something, and…
I don’t want it to come true, but… but if what you’re saying is true, then…
then I can’t do anything. Not unless you teach me how to go home, as soon as possible. ”
“You know,” Jane said softly, “my own marriage started as a fake relationship. Adeline told me about your situation, but it’s nothing to be afraid of. You don’t have to do what I did and fall in love. You don’t have to marry him.”
But that’s just it, I think I do. If I am that bride, then it’s already happened. Same as your graffiti, same as Adeline’s bones.
Nancy couldn’t say it, as if uttering it aloud would make it even more concrete.
“Please, just tell me how to get home,” she croaked, pressing her palm to her forehead in a vain attempt to stop her skull from throbbing.
Jane pulled a face. “I will, but we have to wait until after the cèilidh. To do it, and do it properly, we’ll need the help of my mother-in-law’s sister.”
“What?” Nancy’s frustration thrummed like insects in her veins.
“When I received your message that you were coming here, I spoke to Beitris—that’s my mother-in-law—and she promised she would go out to find her sister as soon as the celebrations were over.
” Jane gave her hand a squeeze. “I expect that’s why Adeline told you she wouldn’t be back at Castle Lochlann for two weeks.
She’d have wanted to find Beitris’s sister first, but… she’s not exactly easy to find.”
Nancy sucked in a shaky breath. “What do you mean? Where is she?”
“She… wanders,” Jane said hesitantly. Then she lowered her voice to add, “She’s a witch.
Someone who understands the ways back and forth through time better than anyone else.
But it’s not safe for her to settle anywhere, so she goes wherever she feels she might be needed, and doesn’t come by Castle Culloch very often. ”
“So, it could take weeks?” Nancy squeaked, her eyes so wide she worried they might bulge out of her head, the images in that tapestry playing over and over in her head like a movie. A gory one, at that. A tragedy.
Jane shook her head. “Not weeks. Maybe a week. Beitris has gotten better at finding her or… summoning her. I don’t know how to explain it, but there’s witchiness in both of them.
” She searched Nancy’s face as the flames in the fireplace crackled and spat ominously.
“Please, tell me why you’re so frantic. What is this thing that you know?
Are you married to Laird Lochlann in the future, and you don’t want to be? Did he force you into this betrothal?”
“No!” was all Nancy could say, her breathing ragged. Which question she was answering, she wasn’t sure.
To make matters worse, Jane nodded in kind understanding, her smile sympathetic.
“You’re totally right; it’s none of my business.
I’m being rude, prying where I shouldn’t.
It’s the archaeologist in me again, always wanting to dig deeper.
” She gave a stiff chuckle. “I’m sorry, Nancy.
I shouldn’t have asked, but I just want you to know that, if you need to talk or vent or figure something out, I’m here. ”
“I just need to go home,” Nancy murmured, suddenly very tired, her heart weighing a ton.
Jane nodded. “And we will get you home, don’t you worry.
” She slowly released Nancy’s hand and rose from her chair.
“In the meantime, eat that stew, get some good rest, and try to enjoy the cèilidh tomorrow night. There’s nothing like a cèilidh to lift your spirits, even when you’re craving a hot shower and some trash TV, or just putting on some music that doesn’t require a five-piece orchestra to play. ”
The faintest laugh bubbled up Nancy’s throat as she pictured Jane and Adeline attempting to teach some eighteenth-century musicians how to play twenty-first-century favorites.
And while she hadn’t had the time to miss modern music, she would have relished a true crime podcast to help her drift off to sleep, to help her forget that she was in the midst of her own murder mystery, with an unknown killer waiting until June.