Epilogue
T he Isle of Skye, Scotland
Sometime in the future
Dr. Abigail Winston clutched the tablet against her chest, squinting as the late afternoon sun reflected off the crumbling stones of Bronmuir Keep. The wind whipped her dark hair across her face, carrying the scent of brine and heather from the cliffs below.
“Bloody tourists,” she muttered, pushing her way through a group taking selfies. Her sensible boots crunched over loose gravel as she ducked under the preservation society barriers, flashing her credentials at the lone security guard.
“The north tower is still off-limits, Dr. Winston,” he called after her. “Structural engineers haven’t cleared it yet.”
She raised a hand in acknowledgment without turning back. The discovery had been reported from the north tower, and after three years of researching the mysterious Lady Katherine of Clan MacLeod, Abigail wasn’t about to wait for bureaucratic clearance.
The stairwell was dark and smelled of damp stone and time. Abigail switched on her flashlight, illuminating centuries of wear on the steps beneath her feet. Each footfall echoed, as if the keep itself was breathing around her.
When the workman had called, voice trembling with excitement, about finding a sealed chamber during the restoration, she’d dismissed his breathless tales of “untouched treasures.” Historical sites were always yielding forgotten storage rooms or priest holes. But his mention of a portrait bearing the name Katherine had sent her racing from Edinburgh to Skye without even packing a proper bag.
The newly exposed doorway gaped before her, its ancient oak reinforcements having protected whatever lay beyond for centuries. Abigail’s heart hammered against her ribs as she stepped through.
“Oh my,” she whispered.
Unlike the rest of the keep, exposed to weather and time, this chamber remained remarkably intact. The air felt different here, still and waiting, like a held breath. Dust motes danced in the beam of her flashlight as she swept it across the room.
The portrait dominated the far wall.
They stood together, a man and woman caught in a moment of quiet joy. The man, Laird Connor MacLeod, surely, stood tall and proud, his wild brown hair touching broad shoulders, a half-smile playing on his lips. One hand rested on a broadsword, the other curled possessively around the woman’s waist. Pinned at his shoulder was the infamous Bronmuir Brooch, its silver and gold setting and blue stones capturing the light as if it had been polished yesterday.
But it was the woman who drew her gaze and held it. Katherine MacLeod wore a gown of deep green, her chestnut hair tumbling in waves past her shoulders. Her eyes, a striking hazel flecked with gold, seemed to follow Abigail across the room.
“Impossible,” Abigail breathed, checking the date inscribed at the bottom of the frame. 1695.
The glass case beside the portrait held what appeared to be a journal, its leather binding cracked but intact. Abigail carefully lifted the protective covering, her trained hands trembling slightly as she opened to a random page.
The handwriting was neat, precise, and utterly modern in its style.
April 18, 1691
Implemented the new inventory system today. Connor laughed at my color-coding, but when we accounted for every last grain in the storehouse in half the usual time, even he had to admit it was “no’ a daft notion after all.” Next week, I’ll introduce basic accounting ledgers to track the wool production.
Abigail flipped forward, finding detailed sketches of what appeared to be primitive plumbing systems, medical records tracking fever outbreaks, and notes on crop rotation that wouldn’t become common practice for another century.
The final entry made her throat tighten.
December 31, 1699
Ten years in this century. Sometimes I still wake reaching for my phone or craving a hot shower that doesn’t require hauling twenty buckets up from the well. But then Connor’s arms tighten around me, or little Cameron crawls into our bed with his wild dreams and sticky fingers, and I remember why I stayed.
I may have left one time behind, but I have found where I truly belong. The future is not when you are, but who you’re with.
To whoever finds this someday. Time isn’t a straight line. It’s a circle, and love is the compass that guides us home.
Abigail closed the journal with reverent hands, her academic skepticism warring with the evidence before her. She’d spent her career chasing historical anomalies. People who seemed to know too much for their era, innovations that appeared decades before their time. But this...
This was the proof she’d always sought.
The sun was setting as she emerged from the keep, casting long shadows across the ancient cemetery that bordered the ruins. Her mind raced with implications, publications, research opportunities, all the ways she could share this discovery with the world.
She paused by a weathered stone cross, the same one featured in numerous local legends about wishes and fate. The same one mentioned repeatedly in Katherine’s journal.
“I don’t suppose you grant wishes for love like Katherine and Connor’s?” she said aloud, feeling foolish even as the words left her lips. Three months since David had walked out, claiming her “obsession with the past” left no room for their future.
The wind picked up, carrying the scent of woodsmoke and something else, something green and ancient. Abigail shivered, wrapping her coat tighter.
“They were bonny together, were they no’?”
Abigail startled. An elderly woman sat on a nearby bench, her silver hair escaping a cap. How had she not noticed her before?
“I’m sorry?”
“The laird and his lady,” the woman said, her accent thick as heather honey. “Love like theirs doesna fade, even when the stones do.”
Abigail stepped closer, drawn by something in the woman’s dark eyes. “Do you work with the historical society? I don’t think we’ve met. I’m Dr. Winston.”
The woman’s smile deepened the lines around her eyes. “Aye, I ken fine who ye are, lass.”
A cloud passed over the sun, and in that brief shadow, Abigail caught the glint of something at the woman’s throat. A brooch, silver and gold with blue stones, identical to the one in the portrait.
“That brooch—” Abigail began, but the words died on her lips as a tour group passed between them. When they cleared, the bench was empty.
Where the woman had sat lay a single black feather, spiraling gently in the wind.
Abigail reached for it, but the breeze lifted it away before her fingers could close around it. The feather danced upward, catching the last golden light of day, then disappeared over the cemetery wall.
Some stories are written in ink, others in stone. But the rarest ones, the ones that reshape destiny, are written across time itself.
And sometimes, if you listen closely enough, you can hear them still.