Chapter 25
Abigail
Christmas Eve arrived beneath a sky the color of pearls.
Abigail was growing more accustomed to riding, though she still offered the mare a carrot every time she had to climb onto the enormous beast, partly as a bribe and partly as an apology.
“Please don’t kill me,” she murmured when the stableboy handed her the reins. The mare flicked one ear, unimpressed.
A small cask of whisky had been hidden away at the castle in anticipation of the holiday, and because she’d needed to get out before her own thoughts gnawed a hole straight through her, she’d volunteered to take it to the village and pick up the things Mrs. Gable and Rory required.
Snow still covered the headland in soft uneven drifts, though the harbor road had been cleared enough for wagons and fishermen, mostly through a combination of Scottish stubbornness, two shovels, one resentful horse, and approximately twelve men shouting contradictory instructions at one another until the snow, perhaps out of pure exhaustion, gave way.
The village smelled of woodsmoke, salt, and roasting meat, while evergreen boughs hung above nearly every doorway in town.
Bells rang faintly from the kirk, children tore through the snowy lanes wrapped in mismatched scarves and knitted caps, and mothers shouted after them to stop sliding beneath horse carts before Christmas became memorable for all the wrong reasons.
Sam would have loved the snow. He would have been out in the middle of it before breakfast, flinging snowballs at children he’d known for twelve minutes, constructing a lopsided snowman with sunglasses and a tragic backstory, and deciding some dangerous slope near the harbor was perfectly suitable for sledding because, according to Sam, gravity was only a problem if you respected it.
Laden down with packages, Abigail was glad the wind had died down as she rode back to the castle.
After handing over the reins to the stableboy, she paused in the courtyard, looking at the lighthouse beam, turning pale and steady.
If she were back in her own time, Abigail would have been spending Christmas Eve with her brother, listening to the freeway traffic humming beyond the van windows, a poinsettia sitting on the tiny kitchen counter.
Not Sam sitting cross-legged on the bed surrounded by crooked wrapping paper while insisting tape was a conspiracy designed by impatient people.
Not terrible peppermint coffee, badly wrapped gifts, and surf reports playing quietly from his phone.
Stone walls held the day’s warmth while candlelight turned the kitchen gold against the gathering blue of evening, and lately, when Abigail thought of home, it took her a moment to know which place she meant.
That frightened her more than she wanted to admit. The longer she was here, the more the future had begun to blur around the edges. Not disappear, but soften, like something seen through a rain spattered window.
Mrs. Gable glanced toward her over the rim of her spectacles.
“Ye’ve tied the ribbon around your own wrist.”
Abigail blinked downward.
So she had.
“Well,” she muttered while untangling herself from the pine bough and ribbon, “I suppose there are worse holiday traditions.”
Outside came Duncan’s voice from the yard.
“THAT TREE WAS LEANING BEFORE I TOUCHED IT.”
Tavish answered instantly. “IT’S A STUMP NOW.”
Mrs. Gable closed her eyes briefly. “Every year,” she said quietly, “I begin hopeful.”
Abigail laughed despite herself, and a moment later the kitchen door opened and Rory stepped inside carrying cold air with him.
The wind had left color high along his cheekbones beneath the rough shadow at his jaw, and snow dusted the shoulders of his dark coat.
One loose curl had fallen across his forehead.
Abigail’s fingers tightened unconsciously around the ribbon in her hands.
Mrs. Gable looked up. “Did the tree survive?”
“Barely.”
“That bad?”
Rory pulled off his gloves slowly. “Duncan attempted to even the branches.”
Mrs. Gable crossed herself automatically.
“Aye,” Rory agreed gravely. “It came to that.”
Abigail pressed her lips together, trying not to laugh, while Rory crossed toward the hearth and held his hands out to warm them before meeting her gaze.
Something had changed between them in these past weeks. Quietly. Like winter settling over the sea one cold morning before anyone realized the season had turned.
And beneath all of it, Abigail had started feeling something else as well.
Time. Not passing, exactly, more like counting down, like the tide drawing itself backward before a wave.
Rory’s expression shifted slightly as he studied her face.
“You’ve gone pale.”
“I’m fine.”
“A suspicious statement.”
Mrs. Gable made a low sound of agreement while chopping carrots.
But Abigail wasn’t fine, and suddenly she couldn’t bear it another moment. The heart, she was discovering, had very little respect for orderly behavior.
“I need air,” she said abruptly.
Mrs. Gable looked up at once. “Aye, a fine evening for a wee walk.”
“Aye,” Rory said quietly. “I’ll walk with ye.”
“Well then,” the housekeeper said briskly. “Try no’ to freeze to death before supper. I’ve no interest in explaining that to the household.”
Outside, the world had gone silver-blue beneath the approaching dusk.
Snow crunched beneath Abigail’s boots as she crossed toward the cliff path overlooking the sea, Rory falling into step beside her without speaking.
The sea rolled dark below the cliffs, restless beneath the sweep of the lighthouse beam. Snow drifted through the light and vanished into the water as though the whole world were being slowly erased and written again.
“You’ve been grieving your brother,” Rory said quietly.
Abigail stopped walking as the wind moved around them while snow drifted pale through the darkening air. She stared toward the sea because she couldn’t look at him.
“What makes you say that?”
Rory was quiet for a moment.
“Because I ken what grief looks like.”
Abigail swallowed hard. “I thought I was hiding it better.”
“No,” he said gently. “Ye were trying harder.”
That nearly undid her. The beam swept once slowly across the water below.
“You remember I told you about Sam,” she said.
“Aye.” Rory’s voice softened. “He isna well.”
Hearing him say it so simply hurt in a way she hadn’t expected.
“He would have loved today,” she whispered. “All this snow. The chaos. Duncan committing crimes against forestry.”
Rory’s mouth moved faintly. “Aye, then he’s a man of questionable taste.”
“He is.” She wrapped both arms around herself against the cold. “He once tried to make pancakes on a metal plate placed on the dashboard of his van, said the sun would cook them.”
Rory blinked.
“It didn’t work,” she added.
A laugh escaped her, small and cracked, and the tears she hadn’t let fall for as long as she could remember, came right behind it.
“Lass.”
Rory reached for her, but she took a step back, needing to get it out before she lost her nerve.
“He’s sick,” she said. “I told you that much before, but I don’t think I told you what it means. Not really.”
Rory’s expression grew still.
“In my time, there are medicines. Hospitals. Things that would sound like magic to you, and sometimes they are miraculous, and sometimes they still aren’t enough.”
Her voice shook as the wind pulled at her scarf and the lighthouse beam passed over the snow beyond his shoulder.
“Sam has cancer. A sickness in his blood. He got better for a while, then it came back, and now he needs a donor. Someone whose body matches his closely enough that doctors can use healthy cells, pieces of them, to rebuild what the disease destroyed.”
Rory listened without interrupting, his gaze steady on her face.
“I was tested,” she said. “I wasn’t a match.”
The words scraped coming out. “I can’t save him.”
Rory stepped closer through the falling snow as she wrapped her arms around her middle, grateful for the beautiful warm shawl he’d bought her.
“When we found out I couldn’t help him, Sam smiled and told me my bone marrow had poor manners.”
Rory’s brows drew together.
“Never mind. It was funny at the time.”
“I believe ye.”
“No, you don’t.”
“No,” he admitted softly. “But I believe he made ye laugh.”
And that was worse somehow. She pressed a hand over her mouth, breathing through the pain until she could speak again.
“I left him,” Abigail whispered, the words fogging white into the cold air between them.
“I thought I was going to Scotland for six months. Catalogue some letters, send him every bit of money I could, argue with him over the phone about eating vegetables and whether gas station burritos counted as a food group.”
Her laugh broke apart completely. “I didn’t know I was going to fall through time.”
Rory went very still as Abigail’s heart hammered so hard she felt each beat in her throat.
“I’m from America,” she whispered.
“Aye, so ye said.”
“But not…” She shook her head helplessly. “Not the America you’ve been to.”
Abigail drew one breath, then another.
“I’m from the future.”
Silence answered her then. Not empty silence. The kind that alters the shape of a life.
“The lighthouse already existed,” Abigail said, because now that the truth was out, there was no way to stop the words from flowing.
“In my time, Kinnaird Head is history. The light was decommissioned thirty-five years ago. It still works and looks almost the same, but now an unmanned small light serves as a beacon. I knew about the light because I’d gone there to study it.
That’s how I know what was wrong with the bearing, how I knew about the Isabella, and wreck of the Ardent, and Murtagh, because your names are listed in the records. ”
Shock and disbelief filled Rory’s face.
“Murtagh’s remembered?” Rory asked quietly.
Abigail’s throat tightened.
“Yes,” she whispered. “So are you.”
“Christ preserve us,” Rory murmured softly. “All this time I feared ye might be fae-touched.” He drew one slow breath. “How far?”
She blinked. “What?”