Chapter 26
Abigail
Historians, Abigail had long ago discovered, were rarely sensible people.
Yet here she was, slipping out before dawn on the morning after Christmas while the rest of Kinnaird Head slept off whisky, exhaustion, and Duncan’s attempt to dance atop a storage crate sometime after midnight.
The crate had not survived. Neither, frankly, had Duncan’s dignity.
Snow creaked softly beneath Abigail’s boots as she crossed the headland wrapped tightly in her woolen shawl while the lighthouse beam swept slowly across the cliffs behind her before turning once more out toward open water.
The world felt quieter somehow this morning, as though the sea itself were waiting.
Abigail could almost picture the kitchen belowstairs exactly as she’d left it an hour earlier, mugs abandoned beside the hearth, greenery drooping slightly near the windows, Mrs. Gable’s bread rising beneath linen while Tavish snored somewhere loud enough to alarm wildlife across three counties.
And Rory. The memory of his mouth against hers beneath the lantern light rose, warming her through.
This was exactly the sort of behavior historians warned students against, although they hadn’t been thinking about time travel. Emotional involvement with primary sources rarely ended well, though she hoped to be the exception.
The Wine Tower rose slowly ahead of her, black stone against the fading stars, and something deep inside Abigail tightened at the sight of it.
The tower had haunted her from the beginning, when Arthur and Sandra had told her stories about the Cailleach, and then when she’d heard about the ghostly piper.
History had stopped feeling abstract the moment she’d fallen into it.
Near the tower entrance, she paused, brushing gloved fingers lightly against the weathered stones as she stepped inside.
The interior smelled of cold rock and sea dampness while pale light filtered weakly through the narrow openings overhead. Snow had drifted in along the floor near the archway, gathering in uneven folds against stone worn smooth by centuries of wind and weather.
For one moment Abigail imagined all the people who had stood here before her. Watchmen, smugglers, women waiting for ships, and children daring one another into ghost stories.
What had Katherine thought when she’d first fallen through time? Had she stood somewhere like this? A woman out of time who choose love over her own century. Abigail understood her now in ways she almost wished she didn’t.
She crossed slowly toward the far side of the tower, and looked out at the rocks where Rory had found her, half-conscious and terrified. Even now, she still occasionally caught her tongue against the
chipped molar. Thankfully the edge wasn’t as sharp as it had been.
A laugh escaped because honestly, if anyone had told her this story as anything more than fiction, she would have recommended immediate sleep and possibly medical intervention.
Wind moved softly through the broken upper stones, then it, along with the waves, simply stopped. Abigail frowned. The North Sea did not stop. Ever.
Yet suddenly the silence around the tower deepened into something vast enough to press against her skin. The air changed, older somehow, like opening a sealed room untouched for centuries and finding the past still breathing quietly inside it.
After a moment, one long mournful line of fiddle music drifted softly through the stone.
Abigail’s blood went cold. The tune threaded through the stillness exactly as it had at Samhain, sorrowful and strange, carrying something beneath it that made the tiny hairs rise along the back of her neck.
She remembered turnip lanterns bobbing through harbor fog, children laughing somewhere below the cliffs, and an old woman warning them that doors opened easier than they closed on certain nights of the year.
The music drifted again, thin and distant enough that Abigail felt it somewhere beneath her ribs before she consciously understood she was following it up to the top of the tower.
A voice behind her said mildly,
“Took ye long enough.”
Abigail spun so quickly her boots slipped slightly against the stones.
The Cailleach stood wrapped in black wool, silver hair lifting softly in a wind that touched her, and nothing else.
Her eyes held the same terrible calm Abigail remembered from Samhain, though this morning the old woman looked faintly annoyed, which somehow made the entire situation substantially more alarming.
“You could’ve warned me before doing that,” Abigail blurted before good sense intervened.
The old woman blinked once. “And where would be the sport in warning folk?”
Abigail folded both arms tightly beneath her shawl while her pulse hammered painfully against her ribs.
The Cailleach studied her face for a long quiet moment while snow drifted lazily beyond the archway.
“Ah,” she said at last, sounding almost satisfied. “There it is.”
Abigail frowned. “What?”
“That look women get when they’ve fallen in love.”
Heat climbed abruptly into Abigail’s face despite the freezing air. The fiddle drifted softly through the dawn once more while the lighthouse beam swept gold across the snow outside before turning slowly out to sea again.
“You brought me here.”
The Cailleach looked out at the calm sea. It looked like a mirror, still and reflecting the now blue sky above. “I simply opened the door.”
“That’s not the same thing.”
“No.” The old woman’s gaze sharpened slightly. “It isna.”
Abigail looked toward the sea because it was easier than looking directly at the goddess standing in front of her.
“I don’t understand why you picked me.”
The Cailleach snorted softly beneath her breath.
“Neither does any woman when the world first splits beneath her feet.”
“That’s not especially helpful.” A laugh escaped, though the sound shook badly at the edges.
“My brother is dying.”
The words cracked open between them.
For the first time something ancient and sorrowful moved briefly through the Cailleach’s eyes.
“Aye,” she said quietly. “And another man waits for ye above the cliffs praying ye’ll no vanish before dawn.”
Pain moved sharply through her chest.
“I can’t survive losing either of them.”
The old woman tilted her head slightly while snow drifted through the broken archway behind her.
“Ye think women before ye survived easier choices?”
Wind moved softly around the tower stones carrying the scent of winter sea and distant peat smoke from the castle beyond the cliffs.
Abigail pressed trembling fingers briefly against her mouth.
“I thought there’d be a right answer.”
“Oh lass.” Genuine tenderness roughened the old woman’s voice then. “There’s rarely a right answer where love is concerned. Only the life ye can still bear to live afterward.”
The words hollowed Abigail clean through. Outside the lighthouse beam swept once more across the snow. Then another sound reached the tower. Boots. Running hard through the snow and up the stairs.
Abigail turned just as Rory appeared through the doorway, breathing hard from the climb, dark hair wind-tossed, his coat half-buttoned.
Relief crossed his face when he saw her.
“Christ preserve me,” he breathed. “I woke and ye were gone.”
Rory crossed the distance between them, his hands settling hard against Abigail’s shoulders as though reassuring himself she remained solid beneath them.
“I thought…” He stopped abruptly.
Abigail’s chest tightened.
“You thought I’d left.”
His silence answered clearly enough. Only after several long breaths did he finally look past her toward the old woman standing inside the tower.
For one suspended moment nobody moved.
Then, very slowly, Rory crossed himself.
“Well,” he said faintly. “That’s deeply concerning.”
To Abigail’s utter astonishment, the Cailleach barked out a laugh.
“A sensible lad at last.”
“I’m no certain sensible men gaze upon ancient goddesses before noon.”
“No,” the old woman agreed. “But the interesting ones always do.”
Rory looked profoundly unconvinced by this assessment.
Abigail nearly laughed again.
Then the air changed. Not violently this time. No thunder or storm or lightning splitting the cliffs apart. The world simply thinned around them until every breath felt drawn through silk.
The stones beneath Abigail’s boots hummed softly. Even the sea below the cliffs had gone still, which was something the North Sea simply did not do unless reality itself had taken leave of its senses.
The Cailleach stepped toward the archway.
“It’s time.”
Fear moved instantly through Abigail so sharply she grabbed Rory’s hand without thinking.
His fingers closed around hers at once.
The old woman pointed toward the center of the tower floor where drifting snow had begun slowly circling against the stones, not from wind but movement, and light unfolded where darkness should have been, too bright to belong among ancient stone.
The scent hit her first.
Not gradually, but all at once and sharp enough to cut straight through salt air and winter cold until Abigail staggered where she stood, because suddenly the world smelled of antiseptic, overheated air, burnt coffee gone stale in paper cups, sunscreen lingering faintly in the air, and the peculiar feel that hospitals gave off, sterile and profoundly lonely at the same time.
Home. Not a memory or imagination.
Light unfolded where darkness should have been, too bright and clean and modern to belong among ancient stone and drifting snow, and Abigail gasped softly as the hospital room sharpened into view.
Beside her Rory swore and crossed himself.
Christmas lights blinked faintly near the window. Machines glowed beside the bed. A tiny artificial tree leaned sideways near the television with a surfing Santa hanging from a branch.
And there was Sam.
Pale beneath white blankets, one arm tangled in tubing while the monitor beside him traced green light steadily through the dim room.
Pain tore through Abigail so violently she nearly doubled over beneath it.