Chapter 11
Chapter
Eleven
Campbell barks an order, and chaos erupts. Hands grab at me, shoving me forward, dragging me toward the door.
I can’t think, can’t move. I’m caught in a whirlwind, spun out of control.
But then I catch a dark, familiar shadow in my periphery. I dig in my heels and twist around.
The grandfather clock.
Its madcap sun still spins on the dial, stalking the painted sky. But now, the clockface gleams—pristine, untouched. New.
Hands wrench me around and fling me out the door.
Sunlight slashes across my vision. The air reeks of animals, dung, and something fouler. A human stench. Sweat and piss sting my nostrils, make my eyes water.
I blink hard. Try to make sense of where they’re taking me.
Men on horseback fill the parking lot.
No, not a parking lot. The gravel is gone. In its place is mud and torn-up grass, trampled under restless hooves.
A sharp whoof escapes me as arms cinch tight around my waist. I’m lifted and thrown. I hit the horse’s back belly-first, hard enough to knock the wind out of me.
I twist and shove my elbow back, aiming for my captor’s groin.
I miss.
He laughs. Smacks my ass. More laughter erupts around us.
Then, “Ho!”
He digs his heels in and the horse bolts.
I barely register the jeers behind us before my entire world shrinks to one singular task: surviving the ride.
Time loses meaning.
I don’t know how long we ride before the gallop slows, shifting into something steadier. My body is barely starting to adjust when I’m flung from the horse.
I hit the ground hard with a grunt, but then I see it.
The castle.
A chill slithers down my spine, mind fixating on one thing.
The pit.
The way the manacles gleamed in the darkness.
Footsteps thud all around me as men dismount. A hand grips my arm and yanks me up. Drags me forward. Stone walls rise in my vision.
And roses.
The outer walls are thickly covered with them. They climb, heavy with thorns. Their leaves have begun to thin with the season, revealing skeletal buds and the ghosts of flowers long dead.
“What is this place?” My voice sounds distant, an echo in my own ears.
“Castle Dunrose,” someone answers. My gut twists at the name. “For the wild Alba roses.”
I stumble through the gate, past outbuildings that should have been rubble.
People and animals fill the space, bustling like a movie set come to life.
Women gather under an open tent, laughing, weaving hay into thatch.
Across from them, sheep press together, their blank, dead eyes watching from behind a crude wooden fence.
Beyond, a boy scrapes flesh from a hide. I force my gaze away from the crimson stains marring its shape, only to see an old man slouching on a wagon. Flies hover over his gnarled, swollen legs. He shrieks a stream of Gaelic as a pack of filthy children race past.
The place hums with life. Real life.
My shock dulls. Horror sets in.
Callum was right about all of it.
Campbell land. 1622.
The man holding me yanks my arm back. I yelp, nearly tripping. But he’s only stopped me from colliding with Campbell.
“What do I do with this?” he asks, shaking my arm like I’m nothing more than a scrap of meat.
I clench my fists, but I’m too numb to resist. Instead, my gaze drifts to the roses.
My mother’s voice whispers in my memory—words I’d long forgotten. Hush now, my wild Alba rose.
What does she have to do with this?
I try to piece together everything Donag and Callum said. But I didn’t believe them. Didn’t listen.
A jab from behind. A rough voice. “Answer the laird.”
I blink. “Sorry…what?”
Campbell’s suspicious, calculating gaze is fixed on me. And beneath it, something almost like…anguish.
“You’ve the look of a Craignish Campbell,” he says at last. “Who sent you?”
I swallow hard. “I…yes…I’m Rose—”
“Tell me now. Why do you have the look of her?”
Her.
I almost ask who, but I already know. “This is about Janet, isn’t it?”
Campbell’s face flushes crimson. “You dare mock my grief.” His voice booms over the courtyard. “The pit for her, till she’s ready to speak truth.”
The pit. That narrow shaft in the ground.
At the thought of it, at the image of myself in the deep and dark, my knees buckle, my body collapses, and I fall to the ground vomiting.
The world tilts, shouts explode around me, but I can’t stop. I retch until there’s nothing left, until I’m gasping, shaking, wiping spit from my chin.
Campbell’s boots come into view, covered in my puke. He slams one into my shoulder, and I crash to the side, pain streaking through me.
“Get this vile thing away.”
I barely feel the hands that haul me up and drag me inside. I’m weak. Insubstantial. As if my body hurled up my heart along with everything else.
I barely see the people we pass. But I feel their fear.
The hallway, the rooms, the stench of a kitchen beyond—it’s all exactly as I’d imagined in the ruins.
The dining room, too.
And in the corner…the pit.
I hesitate on the threshold, dragging my feet, eyes locked on that gaping hole.
“Your last chance.” Campbell’s voice is rich with amusement. He’s poured himself a drink and watches me as he sips. Smiles. “You might find I’m merciful. But first you must tell me who you really are.”
I blink away tears. “I told you. My name is Rose Campbell. My mother is Janet Camp—”
His hand cracks across my face before I realize he’s moved.
“Liar.”
Fire spreads across my cheek. I squeeze my eyes shut, wishing it all away, but when I open them again, I’m still here. Still trapped in this nightmare.
And staring at a portrait of my mother.
A startled cry rips from my throat. A child’s bark of fear and confusion.
I feel Campbell’s stare as I take in the painting. Janet is young—so young—but it’s undeniably her. The same auburn hair. The same pale, perfect skin. The same clear blue eyes I spent my childhood aching to see turned my way.
“How can it be?” Campbell murmurs. “She had no sisters. No female cousins. And yet…you’re so like her.”
He steps closer, voice softer, almost wondering. I glance back at him before I can stop myself.
“Who?” I whisper. I need him to say it. To say her name. Otherwise, this is just too unreal.
His voice dips to something fragile. “Janet.” Then it hardens again. “My Janet. You resemble her.”
“I should. She’s my mother.”
The moment the words leave my lips, his entire expression shifts. The domineering laird is back. “Impossible. My Janet is only nineteen. What do you know? Explain this farce. Who’s taken her?”
Callum’s words crash over me. A single month has passed. One cycle of the moon.
Campbell’s men step forward, hands drifting to their swords.
I scramble for words. “The Janet I know—she’s my mother. She’s thirty-eight now—”
“Lies!” His rage is instant, violent. He lunges, grabs a fistful of my hair, and drags me toward the pit.
I scream as pain rips through my scalp. My hands fly to his, gripping, clawing. My feet scrape the stone floor, but I can’t slow him.
At the pit’s edge, I thrash harder. A man stands on the other side, grinning as he pisses into the hole.
“Perhaps a week in this dung hole will shake the truth from you.”
“Please,” I gasp. “Please, I’m telling the truth.”
He grunts. Jerks me forward. My feet skid until my toes are dangling over open air.
“Stop!” The shout splits the air.
Callum.
Men restrain him, but he shakes them off. One of them hesitates. “The lad says he knows her.”
I stare at Callum, willing him to look at me, but his eyes are locked on Campbell.
He bows deeply. “My sincerest apologies, my laird. The lass is ours. Donag hired her to help with the animals.” He continues, faster now. “I beg your mercy. Please release her. She’s addled in the head, as you can see.”
Addled in the head. Am I? I don’t know what to believe anymore.
But Campbell is listening.
Callum presses on. “’Tis my fault. Please, my laird. I should’ve kept an eye on her. Part of what she says is true. We do believe her name is Rose. And she worships your wife, sir. That is what she means when she calls herself Janet’s child. Rose follows her. Idolizes her.”
A bitter laugh threatens to rise in my throat.
“She believes that, as they share a likeness, she might one day be as grand as Lady Janet.” Then he adds, solemn, certain, “Though none could ever be as lovely.”
The comment cuts deep. I’ve felt this blade before, unerring and razor-sharp. My mother is, and always will be, more everything than me.
For a moment, I can’t breathe. But it doesn’t matter. No one is looking at me anymore.
They’re gazing at the portrait.
Even Callum. His eyes have gone soft, almost…reverent.
It makes me want to be sick again.
Campbell softens, too. “No matter,” he says, voice thick with emotion.
But when he looks back at me, the rage returns. “I’ll not have my Janet disrespected in this way.”
Beside me, men stiffen, reaching for their swords.
Callum moves fast, stepping between us. “Please, sir. The fault lies with me. I should’ve minded her more carefully. She’s nae right in the head.”
Does he have to keep saying that? A tiny grunt of protest slips from me before I can stop it.
Campbell catches it. His fury ignites.
“This disrespect cannot go unanswered.” He unbuttons his coat. The room tightens with hostile energy. “You know what must happen.”
Callum bows his head. “Aye, sir.”
What must happen?
Campbell moves—fast.
I want to shout, Yes, I’m addled! Completely bonkers! Just let us go! But dread freezes me.
His first blow slams into Callum’s jaw. Then another, to his ribs. Then to his head, his gut, his back—
I can’t watch. But I can’t look away.
The laird beats the hell out of him. Callum staggers, crumpling lower with every hit, but never makes a sound. I only know his pain from his gasps for breath.
Finally, it’s over.
Campbell shakes out his hands, then turns to me.
I make a tiny, whimpering squeak. After what Callum just endured for me, the sound mortifies me.
But the laird only shoves me toward him.
Callum catches me, wincing at the impact.
The laird looms over us. “Take care of your people,” he warns Callum, “or I’ll be forced to take care of them myself. Don’t forget who you are. You’re here by my grace. By my mercy. And so she will serve me as you do.”
Callum bows and backs away.
And in that moment—more than the castle, the horses, the swords, the stench—Callum’s silent obedience makes this real.
I am in a place, in a time, impossibly far from my own.