Chapter 25
Chapter
Twenty-Five
“Wait.” The word barely makes it past my lips. My brain is short-circuiting, my poor synapses sparking and misfiring, struggling to process what Callum just told me.
Janet. My mother.
Pregnant. In the past. With me.
I stare at him. At the sky. At nothing.
Everything feels off-kilter, like the ground beneath me has shifted a fraction of an inch. Enough that I can feel it, but not enough to stand firm.
I try again. “When she traveled to the future, my mother was pregnant. With me.”
Callum nods, solemn. “When Janet left, she carried you in her belly.” He looks pained as he says it. “I thought you knew. I’m sorry. I wouldnae have spoken so carelessly.”
I give a distracted wave. “No, it’s good for me to know. It’s not your fault. It’s my mom’s fault for not telling me…anything. Ever.”
I pinch the bridge of my nose as I flop onto my back, cutting off the tears. “It always comes back to her.”
She was pregnant. With me. And my father was some man named Gregor MacGregor.
Before I can stop myself, I blurt, “Oh no.” I gape at Callum, terrified to even say the words. “You and I aren’t related, are we?”
“Och, no!” Callum looks as scandalized as I’d felt. “Gregor was my distant clansman, no more.”
“Gregor,” I repeat, still reeling. “A man named Gregor MacGregor was my father.”
“Aye.” Gently, he adds, “You’ve the look of him, you know. Around the eyes. Though yours are far lovelier.”
I can’t process the compliment. “I’ll never see for myself,” I say. “No pictures, no nothing. And now he’s dead.”
“I’ll never know any of my relatives. All I have is Poppa—” My voice goes flat. “No, I don’t even have him. Poppa’s not really mine.”
“Blood kin or no,” Callum says emphatically, “I’ve no doubt you’ll always have your grandfather. This won’t change a thing for him. From all you’ve said, the man’s as steady as the tides.”
I inhale weakly and meet his eyes with a nod, hearing the truth in his words. “Yeah. He loves me regardless.” I force a self-deprecating laugh. “So I guess there’s one person who cares about me.”
“Only the one?” he asks in a rasp. “Truly?”
My universe shrinks, narrowing until it’s just Callum and his eyes, focused on me.
I’m not brave enough to hear what he might be saying. I’m too raw, and this conversation has been bruising enough already. I especially don’t have the courage to answer him.
I look away. “I wonder what he’s doing now. Poppa, I mean. It’s mid-November, right? I guess he’ll have to make the Thanksgiving turkey himself this year.” Weakly, I add, “I can probably forget about finishing the semester.”
“He might not even ken you’re gone.” Callum is trying to reassure me, but it does the opposite.
“Oh,” I say, swallowing back the renewed ache in my throat, “I guess he’s not even born yet.”
The thought that I’m living my life, and all the while Poppa is frozen in some strange temporal suspended animation…it’s too horrible.
The sun drifts behind the trees, and a sudden chill makes me shiver. I scrub at my face, feeling fresh resolve.
“I need to get back to him.” The words practically explode from me. “Blood relation or not, he’s my family.” I watch Callum, waiting for a reaction—an insight or some essential truth. Maybe I’m waiting for him to protest.
He doesn’t.
Callum has such a unique way about him. Warm, vibrant, open-hearted, guileless. I’ve come to rely on it. Adore it, actually. I don’t realize how much until that blazing intensity recedes from me, vanishing behind the fog of his gray eyes.
“I know,” he says in a voice so even, so toneless, I barely recognize it. His voice is steady, but something in his eyes dims, like a candle flickering out. “I’ll do whatever it takes to get you home. I swear it.”
And just like that, the days begin to slip away.
Callum visits Donag more often, picking through their conversations like a beachcomber sifting through sand, piecing together scraps of information like fragments of a shattered seashell.
Meanwhile, I move through my days on autopilot, my mind half here, half already gone. The weeks blur together in a cycle of chores and quiet preparations. I start squirreling away anything that might come in handy for travel: oats, nuts, smoked meat, dried apples.
I thought the weather was bad before, but as Callum promised, it’s gotten worse. A constant, bone-chilling damp penetrates everything. Each day, it seems I’ve barely finished lunch when the sun begins to pass out of sight, turning the sky from one shade of bleak to another.
But my cloak helps, and at least I’m no longer starving all the time. With Callum’s encouragement, I’ve prepared several more meals, though once Aoife found out what we were up to after hours, I had to bribe her with my quiche recipe to keep kitchen privileges.
More than ever, Callum is a fixture in my life. A constant. A comfort.
I thought he’d pull away after our talk. Instead, he’s closer, as if he’s trying to get as much of me as he can. Before I vanish forever.
I’m not sure it’s such a great idea. The closer he gets, the more it’s going to hurt when I go. Which only makes me want to give him everything I can while I’m here. And one way to help him is by thawing things between Donag and me.
Ever since I learned that her husband—my father—was killed because of Janet, I’ve felt more sympathetic toward her.
My newfound compassion increases as I watch how horribly the worsening weather exacerbates her back pain.
Lately, she can barely stand upright when she gets out of bed.
I fake sleep to give her some privacy, but it’s impossible not to hear her gasps of pain.
The way she hobbles around in those early-morning hours reminds me of Poppa when his bursitis is acting up. But Poppa has medication. That scrap of dead seal Donag keeps in her trunk does nothing but stink.
Oddly, she’s also on her best behavior. Though, like me, she’s probably only doing it for Callum.
Which isn’t to say I’m not grateful. I have no doubt many women would’ve taken their fury out on me.
Not only am I the love child of her late husband, but I’m the daughter of the much-detested Janet, and half Campbell to boot.
Whatever her reasons, Donag no longer makes snide insinuations when Callum comes around. And he’s been coming around a lot. Only to continue the fact-gathering chats with Donag, of course. Not to see me.
At least that’s what I try and tell myself. But the fact that our work schedules seem to always be in sync can’t be just down to coincidence.
I can’t let myself be silly though. I’m grateful for his friendship, to have him as an anchor. I can’t let it become anything more.
Can I? asks the tiny voice in my head.
That tiny voice is yammering so often lately, it’s etched new grooves in my brain. Which is where the chicken coop comes in, and the deep-cleaning I’ve added to tonight’s castle chores.
The hens scatter when I open the gate, squawking their usual protests as I murmur hellos and you-little-monsters. After the basic chores—fresh water, clean nesting boxes, quick rake—I eye the months of fossilized mess coating the walls and floor.
Perfect. Nothing clears my head like mindless elbow grease. Poppa always says, hard work is the cheapest medicine.
I tie a rag over my nose and mouth, roll up my sleeves, and attack the grime with my wire brush. Soon I slip into that peaceful, unconscious place where my body knows exactly what to do and my mind doesn’t need to engage. The repetitive scrubbing drowns out everything else.
Until a shift in the air makes my skin prickle.
“There’s a fox in the henhouse.”
I jump and slap a hand to my chest, then curl it into a fist when I see Hamish, hunched in the low doorway, leering at me.
Blocking my exit.
“You’re skittish as a colt”—his eyes roam my body—“and twice as leggy.”
I fight not to roll my eyes. “Are you looking for something?”
“You.” He ducks and steps inside—now blocking my exit and my light. I concentrate on keeping my cool, but this space is minuscule. Hamish never seemed that big standing next to Callum. But in this cramped, shadowy coop, he looms. “You’re a bonnie sight.”
I back away ever so slightly. “Whatever.”
“D’you ken why I say so?”
“I don’t care to ken, thanks.”
“I like your dress. A gift from me to you.” His gaze lingers on my tightly laced vest as he purrs, “You could say it’s mine.”
My eyes flick to the door and back, but it’s like he’s tripled in size. There’s no way to get out without touching him. “Your dress, huh? I thought blue was more your color.”
His mouth cracks open, like he can’t tell if he should be amused or angry. His expression hardens, opting for angry.
My instincts flare. I don’t think. I just scamper for the exit, pressing my body as close as I can to the wall. But it’s not close enough.
Hamish snatches my elbow. “What’s the rush?”
I freeze. Like the stupid, proverbial deer in headlights.
“You could have your pick of dresses, you know.” He steps closer, stroking up and down my arm.
Slow. Testing.
“There are many things I could do for you. I could do for you…you could do for me.”
His fingers slide around my bicep, grip tightening. Knuckles brush my torso. I squirm away, but he only presses closer, grazing the backs of his fingers along my ribcage.
A current jolts through me, like touching a live wire, galvanizing every muscle.
The bastard is trying to cop a feel.
Memories swirl of all the times I’ve felt cornered. Taken advantage of. Underestimated. Years of helplessness thunder through me—and then disintegrate into ash.
The girl who frets, who obeys, who freezes in place?
Gone. I left her in the twenty-first century.
I’m not skittish. Just pissed. I shift the bucket in my hands, adjusting my grip. My voice stays flat. “I need to change the water.”
I angle my body, just slightly. Just enough. He doesn’t step back.
“You might want to move.” A casual warning. Friendly. Innocent.
I tip the pail—just a little too far.
Oops.