Chapter Nineteen
One Year Later...
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Wind swept through the watchtower, cold and unrelenting despite the warming season. Spring was settling over the Highlands, softening the sharp edges of winter. Brody was glad for the reprieve from the relentless cold.
He stood near the open archway, the top of his head brushing the thatch of the roof, his eyes fixed on the horizon. These days, he didn’t just climb the ladder in the morning—he did so half a dozen times throughout the day, a habit born of hope, watching for any sign of Emmy—but now deeply ingrained. He’d noticed the effects within weeks, how the climb became easier and easier, how his arm and leg protested less and less. Though he’d never shied from physical labor despite his injuries, since last summer, he’d sought it out. Emmy had called it conditioning , and though he’d never dared to attempt those strange yoga poses she’d demonstrated, he had incorporated something close to what she had suggested—a daily regimen of repetitive exercises.
Chopping wood, wielding his sword with slow, deliberate movements to strengthen his arm, striding Dunmara’s perimeter in long, grueling laps—he had committed himself to healing, to rebuilding, even if there had been no one to tell him it was working. But it had.
His leg no longer burned with every step. The ache in his shoulder was not gone, but it no longer gnawed at him constantly. He could move, truly move , and though the pain still flared when he overexerted himself, it no longer defined him.
Dunmara was improving, too. Every day, something was mended, built, restored. The winter had been harsh, but the harvest before it had been strong, and now the fields were being prepared for new crops. Repairs had been made to the gate, the walls fortified, the village thriving again under his watch. Bairns had come, and Dunmara had welcomed an itinerant family, finally ready to settle down after last year’s mean winter. A carpenter had arrived seeking work, bringing his wife and three strapping lads.
And, after so many nights of eating alone, Brody had taken to dining in the hall for supper. He told himself it was to ensure the men and villagers saw their laird as more than a distant figure, but some small part of him knew it had started because of her. Emmy .
She had been the first to make him see what was right in front of him—the people of Dunmara, still standing, still loyal, still looking to him for guidance. He had spent half a year dwelling in his own bitterness, but Emmy... she had shown him that it was not the end, as he’d feared.
He didn’t speak of her, not often, but he liked that others did. Maud, Agnes, and Ailis still mentioned her now and then, their words warm, familiar, as if speaking of an old friend. He never heard them say a bad word about her—only stories, idle musings about how she might have fared in the world beyond Dunmara. It was foolish, perhaps, but he liked hearing her name spoken aloud. It made her feel real , not just some phantom that had passed through his life, leaving an ache he could never quite shake.
He exhaled slowly, his gaze sweeping the distant hills.
Dunmara would endure. It would thrive.
And yet, even with all he had built, with all he had mended , the only thing he could not repair was the hollow place inside him where she had been for that wee bit of time.
Grimly, he plucked at the fabric of his tunic, fingers seeking the now-familiar shape beneath—Emmy’s gold ring, tied to a leather thong and worn against his chest. His grip tightened, fisting the fabric, trapping the ring in his grasp. He had gone to Fenella’s shortly after Emmy’s disappearance, storming into her hovel, fury and pain his only armor. He had demanded answers, demanded she bring Emmy back. But the old witch had denied both knowledge and responsibility, though Brody had judged her expression to be mocking. He’d raged and threatened, his voice shaking the rafters—until something silenced him mid-tirade. Suspended from the highest peak of Fenella’s hovel, a slender chain of silk thread swayed in the dim firelight, the gold ring dangling from its end. Emmy’s ring. He had paid dearly for it—coin Dunmara could not afford, but for which Brody would have paid any price.
For months, he had convinced himself it was nothing more than infatuation—an impossible longing for a woman who had never truly belonged in his world. But standing here now, a year gone, with nothing but the wind and silence to keep him company, he could no longer lie to himself.
It hadn’t been mere fascination.
It hadn’t been fleeting.
Whatever had taken root in him when she first appeared in his life, it had not faded. Time had not dulled it. If anything, it had settled deeper, more permanent than he was sometimes able to withstand.
Brody inhaled sharply, his grip tightening on the wooden railing. He had never been one for pretty words or grand declarations, but this truth— this —was undeniable.
She had been his.
And he had been hers.
And though she was gone, she had left something of herself behind. Whether it was a blessing or a curse, he did not yet know. Some days he ached for her, reveling in memory; some days he tried to forget.
Today, he ached.
He pulled in a long draw of breath and let one word tear from his throat.
"Emmy!" he roared from the tower.
The sound echoed across the hills, powerful and raw, carried by the wind until it faded into silence.
***
Emmy had taken a job in Pitlochry—of all places—at the very same pub where she and her friends had dined that first night here, the night she’d gone missing. It was ironic, really. A year ago, she had laughed over wine and scallops, wrapped in the ease, if discontentedly, of a life that now felt impossibly distant. Now, she spent her evenings serving drinks and wiping down tables, watching tourists come and go, almost beginning to feel like she belonged here.
At first, after her parents left—frustrated, bewildered, and in her mother’s case, still furious —she had done little but wander. She had stalked the streets, haunting every corner of Pitlochry, lingering outside shops, pubs, and quiet alleyways, searching for a glimpse of that old woman she’d met on her first night in Pitlochry.
But days passed. Then weeks. Then months. And still, no sign.
With no real plan, no real purpose beyond the desperate hope that something— someone —might pull her back, Emmy had leased a small cottage on the outskirts of town. It was humble, tucked against the edge of a wooded glen, with a draft that no amount of layered blankets could quite keep out. But it was hers. And, more importantly, it was close .
She had gone through most of her savings in the first few months, refusing to leave, unwilling to give up. Working at the pub wasn’t glamorous, but it paid enough for rent and food, enough to keep her here, waiting. And strangely, even here—serving pints, wiping down sticky tables, chatting with locals and travelers alike—she felt more at home than she ever had in New York. There, she had drifted through a world of perfectly curated brunches, cocktail parties, and hollow conversations. Here, life was simpler, more tangible. She liked the weight of the pint glasses in her hands, the hum of laughter in the air, the way people had begun to greet her by name, wearing genuine smiles.
In the beginning—in those first days and weeks after waking up in the hospital—Emmy had exchanged texts constantly with Serena and Vanessa, and even more regularly with Madison. She had asked them over and over what they had seen, how it had looked from their vantage point—her disappearance. Their answers had been nearly identical, almost exactly what she might have expected. One moment, she was there. Then, in the blink of an eye, she was gone. They’d thought she had fainted at first. But somehow—while Serena was arguing with the old woman, while Vanessa had covered her face in fright, while Madison had been trying to flag down a passing couple, begging them to call 911—Emmy had simply... vanished.
You were just gone. Madison had texted those words, blunt and chilling in their finality.
Hardly able to explain her reluctance to return to New York, and even less willing to explain her need to stay in Pitlochry, their texts had become less frequent. Then sporadic. Until, eventually, they stopped altogether.
Emmy still spoke to her father occasionally. He called out of obligation, mostly, checking in with brief, clipped conversations that rarely lasted more than a few minutes. Her mother, on the other hand, had barely spoken to her since the day they parted ways in Edinburgh. A year later, she was still angry—furious that Emmy had walked away from everything. From Meredith Carter’s life, from them .
The thing was, Emmy wasn’t sure she cared.
What she did care about—what gnawed at her every night as she lay awake in her too-quiet cottage—was the terrifying possibility that a year had passed for her, but possibly far more for him.
Had Brody moved on?
Had he forgotten her?
Emmy pedaled her bike through the winding streets of Pitlochry, the cool bite of early spring lingering despite the sun stretching long golden rays across the rooftops. A year ago, this town had been unknown to her—quaint and picturesque, something out of a travel brochure. Now, it was familiar. The streets, the shops, the old stone bridge spanning the River Tummel—it was all second nature to her now.
She rode past the butcher’s, and Mrs. Kingow’s little set of holiday rental cottages, and the corner shop where she picked up groceries.
It all looked so ordinary.
But Emmy knew better. Somewhere beneath the surface of this sleepy little town, magic lurked—ancient and powerful, waiting for the right moment to stir. It had pulled her through time once before. It had to be here still.
She just had to find it.
She coasted to a stop in front of the pub, pressing her foot against the ground, her fingers tightening on the handlebars. Closing her eyes, she inhaled deeply, steadying her breath as she tried to focus.
Come on. Do it again. Take me back. Please.
Nothing happened. No shift, no flicker of power, no invisible pull sweeping her away. Just the same quiet hum of a town closing in on dusk, the distant laughter of a couple passing by, and the quiet rev of a car’s gears shifting.
You’ll figure it out, she told herself. This isn’t the end.
But deep down, a small voice whispered doubt. What if there wasn’t a way back? What if that one slip through time had been a fluke, a cosmic accident that could never be repeated? What if she never saw Brody again except for in her dreams?
The thought sent a shiver down her spine, but Emmy refused to entertain hopelessness. Sighing, she swung her leg off the bike and walked it around to the back entrance. Even as doubt sometimes gnawed at her, a single thread of hope remained. If there was magic in this world—and she knew now that there was—she would find it again. She had to.
She wasn’t giving up.
***
A few weeks later, Emmy sat cross-legged in the grass on her yoga mat, the soft hum of life buzzing around her. A park bench nearby was enjoyed by an elderly couple sharing a thermos of tea while they fed birds. Nearby, a young mother chased after her toddler, and somewhere in the distance, a dog barked playfully.
The world felt... calm.
Emmy leaned her face up toward the sun, her eyes closed, savoring the warmth. It was the first truly perfect day this year, sunny and mild, hardly any wind to speak of. The kind of day that made everything seem possible.
She had joined a yoga group in the mornings, not because she felt the need to stretch or work out, but because it was comforting sometimes to be among people, to give her mind peace from the thoughts that swirled daily, hourly. Today, however, for some reason, she hadn’t joined the others. She’d drifted to the edge of the park, settling in a sunny spot of her own. She sat in lotus pose, her fingers lightly resting on her knees, her breathing slow and steady.
Her mind wandered—back to him, as it always did.
Brody.
Her heart clenched at the thought of him. The memory of his voice, low and rough, whispering against her skin. Ye belong here, with me. He’d said it with such certainty, such quiet conviction, that she thought it was possibly her favorite memory of Brody.
Often, she repeated the words in her mind.
You belong here. You belong here.
Today, the mantra grew stronger with each repetition, echoing through her chest like a heartbeat. She breathed it in with the fresh air, letting it wrap around her. The sun grew warmer, the world blurring at the edges, the quiet buzz of the park fading into a distant hum.
For a brief moment, she felt something—something strange and yet, somehow familiar.
A tug.
She curled her fingers around her knees. Her breath caught in her throat and her eyes snapped open. The sunlight seemed brighter, almost blinding, the air thick and shimmering. Her pulse quickened as a sudden breeze stirred around her, sweeping across the grass and lifting her hair.
The tug grew stronger, pulling her downward, inward, until it felt like the ground was opening up beneath her.
Her heart raced, panic and exhilaration tangling in her chest. Emmy held her breath, waiting.
And then a flicker of movement in the distance caught her eye.
Beyond the park’s winding path, past the neatly trimmed hedges and scattered benches, a figure moved along the edge of the green space.
Emmy’s jaw dropped at finally seeing the old woman again.
Her stride was slow and deliberate, her dark cloak rippling slightly as she moved. But it wasn’t just her presence that made Emmy’s stomach clench—it was the way she looked now, how impossibly out of place she seemed against the backdrop of the modern world. The first time Emmy had seen her, outside the pub in Pitlochry, she’d looked like any other weathered, rag-wrapped vagrant, hunched against the cold, her gnarled fingers curled around that dull silver cup.
Now, it occurred to Emmy that she wasn’t dressed like a homeless woman, but like she had stepped straight out of the fourteenth century. The heavy wool of her cloak, the simple folds of her gown—everything about her was unmistakably old world , untouched by time, by modernity.
Emmy's skin prickled.
The crone didn’t turn toward her. She didn’t pause. Didn’t hesitate. She simply walked—steadily, assuredly—as if she belonged here, and yet, clearly, she did not.
And yet she spoke to her. Emmy was as sure of it, as sure as she knew her name and that her eyes were green.
?Tis love that joins people through time.
Emmy’s pulse pounded in her ears. She tried to lunge to her feet but could not move. The tug deepened, that unseen force curling around her chest, insistent, urgent. She fought against what seemed invisible hands. She squeezed her eyes shut as she struggled out of the grasp, wanting to move, to run, to finally confront the witch.
She couldn’t move, and when she opened her eyes, the old woman was gone. The path beyond the trees was empty, the air still again.
That’s when she heard it.
" Emmy! "
Astounded, her eyes widened, and her jaw gaped once again. The voice was faint but unmistakable, carried on the breeze like a whisper from another world.
"Brody," she whispered, her pulse racing. She glanced around the park, half-expecting to see him standing nearby, his dark eyes watching her with that familiar, beloved intensity.
But the park was as it had been a moment ago—calm, bright, ordinary, distressing modern.
I’m not imagining things.
Her stomach lurched. A wave of dizziness crashed over her, her limbs turning weightless, her senses twisting and distorting. She tried to move, to resist, but it was like being caught in a riptide, dragged under by something vast and unseen.
Emmy stopped fighting, hope blossoming, realizing what it was.
The world around her went blissfully dark as she’d been waiting for it to do.
And then—
Cold.
Dampness seeped through her clothes, clinging to her skin. A dull ache pulsed at the back of her skull. Her limbs felt heavy, unresponsive. Slowly, sluggishly, she woke—her fingers twitching against rough earth, the scent of damp moss, the distant murmur of wind stirring leaves and branches.
Emmy’s eyelids fluttered.
She was lying on her back, sprawled on the ground, the remnants of dizziness clinging to her like cobwebs. The sky above her was murky gray. She groaned softly, pressing a hand to her forehead, a hollow of nothingness filling her brain. Her throat was dry, and her body ached. Swallowing a gulp of dry air, she forced herself to sit up.
Her yoga pants clung to her legs, cool and...damp? Her T-shirt felt moist against her skin as well, raising a slight chill of goosebumps on her arms. Morning dew? The ground beneath her was damp as well, the mossy earth beneath her crushed, flattened completely in spots, as if she’d been here for hours. More?
She hadn’t woke with a pounding heart, but felt her heart rate increasing now, beginning to hammer in her chest as she glanced around, taking in her surroundings. Tall trees loomed around her, their trunks thick, ancient. The air smelled different here— wilder , untouched by exhaust fumes or city streets. A strange quiet settled over everything, no distant hum of cars, no murmur of people. Only the rustling of wind through branches, the occasional distant caw of a bird.
Joy began to curl in her chest. She wasn’t in the park anymore. She wasn’t in Pitlochry. Emmy turned her gaze downward, to her hands resting on the cool earth. Her breath caught. Her yoga mat was gone.
Hope lurched, sparked to life—she had moved. Or had been moved. She didn’t care.
The old woman in the park....
Emmy glanced around again, hope swiftly stuttering. But where was she? Nothing looked even remotely familiar. The light was muted, the air heavy. A low mist clung to the edges of the landscape, softening the world into something blurred and dreamlike.
She swallowed hard, trying to steady her breathing. Was she even in Scotland? Had the witch flung her to some entirely different place and time? Her legs wobbled as she pushed herself upright. Every inch of her body felt heavy, as though the weight of the time-travel still clung to her. Slowly, cautiously, she stepped forward.
The uneven ground made her falter, the soft, wet grass sinking under her bare feet. She wrapped her arms around herself, the chill of the air cutting through her damp clothes. She took another step. Then another.
Her breathing grew shallow as she moved away from the shelter of the trees, stepping toward the light of an open clearing ahead. At the edge of the trees, a vast meadow stretched before her, wild open land ripe with the scent of heather and moss. The colors were muted under the overcast sky, but the purples and greens of early spring were unmistakable. A breeze stirred the tall grasses, sweeping over her in a whisper, and a flock of distant birds took flight, scattering toward the horizon.
Emmy turned in slow circles, searching, expectant.
A lump rose in her throat. She realized she wasn’t sure what she had expected—that she’d open her eyes and find herself standing in Dunmara’s courtyard, Brody striding toward her, eyes blazing with shock and relief?—but here there was only silence. Only empty fields and wind and sky.
She pressed on, looking for anything familiar, even as she feared she’d not spent so much time—not enough time—outdoors in those winter weeks at Dunmara.
The wind shifted. A sound, faint and distant, stirred in the air.
Emmy froze in her tracks, listening as she held her breath.
A voice.
" Emmy! "
Her heart leapt into her throat. She turned toward the sound, her feet moving before she could think.
"Brody!" she called, her voice cracking, straining for the sound of his voice again. "Brody!” she yelled as loud as she could. The wind answered her, carrying her name again, and now she ran in the direction of his voice, veering slightly to the left. Her heart pounded, tears streaming down her face as she burst into the woods again, her eyes wild and searching. She tripped and fell, but pushed herself to her feet, and called his name again.
This time, when he answered, his voice was not a distant sound, not something carried on the wind, but here, close, urgent.
Then she saw him.
He came to a crashing halt near a long-dead but still standing pine, twenty yards away, his dark hair tousled by the wind and his sprint, his eyes and mouth wide with disbelief.
Emmy stopped running, her chest heaving.
For a moment, neither of them moved.
Then Brody broke into a run again, closing the distance between them with long, powerful strides.
"Emmy!" His voice was ragged,
Emmy moved again, as fast as she could, her feet barely touching the ground.
When they collided, Brody wrapped his arms around her, lifting her off the ground, his face buried in her neck.
“Ye came back," he whispered, his voice shaking. “Ye came back.”
Emmy clung to him, her fingers digging in her forearms locked around his neck. "I heard you," she said as she wept. "I heard you calling me."
Brody pulled back just enough to look at her, his hands framing her face, his eyes blazing with something raw and fierce. His thumbs trembled as they traced over her cheeks.
"I’ll nae let ye go again," he said, his voice low and rough. “Jesu, Emmy....”
Emmy nodded frantically— don’t ever let me go —and then his lips found hers, his kiss bruising and beautiful.
The ache in her chest—the one that had lived inside her for the past year, gnawing at her, haunting her, refusing to let her go—was gone.
?Tis love that joins people through time.
She wasn’t sure if she had truly heard those words, then or now, or if they had come from somewhere deep inside her own heart. But she knew, with every fiber of her being, that they were true. Joyous, laughing, she broke the kiss.
Her fingers tightened around the fabric of Brody’s plaid, anchoring herself in the solidness of him, in the warmth of his body pressed against hers. She lifted her gaze, finding his, and she saw it. The same ache, the same longing, mirrored in his deep brown eyes.
Her breath shuddered. “It was love,” she blurted. “That’s what the ache was. That’s what the longing was. I love you, Brody.”
“Emmy...” His voice was hoarse, thick with emotion.
She shook her head, cutting him off, her heart pounding so hard she thought it might break free from her chest. “And you love me too.” It wasn’t a question—it was a fact, undeniable, written in every look he had ever given her, in the way he had held her that night in the snow, in the way he had caressed her, and had just now run to her. “I heard a voice,” she continued, her hands curling around his wrists. “Saying that it’s love that joins people through time. And I think... I think that’s why I was moved in the first place.”
Brody exhaled sharply, his forehead pressing against hers. “Aye,” he whispered, his grip tightening around her. “Aye, lass. ?Tis love. Burning, aching, and now... Jesu , now found again—dinna ever take it away.”
With the same conviction that advised her of his love and hers, Emmy knew, deep in her heart, they would not ever be separated. “I won’t. I’m here, Brody, now and always. I promise.”