Chapter Twenty-Two #5
Alex talks about life and death and love. This scene is one of my favorites,
and I sobbed all the while I wrote it. It opens with Alasdair in denial about his
feelings of loss. Dyna is as perceptive as their grandsire.
They’d nearly made it back to Grant land when Dyna started in on him again. This time, she did not bother with preliminaries. “’Tis time for us to have a discussion.”
He cast her a stony glare, hoping it would end the conversation. “By the bloody saints above, could you not let me be?”
“Nay, and in case you’re wondering, I sent Alick and Els on ahead. They’ll let you off, but I won’t. You need to face this.”
They rode on in silence for a short time, but he knew she wasn’t finished.
A few minutes later, she said, “You must stop hiding from it.”
Hellfire, why couldn’t she just leave him be? Though her badgering was well-intentioned, sometimes he just wished to throttle her. She knew more than she should, her knowledge had teeth. “Nay, I don’t. I’m not hiding from anything.”
“The hell you aren’t.”
Now she’d started to aggravate him. He decided he’d had enough of her meddling. “Must you continue to nag at me? You’re like the midges, always around, always biting. Leave me be, Dyna. I’ve got naught to say.”
“And it’s eating at you something fierce,” she said, her tone harsh. “I can see it so clearly. Why can’t you?”
“What the hell is eating at me? What has you so convinced I’m in need of advice?”
“The fact that you left Emmalin alone to fend for herself. Any fool could see you love her and she loves you. I can see it, she can feel it, but you deny it. Why?”
“I didn’t leave her there to fend for herself. I left a fine group of Grant warriors there to protect her.”
“You may have saved her from one pain,” Dyna said, raising her brow, “but you gave her another. Don’t you both deserve some happiness? You come so close to the truth, Alasdair, yet you still deny it.”
They were nearly at the castle gates. He could see Grant Castle up ahead on the hill, its banners waving strong in the Scottish wind. He was anxious to see his grandsire again, to update him on all that had happened.
To get away from Dyna’s questions.
“Tell me the truth,” she said. “Tell me how angry you are. Rail at me if you must. You have to get the anger out or it will eat up your insides. I won’t let that happen to you.”
He ignored her. An odd silence had fallen among the guards around them, as if everyone was waiting to see if he would lose this temper.
“It’s been nearly a year. ’Tis time to face the truth.” She smirked at him, then whispered, “Or don’t you have the courage?”
That was it. He’d had enough. If she wanted to make him mad, she’d succeeded. He yelled to the guards and Els and Alick, who stayed just far enough away to give them privacy, “Go on ahead. Take your horses to the stables and leave us be.”
As soon as the others were far enough away, he jumped down from his horse and moved over to grab his cousin’s leg out of the stirrup. “Come on. You want to talk? Fine. Get your arse down off that horse and we will talk. But I’m not angry.”
She jumped down and stood in front of him, pushing a finger at his chest. “You have a right to be angry.”
“Fine. I am angry. It’s not fair. I lost my mother and I shouldn’t have. She got sick and never got better.”
“And?”
He couldn’t say it—nay, he just couldn’t say the words. He paced around the horses, but he could see how anxious it made Midnight, so he stalked away again. And his cousin followed him, as relentless as a deerhound on a scent.
“What?” He spun around to yell at her. “What the hell do you want me to say?”
“I want you to say it. You know what. Say it. If you don’t, you’ll never be able to move on. Never.”
“I don’t want to say it. I don’t ever want to say it.”
“You are afraid. Fine, then I’ll say it. We’ve all danced around the truth for much too long. ’Tis not helpful to you.”
“Don’t do it.” He pointed his finger at her, backing away despite himself. “I swear to God, do not say those words. Do not, Dyna!”
She moved closer to him and leaned toward him.
“Dyna, I’m warning you. Do. Not. Say. Those. Words.”
Her gaze caught his and she whispered the truth. Words he hated to hear. Every time he heard them, they pierced his already broken heart.
“Alasdair, your father’s dead, too.”
“Nay!” he bellowed. He fell to his knees and yelled a guttural cry that needed to come out. He roared and roared until his throat was raw, hoping he yelled loudly enough that his sire could hear him in heaven.
He knew it needed to be said. She knew it. But he didn’t want to believe the truth.
He wanted to be a man like his sire. The laird. The warrior. The wonderful husband. The wise father. But to do that, he would have to face the pain in his heart and he just did not know how. He did not know how to move on.
Unsheathing his sword, he moved over to a group of trees and began to swing it at the branches, the leaves, everything. He wanted to scare Dyna, to convince her to stay away.
He wanted her to stop.
He wasn’t sure he could handle any more.
Dyna followed him as he slashed.
“Good, Alasdair. Now tell me why you can’t marry Emmalin.”
He slashed two more branches, then stabbed his sword into the ground. “Marry her? I’ll tell you why not. Because I love her. That’s right, I do love her. And I’m not going to go through what the others went through. I won’t. I just won’t.” He paced again.
There, he’d said it. She’d understand now and leave him alone.
“What did they go through? Having a family who loved them? Having bairns? What are you afraid of?”
“Who? My father. I’m an only child. I was the one who held my father when he found out my mother had died.
I was the one who had to peel him away from her body because he couldn’t let her go.
And I did the same with Grandsire. You weren’t there when he lost Grandmama.
Well, I was. And I’m never going to go through the pain they went through. ”
Dyna’s eyes widened. He’d finally surprised her.
“Aye, I was the one who pulled Grandfather away from Grandmama. No one else would do it. Everyone else was busy crying, but I couldn’t stand to see that man sob any more so I pulled him away. And I sat with him every day for the next moon to make sure he would go on.”
Dyna had tears running down her cheeks. “You did. I hadn’t looked at it that way, but you did. You were older than me, and I suppose I thought you were stronger, too. ’Twasn’t fair.”
“Aye, I did it for Grandsire, and then I had to go through it again with my sire. Think you I wish to go through the same? I don’t.”
“But everything you’ve been through has made you stronger, don’t you see? You deserve happiness.”
“Nay, I am not strong. My sire was so much stronger than I will ever be, and if he could not survive losing Mama, I know I could not survive such a loss either. Emmalin is better off without me.”
“Alasdair, I’m sorry. I hadn’t intended to dredge all of that up. I…”
Alasdair sheathed his sword and raced over to his horse, leaping onto Midnight’s back and riding hard to the keep. There was one more thing he had to do. He’d wanted to do this for a long time and he hadn’t. It was one other thing he had avoided.
When he got to the stables, he jumped off his horse and tossed his sword on the ground, not speaking to anyone. He ran down the path through the inner bailey, gathering stones and putting them in a bag. When he felt he had enough, he hurried into the keep with his collection.
He simply nodded in response to those who greeted him, moving too quickly for anyone to ask him any questions. Up the stairs. Down the passageway. Up the stairs to the parapets. ignored all those who greeted him in the great hall. Grandpapa was not there.
He set his stones down and yelled up to the heavens, “Papa, I need you here right now. Half of my family believes in spirits and ghosts, so I’m telling you to come to me.”
He needed him. He’d heard plenty of talk about ghosts or ethereal beings, and it was said Aunt Jennie’s lasses could hear the dead.
Well, if anyone had the right to talk to a dead spirit, he did.
He’d waited, praying that his father would send him some sort of message, but nothing had ever happened.
Just like nothing was happening now.
He bellowed two more times. “John Alexander Grant. Jake Grant, married to my dearest mother Aline. I want to talk to you. You owe me this at least. Please.”
He waited, wishing for his sire’s spirit to appear in front of him. If not that, could he at least have a sign? Something?
Why had his father died six moons after his mother? It was too much.
It had been too painful.
The air changed, a light wind appearing out of nowhere, and he was filled with a sense of wonder. “Papa?”
A familiar scent filled the air, the mint leaves his sire had always chewed. The aroma passed by him, no, through him. His father was there. Somehow. Some way.
He picked up his stones and started throwing them as hard as he could into the air.
He fired one after the other at an invisible target.
“These are for you, Papa. Why did you leave me? I’d just lost Mama, and then you left me.
How could you do that to me? They say you died of a broken heart, because you couldn’t go on without Mama.
What about me?” His throws became more sporadic as pain wrenched at him.
“What about me, Papa? I’m all alone. Els has brothers and sisters, and so do Alick and Dyna. But me? I’m alone. I’m alone.”
He set his face in his hands and forced the tears back, bellowing his frustration.
“Nay, you’re not alone, son,” said a familiar voice. He whirled around to see his grandpapa standing next to the doorway. “You’ve never been alone.”
The two lairds came out behind Grandpapa. Uncle Jamie and Uncle Connor.
“Alasdair, you’re not alone,” his grandsire said. “We’re all here for you. Aye, you’ve had a difficult year, losing your mother and your father.”