Chapter Twenty Eight
Alec scanned the wooden wall that enclosed the village of Saint Gabriel.
The village gate was open. The sun rose behind the hill, painting the soft clouds a dusky rose.
He passed through the gate and glanced back at Ramsay, who sat astride a large charger, his broad sword strapped to his back.
David and Nick both rode spotted mares. Paul had ridden on alone to Haddington to provide the abbot with a report.
The morning sun chased the chill from the air.
By the time they passed through the gate, the sky was bright, and it was clear that the first breath of Spring had come to Saint Gabriel.
People milled about, content to feel the sunshine on their faces for a change.
Wet, soft earth scented the air. Birdsong combined with the din of voices and laughter.
“I can’t believe we are here,” Joanie whispered.
He pressed her tighter to his chest. “Ye don’t feel afraid,” he observed.
“I’m not. I’m...” She expelled a breath. “I can hardly say how I feel.”
He pulled her closer. “Now, ye will at least know where she grew up.”
She turned and glanced up at him. “Is it still hot?” she whispered.
“Like fire,” Alec answered, knowing she meant the shard of stone. He was growing increasing excited. He did not doubt that the stone had led him to Joanie, and Joanie to Saint Gabriel. For good or for ill, the stone’s secret, mayhap Scotland’s secret, would soon be revealed.
Alec closed his eyes and allowed his heart to guide them. They wandered alongside several cottages and the blacksmith’s forge. Then they came to the village green.
“Look,” Joanie said, pointing. “It’s Saint Gabriel, just as Father Giles described.”
A wooden statue, intricately carved, stood guard in front of a fenced-in graveyard. A sudden wave of sadness surged through Alec.
“But then that means all those graves are...” Joanie faltered.
Alec knew what she did not want to say out loud. Children, once so beloved, lay beneath the small crosses that dotted the ground, too numerous to count.
He turned away from the heartbreaking sight, his eyes settling on a young woman with red hair twisted in a knot on her head, and a thick shawl about her shoulders. On her ample hip, she carried a basket of laundry. Suddenly compelled, he followed her.
“Where are we going?” he heard Ramsay ask, but Alec kept his silence, unable to tear his eyes away.
He had this incredible feeling of familiarity and warmth.
At the edge of the green, she turned down a road that led behind a cluster of clay and thatch huts.
Nudging his horse into a trot, he sped up after her, the urgency to find her growing stronger with each passing second.
He turned the corner. His heart started to pound when he stared down an empty path, but then he glimpsed just the end of her shawl lifting in the breeze like a finger beckoning him before disappearing around another corner.
“What is it Alec?” Joanie breathed.
He heard her words, but he couldn’t speak.
He could only ride. His heart raced. He rounded the corner.
And then he saw her. The young woman stood at the very end of the road where it stopped abruptly in front of a small stone cottage.
Her laundry basket still sat on her wide hip.
Who was she? Why was he so drawn to her?
Mayhap, she was a relation of Joanie’s. He carried on forward, but at a slower place, not wishing to alarm her.
He watched intently as she set the basket down and swept the shawl from her shoulders.
She stepped to the side, revealing an older woman sitting in a rough-hewn chair, her face downcast.
His breath caught. “It can’t be.”
“What is it?” Joanie asked.
The young woman swept the shawl around the older woman’s shoulder. Slowly, the old woman looked up and smiled.
It felt like thunder erupted in his chest the moment Joanie saw her.
Joanie grabbed his hands, her nails digging into him. Her body seized, and a word began to take form, originating soul-deep. It surged through her body, cutting a searing path of agony and hope up her throat and she screamed, “Grandmother.”
The woman jerked around. Her faded blue eyes grew wide, then she clasped a hand to her mouth and fell back into the chair. The young woman reached out to steady her. Gnarled fingers, splayed wide, reached out. “Joanie!”
Joanie jumped from the horse, the face she knew so well a blur through her tears. “Grandmother!”
“Joanie!”
Sobbing, Joanie fell to her knees and seized her grandmother’s hands.
Her aged body trembled and shook as tears coursed down her creased cheeks.
Then Joanie flung her arms wide and pulled her into a tremulous embrace.
Her softness, her smell, her breath, her feel, everything about her filled Joanie until there was no room inside her to breathe, or for her heart to beat.
Joanie sobbed and sobbed, thinking she would surely die if she were to awaken and it was all a dream.
“Are you real?” Joanie cried, pulling back to see her grandmother’s face. Still, her grandmother cried. She could only nod, her lips pressed wide, and she held Joanie tight. Joanie knew in her heart, in her soul that she was real.
She was alive!
Joanie faltered and pulled away. Her stomach dropped, and her blood ran cold.
Her grandmother was alive, which meant...
She had never died.
Fury, unbidden and undeniable, shot through her. Her hands clenched into tight fists as the ugly truth boiled to the surface of her heart.
“But he said you were dead,” she gritted, squeezing her fists tighter. Rage like nothing she had ever known coursed through her. She couldn’t breathe.
“He told me you were dead,” she cried again. “He ... he ... buried you, and he...” She pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes, unable to find a way out of her anger. Then, suddenly, Alec’s arms came around her.
“Put it in me,” he breathed in her ear. “Give all yer rage to me.”
She clung to him, squeezing him, tension riddling her body as she fought to see beyond her hatred for a father who could tell his daughter such a vicious lie.
“I am here.”
Her grandmother’s words slowly soothed their way into her mind. “I am here, sweetling.”
Alec’s heat soothed a path to her heart.
She felt her grandmother rest her hand on her back.
Slowly, the fury softened. She released her grip on Alec’s tunic.
Her shoulders fell away from her ears, and she turned in Alec’s arms and beheld her grandmother’s beautiful blue eyes, which crinkled when a smile spread across her face.
Pressing her lips together to hold back a fresh wave of tears, Joanie left Alec’s arms and entered her grandmother’s embrace. “There, there, sweetling. I’m here now,” she crooned, just as she had when Joanie was a little girl.
Joanie lifted her head and whispered, “Alec, this is my grandmother, Margaret.”