Chapter 13
13
Keyanna
“Can you just tell me where we’re going?”
“It’s not much further,” Lachlan tosses over his shoulder.
I push another branch out of the way, trying to follow Lachlan’s broad back. His red flannel is a beacon in the sea of green branches we’ve been maneuvering through for the last half hour, and at this rate, I’m starting to wonder if this is another Loch Land situation. Or maybe something even more nefarious.
“You’re not leading me into the woods to kill me, are you?”
I don’t see him roll his eyes, but I can feel it. “Lot cleaner ways to get you out of the picture if I wanted to, lass.”
“Well, that’s comforting.”
“I have a feeling you’d be just annoying enough to haunt me anyway,” he answers with a chuffed laugh.
“Absolutely I would,” I assure him. “I’d be singing at you every night while you tried to sleep.”
“Aye, that would definitely be terrifying.”
I scoff. “It’s not that bad.”
“About as lovely sounding as Bethie was when she had her last calf,” he chuckles.
Now I roll my eyes. “Seriously, will you just tell me where we’re— oof. ”
I come to halt as I collide with his wide frame, my hands slamming into his back and my cheek squishing between his shoulder blades. I shove myself away as I start sputtering, but then I notice where we are. The ground is covered with dried leaves, the entire area shaded beneath the canopy of trees as filtered light streams down through the foliage. The rows of granite and stone are weathered with age, and I step around Lachlan, cocking a brow up at him as I cross my arms over my chest.
“Well, this is…ominous.”
He’s brought me to what looks to be a massive graveyard, and I frown at the worn headstones that span as far back into the trees as my eyes can see. I’ve never liked cemeteries, not that I imagine anyone just loves them—but something about the idea of bones beneath my feet leaves me unsettled. It makes me grateful that my dad wanted to be cremated. I could never quite come to terms with the idea of burying him in the dirt.
“Our family is buried here,” Lachlan tells me.
“ Our family?”
“Aye, yours and mine.” He points to the rows that creep to the east. “See that fence there? The one going right through the rows of graves?”
“Yes.”
“That’s the property line between your family’s land and the Greer land. It goes on for miles, dividing it right down the middle. My family owned all of Greerloch once upon a time, but over the last few centuries, it’s been broken up into smaller parcels. This spot here, though…this is where everything began.”
“In a graveyard,” I clarify.
“In a manner of speaking,” he answers thoughtfully. “It’s the first parcel your family bought after mine was cursed.”
I turn my head toward the opposite way, hearing Lachlan moving behind me as I close the short distance between myself and a cluster of graves. The tombstones vary between small, stumpy little curves that barely rise from the grass all the way to towering monuments that are as tall as I am—and sure enough, upon closer inspection, I notice the name MacKay etched into the whole lot of them.
My eyes come to rest before one in particular that is just a few inches taller than me, drawn by the realistic carving that feels almost too real, given that the stone is weather-beaten and decorated with moss. A wide, rectangular base comes all the way to my chest before sprouting into the thick neck of a horse. There’s an old, brittle leather strap around the horse’s neck, curling around and up to its face as if you could actually grab it and urge the horse to move. A quick glance at the front reveals faded marks in the stone, the name so old you can barely make it out. If I didn’t know these were MacKay graves, I wouldn’t even know the last name, but the first name is illegible. Thomas? Travis? Something with a T. Maybe—
“This way,” Lachlan calls, interrupting me from my side quest.
He walks away from me toward the fence line, pressing his foot down on the barbed wire and holding another piece up so I can squeeze between them. He follows me through it, moving past me for a few more yards before coming to a stop in front of a massive grave adorned with a statue of a Celtic cross. His last name is etched into the stone, and I watch as he kneels in front of it, brushing away a pile of leaves.
“This was my ancestor,” he tells me. “Some great-grandfather to the umpteenth degree back at the end of the thirteenth century.”
“Was he…?”
“Like me? Aye. The first.”
Lachlan’s elbows rest on his knees as he remains crouched, and I sneak a peek at the furrow in his brow, watching the light breeze blow his dark honey locks around his temples. His plush mouth is pressed together in thought, and I have to tear my eyes away from the picture he paints—brooding Scotsman is not what I’m here for today.
“I come here a lot to think,” he admits.
I make a face. “That’s kind of creepy.”
He doesn’t answer, still staring at the ruined tombstone. He opens his mouth to speak again, and his voice comes out in a low whisper when he says:
“O Thou, of face so fair an’ name so high,
With heart as black as the darkest sky
Thy cursed deeds yield cursed prize
An’ prayers nor pleas will spare thy fate
In moonlight change till the sun doth rise
Yer flesh shall bear yer soul’s foul weight.”
He lets the words marinate in the air for a moment, and I sense there’s something important about them, but I don’t really know what. I’ve never been one for poetry.
“That’s…pretty?”
He shakes his head, scowling up at me. “It’s a curse. It’s the curse. The one placed on my ancestor almost eight hundred years ago. And every son born into my family is cursed to become a monster from sundown to sunrise. Every single one.”
“But…” My mouth opens and closes as my mind reels, trying to make sense of what he’s saying. “For eight hundred years? Really? What in the hell did your ancestor do ? I mean, to be cursed, you usually have to do something bad, right?”
Lachlan’s jaw tics, his eyes narrowing. “He didn’t do anything besides put his faith in the wrong person.”
“Really?” My nose wrinkles. “But the poem said, ‘Thy cursed deeds yield cursed prize,’?” I point out. “Doesn’t that mean he did something?”
“I can’t make sense of the words of a witch,” he scoffs, rising to his full height. “My ancestor gave refuge to a kelpie, and in the end, this is what it got him.”
“A kelpie?”
“Aye. Fae creatures from the auld ages. They were said to appear as beautiful maidens when they weren’t in their horse forms.”
“ Horse forms?”
“Och, because I suppose your American nine-foot-tall ape man is so much more believable?”
“I’m not trying to argue which cryptid is more believable,” I say. “I mean, I saw the Loch Ness Monster last week. So…”
“ Kelpies ”—he stresses the word, daring me with his eyes to question him—“are known to be tricksters with great magic. Their power lies in their bridles, and it’s said that if you can take control of a kelpie’s bridle, you can control their magic as well.”
“Okay, that’s interesting, but what does it have to do with your ancestor?”
“My ancestor struck a deal with a kelpie witch. He promised her safe haven for her and all her kin if she would lend him the power to defeat the clans who sought to claim his land.”
“And did she?”
“Aye, she did,” he tells me. “But when it was through, she cursed him anyway.”
I frown. “But why?”
“And how am I to know?” He throws up his hands in frustration. “It’s not as if there’s some history book I can leaf through. Everything I know has been passed down in stories from one Greer to the next. It’s said they’re wicked, selfish creatures. Maybe he was punished for daring to think he could wield her magic in the first place. All I know is that, because of her, every son in my family turns into a beast at night.”
I look down at my shoes, considering. It seems too fantastical, everything he’s telling me, but then again, I literally just found out last week that the Loch Ness Monster was a hot, asshole-ish farmhand during the day, so I know I need to keep an open mind. Besides, magic horse witches seem as good a reason as any for Lachlan to turn into a dinosaur-looking creature every night.
“And that’s all the curse said? Was there any more?”
His lips part, and for the briefest moment there is a slight widening of his eyes, but then his mouth drifts closed, and he clears his throat. “Aye, that’s all there was. All I have to go on. It’s not been much help, I can tell you that.”
“So what happened to the rest of your family? Are they…are they in the loch too?”
He shakes his head. “We don’t live longer than any other human. We don’t have any special sort of powers. My grandpa passed away when I was a boy. My mother left when—” His jaw clenches as he goes quiet, and I notice the way his fists tighten at his sides. “My mother left when my da disappeared.”
“He disappeared? When?”
“When I was still a boy. Eight or so. My mum couldn’t handle it. I lived with my granny after that until she passed.”
“I’m sorry,” I tell him, meaning it. “Was it—was it something to do with your curse?”
He meets my gaze, his eyes hard and so angry-looking. “Aye, it was.”
“He didn’t— I mean, that is, is he still…?”
“He’s alive.”
“How do you know?”
“Well,” Lachlan says carefully, his eyes still locked with mine. “For starters, he tried to eat you the other night.”
My mouth gapes with the implication. “You mean—you mean he’s—”
“Aye.” Lachlan nods solemnly. “One night, my da changed into a monster.” His brow knits, a glint of sadness in his eyes. “And then he never changed back.”
“I…Wow.”
“He’s no more than a beast now,” Lachlan says quietly. “He doesn’t know me. Not anymore.”
His words send a sharp stab of pain through me, and I have the strangest urge to reach out and hug him, but I hold myself back. I have a feeling he wouldn’t be very welcoming of the gesture.
“I’m sorry,” I say again. “I know how hard that is. Trust me.”
“I reckon you do,” Lachlan answers just as softly. “Maybe that’s why I’m telling you.”
“So your dad…” My head swims as pieces fall together, the enormity of everything he’s saying crashing down on me and making it a little hard to breathe. “Your dad saved my dad.”
“He did.”
“Did you know?”
“Aye, I did.”
His omission sparks a flicker of anger inside me, and I take a step to crowd his space without even realizing I’ve done it. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Why should I have? I didn’t even know you.”
“But you did after . You knew after you saved me in the loch—you knew about my dad! How could you not say anything?”
“I think a better question would be why didn’t your da tell you any of this?”
That gives me pause. “What?”
“You really think Duncan didn’t know any of this?”
“I don’t—what do you mean?”
“Your da knew exactly who the monster who saved him was. They were friends for a time.”
“No,” I say immediately. “No. He would have told me if he knew.”
“Maybe he didn’t want to have to tell you the truth of the matter,” Lachlan says with an accusing tone. “Maybe he didn’t want to tell you how he swore to help my father, just like you are swearing to me now, only to run off to America with the first bonnie lass he laid eyes on!”
“That’s not true,” I argue. “No. He wouldn’t do that.”
“Aye, but he did. My father was a fool to believe him in the first place.”
“Don’t,” I warn.
Lachlan’s lip curls. “My da should have known better than to trust a MacKay. It’s the only thing we’ve ever been sure of. You can never trust a MacKay.”
“You keep saying that!” I yell, throwing up my arms. “Ever since I first met you, you’ve been grumbling about how awful my family is, and yet you’re living on their land! I don’t get it, Lachlan. My dad was a good man. He would never just abandon someone if he promised to help them. Why do you keep insisting that my entire family is bad?”
Lachlan takes a heavy step, lowering his head so that his eyes are level with mine, and I feel my heart thump harder in my chest with the proximity. I can smell the spicy scent of his cologne blending with the scent of clean detergent and a bit of the greenery we spent the afternoon walking through—and without even realizing I’m doing it, I draw in a deep inhale just as his silvery blue eyes turn hard.
“Because,” he says darkly. “It was your family that cursed mine.”
I rear back as if he’s slapped me, trying to reconcile what he’s said with everything he’s already told me and coming up empty.
“But that’s not possible,” I scoff. “That would mean that—”
“Aye,” he cuts in. “Congratulations, Keyanna. You’re the proud descendant of a kelpie.”