Chapter 14
Jubilation coursed through Piper. She wanted to high five someone, she was so excited about her success.
She’d marched into the forest, said the words she remembered Lachlan using, tossed the herbs onto the ground and blithely nicked her finger, spilling one tiny drop of blood. She’d growled out a verse to My Darling Clementine, then closed her eyes, daring the universe to defy her.
When she opened them, she knew she was in the right year, as certain as she was of her own name. Deep in the recesses of her mind, behind all her exhilaration at finally making time travel her bitch, she felt deep fear, but she ignored it. Or rather, dismissed it as having nothing to do with her.
“Yeah, you should be scared,” she said, then quickly turned around to make sure she was alone in the woods.
Straightening her bodice and skirts, she headed for the village, fairly certain Rose wouldn’t live at the castle. Though she was a Glen, she’d had to hide that fact, unable to explain to them where she’d come from. In her diary, John had been a miller. So, she was going to find the mill.
She paused at the bottom of the high street, taking in this version of Castle on Hill. It was better populated and more built up than the seedy, sad 1729 version. In fact, it was fairly bustling. A few people walked along the streets and she was pleased to see her dress would fit in well. The men dressed in trousers instead of kilts and she felt a bit sad at that change.
The stable was where she remembered it, as well as the inn, though that was much more inviting now and shops had sprung up around it. Further down the street was a nice new pub, an apothecary and a printing press. Across the way was the milliner and a few more shops selling this and that.
If she got stuck here, it would be a vast improvement over Lachlan’s time. She’d thought coming back to the past would hurl her into a fresh bout of despair at missing him, but everything was too different, almost more like a quaint version of her own time.
A shout from above followed by a torrent of dirty water hitting the street several feet away from her brought her back to reality. Okay, so not like her own time, not at all.
She didn’t want to have to talk to anyone if she could help it. Her fake Scottish accent was atrocious. She’d tried it once on the tourists who came to the castle and Sam had quickly put a stop to it, telling her she was shaming an entire nation, as well as embarrassing herself.
The last thing she wanted to do was arouse curiosity in any of the villagers with her foreign accent. Then they’d scrutinize her short hair and find fault with her gown, and she’d be screwed before she found Rose. She also didn’t want Rose to fall under censure. She’d worked hard to build a life in this time. Piper didn’t want to ruin it for her.
She headed toward the river, deciding to try the old ruins there in hopes that in this time it would be a working mill. If Rose and her husband weren’t the proprietors, she’d find a way to get information. She spent the whole meandering walk along the riverbank thinking up a back story for herself when she saw the wheel turning in the distance.
She stopped to admire it, enjoying the relaxing whooshing sound it made as it did its rounds, and the heady rush of the river. It must have been extra rainy that year. The river was higher than she’d ever seen it.
Piper wandered around outside for a while, looking over the water wheel and trying to work up the nerve to go inside. She picked a small bouquet of scraggly wildflowers, thinking it would be nice to give them to Rose.
“Lass? Are ye lost?”
Piper turned at the sound of the voice. A woman, slightly taller than her, with dark brown hair peppered with silver strands, stood several feet away, looking expectant and welcoming. Piper knew instantly from the few pictures her mother had, that this was her grandmother. Her hair was up in a bun, her dress dusted with flour, and she carried a sack of grain in her arms. Piper numbly held out the flowers, shaking from head to toe.
“Oh my dear, ye dinna look well,” Rose said, hurrying forward and taking her arm. She gave Piper a good looking over and dropped her arm with a gasp. “Who are ye?” she asked sharply. “Ye canna be her, it’s been so long.” Her voice held a tinge of alarm.
“My name is Piper Sinclair,” she said, not knowing how to ease into it. “You haven’t seen me since I was a baby.” Rose staggered and dropped her grain sack. Piper held up her hands and shrugged. “I can do it, too,” she said.
Rose gasped for breath, but wouldn’t let Piper help her. She kept her distance and squinted at her granddaughter. “Ye look like…” she shook her head. “Ye’re Finley’s child? The wee lass?”
“That’s me,” Piper said.
“Has it been so many years, then?”
Piper frowned, wondering if all the time jumping had addled Rose’s brain. Well, time did fly for older people, and Rose clearly kept busy helping to run the mill. “I’m twenty-six,” she said. “I just found out that you came back. Like I said, I can do it too, and I wanted to find you. I, uh, need your help.”
“Ye must come inside.” Rose ignored the sack she’d dropped and stalked toward the cottage further down the river from the mill.
Piper hurried to keep up, following her inside the small house. There was a roomy cooking and eating area, a spinning wheel surrounded by piles of wool, a few mismatched wooden chairs with homey cushions tied to them, a cabinet with a basin, and a narrow bed covered with an intricately designed quilt. Piper wondered if Rose’s needlework skills had improved over the years or if the quilt was a gift. A dozen or more crosses hung on the walls along with wreaths of dried flowers.
Rose took a bottle from the mantel and poured herself a healthy slug into a wooden cup. She waved the bottle at Piper in offering.
“No thank you,” Piper said. This reunion wasn’t playing out at all like she’d imagined.
“This is a shock.” Rose sat down in one of the chairs, pushing the other one toward Piper. “Sit. Tell me why ye’re here. Is your mother well?”
She seemed exactly as her mother always described her, distant. She hadn’t seen her granddaughter or daughter in more than twenty years, and there was nary a tear or a hug, and barely this polite question. Piper thought if she didn’t answer, but got straight to why she was there, Rose would hardly care. She’d been tormented by Daria for much longer, Piper reminded herself. That would change anyone for the worse.
“I found your diary,” Piper started hesitantly. “I know about …” she paused, taking a deep breath. “I know about Daria.”
Rose slammed her cup down on the table and rocked forward as if in pain.
“I’m sorry,” Piper said, wishing she hadn’t brought that up so soon. She tried a different tack. “Then I found the letter you left Fenella. I just put it together that you came back to be with John.” She smiled. “I can’t wait to meet him. Is he at the mill?”
Rose looked past her, out the window. Her lip twitched. “No, dear, he isn’t at the mill.” She turned her steady gaze to Piper, who flinched at the depths of sorrow she saw there. “I did come back for John,” she said. “It was all I could think about from the moment I left. The worst mistake I ever made, that. I should have stayed and fought. Running only made her angrier.”
“What do you mean?” Piper asked, wishing she had accepted the whiskey after all.
“John is dead,” Rose said. “I was too late. I never got to be with him again”
“I’m sorry,” Piper whispered.
“I tried so many times to make it come out different. Oh, ye dinna know how I kept trying. Sometimes I’d get a glimpse of him before she wrenched me away again to the point when he died. Then I was stuck here, for I was dead in my own time. I thought I might have won, but she got her revenge in the end.”
“Why did she want revenge against you?” Piper asked, grief-stricken for Rose. She wanted to take Rose’s hand, but thought she would be rebuked.
“No real reason that I know. She was mad. She went from one time to another, I think never half knowing where she was or who she was tormenting. She went on and on about her murdered love once, though. Thought I’d killed him. I could never convince her otherwise. She laughed and said I should wait and see what the future held. Just mad.”
Piper’s vision pinpointed and she gripped the edge of the table, trying to keep from falling off the chair. It was her. Piper had started the cycle of suffering for her entire family.
She was the reason Daria’s lover Brian Duncan was dead. Lachlan had cut him down with an axe to keep him from strangling her. She was the reason her grandmother had been whisked back in time to fall in love with someone, then torn away again, only to have her husband killed right when she thought they might be reunited. And Daria had taken her from Lachlan, too. So much suffering. Surely it had to be almost over. Rose had to know what to do to make it all stop.
“Are ye well?” Rose asked, snapping her fingers under her nose.
Piper shook her head. “No,” she gasped. “Please, I’ll take that drink now.”
Rose gave her a cup of whiskey and she gulped it down, trying to let the burn of the alcohol work out the tight knot in her chest. She sat in stunned silence until Rose spoke again.
“She’d check in regularly to make sure I was suffering. I haven’t seen her in some time though. Maybe she’s finally had enough.”
“She’s dead,” Piper told her. At least in body, she left unspoken.
Rose stood up, her hands over her mouth, then sat back down. She didn’t seem to know what to do with herself, she was so excited. “Are ye sure? Ye have proof?”
“I was there.” Piper reached over and placed her fingertips on Rose’s sleeve. Rose looked down at her fingers as if they were tiny adders, but didn’t move her arm. “Listen, she took someone I love, too.” She had to stop, afraid the floodgates were about to open. “He was the one who killed her.”
“Ye’re certain she’s dead and gone?” Rose asked again.
Piper gulped, slammed with the memory of the meaty thunk when the axe blade hit Daria’s neck. She squeezed her eyes shut, but the image was in her forever. “Dead, yes. I’m certain of that. But I don’t know if she’s gone.”
Rose leaned back in her chair and squinted sideways. “What do ye mean by that?”
Piper wanted another drink but trembled so badly she knew she’d never get the cup to her lips. “Please,” she said. “I came because I need your help. I think Daria had some powers, some strong powers.”
“D’ye think?” Rose asked, and it took Piper a second to recognize the sarcasm in her voice. She looked at Piper with a mix of disdain and pity, like she was a dead mouse the cat had left on the porch.
Piper’s hands began to lose their sensation and she flexed her fingers to get her blood to flow properly, sure she was going to lose the whiskey shot, her stomach was in such upheaval.
“She told me right before she died that death couldn’t stop her. I think she— her spirit maybe, is in me.” She broke down, leaning over and burying her face in her skirts, half wishing her grandmother would bash her skull in.
Instead, a few moments later, she felt Rose stroke the top of her head, pushing her hair away from her face. Piper looked up to see her smiling at her.
“There now, lass,” Rose said. “Let your granny help ye. Why do ye think the witch’s spirit has ye?”
Piper wiped her cheeks on her skirt and sat up shakily. “I felt it. I saw the look in her eye right before she died. I, uh, hear her voice in my mind.” She looked down at her hands, picking at her cuticles until Rose tipped her chin up.
Rose leaned over and peered into her eyes. “Daria’s spirit is in there?” She got so close Piper’s eyes crossed, then leaned back and nodded. “We must destroy it.”
Piper breathed out a sigh of relief. “When I found your diary, and the letter saying the land should go to me, I knew you could help.”
Rose crossed to the stove and put the kettle on, turning her back and rummaging with the tea things. “Aye, dear. I can help. Do ye agree that the most important thing is to vanquish her? Rid the world of her completely?”
“Yes, of course,” Piper said fervently. “It’s all I want.” Grateful tears slid down her cheeks and her grandmother tutted.
“Dinna cry anymore,” she said. “Let grandma Rose take care of ye. A nice cup of tea will fix ye all up.”
When Rose handed her the tea, she gulped it down, eager for its soothing warmth. She tried not to grimace at the bitterness of the strange herbal brew and held the cup between her shaking hands. Rose pulled up a chair next to her and patted her knee, keeping her eyes intently on Piper’s face, as if she might actually morph into Daria at any moment.
“I’m so glad I found you,” she said. Rose’s scrutiny unnerved her at first, but she grew more relaxed as she sat there sipping her tea. She hadn’t felt so tranquil in a long time. “Do you think we can really get rid of her for good?”
Rose pursed her lips and nodded. “Aye, I’m certain of it. Drink up and dinna worry.” She closed her eyes and took a ragged breath. “We shall both be free of her at last.”
***
Piper woke up in a dank cell with a tiny window high up in the wall. By the weak light that emanated through it, she figured it must be late afternoon, but how long she’d been out, she didn’t know. Her mouth was dry and her stomach gurgled unhappily. Her head felt like it had a stake through it. Whatever Rose slipped into her tea, it had been potent.
She thought she should be glad she was still alive, but was too nervous at the moment. Why had Rose drugged her, and why was she locked up now?
Dragging herself to the door of her bleak prison, she pounded on it and called out as best she could with her parched throat. When nobody responded after a half an hour of pounding and pleading, she gave up, exhausted from the effort.
The light grew rapidly dimmer and her unease escalated to fear. While she still had any light at all, she crawled into the corner nearest the window, hoped there would be a full moon to keep her company if she woke up in the middle of the night, and curled into a ball to wait.
The door slammed open, jarring her from her restless sleep. A tall, cadaver-like man filled the doorway, reached down and yanked her up by the arm.
“Come with me,” he said.
He dragged her along a lamp lit corridor and pushed her into a large room that held a desk, a few chairs, and her grandmother. A prematurely balding young man with round spectacles stood in the corner with an old, potbellied priest. Piper’s confidence plummeted when she saw what lay on the desk.
“We’ll do the charges,” the cadaver said, waving at the chairs.
Rose remained standing, but the two men took a seat.
“Grandma Rose, what’s going on?” Piper asked, taking a step forward and being jerked back.
Rose recoiled from her and cast her wide eyed gaze to the three men in turn. “D’ye hear what she calls me? Ye know my daughter died an infant. I have no granddaughter. She must be mad, or a demon.”
Piper blinked several times, unsure of what she’d just heard come out of Rose’s mouth. She tried to reach out to her and once again the cadaver pulled her back, this time roughly squeezing her shoulder.
“Can ye explain to Father Kirk and the constable what ye told me yesterday?” he asked Rose.
She cleared her throat and glanced at them all again, her eyes dewy and afraid. What in tarnation was going on? The cadaver continued to dig his bony fingers into her shoulder as he pressed her into the remaining chair. He gave her a look that warned her to stay put and went around to the other side of the desk.
“This woman appeared in front of my home yesterday, causing a great, cold wind to follow her.”
“Grandma Rose?” Piper asked, shocked beyond comprehension.
“Oh, make her stop,” Rose beseeched, wringing her hands. “Why does she torture me?”
“I’ll ask ye to no’ call her that anymore, aye?” cadaver said in a dead voice to match his waxy face. “In fact, just stay silent until I tell ye otherwise.”
Her throat was still dry from not having anything to drink since the drugged tea, and now she struggled to swallow back bile. She closed her eyes and tried to make herself be back in her own kitchen, with Evie and the baby.
“How do ye mean, she appeared?” the constable asked, leaning forward for a juicy story. God, the villagers never changed from one time to the next, with their gossip mongering.
“I mean, she wasn’t there one moment, and the next she was. With a fierce wind following her.”
Oh no, she didn’t want to forget the fierce wind. Piper gave her the dirtiest look she could muster. Her grandmother was as crazy as Daria, and she’d been fooled by her, which just made her stupid. And now, probably dead.
The priest’s interest was piqued and he motioned for Rose to continue.
“Every step she took, the plants under her feet fell dry and dead. She spewed a mad tale of being from the future, here for vengeance.” Rose wiped her brow as if the retelling wore her out. “I was sore afraid and tried to run into my house and bar the door, but she was fast as lightning. She rushed past me.”
Piper stared at her, aghast, and also a little drawn into the imaginative story. Her mind had gone completely blank, unable to form thoughts or words. Certainly none of this was about her?
“How did ye overcome her?” the priest asked, clutching his crucifix.
“Ah, Father, ‘twas the grace of the good lord,” Rose said. When they looked at her expectantly, the grace of the lord not a satisfying enough ending, she continued. “I prayed out for help and my hand reached for my prayer beads. I tossed them at the creature and she screamed in agony and fell to the ground, unconscious.”
“That is bollocks,” Piper said, unable to stand it anymore. “You drugged me.”
“Check her skin, by her throat,” Rose wailed, cowering from Piper’s scorn.
Piper’s hand flew to her throat. It was slightly sore, but she’d thought it was just from dehydration and sleeping in a cold cell. But no, she felt painful, inflamed marks on her skin and turned to Rose, horrified at the lengths she’d taken. “You burned my skin?” she asked incredulously.
Cadaver rounded the desk and gingerly moved aside the collar of her dress. The other two nearly knocked their chairs backwards jumping up for a look. She was sure they were seeing some tidy round burn marks on her neck.
“The holy beads burned ye, when they hit your heathen pelt.”
Heathen pelt? Piper couldn’t help it, she laughed. “You all are crazy.” She started to stand and was instantly shoved back down by both cadaver and the constable.
“Gentlemen, if that wasna enough evidence, I’ll ask ye to look at the items the lass had with her.”
“Her implements of evil,” Rose piped up.
The implements consisted of a small metal flashlight, a green plastic lighter (Evie would have had an aneurism if she knew she took plastic to the past), a roll of bandages and a tiny pillbox with aspirin in it. Cadaver twisted and prodded the flashlight, but her leap through time had drained the battery. It was just a benign tube with a bit of glass at the end. He discarded it with a trace of disappointment, quickly passed over the bandages and glowered suspiciously at the aspirin.
“It’s for headaches,” she said wearily.
“To induce headaches?” The priest crossed himself in alarm.
She refused to answer, instead watching cadaver fiddle around with the lighter. When he figured it out and the small flame sprang to life, everyone exclaimed. He dropped it onto the desk and stared at it as if it was a tarantula.
“She’s harnessed flame in that wee container,” the constable said, sounding more amazed than scared.
“It’s a miracle,” Piper said sarcastically. “I can control fire.”
“Did ye hear her confess?” Rose shrieked. “She admits to controlling the flames of hell.”
“I beg your pardon, but that is not what I said at all.”
Piper clenched her fists and focused all her energy on the desk. If ever she had the power to control fire, now would be the time. She wanted nothing more than to set the room ablaze and be done with this place. Try as she might, nothing happened.
The priest muttered under his breath in Latin, probably waiting for her head to start spinning, and the constable and cadaver spoke together in low tones. Piper never took her eyes off of Rose, until finally she looked at her.
Piper gasped to see her eyes were full of regret and pain. All of the fake zealous hysteria was gone. Rose shook her head slightly and looked away as the cadaver clenched his cold hand around her forearm and hauled her from her chair.
“Back to the cell with ye, lass. We’ll have the judge round in a day or two and have a proper trial. Until then, we canna have ye mingling with the righteous folk.”
An hour or so after he tossed her back in her dark, empty room, the door creaked open and a hard lump of bread smacked her in the shoulder. The door slammed shut before she could see who’d chucked it at her, but her indignation quickly lost out to hunger. The dry bread only made her thirstier, and she wondered if anyone would bring her water. She still had a lick of pride and refused to call out for anything. She did scoot closer to the door in case it opened again.
The little bit of light that came through the tiny window only teased her into thinking she saw things in the corners and across the room. Skittery things, ghostly shadows. Feeling like an idiot, she closed her eyes and fell asleep, hoping she’d wake up somewhere else or at least dream of a better place.
“Lass, wake up. Piper.”
Lachlan had come to rescue her. She felt his big, warm hand on her shoulder and heard his deep, rich voice. He smiled down at her, chasing the gloom from the cell as if he were a hundred watt light bulb. When he ran his fingers down the side of her cheek, the effect on her spirits was just as electrical.
“You came for me,” she said, struggling to sit up.
He nodded and leaned closer, his dark blue eyes searching her face. “Aye, my love. Always.” He pressed his lips against hers and she tried to reach out to him, but he pulled away, the hand that held her shoulder now rough and clutching.
Choking on her tears, she dragged herself awake. Her grandmother squatted beside her in the cell, shaking her out of her dream. Heartsick, she shrugged off her hand and rolled away from her.
“I’ve brought ye some water and some proper food, dear,” Rose said.
Piper sat up, wishing she had something to throw. “Are you kidding me?” she asked. “As if I would ever trust anything from you again.”
Rose poured some water from a stone pitcher into a cup and drank it, refilled the cup and held it out to Piper. She was so thirsty, just hearing Rose swallow the water made her breath hitch. Also, if she drank the water, then she could throw the empty cup at Rose. It was a win-win. With a groan, she grabbed the cup and swallowed it down in great gulps, nearly gagging.
Rose patted her on the back and refilled the cup, telling her to slow down. All of her desire to fling something at Rose’s head dissolved as her thirst was slaked and she slumped back against the wall, staring in defeat at her grandmother.
“Why are you doing this?” she asked, taking the cloth bundle containing an apple, a wedge of cheese and some fresher bread than before.
Her pride wasn’t worth much at this point, and it wouldn’t suit to have her stomach growling when she was on trial. They’d probably just say it was a demon trying to break free.
To her surprise, Rose grabbed her hand. “It’s the only way to rid ye of Daria, do ye no’ see?”
Her tiny appetite withered and the bite of cheese went rancid in her mouth. She washed it down with more water. “What?”
“We have to defeat her, aye? She has caused us nothing but pain, spreading evil across generations.” Rose shuddered. “She killed my husband. Who did she take from ye?”
Piper’s head began to swim. Had she agreed to this? Give up her own life to rid the world of Daria? Lachlan’s handsome face, still so fresh from her dream, passed across her mind’s eye. She put down the uneaten food and shoved it away.
“I loved him so much.” She pressed her hands into her chest to try to stop the ache. “I’ll never see him again,” she said, believing it for the first time.
Instead of killing her instantly, she only felt cold and empty. But not alone. As long as Daria lived within her, she’d never be alone. And as long as Daria lived within her, she was dangerous to the ones she loved. Rose was her only option. She didn’t deserve anyone else.
“Did he love ye as well?” Rose asked quietly.
The pain came back in a rush. “He did,” she said. “I know he did. He shouldn’t have.”
“My John loved me too. I came back and found him dying on the mill floor, his throat cut, barely a breath left in him. Do ye know what that meant?” Piper shook her head and Rose continued. “She waited. She couldn’t get me when I left the land, but she waited. I think she could feel the moment I returned. That’s how quick she was. When I was no longer fun for her, she went after ye.”
Piper jumped at that, and turned to see Rose’s gimlet stare trained on her. “What do you mean?” she asked, every fiber in her body wrenching with dread.
“She made me write the letter telling my mother to leave the property to ye. Everything that came after? That was her doing.”
Piper’s thoughts raced backward. None of what Rose said made sense. “That can’t be right. It was a mistake that she sent Brian so far forward in the first place. She never meant—” her head felt fuzzy and she pressed the heels of her hands into her eye sockets.
“Oh, dear child,” Rose said pityingly. “It gets so much worse, and I only want to spare ye. I had a false sense of confidence, being out of her reach for so long. Then I came back, and watched John die. I can still hear his last gasp. Did ye have to see your man go?”
Piper put her head on her knees. What had happened to Lachlan? She prayed it was quick and painless. Though it was a battle, she knew beyond all doubt that it had been orchestrated by Daria. The very twisting of history to make it happen had been all her doing. And Piper had helped, stupidly and eagerly chasing around in time, doing spells she didn’t understand, trying to be someone strong. Someone she wasn’t. How Daria must have laughed. She was probably laughing now, deep inside her.
“I just want her out,” she choked, clawing at her bodice.
The very air in her lungs felt foul, and each ragged breath she took caused her greater anguish. Everything that kept her alive, kept Daria alive.
Rose patted her back while she cried into her knees. “I know, lass. Because ye’re a good child and dinna hold with evil. We’ll get her out of ye, and then ye shall be at peace.”
Piper rolled onto her side and curled into a ball, feeling the cold ground seep through her dress.
“I know ye want to be at peace, aye?” Rose asked, taking her shawl off and tossing it over Piper’s shoulders. “Ye know what is important.”
Piper nodded and pulled the shawl around her face. “I just want her out,” she repeated.