Chapter 38 #2
The chill of the water hit our bones, and we came up for air as we tread water off the tidal flats. A jagged horizon of rubble gut-punched us. Holly choked as Rowan struggled for breath. It was as if the castle were his lungs, and now, he couldn’t breathe.
Castle Laoch was gone.
In the distance from where we were, I could see the beach with our clanspeople, the constable, and the men who’d ransacked our lives, and the Coast Guard vessel behind us in the open loch waters.
They were alive. But Peabody had been close to the castle, and Ethel nearer still, and their lives called me to swim, swim as fast as ever.
Up onto the tidal flats, I slipped on algae-covered rocks and searched in the broken pieces of Laoch’s walls for Ethel and found her kneeling.
I crashed to my knees, splashing in the saltwater next to her.
“Ethel.” I grabbed her shoulders. She wasn’t awake but rather in what I could only assume was a trance and she existed elsewhere. A soft firefly light swirled off her, and as I was going to shake her, Peabody was there.
Thank god he was alive.
“She’s not here. There’s another plane of existence that she’s currently inhabiting with her energies. The castle required too much of her.”
Emotion squeezed my windpipe. “It was me; I thought I could use the fire energies, but—” I grabbed her slender, soft shoulders. “Ethel, my ancient grandmother, come back. I’m sorry.”
I felt her words move into me. No, child.
I am sorry. I underestimated the actors who move to keep the curse alive.
I assumed all was well now that the Chevalier woman was linked by love’s hand to your brother and Minory descendant, Tiberius.
However, it found a willing participant who set charges to the base of the castle.
I couldn’t counteract that level of energetic expulsion.
“He”—I choked; it hadn’t been me—“Dick Murdoch blew up the castle.”
I heard Rowan behind me groan, and he slowly went to his knees; his head hit his hands, and from within them, I heard him say, “At every turn this night when I’ve thought he couldn’t be serious in his vengeance, he has been. The fire should have been enough, but—”
“Ethel says he’s set to make sure the curse in all its forms stays true. It had been Charmaine, but love made her give it up. So, the curse found another.”
Rowan’s anguished gaze met mine. “What?”
I shook my head as if I couldn’t believe it either. Then I had an idea.
He nodded, following my thoughts. He looked at me with hope.
“Gather everyone. It’s worth a try.”
Holly heard us and ran over the rocks to the shore on the other side.
With Ethel’s hand in mine, I spoke to her. With all of us, can you help us return the castle to standing?
The energy necessary is too great. The kind of power needed would have to be more than I know of.
All of the clan linked?
Maybe…but it will cost a life.
“That’s too much,” I responded aloud.
“What is?”
I felt Rowan at my side and spoke to him with my eyes closed and still linked to Ethel. “It will take a life to restore the stones.”
Rowan agreed, “Too much.”
I had another thought. “What about lives past?”
Who?
Holding Ethel’s hands, I said, “Let me show you.”
It took me some time to connect fully with Ethel.
The cold of the water was too much, then the rubble behind me.
Peabody was explaining to Rowan what I was doing, but then finally, I found Ethel and connected to her.
My sense of self wound out from me, and like the tender shoot of a vine, its glowing energies wound around Ethel’s.
I took us up the dark, rocky shoreline to the cove that Rowan showed me.
And it was there that we found a pool of glistening energy that felt pure and powerful.
This, child, helps. I haven’t seen it in this plane—do you know what this is? The power of it?
No, but I feel it.
This is Ormr’s love; he has hidden it here in this cave. This is not a life, but it is powerful.
I touched it, and like fuel to an engine, it moved along our energy lines back down to the castle, where I found my body standing.
Rowan’s hand was in mine, Ethel’s in my other, and TJ’s in her other hand.
One by one, the clanspeople held on, and with the pressure building in my heart, I pushed it out to the stones that were the foundation of MacLaochs for centuries.
The same stones that I’d walked upon, the same that I’d touched, and I wondered how many hands had done the same.
The stones that witnessed Rowan’s rage and then also he and I make love within their shelter.
In the distance, I heard castle stone grind upon stone, and someone gasped, “They’re going back.”
I touched on Rowan’s memories, the ones at his uncle’s knee, the whisky in the breezy, dark lower levels, and the raids they’d dodged before the eighties. I thought of the first settlement, the keep that Orabilia described, and the land that supported it.
Every phase from that moment to the next filled my mind…until I eventually saw myself making my morning tea in the kitchen less than forty-eight hours ago.
I heard Tee curse in disbelief.
“It’s finished.”
Not yet. A life to bind it.
Ethel’s hand felt loose in mine, and within the ethereal winds of the plane we resided in, I looked at her.
She had become translucent; the fireflies glowing about her were moving in rapid succession as if busy putting her to work.
Then, in a swarm, holding her essence, they flew toward the castle.
The sparks of her life struck the rear of the castle and spread out, coating the towering structure in glitter.
Each rock beneath the concrete facade smoothed and locked into place with a spark.
The spark molded into mortar, moving like blood through veins.
In that whipping wind of her ethereal plane, I saw Ethel’s smile before it faded.
I was suddenly back standing in the tidal flats; it had begun to rain as if the heavens were weeping for the thing it had just witnessed.
Cheers went up around us, but Rowan, Tee, and I looked at our hands. Ethel’s clothes fluttered to the ground where her body had been; the last soft sparks of light grew dimmer until they vanished altogether.
“No…” I said and went to my knees, gathering up her clothes.
“Nope, Ethel, that’s too much.” My golden light was gone, as was Tee’s, and Rowan’s blue moonlight.
The castle stood proud in the dark night; glowing from within its stones was the light from each of us, making it seem like something from the land of fairies.
“She’s gone,” said Peabody. His equipment lay among the wet rocks, dropped in shock.
“No,” I said again, feeling the rain dampen my cheeks as the realization and sacrifice of what she’d done settled down on me.