Chapter 5
ORKNEY
The weather looks grim and unhappy as birds fly overhead through the gloomy clouds.
But I’ve never felt more alive as we ride the ferry from Aberdeen to Orkney.
My smile hasn’t faded once in our journey here and is currently smashed against our window as I admire the North Sea.
The glass is cool against my cheek, but my excitement is warm throughout my entire body.
I gawk at him like he’s grown two heads. “And miss all this!” I fling my thumb to the view out the window.
“Aye, it is beautiful, isn’t it?” he agrees, but his eyes are on me and not the sea.
Lachlan’s hair is disheveled from the wind, and his dark green eyes are sparkling like emeralds in the sunlight that bursts through one of many clouds and streams through our window.
I can’t help myself as I reach out and smooth his hair back from where it’s fallen over his eyes.
His hair is as silky as I imagined it would be, and I savor the way it glides through my fingers.
“Thank you for letting me tag along. It’s been a while since I’ve been on an adventure.”
Lachlan clears his throat, avoiding my eyes. “The pleasure is all mine.”
He leaned in when I stroked his hair, setting my heart racing.
Perhaps there is a bit more to this friendship, after all.
Lachlan continues reading his book about Leif Erikson’s adventures while I admire the color of the sea and the birds flying by.
As the sea passes outside my window, every second adds distance between me and Gran.
My guilt rears its ugly head, and my smile fades.
“Are ye alright?” Lachlan eyes me from above the pages of his book.
I clear my throat. “Just worried about Gran.”
He smiles kindly, his teeth flashing brightly against his tan skin and trim beard. “We’ll be back soon.”
I sigh, knowing he’s right. I’m beyond grateful that Maggie agreed to stay with Lizzie and help with Gran in my absence.
I didn’t realize how much her disease had begun to twist my every thought into a giant ball of anxiety.
Immense masses of land begin to rise out of the sea before us, and my guilt vanishes.
I suddenly feel as if I’m headed towards home.
When we disembark, my anticipation has only increased, my body practically vibrating with my excitement. Lachlan runs me through our itinerary again.
“Alright, I ha’ to go check in on my place and drop a few things off. We can grab a bite to eat first, though, and then … which site did ye want to check out first?”
“Hmm, I’ve got a few thoughts about that. Our map,” I wiggle the folded-up parchment in the air, “has twelve stones drawn, but you said there’s actually only nine at the Ring of Brodgar, right?”
Lachlan nods his head in confirmation. “Aye, originally there were twelve standing stones, but a few ha’ fallen or become damaged, and now there’s only nine still standing.”
“If our map is old enough that it was drawn with twelve, then maybe we need to see a complete site for answers, because what if one of the fallen stones had the answers, but now it’s gone, so we wouldn’t know? Does that make sense?”
Lachlan’s brows furrow as he thinks over my logic and turns the truck on. “Aye, that makes some sense. Where did ye want to eat?”
“Oh no, this is your home, you get to pick.” I tease.
Lachlan rolls his eyes and pulls off the ferry. “Street food it is. How do smash burgers sound?”
I purse my lips. “You do remember I was raised in the States, right?”
“Oh, I forgot you’re practically American, so burgers are a staple, right?” he mimics my accent and chuckles.
I cross my arms and push out my bottom lip. “I don’t like the way you said American.”
There’s no bite in my words, and he reaches across the console to tug one of the braids I have framing my face. “Nae of that sass, or I won’t be feeding you.”
I stick my tongue out at him when he looks back at the road, but he catches me anyway, and we break out into laughter. It’s so easy to be myself with him. The gray stone buildings are cozy in the light rain outside my window as I face away from him to hide my ridiculously large smile.
We devour our meals quickly, but the sun is already sinking low on the horizon.
“Should we wait until the morning to go?” I ask.
“Nae, let’s go by the cairn before we head to my place. There should be lights at the site, and we can use the torch I keep in the truck,” he replies.
But I’m not too sure how comfortable it makes me to explore an ancient burial site in the dark. That’s a bit creepy. But the possibility of finally getting answers on this mysterious family relic looms over my head and tips the scales in that direction.
Briefly, I close my eyes to try some mindfulness, wrestling with the anxiety and a feeling I can’t quite grasp but is steadily building.
Guilt floods me, and I realize just how much I miss Gran.
I do my best to recognize the emotion and imagine setting it down, figuratively, in my mind.
I breathe in, hold it, and exhale on a four-count to try to ease the feeling.
Lachlan reaches over and caresses my arm. “Ye alright, Key?”
The use of my nickname releases some of my tension, and a smile breaks my concentration. “I’m just a bit nervous for some reason.”
“Ach, no need to be nervous. If we dinna find answers, we keep looking, okay?” he replies, misreading my worries.
I don’t correct him. “Sounds good, Lach.”
The sun has set, darkness seeping over the land as Lachlan pulls over in front of a nondescript cattle gate. The burial mound is a shadow barely visible past the wire fences in the middle of a pasture.
“Um, don’t we need to go to the tourist center and get tickets?” I ask, pointing to the visitor’s center signs up the road from us.
Lachlan unbuckles and opens his door. He rolls his eyes. “That’s such a tourist thing to say, Key, just get out. Ye can hop a fence, right?”
My eyes widen, and my jaw drops in shock as I sputter, “This is an archeological site!” I inhale sharply. “This is breaking so many laws! There are literally Viking runes carved in there!”
Lachlan merely laughs as he shuts the door and walks up to the gate, smoothly hopping over it and offering me a hand over the gate.
Grumbling, I exit the truck, but my ears begin that familiar ringing. It’s the same sound as before when I first spied the necklace. The memory spurs me on, and I clamber, not nearly as gracefully, over the fence and grasp Lach’s hand.
The ground squelches underneath our feet; luckily, the rain has finally stopped, and I’m glad I went with my boots this morning.
We make our way down the little path next to the fence that intersects the pasture.
An eerie sensation washes over me, and the hair on my arms is beginning to rise, not just from the chill.
I pause to glance around, and Lachlan comes to a stop right in front of me.
“Ye alright?” I can feel his eyes on me as he tries to read my expression in the dark.
“It’s kind of creepy out here. Like we’re being watched,” I reply. Thankfully, the ringing is still a dull hum. Goosebumps begin spreading along my arms.
Lachlan turns in a semi-circle in front of me. “It’s just a cow pasture, ach, I forgot the torch. Wait right here.”
He rushes past me and back the way we came before I can tell him that I’d rather go with him. The gravelly caw of a raven causes me to shriek, and I whirl around to look for the beast.
The light is completely gone, and darkness swallows the path.
Yeah, this is not a good idea.
“Lachlan!” I call out, fear drenching me, but there’s no response.
He couldn’t have gone too far already, but I can’t see or hear him at all.
I’m so close to the cairn and figure there’s bound to be a light near the entrance.
I stumble forward along the path to the mound and away from the sound of the raven.
A twig snaps behind me, blocking my path back to the truck, and I freeze.
“Lach, if you’re playing games, it’s so not funny!”
A flap of wings by my head startles me, but there’s a loud thud on the ground, like footsteps, that frightens me into action. Throwing caution to the wind, I sprint to the mound.
My heart pounds with each strike of my feet on the grass. The ringing becomes more shrill. I’m so tense with fear that it’s difficult to stay upright, and I stumble along the uneven path.
A misstep has me careening into the fence, and the wire rips through my sweater.
It stings, sharpening my terror, but I keep moving forward.
At best, it could just be a cow that’s about to run me over. At worst, my mind conjures up murderous men with axes or demons. My pace increases with each frightful image.
At last, I see the glint of a metal gate in the moonlight and hurl myself over it.
It looks like I’ve made it to the entrance of the burial mound. As my luck would have it, there’s no light here. My ears strain to hear over the high-pitched ringing and my rapid panting for any sound of what was chasing me, but there’s nothing.
Unfortunately, the path took me around the mound, so there is no way to see where we parked or the direction from which Lachlan would be approaching.
I lean over to put my hands on my knees, trying to catch my breath.
A loud screech breaks through the ringing of my ears, and I look up just in time to see a large black shadow swooping down at me.
Moonlight shimmers off iridescent black feathers and sharp talons that are coming directly for my face.
A scream erupts out of my mouth, and I stumble backward through the entrance of the burial mound.
Somehow, I managed to stay on my feet, but the world is tilting off its axis. The ground rises up, and my hands move to shield my face, but not quickly enough; an explosion of golden light, as bright as the sun, scorches my eyes. Blinded and faintly dizzy, I squeeze them shut.
The flapping of wings slowly fades away.
I massage my burning eyes with my fingertips, and the ground beneath my feet rocks a little before becoming still.
A light breeze cools my skin and ruffles my hair. The air feels different than before. Lilac and jasmine wrap around me on another gentle breeze, and strangely enough, the warmth of sunshine upon my skin.
A golden light illuminates through my closed eyes. The sudden change in temperature and floral fragrance has me pausing.
Shock locks my body into place.
A few feet away, someone clears their throat, and a male voice whispers, “That doesn’t look like Bryn.”
The sound of my mom’s name has me snapping my eyes open.
I scream.