I stood holding the tray, looking pathetically at the backs of their bent heads.
“Stop for a minute and have something to eat and drink,” I said, eventually, when no one had moved. It was taking a great deal of effort to appear chirpy and cheerful, and I feared my manner might change if the tray of food ended up in the dustbin. Thankfully, Duncan acknowledged me and helped himself to a handful of sandwiches. Simon and Harry quickly followed his lead.
“What now?”
“We’re not sure, Corran,” Simon said, taking a large bite of the ham sandwich.
“Ma, we have to fix what Ang… I mean, my father, did,” Duncan said, swirling his cup of coffee around in his hand.
“You’ll spill that, Duncan,” I said, watching the coffee rise precariously close to the rim of the cup. His reference to Angus hadn’t gone unnoticed. I wanted to tell him that he didn’t have to refer to him as his father, that the man had given him nothing more than his red hair, but I didn’t.
“What do you mean we have to fix it, love? I don’t see how we can do that.”
“Time is a funny thing, Corran,” Harry said slowly. “We can’t undo what Angus has done, but we must manage the consequences of his actions.”
“I’m sorry, but I’m still not with you,” I said, taking a sip of my coffee.
“Well… The thing is, Corran, although you killed Angus he still exists through his actions. By this I mean that he still lives in this time… but as a younger man than the one you killed.”
“What Harry is trying to say, lass, is that Angus is here - in this time - living as Grace’s husband,” Simon said patiently.
“But I killed him, he can’t still live,” I said, feeling myself becoming slightly hysterical.
“Aye, Corran, that you did. But the man you killed was an older man than the one who lives in Derbyshire now. Angus used the crystal to travel to this time when he was still a young man. But you don’t need to understand all this. The important thing is that we can’t change what he did during his lifetime. What is done is done. The best we can hope for, as Harry has already said, is to manage the consequences of his actions,” said Simon.
“Why can’t we try and change what Angus did?” I asked.
“Because,” said Harry, “if we do then Duncan may never exist.”
I stared wide-eyed at the man, my heart pounding in my chest, my head desperately trying to grasp what he had just said.
“What we have to do, Corran, is reunite Duncan with his mother and sister,” Simon said.
“But you just said that Angus couldn’t do anything that he hasn’t already done? Surely if they are all safe now then they will remain safe?” I asked.
Harry shook his head slowly. “No, Corran. Whilst Angus won’t harm them it is only a matter of time before the Dark Circle find them.”
“Well can’t we just travel forwards in time and find out?” I said.
“No, lass,” Simon said, “According to Harry no one has been able to move further into the future than the twenty-first of this month.”
“That’s less than two weeks away,” I stammered. “Why can’t anyone go further forward in time than that?”
“No one knows,” replied Harry simply.
“What happens once we reunite Duncan with his mother?” I asked, hating the words as I spoke them.
“Then we take you all to your people,” replied Harry.
“Why can’t we all just stay here?” I asked.
“The Stag and your people are in real danger, Corran. The magic of the Highlands is scattered through time. If you don’t get home by the twenty first, it will be all over.”
“Harry, how will it be any safer with our people - and who exactly are our people? I have no family anymore,” I asked, feeling tired, confused and desperately heart-sore.
“Your people, Corran, are your friends and villagers, other immortal Highlanders that have gathered to fight against the Dark Circle. Together they have magic strong enough to protect themselves and the Stag, but their magic is weakening and the Dark Circle’s growing by the day. Your people don’t have much time left.” Harry emptied his cup of coffee and sighed a long, heavy sigh.
“I still don’t see how us going to our people is going to help either them or us.” I said.
“Lass, listen to me. Do you remember the journal you found?” asked Simon.
I nodded, thinking that my husband was asking a rather stupid question.
“Of course I remember it. I’m pregnant not brain-dead.” I said, again repeating a phrase I’d heard on Rose’s television.
“Do you remember the text you read?” he asked.
“Simon, just tell me what you are on about. I’m too tired for guessing games.” He stood and moved towards me, his eyes locking on mine, his hand reaching out to rest gently on my shoulder.
“Brothers, we must now gather and unite to protect and preserve that which is the right of every man, woman and child of this great land – for our lives and the lives of all who come after us hangs on the finest of thread. Immortal shadows have risen against us and between them they seek to destroy the Stag - for it is told that he who slays the creature in cold blood will have its power. A great revolution is upon us. But through time will come one of us, a woman with the slate from the banks of Loch Leven on her hand. She will bear the child that will grow stronger than the Stag, greater than the crystal, and more powerful than the heather,” he recited.
“I’m sorry, Simon, but I still don’t understand it.”
“The ring, Corran. Look at the ring I gave you,” he said.
I lifted my left hand and stared at the ring, the tiny chip of slate buried within the thin band of silver, and suddenly I understood.
“Our baby,” I whispered.
“Aye, Corran, it’s our baby,” he said, moving his hand to rest gently on my stomach. “Our people need us because you carry the child that will protect them, the child that will grow stronger than the Stag, greater than the crystal and more powerful than the heather.”
I stared at my ring, my mind a dazed fog of confusion.
“Why our baby, Simon?” I asked flatly.
“Because ours is the only child conceived by two immortals,” he replied.
I thought for a moment, too afraid to meet his eyes. “Are you sure?”
“Aye, lass, we are sure.”
“Why us?” I asked.
“In a bizarre twist of fate, I think it’s all down to Angus,” he said.
“Angus?” I asked.
“Aye, lass, Angus. If it hadn’t been for his unrelenting pursuit I wouldn’t have gone to my mother in search of answers. She wouldn’t have given us the crystal, and we wouldn’t have traveled in time. You conceived because we were out of our time.”
“And no longer bound by the magic of the Stag,” I breathed.
“How long have you known?”
“Since you showed us the journal,” Simon said honestly.
“Is it our baby that the Dark Circle is looking for?” I whispered.
The three men nodded.
“Aye lass, it is our child that the Dark Circle seek,” Simon said quietly.
“Then tell me what I need to do?” I said, pulling myself out of the chair.
“Nothing, Corran. Nothing at all except look after yourself and that child,” Harry said.
“Do Rose and Kate know?” I asked.
“Yes,” said Harry, simply. “They know.”
“And the Dark Circle? How much do they know?” I asked
“We aren’t sure. Angus knew, but because he hoped to claim the ring for Rose we don’t think he shared the knowledge of your identity. He thought that if he could get the ring for Rose she would bear the child. What he failed to understand was that the true power of the ring lay not with the ring itself, but with the couple whose love it symbolized,” said Harry, opening another bottle of whisky.
“You’ve got to stop drinking that stuff, Harry,” Simon said, reaching to t
ake the bottle from Harry.
“I miss her, fella,” Harry said sadly, taking the bottle back from Simon.
“Then stop drinking long enough to help us find her,” Simon said.
“It’s too late for me. I’m an old man, and Jessie… She is still beautiful and young. I let her go because out here I could help her. In the village, with her and her kind, I would be nothing but…”
“Harry, if you won’t put the bottle away for yourself then at least do it for us,” I pleaded. “We need you, and we need you sober. You said we would get through this together, but you drink as though as we don’t matter.”
“You’ve got me there, girl,” he said, pouring the golden liquid into his glass.
“Then put it down, Harry. You don’t need it, but we need you to get through this,” I shouted.
He lifted the glass and tipped its contents down the back of his throat. He sighed heavily, sending a pungent smell of alcohol into the air.
“OK, so that’s the last one until you lot are safely back with your people. Then I intend to drown myself in the stuff,” he said, sliding the bottle along the counter towards Simon, who caught it by the neck.
“Thank you,” I said, hoping the man could stay true to his word.
“Aye, it is a good thing you do,” Simon said, screwing the metal cap back on the bottle.
“Harry - you said that Angus and Grace have another child in this time. Do you know where this child is?” I asked.
“Yes, I know where she is,” he said.
“Well, can’t we just go and get her?”
“No. She is with Angus, and we can’t risk exposing you or Simon.”
“How much do you know about the lass, Harry?” Simon asked.
“Not much, fella, not much. Just where she lives and who her parents are.”
The clock ticked in my mind. I glanced around nervously. We had been going around in circles for what felt like hours and still there was no plan. Harry’s words had long since become slurred as the effects of his earlier heavy drinking fogged his mind. Duncan yawned widely and Simon stared absently at the flames of the fire.
“I understand the pressure we are under, but I think you three should try and get some rest. The lot of you look dreadful.”
“Perhaps the girl is right,” Harry said, stumbling out of a chair and catching himself on a round table.
“Go on, Harry, get some sleep,” I said, reaching for a slip of paper off the bar. “You’ve not got much in the kitchen. I thought I might pop out and get some food whilst you three are asleep.”
“No!” Simon shouted. “You’re not leaving this inn. None of us are. You take one step out there and you risk all our lives, not just yours and the baby’s. Do you hear me, Corran?” he boomed.
I nodded, shaken by his furor. “I’m sorry, I didn’t think, only we aren’t going to last long in here with the little food we have.”
“I’ve thought about it already, Corran. We can get what we need delivered. You make a list of what you want and I’ll see to it,” Harry said.
“After she has had some rest,” said my husband.
“But I’ve not long since got up.”
“It matters none when you rose, lass. You look as weary as I feel. Now come to bed with me and be done with the arguing.”
I was becoming impatient with the bump that seemed to have grown rounder and heavier every minute of the day, and didn’t bother arguing with my husband.
Duncan took no telling, and was upstairs and in his room, before I had extracted myself from the spindle chair. Harry, however, swayed across the room and threw a few lumps of wood on the dying fire.
“Get the lights when you come up, will you?” he said, staggering towards the stairs.
The room fell quiet as we flicked the switch and the lights died. Only the gentle glow of the fire lit our way from the room.
“Are you scared?” I asked, turning to face my husband outside our room.
“Aye, lass, this time I am scared,” he said, opening the door to our room.
“Simon, how much did you know before last night?”
He lay staring up at the ceiling. I shifted uncomfortably next to him as the baby rammed its bottom into my stomach.
“Enough to know we were in trouble,” he replied seriously.
“Did you know about the baby, being -”
“Aye,” he said, cutting me off mid sentence.
“Oh,” I said, pausing to push a pillow between my knees. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I didn’t want to frighten you.”
“Is there anything else you aren’t telling me?”
“Not intentionally, no.”
“Are we going to get through this?” I asked quietly.
“Aye, lass, of course we are,” he said, turning to kiss me lightly on the cheek. “We’ve come this far, survived the unimaginable, and we’ll thrive through the impossible.”
******
CHAPTER 11
‘Ye Olde Starre Inne’, York - 17th December, Modern Day
It was early, well before sunrise, when we stirred. Even the baby’s twists and turns hadn’t woken me that night. I reached out my hand and laid it gently on my husband’s arm. He opened one eye and the sides of his mouth quirked in a lazy smile.
“Good morning, lass.”
“Good morning, darling,” I said, wincing as my lower back cramped.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing, just the baby moving. Do you think Harry will mind if I use his shower?” I asked, fighting the urge to massage my back.
“I shouldn’t think he’d mind. You go on, I’ll see you downstairs,” Simon said, sliding his trousers on.
Alone in the room I moved slowly toward the window and pulled the curtain open a crack. The sky was dark but I could still see large flakes of snow in the orange glow of street lamps. A shudder rippled down my spine as the icy hand of silence reached up from the courtyard. Not a single customer had come knocking at the pub the past few days. I wondered if the rest of the city was as quiet as I let the curtain drop and turned to collect my clothes. The warmth of the shower soothed and eased the cramping in my lower back. The baby felt different. Something had changed, but I wasn’t sure what. Breathing deeply I reached for a bottle of shampoo. It struck me then that I had just filled my lungs for the first time in weeks. I glanced down at my bulging abdomen and realized that the baby had dropped. It was early. It shouldn’t have dropped yet, especially as this was my first child. I had seen other women, women from my village who were on their fourth and even fifth pregnancies who dropped at thirty six weeks but never so early on a first. I leaned forward and groaned as a knot tightened in my belly. It lasted only a few seconds and then slowly the muscles relaxed. I considered for a moment that my dates were wrong but then dismissed the idea. The doctors with their fancy equipment and machines had taken pictures of the baby and measured its growth. Their predicted delivery date matched my own. We couldn’t both be wrong. I recognized the tightening of my womb. It was a normal enough occurrence. The women from my village had called it ‘practice labor’. I felt a tiny stab of fear as another tightening crept slowly across my belly. Taking a long steady breath I closed my eyes and filled my mind with thoughts of home. Slowly, with the mountains and the faces of friends and family firmly in sight, my body relaxed, and with it the cramp in my womb. I felt desperately alone. I wanted my friend, Nansaidh. I wanted her to hold me and tell me that my baby was going to be alright. I wanted her to tell me that the bleeding was alright. That it would stop, and the baby would be just fine. But she wasn’t coming, not today and not tomorrow. I was facing this alone, and as I opened the door to the shower and stepped onto the cold tiled floor of Harry’s bathroom, I realized just how much that terrified me.
Following the sound of my friends’ voices I made my way steadily down the stairs and into the main room.
My husband turned as I entered the room. “Hello, lass. How was your shower??
??
“It was good, thank you,” I lied, returning his smile. “Where’s Harry?” I asked, scanning the faces in the room.
“He’s gone out back to get some more fuel,” said Rose, warming her hands in front of the fire.
“Are you alright, Rose?”
Her mouth lifted in a forced smile which didn’t reach her eyes.
“I’m fine, Corran. What about you?”
I laughed gently, “As good as you, I expect. Now who’s been frying bacon? It smells amazing.”
“Kate. She found some in the freezer.”
“Clever girl,” I said, smiling at Kate. “Was there much in there?”
“Nah, not really. A couple of loaves of bread and some sausages. Harry got a call this morning from one of his suppliers. They were meant to deliver today but their driver can’t get to work,” replied Kate.
“Any idea what the city is like?” I asked.
“I just checked the local news on my phone and the city seems clear,” replied Rose. “I’m guessing it’s the rural routes that have been hardest hit.”
“We are going to need to get some supplies in from somewhere,” I said thoughtfully.
“Yeah, we are, but Simon and Harry are refusing to let any of us leave the pub,” said Kate.
“Simon?” I said, turning to my husband who lifted his eyes but not his head from Harry’s laptop, “Kate isn’t in danger out there, is she? Couldn’t she go?” I asked.
“Aye, she could, but we’d have to make very sure she isn’t seen leaving or entering the pub. We don’t know if the place is being watched.”
“She won’t be seen,” said Harry, lugging two large buckets of wood across the room.
“Oh aye?” said Simon, giving Harry his full attention.
It annoyed me slightly that he managed to distract himself from the laptop for Harry, yet when I spoke, I got little more than a cursory glance.
“Off the cellar is a tunnel. Jessie and I used to use it to meet in secret.”
“Where does it come out?” Simon asked.
“Next door to the antique shop.”
“Angus’ Antique shop?” I exclaimed.
“Yes,” Harry replied simply.