MacFarlane's Ridge (27 page)

“Not out there. On the steps.”

Cam listened, and when the knock sounded at the door, she jumped. “Yes?” she called.

“It’s Jamie, missus. Master Rob bade me to fetch ye and Miss Wanda to the ship. She’ll be setting sail within the hour!” piped the small voice.

“Well, it’s about time!” announced Cam, reaching for the latch.

“No, Cam,” said Wanda, “don’t --“

The door burst open, and the boy stood there, tears streaking down his pale cheeks. “I’m sorry, missus, he made me.”

Wayne Sinclair stepped out of the shadows, his pistol raised. “You, Cameron, are a royal pain in my ass,” he smiled.

Cam moved backward instinctively, and Wayne shoved Jamie into the room, where he collided with Wanda. Sinclair pointed the pistol at Cam. He had lost weight since the last time she had seen him, bleeding on the ground at Mollie’s front door. His handsome face was now gaunt and pale, and there were bags under his eyes. His once-fine coat, now grimy and frayed around the sleeves, hung loosely on his tall frame.

“You look like hell,” said Cam politely. She hoped he couldn’t see her hands shaking.

“Thank you. I’ve missed you too.” He turned to Wanda. “And you are supposed to be dead already. We’ll have to remedy that.” He leveled the pistol at her.

“You can’t kill me,” she said calmly.

Wayne laughed. “Oh, Wanda, I can. You have no idea.”

“It wouldn’t be advisable, Wayne.”

He sighed. “I suppose now you’re going to tell me why?”

“Because I can take you back to the Faeries’ Gate,” she said earnestly.

“I know where the Faeries’ Gate is!” Wayne was becoming visibly more frustrated with every passing moment.

Wanda shook her head. “No, you don’t. Not the right one.”

The right one? What is she talking about?
Cam thought frantically.

“There is no right one, Wanda. The Faeries’ Gate is at Fairy Stone State Park,” Wayne explained patiently, as if to a kindergartener.

Wanda giggled. “Wayne, the Faeries’ Gate that brought you and Cam and me to
here
is at Fairy Stone.”

“That’s what I just said!” he screamed.

Wanda was laughing hysterically. “You haven’t figured it out, have you? Neither one of you! You just don’t get it!”

“What, Wanda?” asked Cam, with a dawning realization. “What don’t we get?”

“The Faeries’ Gate!
It’s one way
! There to here, or here to there!” she cackled.

“No,” argued Cam. “That’s not right. Sarah MacFarlane came through it. So did those other people, the ones in your scrapbook.”

Wanda shook her head, and Wayne’s face was like a thundercloud. “There’s a different Faeries’ Gate? One from here to there?”

Wanda nodded. “Sarah and those other people went through somewhere else. I know, because I did. When I first went through it, it wasn’t at Fairy Stone.”

“Then where is it?” Wayne yelled, visibly frustrated. Little Jamie was cowering in the corner.

Wanda stood up. “I can take you to it. If you kill me now, you die here.”

Sinclair stared at Cam. She shrugged. This was the first she had heard about it. He looked back at Wanda. “You’re serious.”

“Oh, Wayne, honey, I have never been more serious. You wanna hear the best part?”

“Not really, no.”

“I do!” squeaked Jamie.

“Shut up!” screamed Wayne.

Wanda sat on the floor. “It’s incredible. I’ve been researching it for years. There are multiple sites.”

“Multiple sites?” asked Cam. She felt like a parrot.

Wanda nodded. “Oh, yes. In different parts of the country. I’ve been checking them out for years now. A backwoods holler in Hawesville, Kentucky. A dismal swamp outside of New Orleans. A tiny little berg called Ringwood, New Jersey,” she said dreamily. “Sometimes it’s a waterfall, sometimes it’s a cave or a mine shaft, or even a circle of stones. But I can tell you for certain, they all go in only one direction.”

For once, Wayne had nothing to say. It was Cam who broke the silence. “Wayne? Why aren’t you on the ship right now?”

He turned to her with a smirk. “Well, let’s see… oh, wait a minute. I forgot to tell you.
The Lady Meg
set sail already, about fifteen minutes before I got here.”

Cam’s head began to spin. “Where…”

“Oh, your boyfriend was on board, as well as Angus. The captain made sure of that for me. Rob is a remarkable man, you know. He and I got to talking, and we found out we’re not that different. We’re both good-looking, we both would like to get you in the sack… yes, I’d say we have a lot in common. Oh, except for one thing. He’s very, very dead.”

Cam froze.

Wayne continued. “It’s probably better that way. Prevents those long, drawn-out goodbyes.”

“It’s not true!” she hissed, rage and fear contorting her face.

“Missus?” whispered Jamie.

She looked at him. “What?”

The boy looked frightened. “I saw him, missus. He shot Master Rob. In the captain’s cabin. An’ Master Rob didna’ get up again, missus.”

Cam closed her eyes.
I should have known this would happen…
she felt the tears forming, but she was not going to cry in front of Wayne Sinclair.

“Oh… gee whiz, Cameron,” sneered Wayne. “Too bad. I hate to be the bearer of bad tidings, but… oh, well, never mind. So it looks like all three of us will be going back together. As they say in the movies, let’s get back to the future!”

“Wayne, you have completely lost it,” snapped Wanda.

Cam looked at the boy. ‘What about Jamie?”

Wayne shrugged. “I could kill him. Or we can leave him here, and eventually the landlord will find him, and probably toss him in jail for being a vagrant.” He leered at the cabin boy. “You know what happens to little boys in jail?”

“Wayne, let him go!” ordered Cam suddenly. Sinclair looked up in surprise.

“Wait a minute, Cam. I have the gun. That means I’m in charge, and you have to shut up, remember?”

She swallowed. “Please let him go.”

Sinclair’s eyes narrowed. “And I should do this why?”

“Please. I’m begging you,” she said softly, not looking him in the eye.

He leaned in very close then. “This is a change for you, isn’t it? Who is this new, noble Cameron Clark that’s actually willing to beg me for a little boy’s life?” Wayne stroked her cheek delicately. “Are you going to make it worthwhile for me?”

Cam stared straight ahead. “I might.”

Sinclair looked her up and down. “Well, Cam, I am feeling mighty charitable today. Even on the basis of an “I might”, I am willing to let the little bastard go.”

“I’m no’ a bastard,” pointed out the boy politely.

“Right, whatever,” shrugged Wayne. He motioned with the pistol to the door. “Scat.”

Jamie glanced apologetically at Cam and Wanda, and scampered out the door without looking back. She could hear him clattering down the stairs, his hurried footsteps finally fading. 

Rob is gone
, thought Cam.
The fantasy is over, and it’s time to go back after all. Maybe this is what Wanda meant when she said I might not like what happened in Richmond. I should have listened to her in the first place.

“All right, Wayne,” she said numbly, tossing her few belongings in her bag. She picked up the copy of
MacBeth
, and for a fleeting moment thought to leave it behind. Rob was dead. It was all over. Jamie had confirmed it. At the last second, though, she stuffed it in her pack. If it made it through her trip back, it would make a nice addition to the display case in the window.
If I still have a shop when I get there
, she thought morosely. She left the Culloden sword where it stood, wrapped in oilskin in the corner.

Wanda was adjusting her dress, and watching Cam carefully. “You don’t believe it, do you?” she asked under her breath. Cam ignored her pointedly and turned to the door. “Cam?” Wanda hissed. “He said he’d come back for you.”

Cam whirled to face her. “Well, he can’t do that now, can he?” she asked bitterly.

Wanda watched Cam’s back as she left the room, head held high. Wayne motioned to her with the pistol. “Come on, sweetheart. Time to play tour guide.”

Somewhere in Central Virginia

May 1776

On their fourth day out of Richmond, Wayne Sinclair indicated that it was time for Cam to repay him for sparing young Jamie. She had been sitting by the fire, gnawing on a piece of stale bread. She was dirty and tired. Wanda was snoring peacefully a dozen feet away. Sinclair sat down next to Cam.

“Do you think she really knows where we’re going?” he asked pleasantly.

“I hope so.”

“You should hope so. If this is some kind of trick you two have cooked up, I’ll have to shoot you both,” he admitted.

“I guessed as much.”

Wayne stared at her. “You have hardly said a word to me this entire trip, Cam. I am crushed. You’re breaking my heart.”

She stared into the fire.

“About young Jamie,” he began. He placed a hand on her knee. “Now, you realize I only let him go as a favor to you. You know, I do like you, Cam, even though you are a huge pain in the ass. I think we actually have a lot of shared interests.”

“I doubt it,” she murmured, watching the flames dance.
You murdering bastard.

“No, I mean it,” he continued. “We’re both dealers in the old and interesting. Granted, my shop is a little, well, a
lot
more high-class than yours, but Granny’s Goodies has the potential to become profitable eventually. As long as people are willing to pay for the stuff, why not unload it on the unsuspecting masses? I think you’ve pulled it off quite admirably.”

“Gee. Thanks, Wayne,” she said tonelessly. His hand was still on her leg, squeezing her knee gently.

“Anyway, about the boy. You do realize, of course, that you owe me for that?”

She nodded. She wasn’t even listening to Wayne prattle on. She was thinking about Rob and dear Angus, and little Hamish with his fat cheeks and Mollie and even Ian, who had at first seemed a sweet coward and then proved to be so much more worthy than she had imagined. She thought about the Ridge and Tom and Sally Kerr and their house full of homely girls and slow-witted handsome boys. She would never see any of them again. If she made it home, she would only read about them in the local historical archives, if at all.

“Are you paying attention?”

“Of course,” she answered blandly.

“So then you understand what I am saying about payment,” he pressed. Cam ignored him, staring into the fire. “You in exchange for the boy.”

She knew full well what he was talking about. She glared at him with disgust, and said nothing.

Wayne rolled his eyes. “You didn’t think I did it out of the goodness of my heart, did you?”

Cam cringed. She was repulsed by the very idea, but at this point was too exhausted and hurt to even argue with the man. She had to buy herself some time. “Wayne, I am tired, filthy and cranky. I am not even going to consider it until I feel better. Leave me alone.”

Wanda rolled over in her sleep, mumbling something indecipherable.

Wayne removed his hand from Cam’s leg. “Have it your way. You have twenty-four hours to give me what I want, or I’ll just have to take it. Do you understand me?”

He patted her shoulder and wandered to the edge of the clearing to relieve himself. Cam looked away.

Great. Either I let him sleep with me or he rapes me
, she thought desperately. She looked over at Wanda’s sleeping form, and wondered if the other woman had overheard the exchange.

The next morning, after a breakfast of porridge and dried meat, Wayne Sinclair became violently ill.

He awoke to find Wanda pressing a cool cloth to his forehead. “How are we?” she asked, a wide grin on her freckled face.

“Guunnhh,” moaned Wayne.

“Good. Feeling like shit, are you?” she asked cheerfully. He was in the back of the cart, and Cam was sitting up front, trying to guide the horse up the winding trail.

“I’m gonna die!” he hissed at Wanda, eyes wide.

Wanda thought about this for a moment. “No, unfortunately you aren’t. But you will be barfing for a day or two.”

Wayne pulled his knees up as another spasm wracked his intestines. “Aaaagh. How do you know?”

Wanda merely looked at him. “You must have eaten something that didn’t agree with you.” She patted his hand and climbed back up to the seat of the wagon, taking the reins from Cam.

Cam glanced at her sideways. “What did you do?” she muttered under her breath.

Wanda sighed. “Dogbane. I put it in his porridge,” she said softly, glancing back to the rear of the cart. Wayne was oblivious.

“You’ve poisoned him?”