Once Upon A Highland Legend (14 page)

The night was so black only the light from the fire and Annie’s keek stane revealed aught. Emanating from her hands, it shone softly over her white tunic with the strange little clear knobs she had called buttons. His cloak was fastened about her neck with the brooch he had given her. And she was missing those strange garments she called socks. He noticed, however, that they were planted upon Dunneld’s feet, looking a bit queer with his leather shoes. Callum didn’t ask about that…not yet…he wanted to know something else.

He met Annie’s liquid green gaze. He could see her clearly by the light of her orb even if no one else could. “Ye managed to get your Winter Stone…why di’ ye not go?”

“It was dark,” she said softly.

Callum tilted her a look, understanding what no one else could.

“That is…until I started running toward the loch,” she said, looking him straight in the face, her lovely green eyes swimming with unshed tears. “Then it turned red, so I kept running,” she said.

All sound seemed to fade away, save for the beating of Callum’s own heart. Even the wind held sway. His heart squeezed. He peered around at his kinsmen. All of them appeared confused by her words…all except mayhap Dunneld, whose gaze was centered on Annie’s socks on his feet.

A distant wolf’s howl intruded, the sound doleful. That’s how Annie felt right now. Her heart beat so loudly she wondered if everyone else could hear it as well, but she sensed that, like the glowing crystal in her hand, it was something only she could detect…along with Callum.

He sat upon his boulder as though it were a kingly chair, staring at her as though he were willing words into her mouth. She just didn’t know what to say to make this right. She had done so much damage tonight, but the crannog wasn’t her doing. That must have been the first roar she’d heard, and she suspected Dunneld and Fergus had had something to do with that, but if she spoke up now, and Dunneld was innocent, then he too would meet that shiny blade Callum had unsheathed and in his hand—a sword with an edge that gleamed greedily by the firelight.

She peered up into the night sky, spotting the new moon—just a tiny sliver in the sky—but the only true disappointment she felt right now was over the fact that she had let Callum down and betrayed his trust. The night was so dark that she could barely see his face, but she saw enough to note the dissatisfaction in his steely gaze. To say he was disappointed with her was probably an understatement.

She had saved everything inside that storehouse, except for the building itself and the whisky, but she didn’t know what to say in her defense, so she said nothing. Seeing how hard these people worked, she realized it wasn’t such a simple matter of going to the liquor store to buy more whisky or hiring men to put up a storage. She couldn’t even hear anyone breathing. They were all waiting so still to see what Callum would say…what he would do…

“Ach! I leave ye fools but for a summer and what d’ ye do?” a voice hailed from the shadows, shattering the silence.

Annie spun to see the whites of an eye and snowy hair emerging from the darkness, ambling toward the fire with a staff in her hand, a crystal similar to the Winter Stone its claw, glowing softly as she approached. Callum’s kinsmen all parted to let the newcomer into the circle, and as she neared, Annie gasped in surprise.

It was the shopkeeper.

She turned to Annie first and smiled. “Ye did well, lass,” she said.

“At last!” Callum exclaimed, rising from his boulder, and bringing his sword along with him. Annie winced and fell back a step, shifting so that she stood behind the shopkeeper, sensing the woman was someone important here. “Where ha’ ye been, auld woman?”

“I said I would return afore the first snows fell and here I am,” the woman contended, standing her ground as Callum came to stand before her. Annie hadn’t noticed how tiny she was while in her shop—not until now when she confronted Callum. Inconceivably the little woman didn’t seem the least bit afraid of him, despite that Annie wasn’t feeling all that certain any longer, even despite all that had passed between them. The shopkeeper reached an arm out and pushed Annie behind her, as though to defend her.

“Ye know this woman?” Callum asked, but it wasn’t a question. He seemed to sense their connection at once.

“I do,” the shopkeeper confessed. “And well I should. ’Twas me who brought the lass to this vale.”

Callum suddenly shook his fist at her. “At last! Something that makes sense,” he declared, and he re-sheathed his sword.

The woman turned to Annie, bidding her to step forward, along with the crystal. “Ha’ ye discovered the secret of the Winter Stone?” she asked, but Annie somehow knew she already knew the answer to that question. Her one-eyed gaze was entirely unnerving in its astuteness.

Annie shrugged uncertainly, but then she nodded, feeling maybe she did, in fact, know something she hadn’t known yesterday.

The shopkeeper smiled. “They call me Biera, child, and ye’re welcome for bringing ye home. Ye bear the Keeper’s blood. Now come ye here and wield your stone and set the truth free at last.”

Callum was looking at Annie in an all-new way. His gaze wasn’t exactly filled with disappointment anymore. Maybe a bit of surprise.

Biera lifted a wiry brow. “Put your blade away, Callum mac Finn…at least for now.” And she turned to look at Annie, giving her a nod.

Annie’s heart gave a little nervous leap, but she tossed her cloak behind her and lifted up the crystal, looking straight into Callum’s eyes. “I know who may have done it,” she said, and turned and walked straight toward Dunneld, handing him her crystal. Surprised by the gesture, Dunneld accepted it, holding it nervously between them. Her yellow socks on his feet turned orange by its light. “I heard you talking to Fergus,” she prompted, wanting him to confess on his own.

That’s pretty much all it took. Still holding the stone, Dunneld stepped past her, toward Callum. “Ach, Callum! He said it was what needed to be done for the good of all,” Dunneld announced to one and all.

“Lies!” Fergus shouted.

Dunneld continued, as though he had been holding it in for far too long. “I swear I didna know about the crannog!” In his hands, the Winter Stone’s rosy glow remained strong. “I only agreed to help persuade the clan to go. I had naught to do with Finn’s death!”

“Lies! Lies! All lies!” Fergus railed. “You are
no’
my son!”

Biera gave Annie a lift of her chin, and Annie rushed forward to seize the stone from Dunneld’s hands. She marched over to Fergus and held it out to him. “Prove yourself,” she challenged.

“I dinna want your bloody rock!” he screamed at her.

The sound of Callum’s blade leaving his scabbard sent a shiver down Annie’s spine. “Take the keek stane,” he directed.

Behind Fergus, the clan gathered around, forming a circle, preventing Fergus’s flight.

Annie’s heart beat ferociously as she lifted up the Winter Stone once more, asking wordlessly for Fergus to take it.

Still he hesitated, his eyes meeting first Biera’s and then scanning the rest of the clan. “What will this prove?” he asked, peering back at Callum. “It’s just a rock!” And with that, he seized the crystal out of Annie’s hands. The rosy color faded instantly at his touch and he threw it away.

Biera’s voice rang out into the night. “One truth told with malice is more damning than a thousand lies!” she sang, her voice carrying through the vale. “Black is the color of fear, and fear is the absence of love and light! Fergus mac Aniel your fear has led you to malice against your own people!”

For a tense moment there was utter silence, and then Fergus said angrily. “Protecting the sons of those bastards is no’ our job!” Now he spoke to the crowd at large, smacking his chest. “We are the sons of kings and this mad crone would have you hide your faces here in this vale! Your bones will rot here and your names be forgotten!”

Clearly tormented to have to speak against his own father, Dunneld spoke up again, his voice gruff with regret. “He convinced Angus to cut the piles and then he murdered him and put him in the loch.”

“Bastard!” Fergus exclaimed. “Ye were never my true son! Ye’re mother was a Sassenach and I knew ye to be a tailard!”

“Seize him!” Callum charged, his tone filled with fury.

Brude was the first to rush forward, seizing Fergus by the arms.

“And you!” Fergus spat at Brude. “You crave this fate no more than I do! Now your seed will wither in your cock and all your sons and daughters will be forgot!”

Brude yanked him violently by the arm, “I wadna kill a mon for my own design—much less my own brother, ye craven bastard! At least ye might ha’ fought Finn like a mon!” Two more came forward to restrain him and together they dragged him away, shouting and spouting obscenities.

Stunned by the ordeal, Annie stood, watching them go, and then Callum was at her side.

“What will you do?” she asked him at once.

“Take his head,” Callum told her, eyeing her neck pointedly. Annie shuddered and he added with a glimmer in his eyes, “Better him than you.”

Biera came to stand beside them, and Callum turned to the priestess, his voice strained with emotion. “I would ha’ believed this from your own lips if you had but told me, Biera. If you knew about Fergus, why di’ ye no’ speak to say so?”

The old woman gave him a sly smile and a lift of her white brow. “Ach, now, ye daft mon…ye know I didna bring the lass to tell ye any o’ this. I only hoped she’d know what to do in my stead when came the time. And ye know in your heart why I brought her…an’ I’ll leave the two o’ ye to glean the rest on yer own.” With that, she walked away, snatching up the Winter Stone and turning toward them only long enough to give Annie a little wink. The crystal lit up Biera’s hand, glowing green as she started up the hillside, toward the caverns—a spring in her step that seemed completely out of sorts with her advanced age. She held the Winter Stone up as she went. “Ye dinna need this to recognize truth,” she imparted.

Callum reached out to curl his hand around the back of Annie’s neck. “Ye had your stone and didna go,” he said again. “Could it be ye mean to stay?”

Annie’s smile returned. “Apparently.”

“I love ye, Annie Ross,” he said gently, and then heaved a sigh that made Annie feel loved in a way words alone could never have accomplished.

She knew in her heart this was the right thing to do. She’d felt it deep in her bones, and apparently her legs had known the right path even before her head had figured it out. The instant she’d even thought about Callum coming to harm, she had rushed to his aid. When you got right down to it there was nothing to get back to because home was in the arms of this man who loved her…the only man who had ever loved her, by the look of adoration in his eyes. She recognized it now that she saw it.

Up in the night sky, the new moon was like a heavenly smile, its slim crescent a lopsided grin—one that matched the silly one that lit Callum’s face. “Will ye take me as your husband, Annie Ross?”

“I will,” she said, and returned his embrace, wondering how much she should tell him about where she had come from, if anything. Maybe it was better if he believed she was a faerie, because if in fact his people were destined to vanish from history, then really all that was important was here and now…

“I have a gift for you?” he said.

“Another one?”

“Aye,” he told her. “A blue sack. ’Tis dry now, at last, and ’twill serve ye well from sea to summit.”

Annie smiled, remembering her first words to him, and then she lifted herself on tippy toes to kiss his lips, a gentle kiss that betrayed all the feeling that was in her heart.

“Now,” he said. “About the whisky ye burned…”

“I’ll learn how to make more,” she promised.

“Aye, lass, ye will, on the morrow.” And then he took her into his arms and kissed her more soundly, his lips claiming hers with ardor. Annie melted into his embrace.

Absurdly, she thought about Alice and Dorothy. Alice had found her way back through the rabbit hole and Dorothy had clicked her ruby heels. But Annie was perfectly content never going back, because Biera was right:
She was already home
.

If you enjoyed Once Upon a Highland Legend, look for The Winter Stone, three enchanting novellas surrounding one ancient Scottish Legend. Written by bestselling authors Tanya Anne Crosby, Laurin Wittig and Glynnis Campbell, these are the romantic stories of The Winter Stone.

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