Silent Vows (15 page)
There was no longer a reason for her to stay.
Later, she sat on her bed alone in her room, and wept. She softly spoke her prayers and confessed her love for the man in the next room, and she choked back a sob at the unfairness of her life.
Her mind slipped into sleep, finding peace in oblivion as her tears wore out. In her dreams, she heard the chant she had shared with Tara.
Unknown to her, the stones hidden in the folds of her bed started to glow.
In this day and in this hour, we call upon the
sacred power. I choose to give my blood to thee, I
choose that you are a sister to me.
Her dream shifted from the time she had pricked her finger and sat with Tara. She saw instead the image of Todd, naked and lying beside her, tangled in sheets moistened by their love. She held his head, looked into his mind and changed her chant.
In this day and in this hour, I call upon the
sacred power. If you give your love to me, I will give
you my love times three.
In her sleep, her body shuddered with the thought of Todd sliding into her.
Restless and tossing in his big bed all alone, his 125
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body stiffened with Myra’s vision, mixing with his.
Her body wrapped around his in his dream, pulling a gasp from his sleeping lips.
The stones from the Ancients hummed and lit, bringing both man and woman together in their sleep.
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It was Christmas Eve and Todd watched her from the doorway. Myra shuffled her things and packed them into glorified carpetbags. She wore a long skirt and simple shoes. Her hair fell free in front of her eyes each time she bent over to pack something new.
They’d barely spoken since their fight. When she had announced her departure date the night after they’d come back from Renaissance Times, Todd did his best to be agreeable. He spent more time at work, which made it easier in some ways.
Simon wouldn’t miss any school and Lizzy had a week off for the holidays.
He knew the real reason she was leaving.
He couldn’t blame her.
Myra tried lifting the mattress to get at what was underneath.
“What are you doing?”
She tossed him a look over her shoulder. “The stones are hidden here.”
Todd lifted the mattress so Myra could retrieve them.
He sat on the bed and picked one up, turned it over several times and gave a short, “Humph.”
“What?”
“I thought they would be...I don’t know...gold or something. They look like ordinary rocks.”
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“Look closer.” She placed a hand to the stone, giving it a small amount of energy. The words carved in it faintly glowed, almost causing Todd to drop it.
Does everything she touch light up?
Quickly, she placed all the stones in the sack, and then put out her hand in a silent request for the sixth one. Her hand brushed his when he gave it back. A small amount of static gave him a charge.
He drew back.
“That’s everything.” Myra kept her eyes down when he got up to take a load to his car.
The night fog was dense driving up the mountain roads and into the Angeles National Forest. Streaks of white fog would sometimes glare the windshield, making driving difficult. Behind them, Liz followed with Simon in her car.
The road was almost deserted. Few people needed to drive it on Christmas Eve. Todd concentrated on his driving, and tried his best to keep his thoughts away from what was happening. A part of him, the skeptic part of him, didn’t believe anything would happen once they were isolated and Myra set up her rocks.
The other part of him, the part he didn’t recognize and had just started getting used to, realized she was leaving and he may never see her again. “Will you bring Liz and Simon back?” he asked unexpectedly.
“One of us will.” She lifted her chin, refused to look his way.
But not you.
****
Myra couldn’t help but smile. “That is what I thought before I came here. Everything will be fine.”
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“How are we going to move this stuff around without being noticed?” Lizzy heaved a bag full of books to the trail off the road.
“We won’t have to move it far. We will stay in one of the cabins outside the Keep this night. My mother will know I am back and send one of my brothers to fetch us.”
“How will she know?”
“When your son needs you, do you know it?”
Myra asked, not expecting a reply.
“Huh.” Lizzy pondered.
“Are you ready for this?” Todd asked Simon.
Simon looked up at Todd like he was nuts. “Is anyone?”
Todd shook his head, ruffled Simon’s hair.
“You’re too smart for your own good.”
Myra glanced at the pattern of the trees, searching for a symmetrical spot to place the stones.
She found a small clearing which suited her needs before she set her things down in a pile. Todd, Liz and Simon followed her lead.
One by one, she placed the stones in a circle.
Slowly, she drew out the moment of their departure for as long as she could.
I’m leaving and I’m never
going to see him again.
The words echoed in her mind, creating havoc in her heart.
Unable to put off the inevitable any longer she glanced up. “We’re ready.” She motioned for Liz and Simon to come inside the stones.
Todd’s eyes followed Lizzy as she led Simon into the circle.
Myra waited until Todd’s gaze moved to her. She stood staring at him, patiently waiting. Unable to control it, her heart started to crumble and break.
“Come here,” he said.
She rushed to his arms on a cry. Desperate, their lips found each other’s, each devouring in a last attempt to hold onto what they knew could never be.
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His hands stayed in her hair holding her to him.
His kiss was excruciating. She wanted him to beg her to stay, but how could she even if he did.
A silent tear streaked her cheek when his lips left hers. “I will never forget you, Todd Blakely. A part of you will live with me all my days. I have no way to thank you for all you have done.”
He wiped her tear away and kissed her forehead. “I’ll never forget you.” He stiffened his spine and moved aside, putting a small amount of distance between them. He already missed her. She could see it in his eyes.
Her hand slipped from his before she stepped into the circle, where Lizzy stood waiting with Simon. Myra laid her hand on each stone bringing brilliance and light. The inscribed words, written by the Ancients, hummed and radiated heat.
In Gaelic, Myra began:
“Ancient stones, and ancient power, take us back to my home this hour. Take us to my time at last, may only the day’s I’ve been here lapse. Keep us safe and from harm’s way, hide us from the light of day. The cabin by the creek, if you please. As I ask it, make it be.”
A rush of hot air pushed against the three of them. The stones, once dormant, now shot fire and light above their heads, and swirled into a vortex.
Myra looked up as the ground began to shake, her eyes met and locked to Todd’s. Her hand lifted in a silent wave.
His shock registered to her senses. For the first time since they met, she felt his absolute belief in all she had told him, his acceptance of all she had said as truth.
Then he was gone.
The world shimmered in front of the travelers, and the ground disappeared from beneath their feet.
A feeling of weightlessness and a falling all at once 130
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surrounded them. Colors of all shades shot past them and above their heads. They couldn’t tell if they were moving up or down, left or right. The noise was deafening and the wind rushed over them at an alarming speed.
Simon’s eyes grew wide. Lizzy held his hand in a tight grip. “This won’t last long,” Myra yelled over the noise, but she didn’t think the others could hear her. Like a door slamming, everything stopped all at once, the noise, the light, the wind.
A small dusting of snow drifted down from the gray skies above. Their belongings sat in the neat piles they had placed them in only moments before but now they sat on a pile of snow, surrounded by a dark ring where the stones’ energy and light had burned into the ground.
“Now what?” Lizzy asked.
Myra snapped out of her thoughts, blinked away her tears, and looked at Simon and Lizzy still holding hands and shaking. Behind them stood a cabin. “We will put our things here, and stay until first light.”
“Are we really in Scotland?” Simon asked.
“Aye. Look over there, beyond the trees. Do you see the hue of light?”
“Yeah.”
“That is my home, MacCoinnich Keep.” A smile chased away her pain. She closed her eyes briefly and sent out a call of ‘I’m home’ to her mother.
“Come, let us get out of the cold, after we cover up the circle from the stones.”
****
The only thing that remained to remind him she had been there was a black circle where fire had 131
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scorched the earth, evidence from the circle of stones that tossed them all from one time to another.
If he hadn’t seen it, he wouldn’t have believed it possible. Even now, sitting alone in the dark with a mist starting to rain from the cloudy skies, he couldn’t wrap his mind around the facts.
From the beginning, he knew there was something about her that was pure. Innocent.
It wasn’t until a bitter cold wind bore down on him that he made his way to his car. He looked over to where Lizzy had parked hers, a forestry pass displayed on the dash, informing any official policing the forest that a hiker would return for their car within the time allotted.
Only he knew the driver wasn’t a hiker enjoying the great outdoors.
At home, he tossed his keys down and went straight to the liquor cabinet, poured himself a double Scotch, then fell onto his couch. His blurry eyes registered a box next to his fireplace, wrapped up in bright red and green foiled paper, perfect for the holiday.
It was the only evidence in the room that Christmas was less than an hour away.
The card on it was from Myra, it said simply;
“Happy Christmas, Todd. Never Forget.”
The box was impossibly heavy. It took both hands to carry it back to his sofa where he unwrapped it. Under the wrapping and from the plain cardboard box he drew out a sword.
The ornate carvings were etched deep in the blade and the hilt fit his hand perfectly. He lifted it up and tested its weight.
Never in his life had he held such a weapon. The joy it brought to him was mixed with more sorrow than he expected, more pain than he thought possible.
“Damn. What did I do?”
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He took everything off his mantel and placed the sword there perfectly displayed. He lit a fire and wondered if Myra was staring into a fire at that very moment.
“Damn.”
****
Lizzy sat with Simon on a tattered and worn-out cot. The looks on their faces clearly defined their anticipation of what was yet to come.
Even with her heart breaking over leaving Todd, Myra’s heart leapt with joy when the silhouettes of her father and brothers rode into view.
She stood on the step outside the door. Fin bounded from his horse, picked her up and swirled her off her feet. “God’s blood, ‘tis good to see you.”
His hug was fierce, his voice sincere.
Cian, her younger brother, stepped in and hugged her. “’Tis about time you returned.”
Her father’s welcome was more stoic. Tears threatened to fall as she ran to his arms.
He held her as if she had returned from the dead. “We missed you so much.” Emotion swallowed her whole, and tears leaked from her eyes.
“I missed you all.”
Fin stepped past the reunion and noticed Lizzy and Simon standing in the doorway. His elated expression fell, his eyes shot to Myra
“Myra.” He cleared his throat. “An introduction if you please.”
Myra broke free of her father’s arms and turned to Lizzy and Simon who waited patiently for the reunion to end. “Lizzy. Simon. Come meet some of my family.”
Lizzy urged her son forward, her eyes glancing toward Fin. He stared both of them down, obviously annoyed by their presence. Myra wanted to question 133
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him, but knew she should wait.
“Da, Fin, Cian, this is Tara’s sister and nephew, Lizzy and Simon.”
Ian sized them up, his face stern. Myra’s skin started to crawl. Between Fin and her father, she worried that they would demand Lizzy return at that very moment.
To her relief her father spoke with kindness.
“We have heard much about you. Tara will be pleased you’re both here.” He kissed the back of Lizzy’s hand in greeting and motioned for Fin to follow suit.
Lizzy’s back was rod straight and tension filled the air.
Myra cleared her throat. “’Tis good you brought extra mounts, father, we have brought back so many wonderful things.”
They rode two to a horse. Simon behind Cian, Myra with her father and Lizzy begrudgingly sat in front of Fin. Lizzy didn’t complain, but Myra knew she felt her family’s disapproval of her presence. The chill from Finlay was coldest. Myra knew she would find out why at the first chance of a private conversation.
****
. Lizzy knew she stood the risk of ticking off the MacCoinnich’s when she forced Myra to bring her back in time, but this was ridiculous. The looks Finlay gave her brought the hair on the nape of her neck to a spike. His arrogance pissed her off more than worried her.
From all Myra had told her, Fin would move heaven and earth to see Myra safe. Liz always acted no differently in regards to Tara. So why the cold shoulder?