Page 17 of Highlander’s Hope

Faeries? Come on. Although if he believed in fairies, Sìneag could probably pass for one. But he wasn’t a little boy, and he didn’t believe in magic.

Marjorie walked towards the window. “Out of all yer Highland tales, Isbeil, ’tis the strangest one.”

Konnor wasn’t sure he agreed. The story may be weird, but it was this place that was really strange.

“So ye believe him, Isbeil?” Marjorie said.

The old woman nodded.

“Well, ye havna been wrong yet in my life. But what of the outlandish things he speaks of, the security firm, the Los Angeles? What’s all that? It sounds like he’s from another world altogether.”

“Mayhap he is,” Isbeil said. “I tell ye, my grandmother warned me about that place. To never go near it. Ye dinna want to tempt faeries.”

“I was just there,” Marjorie said. “I didna notice anything strange.”

“Didna notice anything strange?” Isbeil chuckled and looked pointedly at Konnor. “I think ye brought the strange thing back to the castle.”

Marjorie blinked and then rolled her eyes.

“Honestly, Isbeil, sometimes ye talk as if I’m still a child.”

“’Tis because sometimes ye behave like one,” Isbeil said.

Marjorie sighed thoughtfully. “Look, Konnor, ye’re not going anywhere. Ye canna walk anyway. Until I’m sure ye’re not a MacDougall or another clan spying for the Sassenachs, ye’re staying here.”

Konnor couldn’t believe his ears. Now he was a prisoner in a medieval cult.

“You can’t just keep me here.”

“I dinna believe in fairy tales,” she continued. “So I dinna believe yer stories about Los whatever and firms and hiking. Any of that.” She turned around and walked to the door. “Ye’ve wasted enough of my time. Until ye tell me something I can believe, ye’re staying here.”

Chapter 6

Later that night, Marjorie lay next to Colin as she put him to bed. She kissed his forehead.

“Would ye like me tell ye a story, sweet?” she said.

“Aye,” he said and nestled his head on her shoulder. “Grandfather told me stories of his travels. But ye havna been anywhere, have ye, Mother?”

Marjorie swallowed and looked around a small bedchamber. The tallow candle flickered as an evening breeze came through the slit window, making the light dance along the stone walls.

She wondered if the ghosts of her ancestors lived in that darkness and watched over her: her grandfather Colin, her cousin Ian, Diarmid the Boar, the legendary warrior who, according to legend, started the Cambel clan, her own mother, a woman she’d never known, and her stepmother, the woman who’d loved her as her own.

Fire crackled in the fireplace, illuminating the wooden shields and swords and the bow on the walls of Colin’s bedchamber. There was one steel sword that glistened on the wall, and it reflecting the firelight. It used to belong to Marjorie’s grandfather, Sir Colin, who died in the battle to save her from the MacDougalls. The whole clan, including Marjorie’s Uncle Neil, who was the chief of clan, decided it should belong to Marjorie’s son, and it hung, large and beautiful, and almost as tall as its current owner, waiting for the day that Colin would be grown enough to wield it.

“Ye havna been anywhere, have ye, Mother?” Her son hurt her with the question, although he didn’t realize it. She’d always wanted to travel like her father and Uncle Neil. She’d always wanted to see England and France and perhaps even reach the Holy City. She’d heard so many stories of the Crusades.

But she couldn’t. Today was the first time she’d been alone outside the castle walls in twelve years.

“I havna, son,” she said, swallowing the hurt behind a forced smile. “But I’d like to.”

“Mayhap, we can go together one day.”

“Oh, I’d love that, sweet.” To go together into the big, dangerous world and know there was nothing that could hurt her son or her because she was strong enough to protect them… That was what she wanted. Mayhap, one day she would have that.

She looked at her grandfather’s sword and remembered how she’d seen it twelve years ago lying in the dirt next to him. He’d been unmoving and pale. She often told Colin stories of his great-grandfather to keep the memory of the man she dearly missed alive. Ian had also fought to save her in Dunnollie. He’d died later as a result of the feud between the MacDougalls and the Cambels.

She wanted to tell Colin the story of how Ian had saved her, how they’d lost Innes Chonnel to the MacDougalls. But she didn’t want Colin to know she’d suffered so much, so she decided to come up with a different name for Ian.