He was only watching her with pity in his eyes.
“What happened that I have these memories?” she whispered. “They aren’t there all the time. Just now and again.”
He nodded toward the water. “Let’s go walk. Tell me if the tidings become too much and we’ll do something else like look for shells or stick our feet in the water.”
She nodded. “Very well.”
He gathered up a basket and that blanket that reminded her a bit of the other one he’d defiled by casting onto the ground and inviting her to sit on it with him, then offered her his free hand. She held onto his hand with both her own and walked with him over a little rise and down onto what she could only assume was sand, never having seen it before. She stopped next to Oliveras he set his burdens down, then looked to make certain the children were accounted for.
“Perhaps we shouldn’t leave them,” she ventured.
“My mates are watching over us,” Oliver said.
She looked at him in surprise. “I don’t see them.”
“That’s how they like it.” He hesitated. “You could take off your shoes, if you like. The sand is likely cold, but soft.”
“I suppose the cuts are healed well enough,” she agreed.
“I forgot,” he said, wincing. “Let’s just walk as we are today then. We’ll come back a different day and go barefoot if it’s warm enough.”
She nodded, waved to Jamie’s children, then took Oliver’s hand and walked with him down to the water. He turned them so they walked along the edge of the water, then looked at her seriously.
“What do you want to know first?”
There was no reason not to head straight into battle when her other choice was to linger on the side of it as only a coward would. Supposing her sire might approve, she looked up at Oliver and marched directly into the fray.
“I keep remembering things that make no sense,” she said bluntly. “These words come out of my mouth when I don’t expect them to and remind me of things that I’m certain I don’t know. I can’t call them memories, but they seem to be just that. I’m terrified that I’m losing my wits, but I have to believe there’s a reason for it all.”
“There is,” he said carefully. “Where would you like me to start?”
“You stopped the tale at Moraig’s doorway,” she said, then she stopped and looked at him. “That was her name, wasn’t it?”
He nodded.
She walked on with him and promised herself to keep walking because if she didn’t, they would both look as if they were losing their wits, what with all her stopping and starting.
“You fell at the threshold of Moraig’s croft—” She took a deep breath. “The witch’s croft. What happened then?”
“You remember our journey from your hall to Moraig’s, don’t you?”
“Aye. We were going to try the faery ring, but there were too many lads there.”
“There were,” he agreed. “We kept going to Moraig’s, but we weren’t alone there either. We made it to the croft itself, but I clunked my head on the threshold as we tried to run inside.” He paused. “I fell into the Future, but I left you behind. Not that I wanted to, but because I had no choice.”
She felt a chill run down her spine. “What happened to me?”
He stopped and looked at her. “Walk or let me hold you?”
“Both,” she managed. “But walking first.”
He nodded. “I’ll be brief. You were carried away and—”
She looked him full in the face. “Did I go to the stake?”
He didn’t reply, but there was misery written on his face.
“But,” she said in surprise, “I have no memory of that.”
