“That’s a mercy.”
“Then why do I remember these other odd things?”
He tightened his hand around hers briefly, then continued to walk with her. “Let me tell you the tale as it happened in its entirety, then we’ll sort what memories we both have, aye?”
She nodded, though she suspected the telling of that tale was going to be as difficult for him as listening to it was for her.
“When I regained my senses in Moraig’s cottage, you were there,” he said slowly, “but… you were a ghost.”
She stopped so suddenly, she suspected she’d come close to wrenching his arm from his socket. She looked at him in shock,but she could see he wasn’t making a poor jest. If nothing else, ‘twas obvious he believed it.
“And you saw me,” she managed. “As a spirit.”
He nodded.
She looked at him briefly, then walked on because it was the only thing that left her feeling as if she were still in the world and not wandering in a dream. He walked on with her, and he didn’t make sport of her disbelief, which she found comforting somehow.
“A ghost,” she said, sliding him a look.
He nodded again.
“And I knew you?”
He smiled, a small, wistful sort of smile. “You had, if you can fathom it, watched over me my whole life.”
She did stop then, because the thought was so astonishing. “Was that useful?” she managed, because that was the only thing she could think of to say.
“Incalculable.”
“Did you know this when you came to my time?” she asked.
“No,” he said slowly, “but that’s the thing, isn’t it? You weren’t a ghost until after I’d gone back to your time, then failed to rescue you on Moraig’s threshold.”
She shook her head, but that did nothing to either provide her with any answers or shake any good sense loose. She looked at him, but he didn’t look as if he’d losthisgood sense.
“Were you surprised I was a ghost?” she managed.
“It was,” he said quietly, “quite possibly the worst moment of my life.”
“Was it?” she whispered, hardly daring to believe that such a thing would matter to him.
He closed his eyes briefly, then turned and pulled her into his arms. She stood in his embrace for several minutes in silence, listening to the waves against the shore, the laughter of thechildren in the distance, the cry of the gulls overhead. But mostly she listened to the steady heartbeat of the man who held her as if he never wanted to let her go.
She suspected that it would take her quite a few hours in the dead of night to contemplate what he’d said, accept it as truth, then think about what that had meant to them both.
She pulled away reluctantly, did her polite best to ignore the fact that his eyes were as red as hers no doubt were, then slipped her hand into his that he offered her. She walked with him for quite a while in silence, trying to pit her poor wits against the idea that she had actually lived for scores of years after her death, albeit in a different form.
“Is that why I have these things coming into my mind that I never saw in my lifetime?” she asked suddenly.
He nodded. “I think they’re memories of your time as a, well, you know.”
“I might need to sit down soon.”
“Do you?” he asked quickly.
“Nay,” she managed. “I do better when I’m walking. But tell me why I am no longer a ghost but a woman who is capable of sitting down in surprise.”
“The things you say,” he said, shaking his head and smiling.
