She didn’t want to know, not right now. The dismay would destroy her.
“Thank you, Mrs. Crimmins,” she said quietly, old habits dying hard. “Thank you for telling me.”
“I’m sorry it isn’t happier news,” Eileen replied, her eyes misty with regret.
Nancy managed a tight smile. “To be honest, I never expected it to be. I was always prepared for the worst possible outcome, but… there’s a difference between preparing for it and hearing it.” Holding onto the wall for support, she got up off the ground. “I’m just going to… get some fresh air for a while.”
Eileen rose to her feet, her face the picture of grief. “You take all the time you need, sweetheart. I’ll be right here if you need me.” She gestured to the Great Hall. “My nephew is the Laird, and my sister is his mother, so just ask one of them where I am if you can’t find me.”
Nancy frowned, recalling her conversation with Jane. Eileenwas the evasive witch that was supposedly difficult to find, yet here she was, as if she had known she might be needed. As present as she had always been, for Nancy at least.
“I will,” she said.
With that, she turned and began to walk, with no notion of where she was going or where she might end up in thisunfamiliar castle. All she knew was that she had to keep moving, getting as far away from the Great Hall and the festivities as she could before she would allow herself to fall to pieces.
CHAPTER 25
Up endless stairsand even a rickety ladder that threatened to crumble under her weight, Nancy found the farthest point away from the Great Hall: the open expanse of the highest tower of Castle Culloch, a parapet that seemed to rise above the mountains, offering an endless view of the sparkling sea.
It was calmer out there tonight, the sound of the tide soothing. Above, a blanket of stars didn’t even twinkle. There were too many of them to pick out just one, the sky more beautiful than she had ever seen it in her world.
This is what it’s supposed to look like,she mused as she walked to the edge of the parapet and leaned against the uneven wall, gulping in the fresh, salty air.
At last, alone there among the mountains, she finally allowed herself to cry. Grieving for her mother, who’d vanished without a trace and had spent all those years trying to get back to her.Grieving for the father she’d never known, who had sacrificed a lot in order to make sure that she and her mother were safe.
In a way, it had been easier to think of her father as some deadbeat who’d abandoned them and her mother as a missing woman who might still be found. This was all too… final, too crushing, to know that she’d come too late, that she would never see her mom again, no matter how hard she wished for it.
But was it you, Mom, or the tapestry that brought me to this time? Are they intertwined?
She held her head in her hands as the tears trickled down her face, almost wishing she had given up when her boss told her to. There was so much value in hope, and now that she had none, she felt as if she’d been robbed.
She didn’t turn at the sound of someone coming up the ladder, nor at the sound of footfalls coming toward her. True, she was in a dangerous position, so high up and leaning against such a structurally suspect wall, but she didn’t much care if someone was coming to harm her. If someone was,then it was probably her destiny or something, woven into some tapestry or written in some book she had no knowledge of.
A shadow fell across her, blocking some of the bright moonlight that shone down. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Hunter quietly lean against the wall beside her, mirroring her position. He didn’t say anything. He just stayed there, offering her the safety of his steady presence, letting her decide if she wanted to tell him what had happened.
“I come from the future,” she began, after a while. “2026, to be exact.”
He still didn’t speak, just gave a small nod of his head.
With a breath, Nancy continued, recounting the conversation she’d just had with Eileen, from the happy life she’d led with her mother to her mother’s disappearance, and the now filled-in blanks where before there’d been only mystery and motivation. The only thing she left out was the tapestry of a bride and groom on their grisly wedding day, and how she suspected that the bride was her.
No use worrying him when I plan to fix it anyway.
With Eileen’s help, she would be gone before June 10th, averting disaster, preventing the death of Laird Lochlann. Until something else, old age with any luck, took him.
“Why are ye so sad?” Hunter asked softly, once the silence made it clear that she was done. “Should ye nae be happy that ye at least ken the truth now? That nay one abandoned ye, that ye were loved? Or… nae happy, but reassured?”
A bitter smile twisted Nancy’s mouth as she watched a fishing boat in the distance, a lantern making it seem like a star had tumbled from the sky and was now skimming across the sea.
“I probably should, but I’m not,” she replied, her throat tight. “I’m not, because none of it was within my control. The fates, orwhatever you want to call them, just called all the shots for me, for my family, and we had no power to refuse. I mean, my years without my parents, the way I got here, the waytheydecided when and where and how, and stole any chance I might’ve had of seeing my parents again.
“Even the way I got fake-engaged to you. I could’ve stayed in my room, I could’ve woken up before dawn, I could’ve done… so many things to avoid what happened, but it was already decided. It’s the same with the rest. It’s like… there’s no free will in the world. It’s all just an illusion, and I can’t stand how… hopeless and powerless that makes me feel!Nothingis within my control. Our control. Nothing.”
Hunter shifted, turning to face her. When she didn’t match his movement, his hand came up to grab her chin, turning her head so she had no choice but to look at him.
Was he trying to prove her point or something?
She glared up at him, directing her anger towards him, knowing deep down that he was probably the only person who could take it without taking it personally.
