Chapter 11
Morna
* * *
I made the walk back to the castle in half the time it normally took. I was still shaking by the time I entered through the castle’s main doors. While shaving the second half of Jerry’s face, he was turned away from me. The moment he stood and faced me, I knew why I found his eyes so familiar. Every memory of my last day with Grier returned at once.
Jerry was the man in the mirror—the man Grier intended to find for me.
My emotions swung wildly from disbelief to fear to anger. Due to Father’s interruption that day, I assumed her spell hadn’t worked. Did Jerry’s sudden presence in my life mean it had? Could his story of being born in another time possibly be true?
There were stories in Scotland—legends of people taken by fairies, only to be returned to a time very different from that which they left—but this was different. Could witches manipulate time, as well?
So much of Jerry’s story made little sense. If he was indeed the man Grier intended to bring me, why did she allow him to live with her for a year after she found him? And if he truly did fall through time, it was Grier who caused him to do so. Why then, had she pretended to not know how to send him home? Furthermore, why had she led him to believe she was dead? Did she know that she could no longer pretend to be ignorant of the aid he so desperately needed and worried of his reaction once he found out she’d been lying to him?
No, that couldn’t be it—Grier feared no one.
The questions in my mind only seemed to build on themselves. In my distracted state, I didn’t hear my father’s voice until he called to me a second time.
“Morna, dinna ye hear me? Come here, lass.”
His voice caused any thought of Grier or Jerry to vanish. Any interaction with my father required my focused attention. I could never allow myself to fall behind in conversation with him. Whenever I did, it ended with me being pushed into something I didn’t want.
Smiling as sweetly as I could manage, I apologized and made my way over to him.
“I’m sorry. The past days at the inn have tired me. If ye’ll excuse me, I’d like to rest before dinner. Thank ye for allowing me to offer Mae aid.”
My efforts to dismiss my father rarely worked, but it never stopped me from trying. I turned away as he called me back to him.
“Ye may rest shortly. What I have to tell ye willna take long.”
Father’s tone made me nervous—there was more patience in his voice than usual—a sure sign that he was after something. Moving to sit in the chair opposite him by the fire, I feigned concern. If Alasdair’s warning the day before was correct, I already suspected what our impending conversation was about.
“What is it? Has something happened?”
“No, I’ve good news. ’Tis time for ye to choose a husband.”
I chose my next words carefully. If I wanted him to keep the promise he’d made my mother, I couldn’t anger him with my response.
“’Tis time for me to choose? Surely, ye would be better suited to choose whom I should marry?”
The words tasted like bile on my tongue.
As I knew he would, Father said nothing of his promise. Instead, he wished to make me believe allowing me a choice in my future was a show of his generosity towards me.
“Ye are to make yer own choice, though I shall invite suitors of my choice here. The first suitor is already here as my guest. He shall join us at dinner. If after meeting this man and spending time with him, ye canna see yerself wed to him, we will send for another.”
He paused, and I could see by the way he looked away from me and into the fire that he wasn’t finished.
“Morna, I trust ye know that what I am allowing ye is unusual. Most men wouldna allow it.”
He wanted me to thank him. Doing so would cost me nothing. I could thank him and then send each and every suitor away. Eventually, perhaps he would grow tired and relinquish his quest to see me married.
It wasn’t that I never wanted to marry, but like Alasdair, I wanted to understand the power within me before I relinquished my freedom to another.
Putting on the mask I always wore in front of my father, I stood, smiled, and moved to kiss his cheek.
“Thank ye, Father. Yer kindness means more to me than ye can possibly know.”
