Jerry’s kiss repeated itself in my dreams. It seemed etched forever in some warm corner of my soul where all of my most precious memories remained.
“Jerry spoke to me with his kiss. ’Twas as if each touch of his lips was meant to tell me something—the way he held me stirred more than my body—it stirred something within my soul.”
Mary’s suspicious gaze was back. I cleared my throat in my haste to move on.
“I canna think when Henry kisses me. ’Tis as if I am consumed by him, and I disappear beneath his touch. I canna breathe nor think nor move, and I doona want to do anything other than keep kissing him when his hands are on me.”
When I finished, Mary stood silently for a long time. I couldn’t tell if when she spoke it would be through bursts of laughter or tears.
“Say something, Mary.”
Eventually, she moved to sit next to me once again. Her voice was soft and serious when she spoke. “Have ye told Henry of yer magic?”
It had never occurred to me to tell him. “No.”
“Why do ye think that is?”
I didn’t know. I shrugged.
“When ye think of marrying Henry, how do ye feel?”
“I feel nothing. I doona ever think of marrying him.”
She continued her inquisition as my head began to throb. “And why do ye think that is?”
Again, I shrugged.
“Lass, ’tis not a why, ’tis a whom.”
His name slipped out before I could stop it. “Jerry.”
“Aye. Ye already know the answer to yer own question, Morna. One man has awakened yer heart and soul, the other simply yer body. ’Tis up to ye to decide which ye desire more. Now, get out of my kitchen. The lassies who cared for it in my stead left it a fair mess.”
Chapter 22
For the following fortnight, I allowed myself to ponder the possibility that Mary might be right about my feelings toward Henry and Jerry—that perhaps my feelings for Henry were based on nothing more than physical attraction, and it was Jerry who held my heart. If Jerry returned before the end of two months, I knew where my heart would lead me.
Two months to the day that Jerry left, I made my peace in the only way I knew how. I raged and cried and went to my spell room to search for a spell that might allow me to find him. Maybe he was on his way back. Maybe the druid hadn’t been able to help him. Maybe something had slowed him down along the way. There were so many possibilities, and I couldn’t bring myself to give up on him without trying to find out where he was.
I’d not entered the basement since Jerry left. In many ways, the room felt as if it were as much his as mine. He’d helped create it for me, and I could see every memory of us talking and laughing in my mind as if they were only yesterday. It still smelled of him, and it made the center of my chest ache dreadfully.
I knew the book I sought—one of the first I’d read. It detailed spells for visions that I had never naturally possessed. I’d never had reason to try one of the spells until now. Such spells were tricky. So much depended upon the caster’s intention—what lay in the mind of the witch as the spell was cast.
Grier’s notes made it even more difficult to decide which one to use. There appeared to be multiple uses for each and every spell. I read for a long while and finally chose what I hoped would be the safest choice—a simple seer spell that was meant to show me the answer to whatever question was in my heart.
It was a simple recitation in Gaelic. As I put Jerry at the forefront of my mind, I recited the words with care. It was the strangest experience of my life. One moment, I could see the basement’s stone wall in front of me, the next all I could see was a small home unlike any I’d seen before.
Its walls weren’t stone, and its roof wasn’t thatch. Through the window, the rooms appeared to be lit by hundreds of candles. Confused, I forced myself to glance around the scene. I gasped at the sight of a large wagon-like contraption I had no reference for.
Movement from within the home drew my attention back to the window. Tears filled my eyes as understanding sunk in. In the background, I could see a woman. Then as I continued to stare at the window, Jerry appeared, smiling widely as he reached to pull the draperies closed.
The scene confused me. It was the last thing I’d expected to see. Some desperate and hopeful part of my mind had been convinced I would find Jerry resting in the forest on his way back here. But he would never be back here again. Jerry had succeeded in finding his way home.
What I was seeing wasn’t from my time, but his. The druid had helped him. Jerry was home, in his own time, happy with someone I could only assume was his wife. Oh, how she must have missed him while he was away for so long.
When the vision before me returned to my basement, I laid my head down and quietly cried myself to sleep.
* * *
