She just wished they’d hurry up and get around to letting her know about that purpose and place. She was tired beyond measure of always feeling as if she were in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Of all the places she’d worked in the past few years, this had to be the best. The hours were long and the pay was pitiful, but they provided her with a place to live as well as meals.
They also treated her more like family than anyone had since she’d lost Aunt Jean. She could well imagine Charlie as a crusty old Scottish laird, straight out of one of her favorite books. He might raise hell with everyone around him but he protected his people from anyone else who might choose to do the same.
No, she knew this wasn’t where she belonged, but it was as good a spot as any to be until the time came when the Faeries would finally send her where she did belong.
“Don’t forget, you promised you’d go into Cheyenne with me this afternoon to pick up those new menus we ordered.” Evelyn grinned at her from the doorway. “And I hear that new metaphysical shop has finally opened up next door to the printers. We can stop in and have a look around while we’re there. Maybe find something pretty for them Faeries of yours.”
“I’ll be ready.”
More than ready. A trip into the big city was usually a chore, but this time Dani was looking forward to it. Oh, there’d still be all the noise and the traffic that grated on her nerves, but she’d been waiting for months to visit the store Evelyn mentioned. Ever since she’d read about the mystical powers in crystals, she’d been itching to give them a try, and on their last visit into Cheyenne, she’d seen in the window that the new store would be stocking crystals.
With Halloween just a week away, maybe she’d finally found a way to contact the elusive Faeries she’d spent the last fifteen years believing in. Contact them and at long last set foot on the path to where she really belonged.
“I’m going to be ready for you this year, Faeries,” she whispered, punching her fist into the ball of dough for emphasis.
She’d read through a stack of books and knew that on Halloween, or what used to be called Samhain, the curtain between the world of Man and Fae was at its weakest. If she was ever going to communicate with the Fae, this would be her time.
This was it. She felt it in her soul as if someone were whispering over her shoulder that after years of waiting, the Fae were about to disclose to her the purpose and the place they intended for her.
A purpose and a place where she belonged, because she knew for a fact she didn’t belong here.
Four
CASTLEMACGAHAN, SCOTLAND
1294
ELESYRIA A´L BYRNstopped outside the large wooden door, patting one hand over her hair in an effort to compose herself.
As she’d promised her Goddess before embarking on her quest, she was doing everything in her power to determine the facts of her daughter’s disappearance before taking any action. But sorting through the events surrounding Isabella was proving a most difficult task.
Not to mention the toll it was taking on her emotions.
She’d spoken to the Tinklers. They had told her all about her daughter’s escape from this castle along with a child and a man the Tinklers claimed was Isa’s SoulMate. With their help, she had trekked to the place where they had left Isabella and felt for herself the waves of Faerie Magic flowing from walls of MacQuarrie Keep.
That wasn’t all she’d felt.
In the dead of night, she’d visited the graves at MacQuarrie Keep, one with a stone that bore the chiseled name Isabella MacGahan MacDowylt.
That visit had only deepened the mystery. Isabella did not lie in her grave. No one did. Just as no bodies occupied the graves of the man the Tinklers had claimed her daughter loved nor the boy who traveled with them.
Wherever Isabella and her Robert had gone, it was not into those dank, dark holes in the ground.
What was clear was that they had left this castle together. And from everything the Tinklers had told her, it appeared they could only have done that with the assistance of the man sitting behind the door she now faced.
The laird of the MacGahan, her daughter’s widowed husband.
There was much she still needed to learn before her work here was done. Chief among that missing knowledge was whether Malcolm MacDowylt had acted to help or to harm her Isa. And the only way to assess that accurately was to determine the true inherent worth of the man himself.
Good or evil?
Worthy of her gift or deserving of her punishment?
Only time would tell. Time, and whatever test she could devise to provide the answers she sought.
With a long, slow, deliberate breath, she exhaled the turmoil of emotions assaulting her heart and cracked open the door. Only one question filled her mind now:
