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“I want to help lepers. They’re outcasts…a wee bit like me. They are nae well cared for, and I want to change that. They’re just people suffering from a disease, even if ’tis sent by God. Someone should help them and make their lives easier. Besides, I may still be useful to the king and contribute to Scotland. And I dinna think I can do much in yer future. As wonderful as it sounds there.”
“What about me? You’d contribute to me, to your and my happiness.”
She shook her head. “I release ye from needing to marry me. I dinna want to be yer jailor and dinna want ye to be trapped with me. I will survive without ye—my clan and my father wilna let me down.”
She gave him a final, sad nod, her back straight, her shoulders proud as a queen’s, then turned and made her way back to Laoghaire. As David watched her back, his heart felt like it was breaking into a million pieces. Hurt spread from his chest into his whole body. A dark abyss was expanding under his feet.
She wanted him gone. There was a rock on Islay. She’d released him from an obligation, and he was finally free.
But, for the first time, he realized the true cost of that freedom.
CHAPTER 31
They arrived at Islay on the evening of the same day. The sun was low in the sky, sinking behind a bank of clouds, but it was the end of June and full darkness would not come for some time yet.
On one side of Lagavulin Bay, Dunyvaig Castle loomed over the cliff. The tower of the main keep was tall and menacing, the men-at-arms standing atop it a threat to unwelcome guests. Inside the bay, Aulay maneuvered the ship masterfully among anchored birlinns, trade galleys, and fishing boats until they reached the port. A village was spread over the ground behind the port, clearly busy, with hurrying people looking like ants in the distance.
They docked, and as David’s feet hit the firm ground, he knew this was it…the end of his search for a way home. But he wasn’t ready to say goodbye. He wasn’t ready to lose Anna forever. He wasn’t ready to never see Rogene again, even though he had been pursuing the time traveling rock for three years.
Anna came to stand next to him, turning to Aulay. “Uncle, is it all right if I take a walk with David? Show him the place where I grew up?”
Aulay scratched his beard and looked at Colum. “I wouldna want ye to be alone with him, Anna.”
“He will be my husband, and he saved my life. How much harm can be done?”
David frowned at her. Why didn’t she tell everyone the engagement was off? And that there was no baby?
Colum nodded. “Uncle, ’tis all right. I trust him.”
Aulay sighed deeply. “I suppose. Aye. But dinna go too far. If ye’re nae back by the sunset, I will cut off yer ballsack and feed it to ye, aye?”
David nodded. “You have my word.”
“Come, David,” she said in a low voice as she passed him. “I’ll take ye there. Ye wilna need to stay here a day longer.”
He watched in bewilderment as she walked away through the busy streets of the village. He followed her, pushing through people who smelled of fish and pigsties and woodsmoke. His ears rang with the sounds of feet slurping through the muddy ground, people talking, chickens and geese squawking, and sheep bleating.
Once they passed through the village, she led him across green and rusty grass, over hard, rocky terrain. Anna’s cloak wavered in the wind a few steps in front of him, her hair a dark, floating mane. He finally caught up with her. “Anna, are you sure you want me to go?”
“’Tis what ye want, aye, David?” she said without looking at him. “I want to give ye what ye want. I love ye too much to entrap ye and make ye miserable.”
She loved him… And he loved her even more for this, for setting him free, for making the choice for his freedom.
“I love you, too,” he said, trying to stop her, but she kept marching.
“Aye…well. Love isna everything. We both ken that.”
After about ten minutes, they began climbing a large hill with ruins and boulders at its top. With every step, David felt like he was heading to an execution, to that bridge over the river in Kennifar. Only it wouldn’t be his life that he’d lose. It would be his heart. His happiness.
It would be part of his soul.
Then they stood over the rock that sat at the base of a crumbled rock and mortar wall. There they were, the carvings. The handprint.
Once again, he felt the strange energy of the stone—some sort of buzz in the air and in his gut. It would open this time, he knew. It would. Because he had found the one person who was his destiny, just as Sìneag had wanted.
Anna stood before the stone, straight and solemn, her hands clasped by her stomach. She looked at him, small but majestic. “Ye are free, David Wakeley,” she said, her voice firm and soft. He’d told her his real name during their time at the farm. Hearing it now, on her lips, was so intimate. “I hope ye will be happy there.”
He thought she wavered towards him, like a grass touched by the wind. But she remained where she was.
