was just a matter of getting his bearings and then peering through the damty fog.
He took a few steps forward, mindful of any tumbled stones or suchlike he might encounter. But when the mists did part long enough for him to see more than a few feet in front of him, he realized he needn’t have bothered. Nothing surrounded him but the heather-and-bracken-strewn ground and the tossing, whitecapped sea.
MacNeil’s Tower was gone.
Bran blinked and turned in a disbelieving circle. He didn’t want to accept the truth before his eyes. But it was there all the same. And the brittle horror of it was worse than anything he’d ever dared imagine.
His home had been wiped from the earth as if it’d never existed.
Not a single stone remained.
Only the cold night, the waves, and the eerie, wind-driven mist looked on as terrible pain pierced his heart and punched holes in his soul. Anguished, he threw back his head to roar denial, but a scalding thickness closed his throat, cutting off his cry.
He did fist his hands, barely aware of the soft drizzle beginning to fall. The chill droplets clung to his hair and rolled down his face, but did nothing to cool the burning agony inside him.
He’d expected at least one ruined wall.
Tears blurred his vision, but like all Highlanders, he was man enough not to hide his feelings. He did bend to scoop up handfuls of damp, loamy- smelling earth, clutching the peat to his chest as if doing so might make his home rise up out of the whirling mist.
But nothing stirred except the sudden blur of gray racing toward him across the springy turf.
Bran’s heart gave a leap.
It was Gibbie.
The dog hurtled into him, almost knocking him down. Bran dropped to his knees and reached out, pulling his old friend hard against him. He rumpled Gibbie’s shaggy coat and rubbed his ears, some of the pain in his heart lessening.
“Ach, laddie, did you follow me here, too?” Bran lowered his head, pressing his cheek against the great beast’s rain-dampened shoulder. “ ’Tis no’ a fine place for us just now, our Barra. But I’m glad to be seeing you!”
As if that was all that mattered—and Bran supposed that, to Gibbie, it was—the dog barked happily and pressed closer to him, slathering Bran with kisses.
“Come, you, let us be away.” Bran pushed to his feet and forced a grin, not wanting Gibbie to see his distress and think he was upset because the dog had joined him.
In truth, Gibbie was his salvation.
As was his ability—praise the saints—to sift them both back to fourteenth-century Barra, where they belonged. In their own merry keep with a roaring fire, jovial friends, and all the finger- flicked beef ribs their ghostly hearts desired.
And as Bran reached down to curl his fingers around Gibbie’s collar—just to be sure he didn’t lose him on the way home—he vowed to never again visit Barra of modern times.
Once had almost undone him.
He wouldn’t make the same mistake twice.
The first thing Mindy did upon walking into Newark Liberty International Airport a month later was to throw away the six outdated Scotland guidebooks and several faded and well-thumbed maps of the Highlands and the Isles that Margo had insisted on giving her as must-have reading material for the flight to Glasgow.
Margo Menlove had never been to Scotland. But as a die-hard Scotophile, she had a ton of tartany paraphernalia clogging her tiny apartment and considered herself an authority on all things Scottish.
She meant well.
And her eyes had flashed with such excitement when she’d dug her treasures out of her oversized handbag and presented them to Mindy.
Margo just didn’t understand that Mindy wasn’t going to Scotland as a tourist.
She wasn’t one of the gazillion genealogy-obsessed Americans whose ancestors emigrated from Scotland two hundred years ago and viewed their package-deal
He took a few steps forward, mindful of any tumbled stones or suchlike he might encounter. But when the mists did part long enough for him to see more than a few feet in front of him, he realized he needn’t have bothered. Nothing surrounded him but the heather-and-bracken-strewn ground and the tossing, whitecapped sea.
MacNeil’s Tower was gone.
Bran blinked and turned in a disbelieving circle. He didn’t want to accept the truth before his eyes. But it was there all the same. And the brittle horror of it was worse than anything he’d ever dared imagine.
His home had been wiped from the earth as if it’d never existed.
Not a single stone remained.
Only the cold night, the waves, and the eerie, wind-driven mist looked on as terrible pain pierced his heart and punched holes in his soul. Anguished, he threw back his head to roar denial, but a scalding thickness closed his throat, cutting off his cry.
He did fist his hands, barely aware of the soft drizzle beginning to fall. The chill droplets clung to his hair and rolled down his face, but did nothing to cool the burning agony inside him.
He’d expected at least one ruined wall.
Tears blurred his vision, but like all Highlanders, he was man enough not to hide his feelings. He did bend to scoop up handfuls of damp, loamy- smelling earth, clutching the peat to his chest as if doing so might make his home rise up out of the whirling mist.
But nothing stirred except the sudden blur of gray racing toward him across the springy turf.
Bran’s heart gave a leap.
It was Gibbie.
The dog hurtled into him, almost knocking him down. Bran dropped to his knees and reached out, pulling his old friend hard against him. He rumpled Gibbie’s shaggy coat and rubbed his ears, some of the pain in his heart lessening.
“Ach, laddie, did you follow me here, too?” Bran lowered his head, pressing his cheek against the great beast’s rain-dampened shoulder. “ ’Tis no’ a fine place for us just now, our Barra. But I’m glad to be seeing you!”
As if that was all that mattered—and Bran supposed that, to Gibbie, it was—the dog barked happily and pressed closer to him, slathering Bran with kisses.
“Come, you, let us be away.” Bran pushed to his feet and forced a grin, not wanting Gibbie to see his distress and think he was upset because the dog had joined him.
In truth, Gibbie was his salvation.
As was his ability—praise the saints—to sift them both back to fourteenth-century Barra, where they belonged. In their own merry keep with a roaring fire, jovial friends, and all the finger- flicked beef ribs their ghostly hearts desired.
And as Bran reached down to curl his fingers around Gibbie’s collar—just to be sure he didn’t lose him on the way home—he vowed to never again visit Barra of modern times.
Once had almost undone him.
He wouldn’t make the same mistake twice.
The first thing Mindy did upon walking into Newark Liberty International Airport a month later was to throw away the six outdated Scotland guidebooks and several faded and well-thumbed maps of the Highlands and the Isles that Margo had insisted on giving her as must-have reading material for the flight to Glasgow.
Margo Menlove had never been to Scotland. But as a die-hard Scotophile, she had a ton of tartany paraphernalia clogging her tiny apartment and considered herself an authority on all things Scottish.
She meant well.
And her eyes had flashed with such excitement when she’d dug her treasures out of her oversized handbag and presented them to Mindy.
Margo just didn’t understand that Mindy wasn’t going to Scotland as a tourist.
She wasn’t one of the gazillion genealogy-obsessed Americans whose ancestors emigrated from Scotland two hundred years ago and viewed their package-deal
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