The Angel Stone

correct and my incubus could never return, would I ever find my other heart?

Mac came to the kitchen door just as I was transferring the hot bannocks into a basket. He was wearing an ill-fitting sports jacket over a fancier-than-his-everyday plaid shirt (cotton instead of flannel) and dress slacks instead of jeans. When he saw what I was wearing—and smelled the bannocks—he burst into a wide smile.

“My nan is going to love you!”

I instantly felt guilty because I’d gone to all this trouble to get information out of the old lady and not because I wanted to marry her great-grandson. But at least I’d made Mac happy. He grinned all the way to Shady Pines, which was a short drive away, near the edge of the downtown area. I’d passed the nondescript two-story brick building before without really noticing it. There was a large, shaded patio in front, on which elderly people often congregated. Today it was festooned with balloons that said HAPPY BIRTHDAY GRANDMA! A large multigenerational group was gathered around a tiny elderly woman wearing a pointed party hat. Mac stopped by on our way in to wish Mrs. Rappaport a happy birthday and ask how her new hip was. I stood in my nice plaid skirt, holding my basket of fragrant bannocks, while the entire Rappaport family scrutinized me as a potential fiancee for Mac. By the time we left here today, the whole town would think we were engaged.

The cheerful exterior and pleasant staff inside couldn’t quite disguise the antiseptic smell of an institution— or the fact that many of the residents were not as spry or as well attended as Mrs. Rappaport. We passed a lounge where an elderly group slumped in front of a television set, their wrinkled faces slack and colorless. I was aware of eyes tracking us as we passed the residential rooms, and I felt strangely as I had looking toward the woods this morning. A woman in a pink tracksuit, making her laborious way down the hall with her walker, raised her head as we went by and lifted a shaking hand to stop us.

“Is there something I can do?” I asked her.

“You can get me the hell outta here!” she cried. “There are monsters here!”

“It’s okay, Mrs. Goldstein,” Mac said in a soothing voice. “I’ll call an aide to help you.”

“Traitor!” Mrs. Goldstein hissed. “Collaborator!”

Mac only smiled and nodded at Mrs. Goldstein’s accusations and pulled me away. “Don’t worry about Mrs. Goldstein. She’s a Holocaust survivor, and now she thinks she’s back in the camps.”

“That’s horrible!” I said. “The poor woman!”

Mac nodded, but we’d arrived at his nan’s room, and he was too busy slicking down his hair and straightening his tie to worry about Mrs. Goldstein’s delusions. He took my arm and led me into a comfortable bedroom that included a small sitting area, toward a wizened old lady in a powder-blue velour tracksuit with a plaid wool shawl draped over her shoulders. I recognized the wide Stewart face beneath crisply waved white hair, and she had the same blue eyes, only hers were slightly clouded by cataracts. When she lifted those eyes, though, they fastened on me with a keenness I’d never seen in Mac’s face.

“Ah, Cailleach McFay,” the old woman said in a surprisingly strong, steady voice. “At last. I’ve been waiting a long time to see you.”

I looked uncertainly at Mac, wondering if Nan hadn’t slipped back into dementia. Mac shrugged and looked embarrassed, then said in a loud voice, “You told me to bring her at teatime, remember? And, look, Callie’s made you some bannocks.”

I put the basket on the table, which was set with a brown glazed teapot, three flowered teacups, a bowl of brown-sugar cubes, a jug of milk, and little pots of jam and what looked like clotted cream. Mac and I sat down on the two comfortable chairs opposite the couch. He poured tea and filled his grandmother in on the latest news— how the crops had come in, the quantities of jams and pickles put up by his mother and aunts, the purchase of a new tractor, the health and activities of a dozen or so grandchildren and twice again as many farm animals. Mrs. Stewart maintained the regal poise of a queen listening to the assizes, her eyes, the same Wedgwood blue as the teacups, all the while focused on me. When Mac had finished his report on the state of the Stewart clan, he took a gulp of tea and crammed a bannock into his mouth. His eyes widened.

“Why, Callie!” he exclaimed with a full mouth. “These are just like the ones Nan makes. How did you get the recipe? Nan always says it’s a family secret!”

“It’s how my father made them,” I replied. “He said he learned from his grandmother.”

“Mmph.” Mrs. Stewart made an enigmatic sound. Then, turning to Mac, she said, “Be a dear and go talk to Mrs. Gulliver about putting me into the Friday afternoon bridge game, and don’t let her tell you it’s full just because Babs Meriweather swooped in and took my seat while I was indisposed. I’m back now.”

“Sure, Nan, only I could go after our visit—”

“You’ll want to catch her now before she leaves, lad, and this will give the lass and me time for a little girl talk.”

“Oh!” Mac said, turning bright red at the thought of what girl talk might entail. He gave me a wary smile and hurried out before he might accidentally overhear some embarrassing female detail.

“Mrs. Stewart—” I began when he had gone.

“Call me Nan, lass. I feel as though I’ve known you for centuries.”

I sighed. “Nan, I know Mac’s told you a lot about me, but I hope that hasn’t given you the wrong impression about our relationship … not that Mac isn’t a fine young man.”

“Tsk, tsk,” Nan Stewart clicked her tongue at me. “I know you’re not sweet on my boy, lass—ye could do worse, mind ye, but he’s no’ the man of your dreams, is he?”

I met those sharp blue eyes. “What do you know about my dreams, Nan?”

She leaned forward, and her thin, arthritic hand grasped mine with surprising force. “That the man who comes in them is as sweet as heathered honey.” She sniffed as though she could smell the heather strewn all over my bed after my dreams. “And I know ye willna let go of him, even though ye should. But when do we ever do what we should when it comes to love, eh?” Her eyes clouded, as if a mist had washed over them, and the years fell away from her face. I glimpsed a young woman in front of me, her eyes burning with love. I returned the pressure of her grip on my hand.

“Not often,” I replied. “But I want to do what’s right for Fairwick. Not for … him, but to fix things here. I know you’ve been … indisposed, so you may not know that something awful’s happening.”

“Not know it, lass? Who do ye think indisposed me? Those bastards, that’s who! They knew I’d never let them take my village, and so they struck me down and scrambled my senses. If I hadn’t had the plaid to protect me, they would have killed me.”

I guessed that she meant the magic tartan the Stewarts used as a force field, not the plaid shawl around her shoulders.

“The plaid has many powers,” she said. “We used it to banish the nephilim in Ballydoon when they tried to round up the old folk and the wisewomen.”

She let go of my hands and leaned back against the sofa cushions. Lines of strain had appeared on her face, and I worried that dredging up these painful memories might be too much for her. I held her teacup up to her lips, but she waved it away. “They came to my village many years ago, hunting down the old folk and those who believed in them.”

“The old folk? Do you mean …”

“You know who I mean, lass. The good people. The fairies. You’ve got more than a touch of the fey in you. Enough to open the door between worlds. The McFays came from the same village as us Stewarts. It were a McFay who charged the Stewarts with protectin’ folks from the wrong sort of sprite—and from those evil winged bastards.”

I blinked at the old woman’s ferocity.

“They rounded up the last of the fairies and all who sheltered them. Called them witches and burned them at the stake. ’Twas a fairy that drove them out.”

“Do you know how she did it?” I asked. “Did she have a stone?”

Nan shook her head, and her keen eyes seemed to grow a little dimmer. “When I think on it, I get a little confused, like. But, aye, I think there was a stone … and I think it’s still back there.”

“Back where?” I asked, beginning to worry that Nan hadn’t completely recovered from her dementia.

“In Ballydoon,” Nan snapped, as if I were the one whose faculties were in question.

“Ballydoon, Scotland?” I asked. “You want me to go to Scotland?”

Nan sighed. “You’ll no’ find the stone in Ballydoon now. You have to go through the