The Angel Stone

sheltering us from the now-driving snow. I felt as if we had been lifted above the hills—above Ballydoon and the horrible sickness we’d seen today, far away from the monsters we’d have to face tomorrow, and outside time itself, so that the man I kissed contained the man he would become, the man I’d someday love. But when I looked at him, I saw and loved only William.

* * *

There was a moment after we came back to the cottage when William paused uncertainly by the hearth, where he usually unrolled his sheepskin pallet, but I held out my hand to him and drew him upstairs to the bedroom. Outside, the blizzard raged, but in our bedroom William and I made our own heat, burrowed beneath soft layers of sheepskin and wool, like two animals gone to ground beneath the snowdrifts. We had been given this brief time together before we would have to deal with the nephilim. In the pale white light of our snow cave, he touched me and looked at me as though he was trying to memorize my body. I traced his long lean back, his hips, his thighs, as if I could read his future in the lines of his body. When he hovered over me, his face blurry in the dim snow-lit room, I felt for a moment that if I took my eyes off him he might vanish. He must have seen the fear in my eyes, because suddenly we were surrounded by the tartan glow. It illuminated his face, and as he came inside me he said, “I’m here with you, lass. I’m not going anywhere else.”

We made love surrounded by the tartan glow, the multihued threads binding us. By dawn we had woven something new between us, a tapestry of our history together—our past, present, and future—indelibly written on our skin. Outside, the world appeared to have been unwritten by the snow. Staring out the bedroom window past William’s bare shoulder as he slept, I entertained the hope that the world had vanished. Ballydoon, Castle Coldclough, Fairwick … I would have traded it all for a few more hours here in this room with William, watching the glow of dawn climb up his legs, gild the ridges of his ribs, wash up the curving muscles of his arms, and limn the planes of his face. But when the glow reached his face, he stirred and opened his eyes. He met my gaze and smiled.

“So you’re not a dream,” he said, reaching out for me. Halfway to my face, his hand turned deep red. He twirled it in the light, a puzzled look on his face, then turned toward the window. Streams of crimson, yellow, and blue were pouring between the curtains and through the unglazed window. As William rose to his feet, his skin was bathed in light, as if he’d already put on his battle tartan. I watched him walk to the window, feeling as if I was watching him walk across a battlefield.

“They’re here,” he said, turning back to me, every bit of the boy washed out of his face. I’d lost that boy forever. Today would tell me if I would lose the man, as well.

We quickly dressed without speaking and went down to meet the brigade. There were more men than yesterday—at least two dozen—and they all wore the glowing tartan over their homespun breeks and shirts.

“Did Nan give the rest of you the tartan?” I asked.

Jamie McPhee stepped forward and shook his head. “Nay, we passed it one to the other. The witch hunters came this morning and took Nan and Una. They vow to burn the witches today at sunset. My ma’s one of them …” Jamie’s voice wavered, his brave facade of manhood faltering, but then one of the other men—his brother, I guessed from the family resemblance—clapped his hand on Jamie’s shoulder, and the tartan glowed more fiercely. Jamie straightened up, the tears on his face reflecting the blue and crimson glow.

“We’ll get her back,” Jamie’s brother said.

“Aye,” William said, “we will not let these monsters take our women. We’ll march against the bastards today!”

He pumped his fist in the air, and the two dozen men let out a deafening cheer. Their faces were all streaked with red and crimson now, like the war paint and blue woad tattoos their ancestors the Picts had worn when they went up against the Romans. I had no doubt that they would have stormed Castle Coldclough right this minute, but, remembering the fate of those warriors—and several other doomed Scottish campaigns—I had another thought.

“What say you all come inside and we talk strategy over breakfast?”

Making breakfast for two dozen Scotsmen pretty much exhausted our meager stores, but as I scooped out the last bit of oatmeal from the bin, I realized that if our plan worked I might not be coming back to the cottage. William and I had convinced the men that it made no sense to storm the castle walls, since the whole village had been summoned to the castle for the burning. We would simply join the procession from the village. Once inside the castle walls, the men would form a cordon around the witch hunters. At my signal, they would isolate the other witch hunters and I would take the angel stone from Endicott. Once I had it, I would be able to destroy the nephilim.

“Are you sure you can get the stone off that monster?” William asked when the men left. “The last time you looked at the stone, you fell into a fit. I …” His voice faltered. “I thought I was going to lose you then.”

The look in his eyes told me the distance we had traveled from then to now—only seven weeks, but it felt as if we had known each other for a lifetime. For many lifetimes.

“I’ll get it,” I said, making myself sound surer than I was. “The stone draws on loss and regret, but I know now that everything I did has led to being here with you, and I wouldn’t trade that for anything.” Even if I can’t stay. The unsaid words echoed in the air between us. I knew from the shimmer in William’s eyes that he was thinking them, too, but he only nodded and withdrew a soft leather pouch from his pocket. He handed it to me. “I had this made for you—an early Christmas present, since we may not have a chance to exchange presents later.”

“I was making something for you,” I said, “only it’s not done.” I went to the basket by the hearth and retrieved the scarf I’d been knitting. It was long enough, but I’d delayed finishing it because I’d somehow felt that, once it was done, I’d really be ready to go. Well, there was no point delaying now. I hurriedly cast off the stitches and tore the undyed yarn with my hands. As I broke the thread, I felt something break inside my chest. I gulped back the sob that had risen in my throat. You have to be strong for him, I told myself, as I wove the broken thread back into the scarf with the knitting needles. They were the wooden needles that William had carved for me, and I suddenly couldn’t bear to leave them behind. I tucked them into my knotted hair and turned to William to give him his Christmas present—a scarf that had turned as crimson as heart’s blood when I’d torn off the last thread.

“Ah, with this on I’ll feel like a knight wearing his lady’s favor into battle,” he said, wrapping the scarf around his neck. “I hope my present to you protects you, as well.”

I opened the leather pouch and slid a heavy piece of silver out of it—the Luckenbooth brooch, the two halves made whole.

“I had a traveling silversmith repair it when he passed through town a few weeks ago, so it would keep ye safe when you face that monster.”

Bound together, the two hearts formed a tear-shaped loop for the angel stone. I had guessed that the brooch was made as a receptacle for the stone, but I’d wondered why its maker chose the double-heart design. Now, as William pinned the brooch to my cloak just over my heart, I felt a warmth spreading through my chest and I understood. It took two hearts, linked as one, to contain and overcome the grief inside the angel stone.

“Are ye ready?” William asked.

“Yes,” I told him. “As long as you’re by my side, I’m ready for anything.”

An hour before sunset, the village seemed as quiet as it had on the first day I passed through it, when everyone was hiding from the witch hunters. But I soon saw there was a difference. In almost every window hung a small scrap of tartan. The brightly colored bits of cloth waved in the wind like battle flags. Each family that would send one of their sons to carry the tartan to the castle had hung the banner, just as someday British families might hang a Union Jack in the window when their sons went to war. As we passed each house, the door would open and a young man would come out and fall into step behind us. Their mothers and sisters came, too. I even saw Jeannie MacDougal and Aileen join the crowd, their arms linked. By the time we reached the town gate, we had assembled a crowd. When I turned around and saw all their faces bathed in the glow of the setting sun and the tartan, I thought of what Nan Stewart had told me—or would tell me in the twenty-first century: You’ll need a village.

Well, we certainly had one.