Binding Vows(37)
She plastered on a fake smile and glanced at the couple in question. “All due respect.”
Without giving Duncan a minute to consider her words, she turned back. “Talk!”
“On that score,” Fin said to no one in general,
“I’m sure there is some chore which needs tending.”
“Aye. Right you are son. Let me help.” Ian followed him out, calling the dogs that appeared all too happy to leave.
Duncan and Tara stared at each other while the men filed out of the room. Lora broke some of the tension. “Tara my dear, do leave a little skin on him so I have some to remove once you are finished.”
Lora gave her son a very un-sympathetic look.
Lora MacCoinnich lifted her small frame from her chair and crossed over to them. She waited until Tara glanced in her direction before she spoke again.
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“I look forward to getting better acquainted. Let me know if there is anything you need.” Lora left the hall. “Maybe we should sit,” Duncan said, stalling the inevitable.
Tara didn’t feel like sitting, but thought she should so he wouldn’t avoid his explanations any longer.
Tara took the seat his mother had vacated. She folded her hands in her lap in a display of calm she didn’t feel.
“I don’t know where I should start.” He took the chair opposite her.
A vision of Julie Andrews twirling on an Austrian hillside flooded her mind. “Start at the very beginning.”
“That might be more difficult to understand.”
Steam would surely begin puffing from her ears if he didn’t start talking. “Okay...Where am I?”
“My home, in Scotland.”
Tara stared up at the ceiling. It soared thirty feet or more above her and was made entirely of stone. Tapestries hung on the walls. The fireplace was so big it was possible she could stand up inside of it. “Because I can’t explain all of this, or what I saw outside my bedroom window, I’ll buy that.” She took a deep breath, “How?”
“The stones. Do you remember the stones last night?”
“I remember touching a rock, the glow. You and Fin turned on the others. Everything is fuzzy after that. I think there was an earthquake.”
“It does feel like the earth moves when the stones are working.”
“What are they?”
Duncan grinned, but her frown kept it from staying on his face long. “The stones are older than 109
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time. They were entrusted to our family for keeping.”
“And they are used to move people from one place to another?”
“Aye.”
“A few rocks moved me to Scotland overnight?”
“Aye, they did.”
Not quite believing, but not able to explain everything she saw the night before, Tara pushed on. “You told me I was in danger last night, and we had to hurry. Why?”
He explained again about Grainna being evil.
Only this time he told her Grainna would have killed them if they hadn’t left when they did.
Tara referred to her as a witch, a term Duncan didn’t deny. He told her of the curse binding Grainna in an old and powerless body. But when Duncan repeated a rhyme about Druids and Virgins, Tara’s head started to swim.
“Back up,” she told him when he wanted to continue. “A virgin’s blood of Druid decent? Grainna thought my ancestors were Druids?
“Aye.”
“Druids?” Tara shook her head, “As in ancient people with mystical powers?”
“Aye.”
She started to laugh. “That’s rich. Really rich!
My parents are from Orange County. Believe me, there is nothing mystical about Orange County.”
“That may be, lass, but you are of Druid blood,”
Duncan told her with a straight face.
“Just because my last name is McAllister, doesn’t mean I’m a Druid. Scottish yes, some, but Druid? That’s a stretch. My great grand parents immigrated to the states at the turn of the century like so many others. No one in my family ever had...
powers.” She shook her head in disbelief.
“Druids are private with their abilities, because 110
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they are often misunderstood and feared. They keep to their own and hide what they do.”
“How is it you know all of this?” Not that she believed any of it.
“I am Druid.”
This is bullshit!
Then how is it, love, we can read each other’s thoughts?
“I don’t know. I can’t believe it’s because I’m a Druid. Or that you are.”
“You activated the stone last night by your own hand,” he reminded her.
“That can be explained. Maybe it was the heat of my hand that turned the stone on. Anyone could have done it, if that’s the case.”