Breath of Yesterday (The Curse Series) (14 page)

“My father is a warrior. He cannot be killed by some coward or cattle thief. You, on the other hand, look exhausted,” Payton determined. He stood right next to me and touched my arm. “Come on, follow me.”

C
HAPTER
17

T
he clouds drifted leisurely across the sky and piled up in a huddle. I’d been lying on my back, watching. A pebble was pressing into my right shoulder blade, but I was too tired to flick it away. The small clearing not too far from the cottage was exactly what my soul needed right now. Payton sat nearby. He had led me here.

This was the moment I had been waiting for—the moment when we found ourselves alone and undisturbed, and when I finally wanted to tell him the truth. When I could at long last try to make my way home.

But suddenly this didn’t seem so easy. This whole time, I’d been thinking about myself and my miserable situation. I had wanted to tell Payton everything—knowing then that he would make all the right decisions. After all, this ordeal was all about saving him. He was the one waiting for help in the very distant future.

But Kyle McLean had changed all that.

I wished I had never met that boy with the beautiful face. It had put me in a terrible, terrible bind. To be aware of the imminent death of a person you don’t even know is hard enough. But Kyle’s friendly nature and his winning smile had made it impossible for me to accept what the Fates had in store for him. At the same time, I knew that his death would only be the start of a series of events that I was not allowed to change. My own life depended on everything happening exactly the way that destiny had intended.

If
I
found it impossible to see Kyle die, then how could I possibly expect Payton to be prepared to lead his own brother “to slaughter”? On the other hand…wouldn’t I almost be guilty of Kyle’s murder if I stood by and watched disaster take its course?

And it wasn’t just Kyle’s fate in my hands. There was also the fate of the Camerons. Before long, they would all fall for Nathaira’s malice and deceit and be brutally murdered. Could I allow that to happen? But what would be the consequences if I decided to change the course of things? Would I even have the power to change the past? Because that was what I would be doing. I’d be rewriting clan history!

This was too risky. I couldn’t get mixed up in these things. I was an intruder in this era, and I had to try my hardest to leave as few traces as possible. But how could I explain my situation to Payton without burdening him with all this responsibility? What right did I have to demand that he accept and allow his brother’s death? To condemn himself to Vanora’s curse for two hundred and seventy years? How could I be so selfish as to even consider this?

No, as long as I couldn’t be sure that I wasn’t doing any harm, I couldn’t reveal the truth to him.

“You are a strange girl.” Payton shook his head and knitted his brow as if studying an unusual bug.

“What?” I rolled to my side, propping my head on my arm so I could face him.

He plucked a blade of grass from his kilt and stuck it between his teeth before he started to explain. “All right: You talk strange. You move strange, and you even look a little strange. I’ve never seen a girl like you before. Don’t you think
that’s
strange?”

I nervously racked my brain about what I could possibly say in return. Luckily, I had come up with an explanation for my unusual behavior after my experience with the twin brothers: “I talk funny? Maybe it seems like that to you because I’ve spent most of my life living outside the Scottish borders. But I don’t think that I move funny—much less look funny!” I tried to brush off my rising unease.

Payton laughed, and the sound of it touched my innermost self. He sounded less jaded, less burdened in this era than I knew him to be in my era.

“You look so clumsy when you’re stumbling through the woods, and the way you sit on a horse—I mean, it’s truly astonishing. You have the natural elegance of a Highland cow.”

“Great, just great! Yesterday I was just a plain old cow—extremely flattering. And today I’ve been upgraded to a sturdy Highland cow. Got any more of those?”

It hurt that he seemed to think so little of me even though in my eyes he was still the coolest guy I had ever met.

Payton winked and twisted the blade of grass between his fingers.

“Oh, I could think of lots more,” he said, fixing his gaze on me.

Our eyes locked, and I suddenly felt very hot under the collar. But before I could stammer anything stupid, he changed the subject.

“I am much obliged to you for helping my father. You’ve done us a great service.”

I found it hard to concentrate on what he was saying. There would be butterflies between us, but then a moment later he’d withdraw back into his shell. I tried my best to keep my cool. I didn’t want him to know he had such a strong effect on me.

“Thank you. I hope he’ll get well soon. Where did his injury come from? I mean, who shot him?”

Payton tossed away the blade of grass he’d been playing with. He stretched out his long legs and wiggled his toes. His leather boots lay carelessly discarded beside him.

“That’s a good question. Something’s not right about that. We were tracking cattle thieves. And we caught them, too.”

He stared at me with an intensity that made it clear he wanted to take in every little bit of my reaction to what he was about to say.

“They were wearing Cameron colors.”

I sat up. Cameron colors? Was this whole story just now getting started? Was history actually happening?

I must have passed his scrutiny test, because Payton started sounding less tense.

“If the thieves hadn’t shot at us, there would be no doubt in my mind that your clan was guilty of the attack. However, the arrow that they left in my father’s chest really makes me wonder.”

Cattle thieves, enemy clans, blood feuds—all of this seemed painfully familiar to me, and it didn’t take much for me to remember that, in another time, Payton had already told me the story of how everything started:

“The year was 1740. One night, a band of young Scots who trusted their brother—for one, because they loved him; for another, because an oath of allegiance bound them to him—set out to lead a revenge attack against a group of cattle thieves. Back then, that sort of thing was very common. The Highland clans had been fighting one another for ages. Those were different times. Boys of sixteen were considered men. They worked, went into battle, and sometimes died in combat. Stealing cattle was common—especially when a neighboring clan was in trouble.

The Stuart clan at that time had been weakened. Their clan chief had recently passed away, and the identity of his successor was in question. Let me explain: The oldest son did not automatically make the best leader. So sometimes even siblings would fight bitter wars over the issue.

As for the Stuarts, the oldest son—Cathal—had been elected clan chief after his father’s passing, and his men had sworn an oath of allegiance to him. But Cathal wasn’t the only son. He had brothers, and if he were to show himself incapable of protecting his clan, then this could very well lead to violent conflict inside his own castle walls.

During that time, many cattle raids happened in the Stuarts’ borderlands. That could very easily cause a rift among Cathal’s followers. This was something he could not, would not allow. And so it came to pass that one night he gathered about twenty of his men to pay visit to his neighboring enemy clan. But the endeavor was ill-fated from the beginning. It would have been better for Cathal not to act in such haste.”

“If it wasn’t the Camerons, then who was it?” My pulse had quickened. I sensed a mystery that was just waiting to be solved—and I knew that a happy resolution was not necessarily guaranteed.

“Aye, lassie, that’s the same question that’s been floating around in my head. But, you know, I’ve caught many a cattle thief. And not a single one of them ever carried arrows with a reinforced metal tip. Someone who needs to steal cattle for a living certainly cannot afford that kind of a weapon.”

I remembered noticing Fingal’s sons taking in a sharp breath as I removed the arrowhead. But I had thought nothing of it at the time; I thought they all simply felt relieved.

“Why? What else would you use such arrows for?”

“If you’re hunting rabbits or birds, all you need are regular wooden arrows with a sharp tip. Any peasant carries such arrows with him. But the penetrating power of a metal tip? That’s something you’d only need against an armored opponent.” He pushed his plaid aside and pointed to his chest. “Such as when you’re trying to cut through a warrior’s leather chest piece.”

“So why would they have such arrows?”

“That’s what I’m going to find out.”

Payton got up, dusted himself off, and grabbed his boots with one hand while helping me up with the other. He looked down at me and lifted my chin with the tip of his finger.

“Sam?
An e ’n fhirinn a th’ aquad?
” Payton asked, holding his breath in anticipation. He didn’t even know why her reply to this question was so important to him. He should never have told her that he doubted her clan’s involvement. Not only was she a girl, but she was one of them! A Cameron! But his heart didn’t see her as the enemy—which made this all the more difficult for him.

Sam looked at him with big, innocent eyes, but she did not reply to his question.

Ifrinn,
didn’t she know how important this was for him—and also for her?

He grabbed her shoulders, making it impossible for her to dodge his question any longer.

“The truth, Sam. Tell me the truth. Do you know something about this?”

I got lost in his eyes. He wasn’t hiding anything from me—contrary to the Payton that I knew. I could see all the way to the bottom of his soul. I saw fear and uncertainty, but I also saw resolve and courage. This man would fight for what he loved. Right now he was fighting for his family and considered me the enemy. And I didn’t think I could say anything to change that.

“No, Payton. I swear to God, I know nothing.”

It took all of my strength to fight back my tears. Why couldn’t he see the truth? I didn’t want him to hate or distrust me! I wanted him to open his heart and feel how much I loved him.

He looked at me for a long time with no reaction. When he finally let go of my shoulders, he weakly confessed, “How, oh how, can I believe you?”

Payton turned away so he wouldn’t have to face her tears. He wished so much for her to speak the truth, but he didn’t dare trust her. He’d be a fool to trust anything coming from her lips. But when he was this close to her, he found it impossible to think straight.

“Why not, Payton?” she cried.

“You’re a Cameron. Your beauty cannot hide the fact that you’re my enemy.”

He had to get away from her. Otherwise, he would throw all caution to the wind and take her in his arms like a wounded doe—because that was exactly what she looked like with her big brown eyes. She was in terrible agony. Agony
he
had inflicted upon her. Despising himself, he walked away.

As if the sky itself felt my pain, the heavenly floodgates opened to wash away my tears. I lifted my face into the rain and finally felt nothing but the cold water on my skin.

Without giving me another look, Payton had walked back to the cottage.

So I was the enemy. How could I forget. His love for me had been put to the test before—when, after we first met during my student-exchange trip, he’d realized that I was a Cameron. Back then, love had triumphed over his hatred for my clan. But things were different then, and the blood feud had long since been forgotten. Now, though, the worst was yet to come, and his rage against the Cameron clan hadn’t yet reached its heights. I couldn’t bear the thought of his hating me.

But I couldn’t confide in him or make him believe me. He would never love me—all because I was the enemy.

I had to get out of here, and quickly. I had to get back to the cottage where Ross had found me, and then find the rock that would take me back to my real life in the twenty-first century. Back to my Future Payton—the one who truly loved me.

C
HAPTER
18

W
ithout giving it another thought, I started running. I didn’t look to the left or the right—I just raced into the woods. I wasn’t aiming for McRae’s cottage. Instead, I was trying to get as far away from it as possible. If I tripped over a root or something, I simply scrambled back to my feet and kept rushing along. Rain tarnished my vision and seeped through my clothes. I ran as fast as I could over this uneven terrain. Meanwhile, I kept glancing over my shoulder, relieved to see that nobody was following me.

Trees, shrubs, and bushes blurred into a tunnel of greens, reds, and browns—a tunnel with no light at the end of it. My lungs were on fire, and my sides hurt terribly. Still, I didn’t dare stop. I would orient myself later. For now, all that mattered was to put as much distance as possible between myself and Payton, the Scots, and this nightmare.

Thorny brambles snapped into my face, and I winced, stopping briefly to take a deep breath and wipe the rain from my face. My fingers were bleeding, and the scratches on my skin burned from my salty sweat. The rough housedress clung to my body. It was getting in the way.

A snapping sound to my right made me freeze in place. I listened nervously, but all I could hear was the thumping of my heart and the rain pelting the tree canopy, taking the colorful fall leaves with it.

I did a 360-degree scan of the woods around me. Nothing. My nerves were playing tricks on me. Still, I lifted up my skirts and reached for Sean’s
sgian dhu
. I heard rustling leaves and spun around. Gripping the dagger, I screamed when a blackbird not three feet in front of me stretched its wings and flew away. My heart raced, my legs turned to jelly, and my knees buckled.

“Goddamn bird!” I hissed.

I lowered my arm and breathed a sigh of relief. I looked around. Where to now? The forest extended deep, dark, and cold in all directions. I was soaked through to my bones, and it didn’t look like the weather was going to turn any time soon. Whatever I did next, I had to keep going. I wasn’t yet far enough from McRae’s cottage to evade the excellent noses of Ross’s dogs. I was actually surprised that I couldn’t hear them bark yet. I held my painful side and hurried on.

The forest was denser here, and I had to duck under tree branches dripping with rain. The tree trunks were tightly packed, and every single one seemed to hide an unseen enemy.

Again I heard a rustling sound, a twig snapping. It was closer this time. I didn’t dare turn around and so started running again. Wheezing and panting, I tore through the foliage. I heard steps behind me. A tree branch hit my face and made my eyes tear up. Leaves crunched under my feet.
Just don’t trip,
I thought. I paused as I came to a downward slope. As I hurriedly tried to climb down it, I slipped and then glided the rest of the way down on my butt. That was when someone tackled me from behind and flung himself on top of me. As he turned me onto my back, I threw my hands up defensively. In the struggle, the dagger landed on a soft target—and with some nasty Gaelic cursing, my assailant pressed my hands over my head while pinning me to the ground with the full weight of his body.

I looked into Payton’s angry face. Blood dripped from his chin and onto my dress.

“
Ifrinn!
You little witch!” It was way too easy for him to keep me in check with just one hand, while touching his chin with the other. “You’re going to regret this!”

With one swift move he wrested the dagger from my now-numb fingers and put it in his belt.

“Get off me! Let me go!” I screamed, squirming under him with all my might.

“The hell I will. What were you thinking? How far did you think you could make it on your own? Would you rather be defiled and killed by a bunch of bandits than to come with us to Castle Burragh
and be under our protection?”

“Your protection? Bah! Didn’t you just tell me that I was the enemy? What kind of protection can I expect as an enemy of yours?”

I tried to ram my knee between his legs, but all that did was make my dress ride up. Payton’s body pressed me down unrelentingly, and his breath came in fits and bursts. I was at his mercy. Yet just a moment ago I had wanted to never see his face again. To never look into his eyes that were now so full of expression that they stripped me of my own will.

He tried to calm me with a soft, almost tender voice.

“You don’t have to be scared. I don’t need to use force to find out what you know.” His face came closer. “In fact, I don’t need to use force to get anything I want.”

His lips almost touched mine, and his breath caressed my skin. I got lost in the depths of his eyes, which burned with desire. I felt hot. Our bare legs were entwined, and we were so close.…

I swallowed hard and ran my tongue over my suddenly dry lips.

Our eyes locked, and from the expression on his face it was clear what was about to happen next. He lowered his head.

“Payton, please…,” I begged for his kiss.

“Hey, McLean! Is this a bad time?” A voice broke through the magic of our moment.

Payton stopped in his tracks with his lips less than a quarter of an inch away from mine. He neither let go nor showed the slightest intention of getting up. But he did raise his head a little. His eyes told me, “We’re not done yet, you and I.”

“What do you want, Ross?” he called out without turning around.

The redheaded boy came closer. He looked angry.

“What do I want? Leave the girl alone, that’s what I want! She’s none of your concern. She belongs to Duncan.”

Payton winked at me, let go of my hands, and stood up. Then he pulled me up and pushed me behind his back, grabbing my upper arm.

“She’s traveling with us, so she’s under
my
protection. Duncan can take it up with Cathal later to see how they want to deal with the girl, but right now this is none of
your
business.”

“Your kind of protection does not seem of the welcome kind to me,” Ross said, hinting at the circumstance under which he had found us.

“A lesson, Ross! I was teaching her a lesson. I don’t want her to get any more ideas about running away.”

“Interesting methods you’ve got there, really interesting,” Ross said while glaring at Payton.

“And what exactly are
you
doing here, Ross?” Payton asked. “Weren’t you taking care of provisions?”

Ross took a step back and stared at his shoes. “Provisions, uh, yes. Everything is packed up. The ox and cart are ready, and we’re ready to go.”

“And yet you’re roaming around here in these woods. Surely there must be other things for you to do.”

“I…I was following a rabbit. Didn’t want some lovely, juicy meat to slip through my fingers, that is all,” Ross said, wiping his hands on his kilt. “Anyway, now that I’m here, surely the wee one won’t try to run away again, so why are we standing still? I’m sure your brothers want to get going as soon as possible.”

Payton motioned for Ross to lead the way. With Ross grumpily stomping off and making a lot more noise than when he first got here, Payton finally let go of my arm and bowed slightly.

“After you, dearest. I’ll be right behind you. I certainly won’t make the mistake again of turning my back to you,” he explained, cautiously touching his still-bleeding chin.

My throat tightened. I knew exactly what that wound would look like after it healed. My mind’s eye could already see the crescent-shaped scar that made Payton’s face so distinct. I could barely even believe that I was the one who’d inflicted it on him.

“Now, get moving, or wasn’t I clear enough in my lesson? We can delve into it some more if you decide not to follow my orders.”

Was he challenging me? Was that physical desire that I noticed in his eyes? In school I was really more of a wallflower, and boys didn’t usually look at me that way. A moment later, I wondered whether I had just imagined the whole thing. Quickly, so that I wouldn’t give in to the temptation of throwing myself at him and embarrassing myself in front of ever-vigilant Ross, I started walking.

As we reached the cottage, the men were busy loading any last supplies onto the cart plus a big straw mattress. They gently bedded Fingal down on it. There was a basket of yarrow and ferns at Fingal’s feet, and I also spotted a leather skin that, according to Kyle, contained a brew made from the same herbs. Kyle looked at me with an amused expression on his face, then at Payton and his blood-covered chin. Payton mumbled something unintelligible and swiftly helped me up onto the cart. In passing, he slapped his little brother upside his head, but that only seemed to amuse Kyle even more.

I climbed into the middle of the oxcart so that I was sitting more or less on the axis. This was probably the part that would sway the least while moving. As I was doing that, I also kept an eye on Fingal. The bandages still looked pretty tight, and his chest rose and fell evenly. His lips quivered with every breath, and he was softly snoring.

A good sign, I decided. I wiped the white hair from his sweaty forehead and felt his temperature. His skin felt feverishly hot under my fingers, and I anxiously bit my lip. I wasn’t sure how to reduce his fever. Sure, I could cool his body or wrap cold, wet cloths around his lower legs. But would that be enough?

The men around me didn’t seem too worried. They fulfilled whatever little tasks remained, and finally our posse started moving. Ross sat in the coach box, with the cart being drawn by two skeletally thin oxen. Ross’s horse had been tethered to the back of the cart with a tied-up lamb lying right across it. The lamb bleated miserably, and Ross pulled an unhappy face when the lamb relieved itself on the saddle. The dogs barked, jumping up between his horse’s legs, and the horse was clearly getting nervous. Finally, Ross gave a sharp whistle, and things went dead quiet. The dogs silently scatted in all directions and turned into invisible companions that followed us through the underbrush. Even though I knew that they would never run too far from their master, I was now unable to spot them. After a while, I stopped straining my eyes for Barra by the side of the road, and instead tried to relax.

There wasn’t much I could do for Fingal, except keep washing his wound with the herbal brew every now and then. I regularly checked his breathing and his pulse. The constant drizzling rain that accompanied us didn’t bother me all that much, because my dress had been soaking wet ever since my botched attempt to escape. Besides, the rain helped cool Fingal’s feverish body, and the men on their horses didn’t even seem to notice that it was raining.

But the road kept going from bad to worse with every hour that this awful weather lasted. We’d left the forest, and the foothills of the Highlands now lay before us. This dark, bluish-gray mountain range had already made an impression on me during my first trip to Scotland. The mountaintops were shrouded in dark, heavy clouds. They were hidden from plain sight, while at the same time exuding a dark, somber mood—which only added to their rugged beauty.

I remembered Roy describing this land to me such a long time ago:

“The mystical landscape of the Highlands has made us Scots a very superstitious people, aye? The fog, the bare cliffs, the darkness—it’s all part of our heritage and legends. They lead the people here to a deep belief in magic. Dwarves, giants, fairies—stories about such things have been part of our lives for such a long time that we do believe in them. Many people come to this country without ever understanding this. Others only believe what they can prove. My wish for you
is that you learn to understand Scotland, its beliefs, its history, and above all, its people. So don’t be afraid of your dreams. Maybe dreams show the people their destiny.”

And he was completely right. I myself had become part of these myths because I’d left my own era behind, because I had traveled back to the past on a path that
only existed according to legend
.

Destiny
? Why was this word suddenly and relentlessly echoing through my head? Images drifted into my mind, tiny fragments of a memory, like colors that had been washed out by the rain, like smoke that I could never wrap my hands around. Images. Bloodred images.

I wiped the rain from my face and took a deep breath.

Calm down, Sam. It’s only the Highlands, only the mountains—not spirits and not the strings of fate making you dance like a puppet to a supernatural tune.

I was in charge. I made all the decisions. I answered only to my own conscience, and I determined my own actions. I had free will! Still, I didn’t seem able to get rid of this deep chill in my bones or to fully shake the echo of Roy’s words.

After a while, we almost came to a halt. The two oxen pulled with all their might but were powerless against the wooden wheels that were now stuck in the deep mud. The road led steeply uphill, making it even harder on the animals. One of the oxen had no strength left. It dug its legs into the muddy ground and refused to take another step.

The cart swayed, and Fingal moaned. Ross cracked his whip and tore on the reins. Sean, who was at the rear end of our posse, hurried over to help.

“It’s not working. The cart is too heavy for these old oxen, and the slope is just too steep.”

Sean pushed his wet hair from his face and looked at me. Then he nodded.

“She can walk. We’re going slow anyway. Your horse will help the oxen. We’ll tie it to the front of the cart, and hopefully that will be enough. We still have a long way to go to Kilerac, and I don’t think we’ll make it there tonight. But we need to cross the pass before we set up camp for the night.”

Meanwhile, the other McLeans had come over, and I shyly smiled at Payton when his eyes briefly met mine.

“Father can’t spend the night out on the heath,” he said. “We need to make it to Kilerac. At least he’ll be able to sleep in a cottage.”

“Maybe the road will improve a few miles up?” Kyle interjected. But I could tell from all the cranky faces that this was not likely to happen.