Breath of Yesterday (The Curse Series) (4 page)

“No!” I said defiantly. “You’re lying! You told me you loved me, you risked your own damn life to protect me! Do you think I’m so stupid that you can trick me with a Post-it note full of lies? That’s not you, Payton, and you know it!”

I ripped the crumpled breakup letter from my bag and hurled it at his face. All I got in response was embarrassed silence. How could he stay this calm when I had never fought harder for anything in my entire life!

“Payton!” I screamed. “Goddammit, you stupid man! That’s not how this is supposed to end!”

I didn’t know what else to do. I shook my head and watched him from behind a curtain of tears. I scanned his face for those feelings I had always seen reflected on it.

“Sam, please…,” he whispered.

“No, Payton. I love you—that’s why I’m here. You want me to go? You don’t love me? Then convince me. Look me in the eye and tell me!”

I stepped up to him and grabbed his hand.

“Say it, Payton. Just say it, and I swear you’ll never see me again.”

I braced myself for his reaction. Payton lifted his gaze and our eyes met.

“Sam…” He took a deep breath. “Sam, I…
Ifrinn!
”

With that, he yanked me into his arms and kissed me. My ribs almost cracked in his grip.

I could hear myself sobbing. My chest heaved with relief, and when we kissed, I tasted both our tears. Yes, our tears, because Payton seemed overwhelmed by his own feelings. He couldn’t stop kissing me and muttering sweet Gaelic nothings into my ear. I practically levitated with joy. I only noticed Sean again when he angrily pulled us apart.

“Payton!
Bas maillaichte!
What the heck? We talked about this!” he yelled.

“Screw you! I need Sam, and I won’t make the same mistake again to let her go. I’ve been to hell and back these last few days! Now that she’s here, I feel so much better. Don’t you get it? If I can make it through this somehow, then it will be with her by my side!”

I didn’t understand a single word of
any
of this. Of course it was nice to hear that I hadn’t come all this way for nothing, but the rest of it made absolutely no sense to me. The furious silence between the two brothers was charged with tension, but Sean finally gave in and shrugged.

“You know what? It is your cursed life, not mine. Do whatever the hell you want.” And with that, he left Payton flat and reached for my suitcase. As he disappeared inside the castle, he said, “Milady, how lovely to see you. Maybe we should talk it out inside.” And I took this to mean that I was invited to stay.

Turning his attention back to me, Payton sighed, saying, “Ah,
mo luaidh
. I’ve missed you. I didn’t mean to cause you any pain.”

Again he pulled me into his arms, and I snuggled up to him. He gently rested his head on top of mine, and I could feel his heartbeat under my cheek.

“So, what’s going on? Why did you leave?”

I felt safe and snug in his arms, even though I knew that much loomed unsaid between us. His sweater smelled so comforting and familiar. I breathed in the scent of the man I loved and savored the feeling of his hands running up and down my back.

“Come on in, I’ll tell you everything. But I had better warn you—it’s not a very nice story.”

C
HAPTER
6

I
was exhausted. What a stressful day this had been. First there had been the long flight, the constant worries, and the uncertainty of what waited for me on the other end. Then there was the emotional roller coaster. Payton and I had quietly agreed that we would not get together again until we had talked everything out, until we had spoken about the events that led up to us finding ourselves on a different continent. Meanwhile, I had taken a hot shower, put on my nightgown, and wrapped myself in a big fluffy blanket.

I guess it was almost impossible to sufficiently heat this huge hall where all the castle dwellers of old had dined and probably sometimes slept. But close to the fire, it was surprisingly warm and cozy. The brick wall and woodwork behind the ginormous fireplace—which back in the old days might have been used to roast the occasional whole ox—were black with the soot of years past. The logs on the fire crackled, and every now and then sparks flew up, hissing and popping when a drop of resin exploded in the flame.

As stark and forbidding as the castle seemed from the outside, it was just as cold and sparse on the inside. The McLean brothers had wasted little thought on furnishings or decoration. And, thanks to Vanora’s curse, almost three hundred years without emotions had made them completely indifferent to their environment.

Nevertheless, the leather armchairs in front of the fireplace were extremely comfortable. Sean had made
mince and tatties
for us. This traditional dish was absolutely delicious, even though the main ingredients were only humble ground beef and potatoes.

A feeling of blissful comfort came over me just as Payton heaved a big sigh into our lovely after-dinner silence. I knew what would come next: He wanted to get it over with and let me in on his deep, dark secret.

I was afraid to find out what was really going on. But it had to be important, because by now I knew that Payton would never have left me without good reason.

Silently I listened to his account. He sat opposite me, holding my hand, and every now and then he caressed the back of my hand with his thumb. I had no idea who that gentle touch was meant to reassure—him or me—but it certainly wasn’t working on me.

This “talk” seemed like a bad dream. One where you know right away that it’s not real but you can’t seem to wake up and escape back to reality. A dream that haunts you afterward with its vivid images—even in daylight. All I wanted was to wake up from this nightmare. To open my eyes and realize that I was lying in my own bed in Milford, Delaware—where everything was all right and Payton was right there beside me.

But I was still deep inside this dream as Payton ended his story and scrutinized my face for a reaction.

“I…I…,” I stammered, searching for the right words. What do you say when the person you love announces that he’s going to die?

“I…Payton, I mean…I don’t understand. Die? You’re going to die? But how, I mean…and when?”

Bewildered, I stared at the strained faces in front of me.

“We don’t know. Sean couldn’t hear every word Nathaira said, but something is happening to me. Every day I feel worse than the day before.”

“This can’t be true, Payton. You can’t die!” I howled.

“He won’t! Not if we can find a way to stop it,” Sean reassured me. “We came here for good reason. We hope to find a solution in Nathaira’s papers. After all, we managed to break a curse once before. We won’t give up, I promise!”

Sean was right. We had to save Payton. And not only because
I
was the reason for Nathaira’s curse. We had to save him because a world without Payton was lonely and lost, because my life without him wouldn’t be worth living. With newfound resolve I jumped up.

“All right then, let’s go—let’s not waste any time. What can I do? Where do we start?”

With a smile, Payton pulled me into his armchair.

“Keep your cool,
mo luaidh
. We haven’t been idle. We’ve pored over a good number of her old books, searched every last corner in her study, and brought here all the papers we thought might be relevant. As you can imagine, we did not want to spend a moment longer than necessary in that awful Castle Galthair. Evil seems to lurk in every corner of that place.”

Even Sean shuddered at the thought of it.

“Yeah, it was strange to walk into Castle Galthair even though we’ve spent so much more time there than here over the past few years.”

To fight my unease, I tried to focus on what was essential.

“So? Did you find anything? What do we need to do?” I asked.

“I’m afraid it’s not as simple as you think,” Payton explained with a level voice. “There’s no old book that says, ‘In the event of a curse, kill ye a toad during a full moon, paint ye yourself with pig’s blood, and spin ye around three times, and thus the curse shall be broken.’”

“Oh really, you don’t say!”

His cool composure infuriated me. How could he stay so calm? He was going to
die
. Didn’t he get that?

“Yeah, really.” He winked at me and stole a quick kiss before I could continue griping.

“Well, what are you hoping to find?” I asked.

Sean put another few logs on the fire and poked them with a fire iron.

“Oh, there are a good few notes. Many stories that we know as legends nowadays have some truth to them. Except, it’s all about filtering out their truth content. Unfortunately, we don’t know where to look.”

Sean was in the shadows as he turned toward us, and the fire iron in his hands looked like a weapon.

Even though Sean was friendly and kind, even though his impish smile and natural charm made him a very handsome man—he was the only one of the three brothers in whom I could see the wild and dangerous warrior he must have been at one time. I’d noticed it the night Nathaira died. He was a merciless Scottish warrior ready to kill to protect himself and his family. And even though there was no tangible opponent this time around, I knew that he would fight with all that he had to save his brother.

That was why I loved him. He wouldn’t give up on Payton, and neither would I.

“We were hoping that maybe Roy Leary might give us a hint. He seems to possess a lot of the old wisdom. And he once offered to help us,” Payton continued.

“That’s a good idea,” I agreed. “He knows all about Scotland’s myths and legends. I think he talked about having ancestors on Fair Isle. If anybody knows anything, he does!”

We threw around strategies for quite some time. But as much as we tried to convince ourselves that all would end well, we started losing hope. Desperation descended like a dark and sinister blanket, threatening to suffocate us all.

Finally, when none of us was able to come up with more viable ideas, Sean yawned and stretched.

“Kids, it’s time for bed. We’ve got a long day ahead of us, so we should all go and get some rest.”

And with that, he left us by the fire that had burned down to smoldering embers. His footsteps on the bare stone floors faded away, and Payton gently pushed me from his lap without letting go of my hands.

“Come on,” he said, leading me out of the Great Hall, up the stairs, and into his bedroom.

It was cold up here, but the large, ebony bed with dark brown velvet curtains looked inviting. In fact, his bedroom looked so much cozier than the hall. The bare stone walls were covered in old, green tapestries embroidered with dramatic hunting scenes from right around the time when Payton, no longer a child, must have moved into this room. Clearly, the clothes trunk, bookshelf by the door, and table with its artfully carved legs all stemmed from the same era. The dark woods and heavy green and brown fabrics took me back in time.

Payton leaned against the door, patiently waiting for me to take it all in. I sat down on the bed, plopped over backward, and felt warm and safe under the velvet canopy, just like the lady of the castle waiting for her husband—a fierce Scottish Highlander, no less—on her wedding night. It was with this same excitement that I now awaited Payton. This would be our second night together. I didn’t know how many nights we had left, and I didn’t want to waste a single one of them.

“You coming? It’s cold here without you,” I said, crawling under the covers.

“Let me savor this moment for a little while.”

“What are you trying to savor? That I’m freezing my toes off?”

Payton batted his eyelashes. “No. I want to soak up this image of you, love of my life, lying here in my bed. To know that, no matter what happens, no one can ever take this away from us. You have no idea how happy you make me,
mo luaidh
.”

Tears welled up in my eyes, and I had trouble swallowing.

“You know how I could make you even happier? If you would bother to swing that cute Scottish butt of yours into bed!” I tried to play down my overwhelming emotions by acting all cool and funny. And, although I was awfully cold, I folded back the comforter and tapped the mattress beside me. A wide grin brightened Payton’s face, and he undressed with breathtaking speed.

As he lay down beside me, he cursed when one of my ice-cold feet touched his lower leg.

“Good God, Sam! You’re freezing! Am I forever condemned to suffer in pain whenever I’m near you?” he called out in a theatrical voice. I snickered, and he crawled on top of me, covering my shivering body entirely with his. I was no longer cold. Certain parts of my body were on fire, in fact.

“Mmm, much better,” I purred while caressing his back. “Do you think we
…
?” I asked, embarrassed and suddenly at a loss for words.

“Huh? If you think I’m going to pass up this opportunity, then you, my dear, are mistaken.”

And with that, he sealed my lips with a long, gentle kiss.

C
HAPTER
7

T
he next afternoon we all sat together like old friends in the Learys’ tiny home. Alison and Roy, who had been my host parents during last summer’s student-exchange trip, were happy about the unexpected visit. Before we could even explain why we’d dropped in unannounced, we found ourselves sitting at a nicely decorated table with a steaming pot of tea and slices of a delicious fruitcake called
black bun
. The beautiful china cups and delicately embroidered linen napkins looked lovely and very old, and when Alison noticed my admiring looks, she explained full of pride, “Family heirlooms. At first I didn’t want to use them, but then I thought what a waste it would be to let it all gather dust in the cabinet.”

Payton was way too restless to participate in our discussion of fine china and fancy napkins. After all, we had come here hoping that Roy knew something that would help us. Sean had stayed back at the castle to dig deeper into Nathaira’s books.

Roy, a red-haired mountain of a man with a skeptical look on his face, sat opposite Payton and turned his head to this side and then that, while Alison went to get an extra chair from another room.

“Well, don’t you seem to attract bad luck, aye?” Roy turned to Payton once we had laid out our request as best we could.

I frowned but didn’t respond.

Payton, who seemed to be drained of all energy today—because of the curse?—gave him a cynical grin.

“So, can you help me? You knew things before that nobody else could have known. I really don’t care how you come to know all this stuff. But please, just tell me if there’s any hope for me.”

All of a sudden I felt queasy. When I arrived yesterday, Payton wasn’t showing any weakness at all. But the hopelessness I heard in his voice right now hit me like a slap in the face. I didn’t understand why destiny was so cruel to us.

Payton and Roy ignored the world around them, staring at each other. There was a strange kind of tension between them. Alison sipped her tea as though not having noticed how extraordinary that moment was. And I tried to make sense of the few words spoken between the men—some in Gaelic, some in English.

Finally, Roy reached for a piece of fruitcake, and I wondered whether I had just been imagining the whole thing.

“Aye, very well, who’d have thought that Vanora’s daughter would be capable of that. Nathaira is what you said, right? Did you know that
Nathaira
is an old Celtic name meaning ‘snake’? It’s as if they’d known since her birth that she’d possess evil powers,” he reflected.

“So what now?” I asked impatiently. “Can you help us, or what?”

Roy leaned back in his chair and shrugged apologetically.

“No, I won’t be able to help you. All I can do is tell you what I’ve heard and what I know. Whether or not you will find a way to change Payton’s fate…well, that’s not up to me. And, to be honest, I can’t imagine that you will find a way.”

Payton’s body seized up.

“All right, then, let’s hear it. We have no time to lose. Just tell us everything you know, Roy,” he begged.

Roy nodded, wiped his fingers on his napkin, and closed his eyes. He seemed to be sorting through memories, digging up the required information. Then he spoke in a calm and quiet voice.

“The power of the Fair Witches is transmitted from generation to generation. This is the only reason Nathaira was able to speak the curse in the first place—because a witch’s supernatural powers runs through her veins. But Nathaira’s blood is not pure. She lacks the purity of heart that the men of Fair Isle possess, and that is passed on only from father to daughter. Nathaira would never have been able to achieve Vanora’s strength without this purity of heart. Which is why she turned to evil. She did not have the control and guidance of a loving mother who could have taught her how to use her gift for good.

“Having said that, it is lucky for you that she’s missing this important other half of her powers. I don’t know if you’re able to use this to your advantage, but I’m sure she was not as powerful as her mother. She carried within her Vanora’s blood mixed with Grant’s blood, and so she had the power to speak the curse. Vanora’s blood mixed with
Payton’s
blood—now that would probably be strong enough to lift the curse. Yes, I suspect that only Vanora’s blood can save Payton’s life,” said Roy, concluding his odd monologue.

In the stillness that followed, all I could hear was the hiss of the teakettle Alison had put on again.

“There’s no hope at all, then,” I established at last, because neither Payton nor Roy seemed to want to state the obvious.

“I told you I didn’t know whether this would help, aye?” Roy admitted.

“Vanora is dead. Her blood was spilled centuries ago,” Payton muttered flatly.

This couldn’t be the end of it! There had to be a solution! Why would destiny bring Payton and me together if we weren’t allowed to live happily ever after? Or was there a way to save him, and we just couldn’t see it?

Buried in thought, I stared at the colorful embroidery on the old-fashioned linen napkins. I couldn’t make sense of the play of colors. It looked like flowers that had been lovingly hand-stitched on the fabric. I carefully touched the fine needlework and followed one of the threads with my finger. It was the most conspicuous—a vibrant red and the highlight of the entire image, outshining the prettiest of all the flowers with its intensity. And then I noticed it—a faulty stitch, a rough, black thread overlying the delicate red one. It seemed to be jealous of its beauty and covered it almost entirely.

Driven by an impulse I couldn’t comprehend, I traced the thread to the end. A small knot held it together. Gingerly, probingly, I pulled on it and—little by little—I loosened a faulty stitch. Then another one, and another one. I saw how the brilliant red unfolded its beauty. When the whole thread finally came away and disappeared inside my palm, it was as if the sun itself had offered the flower her radiance, as if the color red had never been so perfect before. It was a true
blood
red.

My head started spinning and my ears started ringing. The length of thread slipped from my hand as I closed my eyes and barely noticed how I slid from my chair into the darkness.

Pain spread like wildfire through my arm all the way to my fingertips, which were completely numb. I gasped for air. The smell of copper filled my nose and mouth, making me sick to my stomach. Then slowly, as feeling returned to my fingers, I opened my eyes and stared down at my hands. Blood, hot and slimy, gushed onto the dagger—and onto me. I clutched the knife in my hand. I had thrust it in so deep that my fist touched the man’s lifeless chest, and I could tell that the heart beneath my fingers had stopped beating. A single word flashed through my addled brain:
betrayal
.

With a panicked cry, I came to. I found myself lying on the floor with my head in Payton’s lap. My heart was thumping, and I was sweating all over.

I had to blink several times to get rid of the powerful images in my head. I didn’t understand what had just happened or why I was so queasy. Somehow my arm still hurt, and I tried to massage away the pain.

“
Mo luaidh,
are you all right? You passed out.”

I swallowed hard.
Was
I all right? I had no idea. What I really wanted to do was cry. All eyes were fixed on me, with Alison holding out a glass of water. Because I still felt unable to get up, I took a sip. My hand around the glass was shaking, and Roy wore a worried frown.

“Should we call a doctor?” Alison said.

A doctor? Oh God, no. It was hard enough to recall the images that had been so vivid only a moment ago. They had faded as quickly as they had come, and a second later all I was left with was a nervous tightness in my chest. I clenched my teeth and scrambled to my feet. Payton held my arm and wouldn’t let go, even after I assured him that I felt much better, thank you very much.

After the good fright I had given everyone, we all seemed almost glad to turn to something as morbid as a curse. At least nobody found himself in immediate danger anymore, so we allowed Alison to pour us another cup of her delicious Earl Grey tea.

Roy kept his eyes glued on me, and his worried, wrinkled forehead did not bode well.

“Are you sure you’re all right?” he asked.

I gave him a reassuring smile because I really was feeling much better. The images I’d seen when I fainted were still there, hidden deep inside the recesses of my mind, but I couldn’t seem to grab and hold on to them. Oh, I was fine all right. Only my nerves were acting up. All that talk about blood, curses, and dying would give anyone nightmares. I wanted Roy to concentrate all of his energy on Payton instead.

“Don’t worry, Roy, I’m okay. But where were we? Did I miss anything?”

“No, you didn’t miss anything,” he replied. “There is no solution. Vanora is dead, and all hope of saving your boyfriend has died with her.”

I saw the pain on Payton’s face—that sense of hopelessness and dread he’d been hiding so well.

“Roy? Is that true?” I asked, my gaze fixed on the great scholar.

But it was Alison who spoke. “I think you’re giving up too quickly. Vanora has been dead for a long time. And Payton should have died long ago, too—or am I wrong?”