Chapter One
Chapter One
The Farm 2016
Ula yawned entering the kitchen startled to a stop to find Conall and Sloane sitting at the table. She had spent most of the night scanning her computer as she had done every night for the past two months. Trying to find who the dead Brollachan was that had sent Morgan on a journey to another place and time was taking its toll.
Conall looked grim and tired, with dark patches beneath his eyes. Hands around a mug, head bent as if he was trying to find the answers in the bottom of it.
“Conall I didn’t know you were here.” Ula lifted the kettle to see if there was enough water in it to put it on the boil.
“Aye, I’m here.” He muttered without lifting his head.
It had been two months since they were at Callanish Stones, so Morgan could complete her parents’ mission by handing the box over to the spirit of the mother stone.
A box that held a pendant, a dagger and an ancient agreement between the Tuatha de Danann and the Picts.
A battle had pursued and while Morgan readied herself to hand the box over, a Brollachan hiding in an old dug out burial cell close to her took advantage while everyone was busy fighting.
If Conall’s travel pendant hadn’t fallen to the ground and if Morgan hadn’t picked it up, she wouldn’t have been sent hurtling through time.
Conall had fought with the Brollachan and eventually killed it but not before the half dead thing had said the words. Words that would have had no meaning if it wasn’t for the fact that Morgan was holding the travel pendant at that moment.
Before anyone realized what was happening, she was blanketed behind a thick grey mist.
To where no one knew, only the dead Brollachan. Morgan had dropped the pendant seconds before she disappeared.
The first few days Conall, Dougall, Sloane and Ula had travelled to Haig at clan Sutherland in 1735, to the Cailleach and the farm. Haig had offered to send his men from one end of Scotland to the other. It would have been no use though. Conall had said numerous times that it was a wasted effort, if she had been in this year, he would have felt her. The half pendant that he wore around his neck was quiet, which is how he discerned she was not in 1735 or here in 2016.
He sat at the table drowning his sorrows with hot coffee.
It wasn’t hard to smell it was heavily dosed with scotch. The kettle whistled as it boiled, while Ula filled the teapot with tea leaves.
She knew Conall had no idea where to go next, he had already travelled each year of the eighteenth and nineteenth century, stopping only long enough to check his pendant.
The travelling though, had taken its toll on him. One was not meant to travel to so many time periods in such a short time. It caused his nose to bleed and pains in his chest.
Placing the tea pot on the table she glanced a look at Conall, his body was weary from the time changes, his spirit dampened, his heart breaking. Sloane wasn’t in any better condition. He had travelled with his brother every year for the last hundred years, both returning exhausted.
Ula had remained at the farm to keep Morgan’s store running and trying to track down the Brollachan that had sent Morgan on her journey.
There had been some assistance from the police department in her search using the photos she had taken of the dead Brollachan. Although it had been necessary to cut everything out of the photo except for the face. If the police knew Morgan had disappeared outside of England they would not have helped and simply palm her off to the Scottish authorities.
If she had have reported to the Scottish authorities, it would have meant being stuck in Scotland indefinitely. Not to mention the travelling from there to the farm every couple of days.
Ula loved Scotland but trying to run Morgan’s store and carry on her own research would have been too arduous and complicated. Not to mention her lady chickens would have stressed out.
Ula poured the tea into her cup. “I was hoping to see Dougall. I wanted to thank him for coming back after he transported Sloane and I to Morgan, so she could heal me.”
Conall looked up from his cup giving her a quizzical look. “He came back?”
“Aye he did just after dropping us off. He returned to dispose of all the Brollachan bodies and return the swords to Morgan’s training room.” She said taking another sip of her tea.
“He did?”
“Aye lad, he did.” Sloane answered for her.
Ula knew Conall had been aware that Dougall with the help of the residents of the Isle of Lewis dealt with the disposal of the dead Brollachans near the Callanish stones. But not the one’s at the farm.
“I do have a worry though.” Ula said almost in a whisper.
“Aye love, and what that be?” Sloane asked sitting back in his chair.
Ula directed her question to Conall. “If Morgan doesn’t have her pendant on can you still feel her?”
Conall sighed. “Nay lass, if Morgan removed her pendant or if someone else has, mine wouldnae sense her even if I was in the right year.”
Ula sat watching Conall sink into despair just as she remembers today the store was expecting a shipment of armour coming in from Egypt.
Morgan had ordered them some months ago.
“Sloane there’s a shipment coming in today and I was wondering if you could come in and help me move the boxes?”
“Aye love.”
“Only if you are up to it, if you prefer not to its ok. Perhaps you should go and sleep awhile.” She felt guilty asking but there was no way she could move the boxes on her own, even with Morgan it would have been a struggle.
“Nay lass I will come. Conall too, he could do with a break.” Sloane patted his brother on the arm. Conall simply shrugged.
Ula left for the store after her tea, a quick shower and a change of clothes.
The delivery man was already waiting for her when she reached the store and by the look on his face, she could tell he wasn’t happy about having to wait for her.
“Sorry I was a little held up this morning.” She apologized to the driver unlocking the door. “Just leave them next to the door my husband will be here momentarily to take them inside.”
“I thought someone would be here to help me get them out of the truck, there are quite a few and they are heavy.” The driver whined.
Turning her head toward him, she took in the sight of a tall, stocky man who looked like he could take on a bull.
“Don’t be such a wimp. You’re built like an ox, the boxes can’t be that heavy, and you only have to carry them three paces to the door.”
They certainly didn’t train them the way they had in the eighteenth century. She had no time for princesses, and she was in no mood to deal with this driver’s groaning and whining.
Ula would have gone inside the store but with the animated huffing and puffing the driver was doing she didn’t trust him not to fling the boxes instead of carrying them. When he had dropped the last one, he returns to his truck to retrieve the invoice from the cabin and shoved it at Ula.
““Well, you’d better come inside so I can write you a cheque.” Ula turned to enter the store, the driver trailing right behind her.
“I’ll expect a tip for having to carry those boxes. They were heavy, you know. I could’ve injured my back.”
Ula stopped abruptly and spun to face him, making him jump.
“Listen, princess, the only tip you’ll get is a punch to the throat. That’s your job. You should’ve carried them into the store, but I let you drop them at the door.” She jabbed a finger into his chest, his eyes widening, his mouth falling open at the fury pouring out of this tiny woman. “You’re lucky I don’t charge you for being a lazy-arsed mule.”
Sloane’s deep rumble came from behind the driver. “What’s amiss then?”
The driver turned to find two men standing in the doorway like muscled gods, arms folded across their chests, identical scowls carved into their features.
“I… I didn’t mean any trouble,” the driver stammered, suddenly grovelling, wanting no quarrel with the two burly men.
“He’s whining about wanting a tip for dropping the heavy boxes at the door,” Ula said.
“Nay,” Sloane replied with a startled look. “Are ye no supposed tae bring them in? What are ye, a woman or a mouse?”
The driver edged to the side of the room, hands raised toward Sloane in a show of surrender, as though he truly believed he was about to get bloodied.
“’Tis not me ye should be afraid of, lad, it’s the missus.” Sloane chuckled, jerking a thumb toward Ula. “If she wanted, she’d lay ye flat before ye even saw her coming. My wife has one mighty fine right hook.”
Ula snorted and shook her head as she handed the cheque to the shrinking driver, who looked about ready to piss himself.
Conall and Sloane stepped back outside, each lifting two boxes with effortless ease, much to the driver’s slack-jawed horror. His whole body trembled.
Ula stood there for a moment, eyes narrowed on the man, and only one word came to mind… coward.
“I thought ye said these were heavy?” Conall asked, casting the driver a pointed look as the man tried to squeeze past them toward his truck.
The man sucked in a breath and darted between them, bolting out the door. He practically leapt into his truck and tore down the road, tyres squealing.
Conall and Sloane shook with silent chuckles as they carried the boxes down the hall to the storeroom.
When they finished, Conall dropped into the chair behind the desk, his mood sinking back to the same dark place it had been that morning. Sloane headed off to Mrs. McKinty’s pie shop.
The phone rang. As Ula rushed to answer it, her hip bumped a stack of books and magazines perched on the edge of the desk. They wobbled, then spilled to the floor. Conall bent to gather them, stacking the magazines together, most of them from auction houses dealing in historic weapons, armour, and gun safety.
The call was from a woman asking if they might be interested in her recently departed husband’s gun collection. As Ula listened, she caught sight of Conall out of the corner of her eye. He had picked up a magazine that had fallen open, the pages bent backwards. Whatever he saw had grabbed his attention. He gripped the magazine tightly, fingers digging in, frozen.
Conall’s breath caught the instant he saw it. That face, her face. He would recognise Morgan’s defiant stare in any time, any place, wrapped in any garment.
He’d weathered that look before, felt the heat of her wrath, her iron will, her wild rebellious heart. This was Morgan. He knew it with every fibre of his soul, and nothing could make him believe otherwise.
Ula didn’t hear the woman on the other end of the phone rattling on about what was in the collection. She was focused on Conall’s suddenly pale face and wide eyes, as if he had just seen a ghost.
Hurriedly finishing the call, Ula told the woman they were not taking stock at the moment, wanting only to find out what had her brother-in-law so entranced.
“Conall, what is it?”
He didn’t move, still staring at whatever was on the page, his eyes fixed and unblinking. Ula knelt beside him to see.
“Oh, that. Yes, I showed that to Morgan. I thought it was a remarkable likeness of her,” she said, taking the magazine from his hands.
The page was an advertisement for an exhibition of Leonardo da Vinci paintings on loan to the Glasgow Art Gallery.
The image was of one of da Vinci’s works titled La Bella Ferronnière, or as the advertisement described it, The Unknown Woman. The exhibition had only run for two weeks, the time long since passed.
“’Tis Morgan,” Conall declared, pulling the magazine back from her grip.
Ula looked again. It did resemble Morgan, but there were differences.
The woman in the painting was beautiful, just like Morgan. But her face was rounder, and her eyes were larger.
“I don’t think so, love. It looks like her, but it couldn’t be our girl.” She wanted to believe it was her niece, her heart insisted it was, but her head told her she needed more information.
The desperation on Conall’s face was almost more than she could bear.
“’Tis her. I ken it.” Conall’s fingers tightened around the magazine; he seemed afraid to let it go.
Sloane strode through the front door with pies from the bakery in hand for their lunch. “What’s amiss then?” he asked, catching the look on Conall’s face, and the sorrow on his wife’s.
Sloane came to Conall’s side to see what he was staring at. The lines of his forehead shot up to his hairline the instant he saw it. “That’s our lass.” He turned to Ula with the same certainty burning in his gaze that Conall had.
Conall didn’t need his brother to tell him this was Morgan; nothing on earth would persuade him otherwise. Sloane must have seen the same thing he did, the same look in her beautiful eyes.
“It’s in the eyes,” Conall murmured.
“Aye, lad. No one could emulate that look. It’s unique to our lass. I’d ken her anywhere, no matter what painting she turned up in,” Sloane added.
“I think it just looks like her. I don’t think it is, though, it couldn’t be.” Ula drew a deep breath. She wanted to believe it was Morgan, her heart tugged in that direction, but she couldn’t let herself hope too quickly.
They could be wrong… but then again, so could she.
Her husband, however, had no such hesitation. “Love, that’s our niece. Conall, I think we need tae pay that gallery a visit.”
“Exhibition’s over, Sloane,” Conall said with a gutted sigh.
“Aye, it is, but I have a feeling they may ken our Brollachan. Love, will ye be alright if Conall and I take a quick trip?” Sloane asked, stepping toward her with open arms.
“Oh no you don’t! Sloane Sutherland, I’m going with you. Give me a minute to lock up.” Not waiting for his reply, she hurried to close and lock the storeroom door. After all the hours she’d spent researching, calling the police, chasing every lead she could find, there was no chance she was being left behind now.
Sloane groaned and shook his head. He knew, just as well as she did, that arguing would be pointless. Once Ula set her mind on something, there was no shifting it.
Conall couldn’t believe that after all this time they had finally found a clue. He thought of what might have happened if Ula hadn’t bumped the desk with her hip, sending those magazines tumbling to the floor, let alone the fact that the one with the painting had been folded open to that very page. If it had been closed, he never would have seen it.
He sent a silent prayer to the spirits of the Tuatha, certain they had a hand in this, though they had taken their sweet time about it.
He bit his lip, clinging to the fragile, aching hope that this discovery might lead them to where Morgan had gone, or at least give him a time period to begin his search.
Anticipation and hope churned warmly in his stomach. He had a feeling, one deep and certain, that he was finally getting somewhere.
