Page 168 of Long Live the King

DAWN AT BALLOCH

“Mammy? Mammy, wake up!” My face pressed into the pillow, deeply asleep, I felt a nudge on my shoulder.

What?

“Mammy! Da sent us a message!”

I sat up, “What do you mean, what...? You’re smiling!” He had a grin across his face.

“I woke up, Mammy, and it stopped.”

“It stopped... you mean the chanting? It’s not happening?”

“It’s not, it’s all just... nothing,”

He clamped his eyes shut as if to show me, and said, “There’s a clear sky and I can see the flag against it, and I can hear the chanting too, but it’s just ‘Long Live the King!’ then ‘Long Live Mag Mòr!’” He opened his eyes. “Is that Da?”

I nodded. “Yeah, Mag Mòr is your father, it means Mag the Great.”

“He is.”

“I know.”

“...and I don’t have to listen to it, it stops. And it doesn’t scare me, it sounds good. They’re saying it to Da right now, I think.”

“This is great, this is amazing.”

I ran my hands up and down on my face to wake up.

Archie said, “Isla, wake up, Da sent us a message!”

“A message?”

Isla woke up and crawled sleepily onto my lap. Jack woke up, sat up, and said, “Da!”

“What message?”

He said, “Look!” He opened the book to the page, there was Magnus’s handwriting:

All is well.

June 15, 1291

Please come.

Magnus

Then he pointed at a drawing of a man holding a stick.

I pointed at the words under it.

He said, “Fraoch wrote that so we would know he is there too and he’s okay.”

Isla said, “Why is he fishing?”

“That’s so we can bring his fishing pole.”

I laughed. “Oh my gosh, this is amazing, Archie, your Da wants us to come.”

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