Page 25 of Long Live the King

Magnus put the phone up to his ear. I wondered about going out to help, but I was entranced by the memory of a million years ago, when Magnus didn’t know how to work phones, and here he was, being a mentor to his young brother. It filled my heart with love.

It spilled over to his son, and how lucky he was to have such a father, and gratitude to his older brother Sean for the modeling he must have done, and the nature of his sister, and actually even a little for his mom, who, although she was a first-rate bitch, would never want her offspring to not know how to get through life. She would make sure they were prepared for what comes or she would fight her ass off to protect them. And Fraoch, who was a great brother to Magnus and had taken on the role of big brother for Lochie and these men cared for him and were going to help him win Ash.

I kissed Archie and Ben goodnight and went quietly up to our room to sleep.

A bit later Magnus went to the bathroom, brushed his teeth, and readied for sleep. Then crept to the bed and climbed in. I asked, “You helped Lochie?”

“Aye, he is verra nervous about her, but he has a phone now.”

“He could send her a text, I could help him write a?—”

He chuckled. “He already sent one.” He pulled up the big comforter over us.

I groaned. “In the middle of the night? Without someone helping him spell? What did he text?”

“He texted ‘it was a pleasure tae meet ye’ and ‘I will see ye on the morrow.’ Then, because he had forgotten, he texted, “This is Lochinvar.”

“I guess that’s pretty good.”

He pulled up alongside me and pulled me onto his arm and pulled my thigh up to his waist. With his lips against my forehead he said, “She texted him back.”

I pulled my head up and looked at him in the darkness. “Shedid?”

“Aye, she said she had fun and looked forward to seeing him too.”

“Wow, this is happening? Lochie is winning the girl? We are good matchmakers?”

“Aye, we are verra good, speakin’ of… I hae a match I want tae make right now.” He lifted my chin and began to kiss me with our wonderfully familiar deep kisses of desire and love.

I heard him yell.

“Magnus? Magnus. Magnus!” I was up in the dark, nudging his shoulder trying to wake him.

Finally he said, “What...?”

“Wow, you were deep, that took a moment, you usually wake easier than that.”

“I was havin’ a terrible dream.”

There was a faint light coming into our room from the moon, but it was the middle of the night, deep and dark. His yell had been unnerving, I took stock: Archie was sleeping in the living room. Isla was in her room. I could hear the sweet breaths of Jack in the monitor. I put my hand on the monitor to turn on the video to check. He was fast asleep.

I turned it off and lay down on Magnus with my chin on his chest. “What were you dreaming about?”

“The same, the chant. It seems tae echo in m’mind.”

I nodded. He twirled his finger through my hair and stretched out one of the locks and let it fall. “I ken the reasonable explanation is that I am rememberin’ it, that I had forgotten it, and that now a time shift has caused the memories tae resurface, but yet... it is happening the way it did afore, mo reul-iuil. I am rememberin’ it afore I have done it.”

“It’s like the deep past is different, the farther away we go into the past the more wonky it gets.”

“What does wonky mean?”

“Like crooked or off-the-center. If time is a wheel, it’s like the wheel has gone flat and is going flap-flap-flap and air is rushing out and the wheel is veering off the road. You ever been in a car with a flat?”

“Nae, but I hae seen a cart overturn because the axle broke in a rut puddle on a rainy market day.”

“Yeah, just like that,wonky. But that’s all this is. We’ve been here before, you are just dreaming of something you barely remember, it’s been overwritten, you’ve got the echo of?—”

“I haena been exactly truthful on it, mo reul-iuil. It has become more than an echo, the details hae grown verra intricate: the colors are lush, and when I am dreaming it I believe tis real, tis as if I can reach out and touch the leaves on the tree, as if I can feel the wind upon m’skin.” He raised his head to look into my eyes. “I can see the flag as it flutters across the sky, tis mine, mo reul-iuil, in the colors of green and blue with the thin yellow stripe through the middle.”

---