Page 41 of Love Beyond Words
“Not exactly.” Raudrich kept his voice low. While I knew they couldn’t hear us, I understood why he did. There was something intrusive about us staring down at their shared moment. “Ghosts rarely speak and they often repeat the same motions or move down the same paths over and over again. Freya is still who she was while living. She has thoughts and feelings and expresses them freely.”
“But she’s trapped there?” It was perhaps the most horrifying fate I could think of.
His voice was sad and reluctant.
“Aye. As I said, her fate is worse than death. If Nicol ever lives to see the day that she is released from this hell and she is able to once and for all truly die, he shall rejoice in it. We all will.
“During the day, she simply doesna exist, but each night she appears in her garden, cursed to see the man she loves but unable to feel his touch on her skin, doomed to never feel warmth again or to travel past the outskirts of her long-since wilted prison.”
“Who would do that to her? Who would do that to anyone?”
I could think of no one I hated so much that I would wish them such a fate. No wonder Nicol looked so weary and sad. To spend his nights haunted by the love of his life, unable to help or save her, and to spend his days sleeping like a nocturnal animal—his existence had to be just as painful as her death.
“Are ye familiar with the fae, lass?”
I shook my head and had to keep from shivering at the way my cheek felt brushing back and forth against his stubble. It was dangerous for me to be this close to him. All I wanted to do was face him and repeat what I’d done to him last night.
“Only vaguely—a story here and there, perhaps. It’s not something anyone really believes in or speaks of in America.”
“Here.” He released his hold on me and I immediately felt cold from the space that now lay between us. He moved toward Nicol’s bed and quickly pulled a blanket off the top before sinking to the ground in front of the window. Gently he spread his legs out in front of him and motioned to the space in between. “Sit down, Laurel. Ye can lean against me while I tell ye the story. Ye are shivering where ye stand. I’ll keep ye warm.”
There was something mischievous in his voice. I kind of liked it. Smiling knowingly at him, I joined him on the floor. I sighed as I leaned back into his chest, and he draped the blanket over us. Once we were situated, he returned his arms to their place around my waist.
It was an intimate position for two strangers, but somehow I knew that our unacknowledged memories of the night before had us both feeling more comfortable around one another than we would have under normal circumstances. Sitting in his arms now, I felt rather silly for having denied any contact with him so ardently earlier in the day.
“Now, lass. Are ye ready to hear the true tale? Then, once I’m done ye can tell me just how right or wrong history has written it.”
“Deal. I’m ready.”
“This Isle has not always been known as The Isle of The Eight. Twenty years ago, ’twas The Isle of Whispers, and this castle was known as Murray Castle after Nicol’s family and ancestors. He is one in a long line of Murrays that have tended to the people of this isle. For centuries, this land knew peace. When he was only five and thirty, his life became something other than his own.
“Ye see, fae are often spoken of in folktales as ways to frighten children into behaving as ye wish them to. But in truth, sightings of them and interactions with them are far less common than Scottish grannies throughout the country would have ye believe. Most doona truly believe they exist. Until my arrival on this isle as a child, I doona think I would’ve believed in them, either.
“Nicol was much the same. When one child from the village went missing, he thought it an accident, despite the insistence of the child’s mother that a faerie had lured her son into the faerie land. Children often played too close to the water’s edge or among rivers. He believed the child had been pulled away and drowned.
“But soon after, two more went missing, and their parents believed the same as the first. In an effort to stop the rising panic amongst the people of this village, Nicol went in search of the fae, and much to his misfortune, he found them.”
I shivered as another chill swept through me. Acknowledging that magic time travel existed was one thing. Learning that ghosts and fairies existed was another. It seemed the world I’d spent most of my life living in was more sheltered than I’d realized.
“He found them here? On the isle?”
Raudrich nodded and pulled me in a little closer.
“Aye. All faeries are manipulative and selfish creatures. Ye canna trust a one of them, but Machara is worse than most. She yearned for a child—a half-human child—of her own. She captured the children of this village to lure Nicol away from the castle so she could strike a bargain with him: the safe return of the children she took for a night in his arms so she could have his child. It was a mistake he made in a moment and one that has placed a darkness over his entire life.”
I twisted to look at Raudrich.
“She broke her bargain?”
“’Tis the way of faeries. They only keep their word to a degree. Machara returned the children, but they were not as they were. When they returned to their parents’ doorsteps, they were older than their parents. For time doesna work the same in the land of the fae, and ye never know just how it shall ruin ye. Some men return to find they’ve stayed the same, but hundreds of years have passed. For the stolen children of this isle, their childhood was taken from them in the week they were gone.”
“Oh, my God. Their poor parents.”
“Aye. Many families fled here in response. They feared the same fate for their own children, and Nicol couldna blame them.”
It was one of the saddest stories I’d ever heard, but it still didn’t explain Freya’s fate.
“And where does Freya come in?”
