Page 26 of Cottage in the Mist
“It is.” Elaine nodded. “And even more so when you think of all the people who’ve stood here before us. Same tower. Same magnificent view.” She shivered, wrapping her arms around her waist.
“Are you cold?” Lily queried.
“No. Only thinking about a friend I’ve lost. Being up here reminds me of her. She wasn’t fond of heights. But she loved it here.”
“She’s dead, then?” Lily sighed.
“Yes, I suppose she is. Although I still have trouble thinking about it that way. I miss her every day.”
It was an odd answer surely, but Lily understood the sentiment. “I know what you mean. I miss my parents, too.”
“Oh God, I’d forgotten.” Elaine reached for Lily’s hands. “I’m so sorry. Mrs. Abernathy told me your parents were lovely people. I shouldn’t have been talking about my own losses.”
“Nonsense,” Lily said, squeezing her fingers, feeling like she’d found a new friend. “It was nice to share with someone. Grief is a funny thing. It isn’t quantifiable. And people who haven’t suffered through it have no idea how to comfort those who have. So it’s nice to know you truly understand. Although of course I wish you didn’t have to.”
They turned and looked out into the valley again, stars winking overhead.
“Was that the original gate?” Lily asked, pointing to the shadowed tumble of stone and the half arch that marked what she assumed had been the entrance to the tower in past times.
“Yes.” Elaine nodded. “Just beside the road. Although of course that didn’t exist at all when Duncreag was a fortress. In those days, I’m told, there was a pathway that wound up from the river to the tower through that crevice there.” She pointed. “You can just make it out in the moonlight.”
It was Lily’s turn to shiver. “And it was narrow. Only wide enough for horsemen to pass one in front of the other.”
“Yes.” Elaine tilted her head, her gaze on Lily now. “But how did you know that?”
“I must have read it somewhere.” She shrugged, her mind’s eye bringing forth a vision of riders making their way stealthily up the steep canyon. “But there were guards, surely. At the gate.”
“Aye. But Duncreag was part of the federation that was Clan Chattan and so it wasn’t threatened often. I expect the guards were only perfunctory unless there was an imminent threat.”Elaine paused, seeming to consider her words. “Mrs. Abernathy said that you mentioned Iain and Katherine.”
Lily blinked in surprise. “I, ah, don’t know where I heard the names. Maybe I read about them?”
“Maybe.” Elaine nodded. “But you’d have to be quite the scholar. I know they’re not mentioned in any of the brochures.”
“Still,” Lily said, scrambling for something to appease her new friend—something besides the truth, “I obviously heard of them somewhere or I wouldn’t have mistaken them for you and Jeff. But honestly, I don’t know where. The innkeeper in Inverness was very talkative. Maybe he’s the one who mentioned them?”
Or maybe her imaginary lover had told her. But that didn’t seem the kind of information that would cement a new friendship.
Elaine studied her for a moment longer and then smiled. “Would you like to meet them? Katherine and Iain, I mean?”
Lily’s heart started to pound. If they were indeed real, then that meant that Bram…
“Follow me,” Elaine said, cutting into her tumbling thoughts. “I’ll show you.”
9
Elaine led her to a large parlor on the second floor.
The room was sunny, faded tapestries decorating two walls, a huge stone fireplace centered on the third. Like the rest of the main tower, the room, though comfortable, echoed with traces of its past.
"This would have been the ladies' solar in medieval times," Elaine said, reading her mind. "Sometimes I fancy I can see them here. Laughing and talking. Sewing their tapestries." Again there was an edge of sadness in her voice.
"You're thinking of your friend again." Lily crossed the room to lay a comforting hand on Elaine's arm.
"I suppose I am. She was a bit dotty about all things medieval." She smiled at the thought, her face brightening. "She was a scholar. Specializing in medieval British history. So this place was like walking into the past. A bit of a miracle, I suppose. Anyway, we're not here to relive the past… or at least not the recent past."
She motioned toward the wall behind Lily, and she turned to see that it was lined with paintings. Some of them wereenormous. Stern faces peered out from the gilded frames—captured there in pigment upon canvas for all time.
Lily shivered.
