Page 38 of Cottage in the Mist
As if on cue, a figure burst through the doorway, calling her name.
“Bram,” Lily cried, trying to run to him, but as before, in her dream of the men in the pass below Duncreag, she couldn’t move. It was as if she were bound in place.
“God’s blood, what have you done?” Bram bellowed, his pain and anger carrying across the space between them.
Lily jerked as if she’d been hit, but then saw that his gaze was on someone else, someone beyond her.
“Naught but what you deserve,” the voice replied as, still cloaked in shadow, he took a step closer to Lily.
Bram’s eyes narrowed, and he lunged forward as a second and third shadow detached themselves from the dark. It was a trap.
“Go back,” she screamed, knowing he couldn’t possibly hear her.
His head jerked, his shoulders tightening with rage. “I’ll no’ leave you.”
The men circled him now, their swords glinting as the flames continued to spread. The entire room was ablaze, the acrid smell filling her lungs, choking her.
For a single moment, Bram hesitated, his eyes entreating, his words lost in the cacophony of swords as the men advanced.
She opened her mouth to scream another warning, but it was too late; the men were upon him. She struggled, fighting against bonds, real or imagined. And then suddenly the room exploded in flames, the floor beneath her collapsing.
One minute Bram was there… and then he was gone. For a moment, the flames seemed to engulf her and then everything was a soft velvet black.
“Lily.” The voice was insistent. But she fought against it. She couldn’t give in. She needed to get back. To find Bram. “Lily, please, wake up.”
It was the note of concern that made her open her eyes. That and the hopeless feeling that whatever had occurred, it hadhappened long ago, and nothing she could do would make it change.
“Oh, thank God.” Elaine’s worried face swam into view. “I thought we’d lost you.”
“Here, have some of this,” Mrs. Abernathy said as Elaine helped Lily to sit up. Lily took the offered cup and sipped the hot tea, almost sputtering as she swallowed. The brew was liberally laced with whisky. Mrs. Abernathy screwed the lid back on the thermos. “A little fortification.” She shrugged, her eyes narrowed with worry. “It’ll do you good.”
Lily shook her head, the last vestiges of her lethargy wearing off. The clearing was exactly as she’d left it. Tumbles of stone and overgrown masonry. The remnants, no doubt, of that long-ago fire. Her heart clenched with the agony of the memory.
Bram.
“Did you see him, then?” Elaine asked. “Bram.”
Lily hadn’t realized she’d spoken the name out loud. Her eyes met her friend’s worried gaze. “Yes. He was here. Or rather, I was there. I don’t know.” She shook her head in confusion and then, sucking in a deep breath, took another sip of tea, letting the heat of the whisky warm her. “Everything was burning.”
“What was burning?” Mrs. Abernathy asked. “The tower?” She shot a gaze over the rubble, eyes sharpening.
“I think so.” Lily ran a hand through her hair, still shaking off the vestiges of what she’d seen. “It was too dark to see anything for certain. Except for Bram. They had him cornered. There were so many of them.”
“Were you there?” Elaine frowned. “I mean, could Bram—could anybody—see you?”
“I don’t know.” She shook her head, trying to remember. “I don’t think so. It was like before on the ridge. I couldn’t move. Couldn’t make a sound. I was just stuck there—watching.” Except that for a moment, in the end, it had almost seemed asif… she shook her head. If he’d seen her, he’d have reacted more strongly than he had. “No. I don’t think I was really there. Not in a corporeal sense, anyway.” She shivered, taking another sip of her tea.
“Maybe it was a flashback,” Elaine suggested.
“Now, that’s stating the obvious,” Mrs. Abernathy said, lifting her eyebrows.
“I mean, maybe it has already happened. Both in this time and in the past. Didn’t you say that Bram’s tower”—Elaine waved a hand, the gesture encompassing the rubble—“was attacked? Maybe that’s what you saw.”
“But it was so awful.” Lily pulled in a trembling breath. “They had him surrounded.”
“Yes, but then he escaped.” Mrs. Abernathy slid a comforting arm around her. “And found you. Elaine’s right. It must have been the attack Bram spoke of. Did you see enough to know who was behind it?”
Lily shook her head. “As I said, it was too dark to see any faces. I heard a voice. But it was hardly more than a whisper. And he didn’t say anything much at all. Just that Bram was coming.” She closed her eyes as the anguish of her vision swam through her head again.
