Page 74 of Wild Highland Rose
"Nay. Cameron has guessed I think, but I've ne'er told a soul."
"Why no'? You must have been so confused and afraid."
Grania smiled. "All of that and more, but unlike Cameron, I had my memory and so I knew without a doubt who I had been. And I knew, too, that there was no one here who would have believed me. I wasna willing to take the risk of exposure, and in time, I grew content with my life here. I found a peace that I'd ne'er felt before."
The women sat in silence, their hands still joined, each lost in her own thoughts. Marjory tried to make sense of it. All these years she had lived with Grania and never even noticed that she was different. She'd merely thought her gifted, perhaps a bit eccentric. Seen from this new light, however, Marjory was amazed that she'd never guessed.
She almost laughed. Until Cameron's confession, the thought would never have entered her mind. Now it seemed there were two time travelers at Crannag Mhór.
Unable to deal with the enormity of that thought, Marjory concentrated on Cameron. "He's remembered, hasn't he?"
"'Twould seem so, or at least a part of it. Amnesia is a funny thing. 'Tis often the result o' the mind trying to protect itself. I think Fingal's trauma forced Cameron to remember who he was. As to whether he remembers whate'er it was that caused him to forget in the first place, I canna say."
"Do you think…" Marjory whispered the words, praying for the answer she so desperately wanted. "Do you think that he might stay, now that he knows who he is?"
"I canna say, lass."
"But you stayed."
"Aye, that I did, but I came to realize that the woman I'd become was a far better one than the woman I had been."
"Maybe Cameron will come to the same conclusion." Her words sounded empty even to herself.
"It could happen, but ye have to remember, child, that a man is very different from a woman. His identity is everything to him. In the world Cameron comes from, the worth o' a man is often based solely on his profession. Physicians are revered, especially surgeons. 'Twould be a hard thing to let go of. Dinna be misled by my words, 'twas no' easy, even for me."
"Did you try to get back?"
"Aye, that I did." She smiled with the memory. "But I couldna remember where it was that I arrived. I wandered about for quite a while before yer dear father found me. There was no way o' knowing where it was I first awoke."
Marjory felt her stomach lurch with dread. "Cameron knows the exact spot where he arrived."
"I know." Grania turned away from the fire to face Marjory, placing her free hand over their entwined ones. "Marjory, sometimes the hardest thing to do is to let go of the ones that we love. If you really love him, then you may have to face thefact that he'd be better off in his own time. He has a life there. Perhaps even a family."
Marjory felt tears slide down her cheeks. With an angry hand, she wiped them away. "'Twould seem 'tis my lot in life to have to let the ones I love go." She pulled back her hands and rose from the bench, intending to go, but she stopped, seeing the older woman's face in the firelight, wet with tears. Somehow she'd never thought that blind people could cry.
"Grania?"
The woman turned in the direction of her voice.
"What was your name? I mean, your real name?"
For a moment Grania looked startled by the question and then, with a smile that lit the chamber, she answered. "My name was Eileen Donovan Even."
21
Cameron leaned his head back against the cool stone wall, and closed his eyes, letting the silence surround him. The room was dark and more than a little cold, but any discomfort was more than made up for by the serenity it afforded. He'd never thought of himself as a particularly religious man, but he'd always believed. And even in the fifteenth century, it seemed a chapel was a place of peace.
His thoughts flashed, briefly, to a trip made as a child. A trip to New York City. His father had taken him. A special holiday for a lonely little boy recovering from the loss of his mother. It had been a short train ride from Boston to New York, but to an eight year old boy it had been a grand adventure.
Among other places, they'd gone to a museum full of religious artifacts from the middle ages. Not exactly the sort of place favored by growing boys, but there had been something magical about it. He frowned, trying to remember the name.
It was one of the Rockefeller museums. The nunnery or something like that. He struggled with the name and then smiled at the sheer joy of trying to remember something as routine as the name of a museum.
The Cloisters. That was it.
It had been a surprise to him. Quiet and subdued, unlike any other museum he'd ever been to. There had been one room, an arched vault of sorts, empty save for some rustic benches. He shifted uncomfortably on the real life version.
He'd sat in that room much as he was doing now, and more importantly, he'd found peace there. After his mother's accident, he'd felt alone, deserted in many ways. His father had tried in his own gruff way to help him, but he hadn't been a demonstrative man, and Cameron had continued to feel isolated, devastated by the loss of his mother.
