Broken Wishes, page 16
“Listen to me carefully, child, for I’m going to give you the warning no one else will.” The banshee’s gravelly voice yanked her attention back. “You’re too smart by half. Should you continue believing you’re the wisest one in any situation, the only one who can make the right choices, your path will hold nothing but grief. And while I would gain great pleasure from that, I’m certain you won’t.”
Ceana’s tongue seemed frozen. She opened her mouth and closed it again. That wasn’t an answer to her question. It almost sounded like the banshee was trying to do her a strange, warped version of a kindness.
Or was this more trickery, so she would be so busy chewing on the banshee’s advice that she didn’t pay careful attention to her actual answer? “The unseelie can’t see the future any more than human beings can.”
“After thousands of years walking this earth, we’ve become excellent predictors of the most likely outcomes. It’s why so many mistake us for all-knowing.” The banshee moved back. “The baobhan sith are seductresses. They’ll make him want to embrace death. They’ll make it appear as if that will solve all his problems and give him what he most desires.”
Ach, must the unseelie always speak in riddles and part-truths? “That doesn’t answer my question.”
A sliver of red appeared along the horizon line. The banshee’s edges fuzzed.
“Isn’t it obvious, child? He’ll be able to resist by grasping hold of something worth living for.”
Even the banshee’s voice had taken on a translucent quality, like a breeze so light it would barely rustle leaves.
That still wasn’t an answer. At least, not enough of one. “What does that even mean?”
The darkness inside her hood faded slightly, and for the briefest moment, the face of a woman with tanned skin and brown eyes gazed out. She had an ageless quality to her.
She smiled. “You’ll have to turn to the source of true wisdom to become wise.”
CHAPTER 21
Ceana picked up a rock and threw it at the spot where the banshee had been moments before. The rock hit the soft ground at the edge of the stream with a plop, and its momentum carried it into the water, where it vanished—just like the banshee.
Throwing that rock wasn’t nearly enough. Stomping her foot wouldn’t be enough. Screaming wouldn’t be enough.
She’d gone through all that, given up asking how to find her brother, and the banshee had left her with a riddle. An answer that wasn’t an answer at all.
“You’re an eejit.” Gavran’s voice carried all the anger boiling inside her. “We agreed on what the questions should be. What gave you the right to make changes that affect both of us?”
What gave her the right? He wasn’t making any sense. She’d made a major sacrifice for him. He could at least be grateful. Besides, his brain was so addled by the nuckalevee venom that sometimes she needed to make the decisions.
She spun around. The morning sun played across Gavran’s face, highlighting his sunken cheeks and the dusty pallor of his skin. Covered in dirt as he was, he looked like he was a corpse that had crawled out of the ground after a week of being buried.
He had only days left to live if they couldn’t figure out the banshee’s riddle. They couldn’t waste time fighting.
Gavran fisted his hands and planted them against the sides of his head.
Ceana blinked, and it was as if the film of her own anger cleared. Was he feeding off her emotions again? “Do you smell apples?”
He nodded and scrunched his eyes shut. “Your anger was like a spark to tinder the nuckalevee venom had laid. The things I want to say are cruel.”
But likely true. It was why her wish that Gavran would find love and that that love would always stay true had given him Brighde. He needed someone like Brighde. Someone better than Ceana. Someone sweet and gentle, who didn’t lose her temper and didn’t think she always knew best. The banshee had been very good at dredging up all the worst of her and laying it out for her to be ashamed of.
Despite Tavish’s desire to the contrary, he’d still end up letting Gavran marry Brighde. Brighde would always love Gavran, and she could convince Tavish of anything once she set her mind to it.
Gavran slowly lowered his hands and opened eyes sunk deep in his head. “Do you think this is who I truly am? Maybe the venom takes away my inhibitions and this is my true self. The one who wants to hurt people. If I were a good man, it shouldn’t be able to make me want to do these things.”
More like the nuckalevee venom showed them her true self. Gavran was stuck reflecting back the worst parts of her, the parts she was otherwise able to keep hidden. Even the self-doubt and hatred he felt now were, in truth, hers.
But she had no way to prove that to him, and he’d only argue the point with her. Telling him about all the ways in which he was a good man likely wouldn’t help, either. He’d already said he was worried those weren’t his true self.
What did that leave?
If he was reflecting back her emotions, what would she want to hear? Was there anything that would help?
She lifted her eyes heavenward. Almighty help her, she didn’t have the wisdom she needed for any of this.
“Moses was a murderer.” The words came from her lips before she could second-guess them. “But God forgave him and used him to free Israel from slavery.”
Gavran frowned at her.
“King David committed adultery and put a man loyal to him to death to hide his sin.” All the stories from Scripture her mamaidh told her before bed came flowing back. “But when he repented, the Lord still used him to protect the people of God.”
The aching in her chest eased, and the haunted look faded slightly from Gavran’s eyes.
“And the Apostle Paul, who wrote so much of the Holy Scriptures, first persecuted the early Christians. I think sometimes the Lord chooses those of us who are weakest on our own to serve him. He wants us to know that he can forgive all the wrong we’ve done and heal all the hurts we’ve caused. He can help us be more like Christ.”
Gavran’s mouth drooped open slightly. “What was it the banshee said at the end?”
Ceana shifted her weight backward. What did that have to do with anything? “To become wiser than our enemies we’ll have to turn to the source of true… oh.”
Gavran was nodding, a smile starting to stretch his lips.
Could the banshee have meant Scripture? Demons were in rebellion to the Almighty, but they still knew His words were truth. “So the answer to what’s worth living for will be found in Scripture?”
He squeezed the bridge of his nose as if trying to help himself focus. “I think so. I think that’s what I meant. It’s getting harder to focus. To remember.”
Time was drawing short. Too short. “You know the words of Scripture better than I do. My dadaidh didn’t like us going to services. I only have the stories.”
Gavran’s brow furrowed as if he were trying to dredge up the knowledge. “Love? It could be love for others. Saint Paul, when he was about to stand trial for his beliefs. Facing possible execution.” His words came out choppy and slow. Each sounded like he had to work to think and then work even harder to speak. “Wrote that he’d rather die and be with Christ, but his love for the people in the Philippian church made him sure it would actually be better for him to stay alive and continue to serve them. Serve the Lord longer.”
Ceana bit down hard on her lip, and the coppery taste of blood ran over her tongue. The banshee had been toying with her right from the beginning. She’d guessed before the start what questions Ceana would ask her. She’d tailored her own questions, making sure Ceana knew that Gavran didn’t love her.
And the only way to protect him was to make sure that, when the baobhan sith came for him, he was with someone he loved. Not just someone he loved. That love had to be deep enough that he’d choose to sacrifice what he wanted for the other person’s well-being.
His mamaidh and dadaidh? The journey back to McLeod lands would take another two days, but they might have time if they didn’t delay. They’d ride straight there rather than returning to Lyall for supplies. She’d been hungry before, and they could easily find water to drink along the way.
The rapidly growing plan stuttered in her head. The baobhan sith were unseelie fae, just as the nuckalevee had been. More powerful than anything natural. Gavran’s love for his parents wouldn’t be enough. There was a love more powerful. A man left his mamaidh and dadaidh to be united to his wife.
Her limbs suddenly weighed heavy and hard, as if made of sun-backed clay. “We only defeated the nuckalevee because we used the wishes against it. We need to get you to Brighde. She’s the love the wishes gave you. It’s her who’ll be able to keep you from giving in to the baobhan sith.”
CHAPTER 22
Ceana’s words jumbled in Gavran’s mind. Love. Brighde. Wishes. Baobhan sith. It was like she was speaking with a heavy accent so that he had to concentrate to make any sense of it.
She leaned closer to him. “Gavran? Did you hear me?”
“Aye.” His lips moved sluggishly, as though swollen. “I heard you.”
The only thing that would keep him from going to the baobhan sith when they called him was the presence of the person he loved most—or at least that was the best sense he could make of what Ceana was saying.
I wish that he would find love, Ceana had said for the very first wish the fairy gave her, and that it would always remain faithful and true. The words were seared into his brain after so many nights of dreaming them over and over again.
And Brighde was his betrothed.
Ceana’s logic made sense. Didn’t it? Or maybe it should make sense but it didn’t. But she must be right, even if she seemed wrong.
He was so tired. If he could only lie down for a short nap…
Hands clasped like shackles around his forearms and shook him, holding him upright. His eyes popped back open. Had he nearly drifted off while on his feet?
Ceana’s voice was sharp and demanding. “We’ve no time to sleep now. We need to get the horses and head for Dunvegan.”
He wanted to argue with her about something the banshee had said to her. He’d tried at the time, but he hadn’t been allowed to speak. Now whatever it was had been swallowed by the black mass in his mind.
“Put your arm around my shoulders, and I’ll help you.” Ceana didn’t wait for him to do it himself. She tucked in under his arm and held it in place with a hand reached up to his. She slid her other arm around his waist. “The horses aren’t far.”
The horses were back in Duntulm, weren’t they? They might as well be across the isle. “Aye, they are.”
“We’ll make it there before you know it. Just don’t stop.”
Gavran tried to open his eyes, but his lids seemed sealed. Or only too heavy. Much too heavy.
“You can’t take him all the way to Dunvegan. It’s two days’ ride if he were healthy. He won’t even be able to stay in the saddle like this.”
A man’s voice. One Gavran should know. Clipped. Frustrated.
“He’ll die if I don’t. I’ll tie him to the saddle if I must.”
Ceana. She sounded angry, but the ripples inside him felt more like fear. If he could lean on her again, bury his face into her neck, maybe this fatigue would lift. She was warm sunshine and crisp apples and peace.
“And how will you get him down when he needs to eat or relieve himself? How will you get him back up again?”
Lyall? When had Lyall rejoined them?
“Get me a wagon. We’ll put him in the back.”
Maybe if he slept a little more, he’d be able to sort through it all. The wheres and the whys and the whats and the whos.
“Do you even know how to drive?”
“I’ll figure it out. I’ve no other choice.”
CHAPTER 23
The only thing keeping Ceana awake was her aching shoulder muscles. And arms. And hands. That morning, she’d had to rip strips from her cloak to wrap around her blistered palms.
This couldn’t be how driving a cart horse was supposed to be. Or perhaps Gavran was right that any travel involving a horse meant pain.
He mumbled something behind her, and she glanced back. Sweat beaded along his brow line, as if the nuckalevee venom was cooking him from the inside out. His moments of lucidity were getting shorter and further apart. The last time he’d said anything she could understand had been that morning, when he’d been able to eat on his own.
They’d be near to his parents’ croft before the sun set. Brighde and Tavish lived only a few minutes past that. They’d made it. Shaved it close as a beard with lice, but they’d made it.
A fat plop of rain landed on her knee. The dark gray sky above promised more. She sent up a prayer that it would hold off.
Convincing Brighde to come with her would be hard enough if it wasn’t storming fit to wash the paths out. Were she to tuck herself away in her family’s abandoned cottage, the storm might not pass before Gavran did.
Ceana glanced back at him again and sighed. It wasn’t supposed to be this way. What did she know of Brighde and her habits? They hadn’t been friends before the wishes. No one had wanted to befriend the daughter of the parish drunk. No one other than Gavran and his family.
Gavran would have known how to lure Brighde. She snorted. Had Gavran been even half himself, they wouldn’t have needed to trick or lure her. He would have asked, and she would have come.
A rumble of thunder vibrated in the distance, and the air smelled damp and heavy.
She stopped the wagon behind a row of trees near the Nichols’ croft, climbed down, and secured the horse. She measured the distance in her mind. She couldn’t risk passing beyond the point where her cursed side of the wishes was canceled out by Gavran’s blessed side. If she did, she’d guarantee failure. This should be close enough that she wouldn’t cross the boundary while still keeping Gavran and the wagon hidden.
They’d been gone weeks, but Brighde would no doubt still recognize her, so she couldn’t approach as herself. Brighde would scream and run before Ceana could get anywhere near close enough to speak to her.
She looked down at her bound hands and torn dress. The only thing she was fit to pass for was a beggar woman. Playing the beggar might get her inside the cottage, but it wouldn’t convince Brighde to go anywhere with her.
Maybe a tinker? A poor one, to be sure. That might be enough to make Brighde take pity on her, especially if she posed as an old woman.
It’d have to do. Gavran’s time was too short to spend any of it coming up with a different plan, and she needed to get Brighde to him before the baobhan sith found him.
She tied her hair back as tightly as possible and bound another strip of cloth—ripped from Gavran’s cloak this time—around her head at the hairline. She added a few smears of dirt to her face, put on her cloak with the hood up, despite the summer’s warmth, and found a sturdy stick for a cane.
She adopted a limp as soon as she left the tree line. Not that it was difficult. The cane was practically the only thing holding her up after the beating her body took from the banshee’s blockades and all the days spent traveling in the past week.
Brighde was a good worker and a good daughter, so the most likely spot to find her this time of day was milking the goats. If only the Almighty would smile on her and let her find Brighde alone.
She kept her hobble slow and steady as she fought her way through the tall grass. The journey down the slope seemed to take twice as long as it should have.
She angled toward the barn and came at it from behind, where she wouldn’t be easily spotted from the cottage. The acerbic reek of urine and goat manure stung her eyes and nose. She held back a sneeze and stepped inside. In the dim interior, she couldn’t immediately tell if she were alone.
“Feasgar math.” She let the Gaelic favored by the tinkers she’d met slip off her tongue and tried to make her voice sound labored and creaky. “Has anyone in your house need of the Ceardannan?”
“One moment.” Brighde’s voice came from farther back and low.
Ceana strained her ears. The soft swish of streams of milk filling a bucket and a soft rustle of hay as an animal munched on its evening meal were the only sounds. Praise the Almighty. She and Brighde were the only ones here.
Brighde appeared in the back corner. She carried a bucket in one hand and wiped her other down the front of her skirt. A kerchief tied her hair back out of her face.
Ceana hunched her shoulders forward to make herself seem older and smaller. The posture also gave her an excuse to keep her face turned down. She peeked at Brighde from under the edge of her hood.
“You’re one of the Craftsmen, you said?” Brighde set the bucket down at her feet. She leaned back and pressed a fist into the small of her back.
The cackle Ceana forced out reminded her uncomfortably of the banshee’s laugh. She suppressed a shudder. “Not meeself. Me husband. But his old legs wouldn’t take the walk from where we set camp.”
Brighde nodded along. “My dadaidh sharpens all our tools himself, and I’m not sure if anything’s in need of repair.” She gestured back in the direction of the house. “I can ask him for you.”
So Tavish had made it back. Running into him, having Brighde join other people, was the last thing she needed.
“Ach, nay. Nay need to bother him. ’Sides, he’ll take one look at me husband’s twisted old hands and think he couldn’t do good work. But he’s the best you’ll find.” Ceana eased forward slightly. Knocking Brighde out here wouldn’t work. She couldn’t drag her all the way back. She had to come with her willingly. “We’ve been finding it hard to come by enough work. Isn’t there somethin’ small you’d like done? A gift, perhaps?”
Brighde sucked her bottom lip in. “Do you have anything ready-made?”
