“Your love will withstand the tests of time,” Mrs. McCullugh, our landlady, told me as she stared into the depths of my tea. “It will be an eternal love that not even death will tear asunder.”
That sounded like something out of a fairy tale. The type of love little girls dream about. At least the type of love I had always dreamed of. I was thrilled beyond belief that I would have that type of love with Scott. A part of me had always believed that our love was like that, but there was no way to be completely sure. We had been apart for so long after all. There was no telling how Scott’s feelings for me could have changed.
“You are a very fortunate woman, Marie,” Mrs. McCullugh said patting me on the shoulder as she passed behind me on her way to the sink. “Very few people are blessed with that type of love.”
“This is wonderful,” I sighed, leaning back in my seat as far as I was able.
“What’s wonderful?” Scott asked as he entered the kitchen.
Smiling demurely, I picked up my tea cup and brought it to my lips.
“Oh now I know that you’re up to something,” Scott said as he sat down in the seat next to me. “Come on, Marie. Confess. You know you can’t keep secrets from me.”
I smiled sweetly at him and turned my attention to the newspaper in front of me on the table. “Ah think yer a little senile.... An’ that is mah medical opinion.”
Scott grabbed the newspaper out of my hands, dropped it on the chair next to the mine and sat down on it. “Very cute, my love. Now hurry up and get ready or else we’ll be late.”
For the first time I noticed that Scott was wearing his coat and scarf. Beside him on the table were the black leather gloves I had bought him for his birthday. I stared at Scott in confusion, not having any idea what he had planned for us. And, quite frankly, that worried me. The last time Scott had kept our destination a secret we had spent the day in a stuffy old lecture hall listening to an aged physician ramble on about family lines and the genealogy of England’s nobles.
“You don’t remember, do you?” Scott said with a satisfied smirk.
“Of course Ah do,” I lied, reaching forward to grab the ends of his scarf and pulling him closer to me. “How on earth could Ah ferget.”
Scott leaned forward so that his face was only inches from mine. “So where are we going?”
“Somewhere cold that involves gloves?” I guessed, unable to suppress a grin.
“Go get your coat,” Scott murmured, pressing a quick kiss to my lips before pulling away. “You’ve got five minutes before I come up after you.”
I rose slowly from my chair and slinked past him, running a fingertip across his jaw. “Then I’ll see ya upstairs.”
Even though I knew he wouldn’t, a part of me was hoping that Scott would come up after me. Not knowing where we were going, I was convinced that it was somewhere Scott could learn more about his illustrious ancestor. After ten minutes when it became obvious that Scott wasn’t coming up after me, I reluctantly pulled on my coat and gloves and trudged back down the stairs.
This was our honeymoon so it shouldn’t have been too much to hope that we got to spend some quality time together alone. Preferably in front of a fireplace with a bottle of champagne. Granted that really wasn’t either of our styles, but it was still a nice fantasy considering I was probably going to be outdoors in the cold the rest of the day.
However, I will admit that Scott surprised me to a certain extent.
Instead of a stuffy lecture hall we were on the shores of Loch Ness. As a little girl I’d read all the legends on the infamous loch and had been fascinated by it. In all our travels, Uncle Boris and I had never happened across Loch Ness. Odd, considering we’d been just about everywhere else in the world that had any type of mythological significance. A part of me was also glad that I had never been to Loch Ness before. It allowed me to experience it for the first time with Scott.
The cold was something I could have done without, though.
Warmth would have been a plus considering we were out in a boat in the middle of the loch. Since warmth was not available, I cuddled as close to Scott as I could, hoping that he would help keep me warm. It wasn’t much, but at least I was slightly warmer than before.
“There are many legends about the creature who lives within the depths of Loch Ness,” spoke our guide as he steered the small craft through the murky water. “Many of them are older than the hills themselves. One of the oldest is that of the waterhorse.”
Bringing the boat to a stop, our guide continued with his tale, his voice lilting in that wonderful way a true story teller’s would. “Now the waterhorse lives down at the bottom of the loch. For centuries he lived alone and unloved in his cold home. So the waterhorse decided that it wanted a wife. Taking the form of a glorious white horse, it wandered ashore in hopes of luring a beautiful maiden to him.”
“And did it succeed?” I asked when he fell silent.
The sudden gust of wind that rose up fit the eerie mood perfectly.
“That he did,” our guide confirmed. “Within the hour a beautiful virgin came upon the shores of the loch and saw the horse wading in the surf. Unable to deny the temptation presented by the waterhorse, she mounted the surprisingly calm horse.”
So the tale goes, the waterhorse spirited the young virgin to his home at the bottom of the loch. Thus their life together began. After a relatively short time, the waterhorse began to realize that his new bride was not content. The meals of cold fish did not appetize her and her frail body was constantly wracked with shivers. Wanting nothing more than for his wife to be happy, the waterhorse decided to have a hearth build for her so that she could cook her fish and stay warm. Up to the surface once again, the waterhorse took the form of a beautiful white mare. Soon enough, a mason happened upon the horse and attempted to ride it. The instant the man was upon his back, the waterhorse disappeared beneath the waves.
“.... Eager to return to his wife and family, the mason hurriedly built a hearth for the waterhorse’s wife. He worked night and day for a week in order to get it done. Now in order to prevent smoke from filling the waterhorse’s wife, the mason constructed a chimney that reached up through the loch to the surface. To this day, the section of the loch that contains this chimney does not freeze over. Instead, it remains perfectly clear of ice and steam can even be seen rising from it. And that, my friends, is the legend of the waterhorse’s chimney,” our guide finished with a flourish.
Everyone in the small craft applauded and we slowly made our way back to shore. There was no telling just how long the weather would hold out. While the setting was as picturesque as one could imagine, the weather was less than desirable for a honeymoon. In a way, though, the gloomy, drizzly atmosphere fit the landscape perfectly. However, since I had no desire to be cold, I spent the entire trip cuddled as close to Scott as possible.
“If you’re so cold you should have worn a hat,” Scott told me as I used one of the longer ends of his scarf to cover my ears.
“Well mah ears weren’t cold when we left,” I protested, yanking one of his arms out of his pocket and wrapping it around my shoulders. “Now be quiet and let me enjoy myself.”
The ride back to the dock took about fifteen minutes. During that time, when I wasn’t staring at the sloping hills that surrounded the loch, I was staring into the fathomeless water that surrounded us. If I stared hard enough, I could almost believe that I could make out the faint outline of the Loch Ness monster. Scott would tell me that I’m being childish, but when you’ve seen everything that I have since I became Uncle Boris’s ward a great monster hiding within the murky depths of the ancient loch was entirely plausible.
True to form, when we got off the boat, Scott cornered the guide to find out just how much of the area’s history. That left me free to wander and pursue what Uncle Boris had dubbed my oddity. Considering he spent his life mucking about in ancient tombs, my fascination towards plants was very normal.
Ignoring Scott, I wandered towards the very edge of the loch, searching for a useful flower or herb that I could add to my collection. Since all my presses were back in America, I had been forced to rely on Scott’s massive books that he insists on carting all over the world. I was a little put off to see that all of the plant species that caught my attention were ones already in my collection and were currently residing within Scott’s texts.
“Are you ready to go yet?” Scott asked, appearing behind me.
Rising from my crouched position, I grinned at him and wiped the water droplets on my hands onto my coat. “More than ready. What I need right now is a warm meal.”
“A warm meal. I think I can arrange that,” Scott murmured, wrapping his arms about my waist and pulling me closer to him.
Our warm meal came from a pub back in Inverness. While we ate, Scott took up a conversation with a pair of old men sitting at the table next to us. They had to have been at least seventy years old each and were chock full of information that practically made my husband salivate. I got bored almost immediately and began wandering about the dimly lit pub, taking in all the artifacts that covered the wall.
“That’s Craigh na Dun,” a voice said from behind me as I stood gazing at a landscape hung above the blissfully warm fireplace. “The fairy hill.”
I spun around, smiling at the little old lady standing behind me. “It’s a beautiful paintin’. Is the place real?”
“Oh yes. Not that far outside o’ town either. It’s where the pagans practice their spring rights or whatnot,” the old lady informed me.
“Isn’t tomorrow Beltane?”
“Ya know your history, lass,” the old lady said, a wide smile appearing on her face. “I wouldn’t be half surprised to find a bunch of teenagers dancing around naked there first thing in the morning. There’s a group of them every year.”
“So ya don’t believe in the old ways?” I asked her, tearing my eyes away from the painting.
The old woman gave me a conspiratorial wink and patted my arm. “Och, it’s more jealousy than anything else. It would hardly be seemly for me to be prancing about without my knickers.”
I grinned broadly then turned my attention back to the painting. There was something about it that kept me transfixed. I just could not ignore it. There wasn’t anything particularly spectacular about it. The stone circle was much smaller than Stonehenge, but there was a quiet solitude to it that Stonehenge did not possess. Set up on a hill, it was secluded from everything else and thus made a little more magical. It took me several minutes, but I finally located exactly what I was looking for.
The shadowed silhouette of a man standing just beyond one of the stone pillars. You couldn’t see much of him, but there was a man there. I was sure of it. I was still attempting to make the figure out when Scott appeared, informing me that it was time to leave.
Taking one final look a the picture, I followed Scott from the pub and out into the bitter cold.
The following morning I was sitting in the back of a cab on my way towards Craigh na Dun. Scott had disappeared on one of his history expeditions leaving me to fend for myself. He had invited me along to the Reverend’s house to help them go through some texts that the Reverend had gathered from some colleagues of his that spoke of Victor Randall’s exemplary military career.
Having spent so much of my life learning fragments from almost every religion known to man, this fairy hill intrigued me as much as Scott’s many times great grandfather did him. I already knew that I would be far too late to see any worshippers participating in the holy rights, but I would at least be able to see the place with my own eyes.
“Did ya want me ta wait for ya, lassie?” the cabby asked as he pulled to a stop near the hill.
I furrowed my brows, making some quick calculations in my head. “If it’s at all possible, do ya think ya could come back here in about an hour an’ a half?”
“Will do, lassie,” he said with a nod. “Now be careful up there. Don’t let the fairies sneak ya off to their world.”
“Ah’ll do may best,” I said with a grin as I climbed out of the back of the cab.
Until he pulled away a few moments later, I simply stared at the hill, taking it all in. As in the painting, the landscape was beautiful. There were the remnants of a cottage built within the surrounding forest that I’m sure would have been an ideal setting for a pair of lovers to enjoy the magical atmosphere provided by Craigh na Dun.
It was then that I noticed just how steep the hill was that I would have to climb in order to get to the fairy circle. Whimpering slightly, I began to tiring trek to the summit of the hill.
By the time I reached the top, I was huffing and puffing and wouldn’t have minded to jump into the loch I had been touring the day before. Even though Scott had laughed at me for wearing such a thin, airy dress, I was now grateful for my choice of wardrobe. When I stepped into the breeze that was blowing over the top of the hill it cooled me off almost instantly.
Then I looked up and saw the stone circle.
Smaller that Stonehenge, it was no less a majestic structure than its cousin. I made my way towards it, heading directly towards the centre of the fairy circle. Brushing my hair behind my ears, I made my way to one of the uprights to see if there were any markings on it. I couldn’t help but smile as I realized that I was instinctively acting in the way Uncle Boris had every time he approached a new tomb or structure.
A pair of side by side uprights caught my attention next. They were much closer than any other ones in the circle and still possessed the lintel which joined the two together at the top. First I walked around the pair, tracing my fingers along the worn stones. The tips of my fingers dipped into the natural grooves in the stone, giving me a feel for the stones themselves.
As I stood between to two upright stones, I was hit by a sudden buzzing noise. Like a giant bee was flying about my head. Thinking that it was behind me, I took a step forward between the two stones and into a horrendous torrent of noises and sensations.
There was no light anywhere. Only an unending darkness filled with ear splitting noises. Screaming, I cupped my hands over my ears and went to turn back. Only there was no back. Only forward. I was flung into the abyss, feeling as though my body was being torn in a million different directions all at once.
Then seconds later I stepped out on the other side as though nothing had happened.