He looked back over his shoulder at Morgan and crackled with laughter. “Not that you have any chance of getting there yourself, warrior. They rarely allow pagans through the gates.”
Sadie didn’t know what surprised her the most, that the priest had called her husband a pagan or that he’d called him a warrior.
Morgan picked up his sword and settled it over his back, his glare fierce enough to fry Father Daar where he stood.
“You may begin the explaining without me, old man,” Morgan said. “Faol.Tàr as.
Falbh,” he added, waving the wolf toward the exit of the pool, then walking through the towering trees himself.
Staring at the spot where he’d disappeared, Sadie posed her question to the priest.
“What did he just say?”
“Tàr as?”Father Daar repeated. “It means ‘move off’ or ‘go.’ Andfalbh means ‘guard.’”
He started walking around the cathedral-like grotto and picked up small pieces of wood. “He’s set the wolf to guarding the entrance,” he said as he continued his work, putting the branches into a pile. He straightened and looked at her. “I told you befriending Faol would come in handy one day.”
Sadie put her hands on her hips and faced the priest. “So you’re saying this Maine wolf knows Gaelic?” she asked. “A language that’s been dead for hundreds of years?”
He sat down on the moss near the pile of branches he’d made and looked up at her. “It’s not dead, girl. Gaelic’s still spoken in some parts of Scotland.” He suddenly grinned.
“Now, watch,” he said, touching the branches with his skinny cane while he muttered some words under his breath.
The wood erupted into flames, and Sadie stepped back. She quickly stepped closer, glaring at the now crackling fire.
“That’s not magic,” she said. “Not in heaven. Anything’s possible here,” she said, waving at the tall granite walls.
Father Daar sighed loudly enough to be heard over the noise of the waterfall and rubbed his hands over his face. He looked up at her and patted a place beside him. “Come. Sit with me, Mercedes, so that I can explain what has happened to you.”
With a sigh of her own, Sadie sat down beside the crazy old priest and stared at the softly crackling fire.
“Do you remember my visit last week?” Daar asked, using his cane to push more wood onto the fire. “And your feet? Were the cuts not healed the next morning when you woke?”
“They were gone,” she admitted, frowning to herself.
“And were you not alive when that little miracle happened?”
She looked at him. “It wasn’t a miracle,” she disputed. “Miracles are big things that happen to deserving people.”
“And you’re not deserving?”
“That’s not the point. God wouldn’t trouble himself with small cuts on my feet. He has much more important things to worry about.”
Daar harrumphed and scrubbed his face with his hands again, shaking his head. He finally looked at her, his expression confounded. “The whole world is still sitting out there, Mercedes, just beyond those trees,” he said, pointing at where Faol and Morgan had disappeared. “Your valley, your mother and Callum, your two simple-minded friends, and the man who shot you. All are still there, all still waiting for you.”
Sadie looked toward the trees. She hadn’t even thought about trying to leave. “Then, if I’
m not really dead, will my scars return if I leave here?” she whispered. “Will I be ugly again?”
“Ya can’t be what you never were,” Daar snapped. He blew out a tired breath. “But no, the scars are gone for good.” He frowned. “Which will be hard to explain to your mother, I’m guessing. She’s a modern, too, and won’t be able to understand any better than you can.”
“What do you mean, ‘a modern’? You say that as if you and Morgan are ancient or something. And Morgan’s not in the military. So why did you call him a warrior?”
Daar kneaded the back of his neck and finished by scratching his beard. “Because that’s what he is. Or, rather, what he was,” he said. “I had a little mishap with the magic six years ago and brought Morgan eight hundred years forward in time.”
“Youwhat?”
He frowned at her incredulousness. “I made a mistake,” he said, lifting his hairy-white chin. “I was only wanting to bring Morgan’s brother, Greylen, forward, but nine other men came with him, including Callum and Ian and Morgan. And MacBain,” he added with a scowl.
“Callum?” Sadie squeaked. “Are you saying the man my mother is going to marry is like… like Morgan? That he’s old… and also a warrior?” Sadie scrambled to her feet and balled her hands into fists. “What are you saying?” she shouted.
Father Daar lifted his cane into the air and began muttering words softly to himself again. Sadie’s eyes widened as she saw the cane grow to nearly double its size and start to hum with gentle vibrations.
“Take hold of this, Mercedes,” Daar said, holding it out to her. “If ya want to understand, hold this, and I’ll show you.”
She stepped back. “No.”
“Aw, come on, girl,” he cajoled. “Where’s your spirit of adventure? Do ya not want to know who your husband truly is?”
She didn’t understand any of this. What he was saying was impossible. But her scars were gone, she was in a veritable rain forest that shouldn’t exist anywhere near Maine, and the old priest’s cane was now glowing like a finger of lightning.
Hesitantly, but with more curiosity than fear, Sadie reached out and took hold of the surprisingly cool cane.
Light entered her head, flashes of brilliance that should have blinded her. But she was able to see something slowly appear in her mind’s eye. A scene out of a picture book.
Men on horseback, carrying swords and dressed strangely. Actually, some of the men were naked. They were fighting a mighty battle.
She could smell the dust being kicked up by the trampling feet of the horses. She could hear the clash of the swords striking each other. Sadie immediately recognized Morgan.
And Callum. She could see Callum trying to unseat a man whose face was covered in paint. Lightning flashed over their heads. Thunder boomed. The very air around them became charged with the energy of a quickly descending storm.
A torrential rain suddenly blanketed the chaos, darkening her vision. There was an intense explosion of light, the detonation making Sadie flinch in surprise. She tightened her grip on the priest’s cane. Suddenly, there was only silent white light as pure as the center of the sun, muted spectrums of color shading the edges.
The men reappeared, no longer fighting but scattered in dazed disarray on an earth that was the same but different. It was more lush. Greener. There were buildings. Cars and trucks were zooming by.
Sadie looked for Morgan. He was first holding his head, covering his eyes with his hands, then suddenly patting his body as if he didn’t believe he existed. She cried out at the fear she saw on his face, the confusion, the very terror of what had happened to him.
Horses lay scattered around the men, dazed with terror and screaming, trying to stand.
Sadie watched Morgan run to one of them and recognized the horse he’d been riding the first day she’d met him.
“What’s its name?” she softly asked the priest standing and watching beside her in her mind’s eye.
“Gràdhag,” Daar answered. “It means ‘pet.’”
Sadie let go of the cane and stepped back. The vision left as mysteriously as it had come.
She turned and stared out over the still shimmering pool made by the waterfall.
“That’s why Morgan is afraid of thunderstorms,” she said. “He was caught in one and ripped from his home and brought… brought here.”