Mac blushed for the third time in ten minutes, and I glared at Frank.
“I’d be delighted to meet your nan,” I said to Mac. “Is there anything I can bring her?”
Mac looked down at the pile of crumbs that was all that was left of the oatcakes. “I don’t suppose you know how to make those?” he asked doubtfully. “I forgot that Ma said I was to save some for Nan’s tea.”
“As a matter of fact, I do.”
“Really?” Mac gave me an adoring look, and I realized that if I hadn’t had it already, I’d just secured his eternal devotion. Mac said he’d better get his farm chores done then and got up to go.
Soheila and Frank walked with me to the front porch to see him off. As I watched Mac get into his shiny new pickup truck, I thought that I could probably do worse than to marry a man who did all his chores and visited his ancient granny every week at the nursing home even when she didn’t remember who he was.
“You’d go crazy in a month,” Soheila said, divining my thought.
“Yeah,” Frank said, walking ahead to his car. “I don’t see you as a farmer’s wife, McFay.”
Soheila lingered behind for a moment. “But he’d certainly be a better choice than the incubus you’re dreaming about,” she said in a low whisper.
So she could sense my dreams. “But it’s not really my incubus,” I objected. “He’s … different.”
Soheila exhaled a world-weary sigh that gusted autumn leaves off my porch. “Of course he’s different; that’s why my kind are so seductive. We change with you, shifting ourselves to fit every mood and whim. But remember, Callie, the incubus died in his last incarnation. He can’t come back again. You’ll never be able to be together in the flesh.”
“Then there’s no danger in dreaming about him, is there?” I countered, lifting my chin defiantly.
Soheila shook her head, and the leaves in my yard spun into a small whirlwind. “Just because he can’t have you in the flesh doesn’t mean he won’t still try to have you in your dreams. He’ll make you unfit for loving anyone else. Don’t let him, Callie. Use him to find the door and the stone if you have to, but then let him go. Or someday you’ll find you’re not able to.”
CHAPTER NINE
I spent the afternoon making bannocks. I did, in fact, have a recipe for the traditional Scottish oatcakes, from my father, who had made them for my childhood tea parties when he and my mother weren’t off on an archaeological dig. When I was ten, he’d taught me how to make them, explaining how he’d learned from his grandmother, who had learned from her grandmother. Every family had their own recipe, he’d explained, and the McFay bannocks were known as the lightest and sweetest cakes in all of Scotland. As I kneaded the dough, I could almost feel his hands over mine, showing me how it was done. I had to stop to wipe my eyes on the apron I’d put over the nice Sunday visiting clothes I was wearing.
I took off my apron and brushed flour off my plaid wool skirt. Perhaps I was laying it on a bit thick by wearing a Scottish plaid to visit Mrs. Stewart, but I wanted to make a good impression and so had also put on tights, a crisp white blouse, and even the silver Luckenbooth brooch. Pinning on the brooch, I’d remembered something else my mother had told me when she gave it to me. “A McFay is never complete until he—or she—finds the match to this heart. Your father said that I was his other heart.” If Soheila was correct and my incubus could never return, would I ever find my other heart?
Mac came to the kitchen door just as I was transferring the hot bannocks into a basket. He was wearing an ill-fitting sports jacket over a fancier-than-his-everyday plaid shirt (cotton instead of flannel) and dress slacks instead of jeans. When he saw what I was wearing—and smelled the bannocks—he burst into a wide smile.
“My nan is going to love you!”
I instantly felt guilty because I’d gone to all this trouble to get information out of the old lady and not because I wanted to marry her great-grandson. But at least I’d made Mac happy. He grinned all the way to Shady Pines, which was a short drive away, near the edge of the downtown area. I’d passed the nondescript two-story brick building before without really noticing it. There was a large, shaded patio in front, on which elderly people often congregated. Today it was festooned with balloons that said HAPPY BIRTHDAY GRANDMA! A large multigenerational group was gathered around a tiny elderly woman wearing a pointed party hat. Mac stopped by on our way in to wish Mrs. Rappaport a happy birthday and ask how her new hip was. I stood in my nice plaid skirt, holding my basket of fragrant bannocks, while the entire Rappaport family scrutinized me as a potential fiancée for Mac. By the time we left here today, the whole town would think we were engaged.
The cheerful exterior and pleasant staff inside couldn’t quite disguise the antiseptic smell of an institution—or the fact that many of the residents were not as spry or as well attended as Mrs. Rappaport. We passed a lounge where an elderly group slumped in front of a television set, their wrinkled faces slack and colorless. I was aware of eyes tracking us as we passed the residential rooms, and I felt strangely as I had looking toward the woods this morning. A woman in a pink tracksuit, making her laborious way down the hall with her walker, raised her head as we went by and lifted a shaking hand to stop us.
“Is there something I can do?” I asked her.
“You can get me the hell outta here!” she cried. “There are monsters here!”
“It’s okay, Mrs. Goldstein,” Mac said in a soothing voice. “I’ll call an aide to help you.”
“Traitor!” Mrs. Goldstein hissed. “Collaborator!”
Mac only smiled and nodded at Mrs. Goldstein’s accusations and pulled me away. “Don’t worry about Mrs. Goldstein. She’s a Holocaust survivor, and now she thinks she’s back in the camps.”
“That’s horrible!” I said. “The poor woman!”
Mac nodded, but we’d arrived at his nan’s room, and he was too busy slicking down his hair and straightening his tie to worry about Mrs. Goldstein’s delusions. He took my arm and led me into a comfortable bedroom that included a small sitting area, toward a wizened old lady in a powder-blue velour tracksuit with a plaid wool shawl draped over her shoulders. I recognized the wide Stewart face beneath crisply waved white hair, and she had the same blue eyes, only hers were slightly clouded by cataracts. When she lifted those eyes, though, they fastened on me with a keenness I’d never seen in Mac’s face.
“Ah, Cailleach McFay,” the old woman said in a surprisingly strong, steady voice. “At last. I’ve been waiting a long time to see you.”
I looked uncertainly at Mac, wondering if Nan hadn’t slipped back into dementia. Mac shrugged and looked embarrassed, then said in a loud voice, “You told me to bring her at teatime, remember? And, look, Callie’s made you some bannocks.”
I put the basket on the table, which was set with a brown glazed teapot, three flowered teacups, a bowl of brown-sugar cubes, a jug of milk, and little pots of jam and what looked like clotted cream. Mac and I sat down on the two comfortable chairs opposite the couch. He poured tea and filled his grandmother in on the latest news—how the crops had come in, the quantities of jams and pickles put up by his mother and aunts, the purchase of a new tractor, the health and activities of a dozen or so grandchildren and twice again as many farm animals. Mrs. Stewart maintained the regal poise of a queen listening to the assizes, her eyes, the same Wedgwood blue as the teacups, all the while focused on me. When Mac had finished his report on the state of the Stewart clan, he took a gulp of tea and crammed a bannock into his mouth. His eyes widened.