The Presence (27 page)

Listening, though, she could hear the bubble of a brook. It was to the right, through a field of trees—and the path—a great canopy of trees arced over pine needles—looked inviting. “We'll wander in and find the water, eh, boy?” she asked, rubbing his nose.

As he tended to do—with true love and affection, she was certain—he nosed her in the chest, gently prodding her, as if he understood her words.

Plenty of light dappled through the trees. The shadows and patterns that fell around the trees and bushes were quite beautiful. The trails seemed broad and well used, yet when she followed the sound of the water and came to it at last, she felt like a fool.

“You know what? We're back in
the
forest.”

It was all right. She definitely hadn't come that far, walking the horse. All she had to do was retrace her steps. She wasn't frightened, and she wasn't even worried. When Wallace had drunk his fill, she'd start back. But just when the horse lifted his head, the rain came.

“Son of a bitch!” she swore out loud, drawing a snort from Wallace.

It wasn't the rain. She didn't care much about getting wet. But the air was cold, and she hadn't set out with any kind of jacket, waterproof or otherwise.

“You know, it rains a lot here!” she told the horse, angry with herself for not being better prepared. But she'd left the house angry and disturbed, and decided on taking a ride on the spur of the moment.

In seconds, she was soaked. And what had been light and beautiful was now gray and…murky.

She determined to go back the way she had come. It should have been easy, but it wasn't. In a matter of minutes, she was entangled in the trees.

She looked at Wallace. Surely, it was close to feeding time. If she just gave the horse his head, he'd take her home.

“It's up to you, buddy,” she said.

By the time she had leaped up on his back, making three attempts—because of the slickness, she told herself, not a lack of coordination—the rain had slackened. But the gray and the murk remained, and there was a low ground fog, as well. The whole atmosphere was…creepy.

“No!” she said aloud. Because now, she was feeling the eyes again, the eyes of the forest, watching her.

“Home, Wallace!” she said out loud, hoping the words would dispel the sense of eeriness that had crept
around her. She
was
being ridiculous. These were
trees,
for God's sake! Trees, bushes, natural bark, leaves, the sound of rushing water….

Given free rein, Wallace simply stood dead still.

“Traitor!” she told him.

He whinnied and shifted weight from hoof to hoof.

“What kind of a horse are you? You're supposed to know the way back to the barn!”

The eyes…she could feel them.

“All right, forget it,” she said, and gathered up the reins. She didn't know how far it would be, but since there was only one forest, she could hope there was only one stream. She'd follow it out.

The water was very shallow. She led the horse straight through it, then along the embankment when it deepened. She tried whistling, but she couldn't keep her lips wet enough. And as she rose, she fought a sense of sheer panic that could do her no good. But images kept floating before her mind. A picture of a man, a warrior, a Cavalier, in armor, kilted, dirty, worn, tired…. A sword that dripped blood in his hand. The same man, standing before the hearth, watching the flames, then beckoning her down into the crypts.

Yesterday. The voice on the phone. The word
medium.

She gritted her teeth. She was not some kind of a vessel for horrid messages about things that she could not change or see through! Unlike the girl on the phone, she had no desire to see lots of ghosts!

She bit into her lower lip. The rain had stopped completely, but the mist continued to rise from the forest floor. She was soaked to the bone, completely chilled. And she continued to feel watched.
Stalked.

Each time she hesitated and looked around, she saw nothing. The forest was big. Hadn't she heard many people say that? She glanced at her watch, again, seeking a sense of normalcy in the action. Yes, the forest must be very big. She'd been following the stream, she estimated, for nearly two hours, and suddenly realized that she wasn't just stiff, she was in agony.

She turned, setting a hand on the horse's rump, trying to see anything that she could behind her. Any movement. But all she saw was the fall of shadows.

“Hurry it up a bit, shall we?” she murmured.

They trotted forward, and when she looked back, the feeling that a darkness followed her, reaching out, started to recede.

Finally she could take it no more. She had to stretch, change her position. It might have been a nice day to choose to take a saddle, she reflected, but it was too late for that, far too late.

“Whoa, boy,” she told Wallace, reining in lightly. She looked behind her uneasily, thinking that if she saw anything, anything at all, she could turn, slam her knees against Wallace and race away. But there was nothing, just the coming darkness.

She needed a quick moment's rest, then she needed to move again. So she slid from Wallace's back, wincing slightly. She walked a few steps, stretching. “I guess it is a big forest, if troops, outlawed by the powers that be, used to hide in here,” she murmured. She led Wallace over to a large oak set up on a little hillock of grass, just above the stream, and sat down, leaning against the tree, ruing her stupidity.

“Wallace,” she said, “you really aren't much help.”

Still, she was very glad of the horse. He seemed to be her link to reality, to normalcy.

Tired, she closed her eyes for a minute. When she opened them, Wallace suddenly lifted his head, his ears pricking as he stared off toward her left. The horse was still, yet it appeared that his flanks were trembling. He snorted. She stared at him curiously, the animal's fear snaking into her, and realized, too late, that he was about to bolt.

With another snort, he did so, leaping forward like a show jumper. The reins, held too loosely in her one hand, snapped free from her hold in seconds.

She leaped to her feet. “Wallace!” she cried angrily. Then she fell silent, aware that the animal had run because something had frightened him. She stood very still, feeling the odd awareness, the
fear,
which the animal had passed onto her.

She listened. She could still hear the echo of the horse's hoofbeats. And then…the cry of a bird. And then…a rustling.

From somewhere far away, the faint wail of a bagpipe sounded, but not loud enough to dampen the sound of twigs snapping. Someone was near.

She moved against the oak. Then…she could see a figure, a man with a dark tam, his head down. He wore an old suede jacket.

She stayed still, not daring to breathe. But a sound of surprise came to her throat as the man stopped, dusted dirt from his hands onto his pants and looked around. She saw his face clearly. It was Eban.

Call out! He'll get you home,
she told herself. But something warned her to remain still.
What had he been
doing in the forest? Burying the remains of some poor girl? Was that why his hands were dirtied?

No, stop! She told herself. She was being cruel, judging when she shouldn't judge.

But no sound would come to her lips. She remained quiet. Only when he was gone—gone, way past her—did she start walking again, following the stream. After a minute, she quickened her pace. If she'd seen Eban, she had to be close to the castle.

“Toni!” she heard her name called. There was thrashing ahead of her. Someone was in the forest, looking for her.

“To-ni!”

“Here!” she called out.

“Toni!”

That time, the sound of her name seemed to come from behind her. The voices, she realized, looking around, could have been coming from anywhere, she was so disorganized. She started to run, directly in the stream, which was shallow enough here. Water kicked up around her. It didn't matter in the least.

“Here!” she cried again, then paused suddenly, startled. The light was bad, very bad. The silver mist still lay close to the ground. But ahead of her, maybe thirty, forty feet, there seemed to be something in the water. She blinked, looking that way.

There was a thrashing sound ahead of her.

No, behind her…

She started to turn.

She saw the branch…

Saw it, tried to turn from it…

And went down, her skull filling with pain.

Her vision filling with the mist…

And then darkness.

And something else.

G
rayson Davis's man had Annalise by the hair, dragging her into the copse. She did not come easily.

Bruce's heart cried out as she was thrown down upon the ground, a cry wrung from her lips as she went to her knees where she was cast, sliding until she came to a stop before Davis.
Ah, and there she is, yer lady, Laird MacNiall. Filled with foolish pride, as ye would be. Ach! Y'd thought y'd bought her time, out of the forest, eh? Nae, foolish fellow. So now it is time fer heroes and legends to die, and fer rich men to die poor.

Her eyes met his. He pleaded with her silently, begged his forgiveness.
Do whatever he asks. Live. The day will come when you will be set free….

She smiled at him and shook her head slowly.

“Annalise!” Her name was a cry of anguish.

Grayson Davis swaggered before him, gripped Annalise by the elbows and pulled her up to face him. “Ah, Annalise. We have come to a moment of truth. Will it be the laird there, half-dead as we speak, with none but torture ahead, or…they can take you from the forest before it begins. You can await me.”

“Obey him!” Bruce pleaded. “Before God, obey him!”

She looked at Davis, as if weighing his words. She had never appeared more beautiful, proud or elegant, despite the mud caking her clothing, the scratches upon her cheeks, the wildness of her hair.

She seemed to deliberate long and carefully, then she looked back at Bruce and smiled again, a slow, sweet, wistful smile.

“Time, my love. Time will tell the tale,” she said. Then she spit in Grayson Davis's face.

He struck her. Bruce roared with rage, but to no avail. The force of the blow sent Annalise down again, but her head remained high.

“Bitch!”

She smiled, eyes even, leveled upon him.

“Y're judged! He is judged. Condemned.”

She shook her head. “Ah, Grayson, what a fool. There is a far greater judge. And my laird husband and I can truly be judged in His eyes alone.”

“Not on this earth. Not on this earth! You had your chance!”

“And chose not to take it.”

“Annalise!” Bruce cried again.

But her eyes, her steady gaze, had been the last straw against Davis's temper. He wrenched the colors from around his shoulders and drew them around Annalise's neck. Her fair neck. Slender, graceful, delicate…

“Nae!” The great MacNiall, humbled, hung back his head, bitterly fighting the arms that held him, nearly fighting off the men. He watched as she gasped, choked, shuddered, jerked…death brutal despite pride. He struggled free from the arms that held him. He raced forward, then staggered in the mud, almost reaching her.

An ax had landed in his back.

But he did not die. Not quickly enough. He saw as Grayson Davis picked up his wife, limp as a cloth doll, and cast her facedown into the stream. He cried out in anguish and in rage, saw the blood before his own eyes…

“Fool! Who put that ax into him? He mustn't die, not yet!” Davis commanded. He walked to where Bruce had fallen at last, arms outstretched in the mud. He rolled him, forcing the blade more deeply into him, relishing his enemy's anguish.

“First, castration. I want you to live for that! Then yer innards, great laird! Set to blaze before yer eyes. Eventually…yer head. And if y're living then, I'll see that the blade is dull and moves slow.”

He stared at Davis, shaking his head. “It matters not what y'do to kill me. I am already dead. And yet, I will live, Davis, fer y're cursed now, and I will live to see you fall!”

“Cut him!” Davis roared.

Mercifully, the ax had done its damage.

The great MacNiall stared into the trees as the blood blurred his vision. But in his mind, his heart, he was with her already.

B
ruce was deep into the forest when he heard a heavy thrashing.

“Toni?” he called.

From a deep thicket, the noise continued, as if someone was hurrying toward him. He reined in on Shaunessy and waited, watching the area of lush growth. The green waved and jiggled. And the roan, Wallace, appeared. Riderless.

He quickly dismounted from Shaunessy, hurrying over to the roan. There was a scratch on his nose, but that had most probably come from a brush with a branch. The horse seemed all right, just spooked.

“Did you throw her, boy? Did you throw Toni?”

He shook his head, looking in the direction from which the horse had come. Toni could be out there, unconscious, bleeding. He gauged the direction; she'd been trying to follow the stream.

“Go on home, boy. Go on home,” he said, giving the horse a sound smack on the rump.

Quickly remounting Shaunessy, he drove through the thicket at the spot where Wallace had just appeared. An overgrown, slender trail brought him back to the embankment.

“Toni!”

He felt his sense of panic rising. Nudging his horse's flanks, he quickened his pace, mindful of the rocks, stones and slippery embankment.

Ahead, he could see that the mist was still high over the bubbling water. He reined in, eyes narrowing. There seemed to have been a shadow moving through the mist. A shadow…in human form. Then he heard the sound of a grunt.

“Toni!”

Dismounting from Shaunessy, he hurried on foot through the mist and water.

“Toni!”

He heard a soft groan. Then…

“Toni? Bruce?”

Disappointment, dismay, washed over him. Thayer. Thayer was ahead of him. Still, he kept going. “Aye, I'm here. Toni!”

The mist still lay before him. And the water.

He suddenly saw her, saw her…as he had seen the body of the dead girl. Facedown in the water. Long trails of blond hair no longer lustrous, but caked in mud and grass and tangled with twigs.

No! That was only in his mind's eye, a remnant of a dream.

“Toni!” His voice ricocheted through the woods, vibrant, loud.

“Bruce?”

Her voice was barely discernible in the rush of water and whisper of breeze.

“Where are you?” he cried.

“Toni!” From somewhere, he could hear Thayer's voice, as well.

And then he saw her. She was seated on a fallen log, drawing back sodden tendrils of her hair.

She wasn't facedown in the water. She was seated, alive and well. A bit bedraggled, nothing more.

He let out his breath in a rush of relief. His knees were weak, and his voice came out like crackling thunder. “Toni!”

Then, just seconds after he had seen Toni, Thayer came crashing through the brush from the opposite direction. Seeing Toni, and then Bruce, he, too, went still.

“Toni!” he breathed.

She rose, distracted, offering Bruce a weak smile and then a quick defense. “Bruce!” She turned. “And Thayer. Thank God. And wait, please, no one yell! I probably should have spent some time riding with someone else before taking old Wallace out on my own. I didn't come into the forest on purpose. I wound up riding some fields on the other side and didn't know where I was. Then it started to rain, as you can see,” she put in wryly. “Actually, I think I would have made it out eventually, except that Wallace decided to desert me, and I walked smack into a major branch over there, and…” She was looking from one of them to the other. “Hey! Bless you both, thanks for coming!” She gave Thayer a quick hug first, then turned to Bruce, a question in her eyes.

He reached for her. She came into his arms. He felt the air wrap around them, and felt the chill in her body.

“Let's just go back now, eh?” he said. Then he drew away, looking at her. She was somehow reserved, de
spite the look she had given him and the way she had melded to him.

“You're really fine?” Bruce said.

“Nothing happened?” Thayer asked.

She looked at them both and shook her head solemnly.

“The horse didn't throw you?” Bruce demanded.

“Wallace? No, Wallace is a love. I was off of him, stretching.” She winced. “I haven't been riding in a while, I guess. Didn't bother with a saddle, so…Did you see him? Is he all right?”

“He's on his way back to the stables now, I'm pretty certain,” Bruce said.

“Well, that's what I assumed he'd do in the first place!” Toni said. She pressed her fingers against her temple. “I think I need some aspirin.”

“Let's get back,” Bruce said anxiously. “Come here, I'll lift you up on Shaunessy.”

“No, no, that's all right,” she said, flashing a smile to ward Thayer. “We'll all walk out together.”

“Toni, I can get out on m'own,” Thayer assured her. “But you're soaked!”

“As I have been for hours,” she said lightly, then added firmly, “We'll walk out, all together.”

For a moment, she thought that Bruce toyed with the idea of arguing with her, even taking a medieval stance and simply throwing her over Shaunessy's haunches.

It wasn't a matter of the total political incorrectness of such a gesture that stopped him; it was Thayer. He was hesitant about leaving the man behind, when, despite her words, there was something strange about Toni, about the way she had been sitting on the rock, and the way she had touched her forehead.

“Fine. We all walk out together,” he said. “I'll just lead Shaunessy.”

As they started back, he pulled off his jacket and set it around her shoulders. She flashed him a smile of gratitude.

“Darkness is coming quickly,” she murmured.

“And the buses soon, too soon,” Thayer murmured. He looked at her. “You should rest. Gina can take on being you tonight. You could wind up with your death of a cold.”

“I feel fine,” she assured him.

“He may be right,” Bruce said.

“When I'm not fine, Gina can run around like a mad-woman. Right now, I'm fine.” She glanced at him, her smile sweetly suggestive, her tone specifically for him. “Absolutely nothing that a hot bubble bath can't take care of.”

“Ach, do I have to hear this?” Thayer demanded.

Toni laughed. “And I thought I was being so subtle.” She stumbled slightly; the terrain wasn't level as they followed the brook. The rain had left exposed roots, and flooded some of the embankment.

“Man, this is quite a place!” Thayer murmured. “The friggin' forest primeval!”

“Aye, that's why people should stay out of it,” Bruce said. He glanced at Thayer. “I'm amazed that you stumbled upon Toni as I did…and as quickly,” he added, watching the man's reaction.

“So am I. I thought I was lost myself,” Thayer said. He pushed a tree branch out of the way for the others to precede him.

“Look how quickly it gets dark in here!” Toni marveled. “Seriously, thank you both so very much for
looking for me. I think I would have made it eventually, but I'm awfully darned glad not to be here alone, now.”

“Aw, shucks!” Thayer teased.

Minutes later, they'd broken through, reached the bottom of the hill and were on their way up. The others were waiting anxiously by the stables. Ryan had Wallace by the reins.

“Toni!” Gina came rushing down the hill, hugging Toni, then drawing away. “Ugh! You're soaked.”

“Toni!” Ryan was right behind Gina, hugging Toni, as well, then demanding to know, “What did you do to Wallace?”

“What did I do to Wallace?” Toni demanded. “He deserted me!”

Ryan looked from her to the horse. “Wallace! Shame on you.” He looked back, glancing anxiously at Bruce. “Really, what the hell were you doing?”

“Getting lost, nothing more. And I'm fine,” Toni told them.

David and Kevin were both there now, looking at Toni worriedly.

“I'll make tea,” Kevin said.

“With a shot of something,” David said.

“We have about an hour before the buses show,” Gina said, sounding very much like the business manager. “So we need to hop to it.” She glanced at Bruce and swallowed a little uneasily. “Um…Bruce, are you still willing to play this with us?”

“Who else could better do the old great MacNiall?” he asked her, allowing his own accent a practiced strength.

“I'm going up,” Toni said, and she flashed him an
other quick glance that was almost a question. Was he going to follow?

Oh, aye, beyond a doubt!

As if on cue, Eban came striding out from the barn. “Eh, Bruce, shall I be taking Shaunessy, setting him up for his grand entrance?”

“Aye, Eban, thank you.”

“Well, Wallace, I'll be cleaning you up a bit!” Ryan said.

Bruce left them and walked toward the entrance, aware that they watched him in silence as he departed.

 

Toni sat in the tub, simply glad of the steaming water that soaked into her, pure bliss after the hours of cold. But her mind was racing.
I'm on overload!
she told herself.

So much had happened, yet no matter how hard she tried to recall those moments in the forest, she couldn't. Something had struck her. When she'd risen after falling, she'd thought she hit a tree branch.

But had she? Because it had happened right after she had seen…something. Something ahead of her in the water, gone when she had found her seat on the rock, gone when they had walked back following the stream.

Then there was the time—seconds, minutes, longer?—she had been out. Knocked out or just…out. Seeing a picture of the past, coming alive in the forest. She'd seen…Annalise, on her knees. Bruce, shouting, raging, straining, anguish written into his features.

And in the vision, she had been screaming herself, just as she had when she'd been a child. She'd been so
desperate not to see more, praying,
Please, God, don't let me see the execution….

There she was, half in the water, half out, her temple killing her and the rock before her. And as she found her footing and then sat, she heard Bruce and Thayer again, calling to her. The forest had been as it was, trees, pine carpet, bubbling, beautiful brook.

“I'm losing my mind!” she whispered aloud to herself. But she wasn't. And she remembered the woman's voice over the phone.
Medium. She was an incredible medium.

No!

But she knew that denying something couldn't make it change. Maybe she had put it all past her for years and years, so far behind her that she'd never expected to know that kind of sensation again, that kind of fear. And yet, if she just accepted some of it, would the fear re cede?

I talk to lots of ghosts,
the woman had told her.

There was a tap; the bathroom door opened. Bruce came in, hair damp and raven-dark, features taut and concerned, chin hard-squared, eyes slate and sharp. For a moment, she saw the distant MacNiall, saw him as she had in the very strange interlude amidst a field of trees. The ferocity, the rage…and the undying devotion he'd given his Annalise.

She bit into her lower lip, watching him, and the warmth of the water was nothing compared to the searing tempest she felt when he was near. She started to rise from the water very slowly, stepping from the top, coming to him.

“Lass, you've been soaked. A bad day…”

“Then make it better,” she whispered.

He cocked his head slightly. “There's not much time.”

“Then we'd best use it well.”

He wrapped his arms around her. For a moment, he held her tight, her frame taut to his. She felt the changes. And yet…it was as if he waited, waited to know what she really needed.

And then…he gave it to her. All that she wanted. A total abandonment of thought and worry, fears and visions. Reality, flesh, the senses…the feel of his hands and lips, body heat emanated, damp and slick, pure physicality, grinding, meshing. She had the longing again to crawl into his skin; they couldn't be close enough. And then those seconds of total constriction, the soaring, the touch of Elysian fields.

The man at her side was real, flesh and blood.

He stroked her hair for a moment, pulled her closer.

“The chill is gone?”

“I could never feel the slightest chill with you,” she told him.

“It's not my show, you know,” he reminded her gently, “but your buses are coming.”

“I know,” she said, but didn't stir. She waited a moment, thinking there was a tension about him, that he was about to say something. But he didn't.

So she did.

“I saw…what happened, in the past. Today, in the forest.”

“What?” She felt his withdrawal, just slight and not physical.

She rose on an elbow, looking into his eyes. “I really didn't mean to be in the forest. I was furious with my
self for being lost, but I was doing all right, except that that traitorous horse spooked at something and took off on me. Still, I was all right. I think I heard your voice first, maybe Thayer's, too. I turned to find you…and smacked into a branch. I saw stars, mist, darkness. Then—I know how this sounds—but it was as if I was back in time. Bruce, it was vividly real. There were these men, so many of them, and they had your ancestor. They dragged in Annalise, and the fellow strangled her there, in front of him. He broke free, but someone threw an ax, and he fell. They were about to do other things, but then I heard your voice.”

He was staring at her as if she were stark raving mad.
Well, what the hell had she expected?

“So you did bump your head!”

She sighed. “Bruce—”

“A conk on your head, and you…dreamed.”

“No! That wasn't it.”

“I knew you'd hurt yourself, the way you kept feeling your forehead,” he murmured, thumb on her cheek then, shifting her head, looking for damage.

“Bruce—”