mask settling over his features. “Claire’s below. She’ll heal yer ribs.” He turned to go.
He knew she was hurt, and somehow, he knew exactly where. “Aidan, wait.”
He faced her. “Will ye ever cease yer talk?”
She took a breath. “You saved me from the subs. I haven’t said thank you. Thank you, Aidan,” she added firmly, and she smiled hesitantly at him.
His eyes widened. Angered all over again, he whirled and started down the stairs.
He was a powder keg, she thought, and it took only a word or a look to set him off. She started after him, but didn’t dare rush. There was more light on the landing below, and she saw his shape far ahead, vanishing into another room. A moment later she paused on the threshold of the great hall.
Although she couldn’t make out details, it was a huge, high-ceilinged room. One wall contained a massive fireplace, where a large fire blazed. Two chairs were before it, and a long table was in the hall’s center, with benches on either side. The room was large, yet the furnishings were so spare.
Aidan sat at the head of the trestle table and was pulling a trencher forward. Brie smelled roasted game and ale.
She hesitated. He wasn’t alone.
A small boy of nine or ten stood beside him. He was dressed like Aidan, in a knee-length tunic and a plaid, and he had dark hair and blue eyes. Brie almost thought she knew him, but that was impossible.
The boy looked at him pleadingly, but Aidan only drank from a heavy cup. Brie sensed the child was really distressed.
Brie tensed. It was one thing to be rude to her; it was another to ignore an unhappy child.
Brie was so upset it took her a moment to speak. Maybe she could help the child, if Aidan would not. “Hello,” she said, smiling brightly even though it was forced. “Do you speak English? Can I help you?” she asked, kneeling so they were eye to eye.
Aidan choked on his wine. His brilliant gaze had widened with shock.
Brie ignored him. The boy was now facing her. He was so familiar, yet she knew she couldn’t have met him. “I’m Brie,” she said softly. “What’s your name?”
The child seemed bewildered.
Brie’s concern escalated. “Are you okay? Where’s your mother?” she asked, realizing he might not speak English.
Aidan shot to his feet with a roar. “What ploy is this?”
Brie leapt back. So much pain went through her that she was blinded by it. The pain came from him, not her ribs.
Aidan seized her arm, shouting at her. “Who do ye speak with?”
Brie fought the pain flooding her. That terrible knife was in her heart again, and with it there was so much despair. Her vision cleared, and she looked at the boy. He started speaking to her. She did not hear a word.
Her heart slammed as a vague memory tried to surface.
Aidan seized her shoulders now, hurting her. “Who do ye see?” he roared at her.
Had she seen this boy on Five? Brie looked at the frightened, expectant child, then at Aidan. “Oh my God. You don’t see him?”
Aidan turned white. “Nay, I see no one!”
CHAPTER FOUR
BRIE GASPED. SHE COULD SEE THIS CHILD as clear as day, as if she had perfect vision. But the boy was invisible to Aidan. She was facing a child’s lost soul. “It’s a little boy,” she whispered, her gaze locked with Aidan’s.
Aidan’s pain struck her so hard that it sent her to her knees.
“Where is he?” he cried in anguish. “Why do ye see him? Do ye see him still? I canna see him!”
On her knees, Brie held her chest, fighting the pain, fighting to breathe. She looked up at Aidan, past the waiting ghost, but couldn’t speak. No one could live with such torment, she thought. She felt tears start to trickle down her face. “He’s…here…beside you!”
Aidan moaned. Then, pulling her to her feet, he demanded, “What does he want?”
“I don’t know…what he wants,” she gasped, his grief hitting her in brutal wave after brutal wave. “I can’t…this hurts too much….please, stop!”
Aidan stared desperately at her, his fingers digging into her arms.
“Stop,” she wept. “I can feel everything you’re feeling…you have to stop!”
The little boy began fading. He was talking swiftly now, but not making a sound.
“Wait! Don’t go!” Brie cried.
It was too late. The little boy had vanished.
“Did he leave?” Aidan asked, ravaged.
Brie nodded. He was clamping down on his pain. It took her another moment before she could speak. She was left with a dull, throbbing heartache. “Who is he?”
Aidan released her. “My son.” His eyes mirroring the terrible torment he was shielding from her, he strode from the room.
Aidan was haunted by his child.
Brie collapsed onto the bench, her head on her arms on the table, overcome by what had just happened. Aidan’s soul was tormented. He was grieving for his dead child. No one should ever have to go through the ordeal of losing a child. Was this how he had lost his faith and his way?
Her grandmother’s ring suddenly began pinching her finger. Brie was certain Grandma Sarah had something she wished to say. But Brie was so upset she couldn’t sense whatever it was.
Aidan hadn’t been able to see his child, but he’d known right away who she’d spoken to. Had Aidan seen his son’s ghost before? Why was she the one who could see his son today?
But then, why was she so shockingly and painfully empathic toward Aidan, even across time?
Somehow it was all connected, she thought, and that included her being in the past at Castle Awe, where his little son’s ghost was.
Suddenly, a wolf’s mournful howl sounded.
Brie sat up, every hair on her body standing on end. The lonely howl was endless, a sound of impossible anguish and deep, dark despair. The grief and hopelessness slowly crept into her, filling her, until she felt as if she was lost in an endless black maze with no possible way out, an eternity of despair ahead.
Just as the howl seemed to have finally faded, it started again, and the long, lonely cry resounded. She stood and walked slowly to the great hall’s threshold. Even if she had considered cutting and running earlier—not that she could simply leave Awe—she would never do so now.
This man needed healing, she thought,
