Doon (Doon Novel, A) (29 page)

Fiona’s calm voice urged me on. “Ye have ta let go of yer fear and be a vessel. Let yourself believe, Veronica.”

Believe
. I stopped focusing on the witch. Instead I focused on my love for Jamie … the joy I felt every time he laughed, the warmth in his eyes meant exclusively for me, how his
unguarded smile refreshed my battered soul. No matter what happened in the future, whether we ended up together or not, I would do everything within my power to save him now.

I believe
.

The pages of Aunt Gracie’s journal began to flip wildly as the violet blaze turned to ice and shattered with a heart-stopping explosion. Shards of frozen flames blanketed Fiona and I with frigid purple debris as we rocked backward. Fiona’s wide eyes radiated shock as she steadied herself. “The witch’s curse has shattered. It’s broken.”

Instead of feeling relief and a sense of accomplishment as I leaned over the book and examined the unmarred pages, dread bloomed in my chest.

“That’s a good thing, right?” Kenna moved closer to stand beside me.

My hand trembled as I reached out and touched the journal. In a flash, I could see Jamie—bound, his face slack in unconsciousness, blood dripping from the corner of his mouth. The vision faded, but the image stayed imprinted on my mind’s eye.

I blinked away the horrifying picture and answered Kenna’s question. “I don’t think so. It means she doesn’t need it anymore … because she has something better. She has Jamie.”

Duncan swore and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “All she has to do is keep him until the Brig o’ Doon closes. If the ruler o’ Doon fails to return by the end of the Centennial …” His words faded out.

Fiona finished the terrible truth as Fergus reached for her hand. “… the Covenant will be broken, and Doon will vanish inta the mists of oblivion forever.”

“And she wins.” Rage pumped through my veins, screaming for an outlet. I closed the journal with a bang. “But we’re not going to let that happen. Are we?”

On cue, they snapped out of their collective despair. “Nay!”

“Of course, not!”

“We fight—to the death if need be!”

“For Doon!”

As they spoke over one another, their actions became focused and decisive. Fiona said a short prayer, Duncan and Fergus quickly inventoried their weapons, and Kenna met my gaze, resolution blazing in her eyes.

“Let’s go!” I grabbed the journal and led our ragtag rescue team back down the aisle of the chapel.

“Where, exactly, are we going?” Kenna touched my arm as we moved into the dim corridor.

“Alloway.” Practically running, I turned the corner toward the stables. The fastest way to the bridge was on horseback.

“What’s the plan?” Kenna asked, keeping pace with me.

“Rescue Jamie. Save Doon. Take Addie down.”

That was it. My master plan boiled down to seven little words. It sounded so simple, so straightforward. But how to accomplish it was a different matter. I had no idea how to find Jamie or win against a wicked witch with supernatural powers. But I did know that I would fight for the people I loved, no matter the cost. If ever in my life I’d needed to stand and fight, it was now.

I was done running.

T
he bridge should’ve been open. I blinked again and willed my burning eyes to see something different. But it was no use. The Brig o’ Doon remained a ruin surrounded by impenetrable walls of swirling mist, as if the Centennial hadn’t happened.

Upon our arrival, Fiona had discerned a powerful curse that kept the portal to Alloway from opening. But I refused to believe the Protector of Doon would bring us all this way and then let evil win. There had to be another way.

Fergus and Duncan had gone in separate directions, to search the borders for any opening that might get us to Alloway. Fiona and Kenna, meanwhile, sat huddled in their elaborate gowns on the cold stone ground, the former engaged in supernatural introspection while the later dozed with her head slumped against her knees. Both girls appeared to twitch in the flickering light of the torches at the base of the bridge.

All too aware of the minutes ticking away, I turned to Fiona. “Any idea what time it is out there?” I tipped my head in the direction of where Alloway should have been. Wherever Jamie
was, time was passing differently, more quickly but in a way I didn’t have enough data to quantify.

Fiona’s hazel eyes brimmed with fear not only for her king but for all those she loved. Her voice, when she spoke, sounded thick with despair. “Nay. I wasna born at the last Centennial.”

Her anguish mirrored my own. I wanted to ask her if she sensed anything that could help us, but I didn’t want to add to her misery. I knew if she had, she’d have said so. She was pushing herself nearly as hard as I was.

Instead, I paced the cobbled stones at the mouth of the Brig o’ Doon. Each pass caused my legs to ache a bit more. Without a clear focus for my energy, fatigue started to set in. After an indeterminable amount of time, Duncan’s sputtering lamp materialized in the heavily wooded forest. A moment later shadows leapt in the opposite direction announcing Fergus had returned as well.

Duncan, slightly out of breath as if he’d been sprinting, spoke first. “This side is impassible.”

“Aye,” Fergus confirmed as he approached. “My way as well.”

At the sound of voices, Kenna sat up, blinking against the artificial light. “Did they find a way across?”

“No.” My single word came out harsher than intended as frustration threatened to consume me from the inside out. Any problem could be solved under the right circumstances. Usually I could step outside of myself and examine different perspectives, but at the moment all I could feel was hopeless. We would never find the right solution in the time we had left.

“This is useless.” The girl who shared my brain spoke my exact thoughts. “I say we go back to the castle.”

Duncan and Fergus nodded in agreement as Fiona said, “Aye. It’s time to accept what’s ta be.”

Yes, we should go back. Wait!
What was happening? Kenna wanting to go back to Castle MacCrae? Duncan and Fergus meekly accepting the inevitable destruction of their kingdom? And Fiona’s reaction was most telling of all. She wanted to give up? She was the most tenacious person I’d ever met, besides myself.

With a sinking feeling I shouted for everyone to get off the bridge. Despite some grumbling, my friends complied. When we reconvened about thirty feet away, I asked, “Everybody still want to give up?”

Overlapping exclamations of disgust and determination punctuated the quiet.

“Give up?”

“Never!”

“Death first!”

Only Fiona remained silent. After a moment she announced gravely, “It was an attack. I should have sensed it. Despair is the Deceiver’s weapon.”

I opened my mouth to ask the group what we should do next, but before I could speak Muir Lea filled my senses. A flash of snowy peaks, a sandy beach, and an ocean crashing against rock told me the impossible. “I know how we get to Alloway.”

Like a good lieutenant, Duncan was instantly alert and at my side. “How, Veronica?”

“Through the mountains.”

Fergus spoke first. “You’ve gone daft!”

Duncan’s face mirrored the other boy’s skepticism, and with good reason. The first time I’d tried it, I’d nearly destroyed Doon … but that still, small voice that had been guiding me since Bainbridge insisted that this time was different. Unfortunately, persuading Fergus and Duncan would waste
valuable time—time we didn’t have. Turning to my best ally in the group, I said to Fiona, “With every fiber of my being, I know this will work—that the portal will be open for us.”

Fiona voiced her agreement. “Veronica speaks the truth. We must cross through the mountains.”

Kenna reached for Duncan’s hand. “We’re in.”

“Me as well. With one condition.” Fergus’s gaze moved across our faces before looking up into the sky. “Fiona stays here. I’ll not risk her life on the chance the mountain border is passable.”

Spinning the giant around to face her, Fiona cried, “Ye don’t get ta decide for me, Fergus Lockhart. If the mountain pass doesn’t work, we’re all goners anyway.”

She gave him a shove but he captured her hands and held them over his heart. “Please, Fee. I will follow Veronica, but I need ta know yer safe.” His eyes softened as his voice dropped. “I know I’m not the manliest of lads, but I still need ta protect my own. If anything happened ta you, I’d never be able ta live wi’ myself.”

As I watched, the girl’s resolve melted. All her tumultuous affection poured from her hazel eyes, causing the object of her feelings to turn forty shades of pink.

Sensibly, Duncan added, “With Jamie and me gone, the people will be afraid and lookin’ for someone to blame. We need someone who can speak the voice o’ reason. And we’ll be needin’ a welcome party for the Destined who cross when we restore the bridge. We’re depending on you, Fiona.”

Tearing her eyes away from her love, Fiona gave Duncan a curt nod. “Dinna worry m’ laird. I’ll see ta the people.”

She hugged him and then Kenna. As they parted, Fiona pressed Cameron’s ring, the emerald one, into Kenna palm. The look on my BFF’s face told me she didn’t want it, until
Fiona slipped it on her finger and lightly admonished, “You didna choose the ring, it chose you. And it continues to have need o’ you.”

Next Fiona turned to me. “I know this has been hard for you, but when the time comes ye must be willing to sacrifice … for Jamie’s sake.” As she hugged me good-bye she whispered, “Pure, unselfish love can break any spell.”

While I appreciated the sentiment, I had no idea how it could apply to saving Jamie. This wasn’t like one of those fairy tale movies where Love’s True Kiss could break any curse. But since she’d never steered me wrong before, I tucked the information away.

Fergus, still mottled from their last encounter, cleared his throat shyly. “We may never see each other again. Won’t ye kiss me, Fee?”

She leaned, doe-eyed with puckered lips, and whispered, “Come back ta me after ye help Veronica save the world. Then you kin have all the kisses ye like.”

Abruptly, Fiona spun out of Fergus’s reach and mounted her horse. Without a moment to lose, the rest of us followed her example. Together, we galloped to the fork in the trail where Fiona would take the low road back to Doon while we climbed the high road toward Muir Lea. Just after the split, before she disappeared from sight, Fiona looked back over her shoulder and bellowed, “Believe!”

T
hankfully, we encountered no bears or blizzards, which Vee had been worried about. But we’d had to abandon the horses at the end of the cart path and go the rest of the way on foot. It seemed a lifetime since I’d last hiked this hill carrying worries over whether or not the boy I liked wanted to kiss me. And if I’d let him. Now I fervently wished my cares were as trivial as kisses.

As we approached the mountain meadow the sky began to lighten to indigo and then fuchsia. Moments later, crimson, orange, and hot pink streaked across the heavens at an impossible rate as dawn became day. When we entered the woods on the far side of Muir Lea, the sun blazed down from high noon. By the time we finally crossed through the passage in the rocks that would lead us to the beach, the sun already hung low over the ocean, bathing the modern world in gold as it prepared to say good night. The whole day had lasted maybe thirty minutes.

The final descent into the real world had been murder in ballet flats. After Jamie’s kidnapping, Vee’d been so singularly
focused on getting him back that she refused to waste any time on inconsequential things like practical clothes or clean underwear. The dress code for this pursuit was strictly formal.

We stumbled onto the beach at sunset looking like something from a high school horror movie. My gorgeous teal ball gown had been shredded by thorns and low-lying branches, and my sagging hairdo, complete with twisted tiara, flopped annoyingly over my right eye. Deranged Homecoming Queen was not a good look on me.

Duncan and Fergus, in their ragged dress kilts, looked like they’d just survived the Scottish zombie apocalypse. And Vee, well, she’d ripped off the bottom foot and a half of her scarlet gown ages ago. What was left of her tattered dress, plus the leaves and other debris poking from her hair, made her look like a crazed pixie. It gave me new insights into the integrity of some of my favorite TV shows. Saving the world while looking fabulous
was
next to impossible.

Although the beach had looked deserted during the climb down, the minute we touched the sand clumps of vacationers materialized. Weaving through a touristy maze of plastic lounge chairs, striped blankets, and oversized umbrellas, Duncan and Fergus did their best to temper their reactions to the strange new surroundings as they followed our tiny fearless leader toward the parking lot.

Trading sand for asphalt, I glanced back at the beach just as the sun dipped beneath the horizon with a flash of green. Soon it would be night—only a few hours until the Centennial was over. A nearby sign announced Ayr Beach back the way we came, and Promenade, which I remembered, thanks to Ally, was the main oceanfront drive. Alloway was only a couple of miles away, but without a car, it might as well have been
light-years. I placed my hand on Vee’s shoulder, grateful for the momentary rest. “What now?”

“We need a cab.” Without warning, she raced toward the promenade waving at a passing van. The cab slowed as the driver scrutinized our battered appearances. With a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes, Vee explained, “Bridal party. We were celebrating on the beach and must’ve passed out. We need a ride back to Alloway.”

The cabbie nodded and Vee wrenched open the door. I climbed in first. Without a word, Duncan followed, elegantly tucking his large frame into the bucket seat. But when it was Fergus’s turn, he began to backpedal like a cartoon elephant shrinking away from a mouse. “I’m not goin’ near that thing,” he declared.

“You promised Fiona you’d follow me.” Vee balled up her fists, threatening the gentle giant with bodily harm, which under other circumstances would have been hilarious. But the frantic desperation that lurked just under her violent surface was no laughing matter.

Fergus shook his head from side to side. “Not in that thing. What is tha’ foul beast?”

In no mood to humor him, she grabbed his hand and twisted. “A horseless metal carriage. It’s not going to eat you. Now stop being such a big baby and get in!”

In a death-defying feat of agility, she wrenched Fergus forward, single-handedly catapulting him into the “horseless carriage” with
Taxi
scrawled on the side. Before he could protest, she’d slipped inside and shut the door, and we were speeding off to rescue a boy-king by defeating an evil witch. Perhaps she was part ninja after all.