stone had started there. I had nothing to lose.
By now I knew that I could do nothing to expedite the process of events unfolding inside my mind. Janet Murray’s diary and the Bible where I’d found the entry of Jeanne’s twins were nothing more than mediums by which I entered the lives of people who had lived before me. It was there, in my visions of the past, that I’d learned everything I knew. It was there that I would find the stone. Mairi would show me, just as she had the others. She would come when she wanted, but there was no harm in being ready. My chances were good. I’d figured out more than either Jeanne or Katrine. Unlike those poor doomed women, I knew who my enemy was.
From the darkened hallway, I turned the knob and pushed open the door. The first uncertain fingers of dawn filtered through the window, lighting the room and its contents to varying shades of gray. The mysterious silvery essence reassured me. Steeped in foggy shadows, the moldings, the paintings, and the ornate, ancient furnishings whispered in the language of another lifetime, persuading me to stay awhile, to rest my mind, to gather myself before beginning the final lap of my journey. I followed my instincts and sat down on a sheet-covered chair to wait for further inspiration. It seemed right somehow that this hazy, half-toned world should match my mood.
I must have drifted into that place between waking and sleeping when I heard a noise. It was the sound of footsteps in the hall. They were tentative, coming on slippered feet to an unfamiliar place. The doorknob turned, and I tensed. When I saw whose head peeked around the doorframe, I relaxed.
“Hi, Mom,” I said. My meticulous parent hadn’t bothered to pull a robe over her plaid flannels, and her blond hair was disheveled.
“Christina. You scared the life out of me. What on earth are you doing up at this hour?”
I looked at her in amazement. “You’re up early yourself.”
She stepped all the way into the room. “Something woke me. I don’t really know whether it was a noise or not. I can’t remember now.” She dismissed the thought as if the reason for her waking and finding her way to the most remote part of the house was of no importance. “Kate usually has coffee brewing in the kitchen, but I was just there and nothing’s started.” She looked around the room and rubbed her arms. “It’s cold. What are you doing here?”
Something in the misty light and soft worried expression in her eyes made me tell her. If I couldn’t trust my own mother, the woman whose blood and bones I shared, the woman whose Maxwell genes had given me life, there was nothing left. “Sit down, Mom,” I began. “It’s a long story.”
She sat, and I told her. Beginning with the letter from Ellen Maxwell and the terrible horror in her face when she first saw me to my meeting with Ian and the step-by-step unraveling of the curse. I told her of the diary and my dreams and the Bible and Professor MacCleod. I told her of Ellen and Ian’s father and of her link and my own to Kate Ferguson, housekeeper of Traquair. There was a long silence when I’d finished.
“It’s over then, you and Ian?” she asked after a long time.
I nodded.
Mother stood up, crossed the space between us, and knelt before me, taking my hands in her own. She wet her lips. “Your father and I were concerned when you left us the note the other day. We did some investigating on our own, beginning with Ellen Maxwell’s lawyer. He told us about Kate. I won’t say that I’m over the shock of learning who my father was and that I have a half sister, but at least I’m reconciled to it. It really has nothing to do with my life. It does have something to do with yours, Chris. That is, if you intend to stay here in Scotland and raise your child. Surely you can see what motivated Kate. As for Ian, I don’t believe he’s done anything so terrible. For the sake of the baby, I’d give him another chance.”
I stared at her in amazement. How could she have lived with me for eighteen years without really knowing me?
“The rest of this is impossible,” she continued. “I can’t believe that you’ve allowed it to go this far without seeking out some