Another wall was lined with shelves that held treasures of every kind.
Alec spun around slowly, absorbing sights he’d never seen before.
Mr. Ferguson held up a heavy piece of glass that shot out shards of light in every direction. “This is what happens when lightnin’ hits sand. It forms a most brilliant piece of glass. Kind of wild and uninhibited, would ye no’ say?” He raised his eyebrows in amusement.
“Did Rhiannon do that?” Alec asked.
The old man shook his head. “Her mother. It was a special talent of hers. I would imagine Rhiannon could do it too, if she was of a mind.”
Alec let the tips of his fingers trail over another item on the shelf, the cool surface of the stone taking all of his attention. “An enchanted mortar and pestle. For makin’ potions.” Seamus Ferguson shrugged. “I never understood how it became enchanted. But they made many a mess usin’ that thing, the five of them.” He chuckled again.
“Elspeth’s mother had a similar room beneath the floor of her old cottage, but it was tiny compared ta this one. This one consists of ages and ages of tradition.”
“Sorcha knows about this?”
“Aye, she learned of it last year when that first vampyre came inta their lives, no’ that she is aware of all it contains.”
What had the man just said? Alec’s head spun around quickly to face the old man.
But Seamus Ferguson just smiled and shook his head slowly. “Ye thought I had no idea of what ye are? Who my daughter would be marryin’?”
He looked so thoughtful that Alec wasn’t certain he was supposed to answer. So, he didn’t.
“Ye were doin’ a fine imitation of a suitor who was ready ta spill his life story ta an expectant father-in-law. But ye were about ta start flounderin’, lad, so I thought I’d help ye.”
He chuckled aloud.
Though what the man found so amusing had Alec completely floored. “You know what I am.” It wasn’t a question. Just a statement of fact. The man did know what he was. He could see it on his face.
“Aye. It’s all right here.” Seamus Ferguson moved to the corner of the room and wiped the dust from the top of a locked wooden box. Then he took the copper key and fit it in the lock. He removed several ledgers, the top one of which he flipped open on a long table that stood in the middle of the room. “Oh, I probably should no’ have read the books, but my Bonnie was gone and I missed her. Made me feel closer ta her.”
What exactly was the man getting at? “Are you saying there’s mention of me in those books? Of what I’ve become?”
Mr. Ferguson sighed. “They’re no’ filled with prose about ye, MacQuarrie, but there is some mention of ye, aye.”
Alec reached for the ledgers, but Seamus Ferguson placed a protective hand on the pile. “They’re no’ for yer eyes.”
“You’ve seen them,” he accused. If something about him was written inside those books, no one was going to keep him from seeing it, either.
“Aye.” Ferguson agreed with a nod of his head. “But I’ve already lived what has been foretold about me. Ye, lad, have a ways ta go.”
Alec frowned at his future father-in-law. “If you’re not going to let me see the books, why even bother showing them to me?”
“Because I think ye should ken that it has been prophesied that ye’d take my Sorcha ta be yer wife.”
Alec’s mouth fell open. All of those long-ago conversations with Caitrin echoed in his ears. Each time she’d refused his proposal. Each time she told him he’d find happiness with someone else. Each time she told him that his path lay along a different one than hers. Cait had known all along. What else had she known? “And it says I’d be a vampyre?”
Seamus Ferguson nodded. “Which was confusin’ ta me, I can assure ye, since I’d kent ye since ye were a wee lad, and I’ve watched ye grow inta the honorable man ye’ve become. But then Wallace overheard Kettering and Blaire discussin’ yer untimely death, and it all made sense.” He smiled sadly. “Sorry ye had ta go through all of that.”
What was Alec to say to all of this? He was supposed to become a vampyre? Hardly a future he would want for himself. It might have been nice to have a bit of warning or for Cait to not have sent him ta Briarcraig Castle in the first place.