shivered.
Fiona looked back at me, a considering expression on her face.
The scrutiny made me uncomfortable, so I looked past her to peer into the center of the stone circle. A statue stood in the middle, and I frowned. “That’s unusual.”
“I know.” Fiona walked around to the front of the statue, and I followed. “Only one of its kind in all of the UK.”
I believed her. I’d been to quite a few stone circles and seen pictures of many more. There were never statues in the middle.
From the back, this one appeared to be a woman in a long, simple dress. As I walked around to the front, Fiona pointed to the ground in front of me. “Watch your step.”
I hopped over a gash that had been carved into the ground, no doubt by the thieves searching for the Moon Stone. Lachlan went the other way around the statue, and he, too, had to step over a gouge in the ground.
“They knew that their target would be buried at her feet,” Fiona said.
“Who is she?” I asked, coming to stop beside Fiona.
“You don’t recognize her?” Fiona pointed to the face.
I looked up, then felt my heart drop to my stomach. The air whooshed from my lungs, and I nearly swayed.
It looked like my mother.
No…it looked like me.
Not a perfect resemblance, but the similarity was there in the brow and nose and chin.
I turned to Fiona, my heart racing so fast it made me lightheaded. “How long has this been here? Is this a prank?”
She laughed. “A prank? No, love, we’re not that bored up here in the middle of the sea.”
“Of course not.” I swallowed hard and looked back at the statue. My head swam as I stared into the face. “How long?”
“Long as any of us can remember. Long as our written history. We think it was put here by the wolves who came before us.”
“And the Moon Stone was found at her feet?” I looked down at the scar in the ground. The dirt was still torn up, a great hole where the stone had once been.
“Yes. At least, we think.” She shrugged. “We never saw it, of course, since we wouldn’t disturb this place. But it was written about,” she said, and pointed to the standing stones surrounding us.
It was still too dim to see clearly, but it looked like there were carvings on the stones, just like at the castle.
“Do you have someone who can read those?” Lachlan asked.
“Not all of them,” Fiona said. “But some of the carvings are pictures. Those are easy enough to read, along with the Old Norse.”
The moon was nearly to the horizon. The sun would follow shortly. A bit of me hoped that when the sun finally rose, the light would reveal that the statute was of a completely different person and looked nothing like me.
Sure, I wanted answers. Of course I did. But I didn’t want to be some kind of figure who was so important that there were statues of me.
“It’s got to be an ancestor of mine,” I said, suddenly feeling foolish. Not me. Of course it wasn’t me. This had been carved long before my birth. And even though there were seers who could prophecy such things, it was ridiculous to think I’d be important enough to merit a prophecy or a statue. “I just have a famous ancestor. Hell, loads of people do.”
“Perhaps.” Fiona nodded to the horizon, where the moon was just starting to dip toward the horizon. “Watch carefully, now.”
“What am I looking for?
“Look at her hand,” she said, gesturing to the statue. The figure stood with her arms outstretched at her sides, palms up and facing forward. “You’ll see the effect as soon as the moon sets.”
“Effect?” As soon as the words left my mouth, I noticed that the figure’s hand began to glow. Bright light emitted from the palm, forming the shape of a crescent moon.
Shit.
I stared at it, dumbstruck, then looked down at my own palm. It too, was glowing. Brighter than ever, as if it were responding to the moon and the statue.
I felt Fiona’s gaze on me and closed my palm into a fist. “Why does it happen?”
Fiona shrugged. “We don’t know. But she’s definitely you—or an ancestor—and the Moon Stone was important to her.”
“I’m one of them, aren’t I?” The words escaped me, soft and low. “What were they, exactly?”
“Wolves, like us. But maybe not quite the same.” Fiona shrugged. “They’ve been gone for centuries. And though they