Forevermore (17 page)

I lead the way down the gravel path to the rectory, the wind fierce at my back. Niall and Mom are behind me a ways, and I can hear their feet crunching as they
walk. Ahead, the workers have already started loading their equipment inside the ruins. I find a place that has a decent view into the main chamber of the rectory, lean against a tree, and watch. Niall and Mom join me.

We watch for about half an hour as the workers bring equipment inside, rattle around in there. I’m dying of curiosity but Niall has said it might not be safe to go in. He whispers to me, so Mom won’t hear, that he doesn’t want me falling into any other holes. I can understand.

It’s freezing out and Mom can’t stand the cold anymore. “Okay, guys,” she says, rubbing her arms through her insulated down jacket. “Hungry. Thirsty. Cold. I’m done.” Her nose is cherry red as she glances from me to Niall. “So I’m going inside. Grilled cheese. Hot chocolate. Fireplace. Join me?”

Niall kisses Mom’s cheek. “I’ll be along in a few, love. I wouldn’t mind watching with Ivy for a little longer.”

Mom smiles at me, and I know it’s because she is beyond happy that Niall and I have finally connected. “Okay,” she says, and starts up the path toward the castle. “I’ll save you guys seats by the fire.”

I watch my mom hurry up the path, then I turn my
attention back to the rectory. Niall plans on having wood floors installed, but that will come after the restorations are mostly complete. A part of me thinks I’ll miss the old cavernous ruins. Every time I’m in there, I think of Logan. I see him everywhere. I hear him, his voice in my ear. And even though our kiss wasn’t an actual kiss, I still feel the static electricity of his lips brushing mine. Absently, with my fingertips, I touch my lips.

“Laird!” a young excavator suddenly says, hurrying at an excited jog out of the rectory and across the small area of grass toward Niall. “Sir!”

I notice the excavator holds something in his hands. He’s cradling it away from his body, but careful just the same. The excavator is tall and lanky, with a shock of auburn hair and wide blue eyes, with skin as pale as notebook paper. He wears a badge that says
Rob
on it.

“Aye?” Niall asks as the boy stops before us.

“We found this, Laird,” Rob says. He holds his treasure, wrapped in a heavy cloth of some sort, out to Niall.

Niall looks at it. “What is it?”

“Och, if you dunna mind, sir,” Rob says, pushing the object closer. “Go ahead and take it?” Niall does, and Rob
visibly sighs in relief. Rob shoves his gloved hands in his coat pockets. Niall pulls the cloth off, revealing something small, aged. “ ’Tis a flute,” Rob says, “entwined with —”

“Rowan,” I say, almost a whisper. I can’t take my eyes off of it. Could it be Logan’s?

“Aye,” Rob says. “Twisted rowan.” He shudders. “ ’Tis cursed.”

“Och, boy,” Niall says. He quickly unwinds the rowan from the flute and tosses the bark to the ground, stomping it with his heel. “There’s no such thing —”

A wave of …
something
passes over the courtyard. Almost like another sonic boom. It reminds me of the sound the ring and spell book made when they burst out of sight. The trees visibly shake, and I teeter where I stand. I feel the sensation pass through me. Everyone stops what they’re doing. They’re all looking around, their expressions masks of disbelief.

I glance at Niall. “What was
that
?” I ask.

“I dunno,” Niall answers. We both look at Rob. He is, if possible, even whiter than before.

He takes off running to the rectory.

Niall seems unbothered by the event. He barely even acknowledges it happened.

It did, though. What exactly it was, I haven’t a clue. But I can’t shake the feeling that it was something important. Resonant.

Niall stares down at the flute. With his thumb, he wipes an area clean. He looks at me. “Initials, Ivy,” he says, and he holds it down low enough for me to see.

I gasp.
LM
is etched into the instrument.

“ ’Tis quite old,” Niall says, turning the flute over in his hands and inspecting it. “I canna imagine what it was buried beneath the rectory for. Would you like to have it?” he asks.

Excitement floods me. I nod. “Yes.” Niall hands it to me. I’m sure he has no idea that the initials mean Logan Munro, but I know. My heart is racing.

With the wind biting into my face, I stare down at the instrument through tear-filled eyes. I have no doubt the relic belonged to Logan. And now it all makes sense: His cousin, Patrick — driven mad by that ruby ring — must have murdered Logan by wrapping a personal possession of Logan’s in rowan. Cursing it.

I try to hold back my tears, telling Niall that I have a sudden headache. He looks a bit concerned but waves me off and goes to speak to the excavators about something.

I make it back to my room, short of breath and clutching Logan’s prized flute. I set it down on the trunk at the foot of my bed, unsure what exactly to do with it. I pace the length of my room, my thoughts swirling. The flute, the rowan, that strange sound. Logan … I can’t help but feel that something has shifted. But what?

I know there’s only one way I can truly feel settled. I wait until the late afternoon, when the excavators are finished for the day. Then I grab my violin and bow, tuck the flute in my pocket, and steal out of the castle. I make my way back to the rectory. The sun is setting, striping the gray clouds purple. The skies are so dramatic here, and so vast. It almost doesn’t seem real, like I’m in some kind of enchanted fairyland where nothing is as it appears.

The rectory is deserted now — the excavators having left for the night and Niall back in the castle with Mom, both of them convinced I’m up in my room with a headache.

I know Niall is right — that the construction site isn’t quite safe. But as I pick my way carefully into the rectory, it doesn’t even feel that different. The ground is patchy and shaky but I know now that no invisible hands will be
shoving me. Slowly, I make my way over to the stone seat by the window.

Setting Logan’s flute on the stone beside me, I pick up my violin, and drag my bow over the strings. The melody I play is the one I composed when I first arrived here. Haunting. Serene. It reminds me of Logan. It’s the piece I’ll be playing at the Strings festival. I play for several moments, my eyes closed.

Suddenly, a sensation rushes through me, and I stop. For no good reason, my heartbeat quickens. It slams into my chest and against my ribs with such force, so out of control, that I think something’s wrong. I set the violin and bow down, and press my hand against my heart. It’s beating fast and hard.

“Ivy.”

My brain can’t get the messages to my body quick enough. I dare not believe what I hear, even as my back stiffens and I slowly turn to the sound of my name.

My eyes fall on the figure standing in the still-crumbled opening that was once the rectory’s doorway. I stare, trembling, disbelieving.

I mouth his name. No words escape. They’re trapped.

The figure moves toward me.

“There’s no way I’ll believe you canna speak, lass,” the figure says teasingly, moving closer to me. His boots scrape against the packed dirt as his swaggering stride closes the distance between us. A grin spreads across his painfully handsome face. “No way.”

“Logan?” I whisper, drinking him in. Suddenly, I’m standing, but my legs are locked into place. Inside, I’m shaking. “Is it you?”

I
can’t stop looking at him. Are my eyes playing tricks on me? I blink several times and even shake my head. When I focus, the Logan-like figure is standing less than a foot away.

His thumb grazes my cheek….

My eyes widen; I can feel his touch, his skin against mine. The warmth of his thumb against my skin.

We can touch.

Logan lowers his head toward me, smiling.

“I have dreamed of this,” he whispers, then settles his lips against my mouth.

And he kisses me.

His full lips move over mine, and my heart soars with joy, disbelief. My knees grow weak, and Logan must sense
it because he holds me tightly against him. My arms fly around his neck in a fierce embrace.

I’m afraid to let go.

“I can’t believe you’re here,” I whisper against his neck. I’m trembling. I can smell him. Smell his clean skin. Feel the warmth of his live body seep through his clothes — which are the same clothes he’s worn since I first met him. Dark, hand-sewn pants, boots, and the white shirt. His dark hair is loose and wavy against his collar, and I swear, he’s the most handsome thing I’ve ever seen.

“You’re here, alive.” I pull back and look up into his familiar silver eyes. “How?” I ask. “How is it even possible?”

Logan’s gaze never leaves mine, but his hands move to cup my face.

“I’m not sure,” he answers, still studying my features as if he’s never seen them before. It’s as if he’s discovered something brand-new. He laughs softly. “All I know is, I suddenly popped up in the village, and I was real. Alive again. And I knew I had to find you.” He kisses me. “I dunna want tae let you go, Ivy Calhoun.”

It must have had something to do with unearthing Logan’s flute. The sonic boom that followed, the unease that had settled? I reach for the flute and hand it to Logan.

He grasps it with one hand, studies it. Runs his thumb over his initials. Then he looks at me and smiles.

And never have I felt so happy.

We stand in the ruined rectory, enveloped in each other’s arms. Outside, the wintry wind howls, but I barely notice it as Logan Munro’s heart beats strong against my ear and I melt against his warm embrace.

I can’t explain it. Right now, I don’t even care. Logan’s back.

And he’s mine.

“You look nervous.”

Logan glances down at me, then gives me a mock frown. “I’m no’ nervous, gell. I’ve met them all before.” He cockily jerks his jaw upward and stands rigid, then grabs the enormous iron knocker and bangs it.

I can do little more than smile, link my arm through his, and wait for the Munros’ door to open.

After we’d left the rectory that night, we had shocked old Ian and Jonas with Logan’s return. Mom and Niall had taken Elizabeth to the village for fish-and-chips, so we had the place to ourselves for a bit. We had talked
for hours and finally made sense of everything that had happened.

We realized that the moment Logan’s flute was unearthed, there was a chance of reversing the curse. When Niall had pulled the twisted rowan off was when Logan had found himself back at Glenmorrag village, alive.

All of Logan’s memories have returned as well. My theory wasn’t totally correct, because Logan’s uncle Patrick had not in fact killed him. When Logan discovered Patrick’s spell book and the truth about his ring, Patrick had instead cursed Logan with the Veil of Death — which meant that he would remain suspended between life and death forever. Patrick had taken a personal article of Logan’s — the flute — and wrapped it in cursed rowan, and hidden it beneath the old rectory. Just to ensure that the spell on Logan would never break.

When Logan’s mother discovered what Patrick had done, she’d put two and two together and ripped the ruby ring off his finger, removing him from the sway of the dark spirit. But instead of healing, as Elizabeth had, Patrick went mad and threw himself off the seawall. Logan, in spirit form, saw his mother steal into the castle and hide the ruby ring and spell book. Both remained
hidden until Elizabeth discovered them the night of the storm.

The ring was a black mark upon the Munro family. It had originated from a different clan, one who had feuded with the Munros back in the early Middle Ages. The ring was so powerful that whoever wore it could cast all kinds of spells — apparitions, pain, sickness … even death. In particular, the ring was dead set against newcomers, people it viewed as interlopers. That was why my mom and I had been its targets when Elizabeth wore it.

It wasn’t until Emma and I destroyed the ring, and the spell book, that its power disappeared for good. And it wasn’t until Niall removed the rowan from Logan’s flute that his particular enchantment had broken. Logan was free.

And I am ever so glad. Now that Logan is alive again, at eighteen, he will live out his life. He’ll go to school. I’ve already begun to teach him how to read. He’ll play his flute, maybe learn a new instrument.

Logan stayed overnight in Ian’s croft, but today, Jonas drove us over to the Munro keep after I got out of school. Logan wants to learn to drive, too. To learn everything. But we have time. So much time.

As we wait for the door to open, Logan, sensing my
stare, glances down at me. His mercury eyes soften, and one corner of his mouth lifts in a slight grin. I want to fling my arms around him. It’s very difficult to keep from touching him at all times, now that I can.

The enormous door to the keep opens, and Ethan Munro stands in the archway. All six foot seven inches of him. Ethan stares at Logan, inspecting him from head to toe. Then he gives a nod.

“Och, boy,” he says, amazement tingeing his heavy accent. He pulls Logan into a fierce hug, and Logan hugs him back. Then Ethan Munro looks at me and grins.

“You’re a strong lass, Ivy,” he says, then drops a kiss to my cheek. He turns back to Logan, who still stands rigidly tall with his chin lifted, meeting his ancestor’s gaze. Ethan puts his hand on Logan’s shoulder. “Come inside, boy, and I’ll show you to your room. You’ll fit in just fine here, I vow it.”

Logan squeezes my hand and follows Ethan inside. Ethan looks over his shoulder at me and, with eyes the exact same color as Logan’s, winks.

“Ivy! Logan!” Amelia says, appearing at my side. She hugs us both. “Come inside before you freeze!”

I grin and step into the Munro keep. Logan’s new home.

Filled with Logan’s ancestors from long ago.

This is the place that taught me that the impossible can be possible.

“Come on,” Amelia says, pulling me along the corridor to the kitchen. “I’ve got a can of Cheez Whiz with your name on it, girl. And I want to talk to you about a new story idea I have.”

I smile at her. Amelia is the most likable person I’ve ever met. Well, almost. She definitely ranks up with the top three anyway.

As I watch Logan Munro swagger up the spiral steps, still dressed in his nineteenth-century clothes, I know I’ve witnessed magic. And miracles.

And I’m so grateful for both.

I mean, I’m in a keep full of once-enchanted fourteenth-century warriors. My once-ghost boyfriend’s new home.

Then, in the next instant, Logan rushes back down the stairs. He pulls me into a tight embrace, his mouth to my ear.

“
Mairidh mo ghaol gu siorraidh
, Ivy Calhoun,” he whispers.

I smile at him. “I’ll love you forever, too.”

With a grin, he races away.

Somewhere above, several deep laughs break out.

I smile. Grateful doesn’t even begin to describe it.