before he even finished speaking. “And how much longer is that going to take? It not like erecting a Taco Bell—it’s an historical replication made of stone and built by master craftsmen. Anything could be happening in Doon while we’re waiting here in limbo.”
“Don’t ye think I know that?” He turned and stalked up the beach.
I followed at a jog, closing the distance between us. “I know . . . And I’m sorry. But if I stop coming here, it’s like I’m giving up. We need to have hope, now more than ever.” Slipping my hand in the crook of his arm, I leaned into Duncan, drawing from his strength and giving him mine. “I wish the Protector would give us some sort of sign.”
His lips pursed in a crooked smile. “Perhaps he’s trying to, but we’re too busy arguin’ instead of listenin’.”
Ever sunny and optimistic, my boyfriend had a point. Letting go of Duncan, I stepped away so I could fling my arms wide. “Okay,” I shouted toward the heavens as I turned in a slow circle. “I’m listening.”
The old guy who’d been wandering along the beach stopped to gawk at my outburst. He gaped at me, then Duncan, and then back at me again. As he stared, my mind began to place him as the storyteller from the tavern in Alloway, a lifetime ago. It was through him that Vee and I first heard the legend of the MacCraes and their enchanted kingdom.
Being a distance off, the old man gestured toward the empty beach and shouted, “Hear this then, lassie. You’ll no’ get ta Doon through the mountains. Not this time.”
CHAPTER 2
Duncan
Mackenna Reid could break a fellow’s heart in a hundred different ways without realizing it. Like now, gray eyes wide and shimmering with hopefulness, mouth set against the possibility that something good was on the verge of happening, and eyebrows knit together in uncertainty—her bonnie face a map of contradictions that worked in tandem to reveal the secrets of her heart. Secrets that I would protect at any cost.
I stepped between my love and the modern-world stranger who’d just professed knowledge of our hidden kingdom. Motioning with my left hand for Mackenna to stay behind me, I rested my right hand lightly on the hilt of my dirk tucked into the waistband of my blue jean trousers. “Identify yourself, sir,” I demanded.
Mackenna’s hand lightly brushed my arm. “It’s okay, Duncan. I know him.”
“You do?” I asked, my eyes never leaving the man.
“Yes,” she replied. “Well, sort of. He’s the storyteller who first told Vee and me the legend of Doon. He works at the Tam O’Shanter pub.”
The storyteller in question was steadily closing the distance between us. In another moment I would need to make a decision . . . Unsheathe my weapon or no. Unfortunately, Mackenna’s account of the gentleman didn’t aid in that decision. “And jus’ how did he come to know the legend of our kingdom?”
Her voice faltered. “I, uh, never thought to ask. It was just a story at the time. I had no idea it was real.” She emitted a soft sound of revelation. “Actually it was the Witch of Doon who introduced us, when she was pretending to be Ally.”
I knew from conversations with Mackenna that her and Veronica’s first encounter with Adelaide Blackmore Cadell had been in Alloway, when they’d been on vacation. The witch had been posing as both the caretaker of Dunbrae Cottage and the caretaker’s daughter. In those capacities she’d set the girls on the trajectory for Doon, which had eventually granted her the power to take the kingdom by force with dark magic.
With that latest revelation I pulled my dirk from its scabbard and ordered the stranger to halt when he was less than a dozen paces away. Wishing I had a proper blade, I took quick mental inventory. Besides the eight-inch dagger in my hand, I had my wee sgian dubh tucked into the hosiery of my right leg—utterly useless beneath the stiff, modern trousers. At Mackenna’s insistence on remaining inconspicuous, all my other weaponry had been left at the cottage. What I would have given in that moment for a cutlass or broadsword.
The man, face as leathery and blemished as aging cowhide, came to a standstill. While leaning heavily on a walking stick of driftwood, he blinked at me enigmatically. “I couldna help but notice that you’re looking for Doon, friend. But try as ye might, ye’ll no’ get those mountains to appear.”