She found herself hopelessly, hatefully back in the present. Alone. Convulsive sobs shook her as she lay across the mound of uncaring earth. Her tears wet the rough grass beneath her, flowing like blood from a mortal wound. One word, one thought only existed in the whole of her being.
“Michael!”
A fresh burst of wind whistled through the heath and fretted the fallen leaves around her, carrying with it, or so it seemed, a faint strain of bagpipes. She turned her face to listen. Was it possible: that soul-stirring sound, so terrible in battle that the English had since outlawed it?
Was it there, or was she truly mad? She strained all her senses..... No. The sound was gone. She buried her face and wept once more, defeated.
Again a breeze stirred, this time more gentle, this time much nearer. She felt a large hand caress the crown of her head, and brush the side of her face as she turned again, bewildered. Half blind with tears she saw the wavering outline of a man, and heard a voice whisper,
“My Mary.”
She knew no more.
Two
She was found there by her aunt, pale and shivering. And as consciousness and memory returned to her, a light of wild hope and fear widened the deep emerald of her eyes.
“Aunt Margaret, I saw him! He called me by name, I swear it!”