She eyed him with skeptical regard. “Exactly how many?”
“At least seven. After that, it’s up to you,” he said, shrugging his shoulders and taking a sip of his cocoa.
“Seven,” she repeated, not caring that she sounded like a parrot. “Why seven?”
He lifted a brow at her as he set down his cup, a satisfied smile wrinkling his face even more. “Ahh. Your left brain emerges,” he said.
The old priest pierced her with a crystal-clear blue gaze that looked as patient as the earth and far too perceptive for her liking. “Have you heard the tale, Grace, of the seventh son of the seventh son being gifted?”
She sat back in her chair, crossed her arms under her breasts, and stared at him. “Yes,” she said, wondering where this conversation was headed. “I’ve heard it all my life. My dad was a seventh son, and I was supposed to be his seventh son. But I came out a girl. And so did Mary, which smartly put an end to that little fantasy for this family.”
“No, it didn’t. Your birth simply began the change in ownership of that gift.”
She leaned forward, intrigued despite herself. “What are you saying?”
“I am the seventh son of a seventh son,” he told her, turning his cup around as he watched the steam waft into the air. “And it’s been written that there’s going to be a change of the guard in the next millennium.”
“Written where?”
He suddenly looked startled. And then he frowned and waved his hand in the air. “It’s just written. I don’
t know where they keep the damn book.”
“Who are they?”
“I don’t know that, either, girl. That’s not the point.”
“Then what’s the point?”
“Winter.”
She stared at him.
“Your seventh daughter, Grace. Her name will be Winter, and she’ll be my heir, the one I gift with the knowledge of life. She’s going to be born on the Winter Solstice.” He pointed toward her stomach. “All of them are, starting with this one.”
Grace covered her belly again, sitting back in her chair, trying to comprehend what he was saying. And the more she thought, the more confused she grew.
She was going to have seven daughters.
And they’d all be born on the Winter Solstice.
And she was supposed to name her seventh daughter Winter.
So that she could become a…a wizard?
“Why?” she snapped.
“Because it’s written,” he snapped back.
Grace rolled her eyes and stood up. “You’re drunk.”
“I am not,” he said, glaring at her. “If I am, then explain to me what happened at the pond last week.”
“I can’t,” she whispered, sitting back down, shaking her head. “I’ve tried, but I can’t.”
“I must say, you’re taking this a bit better than MacKeage did,” he said then, picking up his cocoa and taking another sip, watching her over the rim of the cup.
“You told Grey this?” she choked out, grabbing the table with both hands for balance.
“Of course not. Not all of it. I just told him that he’s here because of you.”
“What?”
“He didn’t act quite so surprised,” he said with a frown creasing his brow. “As a matter of fact, I think he already knew.” He suddenly smiled. “He’s a damn astute warrior.”
“Okay,” Grace said with waning patience. “Let’s start over. Are you saying that you brought Grey eight hundred years forward in time because of me? So we could give you a daughter, whom you can gift with your…your knowledge?” she whispered, trying to comprehend the magnitude of what he was implying.
“You’re pretty damn astute, too.”
She had the good grace not to point out the fact that Daar was a priest and he was swearing. “Why?”
she asked again, closing her eyes for fear of starting another round robin of foolish questions and even more foolish answers.
“I’m needing an heir, girl. And you and Grey are going to give her to me.”
“I will not.”
“That’s what Grey said,” he said, nodding his approval. He held up his hand to forestall her next question. “It’s not what you think, Grace. I’m not wanting your baby. I don’t know anything about the tiny creatures. Winter will come to me a grown woman in her seventies. Before that, she’ll be a good, dutiful daughter to the both of you.”
“No.”
“You won’t even be alive, Grace, when this happens.”
“What if I don’t have a seventh daughter? What if I have my tubes tied or take birth control?”
He looked horrified. “Ya can’t.”
“I can.”
“Why would you be wanting to deny your own flesh and blood this gift?”
“What if she doesn’t want this…this gift?”
“But she will.”
“How do you even know that?”
“Because she’s the product of the two of you.” He rubbed his forehead and closed his eyes with a sigh of frustration. He finally looked back at her with steady, solemn eyes.
“Grace. Winter will be a wonderful woman. She’ll be an inquisitive child, excited about the joys and mysteries of this world, much like yourself. Now, tell me truthfully,” he said, laying his hand on the table, palm up, toward her. “If you could know even one-millionth of those mysteries, wouldn’t you want to see them unlocked in your mind? Take my hand, Grace, and I’ll give you a peek at what powers lie ahead for your daughter.”
She stared at his long-fingered, age-bent hand. Oh, she wanted to touch it. She wanted a peek. Just one little peek.
Slowly, carefully, Grace laid her hand in his, palm down. A warm, tingling vibration traveled through her arm and into her head as Daar gently closed his fingers over hers.
Energy suddenly flashed in her mind’s eye, and she was traveling at the speed of light through space—
backward.
No. Wait. She wanted to go forward in time, not back. She wanted to see people living on Mars, flying to the moon and back again for vacation. And she wanted to see ion propulsion taking them there.
Instead, she saw emotions, not physical things. She could almost touch the pride of a mother when she held her new child for the very first time. She could see the excitement an infant felt when he discovered that smiling got him another smile in return, and maybe a kiss and a cuddle. She could see the sorrow of a mother not wanting to leave her new son in this world without the promise he’d be with his father. And she saw death as the beginning of something new.
She saw them as colors in her mind’s eye, rather than emotions—bright, vivid, detailed, and four-dimensional. They were energy turned into matter, traveling at a velocity that made them timeless.
Constant, without beginning or end—just always present, everywhere.
Grace opened her eyes when Daar released her hand and sat back in his chair, staring at her. “She’s still with you, Grace,” he told her. “Mary’s been your guardian since you were born, and she’ll walk in your heart for the rest of your life.”
She couldn’t speak. She looked at the tin on the table beside them, then back at Daar.
“Give this gift to Winter, Grace. Allow your daughter the chance to fulfill her destiny. Give her life, and then let her come to me when she’s ready.”
“Will she want to come to you?”
“Yes.”
Grace lowered her lashes, trying to decide if she believed him or not. The man was an ordained priest, for crying out loud. He might swear a bit, but surely he couldn’t lie to her.
“Ask me something,” he told her, as if he could read her thoughts. “Exercise that left brain of yours.”
Grace decided to take him up on his offer. Or call his bluff. She had a million questions she wanted answered—about what exactly had happened at the pond, how Grey and the others had been able to travel through time, and why the priest couldn’t have found her someone who wasn’t eight hundred years old.