“Aw, hell,” Matt muttered.
“Aw, hell,” Joel squealed.
“Oh-oh, come on, tyke,” Heather said with a laugh, reaching for the toddler. “I better get you back to the flock.” She stopped at the kitchen door with Joel in her arms and looked at Matt. “Has Camry found you? She works for NASA and she’s just dying to talk jet engines with you.”
“I’ll find her,” Winter said, not stopping to think exactly what she was getting her husband into.
They did indeed find Camry, and the NASA scientist had Matt backed into a corner for the next hour discussing propulsion theories. Winter left her poor husband to his fate with a cheery smile and spent her time reminiscing with her sisters, a few of which she hadn’t seen for a full year.
Matt ended up being the main topic of conversation, no matter how hard Winter tried to move onto something else. Who was he, where did he come from, had he really commissioned her to pick the spot for their home, was he truly richer than God, how had she dared to run off and get married without telling Papa…and on and on it went until her mama finally came to Winter’s rescue and said it was time to cut their birthday cake.
The cake was a monstrous, three-tier masterpiece of pink and yellow confection that sat in the middle of the dining room table as the centerpiece of the banquet, or rather, what was left of the banquet.
The entire house was decorated for Christmas, except that the dining room had an eclectic assortment of birthday balloons and streamers crowded in with the holiday cheer.
For practical reasons, birthday gifts had stopped coming to each of the girls when they turned six, simply because of the chaos it created. Being together was gift enough, Grace MacKeage had declared, and besides, she should be receiving the gifts since she was the one who’d birthed them. So the table in the corner contained only eight gifts, one from each of the daughters to their mama, and one from their papa to his wife.
Grace rang a bell and everyone—aunts, uncles, cousins, sons-in-law, grandchildren—ceased whatever they were doing and gravitated toward the dining room, spilling out into the living room and foyer and even up the stairs.
“We have two new additions to our immediate family,” Grace began once the crowd had quieted down. “Most of you know that Chelsea had another son in May whom she named Clayton, and Winter married Matt Gregor two months ago.” She waited for the cheering to die down, then continued.
“For our extended family, Michael and Catherine had Angus MacBain four months ago, and Morgan’s son, Duncan, just had a baby girl on Thanksgiving Day.”
The cheering resumed, and Grace had to raise her hands to quiet everyone again. “Now you know that we—”
The door knocker sounded loudly, and Grace fell silent with a frown. “Who’s not here?” she asked.
Nobody said anything as they all looked around and mentally took count, which would take the rest of the afternoon, Winter figured. Somebody opened the front door, and Winter stretched to see who was almost two hours late for the infamous MacKeage birthday party, but she couldn’t see past the turned heads all looking toward the door.
The low murmur started in the foyer, moving toward the dining room as the crowd parted, or rather as everyone scurried back and looked down at the floor.
It wasn’t until the people in the dining room parted and a large black crow flapped onto the table that Winter understood the look of amazed confusion on everyone’s faces. The crow, carrying a small red silk bag in its mouth, boldly walked up the table past the platters of food and didn’t stop until it was standing right in front of Winter.
Matt set his hands on her shoulders. “A friend of yours?” he whispered in her ear, and Winter could hear the amusement in his voice.
But she only kept staring at the crow, who had cocked his head and was staring back at her, the little red bag dangling from its beak.
“I think he wants to give you a birthday present,” Matt said, using his hands on her shoulders to nudge her forward. “Go ahead, take the bag.”
It was one thing to dream about being visited by a wise old bird, and even finding a feather in her bed the next morning, but it was a bit disconcerting to be seeing him in all his feathered flesh in front of dozens of witnesses. When she still didn’t move, Matt reached past her and set his hand under the crow’s head. The crow opened his thick black beak and simply dropped the gift into Matt’s hand.
Matt held the bag by its drawstrings and dangled it in front of her. Aware the dining room was quiet enough to hear a mouse sneeze, Winter rubbed her damp palms on her pants, finally forced her gaze from the crow to the bag, reached out and took it from her husband.
But instead of opening it, Winter looked back at the crow that was still standing staring at her, his dark round eyes shining with what looked like amused anticipation.
“Open it, lass,” Matt softly commanded, placing his hands reassuringly on her shoulders again.
“Y-you open it,” she whispered, not moving.
“It’s not my birthday.”
Winter frowned at the bag.
“Oh, for the love of God,” Daar snapped from across the table. “Open it so we can see what the bird brought ye.”
Winter still didn’t move.
“You told me the crow in your dream brought you good news,” Matt whispered into her hair.
“So what has you worried, lass?”
Winter tilted her head back to look up at him. “What if it’s my tap root?” she whispered, well aware of the small but substantial weight in her hand. “What if the crow is really the strange energy who killed my tree, and he had only been trying to give me a false sense of hope in my dream? I—I haven’t heard from him for nine weeks.”
“If he’s that energy, then this is your chance to confront him,” Matt told her, turning her around to face him, likely so she’d quit staring at the crow. He reached for the bag she held between them. “I’ll open it, then,” he offered, pulling on the silk to loosen the drawstrings.
He opened the bag, held it up to look inside, and frowned. “It’s a statue,” he said, pulling out a tiny figurine.
Winter gasped and took it from him. “Tom!” she cried, holding up the granite carving of a bear whose body was wrapped around the figure of a woman made from wood. Winter spun back toward the table. “T-Tom?” she whispered, stepping toward the crow.
“There’s a note with the statue,” Matt said, holding a piece of rolled birch bark in front of her to see.
“Well, what’s it say?” Daar asked, glaring over Winter’s head at Matt. “Don’t keep us all in suspense. It’s a crow, for God’s sake, and he wants ye to read what the gift is about.”
Winter looked from the silent bird to the statue in her hand as she heard Matt unrolling the scroll behind her. The statue was an amazing work of art, intricately blending stone and wood together. The sleeping granite bear was only about five inches long and three inches wide, and it all but surrounded the wooden female figure lying inside its tender, protective embrace.
“It—It seems to be a wedding invitation,” Matt said into the silence, his voice thick with…Winter couldn’t decide if Matt was overcome with emotion or angry. He cleared his throat and began reading. “To all present who believe in the power of love, you are invited to the high meadow on Bear Mountain this afternoon at the time of the winter solstice, to witness the union of Winter Sutter MacKeage and Matheson Macalpin Gregor.”
Winter looked across the table when Daar gasped.
“You’re from the Clan of the Mist,” Daar whispered, his face as pale as new snow. “Yer great-great-grandfather was Mathe Macalpin, Bear of Gairn.”
“Aye,” Matt said thickly over Winter’s head, and she could feel the tension radiating from him.
She turned around. “What’s wrong with being from the Clan of the Mist?” she asked Matt.
“Nothing,” Daar said, causing her to turn back toward him. “It’s Mathe Macalpin that means something, girl. Legend says Mathe was the original drùidh,sent by Providence to straighten out the mess mankind had made of the world by that point.” He nodded toward the man standing behind her and shook his head. “Ye married Macalpin’s great-great-grandson, but Matt’s grandfather wasn’t the drùidhwho threw away his calling. It was yer grandmother, wasn’t it, boy?” he asked, lifting his gaze to Matt.