“Why, Callie!” he exclaimed with a full mouth. “These are just like the ones Nan makes. How did you get the recipe? Nan always says it’s a family secret!”
“It’s how my father made them,” I replied. “He said he learned from his grandmother.”
“Mmph.” Mrs. Stewart made an enigmatic sound. Then, turning to Mac, she said, “Be a dear and go talk to Mrs. Gulliver about putting me into the Friday afternoon bridge game, and don’t let her tell you it’s full just because Babs Meriweather swooped in and took my seat while I was indisposed. I’m back now.”
“Sure, Nan, only I could go after our visit—”
“You’ll want to catch her now before she leaves, lad, and this will give the lass and me time for a little girl talk.”
“Oh!” Mac said, turning bright red at the thought of what girl talk might entail. He gave me a wary smile and hurried out before he might accidentally overhear some embarrassing female detail.
“Mrs. Stewart—” I began when he had gone.
“Call me Nan, lass. I feel as though I’ve known you for centuries.”
I sighed. “Nan, I know Mac’s told you a lot about me, but I hope that hasn’t given you the wrong impression about our relationship … not that Mac isn’t a fine young man.”
“Tsk, tsk,” Nan Stewart clicked her tongue at me. “I know you’re not sweet on my boy, lass—ye could do worse, mind ye, but he’s no’ the man of your dreams, is he?”
I met those sharp blue eyes. “What do you know about my dreams, Nan?”
She leaned forward, and her thin, arthritic hand grasped mine with surprising force. “That the man who comes in them is as sweet as heathered honey.” She sniffed as though she could smell the heather strewn all over my bed after my dreams. “And I know ye willna let go of him, even though ye should. But when do we ever do what we should when it comes to love, eh?” Her eyes clouded, as if a mist had washed over them, and the years fell away from her face. I glimpsed a young woman in front of me, her eyes burning with love. I returned the pressure of her grip on my hand.
“Not often,” I replied. “But I want to do what’s right for Fairwick. Not for … him, but to fix things here. I know you’ve been … indisposed, so you may not know that something awful’s happening.”
“Not know it, lass? Who do ye think indisposed me? Those bastards, that’s who! They knew I’d never let them take my village, and so they struck me down and scrambled my senses. If I hadn’t had the plaid to protect me, they would have killed me.”
I guessed that she meant the magic tartan the Stewarts used as a force field, not the plaid shawl around her shoulders.
“The plaid has many powers,” she said. “We used it to banish the nephilim in Ballydoon when they tried to round up the old folk and the wisewomen.”
She let go of my hands and leaned back against the sofa cushions. Lines of strain had appeared on her face, and I worried that dredging up these painful memories might be too much for her. I held her teacup up to her lips, but she waved it away. “They came to my village many years ago, hunting down the old folk and those who believed in them.”
“The old folk? Do you mean …”
“You know who I mean, lass. The good people. The fairies. You’ve got more than a touch of the fey in you. Enough to open the door between worlds. The McFays came from the same village as us Stewarts. It were a McFay who charged the Stewarts with protectin’ folks from the wrong sort of sprite—and from those evil winged bastards.”
I blinked at the old woman’s ferocity.
“They rounded up the last of the fairies and all who sheltered them. Called them witches and burned them at the stake. ’Twas a fairy that drove them out.”
“Do you know how she did it?” I asked. “Did she have a stone?”
Nan shook her head, and her keen eyes seemed to grow a little dimmer. “When I think on it, I get a little confused, like. But, aye, I think there was a stone … and I think it’s still back there.”
“Back where?” I asked, beginning to worry that Nan hadn’t completely recovered from her dementia.
“In Ballydoon,” Nan snapped, as if I were the one whose faculties were in question.
“Ballydoon, Scotland?” I asked. “You want me to go to Scotland?”
Nan sighed. “You’ll no’ find the stone in Ballydoon now. You have to go through the hallow door and go back to Ballydoon then.”
“You mean go back to the time of the witch hunts? To the 1600s?”
“Aye, thereabouts. You wear that brooch you’ve got on now”—she stabbed her finger at the brooch pinned to my blouse—“and the hallow door will take you to the right place.”
“But where do I find the hallow door?” I asked.
Nan made an exasperated sound. “Find it? Why, lass, don’t you know? You are the hallow door.”
I opened my mouth but found I had no words. It didn’t make sense. How could I be a door?
“Did you not know a doorkeeper may become the door? Of course, you need to have made a blood bond with the last door before it closed.”
“But I did that,” I told her. “I used a heart-binding spell from Wheelock, but then when Bill died”—I took a breath to keep away the sadness that always rose when I thought of that moment—“the door exploded.”
“Aye,” Nan said, patting my hand. “It was because your heart was broken. Never you worry, lass, it will mend. And ye still have the bond to the door. You’ll be able to open a passage anytime, anywhere, but for the first time you’ll need to do it on All Hallows’ Eve, and you’ll need help. You’ll need, as that Clinton woman so wisely said, a village.”
“A village?”
“Aye. Hallows’ Eve is only as powerful as its observance. That’s why the nephilim always try to stamp out the old ways wherever they go. You watch: they’ll try to keep the town and college from observing Halloween this year.”
“They’ve already prohibited parties,” I said.
“See! Next it’ll be trick-or-treating and costumes and decorations.”
“Do those things really make a difference?” I asked skeptically.
“Yes,” she assured me, “they do. But they’re not all you’ll need. You’ll need a witches’ circle. At midnight, go to the spot where the door was opened before. They’ll try to stop you, mind. You’ll need my boys to keep out the nephilim and the circle to focus your power. At the stroke of midnight, you’ll become the door.”
“But how?” I asked.
“How should I know?” Nan snapped. “You’re the doorkeeper—and a witch. Look through your book of spells.”
“Okay,” I said, wishing Nan could be more specific. “Once I’ve opened … or, er, become the door, what then?” I asked. “How can I get rid of the nephilim?”
“Why, find the angel stone, of course,” she said. “And bring it back.”
“But where exactly—” I began, but I saw a rictus of pain distort Nan’s face. I’d exhausted her.
“You’ll find it just as ye did before,” she said.
“I will,” I said, even though I wasn’t sure what she meant. Perhaps she was confusing me with my ancestor.
Mac came back then and Nan changed the subject, asking him to tell her all the details of his cousin Isobel’s wedding, which she’d had to miss when she was not herself. Mac happily obliged, exhibiting a remarkable memory for bridesmaids’ dresses and place settings that drove home to me how much the young man was looking forward to his own nuptials. I caught him giving me moon eyes while describing the wedding cake. He talked until we both noticed that Nan had fallen asleep.
“We’d best leave her,” Mac said, getting up and tucking the shawl around the old woman’s shoulders. “I’ll go tell her aide to look in on her.”