The Ghost by Greyson, Maeve (best motivational books to read .txt) 📕

“I didna leave ye behind before because I had no safe place to leave ye.” How could she explain in so little time all she needed him to understand? She could tell by the way Graham, Alexander, and Catriona fidgeted and kept straining to see the front of the stable that time had run out.

Squeezing her dear mite’s hands, she gave him the bravest smile she could muster. “No matter what happens, I love ye, yer da loves ye, and yer mama is watching over ye. No matter what, aye?” She gave him another fierce hug, then stood and forced herself to put an arm’s length of space between them. “Be my courageous lad, aye? I’m ever so proud of ye, Keigan.”

He didn’t answer. Just stared up at her, tears streaming down his face. Then he turned and glared at Magnus for the longest time before raising his small fists and shaking them. “I hate ye both for leaving me! Ye’re just like Mama!” Then he shot off down a side aisle, disappearing into the maze of horse stalls.

“Keigan!” she cried out, needing to hold him until he understood.

“Let him go, dear one,” Magnus said. With another gentle tug on her arm, he pulled her closer to the cave entrance. “When he’s older, he will understand.”

“He didna mean his words, sister. Ye know that,” Catriona said. “Dinna fash, I’ll send Evander to comfort him.” She lifted a trembling hand in farewell. “God bless ye and keep ye both until we see ye again.”

“Stay to the caves. ’Tis safest ’til we’ve worked out a better plan,” Alexander advised. “Ye ken well enough where the supplies are cached. Check the dragon’s mouth daily. We’ll leave messages there as more information comes to us.”

Magnus accepted Alexander’s instructions with a solemn look and a hard clasping of his forearm. He bid Graham farewell with the same silent, brotherly grip.

Brenna had no idea what Alexander meant by the dragon’s mouth, but Magnus seemed to understand, and that was all that really mattered. With her world tumbling down around her ears, a cold numbness made it a struggle to function.

“Thank ye. For everything,” she managed to say as Catriona hugged her one more time. “Please take care of my bairn ’til he’s back in my arms. Tell him I love him.”

“Ye know I will,” Catriona said, her eyes shimmering with unshed tears. Then she turned and ran to catch up with Alexander and Graham.

“Brenna, we must go.” Magnus steered her toward the dark crack in the stable wall, half-hidden by a boulder as tall as a good-sized man. “Take the torch from yon bracket. I’ll carry the pitch bucket with the extra torches we’ll need. It’s a fair stretch of the legs to the supply cache.”

She cast a last glance back through the horse stalls, wishing for one more glimpse of Keigan. Despair filled her as she saw nothing in the shadows. “What’s done is done, and canna be undone,” she reminded herself as she wiggled the torch free of the bracket and settled a bundle over her shoulder.

Magnus picked up the other bulging sack and the bucket. “Light our path, mo ghràdh. The way is narrow with no choices, so ye canna err in the direction ye choose.”

Cool, clamminess of the cave engulfed her, brushing across her flesh like a troubled spirit. Hairs on her arms stood on end, making her wish she hadn’t pushed her sleeves up to her elbows. It had been a warm summer’s day out in the courtyard, but within the cave, it felt like dreary, wet autumn had already taken hold. The sound of dripping water echoed from somewhere up ahead. Brenna lifted the sputtering torch higher, squinting against its blinding brightness while praying the thing never went out.

“We’ll stay in a fine room just past the southern storage cache,” Magnus reassured. “It’s none too far from the dragon’s mouth and surrounded by a good-sized fissure with only a few places narrow enough to jump across. In fact, Catriona hid there for nearly a fortnight once.”

While she appreciated his attempt at reassurance, something about hiding for days in the dark bowels of the earth troubled her. “What is this dragon’s mouth everyone speaks of?” she asked, trying to focus on something besides the mountain swallowing her alive.

“An amazing stone formation complete with carvings by ancient ones who lived here long ago.”

“And it looks like a dragon?”

“I canna do it justice with words. When we come to it, ye’ll understand.”

The route narrowed, but not in the steady fashion of walls slowly drawing in, but with slabs of stone jutting into the path, first at knee level, then as high as their waists and shoulders. The ceiling sloped ever lower, making Brenna feel as though she had entered a tomb and the lid was closing on her. “Is this right?” she asked, feeling like her lungs weren’t getting enough air. A deep breath did little to dispel the dark weightiness crushing in from all sides.

“Aye, love. I know it’s close, but this is the right path. I promise. Take heart, dear one, it opens up soon.”

The acrid, oily smell of the pitch bucket made her head pound, adding to her uneasiness. She needed sunshine on her face, and a deep inhale of sweet Highland air. What she wouldn’t give to be in a field of heather at this very moment. Hitching in another deep gulping breath, she forged onward, determined not to give in to her mounting panic.

“Breathe, mo chridhe. Focus on one step at a time and breathe. There’s plenty of air in here. I swear it.”

“Ye always know what I’m feeling.”

“It’s because ye are the other half of my soul, remember? Caves can be hard to bear. But ye’ve the strength to do it. Of that, I have no doubt.”

His belief in her helped somewhat, but not nearly as much as when the tight passage opened out into a cavernous space with a ceiling so high, the light from the