Rhys nodded.
“Dad was clutching a cross when I found him. I pried it out of his hands. It’s by the Bruce papers,” Ian said, pointing.
Rhys turned toward the windows and looked at the table standing between them. In the center of the table was a book their father had bid on last year in a private auction. He had won it for a million and change. That was but one of many insane decisions their father had made. He had been convinced the papers, a collection of old scrolls purportedly owned by the former king of Scotland Robert the Bruce, would contain information that could lead him to their mom. Rhys’s mouth went dry. He moved around the desk, shifted the box to his right hand, and slowly picked up the heavy silver cross with his left.
The extreme cold of the metal surprised him. He looked it over. It had a star and an anchor set in the middle and four round, raised balls set on each end of the cross. He shivered as the sensation of wind blew on him. But the windows were closed. He again felt the breeze dance across his skin and could hear the rush of the air past his ears.
“Rhys?” Reikart said.
“Just a minute,” Rhys repeated yet again. He could feel the air in the study growing heavy with his brothers’ impatience.
Inhaling sharply, he read through the rest of the entries, not surprised that they were all about Dad’s attempts to locate the book. The second-to-last entry, dated a week ago, was from when Dad had bid on and won—for the small fortune of two hundred thousand dollars—an ancient book on Gaelic spells that a private collector, an Alexander MacLean, had auctioned off through Sotheby’s auction house. Rhys turned over the package he was holding and looked at the label. Sure enough, it was from Sotheby’s.
“Hold this,” he said, thrusting the cross at Reikart, who stood nearest to him.
“What the hell is going on, Rhys?” Reikart demanded as he took the cross and visibly flinched. A frown creased his normally smooth brow. Reikart had felt it, too. That unnatural coldness that seemed to be radiating from the metal, as if the cross had been encased in ice for centuries and had only just been freed.
“Yea,” Greyson chimed in. “Come on. We’ve been patient enough.”
Rhys felt his pulse thumping hard in his neck. He glanced down at the package, and he knew in his gut that he’d be hard-pressed to explain in words what this package might be.
What if,his mind whispered to him.
He tried to push the thought away. It was absurd. It was impossible. It was spreading through his mind like a weed. It seemed to wrap around every thought he had.
What if. What if. What if Dad isn’t crazy?
Rhys ripped open the package, tossing the paper and box on the floor. He could hear the hum of his brothers shooting questions at him, but he ignored them, focused solely on the large black leather book he now found in his hands. The cracked, peeling leather displayed the age of the tome. On the cover, embossed in gold Gaelic lettering, it read,Tha faclan nan deagh sheirbheisich, ach droch mhaighstirean.
“What is it?” Ian demanded, tapping the top of the book.
Rhys looked up from the book, which felt strangely warm and in sharp contrast to the cool metal of the cross. “I believe it’s an ancient spell book. Gaelic history is steeped in folklore and magic.” Mom had tried to teach them all Gaelic, all about Scottish history, but he’d been the only one remotely interested. Later, Reikart had grown interested in history, even majored in it in college, but Reikart could not read Gaelic. And because of Dad’s habit of always comparing Reik to Rhys, Reikart had long ago abandoned contributing his vast knowledge to any family discussions. Reik had been like a tornado as a kid. Always in motion. Very impetuous. Always talking and questioning everything, including Mom and Dad’s authority—especially Dad’s. It had led Dad to come down hard on Reik, thinking, Rhys imagined, that being stern would help Reik. Rhys had hated when Dad would tell Reikart to be more like him. He had even demanded Dad stop when Rhys had seen and felt it creating a wall between him and Reik.
“What does it say on the cover?” Greyson asked.
“It translates to ‘Words are good servants but bad masters,’” Rhys replied, his pulse ticking even faster than before.
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Ian asked.
“It means, be careful how you use words,” Rhys said, not sure where that had come from. “Words can serve you, but you must use them correctly or you won’t get the desired result.” He was struck by a sense that if his mother’s story was somehow fantastically true that either she had remembered the chant incorrectly or it had originally been said incorrectly. “Christ…”
The muscles in his forearms suddenly started twitching, and he opened the book, feeling the same unexplainable sensation of wind he’d felt when holding the cross. Now the smell of the salty ocean filled his nose. He turned the fragile pages carefully. At the front of the book was a rudimentary table of contents. He ran his finger down it, stopping at the second-to-last entry.
The Traveling Chant– page 210
“Rhys, you’re acting as crazy as Dad,” Reikart said, annoyance in his voice.
Rhys acknowledged his brother and the truth of his words with a nod, but he did not look up from the book. Instead, he flipped to page 210 and read the chant:Talamh, èadhar, teine, uisge, ga tilleadh dhachaigh.
His heart felt as if it would thump out of his chest, and his insides coiled. The Traveling Chant, according to the book, translated to “Earth, air, fire, water, return her home.” It was almost exactly what his mom had recalled.
Except…
He looked up, unsurprised to find his brothers staring at him with a mixture of irritation and concern on their faces. Hell,hewas irritated and concerned! He wasn’t sure if he was following in his dad’s footsteps and going down the rabbit hole to Crazy Land or if he’d just had an epiphany that might change everything he’d ever known and believed. He was leaning toward the first option. Insanity ran in families, right?
The chant his mother recalled had translated to “Earth, air, fire, water,sendher home,” but according to the book, the correct chant was “Earth, air, fire, water,returnher home.” That single word variation changed everything in Gaelic.
“Rhys, bro,” Reikart said, putting his hand on Rhys’s shoulder, “you’re worrying me.”
