Highland Passage Read Online Free PDF Page A

and hung in the air. Lifting her face to the sky, Mac breathed it all in as the cool mist soothed her face. But dark clouds rolled in overhead. If she left now, she might make it home merely damp before the sky opened with rain. David rode past on his bike, unaware that she was there. She sighed and then felt guilty for being relieved that he had not seen her. She wanted just a few more moments alone with her memories of Ciarán.
    David Kowalski taught fifth-grade science at the school where Mac worked. He was also her friend. At times Mac wondered if he might wish for more, but they had never broached the subject of feelings. He used to stop by her house for coffee on Saturday mornings, but he had not been by in some time.
    Shadows of thickening clouds draped themselves over the trees as Mac gathered her bag and water bottle. Sunlight peeked through a small gap in the clouds and shone into the stone chamber, but Mac didn’t notice as she briskly brushed the dirt from her jeans. Once finished, she indulged in one last gaze into the stone chamber, where a faint light now broke through. The back wall faded like a morning mist and lifted to reveal the same scene she had seen behind Ciarán when he disappeared. From the clearing mist, a man appeared, facing the opposite direction of her. He wore plaid.
    “Ciarán!” Mac called and stepped closer. He turned. For a moment they stared, with the same stunned expression. He walked through the mist toward her until it was clear that it was not Ciarán at all. His hair was lighter but darkened by rain, and uneven stubble dappled his leathery face. He reached out, gripped her arm tightly, and pulled her inside. Mac fought him, but he was ruggedly built, with a feral smell of earth, body, and blood that assaulted her senses.
    He gave her arm a painful yank, jarring a clump of hair free from its clip. By reflex, she reached up and caught hold of her hair clip. With all the force she could muster, she jabbed it in his face. He cried out a curse but held onto her with one arm and yanked her closer. A shiver of an electrical current passed through her to him, and he shuddered. Unable to pull herself free, Mac leaned the full weight of her body away from her attacker. In doing so, her foot slipped on the loose stones. She stumbled, and the force of her fall pulled her free. She reached out to break her fall and barely missed a small rock on the ground. She grabbed hold of the rock and started to scramble toward the mouth of the chamber, but a hand clamped around her ankle.
    Mac screamed and rolled over, jabbing her boot heel at his groin, squarely striking her target. Her attacker paused in his tracks, long enough for Mac to land another strong kick that threw him off-balance so that he staggered back into the stone wall behind him. Except he did not fall against it. He dissolved and went through it.
    Mac lay stunned for a moment. Fearing that he might return, she pulled herself up and ran out of the stone chamber and back to her house. She drew near the porch steps and flinched at the sound of a voice.
    “Out running already? Well, aren’t you the early bird?”
    “David?” she panted, her heart still pounding with lingering fear.
    David rested comfortably in an old wooden porch chair. “The sun’s barely up.” He rose long enough to pull a coffee from the cup holder clamped to his bicycle handlebars. When he first got it, they had laughed about the extra geek factor it gave him; all he needed to complete the picture was some plastic streamers on his handlebars.
    Mac was not laughing now at the image. With a furtive glance back toward the stone chamber, she took the coffee and thanked him.
    “What happened to you?” He stared at her forearm, which was already showing signs of emerging bruises.
    Mac looked at her arm and tried to shrug it off, but it was hard to ignore. “It must’ve happened when I fell earlier.”
    “You fell? How?” He examined her arm, looking doubtful.
    Mac