Cassandra and the Sisterhood
Hope Triumphant II: Sister
TILL DEATH
13 May 2027
MacLeod Farm, The Highlands of Scotland
Connor pulled on the reins, stopping the mare at the top of the small rise. Far below lay Loch Shiel, its peat-dark waters gleaming blue in the late spring sunshine. A boat carrying a load of tourists from Glenfinnan chugged its way north, leaving a rippled V in its wake. A rare sight now, though in years past, the boat had run every day in the summer. Connor didn't miss it. The surrounding hills stood rank upon rank, their edges blurred between shadows and sunshine, their peaks still gleaming white with snow. The air tasted sweet and new, its warm moistness nearly drowning the ever-present dry dust of stone at the back of the throat. In over five hundred years, Connor had found no place to match his homeland, no place he'd rather call home.
Across a field of green spring grass and thousands of faded dying daffodils, stood a two-story farmhouse and a gray-walled barn, with a small guest cottage off to one side-the farmstead he and Alex had bought thirty-three years ago. Colin and Oona owned it now. A cloud strayed in front of the sun; its shadow slid down a distant hill and was swallowed by the waters. The ripples from the tour boat passed into the dark streak of waves. Connor clucked to the mare, and she pricked up her ears and headed briskly for her home.
"How'd she do, Dad?" Colin called, coming out of the stable, a bucket of feed in one hand. "Did the new shoe help?"
"That it did," Connor answered, dismounting. "Her gait's much better now."
He lifted the mare's front hoof, and he and Colin inspected the shoe. At the house, a curtain twitched at the kitchen window, but when Connor straightened and turned to look, no one was there.
"Mom's still inside," Colin offered.
"All morning?"
He nodded, his head still down, still looking at the shoe. "She said it was cold."
It wasn't cold.
Colin straightened and reached for the reins, took them easily in a work-roughened hand. He met Connor's gaze straight on. "I'll take care of the tack, Dad. You go on in to Mom."
"Thanks," Connor said. He reached out and ruffled his son's light brown hair, a rare gesture these last fifteen years, ever since Colin had grown taller than his dad. Connor dropped his hand to Colin's shoulder, feeling the solid strength of muscle over bone, and then the warmth of Colin's hand over his. "Thank you," Connor said again, and Colin nodded, both of them trying to smile.
"I'm glad you and Mom stayed, after the wedding," Colin said.
"I'm glad you and Oona asked us," Connor replied. "Your mom's always loved the Highlands in the spring."
"So do you," Colin said softly, and it was true. But that wasn't why Colin had invited them. "The daffodils were incredible this year," he added.
"Yeah." Connor's gaze went to the hillside where Alex had knelt nearly every autumn, planting bulbs, one by one, until the separate patches of flowers had merged into a glorious torrent of yellow and gold. "They were."
Colin was looking at the hillside, too. He breathed deeply of the sweet spring air and lifted his face to the sun. "It's good to be home." Then he looked at Connor with a direct and steady gaze, just like his mother's, except Alex's eyes were a darker blue. "When my time comes," Colin said matter-of-factly, "I want to die here, too."
In the house, Connor found Alex at the kitchen table, sitting in a patch of sunshine that frosted her all-white hair with light. The long wooden trestle table stood where it always did in the summer, near the windows that overlooked the garden. In colder weather, the table was moved in front of the fireplace. Colin and Oona had added new curtains and painted the room pale blue instead of yellow, but other than that, the kitchen looked much as it always had, back when John had been a teenager, back when Alex had first taught the twins to make cookies, back when her hair had been gold.
"Hey," Connor said, as he slid in beside her on the bench.
"Hey," she replied, the simple word accompanied by a quiet smile. She would always have a beautiful smile. "Good ride?"
"Yeah. The shoe helped." He picked up the piece of paper that lay on the table in front of her. It was a list of about twenty names, written in a scrawled and shaky script. Some of the names were barely legible. Alex had given up working on crossword puzzles months ago. "Why not do the voice-recognition ones?" Connor had asked, and Alex had shrugged, saying, "There's no pen to chew on when I don't know the answer." She did use computers and vocoders for business, but she'd always liked to write out lists and personal letters by hand.
On this list, the words "MacLeod Family" were written at the top on the left. His name came first, followed by Rachel, John and Gina, Sara and Daniel, Colin and Oona, Duncan and Susan, Tom, Paula. The three grandchildren were listed next. The five members of the "Johnson Family" were on the right-hand side. Under the heading "Friends" there were as yet only two names: Jennifer Corans and Grace. "May's a little early for a Christmas list," Connor observed.
"It's a guest list," Alex said. The words came out slightly slurred, a little hoarse. "For my funeral."
Slowly, he laid the paper down.
"Who do you want to be there, Connor?"
He didn't want anyone. He didn't want there to be a funeral. He didn't want to hear Colin talking about it, he didn't want to think about it, and he didn't want Alex to die. But- "They all die," he'd said once to Duncan, and now here he was, staring into Death's unblinking eyes once again.
Connor shrugged, delaying, denying, but Alex was waiting, and he couldn't disappoint her, not now. "Family's good," he came up with finally. His words sounded hoarse, too, but that was temporary. That was a slight tightening in his throat, not some damned disease that stripped away muscle and ate into the nerves. ALS they called it, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, known as Lou Gehrig's disease in the U.S., and Motor Neurone Disease in England, and Maladie de Charcot in France, but naming a thing didn't control it, and even with five different names and after decades of research, modern medical science was helpless to do anything to stop the disease that was slowly devouring the woman he loved. And so Connor was helpless, too, helpless in the face of the most implacable enemy of all.
"Yes, I'd like to keep it private," Alex said.
She'd said almost the exact same thing when they'd planned their wedding, thirty-three years ago. "Small and private," she'd said. "Just family and close friends."
Now she was talking about friends. "I was thinking we should invite Evann," Alex said.
"Yeah, we should," Connor agreed. Evann would want to be there, to stand by his side, as he had stood by hers. "And Matthew McCormick, too."
"Of course. But, Duncan…"
"They'll manage," Connor said. Both Evann and Duncan knew better than to pick a fight at a funeral, even if it wasn't going to be on Holy Ground.
"Have she and Duncan ever met?"
Connor thought back. "Don't think so."
"Then they might not recognize each other." Alex picked up the pen and wrote Evann's name down, saying, "I'll send them pictures of each other, so they'll know."
"Good idea." He could just imagine Duncan blithely introducing himself to a woman who'd been made a widow by his hand. Evann wasn't after Duncan's head, but she certainly wasn't his biggest fan.
McCormick's name came next to Evann's, and then underneath Alex printed "Cass" and said, "I talked to her about it a long time ago."
How long? Just when had Alex given up on living and started planning to die? "When, Alex?" Connor asked, because he needed to know. His voice was hoarse again.
"Oh, ages." She sounded almost cheerful. "I think Colin and Sara were four, maybe five. Cass and I were talking about different cultures' funeral rites, and I told her I expected her to come to mine, and she promised she would."
Connor couldn't decide if that was morbid or thoughtful.
"I've already invited Methos," Alex announced.
Connor blinked. "You're kidding."
"No. He's been a friend to me." She wrote Methos's name right beneath Cassandra's. At least she didn't put them on the same line. The pen jittered against the paper at the final S, and the letter turned into a smear of black ink. "They'll manage, too. He and Cass both know the other is coming, and they certainly know what each other looks like. And it's time. Plus, I think Duncan would like to see him, too." Alex pushed the pen over to him. "Anybody else?"
Connor concentrated on answering the question, not allowing himself to think of the reason for it. Alex had already listed the family, and as for close friends… Their old housekeepers, the MacNabbs, had passed away long ago, and Tommy Maclure, Alex's friend from the New York museum, had died in a terrorist attack in 2016. The Osatos had moved back to Okinawa when Sara and Colin were twelve, nineteen years ago, and neither side had kept in touch. Lately, Connor and Alex had been staying close to home. Close to each other. There wasn't anyone else.
On to the Immortals: Sean Burns, dead. Richie Ryan, dead. Who else did Alex know? Who else would want to say goodbye?
"Don't worry about me," she said, somehow managing to read his mind, as she often did. Rachel must have given her lessons. "Who do you want there?"
Duncan, of course, and the family. Grace would be good, helpful and steady. So would Evann, though in a different way, and he didn't mind McCormick being around. But adding Methos and Cassandra brought the total to seven Immortals, and that was more than enough. Connor shook his head and pushed the pen away.
"Hey, MacLeod," Alex said softly, and Connor immediately braced himself for whatever was to come. He'd heard that summons a few times before. But when he looked up, she was only smiling at him and holding out her hand, a hand that was far too thin, too white, and too unsteady. "Let's go sit in the garden," she suggested. "It's a beautiful day."
"It's a beautiful day," she repeated, after they had settled themselves on the bench in the garden, with a blanket over her legs, and her back against his chest, and his arms holding her tight. He closed his eyes to breathe in the fragrance of her hair: lemon and roses. It was subtle, yet easy to catch since there was no competition from the apple blossoms; they'd lost the whole orchard during the ice storms of '23.
"You know what, Connor?" Alex said thoughtfully, after they'd watched the clouds float across the sky and listened to the birds singing from fences and trees. "Five out of six isn't bad."
Connor didn't know what. "Hmm?"
"From the marriage vows," she explained. "For richer, for poorer; for better, for worse; in sickness and in health. I think we've done them all, except for being poor." She twisted in his arms to look up at him. "And you've been marvelous, all the way through, even when I was-"
"Shh," he said softly, touching her cheek and then wiping away the tear he found there. "I love you," he said, and that was reason enough.
She gave him another beautiful smile, and more tears to wipe away. "I know. Thank you."
"My pleasure."
Her smile shifted to match his mischievous grin, then faded. "But not always."
"Alex," he began, not wanting to dredge up old hurts—not for him, not for her, and God above, not now!-but she was right, and she was honest, and she wanted him to be honest, too. It hadn't been pleasant, no, not during those years when she'd shut him out of her life, when she'd made herself just as unreachable as the antique doll that Rachel kept in a glass cabinet behind lock and key, a delicate porcelain figure in fragile silks that would crackle into pieces at the touch of a human hand. But he had known Alex loved him, and so he had waited, loving her in silence from a distance, loving her through the pain—hers and his—until she had reached out to him again.
As she was reaching out to him now. "The hard times made the good times that much better," he told her, then grinned again. "Made me appreciate them more." When she grinned back, he leaned forward and kissed her—slowly, carefully, passionately—and she wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him with all the sweet promise of springtime, and the passionate heat of summer, and the full and utter glory of fall. God, he didn't want to lose her!
She pulled away first, and then she traced her finger down the bridge of his nose. He tilted his head up to kiss the tip of her finger. Her hand was icy cold. "To have and to hold," she pledged, as she had pledged to him years before. "To comfort and to keep."
Connor knew his line. He lived it every day. "To love and to cherish."
But that left the last line for Alex to say, and she said it, looking right into his eyes: "Till death do us part."
Death had been waiting, all this time. He'd known that, of course, and so had she. "Alex," he began, calling her name, trying to call her back, hoping to call her home, but she lifted his left hand and kissed each finger, one by one, coming back to his wedding ring and kissing that, too, before she announced, "I've picked the date, Connor."
He had to swallow twice before the word would come. "When?"
"June fifteenth."
Four weeks. Four weeks and five days.
"School's done by then," she was saying. "Traveling shouldn't be too hard."
"Alex, you can't—"
"I can," she broke in, utterly determined on this, as he knew all too well. "Death won't have to stop for me, Connor," she'd told him months before. "I'm going to go meet it, while I still can. I'm not waiting until I can't walk, until I can't swallow, until I can't even breathe. I'm not going to spend my last days hooked up to some damned machine, just waiting to die."
"I'll be there with you," he'd promised. "Every day."
"Connor, no," she'd said, the fierceness of her words softened by the start of tears. "You've seen the pictures. You know what this disease will do. I don't want to be a living skeleton, held together by skin. I don't want you to see me that way."
"I don't care!"
"Well, I do!" she'd yelled right back, then burst into tears all the way. "Don't you see?" she'd pleaded. "I don't want that to be your final memory of me."
And so it wouldn't be. Alex was going to kill herself on June fifteenth, four weeks and five days from now, take some pills and end her life, and Connor was going to hold her in his arms and watch her die.
There was nowhere else in the world he'd rather be. For on that day, he and Alex would say goodbye.
16 June 2027
Glenaladale, Scotland
Methos hated funerals. He especially hated funerals in the rain, and, of course, it was raining now. How not? They were in Scotland, and it always rained in Scotland. Or snowed. Or both. Today it was just rain, a cool, infrequent drizzle-not a downpour, not freezing sleet, not a frigid wind-lashed storm. Just rain.
He supposed he should be grateful for that.
Methos continued trudging up the hill, head down, watching the yellow shoes of the girl and the red boots of the boy who were walking in front of him. In between them, their mother (the wife of John MacLeod; Methos hadn't caught her first name) wore green. Grace, walking next to him, was in gray. Methos was in black. Their shoes swished through the sodden grass, punctuated at times by squeaks from rubber soles. From farther ahead came the sound of muddy squelches, as the feet of the six coffin-bearers went more deeply into the ground.
Trust a MacLeod to cling to the old ways. No procession of cars with their lights on, no coffin on a wheeled cart for "pallbearers" to walk alongside, no funeral "home" with subdued music and tastefully arranged flowers and a controlled climate. No, they were all outside, in the rain, following a plain wooden coffin being carried up a hill, while the grieving widower and the womenfolk and children of the family followed close behind. Connor was arm-in-arm with his daughter Rachel (who had to be eighty or more) to help her manage the slippery patches, just as Alex's brother was helping his mother, and Cassandra was helping an old woman in blue. Methos and Grace brought up the rear.
But it wasn't that long a climb, and it wasn't that steep a hill. Nor was the rain that bad. And there was something … communal in the shared, silent walk; something right, even for him.
At the top of the hill, next to a grave that had been dug the day before by all of the MacLeods, Duncan's low-voiced command brought the other five bearers to a halt. They set the coffin atop the set of three ropes stretched on the ground. Sara, Colin, and John each spoke briefly about their mother, Alex's mother read a poem, her brother said a prayer, and Cassandra sang an achingly beautiful lament in a language Methos didn't know. Connor stood silent and dry-eyed the entire time. Rachel held his hand.
Duncan, his silvered hair darkened to gray by the rain, nodded to the others, and they used the ropes to lower the coffin into the grave. It went surprisingly smoothly, but then Duncan, McCormick, and Evann had certainly all done this duty many times before, and the three young men knew enough to follow the immortals' lead. The ropes were pulled free, and the yellow-booted girl and the red-booted boy tossed pink roses on top of the coffin.
"Goodbye, Grandma," the boy said, and the girl sniffled and wiped her nose with the back of her hand. A woman was weeping softly, and from somewhere behind Methos, a baby cried. Connor stepped forward, a telltale tightness in his jaw and a slight tremor in his hand, before he dropped a handful of earth into the grave. Alex's mother and brother and Rachel followed suit, and then the three of them started walking together down the hill, back to the gray farmhouse. One by one, the mourners took their turn. The soil was sticky with the rain, and bits of it clung to Methos's fingers as he said farewell to Alex MacLeod, stepped back from the grave, and turned to go. The rain came harder, washing his hands clean.
At the farmhouse, he stopped on the porch and looked back at the hill. Connor and his sons were using shovels now, a steady lift and fall. They were the only ones still by the grave. Duncan and Susan had gone inside, and Grace was already in the kitchen, organizing the food. Cassandra and the old woman in blue—Jennifer, he thought he'd heard her called—passed Methos on the porch, the first woman with a subdued nod, the second with a dartingly quick inquisitive stare. "Is that…?" he heard her say as the door shut behind them, and Cassandra murmured, "Mmm."
Methos sighed. Then he stood there, listening to the rain, thinking of Alexa, and remembering the taste of summer strawberries and wine.
After a time, Colin and John came down the hill, dripping wet and spattered with mud. They nodded briefly and headed for the kitchen entrance, their boots clumping on the gray flagstones. Connor was still on the hill, kneeling by the grave. If he'd been motionless, praying, Methos wouldn't have continued watching, but Connor kept moving, reaching back and then leaning forward, his hands patting the newly mounded grave.
"He's planting daffodils," Cassandra said as she came onto the porch, bringing with her the hum and chatter of many voices before she shut the door. "They'll bloom in the spring."
"They always do." She stood, her arms folded, six feet and a world away, and they both watched the rain. It was coming in sheets now, and Connor could no longer be seen. "How long do you think he'll stay out there?" Methos asked.
"All night." She tossed her head to shift back the glorious length of her hair. "But Duncan will go to be with him soon."
Methos could summarize that bond in one word: "Clansmen."
"Family," she countered.
Topping her reply with "Brothers" would have been stupid in the extreme. "Family," he agreed, knowing how deep that need went in her. He'd noticed the fierce joy in her face earlier that day, as she'd held Sara's baby in her arms, just before the funeral began. Her face was pensive now. "Is that what you want, Cassandra?" he asked. "A family?"
"Isn't that what we all want, Methos?" she asked with sweet and disarming simplicity. "Someone to love, so we don't have to be alone?"
And then she was gone, into the hive of the voices, and he was alone, listening to the rain.
But not for long. Methos straightened, stretched, and wandered inside to get something to eat. He loaded his plate with cold sandwiches and fruit, talked with Evann and Duncan (though not both at the same time), and then amused himself by satisfying a little and titillating a lot of Jennifer's terminal curiosity. And always, through the hum and the chatter, he could hear the voice of Cassandra, and she was never alone.
Cassandra walked, alone. The rains of yesterday had gone, but the ground was soaked through, and Loch Shiel lay sullen under a sky of scudding gray clouds. The mounded earth had sunk a little, and the rain had erased the outlines of Connor's hands and blurred the many footprints around Alex's grave. Only a half-circle of dripped candle wax marked where Connor and Duncan had held vigil last night, at the foot of the grave.
Cassandra knelt before that slender crescent and dug into the ground with bare hands. Cold water seeped up into her skirt past her knees, and the wind blew cool. When the hole was as deep as her hand and as long as her arm, she emptied her bag of the dozens of snow drops and crocus, then nestled each bulb into the earth, to sleep until just after next winter's snows. Early bloomers these flowers, white and lavender and gold.
The daffodils would come with each spring, but next spring was still too far away.
This story of Cassandra (and Methos and Duncan and Connor) will be continued in
Hope Triumphant III
ANAMCHARA
AUTHOR'S NOTES
When I started writing Hope Triumphant II: Sister in 2001, I knew that Cassandra was taking on a daunting task in trying to change the world. I did not realize that writing her story would prove to be so daunting for me. "Sister" is not the story I wanted to write. It is not the story I tried to write, either. But after more than three years of revising and rewriting, this is the story I ended up with. I hope you found it enjoyable in some fashion.
Enormous appreciation is due to the steadfast friends and beta-readers who put up with my continual revisions, and to all the people on the J9G10 list.
Special thanks to:
Vi, for letting me borrow Elena and Lorenzo, and for co-writing the "Duende" section with Methos, which was originally conceived of as a separate story (working title "Hope Suntanned") years ago.
Robin, for letting me borrow Evann and giving good ideas of mayhem while patiently listening to me whine about characters and plots that resembled an immortal Hydra.
Bridget, for hanging in there through thick and thin.
Listen-r, for letting me borrow Emory and for helping with Dr. Jennifer, and for steady cheerfulness and knowing exactly when to offer a much-needed "Yay, you!" Listen-r wrote "The Darkness" section, Joe's memorial service at Le Blues Bar.
Tanja, for many insightful discussions, for introducing me to wonderful authors, and for essential assistance with the "Thick as Thieves" section with Amanda and Rebecca.
Genevieve, for many suggestions, long-term encouragement, and introducing me to many intriguing ideas and teaching me many things (and not just about computers) through the decades.
MacNair, for listening, supporting, and for giving Alex her due.
Cathy, for all things Joe and Watcherly.
Campbell, for many thoughtful discussions on Cassandra and Evann, and for prompting me to revise the events at the women's shelter, which led to Cassandra taking a much-needed hard look at herself.
Shelley, for asking to see more of Sara, just as years ago she asked to see more of Alex.
Laura, for reminding me of off-planet exploration, which has taken Methos in a new direction
for all those who have written to me about my stories through the last four years, thus giving me the encouragement to keep working on the Hope Series. I wouldn't have done it without you!
About Joe: Joe's fate in this story is, I know, unsettled. This first came about because I wanted the readers to empathize with Emory during that part, and since she wasn't sure what had happened to Joe, I didn't want the readers to know, either. However, when I went back to the story to write a definitive scene, I decided to leave the issue alone. Missing in action means just that, and the uncertainty of a person's fate can gnaw at you for years.
Joe was in the tunnel, walking away from Watcher HQ, when explosives were set in the building and it started to burn. Did the tunnel collapse? Was the air sucked out of it? Or was the safe house not really safe? Or did he die in some other fashion, a car accident or a mugging, perhaps? Was he kidnapped? Or, on a happier note, did he get out OK, lie low until he thought the coast was clear, and then contact Emory after she moved to Canada?
I never wrote that part of the story, and so it's still open-ended. His body was never found, and you can make of that what you will. If you write a story about what happened to Joe after the bombing of Watcher HQ, I'd love to read it.
Related Stories
For more about Duncan's wedding, see Goddess Child.
For more about Emory and Joe Dawson, see Listen-r's story Discoveries and Developments and the rest of the Emory series at 7th Dimension Archive.
For more about Joe and Amanda, see Listen-r's story Home for the Holidays.
For more about Elena and her husband, Lorenzo, see The Only Game in Town. For more Elena, look for stories by Vi Moreau.
For more about Evann, see Covers.
For more about Alex and Connor, see Wild Mountain Thyme, All the Good Women, All the Fun, Overtones, and The Oak and the Ash.
For more about Cassandra, see Hope Forgotten, Hope Remembered, and Hope Triumphant
For more about Methos, see Just a Game and Long Have I Waited