A Path of Oak and Ash by M.P. Reeves Read Free Book Online

back against the chair.  This was insane, pure insanity. There was no such thing as giant birds, trees that bent to your will, shape shifting illusions.  All of it was nonsense.
    Yet nonsense he had seen with his own eyes, nonsense he had done with his own hand.
    “I see your turmoil.  Worry not, when we get to our destination, you will believe.”  The false bass voice tried to comfort him.  On some strange level, Carrick found himself wondering what his uncle’s true form really was.  He doubted any of the faces he’d seen so far were correct.
    The rest of the flight passed with little of interest. Carrick slept most of the way, dreaming of his mother.  In his mind he pictured her as he always did, the smiling healthy strong woman she had been when he was eleven.  They had been living in Arizona at the time. He felt the dry heat of the southwest, the warm sun tanning his skin.  Saw his mother's long gauze skirts blowing in the breeze as she called to him from the porch that it was time to come inside. Smelled the spices and peppers of dinner wafting from the house carried upon the melody of the lute music she played on the radio.  He ran towards her, arms outstretched, his sandaled feet pushing off the stone pathway with a loud clack.
    He always woke up before he made it to her arms.  Carrick would try to go back to sleep, to finish that journey, but he’d always be back out in the yard.  His mother forever out of reach.  It left him more exhausted than rested when the plane landed in Glasgow.
    From Glasgow the pair boarded a train to Oban a little bay town nestled in the Firth of Lorn.  A resort town that, as Erik pointed out, was used by humans since Mesolithic times. Archaeological remains of cave dwellers had apparently been found in town.  It was a beautiful little place that seemed to have been recently infected with far too many tourist traps and flashy signs, but the culture from ages past could still be seen past all the glitz.  Dunollie Castle, overlooked the main entrance to the bay, Erik commented that the ‘stone beast’ had stood since 7th century.   Apparently in more recent years, the quiet tourist trap had acted as a major naval launch point on World War II during the battle of the Atlantic.  Period memorabilia shouted that fact from a few of the shops decorated with yellow buy one get one signs.
    Unfortunately there was no enjoying the local tourist traps or ancient ruins.  Erik marched them directly from the train station to the docs where Calmac ferries carried them to Iona aboard a ship designated as a tourist day vessel.
    It was a beautiful island, the kind you found on postcards with rolling hills, green meadowlands, and a sea of purple flowers on the hilltops.  The beaches blanketed with white sand, water gently washing over them in crystal blue perfection.  An old stone Christian monastery sat in the distance, a dirt road leading up into the isle, disappearing into the hills.
    The tour guide in his white polo shirt and crisp khaki pants droned on as the boat approached the docks.  “Once we land we will explore the remains of the Benedictine Nunnery founded in 1203 by Reginald MacDonald of Islay, Lord of the Isles. Then we will have some time to explore more of the island from the hill junction, south we will find Port a’ Churaich, the Port of the Coracle, where Saint Columba first set foot on the island and later established his now famous monastery.
    Of course, centuries before the arrival of St Columba on Iona in 563 the island had been adopted as a center of religion by sun worshipping Druids. Like Columba, these Dark Age clerics must have sensed something unique in the atmosphere of Iona, a quality that still sets it apart as a spiritual oasis.
    Perhaps it was the sparkling clarity of its light that appealed to these early mystics, for here the sky seems to open directly to Heaven not only as the sun goes down in comparable splendor, but throughout any sunny day