by B Button
“No, I’ve left her to drink in the courtyard. I worked her hard on this trip,” the male voice I didn’t recognize said.
The man’s footfalls moved toward me. I was torn between wanting to run to the kitchen or back up to my room. I wasn’t prepared to meet someone without an introduction. My indecision caused me to freeze in place.
He wasn’t tall. In fact, he might have still been an inch shorter than me. His long, red hair was pulled back in a plait, but it showed signs needing a wash and style. He was a full grown man. His bright blue eyes opened with surprise as he stepped into the room and saw me.
Ah, lass, pardon me. I dinna expect anyone in here yet.” He smiled slightly and did a mini-bow. “I dinna think I’ve had the pleasure. I’m Ian Duncan. And who may ye be?”
“I’m …” I began. He didn’t remember. My stomach plummeted.
“Ye are?”
“I’m Kally. Kally Bright.”
It didn’t.
Ian’s eyes first opened wide. He took a deep breath that verged on a gasp, but didn’t quite reach it. His face contorted as I could see he wanted to deny my declaration, but his mind began to bring back pictures from when he was fourteen, sixteen years ago. He was thirty, perhaps close to thirty-one. I didn’t know his birthday.
He was a grown man. He was broad-shouldered, wore the shadow of red beard that had been neglected for a couple days, had very hairy legs extending from the kilt, and a hairy a chest showing from underneath his plaid.
“Ian,” I said as tears welled in my eyes and then fell down my cheeks. I was so happy to see him, but I was sad, too. The boy I’d left behind had become a fast friend. Before me stood the man version, a version I didn’t want to attach to the boy I had known, because the loss of the years, of the potential time together to be friends was almost too much for me to take at this instant. Really, Ian had been my first real friend. No matter what, that friendship couldn’t be like it was.
“Kally?”
I nodded. “It’s difficult to explain what happened, but yes it is me.”
“Kally.” Ian stepped forward and pulled me to him in a hug. It wasn’t an act of affection from a man, but from the boy who had been allowed to step back in time for a brief beat. He pulled away, but held onto my arms.
“Is it really ye?”
“Yes, it is.”
“I need to understand what happened. Where have ye been? And why do ye still look almost the same?”
“I can’t look exactly the same,” I said. “You didn’t recognize me at first.”
“Ah, lass, if I’d had but another moment, the picture of you I have in my mind would have found its way back to the front. I never thought I’d see ye again, but I didna forget. I just wasna ready.” He put his hand lightly on my cheek.
“I see ye’ve met our company. Again,” Una said as she and her crew came from the kitchen carrying huge platters of food.
Ian pulled his hand away from my cheek and his eyes away from mine. I wiped at my tears.
“Get ye washed up for dinner, Ian boy. Fetch yer wife and come down and join us.”
Wife? Una’s words knotted my stomach. She nonchalantly went about putting trays and bowls on the table, but stayed in the room, one eyebrow cocked as if to tell me something.
I felt the color rush from my face and it was suddenly hard to breathe. Why hadn’t Una told me before? Did she this was less cruel?
“Are ye all right lass?” Ian said as he stepped forward.
I held my hand up.
“There, see she’s fine,” Una said as she wiped her hands on her apron.
“Verra well. I’ll see ye at dinner then, Kally.” Ian said hesitantly before he looked one more time at Una and then turned and left the room.
“Can’t wait.” I sounded idiotic.
“I’m sorry, lass,” Una said. “It’s been a long time. I forgot that ye wouldna ken that Ian was married. I’m sorry.”
I shook my head, but didn’t say anything as she turned and left.
Once again I was in the dining hall alone. It was almost too much to process. All the pictures I’d had in my head of some sort of happy reunion were gone. Reality was tough. I reached for the pendant.
“Lass,” Brian Duncan said from behind me.
I turned to face him. He’d cleaned up. His hair was neat and his clothes didn’t look slept in. He’d even shaved, which though there was no longer a forest of hair on his face, I could now see just how much he had aged. Sixteen years had not been kind to the laird. His handsome face was still handsome, but dark circles under his eyes and tugs of gravity at the corners of his mouth made him look older than he was.
And then he smiled. Briefly. A glance at the man I had met before. I smiled to myself. Though I realized I’d been the one to travel through time, I had just been given a very small piece of another form of time travel. If only for an instant, I’d been able to see Ian and Brian Duncan as they had been sixteen years earlier. It had only been a year for me so my mind had been able to pull up the pictures easily. Somewhere deep inside, I thought I now understood a small part of time travel, though I’d never be able to put words to that understanding.
“Laird,” I said, my voice even. I took my hand away from the pendant.
Brian Duncan sat at the head of the table and motioned for me to sit to his right. Mac joined us and he sat beside me but didn’t say more than a quick hello. The laird requested that Una sit next to him on his other side and have her people serve us. She did. And then Ian and his wife joined us.
Ian had married Maisie, the shy pretty girl who’d had stared at him on the very night I’d disappeared. She was still pretty, her brown hair thick and curly around her face. She didn’t keep her eyes toward the ground anymore but she didn’t have much to say either.
“Miss,” she said as she curtsied.
“Maisie,” I said.
She nodded, then looked at her husband who had his hand at her waist. He gently guided her to her seat. She wouldn’t look at me except from slanted-sideways eyes. Did she think I was "interested" in Ian? It had been sixteen years for her – she got the guy. I might have been interested in our old friendship, but anything else was too weird to even think about.
“Now,” the laird said, his voice commanding, “we shall not talk about how Mistress Kally has managed to do what she has done. We shall not ask her these questions this evening. We shall have dinner and talk about the weather if necessary, but we shall not make our guest uncomfortable. Maybe tomorrow, but not this evening.” The laird smiled and I think winked at me.
I smiled back and looked around the table. Mac and Ian looked downright perplexed at their father’s behavior. Una kept her eyes downward, apparently not ready to look Brian Duncan in the eyes.
“May I ask one question?” I said. I was determined to hide the ‘freak-out’ feelings I was having about pretty much everyone in the room so I focused on the one who hadn’t joined us.
“Aye.”
“Is there any chance that Corc will be coming to dinner?”
“No,” Mac said.
“Why not?”
“He’ll still need some time, lass,” Una said. “He kens ye’re here. He just needs some more time.”
“Oh.”
“Weel, enough of all that. Now, let’s speak of the weather and of my boys’ travels of late.”
The dinner was delicious and bizarre. Ian was clearly very close to his father and had become a man of power. Brian Duncan hadn’t led the people of his land as much as Ian had. He spoke of the people he had visited and the collections he had made. He hadn’t come home with as much money as expected, but there was positive talk about the promise of good-looking crops. I didn’t understand the business end of this world any more than my own, but it was interesting to hear Ian talk like such a grown-up. I tried not to stare at him and Maisie, but it was difficult. If Maisie tried not to send me the stink-eye, it must have been difficult, too.
Mac offered bits and pi
eces from his hunting trip. He was not in the powerful position that Ian held, but I didn’t sense any competitiveness between the two. I sensed a strong bond. It was almost stronger, it seemed, than the bond either of the sons held with their father.
Una loosened up as the dinner went on and at one point I saw the laird put his hand over hers and smile at her.
When everyone was done eating, or pretending to eat as in my case, Mac left quickly, but everyone else offered to escort me to my own room. I told them I wanted to sit for awhile and was left alone again.
I was tired, but I wasn't ready to go to my room yet. I needed to think, let it soak in that I'd really made it back to Scotland. I also thought that if I decided to go home, disappearing from the dining hall would be better than from my room. The dining hall was close to the front gates.
The fireplace wasn’t lit, but there were candles on the table. Someone would clean everything up soon, but currently the emptiness was cozy and familiar. There was a specific feel inside the castle walls, along with the smells and sounds. I’d tried to describe that feeling to my mom but never did find the right words. As I looked around, I realized that solid and sturdy would have worked, along with strength, perhaps even an arrogant protectiveness. Maybe it was because the walls were made of stone. I didn’t know how long the castle had stood in this place, but there was no sense that it was going anywhere anytime soon.
Suddenly, the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. Someone was watching me. I turned so quickly that I practically twisted my head off, but no one was visible. A noised ruffled in the hall so I hurried to search. There was nothing, really, just the flash of something that could have been a plaid, a kilt or the result of an overactive imagination. I didn’t want to be attacked again, especially when I still had unfinished business. I wasn’t ready to go home.
I kept hold of the pendant as I hurried to my room.
*****
I woke the next day in a fog of confusion. I must have slept so deeply that when the sun woke me, I had to take account of just where I was and what had happened.
Someone (probably Una) had come into my room and left me a clean basin of water, another dress and a thick piece of bread covered in creamy butter. I devoured the food and a tall mg of milk, cleaned up and got dressed. I was mad at myself as I remembered my sense of being watched from the night before and the fact that a mystery visitor had come into my room and left items as I slept right on through. As long as I stayed, I would have to do something so that I could notice when people visited me at night.
But today, my goal was to find Corc. I wished so much that I could explain everything to them all, but I just couldn’t. The fact that they welcomed me with open arms this time was beyond what I should have expected. I was happy about that, and I didn’t want to scare away their hospitality with tales of the 22nd century.
Someone in the kitchen said Corc would be in the stables. I knew my way; they were located out the back, a short distance from the courtyard. They weren’t too far, and I could hear the horses as I climbed a not so steep but very green hill. As I reached the top of the hill, I could the smell the animals.
No matter how sour they were, animal smells were much better than car exhaust and pollution smells.
I didn’t see Corc anywhere. For a moment, I didn’t see anyone at all so I made my way closer to the stables and closer to the smell. But then something flashed at the corner of my vision.
I was jumpy from the night before, so I turned quickly to see if someone was approaching. The flash flashed again. Something jutted out from behind a ridge to my right – maybe a piece of material and maybe some sort of metal? I climbed the hill to investigate. Just over the hill, I saw Mac. I went down on my belly so he wouldn’t see me.
He was in the middle of a small clearing, practicing things with a sword. He had only his kilt on and his exposed skin glistened with the sweat that covered his body from all the hard work.
He was tan. His shoulders were as wide, if not wider, than they looked when they were covered with the plaid. His arms were formed with muscles that must have been the result of this sort of work. He maneuvered the sword through the air, fighting an invisible but seemingly very strong foe.
His face was as serious as his work, stern and focused. His braid moved with his back and I couldn’t help but be fascinated with the way his shoulder blade muscles expanded and contracted continually.
I had officially become a big fan of kilts. Actually, I contemplated the fact that there should be a law that men had to wear them back in my own time. But then it was probably a small number of men who could wear a kilt like Mac could.
I laughed silently at myself. I might not have been allowed to feel it in my own time, but I'd read enough to know that I was feeling pure, hormone-induced lust. I kind of liked it. And I kind of didn't. It made me feel out of control in a way I wasn't used to. It made me want to stare at Mac. It made me want to do even more than that, but those were things I wasn’t supposed to think about.
I didn’t get bored as he sliced at the air for I didn’t know how long. At one point I felt a sting on my forehead and realized I was getting sun-burnt. I figured if Mac could take it, so could I. Besides, I wasn’t ready to leave.
As far as I knew, I wasn’t allergic to anything. So when a sneeze snuck up on me, I wasn’t prepared to stifle it. It was one for the record books, I was sure. At first I tried to flatten myself deeper to the ground, but that wasn’t going to work.
“Who’s there?” Mac looked my direction.
I stood. “Hey.”
“What are ye doing?”
“I was going to the stable to look for Corc, but I got side-tracked.”
“Oh.” Mac lifted his plaid from the ground and wrapped it around his upper body. Can I direct ye to the stables?”
“Uh, no. I know where they are.”
“Verra well.” He started to walk back toward the castle.
I could have let him go. I could have ignored his cold shoulder. But I didn’t want to.
“Mac?”
“What?”
“Are you angry at me?”
He swallowed and looked away from my eyes. He couldn’t hide the truth. “No,” he said. He started walking again.
“Because, I'm not angry at you any longer, if that matters, that is." I put my hand on my hips. "Mac, come on, what’s up?”
“Nothing.”
“Dammit Mac, tell me what it is.”
He looked at me, straight in the eye as a smile tugged at his lips.
“Come on,” I said as I touched his arm lightly.
“It's nothing, lass.”
“Then why are you being such a j . . . why do you seem angry?”
“I have work to do.”
I sighed, sounding more like my mom than I ever had.
But then something behind him caught my attention. I pushed on his arm and shoved him to the side. “Oh, Mac, look!”
He turned just as a poof of smoke rose from the roof of the stable. Did the stable have a fireplace or was the building on fire?
Mac exclaimed something in Gaelic, dropped his sword and took off in a sprint. I followed behind.
He stopped in front of the burning building; he seemed to evaluate what to do next. The puff that had a few moments ago been only smoke, now had flames within it reaching up to the sky.
“Corc!” Mac yelled.
“Corc! Oh, no, Corc!” I yelled too.
“Kally, take the horses ye can gather and move them away,” Mac commanded.
The few horses that were out of the stable were enclosed in an attached corral. They were jittery and noisy, probably sensing the trouble. I didn’t have any idea what to say to them to get them to listen to me, so I just opened the gate and yelled.
“Come on, get out of there!”
The horses heard my voice. They must have already figured they needed to get away from the danger so once they noticed the open gate, they galloped toward it. I couldn�
��t have stopped them if I’d wanted to, so I let them run by and watched them sprint up a hill and away from the fire.
Then I faced the darkening stable. Mac had gone in but he hadn’t come out and the smoke and fire were both growing. I heard the whinny-cry of more animals just in time to step out of the way of four more horses that had been freed from inside. I had no idea how many animals or humans were still in the fire, but I knew of one.
“Mac!” I coughed and blinked, the smoke taking over.
No answer. I ran away from the building and tried to clear my lungs. I took as deep a breath as possible and ran back toward the darkness and what I thought was the door of the stable.
“Mac!”
Nothing.
“Mac!” I tried again.
I heard a cough from somewhere to my left. Remembering that in a fire, you should get low to the ground, I went down on my hands and knees and crawled toward the cough. I lost all sense of direction and light. I moved and reached, groped at the ground and through the smoke.
The cough sounded again.
I reached a bit further and found something that felt like a leg.
“Lass,” Mac said. “Go back. Get out.”
I was close enough now that I could see Mac dragging Corc out of the stable. Corc was either dead or unconscious and Mac looked as though he’d been dipped in soot.
“Let me help.” I tried to grab another part of Corc and we pulled. And then coughed and then pulled.
An eternity or so later, we were out in the open and away from the flaming wood that was disappearing so quickly that it looked like it was melting.
Corc was on his back on the ground, but before either Mac or I could offer him attention, we both had to clear our lungs. And it wasn’t pretty.
I was on my knees and bent over, my insides coming up my throat, when someone touched my back and a raspy voice said, “Kally are ye going to be all right.”
“I (cough) I think so.”
“Good,” Mac said. “I have to see what I can do for Corc. I’ll send someone back for ye.”
“No,” I waved. “Let me help you with him.”
