Sneaks

by B Button

Mac looked around. The courtyard was lit by torches and the sun had only set recently, so there were remnants of light. “Are ye sure?”

  “Yes. Go on. I’ll wait right here.”

  I sat on the bench that I had become familiar with. The air did do me some good, and so did Mac’s temporary absence. My head needed a good dose of clearing. I didn’t jump up and down and yell, but I calmed down.

  A noise sounded toward the back of the courtyard, the same area I’d been attacked and sent back to my own time that long year ago. I froze on the bench. I knew I should run back into the castle. I should ignore the noise – go back inside and look for Mac.

  But I didn’t go back into the castle. Some stupid curiosity pulled at me. I wanted to see what the noise was. I wanted to see who had been following me, who had already been outside when Mac and I had come into the courtyard. It must have been the sense of someone watching me that had made the hair on my arms stand up.

  I stood and wrapped my fingers tightly around the pendant.

  The torchlight only reached so far, and as I made it to the perimeter of the courtyard, the darkness thickened. I blinked and peered into it.

  “Hello? Who’s there?”

  Of course, no one answered.

  The awareness of my stupidity suddenly became larger than my resolve. I tightened my grip on the pendant and took a fleeting step backwards.

  I tripped over something and fell hard to the ground. I hit my head, but I didn’t know if I’d broken the chain. I’d find out soon enough.

  *****

  “Kally?” Mac said.

  I opened my eyes to him looking down at me.

  “Mac? I’m still here.”

  “Aye. Ye are all right?”

  “Yes, I think so.” I sat up. My head hurt.

  “What happened to ye?”

  “I tripped.” I reached for the pendant, confirming it was still around my neck. I looked at the ground. I’d tripped over a rock.

  “I ken that. What were ye doing back here?”

  “I, uh. Damn. Oh, Mac.” I started shaking uncontrollably.

  He put his arm around my shoulders.

  “What is it, lass? Tell me.”

  I couldn’t bear the thought of being sent away again against my will. I’d have to tell him. I’d have to try to explain what I didn’t understand myself.

  “I need to tell you some things. Now.”

  He nodded and put his finger over my lips.

  “Shh. Not here. We’ll go where no one can hear us.” I could have walked, but without strain he picked me up and carried me into the castle. I thought he might take me to his father or to Ian, but he didn’t. Instead, he whispered in my ear that everything was going to be all right.

  Mac took me upstairs, opened a door, and then looked all directions before taking me into his room.

  He put me gently on the bed and went to the water basin.

  “Can ye tell me what happened?” he asked as he wiped my face gently with a wet cloth and inspected the bump that wasn’t bleeding.

  “I tripped – tonight, but before, the last time I was here and then disappeared, I was attacked.”

  “What? Who attacked ye?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Mac sighed. “I need ye to start from the beginning, Kally”

  “Mac …”

  “Please, Kally, tell me everything.”

  I didn’t know where else to begin so I said, “Mac, I’m from not only another place but another time, too.”

  He sat on the bed and inspected my eyes with his. He must have thought I’d broken something loose inside my head with the fall.

  “Tell me,” was all he said after a moment.

  He didn’t interrupt once as I told him about my century, and Chigo, and my mom, and the Govment, and the Big Decision, and Mr. Bellini, and how one day everything changed and I was transported back in time to Scotland where I found a baby about to be eaten by a wolf. And, how I couldn’t see my world the right way anymore after that and all I wanted to do was to get back to Scotland to see my new friends. I didn’t know sixteen years would pass to my one, though, so now, and especially since I’d so totally disrupted Mac’s life, I wondered if I should just pull the chain and go home and quit tormenting my new friends.

  For a long time Mac was silent. He looked at me and then he looked vacantly up at the ceiling. When he finally spoke, his question surprised me. “So, if yer pendant is removed, ye’ll go back to yer time?”

  “That’s what happened a year ago.”

  “Then we’ll have to never pull the chain, ever. Unless ye want to go home.”

  “I don’t want to leave you, but I miss my mom. You need to remember that if I disappear without saying good-bye, I didn’t go on purpose. If I go on my own, I will tell you first.”

  Mac sighed again. “I wilna let ye out of my sight, Kally. I’ll keep ye safe.”

  “Mac, you can’t watch me all the time.”

  “Aye, I can.”

  “Think about that. There is no way to make that work.”

  He wasn’t listening.

  “Ye’ll stay here with me at night and during the day, I’ll check on ye often and make sure ye’re in a group of people I trust.”

  “I can’t stay with you at night, Mac. You should understand that. Your father and brother would lose their minds. Plus, I can’t keep my hands of you.” My cheeks flushed hotly.

  His eyes opened wide. “Oh, I’ll sleep on the floor. Or, no, I’ll sleep next to ye on the bed. I promise I wilna pester ye.”

  “It’s not you I’m worried about. It’s me.” Even now, with him sitting next to me and being serious, I had the urge to . . .

  “Och, I’ll kept ye at bay.”

  “I doubt it,” I said.

  “Weel, maybe not. But I’ll not leave ye unwatched.”

  “Mac, it wasn’t real tonight. I think I imagined it. Whoever sent me back sixteen of your years ago might not even know I’m here. Whoever it was might not care anymore. It was a long time ago and whatever harm I was doing them then might not have one thing to do with now. I’ll be fine. You know the details, and that’s what was most important to me. Besides, I’ll probably be coming back to your time on every birthday that I’m wearing this pendant.”

  “Then ye’ll wear it forever,” he said as he gently touched the chain at my throat. “I’ll not live with the thought of never seeing ye again.”

  “That sounds like a command.”

  He pulled me to him in a tight hug and brushed his lips under my ear. “Ye’re mine now, and I promise I’ll obey yer commands just as ye obey mine.”

  “Mac,” I said.

  He put his hand on the back of my head and kissed me. Finally, I gently pushed at his chest.

  “See what I mean. We should not be in the same bed together. Not yet.”

  “Aye, ye’re certainly right about that,” he said as he gently released me and moved out of the bed. He stood next to it and put his hands on his hips. “I have another solution.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Let’s get married. Tonight.

  “What?” The pain in my head got worse. Did he just say we should get married? Tonight?

  “I believe that would solve our main concern, would it not?”

  “Mac, let’s for just a minute forget that I travel through time. We don’t know each other very well at all. I thought . . . well, I thought that if something as crazy and you and I getting married ever happened it would be because we knew each other and had fallen in love – like in my grandmother’s day.”

  “I love ye, Kally. I always have. I tried to explain that to ye,” he said.

  My head was about to pop off my neck. What would my grandmother do? She’d often talked about love and romance and things that died out with her generation.

  Kally, I just knew, she’s said about my grandfather.

  Old pictures of her and the grandfather I never knew played through my aching head. They’d loved e
ach other so much, you could see their love just in the way they looked at each other, the way they stood next to each other, the way my grandfather’s hand was always placed at my grandmother’s waist.

  I just knew. I just knew he was the one.

  “Mac. I love you too.” I said, astonished at the realization.

  “Of course,” he said as he reached forward and pulled me from the bed.

  Oh, my head hurt so much. “But Mac,” I said before he could hypnotize me with more kisses, “we can’t get married just yet.”

  “Why not?”

  “I want to be courted,” I said.

  “Aye?”

  “Yes. I do. If I get to do this the old-fashioned way, I want the whole thing. I want to be courted and proposed to.” I did. There was something about the stories Granny told me. I wanted to be a part of those stories. But there was something else too. It was all so much, so different, so bizarre, and so without my mom. I couldn’t make such a decision so quickly.

  “I see. That doesna help our current predicament,” he glanced at the bed, “but I understand.”

  “You understand?”

  “I didna say I liked it, but yes I understand. I’ll court ye like ye’ve never been courted. For tonight, I guess I’ll be sleeping on the floor.”

  “That sounds very uncomfortable.”

  “Ye have no idea,” he raised his eyebrows, “but part of you being courted is the part where I protect ye. Tonight I shall not leave ye alone. We’ll discuss it further tomorrow. Things always look different with the sun.”

  Reluctantly, we pulled apart. We split up the bedding and I burrowed deeply into his feather mattress. My head was still pounding but with less furor. I did feel safer with him in the room. Somehow, some way, even though my entire life had changed in ways I could have never predicted, I slept, soundly and without fear. In fact, later I would think about that night and I would know that that was the first time that my life became my own. It was all about me, the choices I would make. It was a turning point, and I would always wonder if I’d made the right decisions.

  Before I knew it, I woke up, the sun hitting my face.

  “Good morning,” Mac said. He was sitting in a chair next to the fireplace.

  “Good morning.” I sat up. My headache was gone, and the sight of my wild hair and puffy eyes didn’t make him scream. We were off to a good courting start.

  “How did ye sleep?” His hair was loose, out of the braid and I had an urge to dive into it.

  “Unbelievably well. You?”

  “Fine.”

  “Right.”

  “I’ve got some fresh water. I went to yer room and got the dress Una had laid out.”

  “Una. I bet she’s wondering about me – where I am.”

  “Maybe. We’ll figure that out if we need to.”

  “What are you doing?”

  “This?” He held up a piece of the wood. “It’s just something I do to pass time.”

  I crawled out of the bed, stretched and walked over to the chair across from him.

  “You carve?”

  “Och. Dunno,” he shrugged.

  He had carved about ten different horses out of small pieces of wood. They couldn’t be more than a couple inches high, but I could see strands of mane, leg muscles and even which direction their eyes were looking.

  “These are amazing.”

  “It’s too bad ye dinna like horses.”

  “I like these horses.” I grabbed one that was reared up but balanced perfectly when I set it on the table.

  “They’re yers then.”

  “I can’t take them. They’re amazing, though.”

  “Take that one, then. I’m glad ye like it.”

  “I love it. Thank you.”

  “Ye’re welcome,” he smiled.

  A knock on the door brought us back to reality.

  “Mac, is Kally with ye?” the laird’s said from the other side.

  We had some explaining to do.

  *****

  No one bought into the idea of Mac and me staying in the same room. That is, unless we were married. I stuck by my guns about wanting to be courted and neither of us told the others about my travels through time. We thought we might someday, but I figured they might send me away if they thought I made it up.

  Brian and Ian Duncan wanted us to get married as quickly as possible, but I knew their motives were purely business. They wanted Mac to be married so he couldn’t marry someone else. It was the best possible thing to tell Ivar Lennox. I still wasn’t swayed. I knew it was smart to give it just a little more time.

  And then suddenly, the weeks passed more quickly than I had ever experienced. Things became routine and normal. I worked on clocks and allowed Mac to court me in the most regal ways possible. He was romantic and a total gentleman, until one night.

  Just as I’d about drifted off to sleep, I felt someone join me in my bed. My eyes sprung open and I sat up quickly.

  “I’m sorry, lass. It’s just me.” Mac’s eyes twinkled off the moonlight coming in through the window.

  “Mac. What are you doing?”

  “I just want to talk to ye. No one will find us.” He circled his arm around my waist and pulled me back down to the bed.

  “I don’t think this is such a good idea.”

  “I want ye close for what I have to tell ye.”

  “Sounds serious.”

  “Aye.” I curled my back to Mac’s chest. He wrapped his arm over me and sighed deeply. “Ye feel wonderful, though.”

  “Mac.”

  He laughed. “I ken, I ken.”

  “What do you have to tell me?”

  “Something’s happened.”

  “What?”

  “I have to go away for a short time.”

  “Go away?” I tried to sit up again, but his arm tightened and I stayed in place. “Where?”

  “Not far. My father has work for me to do – but I have to visit others to take care of the task.”

  “I see. Do you have to collect money?” I remembered the first time I met Corc.

  “That’s not my job. I have to help some people with a cow.”

  I laughed. I couldn’t help it.

  “Of course ye dinna understand what I mean. I have to take a cow out to people who lost theirs. They’ll be hungry through the winter if they no have the milk to drink or to make their cheese.”

  Of course. It was both as simple and as complicated at that. Life here was very dependant on livestock. I’d figured that out.

  “That’s nice of you.”

  “It’s nothing. It is my job to do.”

  “How long will you be gone?”

  “Just two days. But there’s more.”

  “Uh-oh.”

  “I’ll be gone for the two days. But when I return, my da . . . Ian . . . I hope ye’ll . . .”

  “What?”

  “We need to get married, lass. If ye’ll consider having me now. I ken I haven’t courted ye for as long as ye’d like, but Da and Ian are starting to get impatient and Lennox is pressuring us all. This is my proposal, and I ken that it isna perfect. But I love ye completely. Lass?”

  “I don’t know what to say.”

  “Lass, I need to ken. Do ye want to marry me?”

  I turned over and wrapped myself around him. I’d known he was the one, and I’d stalled long enough. I’d given myself time to think and I knew that I could either stay and marry him soon or go home to my mother. I’d been torn, but when it came down to it, the thought of leaving Mac tore me apart more than the thought of never seeing my mother again. It was time. “Yes, Mac, I want to marry you.”

  “Good.” He laughed lightly. “I ken ye’d come to yer senses.”

  “Mac,” I loosened my vice-grip on him. “How do I plan a wedding in two days?”

  “Una will take care of everything.”

  And she did.

  *****

  My life in 2185 had become unreal, more like a dream than a lif
e. I’d pushed everything from that time and place to somewhere else in my consciousness, somewhere that was behind a wall; fuzzy and incomplete.

  Even though I’d made my decision, an image of my mom, clear and not fuzzy at all, kept finding its way to the front of my mind, especially as I prepared for my wedding – something that was accomplished with an appointment with the Division of Marriage in my time. But, true to my grandmother’s stories, this wedding would have a white dress, music, flowers and an aisle to walk down.

  And I wanted my mother to see it, see me.

  It was an impossible wish but thoughts of her were a part of every flower I looked at, every moment of dress fitting, every ribbon I dropped on the floor.

  I also couldn’t deny a sense of dread that hung with me too. I chalked it up to missing my mother, but I couldn’t shake it. Maybe I was just nervous, but I didn’t think so. Something stuck in my gut and made me feel afraid.

  Mac was supposed to be back the day before the wedding, so when he didn’t show up when he was supposed to, the sense of foreboding grew into full-on fear. Had something happened to him? Was I sensing that he was hurt, or worse?

  As the day turned into night, I was beside myself, but I was the only one. Everyone told me that the sort of excursion that Mac was on frequently took longer than expected. I waited for him in the courtyard.

  Surprisingly, it was Maisie who brought me a piece of burlap to rest on.

  “Kally, I have something I must tell ye,” she said, her eyes still avoiding mine.

  Those were the most words she’d ever said to me.

  “What?”

  “I’ve been following ye. I’ve been spying on ye.”

  “You? Why?”

  “I was afraid my Ian would still love ye, but I ken that isna true – well, maybe it’s true, but he loves me and his bairns more. I wanted to make sure ye stayed away from him.”

  “I see.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay. I hope you know better now.”

  “I see how much ye and Mac love each other. I’m sorry.”

  “I have a question, Maisie.”

  “Aye?”

  “Was it you who attacked me sixteen years ago, the last time I was here?”

  The scrunch in her forehead and the surprise in her eyes seemed genuine.