Tavish: A Time Travel Romance (Dunskey Castle Book 1)

by Jane Stain

  “Tomorrow is another day, lass. Ye are plum exhausted.” She nodded to the table, where Sorcha was setting down a bowl of soup and some bread, and then sat Kelsey down there.

  At first, it seemed like too much work to pick up the spoon and eat the soup, but the hot liquid felt so good on her throat. The bowl was empty in no time. So was her second bowl.

  Isabel came over and helped her stand up and put a supporting arm around her waist and guided her down the hall and up the stairs to the sleeping chambers. She helped her off with her boots, and before Kelsey knew it, she was tucked into the most warm, comfortable bed ever, drifting off to sweet, sweet sleep.

  But she was still aware. She let herself sleep peacefully for hours, storing up her strength, and then she dressed her dream-walking self in a white Druid robe and wished her way to wherever Brian was. Who would have thought old Celtic legends were so useful?

  Oh good. He was sleeping too.

  She had a moment of pause. Should she bring Tavish along? She really wanted to, wanted him with her. Longed for his company, even. But he’d walked away without looking back. There was no way she would’ve done the same thing, and… Best not think about that.

  She nudged her way into Brian’s dream the same way she’d gone into Tavish’s dreams.

  Brian’s dream was a treat. In it, the underground Celtic castle was in its glory days. Oddly dressed people who couldn’t see her wandered everywhere. Every other thing she looked at was made of gold. Oh and would you look at that.

  Brian sat in the grand chamber—on the throne.

  When he spotted her, he raised his chin.

  “Ah, Kelsey. So nice to see you again.”

  She didn’t bow, not even her head, just advanced right in front of him and crossed her arms.

  “Perhaps you won’t think so when you hear what I have to say.”

  He raised his eyebrows and fiddled with a golden scepter that glowed with druidic magic.

  “Aye?”

  Kelsey gasped.

  Brian’s scepter was the artifact Tavish had been sent to get. She studied it and then looked all around the room as if she were admiring the place, when really she was noting where the entrances were. She would need to go out through at least one of those in order to find out how to get in here.

  Change of plans.

  She was so glad she had thought and looked around before speaking. She’d been about to confront him for kidnapping Tavish and stealing his ring. Now she wished she’d come in without him being able to see her either, so she could just spy on him and find out where the ring was. Heh, she’d do that later.

  She gave Brian her most solicitous smile, gesturing to the room at large.

  “Aye. For I wish ye to give me a tour of your lovely underground abode.”

  Ha. Flattery always worked on men.

  He puffed up his chest and sat up straight with his shoulders back, and gave her an indulgent smile, then put the scepter down and got up off his throne and strutted toward the elaborately marked secret door in the North corner.

  “Och, I suppose I can spare the time to show you around.”

  Biting her cheek so she wouldn’t laugh, Kelsey walked extra fast to fall into stride with him. Even though this was his dream and he was obviously enjoying showing off in front of her, she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of running to catch up. That would be just too much.

  She was careful to gaze admiringly at everything they passed, in keeping with just wanting a tour. She had to bite her cheeks over and over though, because all the women gazed adoringly at Brian, and he made the winks and waves at them.

  Celtic guards in bronze armor decorated with elaborate interlace nodded when they neared the door in the corner.

  Darn. She didn’t recognize the hallway they were in, which meant she had to endure this tour a while longer. She turned around to admire the interlace carvings on the wall, taking careful note how far down the hall they were in relation to the door, so that she could hopefully find it again.

  Brian stayed puffed up, watching her admire his realm.

  “You should just stay here with me, Kelsey.” He stopped advancing down the hall backward, and his face changed. Instead of joy at showing off, he looked determined. Uh oh. He started walking toward her. “Aye! Stay with me.” His face changed again, and this time he looked lecherous.

  Kelsey didn’t wait around to find out what was going to happen next in Brian’s dream. She wished herself back in her own body.

  But it didn’t work. She was still there.

  Brian had a hold of her wrist and was pulling her toward him.

  She screamed.

  Ochd deug

  Tavish was having his favorite dream. He and Kelsey were arm in arm on their couch in the suburbs watching the antics of their two small children—a boy named Dall after his da and a girl named Linda after Kel’s mom. They had just gotten back from a trip to the old time to pick up some antiques for their business, with no input and no pressure from the modern-day Druids. Tavish’s twin brother Tomas and his wife lived next door and had babysat for them, and they were seated on the couch across the room…

  And then his favorite dream was a nightmare, because Kelsey was screaming his name in the other room.

  He jumped up off the couch, and the living room disappeared, replaced by the underground castle. At the same time, his dad jeans and sweater morphed into his kilt and his claymore. He ran.

  When he got to the other room, Kelsey’s screams were coming from down the connected corridor. When he got to the corridor, they were coming from a room way down at the other end. He groaned and strained, pushing his legs harder, but the faster he ran, the longer the corridor became.

  No way was he going to let a dream beat him. Still running, he closed his eyes and imagined himself with Kelsey, fighting whatever was making her scream, chopping it to bits.

  The corridor he was in morphed into another, finer one with lighter tan stone walls decorated from top to bottom with those designs Kelsey could read. And then she was there in the corridor—being grabbed by Brian the Druid.

  Tavish didn’t bother saying anything, just rushed at the man and slammed him to the floor, knocking him out instantly.

  Kelsey flew into his arms and held him tight.

  “Thank God you’re here, Tavish. He wasn’t going to take no for an answer.”

  A rage came over Tavish such as he’d never had before. Literally seeing red, he drew his sword in one fierce yank —

  But Kelsey put her hand on his sword arm.

  “This is his dream, Tavish, not yours and not mine. Haven’t you heard that if you die in your dream, you die in real life? We have to be careful.”

  Was she for real?

  “Kelsey, I don’t care if he dies. He needs to die, if he would do that to you.”

  She shook her head no and hooked her arm around his sword arm.

  “It’s just a dream, Tavish. People do things in dreams all the time that they wouldn’t do in real life. I do. Don’t you?”

  She was right. He’d already forgotten this was just a dream, even while they were talking about it being a dream. He took a deep breath and relaxed a little.

  “Yeah, I suppose I do.” He took a new look at his surroundings, and at her. “What are you doing here anyway, scoping out the place for more treasure? A little dangerous to come alone, don’t you think?”

  Whoa. She looked angry.

  He backed away from her a little. Huh, well he guessed she was free to do what she wanted.

  She pressed her lips together and crossed her arms, looking up at the ceiling then back at him with anger in her eyes. She glanced down at Brian, and when he didn’t move turned back to Tavish and whispered.

  “No, I was not scoping the place out for more treasure. I came to chew Brian out for kidnapping your sorry ass the other day, but then I saw the artifact and asked him to give me a tour so I could figure out how to get into the room where it is.” She pointed down t
he corridor.

  The artifact was in here? Tavish checked Brian himself. The man wasn’t going to be moving for a few minutes, anyway. He nodded and walked where she indicated, and she followed.

  When they got down to the door she’d pointed at, he ducked back and pressed his back against the wall. There were guards in the other room, and a bunch of people wandering around.

  She casually walked up to the door. A little haughtily, even.

  “They can’t see or hear us, only Brian can.”

  He gestured at her with his palms up, asking how that was possible.

  She mimicked his shrug and led the way into that room.

  “I really don’t understand how it works, just that it does. I made that a condition when I entered Brian’s dream, and also when I brought you into his dream.”

  She brought him over to a throne, and sure enough, there was the artifact. He reached for it, but she grabbed his hand and was pulling him back toward the door.

  “I don’t know how long he’ll stay knocked out, and we need to find your ring. In fact, we should search him for it. We also need to figure out how to get to this room, and I really think we should do that while he’s still out. It surprised me when I wasn’t able to leave his dream. I’m not sure if we’ll be able to leave if… once he wakes up.”

  He kept his eyes on the scepter for as long as he could, and then finally turned to follow her. When they got back to Brian, Tavish rushed to search him, holding his other hand up to stop Kelsey from coming too close. It was there. His ring was in a pouch that Brian wore under his white Druid robes.

  And then Brian grabbed Tavish’s arm.

  “Did ye honestly believe I could get knockit oot in ma own dream? Ha! Surprise.”

  Kelsey screamed again.

  But Tavish asserted his superior strength against Brian the Druid and drew his arm away while at the same time making it clear that he was ready to do Brian bodily damage if he tried to stop them again.

  Apparently even old time druids knew that bit about dying in your dream meant you died in real life, because Brian backed down.

  It was time to get the hell out of here and wake up so they could come back with more people, overpower Brian, and get the ring and the scepter and leave. And soon, before Brian just left with those things. How much had the druid heard? Did he understand modern English? Did he know they were after the scepter? Was he aware this wasn’t really just a dream? Best to assume not and hope he didn’t find out.

  Tavish turned to Kelsey, casually but firmly put his arm around her, and spoke as calmly as he could, under the circumstances.

  “Let’s go.”

  She nodded, but instead of dissolving Brian’s dream and depositing Tavish back into his own as he had expected, she started walking down the corridor with him.

  He put his mouth close to her ear and whispered.

  “Get us out of this dream so we can come back in real life.”

  But she shook her head and whispered back to him while she scanned the walls with her eyes.

  “We need to keep him in this dream as long as we can, because something tells me he’ll wake up as soon as it ends.”

  Tavish looked back behind them, but he didn’t see Brian. At least the druid wasn’t following them, but not knowing where he was made Tavish uneasy.

  Kelsey was still whispering.

  “And anyway, we need to figure out how to get here, and this is the quickest way I can think of to do that, unless you have other ideas.”

  As a matter of fact, Tavish did have other ideas. Giving her a teasing look, he tested his theory by walking right up to the wall—and then through it. This network of caves have been carved out of the solid stone of the mountain, though, and so the wall he went through was very thick indeed. After about 20 feet he came into another room that he recognized, the laundry room. He looked up, which was stupid. It wasn’t like he could see through the ceiling to what was above.

  But he was imagining about where that other corridor that led to the scepter must be in relation to what was above this laundry room when Kelsey popped through the wall. She was in a huffy mood.

  “The least you could do was tell me you were about to go walking through the wall. What if I’d been looking away? I would be back there still with no idea at all where you were.”

  There was no use in telling her that he’d looked to see if she was watching him. She was in that bossy lecture-y mode. Best just to keep on the task at hand.

  “This system of caves over here doesn’t appear to be connected to the one we were just in. It stands to reason there’s another entrance to the caves where the scepter is.”

  At least she caught a clue and returned to the task at hand herself. At first, she looked at the ceiling too, which made him feel better. But then she looked over toward where they’d come from, and he guessed she was doing the same as he had, imagining walking over up top from the entrance they had first used over in the direction of the scepter chamber.

  She looked at him and shrugged, then turned around and vooped into the wall like a ghost in a horror movie. Before he could get too concerned, she vooped right on out, grabbed his hand, and turned around and took him with her this time.

  Together, they vooped all over the collection of caves—finding quite a bit of treasure. It was fun for a minute, and he was laughing as much as she was. But she was getting carried away. He found out he could stop her from dragging him anymore by quite literally putting his foot down and refusing to budge.

  “All right, enough of that.”

  She tugged at his hand.

  “But we could map out the whole area in our heads —”

  He refused to budge.

  “We know how to get to Brian and the scepter and the ring. That’s all I came for.”

  She clicked her tongue on the roof of her mouth, crossed her arms, and looked to the side.

  “But it would only take a minute, and think how much easier it would be to do it this way than to have to dig into all those tunnels once we get home.”

  Was she for real?

  “Don’t be stupid, Kelsey! We need to get the ring back, nothing else, and Brian’s liable to leave here, or to hide it, or who knows what if we give him enough time. We need to make a plan that allows us to get here fast and then come back here with more people—as soon as possible.”

  She looked like she was going to argue some more, but then she finally nodded.

  “Okay. As soon as I wish it, we’ll wake up. I say we get dressed as fast as we can and rush on over to that other entrance, the one Alfred used.”

  He shook his head no.

  “I want to bring at least Alfred and Seumas. Brian can trick one warrior into sleeping with his pixie dust, but if three of us surround him, he won’t have a chance.”

  She got an odd look on her face and licked her lips and then nodded slowly.

  “Okay. I’ll stay here and keep him in the dream while you bring Alfred and Seumas and get the ring and scepter.”

  Was she nuts? He grabbed both of her arms and started tugging her toward the exit.

  “No way. Remember why you brought me here? No way. You’re coming with me. I’ll not hear any argument.”

  She raised her chin, and his hands went through her as if she were a ghost.

  “It’s not like you can stop me from staying here, Tavish. I’ve learned some new tricks since then. I don’t think I’m in danger. Go on. Bring them to that room where he sleeps.”

  And before Tavish could say anything else, he woke up on his cot in the castle barracks.

  Naoi deug

  Kelsey looked around on her own, learning quite a bit about the extensive network of caves that reached a good distance into the shore away from the cliffs. There was room to sleep a whole army down here, and it had probably been used for just that, she figured. It would take a year to catalog it all properly.

  How much time did she have to mentally map out the place? It shouldn’t take Tavish long
to convince Seumas and Alfred to come with him. She maybe had half an hour. And as much fun as it was to go through the walls, it made more sense to go along the corridors the way she would have to back in her time.

  Or would she?

  She’d gone into Tavish’s dream back in her time, so that meant she could dream walk in her time. Oh. But who was there in her time who would know all these passageways? Probably only the ‘they’ Tavish had been talking about. She shuddered as she counted the number of turns in this particular corridor.

  And there she was, on the topic she didn’t want to think about.

  Tavish.

  For her, it had been like old times. Being with him made her feel so good. She’d given him way more than she’d planned on. He hadn’t made her, either. Hadn’t been demanding or expectant or anything. It had been all her. She had based her feelings on his actions instead of his words. He’d never said they were getting back together or anything. She had just assumed.

  And now it was like he didn’t take her seriously. Didn’t want to listen to what she had to say. Now that he knew where that precious magic scepter was, she had served her purpose and he didn’t need to… He didn’t need her anymore.

  Was that six turns now, or seven?

  Groaning, she went back to the beginning of the corridor and started over. And then she vooped to each storage room full of artifacts and then straight up to the surface and looked for landmarks, in case the university was even more impatient than she was and wanted to dig straight down.

  Finally, she’d done all of that there was to do. How much time had passed? She reached in her backpack for her phone and was about to check it for the time when she remembered it was just a dream phone, subject to the randomness of dreams. Stupid. Was there any way to tell how much real time had passed from inside a dream?

  Aw, was there really any point to mapping out dream corridors? Well, she finished doing so, on the theory that corridors never changed. They were ingrained in Brian’s memories, why would they change in his dream state.

  Well, now she had to face it. She was dead curious to know how Tavish was progressing in his quest to get the ring back.