by Beth Trissel
“A portal that doesn’t tumble us two stories to my backyard would be good.”
“It shouldn’t,” Fergus said. “Though they can shift.”
Neil swiveled toward Fergus whose features were indistinguishable beneath the brimmed fedora in the Indiana Jones style. “Where?”
“Not too far off the mark.”
“So we should land somewhere in Scotland?”
“Kintail, I trust.”
“But not necessarily the castle?”
Fergus gave a shake of his hat. “No. Before they close, wormholes sometimes get wobbly.”
“That’s reassuring.” Neil turned and locked the door behind them. “Leave the lights off. Attracts less attention. I’ll get a flashlight from the closet.”
“No need.” Fergus drew out his multicolored LED flashlight and illuminated the black hall in a strong violet beam.
Neil snorted. “Like that would go unnoticed. This is no time for a display.”
“Oh, all right.” Fergus reached in another of his many pockets and withdrew a flashlight disguised as the medical tricorder from Star Trek. He turned it on and a white stream played over the wallpaper and furniture.
“Don’t you have anything normal?” Neil asked.
“Define normal.”
Mora eyed the device in his hand. “A candle?”
The artificial beam revealed the shock in Fergus’s expression. “Candles went out with the horse and buggy.”
“Aye, the flames do puff out in a breeze,” she agreed.
Neil smiled faintly. Taking the unique flashlight from his friend, he shone it at the steps. “What now? Are we supposed to leap through a barred second story door and hope we land in Scotland?”
“Not we,” Fergus amended. “You and Mora.”
“How on earth can you be certain this so called portal is still open?”
“Besides Mom’s say so, you mean? With my magnetic energy field detector.” Fergus pulled a metal wand shaped like a laser from another pocket and held it in front of him. Clicking noises emanated from the device. “If the portal is open the clicking should grow louder.”
Neil rolled his eyes. “Where do you find these things?”
“Lots of Trekkies have energy field detectors. I’ve improved this one so it’s highly tuned.”
“Of course you have.” Fergus could invent his own.
Mora slipped her hand into Neil’s. “We stay together.”
He squeezed her fingers. “No matter what, I promise. I should get my revolver.”
“With me by yer side.”
An angry howl shattered the quiet night.
Mora startled, and Neil’s racing heart pounded even harder. “Damn.”
Fergus jumped. “Cripes! He’s here. Even if he stole a car, he couldn’t drive it.”
“He must’ve found someone very obliging to drop him off.”
There was no time for anything. Directing the beam up the steps, Neil sprang forward pulling Mora just behind him. “Upstairs now, Fergus, unless you want to face him alone.”
“Hell no.”
Fergus shot after them. His gadget clicked away like a metal detector at a garbage site. “That portal should be wide open tonight.”
The front door rattled. The wood resounded under a battering fist. Muffled curses carried from beyond the stout barrier.
“Told you we needed a taser,” Fergus panted.
Neil envisioned the force needed to fell a hippo. “I doubt that brute would be down for long.”
“Long enough to make our getaway.”
A great shoe kicked at the wood, accompanied by ferocious grunts.
“Hide in my room—gun’s under my bed and loaded,” Neil flung over his shoulder.
“I’ve never fired one!”
The door gave way with a shattering bam!
“Aim and shoot! Can’t miss at close range.”
They tore down the upstairs hall. Ahead of them loomed the door to nowhere, eerie in the single beam of light surrounded by shadows. The intricate carvings on the old oak suddenly seemed quite ancient, and Neil wondered just where his family had acquired this particular antique.
But only for a moment.
Mora at his side, he lunged forward and grasped the knob. Unbelievably, it turned. Without the key.
Heavy feet pounded up the steps behind them.
“We’re going now!” Holding tight to her hand, Neil threw the door wide with his other.
Blackness greeted them, but not the snowy blackness he expected. Either the falling flakes were unaccountably blocked on this side of the house, or—
“MacKenzie! God’s blood, I vow ye die this night!”
“Go on!” Fergus shouted. “I’ve got my spray!”
Neil couldn’t leave his friend to face this psycho alone any more than he could leave a child, though it was incredibly brave of Fergus to offer. He spun around and shone the beam behind them. They’d need the light to see, though how to wield that and his knife—he needed to get his gun.
But Mora clung to his hand. How could he fight and grip her?
To his further amazement, Fergus faced their pursuer. The advancing Scotsman cast a long shadow, the personification of terror. His eyes glinted with the vengeance he swore.
Unswerving resolve in his stance, Fergus stood his ground. Pepper spray in hand, he let a pungent miasma fly up into The MacDonald’s enraged face.
With a yowl, the Scotsman covered his eyes and stumbled back. “Damn ye to the eternal flames!”
He careened into a heavy side table then lurched into the wall with a thud. Down he crashed to the floor. He lay still. Possibly knocked out.
Fergus’s courage had bought them a second. If he sped back downstairs, he could get away. The keys were still in the car under the driver’s side mat. “Go!”
Praying they didn’t tumble two stories down, Neil rushed through the open doorway with Mora.
Chapter Eighteen
Turf, heavy with the woodsy scent of leaves, cushioned Mora’s tumble. The fragrance titillated her jarred senses. Then she grew mindful of the cold air blowing across her face. With a soft groan, she opened her eyes to the sun hung low above steep, umber colored hills.
The orange glow illuminated the small glen she found herself in among a copse of oak, birch, and pine trees. Drifts of fern, tawny and bent from frost, spread over the leaf strewn ground. Here and there, patches of grass grew where breaks in the trees allowed the light to filter through. The fragrance of earth, wind, and sky floated on the chill evening breeze.
Home? She was home!
Like a ship blown adrift in a storm, she wasn’t certain exactly where in the Hielans she’d landed. Surely, not far from the MacKenzie castle of Donhowel. Her heart leapt for joy and then—
Where was Neil? He no longer gripped her hand. Their swirling tumble through the portal must’ve torn them apart.
A pain knifed in her thudding chest. Fergus had said the portal might not return them to the passage beneath the stairs where The MacDonald had first chased her, but to arrive out here?
She swept her gaze over the trees and brush on every side and stared up overhead at the ridges. Where, exactly, was she?
Somewhere in the hills above the castle, she assumed, unfamiliar country to her. She’d kept mostly to the house and grounds, or visited the town of Dornie at the mouth of Loch Long. Now she wished she’d gone on hunting excursions with the men. Terrible thought—
What if Neil hadn’t made it back at all? What if he’d fallen in his back garden as he’d feared and she never saw him again? How could she bear it?
Wait—what if he were here but Red MacDonald found him first, or her, for that matter? The blessed saints preserve them from such an evil!
Scrambling to her feet, she strained for sight of Neil through rustling branches and boughs dipping in the wind.
Nothing and no one.
The late autumn woods were ominous with the approach of nightfall. Unless the mo
on shone full upon her, it would be blacker than lifeless coals and bitter cold in the Hielans. She’d never slept outdoors the whole of the night before, never mind, alone.
That thought weighed her already leaden stomach. At least she still wore the coat, scarf, and gloves from Mrs. Fergus. And the comfortable boots shod her feet. Her arisaid had been left behind and she sorely missed its familiar warmth.
She must find Neil. Hardly daring to call out for fear of attracting The MacDonald, she shakily summoned, “Neil!”
No answer. Only the moan of the wind in the trees. A lonesome rustle.
Dread surged in her middle.
Hands cupped to her mouth, hair lashing her face from under the scarf, she circled about like the falcon wheeling high overhead, calling his name in every direction.
Was it her imagination or did she hear a faint reply? Oh God, let it be him! Snatching up her skirts, she ran toward the sound. “Neil!”
“Here!” His muffled voice came from farther ahead.
Trembling with relief, she tore through the trees. “Are ye hurt?”
“Not badly! I’m trapped!”
“Where be ye?”
“Down here!”
She pushed past branches, searching for any sign of him. Nothing. Only the shadows cast by trees and plenteous rocks. She skirted them and pounded over the turf.
“Watch your step!” he warned.
She stopped short of tumbling down into a gully. Below her, among the stones, she spotted Neil crouched on a wee shelf of rocks and browned grass.
She sucked in her breath and exhaled in a rush. “The blessed Lord be praised.”
Overjoyed, yet dismayed at his plight, she dropped to her knees at the edge of the chasm and peered down. The murkiness and rising mist obscured his face. “What have ye wounded?”
“I’ve a lump on the back of my head—was out for a moment—and gashed my knee, but I’ll be all right if I can get out of here. That portal must’ve suffered a major shift. But, by God, we’re here. We’re actually here!”
Laughter ripped from him, totally unexpected and unlike anything Mora had heard from this Neil. A smile was the most he’d offered, or a chuckle.
Despite their grave circumstance, exultation bubbled up inside her. “Aye.” She smiled down at him. “But ’tis a mercy ye haven’t broken yer neck, landing among the rocks.”
“I still may. Find a tree branch to hold down over the side. I’m gonna try to climb up and grab it.”
“Too dangerous. We need a length of rope.”
“From where?”
“I could go and seek help,” she suggested.
“With dusk descending, you’d soon become lost. Might even fall in a bog.”
“Neil! Where on earth have you and Mora gotten to?”
Hope surged in her.
“I don’t believe it,” Neil said in that heartier tone he’d adopted, more like the old Neil. “Fergus!”
Chapter Nineteen
Neil had never been so happy to hear Fergus in his life. And he’d thought they were without supplies. Why Fergus was a veritable pack mule and boasted on being prepared for every contingency. Like a gadget mad Boy Scout. Truly, miracles came in the most unlikely forms.
“Are you wearing your survival straps bracelet?” The one Neil had made fun of that secreted a 14 foot length of paracord.
“Told you we’d need it one day!” came his friend’s smug reply, his voice nearing. “I just never figured it would be in the Scottish Highlands.”
Neil never supposed they’d need it at all, or any of a number of Fergus’s gizmos. But now, thank God for his eccentricities.
Mora turned from the edge of the chasm and beckoned. “Make haste, Fergus. The light’s fading.”
“Never fear, my lady.” Fergus spoke as if he fancied himself a gallant knight. And perhaps he was, in an off-the-wall Jedi sort of way. “Do you desire violet, orange, green…” Fergus trailed off, referring to his multicolored flashlight.
Neil pictured the light show drawing the enraged Scotsman to them like a wounded grizzly going in for the kill. “Are you certain we’re alone? No madman in sight?”
“Not yet, but we ought to be on our guard,” Fergus admitted. “I dropped my other flashlight in the rush.”
“Well, don’t go waving this one about,” Neil cautioned. “Like setting off flares.”
Mora bent back over the gully. “Ye’ll not want to be trapped down there if The MacDonald comes.”
“Nor the two of you up there. Let’s go with the green light, Fergus. Blends in better with the mist.”
By the light of the lurid beam, he watched the orange cord slide through the white vapor rising around them. Lower and lower came the line, until it was within reach.
He grabbed it in both hands. “Tie it around a boulder!”
“Done!” Fergus called back a few moments later. “Secure it at your waist and we’ll help tow you up.”
Gripping the cord with the black leather gloves he’d discovered in his coat pocket and scrabbling at the rocks with his shoes, Neil slowly ascended the pit. Good thing he’d practiced climbing on that fake rock wall at the gym.
Here and there, he found a toehold to give him a boost. Except when his foot slipped. Then he banged into the stones and had to try again. The wall at the gym was more forgiving. His head ached, and the cut on his left knee bit at him when he dug in too hard, but with Fergus and Mora’s help, he finally hoisted himself over the side.
Chest heaving, Neil lay on his back a moment to catch his breath, and stared up into their faces. The green halo lent Mora the unworldly beauty of a wood nymph and made Fergus appear even stranger than usual.
What the Highlanders would think of a Bart Simpson look alike, he had no idea, but—“I doubt we’ll be noticed in all this fog. A blessing, really. What do you think has become of our adversary?” he asked Fergus.
“Last I saw him he was down, but starting to groan.”
“So you dove through the door after us? I thought you’d make your getaway.”
He shrugged, a wry smile hovering at his lips. “Figured you might need some help.”
Mora turned questioning eyes on Fergus. “What of yer mother?”
“I expect this is what she intended all along.”
Mora pressed his arm. “Thank ye fer coming to our aid.”
Looking well pleased with himself, Fergus gave a nod and shone the lurid beam over Neil. “You all right? Your pants are torn and your leg’s bleeding.”
He fingered the back of his head. “I could do with an aspirin and bandage.”
A grin split Fergus’s ghoulish features. “I’ve got both.” He dug in a recess of his coat and pulled out what appeared to be a sardine can. “Chocked full of provisions.”
Mora gave him an incredulous look. “In that wee vessel?”
“You’d be surprised what’s stashed in here, and you can boil water in the tin.”
“Why not a kettle?”
“Have you got a kettle?” Fergus rejoined.
“Not at hand.”
“Well then—”
Before Fergus could trot out all the spy paraphernalia he prided himself on carrying, Neil broke in. “Very useful, I’m sure, should we need to boil water,” he grunted, and got stiffly to his feet. “We’ll patch me up later. There’s no telling when or where Red MacDonald will turn up. We must seek shelter for the night.”
“You mean like the leeward side of a hill?” Fergus asked. “My bag of tricks stretches only just so far, but I’ve seen Survivorman.”
“You could ne’er survive long out here, Angus Fergus,” Mora argued. “’Tis a wild land, filled with wilder men. Ye need brawn and a broad claymore at yer side.”
“Darn if I didn’t forget mine.”
“And yer nunchucks,” she said.
Fergus gave a short laugh.
Neil chuckled. “She’s got you there. Someone really ought to give you a pair so we can stop hearing about them.”
>
“On my wish list.” Fergus swiveled his head to look at their surroundings. “Say Neil, how do we find the leeward side of anything when this blasted wind’s blowing at us from every direction?”
Neil smiled faintly. He cast his mind back, way back, to a time that returned to him like the whiff of a faintly recalled fragrance. The bracing night air, laden with the earthy musk of trees and crumbling leaves, sharpened his recollection. A dark path skirted through his mind and his thoughts wandered over it. Farther, farther, back it led him through untold ages to a time and place emerging in the mist of remembrance.
“I might have an idea.” Taking the light from Fergus, Neil swept the glow around the hazy glen.
Forms took shape. A stone outcropping jutted against the steep slope, and reminded him of a mini fortress. It seemed to him that he’d thought this before. The gnarled limb of an oak pointed as if toward something. A favorite hunting spot, perhaps?
Yes…he’d tromped these hills with his loyal deerhound. Kiln, his name was Kiln. As the dog’s lolling tongue and wiry reddish coat came back to him, he envisioned them both reclining before a fire, man and beast, while a haunch of venison roasted over the flames.
“This way, I believe.” Closing his free arm around Mora’s shoulders, Neil limped ahead.
Fergus fell in behind. “To where?”
“A wee crofter’s cottage lies between those two hills.”
Mora drew up at Neil’s side. “Did ye say wee crofter?”
He paused. “By heaven, I did.”
“And ye remember this place?”
“That I do, used by warriors and hunters for respite, Mora fair.”
She gaped up at him. “Ye have not called me by that name since—”
He bent his head low, brushing his lips over her open mouth. Fergus slid the light from his hand as Neil enfolded Mora in his arms and tenderly covered her startled lips, soft and pliant beneath his. He forgot the ache in his head, his throbbing knee, all else except Mora, just the two of them, alone in the misty night.
How he’d yearned for this moment to the sinew of his being…the cherished feel of her, the scent of flowers in her hair, the silken strands caressing his face in the chill Highland breeze.
