The Highlander's Keep

by Bess McBride

  I nodded breathlessly. “Get Dylan.”

  Debra jumped to her feet and ran off into the fog. I had no doubt that I had returned to present-day Dun Eistean. Andrew, having retrieved the dagger, must have stuck it in the back of his kilt, and I had inadvertently grabbed it when I wrapped my arm around his waist.

  I hadn’t said goodbye to Ann or Torq. The screams and shouts in the hurricane worried me, and I didn’t know what had happened to them, if someone had been hurt, or...

  I tried to get to my feet, but traveling through time had taken its toll, as I had feared. I remembered the twisting and turning of my body in the hurricane, as if the wind had picked me up and dropped me off in the present, Dorothy-style.

  I needed to find the dagger. I desperately needed to get back to the sixteenth century, to Torq. I hadn’t been ready to leave.

  The sound of feet pounding on turf caught my attention, and I looked up to see Dylan emerge from the fog, Debra on his heels. He threw himself down on his knees beside me.

  “Are you all right?” he asked, looking over his shoulder at Debra. He didn’t wait for an answer before speaking again.

  “Debra! Could you get my backpack so I can get my mobile?”

  “Okay!” She ran off, and Dylan leaned in.

  “Look. I know what happened to you. It’s happened before. Say nothing. The last thing you need is people knowing that you’ve traveled in time, and the last thing we need here is people flocking to Dun Eistean worshiping deities, or trying to travel through time, or just generally acting foolish.”

  I clutched Dylan’s sleeve. “You know?”

  “Aye, Ann told me when she came back. She had to tell someone.”

  “I didn’t get a chance to say goodbye. I need to go back! There was a hurricane. I grabbed the dagger accidentally. Where is the dagger?”

  “We found it buried in what used to be a small room in the keep after you disappeared. I knew right away that it was the dagger that facilitated Ann’s time travel and probably yours, but it was much too valuable to leave here, so the university had couriered it down yesterday afternoon.”

  “What?” I cried out. “In Glasgow?”

  “Aye, I’m sorry, but there was nothing I could do. You cannot go back without it, and it’s locked away there awaiting examination, cataloguing and placement in a museum.”

  “No, Dylan, please don’t tell me that,” I sobbed. Tears streamed down my face. “Please.”

  Debra arrived with Dylan’s backpack.

  “I’m so sorry, Cynthia,” he whispered, taking the pack from Debra. “Who can I call?”

  “I thought you said she’d gone home,” Debra said. “What’s going on here?”

  I couldn’t think straight enough to give Debra an answer. I let Dylan fumble through some sort of story while I brainstormed.

  Glasgow...how was I going to find the dagger at the university in Glasgow and bring it back to Dun Eistean? Was there any other way to get back? I wasn’t about to jump into the hole again, all that was left of the keep, to travel back in time. If I hadn’t already cracked a vertebra or two, I surely would then...if not outright kill myself in the process.

  Beyond that, I couldn’t think straight. Grief, the image of sapphire-blue eyes and wild red hair tore at my heart, clouded my thoughts. I hadn’t said goodbye, I repeated silently again.

  Spasms gripped me, making me cry out.

  “What is it, Cynthia?” Dylan said. “Are you hurt?”

  I nodded. “When I fell...”

  “Let’s get you to the hospital,” he said. “Can you walk at all? Can you make it to my car?”

  “I don’t know,” I said on another sob.

  “Do you want me to call an ambulance? They can bring a stretcher onto the sea stack.”

  “No. I don’t know. No, just help me walk. It may take me a while, but...”

  I didn’t know what else to do. I couldn’t sit around on Dun Eistean and do nothing. I could barely walk. The dagger wasn’t there. If they could help me to a hospital, the sooner the better, then I could get back.

  I hadn’t said goodbye.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Two weeks later I walked out of the hospital at the University of Aberdeen on my own two feet. The local hospital on the Western Isles had determined that I had indeed fractured a lumbar vertebra, and I had been medevaced by helicopter to Aberdeen, where an orthopedic surgeon had determined that the bone would heal on its own in about eight to ten weeks.

  In the intervening weeks, I had undergone CAT scans, x-rays, MRIs and multiple neurological tests for my low-back compression fracture. I had been treated with high-dose steroids and analgesics. Physical therapy had followed, and I was ultimately fitted for a back brace that resembled a corset, although more bionic with plastic, aluminum, shoulder straps, Velcro and various other fastenings.

  In and out of the fog of pain, misery, grief and that odd sense of lost time that hospitalizations gave a person, I remembered that my traditional Scottish clothing had somehow vanished. I hoped it was in my backpack. One of the nurses had kindly carried the pack out for me, reminding me that I couldn’t lift more than three kilograms. I dropped my eyes to it.

  “Hello!” Dylan said, hurrying in from the car park. “I’m sorry I’m late! It’s a bit of a drive from Dun Eistean.”

  He kissed me on the cheek and picked up my pack.

  After Dylan had half carried me to his Rover from Dun Eistean and driven me to the nearest hospital on the Western Isles, he had stayed with me until I was medevaced out, and then he had called every few days to see how I was doing.

  I felt a connection to him, and I supposed he did to me, knowing what we both did about the miracles of time. We hadn’t spoken of it again though, never having had a private moment. I had wondered how he explained me to Debra.

  “I’m so grateful for everything you’ve done for me, Dylan. Truly. Josh wanted to fly over, but I told him not to.”

  “Josh is your boyfriend, right?”

  “Ex-boyfriend. He broke up with me right before I left.”

  “I have to say, Cyn, you look very well. You are walking a bit stiffly, but other than that...”

  I quirked an eyebrow. “At first, Ann didn’t want to force me into a corset because of my back, and here I am...stuffed into a corset for my back. The irony.”

  We had reached his Rover, and he turned to look at me.

  “I am so very sorry about what happened to you, Cyn. I know we haven’t had a chance to speak whilst you were in hospital, but I imagine you need to talk. Would you like to get some tea? Coffee?”

  I nodded. “A cup of hot tea would be nice. Thank you.”

  Holding out a hand, Dylan helped me climb into the Rover, no easy feat in my restrictive brace. But the point of the brace was to immobilize my upper torso until the fracture healed.

  He stowed my backpack in the backseat, and I saw my suitcase in the backseat as well.

  “Who packed it?” I asked.

  “When it was clear you would not return to Dun Eistean, Mrs. MacIver packed up your bag, and I retrieved it.”

  I eased out a sigh.

  “Not return to Dun Eistean,” I repeated. “I haven’t really dealt with that thought.”

  “Let’s just have some tea for now and think about things later.”

  On the point of climbing into the Rover, I asked him to look inside my backpack for my tartan skirt.

  “Aye, your things are safely stowed in a plastic bag.”

  Relief flooded through me. I might never wear them again, but they were precious to me.

  Half an hour later, we were seated in a coffee shop enjoying a warm drink. I sat as erect in my hard-back chair as the brace allowed. When Dylan had maneuvered his way toward a comfy-looking pair of easy chairs, I’d had to steer him to a small round table with the only chairs I could really get on and off of.

  I propped my elbows on the table and warmed my cold hands around my cup. Although July, I couldn’t wa
rm up. My hands and feet were icy, my heart frigid. My chest hurt, and I knew it wasn’t pneumonia.

  “What are your plans now, Cyn?”

  “Is the dig still on?”

  “Aye, we’ve three more weeks there.”

  “I’m so rigid in this thing, I couldn’t even maneuver to dig.”

  “I am so sorry about your degree. Will you have to wait until next summer? Or will your professors waive the requirement?”

  “I have no idea. I haven’t had the heart to email them to ask. Well, that and I’ve been kind of out of it at the hospital. Disoriented, you know?”

  “Aye, I do know. My grandmother went into hospital alert but soon started rambling. It was a sad time.”

  “Am I rambling?” I asked with a half smile.

  “Nooo, I didn’t mean to imply that.”

  I stared into my tea, the orange color reminding me of the highlights in Torq’s hair. It seemed years since I had seen that hair. I struggled to remember his face.

  “You have good reason to feel disoriented, Cyn,” Dylan said, covering my hand with his. His touch was surprisingly warm. I would have thought that long, slender fingers would be cool. I stared at his hand.

  He leaned in to speak in a low voice. “You have been to places where others have not. You’ve traveled a long way. It’s no wonder that you are disoriented.”

  “Yes,” I said, with nothing else to offer.

  “What do you want to do?”

  I closed my eyes. “The dagger...” I said the words. I wasn’t sure what the end of the sentence should be.

  “Is at university in Glasgow.”

  “Glasgow.”

  “What do you want, Cyn?”

  I looked up. “I want to see Torq again.”

  He patted my hand. “Aye, I suspect as much. There is only one way to do that. You must have the dagger.”

  My heart thudded against my chest. “I can’t!”

  My words did not surprise me. When I had first returned from the sixteenth century, I had sobbed for the loss of the dagger, wanting only to run down to the University of Glasgow, steal it somehow and run back to Dun Eistean—all that in the midst of my grief, pain and inability to run anywhere.

  Now, time had passed. I had been hospitalized in a foreign country, lost in a fog of bed rest, tests, medication and physical therapy. I still couldn’t run anywhere, and I couldn’t twist my way through time...not without worsening my as-yet-unhealed vertebral fracture.

  Dylan looked surprise at my vehemence.

  “I can’t,” I repeated again, in a calmer note. “Even if I could manage to get to Glasgow, steal the dagger, dash back up to Dun Eistean and throw myself into the keep, the fall would probably paralyze me this time. I can’t travel through time with a broken back, not again.”

  “I see what you mean. Although your back must have been fractured when you were thrown forward in time again, you think you will reinjure it if you try to return. Is it so very tumultuous when you travel through time?

  “Both times were pretty turbulent, but I fell the first time, and the hurricane...it’s like I got swept up into the wind. If I could just sit on a lovely grassy knoll, hold the dagger and then just magically transition back to Dun Eistean on a sunny, clear day, that would be great. If someone didn’t carry me off down a cliffside or on a horse.”

  “When I drove you to the hospital, you mentioned something about being kidnapped. What happened?”

  I told him as much as I could remember, keeping my voice low.

  “That’s brilliant!” he exclaimed when I was done. “Unbelievable!”

  “Not so brilliant when you’re living through it, but yes—kidnappings and castles and fortresses and feuding clans. All real.”

  “I love Scotland,” he murmured with a wide smile.

  “So do I.”

  “So you have not made any travel arrangements to return to America?”

  “Not yet. I was so depressed in the hospital, I really couldn’t focus on much of anything, certainly not putting thousands of miles between me and Torq.”

  “Not to mention hundreds of years.”

  I closed my eyes. “Yes.

  “They recommended that I not travel for an extended period for a few more weeks, just in case of pressure build up or possible clots. They meant fly back to the United States, but I suppose that could mean four hundred years back through time.”

  Dylan chewed on his lower lip for a moment, then spoke.

  “Well, look. If you can’t really fly, then you might as well return to Dun Eistean. Maybe you can do some sorting and cataloguing of the artifacts. You won’t have to move much. We can set you up with a proper stool and a table. I would be willing to certify that you completed the dig. My superior would check that, of course, but I don’t think he will have any compunction about doing that if you are there at the site.”

  “Return to Dun Eistean?” I whispered. “Everyone would be gone.”

  That awful grief welled up inside my chest again.

  “No, almost everyone is still there. Debra. The dig is in full swing. I only took off this weekend to collect you and stop by my flat in Glasgow.”

  “I’m sorry. I meant Ann, John, Torq. They’re all...” I swallowed hard against the pain in my throat, the unshed tears.

  Dylan’s eyes widened, and he nodded with a grimace.

  “Yes, it’s true. They’re gone.”

  I put a hand to my chest, as if to soothe the ache.

  “Where are they buried? Are they buried on the tabletop?”

  Dylan shook his head slowly. “I don’t know. We’ve not yet uncovered any burial sites on the sea stack. It’s likely that they didn’t have enough room to dedicate to burials. They may have had to take the dead...” He paused with a glance at my stricken face. “Their loved ones to the mainland to bury. If so, those haven’t been discovered.”

  “It’s so hard to think in these terms,” I muttered.

  “I can only imagine what you must be going through, Cyn.”

  I stalled, unable to decide whether to force myself back to Dun Eistean—where Torq had lived, maybe died.

  “Does Ardmore Castle still stand?”

  Dylan nodded. “You are the only person alive in the twenty-first century who has ever seen the castle in its prime. Yes. It’s a bit of a ruin now, an empty shell of stone blocks, but bits of it still stand.”

  “I wonder if John, Ann, Torq, Iskair—if the Morrisons got their castle back,” I said wistfully.

  “Cyn, it’s the twenty-first century. We know some of these things. No need to wonder. Yes, John Morrison got his castle back. He’s my ancestor, you know.”

  “What?” I looked at Dylan closely. “Oh my word! Why didn’t I see that? Yes, you look just like him!”

  Dylan’s pale cheeks shone red.

  “That’s what Ann said. He lived a long life.”

  I drew in a sharp breath. “And Torq? Do you know if he did?”

  Dylan shook his head. “I’ve never even heard of him.”

  “But that doesn’t mean he’s not documented somewhere?” My heart raced.

  “Don’t get your hopes up. John is mentioned because he was the chieftain of the Morrisons.”

  “Where can I look this up? Why didn’t I think of this? Of course, I can search for him on the internet!”

  I pulled my phone out of my pack.

  “Cyn,” Dylan said, covering my hand with his again. “I already looked on the internet. I had my superior check the name in our databases. There is no reference to a Torq Morrison. I am so sorry.”

  I looked down at my phone, knowing there was no point in checking if two Scottish professors couldn’t find anything.

  Dylan, intuitive as always, gave me time to deal with my disappointment.

  “What do you say then? Dun Eistean or no?”

  I studied his face. Nordic, handsome, he really did look like John Morrison. He shared some characteristics with Torq as well—the pale skin, squar
e jaw, but beyond that, they were as different as spring and fall. Dylan was open, honest and fresh faced. Torq was closed, guarded, his face lined from harsh weather. Dylan’s frame was tall but slender. Torq was built like the warrior he was. Both men, though, shared a sincerity and trustworthiness that was hard to resist.

  “Right now?” I asked.

  “Well, I’ve got to run down to my flat in Glasgow, pick up a few things, so we’ll overnight there if that’s okay with you.”

  “Oh! Further south.”

  “Southwest. It’s only a few hours from here.”

  Glasgow...where the dagger was. A twinge in my back as I shifted told me it didn’t matter where the dagger was. My body would not withstand another journey through time.

  Chapter Eighteen

  The drive to Glasgow took about three hours, give or take, with modest weekday traffic and pleasant weather. I tried sitting up straight in the seat for about an hour, but eventually gave in to Dylan’s suggestion that he recline my seat back so that I could stretch out for the majority of the drive. I fussed about what an awful traveling companion I must be...when I wasn’t sleeping.

  “We’ve arrived,” Dylan said sometime later, touching my shoulder.

  I awakened to see lights from the balcony doors of a five-story building reflecting down onto the street. Night had fallen.

  “What? We’re here already? I missed Stirling Castle, didn’t I? I wanted to see that.”

  “Yes, I’m afraid you did. I didn’t want to waken you.”

  I tried to push myself upright awkwardly.

  “Wait! I’ll help you from the Rover.”

  He came around and helped me out of the car before leaning in to raise the seat back and retrieve my pack, suitcase and his own pack. He slid his backpack on, threw mine over his shoulder and dragged my rolling suitcase across the street to the fairly large apartment building featuring a series of four street-facing balcony windows per floor.

  “This looks very modern!”

  “Well, we’ve come a long way here in Scotland,” he said with a laugh.

  “I’m sorry. Of course you have. I just imagined an old eighteenth-century building converted into apartments, that’s all.”