The Highlander's Keep

by Bess McBride

  “Maybe,” I said. “If anyone at home had missed me.”

  Dylan tsked but didn’t add to the conversation. He bent down to look under the table, where most of the researchers’ personal belongings were stored, including their backpacks.

  “Is the material that needs to be catalogued and stored under there? I can’t really bend, but if you set it out on the table, I can do the job.”

  “Material?” he repeated, picking up his pack.

  “Artifacts?”

  “Oh, aye! Artifacts. Yes, they are under here. I’ll just pull those out.”

  He set his backpack down and retrieved several boxes, resealable polyethylene bags, clipboard, pen and other items necessary for cataloguing.

  “We won’t clean the artifacts here but will send them down to the university to be cleaned in the lab.”

  “Yes, of course.”

  I surveyed the materials before me. Most of the artifacts were bits of pottery. Nothing looked particularly familiar.

  Dylan picked up his backpack, stared at it and set it down again.

  “Are you hiding more muffins in there?” I said with a faint smile. “I thought we ate them all!”

  Dylan chuckled, then his face sobered. He chewed on his lip thoughtfully.

  “How is your back?”

  “Stiff,” I said. “I couldn’t whirl back through time, that’s for sure.” I had meant to laugh but found no humor in my comment.

  “No, of course not,” Dylan said, shifting from foot to foot restlessly.

  “Do you think you could help me get down to the beach later when the fog burns off?” I asked. “I know you’re busy, but...”

  “The beach below, where they stored the birlinns?”

  “Yes, there was a path. It’s pretty steep, but—” I shook my head. “No, never mind! It’s too much trouble.”

  “No, I would be happy to, Cyn. I’ll leave you to work now. I brought a thermos of tea if you would like some.” He bent down and retrieved it from his pack before stowing the pack under the table.

  “Thank you! I am a bit chilled this morning.”

  “See you later!” he said.

  I spent the next few hours concentrating on bits of clay pottery and wondering if Ann had held one pot or Mistress Glick another or if another bit had been handled by John or...Torq. My redheaded Scot was never far from my mind. If I had ever wanted to forget about Torq, about the loss I felt, I should not have returned to Dun Eistean. But I didn’t want to forget about him. I felt closer to him on the island than anywhere else, and I catalogued the artifacts with loving affection.

  Other students and faculty stopped by the table to dig into their own bags or packs for refreshments or personal comfort items. Most paused to examine the artifacts spread out before me and to chat briefly about the cataloguing. Thankfully, no one else asked me about my mysterious disappearance or reappearance, though I caught some sideways glances. I did a lot of pretending that nothing out of the ordinary had occurred, and when I placed my hand on the small of my back, everyone let me do it.

  Dylan returned about noon. The fog had burned off, and the sun shone cheerily down on the emerald-green grass tabletop that was Dun Eistean. Although I had seen pictures of present-day Dun Eistean, I had not actually been able to see the tidal sea stack clearly before.

  Where the keep once stood fourteen feet high, only a large mound remained, and I knew painfully well that the remnants of the keep were buried in that mound. I scanned the tabletop for the other mounds, knowing them to be the boathouse, crofts, a kiln and the wall surrounding two-thirds of the island. I didn’t feel compelled to share that information since archaeologists had already documented those discoveries and findings. Their deductions had been correct.

  “Are you ready?” Dylan asked. He picked up his backpack and shouldered it.

  “I am. I appreciate you taking the time to do this. Are you sure you don’t have muffins in there?” I chuckled, nodding at his pack.

  “I never said that I didn’t,” he said with a smile

  Debra approached.

  “Are you two going somewhere?”

  Dylan threw me a hasty look. I think that was the first time I wondered if he thought of me as something more than just a friend. I hurried to answer.

  “Dylan was going to help me go down to the beach. Do you want to come?”

  Of course, I didn’t really want more people down on the beach while I wallowed in my memories of Torq, but I wasn’t about to come between Dylan and Debra. I wondered if he saw himself as my savior, my knight in shining armor. He might very well have been, except for Torq.

  “The beach?” She turned to look at Dylan, who looked down at the ground.

  I frowned at him. “Yes, the beach.”

  “No, I don’t think so. Thanks! I need to run back to the house where I’m staying and change my jeans. These are wet and miserable.”

  I looked down at her muddy knees, a typical state of affairs for diggers.

  “See you later then,” Dylan said.

  “Okay.” Debra, turning away, paused. “Hey! You sent that dagger down to the university, didn’t you?”

  I froze. No one that morning had mentioned the dagger. Leave it to Debra. I stopped breathing for wanting the dagger, until the pounding in my ears reminded me to take a breath.

  Dylan frowned. “Yes,” he said briefly.

  I barely noted his abrupt reply to Debra, so lost was I in a wave of grief.

  “Okay. I was just wondering.”

  She left, never knowing what havoc she had wreaked with the acceptance I had struggled with that morning.

  I braced a hand on the table.

  “The dagger,” I murmured.

  “I’m sorry,” Dylan said. “Let’s go down to the beach and try to cheer you up.”

  I nodded and followed him toward the edge of the tabletop. My heart started racing as I stopped abruptly at the edge of the cliff.

  “Oh man! I did not remember how steep this was!”

  “Remember?” Dylan said, pausing with me.

  “Yes, it’s a memory.”

  “It must have been a good one,” he said with a faint smile.

  “Very.” I said no more.

  “We’ll go slow.” He took my hand and started to lead me down the rocky path, which had changed little over the years. Fortunately, the tide had receded, and the beach was exposed, appearing much as it had.

  “Dylan,” I began, following his steps carefully.

  “Aye?”

  I supposed climbing down a rocky cliffside path wasn’t the best way to introduce a complicated subject.

  “You know that I consider you a good friend, right? I couldn’t have managed without your help and support.”

  “Thank you,” he said, looking over his shoulder toward me.

  “So...” I searched for words.

  “So?”

  “You’re not misunderstanding anything, are you?”

  “Misunderstanding what?” He looked over his shoulder again, a twinkle in his eyes that I barely caught as I watched my step.

  “How I feel about you?”

  “And how do you feel about me, Mistress Dunnon?”

  His use of the old-fashioned title took me by surprise. For a moment, I saw John’s face. We neared the bottom of the path, and I held my response for a moment.

  “There!” he said as we reached the pebbled beach. “We made it!”

  “I think going up is much harder!” I said with a half smile.

  “So?”

  “So like I said, I value your friendship and support, and if there is anything I can do for you, please let me know. But that’s all it is. Friendship.”

  His smile broadened.

  “I know that, Cyn. I was only teasing. I am seeing Debra.”

  I tried walking on the pebbles toward the shoreline, but the ground was too uneven. I reached out, and Dylan took my hand.

  “Well, if you’re seeing Debra, why were you so abrup
t with her?”

  “I didn’t mean to be. Perhaps in time, I will explain it to her.”

  “Explain what?”

  “The time travel.”

  He led me to a spot just out of reach of the surf and eased me down to a sitting position on the beach. I sat more erect than most people would on the beach, I suppose, but it was all I could do.

  “Really? You’re going to tell her? Don’t I have a say in that?”

  I looked down the beach at the boulder behind which the men had bathed. As in my dream, I visualized Torq walking toward me with water streaming down his bare chest.

  “I might do,” Dylan said. He set his pack down between us and unzipped it.

  “Look, Dylan. Let’s not break muffins together until we agree on why you need to tell Debra about me. This is my secret. I know you’re in on it, but it is my secret. I’m not ready to share it with the world. I will probably never want to share this knowledge.”

  Dylan bent over and peeked into his pack.

  “Dylan? Are you listening to me? This is important!”

  “You might think this is as well.” He didn’t look up at me.

  “What?”

  “Look.”

  I tried to bend forward but couldn’t.

  “I can’t. Is this about muffins? Can you just give me one and promise me that you won’t tell anyone about me?”

  “If you want a muffin, you’re welcome to one, but you’ll have to move something aside.”

  He lifted the bag and tipped it toward me so that I could see inside. The sun caught the glint of shining silver.

  Chapter Twenty

  I gasped.

  “The dagger!”

  The hilt of the dagger seemed to flare under the sun.

  “Dylan!”

  “Aye.”

  “What are you doing with this? I thought it was at the university.”

  I could hardly breathe. I wanted to grab the hilt. I wanted to go back to Torq. I shoved my hands under my legs to stop myself.

  “It was. I...procured...it last night.”

  I tore my eyes from the dagger, taking up a substantial amount of room in his pack, and I looked up at him.

  “Why?”

  “For you, for my Morrisons, for a man I will never know.”

  “For me? You mean...to go back in time?”

  “Aye. It’s what you want, isn’t it? It’s what you need, I expect. You seem a little lost here.”

  I lifted a hand as if to grab the dagger but stopped short of even touching his bag. I looked up again to scan the area near the boulder.

  “We talked about this. I don’t think my back can survive another jolting.”

  “I have no fix for that, Cyn. I wish I did. I’ve given it a lot of thought, but I have no answers, no guarantees. You’re wearing a brace that prevents you from moving your torso. It depends on whether you want to take a chance on injuring yourself further. I wanted you to have the choice.”

  I was so short of breath that I was lightheaded. I buried my face in my hands while I thought. If I showed up in the sixteenth century paralyzed, what good would I be? What if Torq didn’t want me? He hadn’t really ever told me he loved me. What if he was unwilling to care for me? What if—

  “Look, Cyn,” Dylan said, pulling one of my hands from my face. “You and Ann have traveled back and forth a total of four times, always with the dagger. If something goes wrong, you can return. I am certain the dagger will find its way to you, if nothing else. It seems to have a life of its own!”

  Dylan withdrew the dagger from the bag and held it up. The ornately carved hilt flared in the sun. I reached for it, then withdrew and put a hand to my back.

  “You’ll be fine, Cyn. Ann is there. If anything goes wrong, she will know what to do.”

  “What if he doesn’t want me? He never said he loved me.”

  “I cannot believe any sane man would not be in love with you.”

  I blinked at the look in his blue eyes, and my face burned.

  “You said—”

  “I know what I said.” Dylan smiled sheepishly. “I can’t compete with a braw Scottish warrior.”

  He rotated the knife, watching as it reflected the blue water surrounding them.

  “What do you say?”

  “How will you explain my absence?”

  “I’m not quite sure. Hopefully, they won’t think I’ve murdered you and thrown you into the sea.”

  “Do you have pen and paper in that bag of yours?”

  “Aye.”

  He fished out a small yellow pad and a pen, and I wrote a note.

  Josh

  I’ve decided to stay in Scotland. I’m going remote without phone or internet, so you probably won’t be able to contact me. Do what you can to close up the apartment, or better yet, keep it. Store my stuff...or sell it. Thanks for pushing me. You were right. I didn’t know how to love.

  Cyn

  I began another quick note.

  Dylan

  Thank you for everything. I have discovered that I just can’t finish the dig with my back the way it is. I’m heading back to the States today. Thank you again and please let the university know.

  Cynthia Dunnon

  “One more!” I said.

  To Whom It May Concern

  I am moving to a remote location in the South Pacific where I will have no access to phone or internet. I authorize my friend Josh Hammond to withdraw funds from my bank and settle my bills.

  Thank you

  Cynthia Dunnon

  “I would have turned everything over to you, but it would be easier with Josh in the States.”

  “You’ve decided then,” Dylan said, lowering the dagger.

  I tucked the notes into his bag.

  “I have,” I said with a nod. “Nothing is forever, right?”

  “No, not in my opinion. I am not at all certain that I won’t see you again, Cyn.”

  For some reason, I looked over my shoulder at the cliff top. Debra stood up there, watching us.

  “Dylan! Debra is up there! She must not have left yet!”

  He looked over his shoulder with a frown.

  I waved at her casually, and she lifted a hand to wave back.

  “I can’t go yet. We’ll have to do this another time!” A sob escaped my lips.

  “No. It’s now.”

  He cupped the blade carefully in his hand and extended the hilt to me.

  “Take the dagger, Cyn.”

  “What will you say to her?”

  “Well, I’ll have to explain it now, won’t I?”

  I looked over my shoulder again. Debra was working her way down the steep path toward the beach.

  “Now, Cyn!” Dylan urged. He leaned forward and kissed me on the lips. “Go!”

  “Goodbye, Dylan!”

  I held my breath and took the dagger. The hilt flared.

  Unlike falling into the keep or flying through the hurricane, the trip through went much more smoothly than I expected. One moment I was sitting on the pebbled beach next to Dylan, and the next I was lying down on the beach alone. The sun still shone down on me from a noon position, the sky powder blue and largely cloudless. Waves rustled onto the beach in a foamy froth, the sea beyond azure with whitecaps.

  I didn’t even know if I had traveled through time, and if so, to what era. Dylan was no longer at my side, but for all I knew, I could have fainted and he had gone to get help.

  I looked over my shoulder. No one stood on the cliff above looking down at me, not Dylan, not Debra. The crevice that once held the birlinns was empty.

  Grief welled up inside me, and I fought it down. I had no idea where I was. I wasn’t in the same moment when Debra had begun her descent down the path. But I wasn’t in the sixteenth century either. The absence of the birlinns confirmed that.

  I rolled over onto my stomach, then pushed myself to my hands and knees. A bright light near me flashed, and I eyed the silver dagger, glinting under the sun. I reached for it wit
h the intent of wising myself back in time, but I pulled back at the last moment, still unsure of what had happened.

  Where were Dylan and Debra?

  Awkwardly, I positioned my legs beneath me and rose to a standing position to get my bearings. The dagger lay near my feet. The waves were distant. The dagger wasn’t going anywhere for the moment.

  I scanned the cliffside path again, wondering how I was going to manage to climb it.

  “Hello?” I called out in the direction of the cliff. “Can anyone hear me? Dylan? Are you up there?”

  It seemed as if the breeze coming off the sea carried my voice away though. I doubted anyone on the tabletop above heard me.

  Most humans had experienced the strange phenomena of knowing they were being watched at least once in their lives, maybe more. That sensation crept over me, and I turned to follow the source.

  There, standing by the boulder, was Torq. His wet red hair sparkled under the sun, as I remembered. Bare chested and in the act of tying his kilt at the waist, he seemed frozen as he stared at me.

  “Torq,” I whispered.

  Torq dropped his hands and ran toward me, shouting something, maybe my name. Even through my joy, I was stunned to see him flying toward me.

  “Cyn-tya!” he shouted. “Cyn-tya!”

  “Torq!” I cried out, wobbling over the pebbles in his direction. I didn’t get far before he reached me and pulled me into his arms. I winced but had no intention of protesting against his embrace.

  “Where did ye go, lass? Where have ye been?” he breathed against my ear.

  I wanted to reply, but his kiss drowned out my words.

  Suddenly, Torq lifted his head and pulled his arms away, staring down at my midriff.

  “What have they done to ye, lass? What did they do to ye?”

  He moved aside the flaps of my open shirt to look at my brace.

  “Are ye broken then?”

  I wanted to laugh, to cry, to throw myself into his arms again. I picked up his hands and wrapped them around my brace.

  “It’s just a hard corset to help my back. Yes, I’m a little bit broken, but I’ll be all right! Are you well?”

  I cupped his face with one hand, reflexively examining the healing scar on his cheek. The stitches had been removed, and all that remained was a red line down his face. As I suspected, it gave him a piratey look. He had continued to keep the facial hair shaved, and I marveled that the strength of his chin matched his character. The wound on his neck, still angry from the cauterizing, appeared to be healing as well.