by Jane Stain
It was nothing near the gateway to modern convenience she had hoped to see. Tears came to Jessica's eyes unbidden, and she fought the choking sensation in her throat.
Lauren was telling the truth. They had traveled back in time.
"How is this possible?" Jessica choked out in a voice she didn't recognize, more of a squeak.
It gave her the tiniest bit of solace to see that Katherine wasn't handling this any better than she was. Misery did love company. Their savvy fashionable sales wizard stood dumbfoundedly staring at the village, slightly leaning forward and meticulously scrutinizing it. She grew more and more hunched over every second, and her face became more and more crestfallen.
"I was sure we’d just get on the bus here and go back to our hotel, take hot baths, and order room service while exchanging jokes about our adventure out in the wild Highlands.”
Katherine started to sink down onto a rock also, but for some reason Lauren saved her from that plight.
Jessica gave Lauren a betrayed look for not saving her bottom from the hard rock.
Still full of excitement, Lauren looked abashed.
“Sorry I didn't catch you before you landed on that rock. I didn't see it, or I would have."
Mollified, Jessica allowed Lauren to pull her up by the hand she was still holding. And then she grew impatient.
"Did you know we were coming here?"
Lauren looked down toward the village, plainly impatient, yet with a tinge of guilt on her face, as if she knew it had been wrong to trick them into time traveling with her, but she just couldn’t help herself, having wanted to share this with them.
"Yeah. At least, I knew we would go back in time. I didn't know and still don't know what year we’re in."
Regaining some of her composure, Katherine took a turn.
"You sound like you've done this before."
Now Lauren smiled the tiniest little bit and looked so happy for someone who also felt guilty that Jessica chuckled.
“Yeah, I’ve time traveled before. I have friends who live in two different time periods in the past, and I have visited them."
For the first time ever, Jessica saw a calculating look on Katherine's face. She'd never thought to see the day, and she watched their charming friend think. And sighed. Just like everything else, thinking looked good on her, too. It wasn’t fair.
When Katherine spoke, she was back on her game.
"Then your friends can get us out of here, back home?"
Lauren pondered this for the slightest amount of time, which made Jessica think she was deciding just how much to tell them, choosing between various things she could reveal and choosing carefully.
"Yes. I'll work on it as soon as I have a chance to go to sleep."
Jessica used the hand Lauren wouldn’t let go of to jostle her friend a bit.
Lauren needed to snap out of this euphoria and realize they were upset with her. Even though she was their guide here in the past and held most of the cards, they still had a few of their own, and Jessica needed to remind Lauren of that.
"Sleep! We don't want to wait that long. Why do you need to go to sleep?"
But before Lauren could respond to that, Jessica had another thought.
"So that's why you wanted us to buy those ugly clothes!"
Lauren nodded.
"Yep."
Oh no. The people of this sleepy village were sure to be superstitious and suspicious. Jessica was horrified at the idea of making a spectacle of themselves in their modern clothes — especially Katherine’s tiny slip of a dress. All the people she had seen were covered from head to knees in fabric: long wool shirts and shawls like those Lauren wore.
"What are we going to do?"
But Katherine gave Jessica an ‘Are you kidding?’ look while she started strolling toward the village, dragging the two of them behind her down what was fortunately a grassy side of the hill.
"Leave it to me."
Chapter 3
On the way down the hill, Jessica asked all sorts of questions, but she found out no more than she already had. It turned out Lauren had only time traveled twice before, once to visit her friend Jaelle in the first century with druids all around, and the other time for a 14th century visit with that woman Kelsey who had come to their hotel for a meeting. But this trip she didn't have any friends they could visit. And she wouldn't say just why she was here, though she did admit she had brought Katherine along because she knew their new friend could charm her way into anything.
They were coming up on the first farmhouse on the outskirts of the village when Lauren stopped them and turned to Katherine.
"Here's your first chance. Let's start with the clothes you and Jessica need. Don't let your shawls fall open so they see your modern clothes. Just tell them—"
Katherine suddenly steered them into a nearby thicket, breaking off Lauren’s nagging.
"Ouch!" Jessica squealed. "Why did you do that?"
When they were surrounded by bushes and small trees, Katherine stopped.
“Because Lauren's going to loan me her old-fashioned dress and we need a place to change, is why.”
Lauren looked about to protest, but then she saw the expectant look on Katherine's face and took off her woolen leine dress, showing that she had on bloomers and a camisole underneath. She started to remove these too.
But Katherine stopped her with a pretty wave of her hand.
"No, keep that on. No need to make yourself scandalous. Who knows how far these people venture out. One of them might happen upon you, and I’d hate myself if you had to face them in your birthday suit."
She said this in a way that made it look like she was doing Lauren a favor, and Lauren, obviously uncomfortable with the idea of taking off her clothes out here in the wild, was buying it. Fascinating.
Jessica slowly shook her head in wonder at Katherine's selling skills, searching for a suitable metaphor that really did them justice. ‘She could sell snow to an eskimo’ came to mind, and Jessica supposed that cliché would have to do, because she couldn't think of anything else.
Katherine had already wriggled out of her tiny little jacket and silk dress and handed them to Jessica, and as soon as Lauren took off the baggy wool dress, Katherine put it on. It hung extra baggy on Katherine, but would these people notice that her clothing was extra loose? Oh, maybe that would be a selling point, an excuse for her to get different clothes.
Putting on her blue shawl over Lauren's leine and straightening it to make sure each fold hung nicely down her long slender figure, Katherine pointed at both of them.
"I'm going down there alone—" she held up her hand to stop Lauren from talking. "When I said leave it to me, I meant leave it to me. You two wait here out of sight."
And then something troubling occurred to Jessica.
"What if they don't speak English? Didn't they speak Gaelic in the Highlands in the past?"
Lauren had that joyful, amazed, ‘I'm having so much fun!’ look on her face again.
Katherine was backing out of the thicket with her hood over her head to keep the twigs out of her long blonde hair. She held up her hand again to stop Lauren from talking.
"I already figured that out, because you know what?"
Lauren still seemed joyful.
"No, what?"
Katherine was out of the thicket now and walking backwards away from them on the grassy ground down the hill with her arms crossed in front of her and a big smile on her face.
"We understood those men on horseback yelling after us back near the castle, and they weren't speaking English. When I get back, you're going to tell us who those men were, how you knew who they were, and just what we've gotten ourselves into."
And with that, Katherine turned around and jogged down the hill in her sturdy and practical new shoes.
While they waited, Lauren took out another folded gunny sack and put Katherine’s clothing in it.
Jessica tried everything she could think of to get more infor
mation out of Lauren about how time travel worked: intellectual speculation, scholastic theorization, flattery, misdirection, even point-blank questions.
However, for someone so happy about what was going on, Lauren was oddly reticent. She just shook her head no and mumbled ‘Later, we’ll sleep.’
The two of them now sat on the grassy ground inside the thicket, hugging their shawls around them over their bent knees. It felt wonderful to rest.
“Maybe we should lie down and take a nap,” said Jessica. “We can keep each other warm.”
“Maybe,” said Lauren.
They lay down, but Jessica already knew she wouldn’t be able to sleep. The farm wasn't that far away, and Katherine could have been back by now if she hadn’t been trying to buy two dresses from people who didn't normally sell their clothes. Looking at the sun, Jessica could tell there were two hours left yet before sunset, so Katherine was reasonably within her time limit.
She pulled away from her friend and sat up straighter, trying not to look afraid so much as angry. Anger was stronger, and she had already cried once today. Before that she hadn’t cried since she was a kid.
"You could've done a better job explaining everything,” she said without looking at Lauren. “You could've told us we were going to time travel and that was why we needed the clothes. I just didn't see the need for them, is all. Now that I see the need, of course I would've bought some."
Some of the joy drained out of Lauren's face, and she put a hand on Jessica's arm.
"We’ll be fine. Katherine will get you clothes and we’ll go into the village and find a place to stay. They may even have an inn."
Jessica tried to reproach Lauren with her eyes, but she knew it just came off as her panicking.
"You mean you don't even know if they have an inn?"
Lauren projected her joy at being here to Jessica, as if that were some sort of compensation for Jessica’s sore and tired muscles and empty stomach.
"No, I don't know where we are this time, just that we need to find lodging — preferably a private room, or I would've had Katherine ask for lodging at the farm."
Jessica wrinkled her brow.
“But you knew there was a village up here.”
“Yeah, but it’s not like I’ve been here before.”
“How did you know?”
“I … wait till we sleep.”
They fussed like this for a long while, with Lauren revealing nothing and Jessica growing more and more frustrated.
Finally, they saw Katherine leave the farmhouse and come walking up the hill, triumphantly carrying two motley and quite dirty leine dresses. They only had a scant half hour before sunset. Lauren got up and pulled Jessica up, and the two of them ran down to meet Katherine.
"Let’s go in that shed to change." Lauren nodded her head at the small structure near the farmhouse. "I've been watching, and though there was lots of activity earlier, they’ve all gone in the house."
Katherine smacked her lips, handing one of the motley leine to Jessica. It had been made from five different weaves of woolen cloth, unmade and added to each time the owner grew, most likely.
"Yeah, they're eating dinner now. They were so astonished at the earring I gave them in payment for these two raggedy dresses that they fed me too. I would've asked for a leftover box so that you could eat as well, but…"
Full of joy and excitement again, Lauren gave Katherine a little hug and then gestured for them to follow her as she ran to the shed. It was dark inside, but only half full of hay. They felt their way to an empty corner.
Katherine tried to hand Lauren one of the two used leine.
Lauren folded her arms and raised her chin at Katherine.
“You wear the dirty one. I tried to get you a brand new one that matched your eyes, and you refused it, remember?”
After much groaning, they all quickly changed clothes.
Katherine cleared her throat.
"Okay, why can't we just go back to the castle and use whatever you used to get us here to go back home to our time?”
Lauren took her time answering, and Jessica’s eyes had adjusted to the dark, because she could see that her friend was absent mindedly combing her fingers through her hair. And then Lauren stopped and nodded.
"Because those men at the castle are druids, evil druids. They'll keep us as slaves. That's what evil druids do."
Katherine threw up her hands in a very animated gesture and whirled toward the door.
"You're making things up so that we’ll stay here. I don't appreciate the trickery, Lauren. I'm going to take a little walk so that I don't do something I’ll later regret. When I come back, you had better have some answers for me, and they had better make sense."
Lauren tried to go after Katherine as she stormed off, but Jessica held her.
"I've never seen Katherine so mad. Let her cool off. She'll be fine. She's good with people, remember? Help me open this shutter so we can look out, see if we can spot the inn that you and I both know we need to find."
Lauren pushed hard. The shutter popped up, and the two of them peered out from under it at the buildings of the village. There weren’t many, maybe two dozen, though there were more farms all around the outskirts, and they could see a large manor house up in the hills.
Sighing a grateful sigh of blissful release, Jessica pointed out a building where some of the people wearing woolen leines and shawls — men and women both, though the men wore their shawls over one arm and under the other, and some men’s shawls were leather rather than wool — were coming and going merrily. Every time the door opened, music spilled out from inside. And most encouragingly, the place had a second story with several small windows.
An inn!
Lauren’s ‘happy to be on an adventure’ look was back.
"Good job spotting it. This'll be fun, you'll see."
Jessica had her doubts.
"How will we pay for our rooms, though?"
Lauren put her hand around a small pouch Jessica hadn't noticed. It hung from her belt, and when she jiggled it, it clinked.
Jessica smiled at Lauren, finally sharing some of her joy at being on an adventure, but then she remembered.
"We’d better go after Katherine. She's been gone longer than I thought she'd be. We have good news for her, which should help her mood."
But Lauren held her.
"No need. She's coming back to us."
Chapter 4
Tall, dark, long-haired Leif finished patting his best friend Donnan on the back in sorrow for his wife's sickness and turned to see what Taran wanted. Leif’s brother had uncharacteristically rushed in through the cottage door.
"What is it?"
Taran nodded his respects to Donnan and Agnes, who nodded in turn and then went back to consoling each other over her sickness. The poor woman had been abed two days, hot with the fever, and she was far from the first. The village was swarmed in sickness, mostly among the women. They spoke of a mysterious white robed figure who showed up at the well telling stories and showing them talismans that they were to kiss for good luck. None of the men had managed to see this strange figure, and it disturbed them all deeply.
Leif threw his arm around his brother and escorted him out of the cottage.
"Let us leave them some time together. I fear she isna long for this waurld."
Taran swallowed and nodded, grief on his face.
“Luag met a lass at the market. She's a stranger, but she's wearing one o' Mauve's leines. Says she bought it from her. Says she has two friends in Alvin's barn who seek a nicer place tae spend the night. Says they all come from the east but hasna been more forthcoming than that, na about where they come from nor aught else. Katherine is a charming lass, and I am inclined tae invite her and her friends tae bide with us. But ye need tae come meet her. Only now that I am away from her dae I ken how strange this sounds. Come and see what I’m on aboot."
The two walked through their town arm in arm, waving and smiling to those
who waved and smiled and sharing a grim frown with those who had sick family members at home. The latter were smaller in number. So far.
A smile grew on Leif's face as he watched their little sister, Amena, help Senga with the marketing. She was so young to have lost their parents, only six. She had taken it hard. It did his soul well to see her so lively and engaged.
Senga was a good influence on Amena. Each and every day, Leif thanked Heaven for their one servant. She was more like a member of the family, had cooked for them all his life.
And then he saw Luag talking to the stranger. No wonder Taran was inclined to let her and her friends stay with them. Katherine was the most beautiful woman Leif had ever seen. She wasn't the type of woman he was attracted to, however: outgoing and animated, when he preferred a more quiet and practical lass.
But Luag’s eyes drank Katherine in, even as he scoffed at something she was saying.
Laughing, Leif made his way over to them. As he did, he heard the banter between them and hoped mayhap Luag had met his match.
The lass’s voice was scornful toward Luag as well, but her face was smiling as she traded jests with him. She was being shown a good time.
“I am from a time far beyond now and ken more aboot many things than ye ever will.”
Luag’s face betrayed him as well by smiling even as he poured his exaggerated derision upon her jest.
“And ‘tis easy tae see that does na include making leine, ye wearing Matilde’s and all.”
“I daresay I look better in her castoff than ye look in a leine made for ye.”
Leif’s poor friend from the isles felt out of place here in Inverurie, but Leif greatly needed the man's expertise at fighting to help him get his men ready for the large battle that was brewing. He still couldn't believe Luag had come over to the mainland side of things, being from the isles and all, but Leif didn't doubt his friend’s loyalty. Fair like Katherine, Luag sparred with her in a battle of words over what was almost a palpable bridge of attraction between the two of them.
A bridge of attraction they didn’t appear aware of. It had drawn a crowd.
