by Jane Stain
Looking at both of them, Siobhan said, “As you can imagine, time travel is a big secret. That’s why I sent Vange and Ian out to the picnic tables with their breakfast. You can’t tell Vange about this, Emily. Not a word. Ian knows enough to be able to tell if she knows, but … You know what? Both of you, don’t discuss time travel with anyone besides me. Do you understand?”
Emily nodded yes vigorously. “Oh, I totally understand why time travel needs to be kept secret. I’ve seen all of the Terminator movies.”
Siobhan turned her eyes to Dall and stared at him significantly.
Dall sort of bowed to Siobhan. “I dae understand, and I wull obey.” How weird.
“Good,” Siobhan said, giving Dall another stern stare. “Let’s eat our breakfast before it gets cold.” She gestured to her little kitchen table.
They all sat down to bacon and eggs and toast with lots of hot coffee.
Dall sat a little closer to Emily than usual at the table and put his arm around her, too. She wasn’t complaining. His touch always invigorated her, and the more they touched, the more alive she felt.
Still, it was yet another way Dall was acting strange. It alarmed Emily a little. It brought back the feeling she’d had that first day of faire, when she wondered if she would ever see him again. But that was a silly thought. They were going to time travel together tomorrow. Not only would she see him, but hopefully she would also meet his family. She dared to hope this meant he was as serious about her as she was about him.
He was caressing her back through her thick bodice, but Siobhan got up to walk Emily to Simon’s boot booth, so Emily and Dall got up too, and off they went.
Vange was already at the booth when they arrived. “What took you so long? I thought maybe Siobhan had killed you and was burying your bodies.”
Emily was trying to push away from Dall to sock Vange in the arm. It felt like she hadn’t seen her friend in months.
But Dall pulled Emily back and kissed her so eagerly and tenderly and desperately that by degrees Emily forgot missing Vange, wanting to sock Vange, and even that Vange was talking to her. After fighting it for only a few seconds, Emily relaxed into Dall’s kiss and gave as good as she got.
“Ahem.” Siobhan interrupted them.
Dall released Emily ten times more reluctantly than he usually did after walking her to Simon’s booth. She wasn’t all that keen on him going off with Siobhan right now, either. But he would be back in two hours to escort her to the dance set like he always did, so she didn’t understand why he was so clingy.
“My love for ye does stretch through the ages,” Dall said instead of goodbye as Siobhan led him away. He turned his head to watch Emily until he and Siobhan rounded a corner and went out of sight.
Two inexplicable things occurred to Emily as she recovered from that awesome kiss and watched Siobhan walk Dall away. One, she was wearing an amazingly authentic embroidered Scottish shift. Two, her left forearm itched as if it had been deeply wounded a week ago and was healing.
“Earth to Emily.”
Emily came back down to reality with Vange’s hand waving before her eyes. “Sorry.” She turned and smiled at her best friend.
“It’s OK.” Vange grinned at her. “You guys are getting serious, huh.” It wasn’t a question.
“Yeah, he’s asked me overseas to meet his parents.”
“Squee.” Vange smiled even bigger. “So you’re going to Scotland. When? How? Both you and Dall are broke, last I heard.”
“I’m not really sure how, to tell you the truth, but we leave tomorrow after faire.”
“Wow. Wow.”
They just grinned at each other for a moment, and then Vange said, “Maybe his parents are flying you over there.” She looked happy for Emily. “That’s so great.”
“Morning, ladies.” Dog posed in the street in front of them with his biceps flexed as big as a honeydew melon. His crew stood behind him like back-up singers.
“Ooh, Now it is.” Vange sauntered over and felt his muscle, dutifully pulling up her skirts to show off Simon’s colorful boots while she did so.
In turn, Dog called attention to her boots, and they both pointed passersby to the boot booth.
The two of them made a show of this every morning during Emily and Vange’s shift at hawking the boots. Simon loved it. He had invited Vange, Emily, and Dog to hawk for him at this faire again next year.
Figuring she’d better call her parents, since she was going to Scotland the next day, Emily went under the burlap wall to the small enclosed backstage area where Simon and his family had their meals. That was when she noticed she didn’t have her phone. She searched all of her pouches, but she didn’t find it.
“Looking for this?” said a small voice Emily didn’t recognize.
She looked up to see her brooch in the hands of a little girl about ten years old, who wasn’t in costume.
“Yes.” Emily held out her hand.
The girl put her finger over her lips and gestured for Emily to follow her into a trailer.
Figuring she had little choice, Emily followed. There was no one else inside the motorhome, at least not where she could see them.
The little girl handed over Emily’s brooch.
Emily looked for her phone inside, but it wasn’t there. “Do you know where my phone is?”
The girl handed her a different phone. “Dall says they can hear you on your phone, whatever that means. He wants you to text him on this one as soon as you can find a private place, because he usually can’t talk. He says you’ll know what that means.”
Emily took the new phone, wondering how Dall had managed to get it. “But I’ll see him soon, so why do I need to text him?”
The little girl shrugged. “That’s all he told me to tell you. He gave me a twenty.” She smiled. “You better go now, though. My grandma and grandpa will be back soon.”
“OK. Uh, thanks.” Emily showed herself out.
Thinking perhaps she shouldn’t call her parents just yet, she went to the ladies’ room and checked out her new phone. It didn’t fit in her brooch. It was one of those cheap pre-loaded flip phones you could get at the supermarket. It was only good for texting and calling, no apps. Maybe he’d bought it here at faire, but where had he gotten the money?
Shrugging, Emily checked the contacts and was not surprised to find that they matched the contacts on her old phone. She was relieved to see a contact for Dall, and that it was not her old phone number.
In fact, there was a text from Dall. “Take yer medicine for yer wound, lass, in the red vial inside yer main pouch. Keep the wound hidden. Dinna tell any faire people we are in touch. Hide that phone. They are taking me tae the next faire site. Apply in costume next Saturday. Yer dagger should fetch enough tae get ye there all summer. ’Tis an antique.” He gave the name of a county park in the next state.
Emily texted Dall back: “Are you safe? What’s going on?” She waited five minutes for an answer, but none came.
While she was waiting in the privacy of the ladies’ room, she examined her wound. It looked nasty, but someone had sewn it up. Antibiotics against infection were needed, then. She measured out a dose and noticed that about half of it was missing. She swallowed the medicine.
“What’s wrong?” Vange asked Emily when she came out from the backstage area.
Emily gave her best friend their look. It meant she wanted to discuss something in private. That would have to do, because they didn’t have a look for ‘Someone has kidnapped my boyfriend and anyone within earshot might be in on it.’
Vange nodded discreetly, and then she looked around for a spot they could go to.
Emily grabbed Vange’s arm and said loudly enough for Simon and his family to hear, “I don’t feel good.” She added some panting, to sell the idea that she was going to throw up. “Vange, take me home, please, right now.”
“OK, we’ll just go to Siobhan’s trailer and get our stuff. Simon—”
“Vange, just tak
e me straight to your car, please. I really don’t feel good.” Emily grabbed hold of Vange as if she was so sick that she needed her friend’s support to walk, yet she was the one dragging Vange away from everyone.
Once they were far enough away to whisper without people at the booth hearing, Emily dared a quick, “I want out of here. Now. Forget about our stuff.”
“OK.” Vange whispered back.
Emily continued her sick act all the way to Vange’s car, and Vange played along. They got in and closed the doors.
And then Vange turned to Emily with excitement on her face. “So spill. I’m dying to hear what’s so secret we had to come all the way out to the car.”
“We’re not out of here yet. Please go. I’ll explain once we’re on the highway, I promise.”
“Wow, you really want to leave before the faire’s over?”
Emily just looked at her friend and allowed the panic to show in her face.
“OK. OK.” Vange started up the car and drove the obligatory five miles per hour over the dirt field that served as the faire’s customer parking lot.
Emily decided now would be a good time to be on the phone with her parents. “Let me borrow your phone.”
Still driving, Vange nodded at the brooch pinned to Emily’s bodice. “Where’s yours?”
“That’s part of the ‘Once we’re on the highway’ story.”
Emily got Vange’s phone and pushed a contact.
Her mother answered. “Vange? Is everything alright?”
“Hi Mom, it’s me, Emily. Dall got … called away on business, so our trip to Scotland got cancelled.”
Emily felt Vange’s hand grab her upper arm, luckily not the injured arm. She turned her head and nodded yes at her friend’s disbelieving face.
Her mom sounded relieved, though, which made sense, seeing she hadn’t wanted Emily to go to Scotland. “Oh, that’s too bad, Honey.”
Emily took a deep breath to vent her frustration. “Yeah, and without him here, I’m really not into the faire, so Vange and I are on our way home, after we run an errand. Remind me to tell you about it later. You’ll be impressed with Dall’s … business sense, I think. And, um, he’ll be working at another faire starting next weekend, and he’s invited us to come apply to be part of that faire, too.”
Now Vange was dancing in her seat, and Emily was glad her friend liked the idea. That was one worry off her mind.
Her mom sounded skeptical. “Well, maybe your father and I should come along when you apply at this new faire, so we get a chance to meet Dall.”
“Actually, I think that’s a good idea.” Emily kept her mom chatting on the phone with her while Vange drove up to the parking lot gate where the faire people took your ten bucks for parking on top of your fifty bucks for getting in. She looked around, realizing that, if instructed to do so by the druids, they could keep you from getting out of the fenced field, at least with your car. Miles from anything.
“Leaving so soon?” said the smiling parking-lot attendant.
“Yeah,” said Vange, “my friend doesn’t feel good.”
Emily waited what seemed like forever for the attendant to respond, but then finally he just waved them through.
Vange pulled onto the highway and opened it up to 70. “So are you OK really? And what the heck happened back there? Where’s your phone, and what errand do we have to run?”
Emily turned on the radio, pushed buttons until one of their favorite songs came on, and cranked it up. She sang along with attitude until Vange joined in and finished the song with her.
“Yeah, I’m really OK. I was just faking sick to get us out of there.”
Vange laughed. “What about our stuff?”
“Who cares about our PJs and shampoo. Like I told my mom, Dall had to go to the next faire site and help get it started, and I’m not into being around here without him. He has my phone. I loaned it to him.” She smiled.
“Hahahahaha. Did it work?”
“Yep. I have to get it back, right?”
“Right. So are we really going to work at the next faire?”
“Yep. It finishes just before classes start. And this time we’re going to make them pay us real money. Don’t get me wrong, I love the boots Simon gave us, but I heard some of the hawkers at other booths talking. Vange, we can get fifty bucks an hour.”
“No way.”
“Yep, and that isn’t all. Our errand is selling these daggers.”
“But—”
“We can buy new ones at this next faire.”
“I know, but Ian gave us these.”
“And these two daggers will sell for enough gas to get us all the way out there and back for all eight weekends, plus a cheap motel if we act fast and reserve ahead.”
“Oh, that sounds so good.”
“I know. Staying with Siobhan again is out of the question. Way too creepy.”
Vange held up her hand.
Emily slapped it.
Riding in the back seat of her parents’ SUV with Vange the next Friday all the way out to the new faire site reminded Emily of when they were kids on summer vacations. Just for fun, they sang some old favorite songs.
Her parents sang, too. Whoa, they were way more excited about this weekend than expected. They needed to take more vacations.
It was after dark once they had inquired of the park rangers where the faire would be and made it to the hotel her parents had booked with the deposit Emily had given them. She couldn’t wait till she had a job and could get her own credit card. Asking them to book the hotel room had been embarrassing.
“Mom. This hotel is way nicer than Vange and I can afford. And we’re paying our own way. I insist.”
Her parents exchanged a look and then smiled their ‘I’m so proud of you’ smile.
“Normally, it would be,” said her mom, “but do you remember Jake and Nancy, our friends who moved away your junior year in high school?”
“The guy who could talk through his nose?”
Her mom laughed. “Yeah, him. Well, Nancy’s cousin is the manager here.”
Emily and Vange looked at the place with new eyes, and they gave her mother huge smiles while her dad opened the hatch so the bellboy could load all of their luggage onto a cart.
Emily’s mom went on. “Now don’t get too excited. Your room isn’t free, but we got you the corporate rate, so it’s not much more than you would pay at one of those cheap motels, and so much safer. You’ll pay about the same anyway, because Dad and I are paying for this first weekend. We insist.”
Emily hugged her dad and then she walked arm-in-arm with her mom all through check-in and meeting the manager and touring the pool and Jacuzzi area on the roof.
Emily and Vange were to share a modest room that was reserved for eight weekends. It was near the stairs on the level just below the pool, so people in the elevator wouldn’t have to see them in their wet swimsuits—which the hotel provided for those who had forgotten to pack one.
They all had a great night’s sleep and a hearty breakfast in the lobby restaurant.
While they were eating, Mr. Simmons the manager came by and gifted the young women with a hotel parking pass and meal tickets, after complimenting them on their costumes. They all thanked him profusely, picked up the boxed lunches he’d had the kitchen prepare for them, and then piled into the SUV and headed to the new faire site.
It didn’t look like the faire yet. For one thing, this time it was in a meadow surrounded by forest instead of in a wheat field. But the main thing was that the village was still being assembled, along with the stages and all the burlap walls that would eventually hide the customer parking lot outside the circle as well as the backstage area inside the donut hole.
Emily and Vange touched up their hair and makeup in the car before getting in the boothie version of the two long lines to register as faire workers.
Emily was glad she and her friend had forgotten about period authenticity and opted to be as attractive as possibl
e while still wearing their costumes, because most of the other hopeful workers in the boothie line had done so as well. Emily’s wound was safely hidden under her sleeve.
Emily hadn’t had much opportunity to ask what to expect. Dall hadn’t texted with her nearly as much as she would have liked, but she understood he could only spend so much time in the men’s room and that was likely the only privacy the poor man got.
They had mostly texted:
“Miss you.”
“Can’t wait.”
When Emily finally saw Dall after exactly a week of being apart, he was up on the main stage getting ready for the opening meeting.
Emily waved, but it appeared he couldn’t see her. He was squinting, and the sun was right on his face. She pointed him out to her mom, who agreed he was very handsome, especially since he was the only one up there in a kilt.
All of the students in this ‘college of performing arts’ were in the audience along with the booth owners. About twenty ‘professors’ were on stage.
They explained that each student needed to pass ten workshops over the two weekends of rehearsal in order to get a gate pass. They handed out workshop schedules. They said the booth owners were free to watch any class they liked and to hire any worker they liked.
And then each professor introduced him or herself and described his or her workshop.
During the introductions, Emily checked off the workshops she wanted to take. ‘Basic faire accent’ and ‘costuming’ were already checked off for her because she was still considered new. She also checked ‘Scottish dancing’ and ‘songs of the period’.
Most importantly, Dall was the head of the six-person ‘stage fighting’ instruction team. His students had to take sixteen hours of instruction in just two weekends, practice on the weekdays between rehearsal weekends, and pass a test the second day to even remain in the class. But it counted as six of the ten required workshops. And there was limited space.
