by Jane Stain
“This is an English settlement,” said one of the men.
“You indians are not welcome here,” said the other.
“Grab her and pull.” Emily told Ju-long. “Dall is just around this corner.”
She ran after Ju-long, grabbed Vange by the middle, and started to pull against the men, who were trying to pull Vange backward, out from between their buildings.
Ju-long did Emily one better, though. Making sure she could see him so she would be ready, he raised his leather hearing protection, took out his weapon, and aimed it at the sky.
“Cover your ears, Vange.” Emily let go of her friend and covered her own ears with both hands.
Vange quit struggling with the two men and raised her hands up to cover her own ears.
“What does she do?” said one of the English settlers.
“Daft if I do know,” said the other. “She be a crazed indian woman. They can’t be expected to act like civilized people. Look, she be wearing men’s clothing.”
But as soon as Vange had covered her ears, Ju-long fired his weapon into the air.
BLAM.
“Aaaaaaa.” Both men dropped their hold on Vange to now hold their aching ears and cower in fear against the side of the log house.
“A cannon.”
“That indian has a cannon.”
“Over here.” Emily yelled, motioning for Vange and Ju-long to follow her around the corner, where they all huddled up around Dall, who was still in stocks.
“Don’t let go of me, anyone.”
They all grabbed onto her shoulders or waist.
Emily got out her phone, dragged the destination menu down, selected the first destination that came up without even glancing at it, and pushed the ‘Go’ button.
The world went swirly.
Well, there wouldn’t be any do-overs this time.
But Emily figured they could just pick a new destination and leave right away if they didn’t like where they ended up. Except they ended up in their love nest in the attic of Dall’s mother’s house in the highlands.
“Oh, it’s so nice to be home.” Emily said to Dall, who was with them and out of the stocks and then very much all over her and kissing her for what was probably a full minute but felt like no time at all.
“I welcome in you home by you people?” said Ju-long tentatively. Poor guy, no wonder he was worried, after the way those settlers had treated him and Vange.
“Aye,” said Dall.
“Hush,” said Peadar, holding his hand in front of his mouth to indicate they should be quiet.
Dall moved as if to backhand Peadar for telling his own father what to do, but at the last second, Dall didn’t do it. He stopped and looked in the other man’s serious and worried face, then nodded once and backed off.
“What’s wrong?” said Vange, who obviously remembered everything still and was squatting a bit in order to better respond to whatever threat Peadar sensed.
“Have a look inside the clothing boards, lass.” Peadar was looking mostly at Vange—and with an embarrassing amount of requited longing—but he was talking to Emily.
Thinking to find a Scottish change of clothing for each of them, Emily nodded yes at Peadar and went to the freestanding closet that had been her wedding present from Dall’s brothers.
What she saw inside puzzled her.
Why had Dall’s mother filled it up with clothing in Campbell colors? That didn’t make any sense. Emily held up one of the garments and met Dall’s gaze, trying to say with her eyes, “What do you make of this? Is it a joke?”
“What year did you put in, lass, when we did swirl over here?” Dall’s face was all scrunched up and worried, but still kind.
“I didn’t put in any year at all,” Emily said. “I just selected the first destination that came to my finger.” She looked at her phone and gasped.
The year was the same one they had just left, 1560, and the destination was Dall’s daughter Peigi’s picture.
Peadar’s face hardened with resolve, and as he spoke, everyone else’s did as well. “If she be here, and the house be possessed by the Campbells, then she be here held captive, for certain.”
11 Loch
Hearing a noise in the house below, Emily quickly put her phone away inside her brooch.
When they had first arrived in the room, she hadn’t noticed the blue Campbell plaid clothing in the wardrobe cabinet. Nor had she noticed the old red MacGregor kilt, torn up and made into rags which stuffed the chinks in the walls against the raging highland winds.
Vange scrambled under the bed.
Peadar scrambled under after her on the other side.
No, they had gradually come to realize this was no longer Dall’s family’s home. Instead, it was the home of Campbells. And Emily’s history book had warned her the Campbells would almost entirely snuff out the MacGregors—but not until the MacGregors had helped the Campbells secure all the Menzies’s land.
Ju-long crept into the shadows behind some trunks under the low part of the ceiling.
“Urg.” Emily muffled her frustration and opened the door to the wardrobe.
Dall climbed inside with her.
She whispered to him, “Why did I put my phone away. We could have just left.”
“Hush.” he whispered back, holding her close in the darkness inside the cabinet.
They heard the attic staircase open downward. Errrrack. And then they heard voices speaking Gaelic, an older man and woman.
“Oh, I really think it’s best, my dear,” said the man.
“But the young man wants to marry the girl.”
“He will want to marry some other girl soon enough,” the man said with conviction.
“It isn’t our way, telling a young man who he can marry,” the woman said. She sounded a little afraid.
Emily didn’t blame her. One of the things she really liked about the Scots was the way they allowed young people to choose their mates. It was quite enlightened for the 16th century.
But the man didn’t sound very enlightened. “She is a servant. We are doing the young man a service by channeling his interest elsewhere.”
The couple got in the bed, where they argued into the night until they fell asleep, among other things.
Emily envied Vange and Peadar their spot under the bed. That sounded a lot more comfortable than standing up inside a cabinet all night. She had some sympathy for Ju-long. He didn’t have much room to stretch out either, or the older couple would surely see him.
When the couple were snoring, Emily wondered out loud in a whisper to Dall, “Should we leave the cabinet and collect the others and swirl on out of here?”
“Nay, lass. Peigi is in this house somewhere, and we need to free her. I believe it was her they were speaking about just now, with the young man wanting to marry her and them not allowing it. Nay, we will not be leaving until we give her the freedom to marry whosoever she wishes to.”
“It’s just that Vange and Ju-long don’t fit in here in Scotland any better than they did at that English settlement where Peadar was captive. No, they won’t be called Indians here, but they won’t be mistaken for English either. I’m worried about them.”
“Vange and Ju-long are grown people, Drusilla—”
“Peigi is a grown person in 1560 too, Dall.”
“… I … Aye, well yes. But she is a grown person who is also still my daughter… Emily, you’re right. You and the lass and Ju-long, you do not have to stay. There is danger here for all of you. However, I do need to stay. Peigi needs me. I would not be a father if I didn’t help her.”
“And I would not be a wife if I didn’t help you while you help her. If you’ll have me, that is.”
Dall embraced her there in the cabinet, and all was well for a bit.
Emily was almost asleep when Dall whispered again.
“Emily. Emily, wake up.”
“I have not gone to sleep, Dall.”
“We need to get out of this cabinet before t
hose Campbells wake up, Emily.”
In her groggy mind, what Dall had said did not make any sense. Why come out of a perfectly good hiding place? But as she awakened more and more and left the pattern of sleep that she had been entering, she imagined what would happen when the couple woke up. They would need to empty their bladders, so they would go…
Oh.
Oh.
They would need to go outside to the privy, which meant they would need to get dressed—and that meant they would need to open this cabinet.
“You’re right.” she whispered. “Should we try to crowd under the bed with Vange and Peadar?”
“Nay, lass. And there be no room under there, we might awaken those who sleep topside of the bed. Nay, we will need to crowd into the shadows behind the chests the way Ju-long has. And probably get no sleep at all.”
“Yeah, you’re right.” Emily looked dubiously at the cabinet door. “Do you remember if it squeaked at all, when we opened it to come in here?”
“I do not think it did, lass.”
“I think it’s better to open it fast. That way, if it does squeak, it won’t for very long.”
“Aye, you have the right of it. Here it goes.” Dall pushed both cabinet doors open, but he held on to them so that they didn’t bang against the sides of the cabinet.
The cabinet door hinges squeaked a little. Eeeack.
Dall and Emily winced and sat there dreading the couple awakening to see them in the cabinet. While they sat there listening to every little sound in the room, they noticed that not only were the people in the bed snoring, but they heard the budding couple under the bed snoring too.
Might as well think of them as a couple, Emily reasoned. It seemed inevitable, and she thought she was going to need time to get used to the idea—of her best friend being with her stepson, who had been seven years old when she saw him a few months before.
Dall took her hand and led her tiptoeing across the room.
She had never paid more attention to how she tiptoed in her life.
But regardless of how careful she was, one of the floorboards creaked.
Emily’s instinct told her to freeze, and if she had been alone, freeze is what she would’ve done. And she would have been caught by the Campbells and probably made a servant like her stepdaughter.
Good thing for Emily, Dall was with her.
He grabbed her by the waist and threw her over one of the chests lined up along the side of the room where the ceiling sloped into the floor and made a small unused space.
Emily fell into that space, and just in time too.
Dall jumped into that space behind the trunk next to hers right as the grumpy old Campbell couple woke up.
The Campbell woman yawned loudly and spoke some more in Gaelic. “Good heavens, the grandchildren must be playing especially hard this morning. Did you hear whatever that was hit the floor a moment ago, dear?”
The Campbell man grunted as his feet squeaked over the floor toward the wardrobe cabinet. “Yes. We shall have to say something to Peigi about that. She needs to keep better control of the little ones, or why are we feeding her?”
On hearing his daughter’s name, Emily and Dall exchanged looks that said:
“She is here.”
“How dare he speak of her that way.”
“We have to get her away from him.”
They impatiently listened to some boring talk of cattle and grasslands while the Campbell couple dressed and went down to breakfast.
As soon as the stair-hatch closed behind them, Peadar, Ju-long, and Vange left their hiding places and came over to speak to Dall and Emily.
Keeping their voices down so as not to be heard from downstairs, Dall directed them to all sit down behind the chests in the far reaches of the attic room, where they hoped no one who came up there would notice them.
Dall spoke first. “We will take you all back home and return for my Peigi. Emily tells me you all signed on to rescue me, and well, you have done that, aye?”
“Da,” said Peadar, “I am not leaving here until Peigi is free to marry the lad she has chosen and can do whatever work she chooses without a need to worry about being fed, you ken?”
Vange and Ju-long shook their heads yes in agreement with Peadar.
“OK,” said Emily, “we need to plan how we’ll get Peigi out of here, then. We could grab some Campbell clothes for at least one of us and then swirl out of this house to a nearby location. Come into the village as one of them and hope to see Peigi out and about…”
“That will only work if the one of us in the Campbell clothing be you, lass,” said Dall, “as you are the one with the wee phone app that can swirl Peigi out of captivity.”
“Well, yeah,” said Emily, making a gesture that she meant to say, “I’m the one with the acting skills, too, so I’m the obvious choice for the job.”
“Nay,” said Peadar, “we have gotten inside the house already, and we should stay inside. Getting inside here will be not possible from without, and I do have my doubts that Peigi does ever go out.”
Dall nodded yes. “That be the way I do see things, as well. We will need to use stealth and devise a way to reach Peigi from inside, from up here in this loft, you ken.”
Emily nodded.
“Right now is the only safe time to pop out and grab stuff we might need and pop back in,” said Vange, chewing hard on a piece of gum she must have had in one of her pouches.
Ju-long spoke up. “May be stuff in chests that can help.”
Emily’s eyes popped open wide. “What would help us right now is if there were more chests to hide behind, and I wouldn’t complain if there were a pile of old blankets stored behind them. Sitting on this hard floor is … very unpleasant.”
“Why go on about what we do not have, lass?” Peadar said.
“But we could have it,” said Emily, getting excited. “Don’t you see? I can go back to when you and your family lived here and get them to put more chests up here, and a pile of blankets behind them, and the chests can contain whatever we want them to.”
“Wouldn’t it be better to just warn them the Campbells are going to take over their house by 1560?” said Vange.
“We have already told them what we know of history,” said Emily. “They can’t really stop the big things from happening, I don’t think. All we can do is make life better for those we love, despite the big things that happen.”
“Well, then we shall all go back and get Ma to put more chests up here, and blankets behind the chests, Drusilla,” said Dall with a smile.
“Nay, at least I will remain here,” said Peadar. “I ken you mean to return. However, you might not, and then Peigi is none the better. Nay, I will stay.”
“I’ll stay with you,” said Vange, with stars in her eyes.
Peadar didn’t seem to mind that at all. In fact, he looked to be in danger of forgetting where he was and what was going on.
Emily cleared her throat.
The two of them snapped out of it. Just barely.
“I stay,” said Ju-long. “I don’t meet people here behind chests. Easy.”
“OK,” said Emily. “Stay way back here in the corner. We’ll be sure to leave this space empty, and to leave open a way to crawl back here … and out.”
They all nodded yes.
Vange held out her hand. “Gimmie your phone, Em.”
Very gently and carefully, Emily took their only way home out of her solar-charger brooch and handed it to her best friend.
Vange gestured for Emily to sit down next to Dall and then she took a picture of the area in the corner where they all needed to be hidden by the chests. Then she sat down next to Peadar. Really close to him. Like, way closer than she needed to. They weren’t that crowded behind the chests. Ew.
Emily dealt with the disturbing sight long enough to get her phone back, and then she busied herself fiddling with it under Dall’s watchful eye until she had the Time Management app set to keep them at their current
location, but bring them back to one of the open green windows of time near the last time they had visited Peadar and Peigi here as children. In 1540.
“Em.” Vange called out.
“Yeah?”
Vange pulled Emily’s ear close to her and whispered, “Bring something we can use as a toilet.”
Ooh. Good thinking. No way would they make it out to the privy anytime soon.
Giving her friend a grateful look, Emily nodded, and then she hugged her friend and her stepson.
Dall hugged Peadar, too. He said to Ju-long, “My thanks to you. I do owe you a favor, any time.”
“Know what I ask, when time comes,” said Ju-long, staring at the phone in Emily’s hand.
Emily nodded at Ju-long. “Yep, we can figure out how to take you home to visit your family and friends.” She met Dall’s eyes then, and they shared their contented cat smile. Then she said to all three who were remaining here near Peigi, “We’ll be right back.”
Dall and Emily swirled back in time until they were standing in the same attic room minus Vange, Ju-long, and Peadar. It was a subtle thing, but Emily knew right away she was in a time when the room was indeed theirs. It smelled different. Yes, that was it. The room once again smelled like MacGregors.
Sunshine came in through the small cracks between the boards of the walls, as they hadn’t yet been stuffed with MacGregor plaid, and it was mid-day. The sounds of children playing wafted up through the floor boards.
Dall moved to lower the staircase hatch.
Emily caught his arm. “Let’s make sure.” She nodded at the wardrobe cabinet.
“Well enough, lass.” He went over and opened the cabinet.
Emily sighed in relief.
There were all their red MacGregor plaid kilts and long skirts and bodices.
Without even saying anything, Emily stripped out of the English man-clothes she’d put on to go and rescue Peadar from the far-away English settlement, where they’d made him a ‘cow boy’, a Scottish slave. She put on one of the finely embroidered highlands shifts Dall’s mother had sewn for her, along with a long plaid skirt and a bodice.
