by Jane Stain
When Emily left the bathroom, Dall had already shown Peadar to the blue bedroom, so Dall and Emily retired to their own room. They had spent many days without any time alone together. They didn’t go to sleep for a long time.
Emily’s alarm on her phone went off early the next morning. Oh yeah. Sparring practice with the renfest staff.
Dall wasn’t in bed next to her, and she got a bit worried. After ducking into the bathroom and pulling on some shorts, she went out into the kitchen.
The rest of the family were already up and seated around the tiny kitchen table, eating cold cereal and Pop-Tarts for breakfast.
Peadar and Peigi seemed to be adapting pretty well to modern food. Seemed to really relish it, actually.
Emily enjoyed watching them eat.
But then Siobhan came breezing in through the door of the trailer as if she lived there. The druid walked over to Emily and took her hand so casually that everyone else thought it was of no consequence.
Emily felt the woman squeezing her hand and looked over at her face.
Siobhan smiled and nodded, then hugged Emily.
Mystified at first, Emily slowly realized what the hug meant. She had a child growing inside her. Speechless, all she could do was cradle the place where she got cramps with her periods.
Siobhan put her arm around Emily and announced to the people eating cereal, “Emily won’t be sparring with you today. She’ll be taking it easy for the next nine months.”
The rest of the morning was weird, but Emily was happier than she had ever been.
Dall ran over as soon as he heard Siobhan’s announcement. He started to pick Emily up to whirl her around, but at a stare from Siobhan, he settled for kissing his wife deeply.
Siobhan came up with a crown of flowers to put on Emily’s head, and she announced Emily’s news to the renfest staff at the sparring practice, to general applause and quite a few pats on Dall’s back. She stayed right by Emily’s side the whole time they were there, choosing her food and drink and scaring off anyone who looked at her funny.
If Lews had any intention of attacking Emily again, he sure wasn’t going to do it where Siobhan could see him.
The druids introduced Peadar and Peigi only as Dall’s kin, not specifying they were his children. That made sense, and it was still truthful.
Emily sat by Siobhan in the gazebo sipping decaf coffee with milk and eating a banana while the rest of them practiced their sword fighting skills.
Peadar and Peigi took a while to warm up, but once they did, they were almost as good as Dall. After all, they’d had little other than practice swords to play with, as children and teens. Their years in captivity had kept them behind Dall in fighting ability, but Emily felt sure they would catch up, given the chance.
Which reminded her to try texting Vange.
“Can you come over for dinner?”
“Sure,” Vange texted back right away. “What’s up?”
“Can’t say here. Bring your costume.”
“Uh OK I’ll see you at 4?”
“Perfect. See you at 4.”
At ten minutes to 9 am, Emily’s phone vibrated. She looked at it, and there was a warning message.
“6 hour time debt in 10 minutes.”
Feeling a new camaraderie with the druid who was so nicely taking care of her every need and honoring her for bearing a child, Emily showed the message to Siobhan.
The woman gestured to Eamann the head druid, who blew the whistle that signaled the end of a sparring match.
“What? The match barely just started.” Lews called out angrily from where he was matched up against Peigi.
“Dall.” Eamann called out.
“Aye?” Dall looked around frantically, as if for a threat.
Siobhan explained, “Dall, you and your wife have time debt in … 9 minutes. Go to your trailer so you don’t disappear.”
Dall came and offered his arm to Emily, the same way he had that first day at faire.
She took it.
He started walking her back to the trailer. Slowly. He kept looking back over his shoulder at his children.
Emily looked, too. Peadar and Peigi had resumed sparring and looked like they were having fun.
Dall kept looking back at his children until his view was blocked by a fake storefront. “I did not fathom they would be here with us, when we did spend this day sleeping.”
“Of course not. How could you have? I’m sorry we have to leave them, Dall.”
“They will be well.” Dall sounded like he was trying to convince himself that.
They made it into the trailer and lay down on their bed.
Emily cuddled up close to her husband, trying to console him.
12 Scots
“I’ve been best friends with Emily since fourth grade,” Vange told Brittany on speaker-phone in her car, “and she and Dall have been living in that trailer for a while now. And yeah, they let me stay there during renfest—but this is the first time they’ve invited me over while they’re home. Isn’t that just a little weird?”
Vange was bouncing in her seat to the beat of the loud music on her stereo as she drove the three hours it took her to get to the renaissance festival site.
“Aw,” Brittany said, “I think it’s sweet that they let you have their trailer while they stay in a hotel on the weekends.”
Vange snorted. “You’ve seen them together, Brittany. I’m glad they ‘get a room’, too.”
Brittany laughed.
“Don’t get me wrong,” Vange said, “I adore Dall. I think he’s great for her. It’s the renfest I don’t think is so good. It’s taking over Em’s whole life—”
“Wait a minute,” Brittany said the same way Vange’s mom did, which was kind of creepy, “I seem to recall you complaining when they came over to visit you earlier this week, Vange.”
“Oh no, I wasn’t complaining about them coming to visit me, not at all.”
But when Vange stopped to think about it, she knew deep down that she had been complaining. And even though Vange now had an explanation for that whole thing and was in on it and it all was awesomely resolved—except for the renfest still taking over Emily’s life…
Vange couldn’t tell Brittany that Emily was able to teleport.
What was she going to tell her?
Ug, she should never have called her on Monday, no matter how mad she’d been at Emily.
What had she been thinking?
“You weren’t?” Brittany was saying, “Because it sure sounded to me like you were complaining. Admit it, you were downright whining.”
Well, if Brittany already thought Vange was juvenile, why not reinforce the idea? It might make her laugh, which would distract her.
“Was not.”
“Were too.”
There. Brittany was laughing.
Now for a little misdirection to make Brittany buy a more logical explanation for how Dall and Emily had gotten into that club when no one else was there.
“Brittany, I’m … worried about them, is all. The only reason I knew they came out of that club Monday morning was I got a call from my cousin Emilio. Why didn’t Em call and let me know she was there? Why was she there?”
“That is weird. But there could be a logical explanation.”
Bingo. OK, now what should this logical explanation be? Vange thought while she changed lanes to get around a slow dairy van.
“Em told me some story about how Dall lost his ID outside when he followed some smokers out there, but that doesn’t explain how they got inside on a Monday morning when the club was closed. My cousin doesn’t hang out with the best crowd, and I’m worried that Dall and Emily are involved in all that, Brittany.”
And then Brittany surprised Vange by writing the whole thing off all on her own and making this all about Vange and her insecurities. At first that was fine by Vange. She would take it.
“Are you sure it isn’t just that Emily is married now, and her husband is her new best frien
d, and you feel lonely and left out?”
But whoa.
Where did Brittany get that idea?
She didn’t know Vange and Emily well at all. They were like milk and cereal, always doing things together. They’d joined the renfest together, and Vange often wore Emily’s costumes. They had sewn their pouches together, and worked at Simon’s booth together …
But Vange didn’t answer out loud.
Brittany went on. “It’s understandable that you feel left out and lonely, Vange, but it’s not fair to Emily for you to be bitter about it. Calling me was a good idea. You need to make some other friends and let Emily and Dall spend time alone together. It’s normal for her to be preoccupied with her new husband awhile.”
Vange sighed.
Maybe she was a little jealous of Emily’s time lately.
From out of nowhere, she heard herself say, “But getting back to my concern for Emily: she’s two semesters away from being the drama teacher she always wanted to be. She worked really hard toward that, and now she’s just letting it drop to work at the renfest, of all things.”
“Yeah,” said Brittany, “but I heard her say the program gave her a pause, so she can go back to it whenever she wants. And she’s on staff at the renfest. That’s pretty cool, you have to admit. I would love to be in her shoes.”
“It doesn’t pay anything, Brittany.”
“It doesn’t?”
Aha. Brittany was finally getting the picture.
“No, it doesn’t. That’s why Em and Dall do those sword demos. The only money they make comes from those.”
Brittany was silent.
Vange pushed to get as much info across as she could, about how disturbing it was that the renfest was taking over Emily’s life.
“And that trailer they live in belongs to the renfest. It isn’t theirs. And you’ve seen the way Siobhan treats them.” Vange did an impression of Siobhan’s voice, “Dall, come down here.” Vange switched back to her own voice. “She orders him around like a dog.”
Brittany laughed at that. “You say Siobhan’s name as if she were a real druid, Vange, not just someone who plays one at renfest.”
Sometimes, Vange wondered…
But there was no sense in trying to make Brittany believe Vange had been teleported. Not without showing her, anyway. She needed someone else taking this seriously, not someone who thought she herself was delusional.
Vange decided to go for the maturity angle. “Renfest is a fun place to spend weekends, but it’s a crazy unstable environment to live in full time, if you ask me.”
“Well, no one is saying Dall and Emily have to work at renfest forever. I bet they do it for a few years and then Emily goes back to school and Dall moves on to something else when they want to start a family.”
“Idiot.”
“What.”
“Not you.” Vange honked her horn at some guy who had just cut in front of her on the freeway. “These are other cars, not an obstacle course.”
“Uh, Vange?”
“Yeah?”
“Right now I don’t think you’re a good judge of what is crazy or unstable.”
Vange laughed. “Wait, the story gets better, Brittany. The renaissance festival moves to Australia for the winter.”
“Australia.”
“Yeah. That is too freaking far away. I’ll never see Emily.”
“But wow, Australia, Vange. Emily is so lucky. I would love to go to Australia. Come on, Emily is what, 25?”
“We’re 23—Oh, now it’s on.”
The guy had gotten stuck behind a slow-moving truck during all his lane changes, and now he was moving to pass Vange again.
She sped up so that he couldn’t. “Yes.” She pumped her fist in the air when her lane opened up ahead and she was able to zoom past the guy, who was forced to slow down for the traffic in his lane and then pull back in behind Vange.
Meanwhile, Brittany was talking. “23 is young, Vange. Emily has plenty of time to be serious in life later. My advice is to just let her be a young newlywed awhile. And you should make some more friends to spend your time with. I’ll be one of them, but right now I have to go.”
“OK, Brittany. Thanks for putting up with me.”
“See you tomorrow at the guild meeting and then at renfest this weekend.”
“Bye.”
“Bye.”
Now that Vange was off the phone and almost to the renfest site, her thoughts turned back to Peadar.
Gorgeous Peadar.
Who kept smiling at her and putting his hand on the small of her back to lead her into rooms as if the two of them had been dating for a month.
He was some relative of Dall’s, a cousin or something, who was also from Scotland. It was hard to tell exactly how they were related because the two of them spoke Gaelic most of the time to each other.
Dall and Peadar were the same age and looked a lot alike, although Dall acted like he was older. Peadar was cool about it, though. He didn’t seem to mind letting Dall act that way.
It was sort of attractive.
No, it was really attractive.
Peadar was so … yummy.
Ack.
Was he moving to Australia, too? Or did he live here somewhere? Was he a bum, or did he have a job?
Or was he just visiting and about to go home to Scotland?
Ack.
The renfest guard stopped Vange’s car in the dark forest at the entrance to the parking lot.
“Hey, pretty lady. You have your pass?” He smiled at her.
She recognized him from the workshops they’d all taken.
“Hey Neil, slow night? I’ll make a pass at you if you want, just to keep you amused, but you should know I’m having dinner with Dall’s cousin.” She smiled back playfully.
Neil laughed and checked her gate pass, then waved her in.
Vange parked amid the trees and walked through the festival site, which on a weeknight, she discovered, looked eerily like a ghost town. All the fake English buildings were empty, and so were the booths where renfest people sold everything from costumes to turkey legs to juggling sticks.
Another guard checked her gate pass at the entrance to the enclosed center of the donut-shaped festival.
“Hi Tommy. Want some gum?”
“Hi sunshine.” He accepted the gum with a wink.
And then Vange was inside the burlap wall that surrounded the backstage area where the staff and festival workers camped.
Dall and Emily had one of the bigger trailers there. It had three bedrooms. It was as if the festival staff expected her friend to pop out a bunch of kids, or something. And come on, renfest was not the sort of place you wanted to have kids. It was a place for partying and having fun.
Vange knocked on the trailer door.
It opened.
Vange jumped a little.
Peadar stood there in his kilt, smiling at her.
“Well come,” he said in his sexy Scottish accent as he opened the door and gestured for her to come in while at the same time holding his hand out for her bag.
Usually, Vange hated the time it wasted when guys tried to carry things for her, but not with Peadar. Him she was thrilled to have carrying her bag. It wasn’t even a renfest day, and he was wearing a kilt. She tried hard not to drool as she all but skipped after him down the hall—toward the bedrooms.
“Peigi did sleep in the room where you are wont to, this past night, but she has moved into the room that I was using, and now I will sleep in the common room,” he said as he showed Vange into the pink bedroom where she had slept the past few weekends. He set her bag down on the bed.
She stood there just staring at him for a long moment. It wasn’t awkward, though.
He was smiling back at her.
“Vange.” Emily burst into the room then and hugged her.
At first, Vange thought her friend was drunk. Her smile was really goofy, and she was sort of over-reacting. They had just seen each other the night be
fore.
But then …
“I’m pregnant.” Emily all but screamed, but in a happy way, like this was the best news she could possibly have.
Yeah, and she’d screamed right in Vange’s ear.
“Um, wow. Really? Have you been to the doctor? Or did you just do one of those test kits?” Vange pulled away from the hug and looked her friend over. She wasn’t showing. She looked perfectly normal. Well, normal except for the goofy smile on her face.
“I haven’t been to the doctor,” Emily said, “but I’m sure.” She paused then like she was waiting for Vange to squeal with glee or something.
Wanting to please her friend, Vange hugged her, saying softly into her ear, “Aw, you really surprised me. But I can tell this makes you very happy, so I’m happy for you.”
But Emily got that look on her face, the one that said, “I can’t believe you just said that. I am so going to give you a lecture right now.”
Fortunately, Peadar broke Vange away from Em before their disagreement turned into an argument. “Vange.”
“Yeah?”
Now, while Vange did have … concerns about Emily being pregnant, she would take any excuse to talk to Peadar. She looked into his somber and serious eyes way longer than she needed to.
He smiled at her with his eyes and looked at her a little longer than he needed to before he said, “Vange lass, we do need you to help us return Peigi to her home—”
Whoa.
Vange’s mind moved a mile a minute. If she drove Peigi home and Peadar came with them, then she and Peadar would be alone in the car all the way back.
“Sure. You mean right now, or in the morning? And where does she live?” Vange danced around a little bit. She couldn’t help it. This was great.
But Peadar’s brow wrinkled, and he gestured over to where Peigi was sitting on the couch looking nervous, uncomfortable, and angry.
“She does live in Scotland, you ken, in the Rannoch.”
Vange laughed. “OK, usually I’m the one making the jokes. You know I can’t drive her to Scotland.”
Vange gently pushed Peadar a little. The contact made her hand tingle as if she had touched an electric fence. Wow, he was hot.
