by Annis Reid
Well, earthquakes probably didn’t happen there, either.
For all she knew, an entire horde of demons was running toward her, and she had nowhere to go. Nowhere to hide. All she could do was wait, half-hiding behind the stone with Fehu carved into it, her heart in her throat and her muscles freezing as her body couldn’t decide whether fight or flight was the way to go.
They burst out of the forest, and they weren’t a band of demons.
They were a band of men. Full-grown men on horseback, some of them wearing kilts while some wore what looked like plaid leggings. Loose shirts, some of them with cloaks over the top. Filthy, rugged men, most of them looking like they hadn’t had a bath in a week.
“You mean they have cosplay on the other side?” she muttered to herself, watching them and smirking a little. This was too much. Should she laugh, or ask what the hell was going on? From the looks of them, she didn’t want them to come much closer. They probably smelled about as good as their horses.
“What’s this, then?” one of them called out in a heavy brogue. The man was missing half his teeth, and one eye had a rough sort of makeshift patch over it, yet he looked at her like she was the freaky one. He pulled on the reins, bringing his black horse up short and walking it in a circle.
“Keep back from it!” another man cried out, his horse rearing up on its hind legs either because he came to a sudden stop or because he was reacting to the fear in his rider’s voice.
Fear.
Of… her?
They surrounded her and the standing stone, staring at her and muttering to themselves and each other in that thick brogue that made it almost impossible to understand them. She leaned against the stone, looking from one to the other.
Why was she afraid of them? They were probably only in her imagination. Right?
Only they reeked. Their horses, too. It was all so real. Vivid enough that she had to ask herself if this was really happening in her head.
But no, because that would mean everything else was real, too. The disappearing stage, the lack of buildings and roads and cars. And that sort of thing didn’t just happen. People didn’t start off in one place, in one time, and end up somewhere else in the blink of an eye.
Did they?
2
“A witch,” Travis MacGregor muttered, glancing at Kaden. “Look at the markings on her. She must be.”
True, the woman did bear markings all over her arms. The markings of a witch, no doubt.
“And what’s that she’s wearin’?” Old Fergus MacGregor muttered, his single working eye moving back and forth over the woman. “Never have I seen a garment such as that in my life.”
True, she dressed herself strangely. Though not unpleasantly. Kaden grimaced in dismay when his body began to stir in certain areas. She wore trousers, as a man would, tight to the body and revealing every curve of her hips, backside, long legs.
He glanced about to find many of the others looking down, away from her. Whether it was discomfort over being so close to a witch or the sort of discomfort he experienced, there was no way of knowing.
Men who’d just spent the better part of a fortnight charging through the highlands had no place entertaining such ideas, but the woman possessed a tempting form.
Tempting. “Aye, a witch would wish to tempt us,” he warned his band.
The witch blinked, her eyes painted with a dark substance that looked like soot. “A witch?” she asked, painted lips pulled back over her teeth in an expression of disdain. “Is that what you think I am?”
“Dinna speak to her,” Clyde MacGregor warned. “Dinna listen to a word she speaks, either. Ye have no notion of how easy it is for one of her kind to twist a man up.”
“Twist a man…?” She tipped her head to the side, frowning. “I can’t understand half of the words coming out of your mouth. Sorry. Maybe you should take your Otherworldly Cosplay elsewhere. I have things on my mind.”
Otherworldly what now? The men looked at each other, all of them shrugging. She was not the only one who lacked understanding.
This was hardly the time for any of them to try to understand anything. He could hardly stay in the saddle after such rough riding, in weather that swung from one extreme to the other. The only thing Kaden MacGregor wanted then was his home. And to sleep for a fortnight.
Yet they were too near the village to let a wandering witch roam free.
As if reading his thoughts, his uncle Clyde turned to him. “What say ye?” he muttered. “Ought we allow her to roam so near the village? It will be night soon enough.”
Kaden grunted, uncertain. While he was of the opinion that witches were not a threat in and of themselves, he knew he was alone in this belief. And it was hardly the sort of belief one shared aloud unless one wished to find himself questioned and doubted and whispered about.
“She does not appear threatening,” he muttered, eyeing her up and down. “But she might be counting on a bonny appearance, at that.”
“Bonny?” Travis snorted in disbelief. “With those many markings on her?”
The witch—if that was what she was—also snorted. “Have you looked in the mirror lately?” she challenged, tossing raven-black hair over both shoulders. “I don’t exactly think any of you are qualifying for a beauty pageant anytime soon.”
The more she said, the more difficult she was to understand. She may as well have been speaking a different language. It occurred to him that she could be, that it might be close enough to their own language to make sense of a word or two.
There was much to be said for her tone of voice, as well. He did not need to know exactly what she said to understand what she meant. She thought just as little of them as they did of her. For that matter, she may well have been correct. They all looked just the way men would after crossing the highlands in search of information on the enemy.
The memory of the mission which Kirk MacGregor had sent them on brought Kaden back to the present moment. The clan’s chieftain would be waiting for word of the movements of Clan Fraser before planning what would be their defense.
“He will wish to see her,” Kaden mused, and no one near him need ask who he meant. “I believe it best to be cautious. If she were to cause trouble in the village, it would fall upon ourselves for having dismissed her.”
Old Fergus nodded, and Kaden knew there would be no dissent from the others. All men present, Kaden included, tended to defer to the old man’s wisdom. He had seen far more than any of them, even Clyde. He had lost an eye in defense of Clan MacGregor, though many others had lost far more, including their lives.
“Aye, as ever, you make a good deal of sense,” Fergus grunted before turning his head and spitting upon the ground.
The lass wrinkled her nose in evident distaste.
Fergus laughed. “Who are ye to look such a way?” he asked, still laughing. A good-natured man, but only up to a point, for his remaining eye held a great deal of shrewdness. Many men had soon learned better than to take him lightly.
“Where are the irons?” Clyde asked, looking around at the rest of the riders.
She may not have understood everything that came out of their mouths, but she understood this. “Irons?” she squeaked. “What do you need those for?”
“Silence yourself, woman!” Travis snapped as he dismounted, a pair of iron shackles in hand. Everyone knew iron rendered witches useless, unable to perform their magic when it touched their skin. “Keep your wicked tongue to yourself!”
“My tongue’s not the only thing that’s wicked,” she warned, stepping back. “This is all fine and good, all of you acting like this is real life or something, but I don’t like it. Go find somebody else to bother.”
“I dinna ken what ye mean by real life,” Kaden said, speaking over Travis before he could make a fool of himself or, worse, inspire the witch to a fit of rage. “And you might believe me when I tell ye that it is ye who bother us. Ye dinna step foot on land belonging to Clan MacGregor without explaining to t
he chieftain what ye mean by doing so.”
She blinked, pressing her body against the stone before which she stood. A flash of fear crossed her face, and he thought once again to himself that she was, indeed, quite bonny. Markings or no markings, even with her painted face, she was pleasing to the eye.
Pleasing or no, she was a stranger, and none of them took well to strangers. Kirk would wish to know of her presence.
“On with it, then,” Fergus urged, nodding to Travis. “Place the irons around her wrists, man, or risk her wickedness.”
“You better think twice, you filthy pig.” She kicked out with one of her feet, covered as they were in thick boots the likes of which Kaden had never seen before. While he had doubts as to her being a witch, there could be no doubt she was well-off. Only one with great deal of gold to their name could hope to possess boots with silver buckles.
“What is taking so long?” Clyde demanded.
Indeed, Travis was taking a great deal of time and making no progress, dancing about as if he were trying to place a bit in the mouth of a wild colt. Stepping back, moving from one side to the other as the lass kicked and swung her fists.
“Don’t touch me!” she shouted, gray eyes wide and wild. Not for nothing did she warn of her wickedness.
“Enough,” Kaden muttered once it was clear the normally brash and boastful Travis would do nothing. He tossed the reins to his uncle before marching straight to the standing stone, which the lass still behaved as if she believed it would protect her.
He held out a hand, taking the irons. “Now,” he announced, looking her in the eye, “ye are coming with us, lass, and that is that. If ye truly mean no harm, Kirk MacGregor will see it soon enough and release ye. Ye might be on your way in less time than we have already wasted here.”
She stared at him, her chest heaving after fighting so hard. A fierce woman, to be sure, and he thought that were they of the same clan he might wish to have her beside him in battle.
“This is stupid,” she whispered, eyes moving over all of them. Taking everything in. “It’s not even real.”
This struck him as odd. The second time she’d made it sound as though they were not real, living people. “I assure ye, lassie, we are real. This is real. And ye have trespassed, so ye must be dealt with.”
He stepped forward with purpose, intending to close the shackles over wrists covered in jewelry the likes of which he’d never seen. This was a wealthy lass, to be sure, bracelets shining in the sun.
Shining when she reached out with one arm and clawed at him once he was near enough for her to reach. Painted nails ran down his muscled forearm, leaving four thin lines which quickly began to bleed.
“Damn ye, ye cursed thing!” he hissed. She was like a cat, and he had never much cared for the evil things.
Her gasp brought his attention back to her, and it surprised him to find her staring at his arm as though she’d never seen a man bleed before. Her chin trembled, her eyes watered.
For an instant, he thought she might regret harming him.
Instead, she croaked, “You’re bleeding. How? I mean, why would you bleed?”
“Because ye clawed at me, wretched woman,” he snarled. While she was distracted, he snapped one of the iron bands around a thin wrist before doing the same to the other. The thick chain between them would certain be enough to contain even one as determined as she.
None of this seemed to make an imprint on her mind, as she continued to stare at the blood which now trickled down his arm.
“Did ye not intend to claw me, woman?” he muttered, leading her to his horse. It was no work at all to lift her into the saddle. She weighed little more than a feather, and shock still seemed to hold her in place. Something about the sight of his blood had taken the fight from her.
She looked around again, giving no hint that she’d even heard him speak.
“Where am I?” she whispered, a tremor in her voice.
As if she did not know.
3
This couldn’t be.
She made the man bleed. He had bled. Hell, he was still bleeding. She looked down at the arm around her waist, holding her in place while he rode behind her. Sure enough, that was blood.
Why would anybody bleed in the afterlife or the in-between life or whatever this was? She never thought she would actually injure anybody.
She hadn’t even known why she was fighting back. It just hadn’t seemed right for them to take her without at least having to fight a little.
But now? Now she didn’t have the first clue what was happening anymore. Not that she ever understood to begin with.
All she knew was, there was a big old horse between her thighs, and there was a great big man sitting behind her. She could even feel the heat from his body. No dream or coma place or afterlife could be this detailed or vivid.
And the place they were riding to was so detailed. She could see glimpses of it through the trees every now and again, not too far off in the distance. Roofs made of straw, for one thing. Nobody did that anymore except in replicas of old villages, did they?
The road was nothing but dirt, wide enough for four horses to ride side-by-side. The one-eyed man was to her left, and she felt him looking at her with that good eye of his. What was he thinking? What were they all thinking?
It would be nice if she could understand them better, but a chainsaw couldn’t cut through their brogue. Still, she’d gotten a pretty good idea that they thought she was a witch. Why would they think that?
Where was she, really?
The guy behind her sure didn’t seem to like her much, but at least he hadn’t treated her the way that first idiot had. He was a carrot top, skinny, with an Adam’s apple that stuck out like a golf ball. It was obvious he’d wanted to prove himself, to look like the big, strong man in front of the other guys.
But this one, this brick house who rode with a thick arm around her waist, was something else. If she hadn’t been so confused, she might’ve made a joke about him locking her in handcuffs under more pleasant circumstances.
Something told her that wouldn’t go over very well.
Besides, he was sort of a jerk. They all were.
They rounded a bend in the road, and she couldn’t help but let out a surprised noise when a village spread out in front of her. The road ran down the middle, with smaller roads jutting out here and there, and dozens of people walked around. They carried baskets and sacks, led teams of horses and oxen. One woman wheeled a cart filled with potatoes. She called out across the road to a woman carrying a dead chicken by its legs.
“What in the hell is this?” she whispered. “Like a tourist village? Or a live action roleplay?”
“What are ye on about?” Brick House muttered behind her.
She scowled. “Okay, gorgeous, this is all starting to make sense. You’re doing some LARP thing, right? Pretending to be dirty highlanders from—what? The seventeen hundreds, maybe?”
“Tis the year of our Lord, sixteen hundred and sixty-five,” he muttered.
“Okay, sure. I enjoy your dedication to keeping up appearances. But I’m not part of this.” She tried to crane her neck to look up at him but only managed a glimpse of his square chin, covered in a brown beard to go with his wild, brown hair. “Seriously, I have nothing to do with this experience. You don’t have to pretend with me. I just wanna get out of here. I don’t even know how I got here, to begin with.”
“I would imagine ye walked,” he sighed. “Dinna pretend with me, lass. I am all but dead with fatigue, as we all are.”
“I’m serious,” she hissed. “I was about to perform at the Edinburgh Rock Festival. My band was opening the show, and this was supposed to be our big break. I don’t know what happened or where everybody went, but I have to get back there, or we’re gonna blow it.”
“Once again, I canna make sense of ye,” he grumbled. “Hold your tongue. Save the tales for Kirk MacGregor. I’m certain he shall want to hear what brings ye to our land.”
“Oh, my freaking God, what is wrong with you? All of you?” she shouted, looking around. “I’m not part of this roleplaying game! I just wanna go back to the festival.”
“I dinna ken what ye mean,” Brick House muttered. “Roleplaying? What is that?”
“Forget it,” she snapped. “If you’re just gonna play dumb, fine. Sit there and look pretty. Jerk.”
He chuckled, the sound a rumble in his chest. “How can a man look pretty?”
“I don’t know. You seem to be doing a good job of it.”
“Fine enough. Be silent, now. Ye make my head ache.”
That made two of them.
Whoever had designed the place definitely had an eye for detail. Right down to the old woman who tossed a bucket of slop out the window for a pen full of pigs to munch on.
Anna turned her face away. Just in time to watch a man blow his nose without a handkerchief. He just put one finger against a nostril and blew hard, sending a glob of snot onto the ground.
She gagged. Maybe it would be better not to look at anything.
No, because she had to know how to get out of this place once they took the very real, very heavy shackles off her wrists. Yes, they were into details, all right. There was nothing modern about the thick iron cuffs, the wide links holding them together.
Great. They probably didn’t have indoor plumbing, either. Just her luck.
And everybody was so dirty. Not surface dirty. Deep down, matted hair that looked like it never saw a comb, clothes that looked like they were the only clothes these people owned—discolored, ragged. Actually, truly filthy.
Maybe they were all used to it, seeing and smelling each other all the time. She sure wasn’t. It was practically enough to make her gag all over again.
This Kirk guy would understand. He’d have to. These people probably had to sign contracts warning them against breaking character. There had to be authenticity, after all. Guests were paying for authenticity.
And danged if they didn’t pay through the nose, or so she guessed. This sort of quality couldn’t come cheap. “I could be dirty at home for free,” she snorted. Some people had more money than sense.
