Chapter 3
Ruby landed hard, her knees slamming into something cold and wet. Mud splattered her clothes and hands as she caught herself, the breath knocked out of her lungs. For a few seconds she simply knelt there, palms pressed into the muddy grass.
A hysterical laugh bubbled in her throat. Oh, just perfect! She’d obviously stepped through Irene MacAskill’s pergola and fallen straight into the mud of Princes Street Gardens. What an idiot! Had she really thought something miraculous would happen?
Then a sound hit her. The crash and roar of waves.
Salt wind tugged at her hair, whipping it across her face in damp strands. She looked up, blinking against the sting of sea spray, and felt her chest seize. Gone were the neat, manicured lawns of Princes Street Gardens. No flowerbeds, no people hurrying past with takeaway coffees. Instead, she was on a windswept bluff, the ground uneven and damp beneath her, long grass shivering in the breeze. Beyond it stretched the vast, restless sea, a shifting sheet of gray that rolled and heaved under a brooding sky.
“Oh, God,” she whispered. Her own voice sounded small against the thunder of the surf.
She staggered to her feet, wiping her muddy palms on her coat. She spun in a circle, trying to take in everything at once.Behind her rose a line of jagged cliffs, dark stone slick with moss and spray. Before her, the land sloped sharply down toward the water, and nestled at the cliff’s base was a small scattering of stone buildings.
She was really here. Irene MacAskill’s portal thingy had worked! She was in the past!
Her heart leapt. But just as quickly, it sank again. Because this wasn’t Edinburgh. Not even close.
“Charlie?” Ruby said aloud, her voice whipped away by the wind.
Her cousin had told her that she lived just outside the city. Some fancy manor, by all accounts. Not a desolate scrap of rock in the middle of the sea. Ruby hugged her coat more snugly around herself, teeth beginning to chatter as the wind cut through the fabric.
Her pulse skittered wildly as her gaze returned to the little cluster of houses below. Smoke rose thin and white from a few chimneys, whipped away by the gale. Charlie must be down there. Why else would Irene have brought her here?
She started forward, boots sliding on the slick grass as she picked her way toward the path that wound along the cliff edge. It wasn’t much of a path—just a narrow track of flattened earth, the edges crumbling away into empty air—but it was the only route down. She tested it carefully with each step, clutching at tufts of grass to steady herself. The sea boomed below, gulls wheeling overhead with harsh cries. The smell of brine and kelp was overwhelming.
“Bloody hell,” she muttered under her breath. “Oh, bloody hell.”
And yet, beneath the fear that trickled through her like icy water, a flicker of something stirred. Anticipation. A wild kind of thrill. For so long her life had been about control, about keeping everything neat and ordered and safe. And what had it got her?A cheating fiancé. A lonely apartment. A career that had ground her down until she barely recognized herself.
Now here she was, stumbling down a cliff in God-knows-what century, with no clue as to what came next. Strangely, for the first time in ages, she felt...alive.
And also terrified.
By the time she reached the bottom and the path leveled out, her legs were trembling from the effort of the descent. The settlement hugged a flat piece of ground around a harbor. Low cottages built of rough stone, with thatched roofs darkened by damp, clustered together like huddled sheep. Nets were strung along one wall, heavy with tangles of rope and seaweed. A few small boats bobbed in the sheltered inlet beyond, tethered to wooden stakes hammered into the rocky shore.
It was unmistakably a fishing village. The place looked almost deserted. No cars, no lights, no sound of modern life. Just the creak of boats, the faint clang of something metal, and the ever-present crash of the sea. This was real. This was really real. She was here...wherever here was.
A door creaked open.
Ruby froze as a figure stepped out of one of the cottages—a woman, stooped with age, wrapped in a shawl that flapped about her shoulders. She carried a pail, which she set down on the step, then straightened slowly. Her eyes lifted, met Ruby’s across the small distance.
Ruby’s heart hammered. Should she say something? Her mind raced, but before she could decide, the woman called out in a voice thick with a Scottish burr.
“Who’s there?”
Ruby opened her mouth, then closed it again. “I...um...I.”
“Speak up! I canna hear ye!”
Ruby stepped closer. The old woman eyed her up and down, her brow furrowing at the sight of Ruby’s modern clothes. “God’sblood,” she growled. “Another outlander. Just came in on the boats did ye?”
“Er...yes,” Ruby said, jumping on this plausible-sounding explanation. “That’s right. I’m here to see my cousin, Charlotte Douglas. Do you know her?”
“Canna say as I do.” The woman waved a hand at a larger timber-framed building that sat slightly uphill from the rest of the village, commanding a view of the bay. “But if she’s an outlander like ye, yer best bet is to try the inn.”
“Oh right. The inn. Okay. Thanks for your help.”
The old woman waved away her thanks and Ruby moved off, heading uphill. She’d spoken to her first local! People were people, after all, no matter the time period. She strode towards the door of the inn feeling a little more confident. Everything was going to be fine. She’d soon be with Charlie and the two of them could spend the day catching up. She had so much to tell her cousin, she barely knew where to begin.
