In a whisper Ty said, “We were at this pub when a bomb went off. Miss Colbert got us into the basement but it was flooded. Then we somehow ended up here.”
“What means bomb?” The Spaniel had said much the same but he’d been loath to admit to her that here was yet another thing he did not understand.
“A device made from gunpowder and metal that can kill hundreds of people all at once.” When Hamish continued to frown in confusion Ty crafted an imaginary ball in his hands, lobbed it, then sayingkaboooom,fell backwards and feigned death.
Alarmed, Hamish pulled him upright. “Ye have such weapons?”
Ty, his brown eyes welling with tears, nodded. “My parents were killed by a bomb two years ago. Dad was a foreign diplomat.”
Hamish brushed a tear from the lad’s cheek. “My heart greets for ye, lad.”
“Mine, too.”
“Here ye may rest easy, lad. We have no such weapons. To kill ye must look a man in the eye as is only right.”
After a long moment Ty whispered, “Did she tell you that we come from centuries ahead of this time?”
Hamish nodded. “But ’tis difficult for me to give such wild tales credence.”
“You should because it’s true. You saw Peter and Mark’s iPods. We have loads more stuff than that. Like aeroplanes and computers. Stuff you haven’t even dreamed of yet.”
Hamish had no idea what he meant byair plainsbut had seen the lads’pods.Not that the shiny boxes adorned with strange squiggles did anything, much to the lads’ consternation.
Taking up his carving and wee blade again, Ty asked, “I don’t suppose you know how we came to be here?”
Hamish did – or rather suspected he did, but he wasn’t about to speak of it just yet. “Tell me about the Spaniel. Is she content where she lives?”
Ty gave the question some thought. “I don’t think so. She doesn’t smile much and the kids take advantage of her.”
“How so?”
“They horse around in class. Throw stuff. Talk too much. She doesn’t send them to the headmaster like she should. I think she’s afraid he’ll fire her, make her leave.”
“Ah.” Their world was most odd. No man in his right mind would ever think to cast out so lovely a lass as Sarah Spaniel.
Ty shrugged. “I like her though. She’s nice.”
“Aye.” And lonely, if the haunted look he’d caught in her eyes had meaning. “Ye need put yer whittling away and get to sleep. Dawn will be here ’fore long and the coos will need milking.”
“They’re cows, not coos.”
Grinning, Hamish ruffled Ty’s hair. “Ye say it yer way and I’ll say it mine.”
When Ty settled on his pallet Hamish stood and found Sarah in the doorway. When he smiled, she blushed, making him wonder how long she’d been standing there listening. She pointed behind her. “It’s raining.”
“Is it?” He eased past her, caught the heady scents of rain and woman clinging to her – that caused his blood to stir – then looked at the sky. Seeing light weave in brilliant arcs across the westernsky, it was all he could do to keep from grinning like a village dolt.Thank ye, St Bride!
“Ach, lass, the sky does not bode well for ye leaving come morn. If the rains continue the bog betwixt here and Edinburgh will swell to a river, become impassable.”
When they woke to more rain on the second day, Hamish did his best to keep them from worrying. He’d taught Sarah how to separate hull from oat kernels using a stone pastel. At her side Ty and Peter tried their hands at whittling simple animals out of small blocks of dry pine. Mark and Jeremy were stripping bark from foot long hunks of sapling pine, which they’d make into buckets. Bryce was in charge of making the cheese.
Hamish put more wood on the fire then set a crock full of milk before Bryce and lifted the lid. “Ah, ’tis ready.”
Bryce wrinkled his nose. “It’s spoiled.”
Hamish, laughing, reached for one of the small crocks lining the shelf above Bryce’s head. “Nay, ’tis just clabbered. Now ’tis ready for rennet, which will turn the milk to curds and whey.”
Frowning, Bryce asked, “What’s rennet?”
