I felt a brief pang of missing my ‘other brother’, but one look at the beautifully cut jeans and the expensive waxed jacket told me that Lenny probably wouldn’t ever want to go back to that. He’d got the castle he’d always wanted, a lovely girlfriend, a future. Maybe losing the diffidence and gaining parents who looked as though they’d stepped straight out of a romantic movie was a price he could pay. After all, would I want to go back to being that put-upon and overworked chemistry teacher?
I glanced over at the gleaming car on charge, at the beautiful castle, felt Lachlan walking alongside me as we crossed the headland towards the archaeologists and felt slightly shallow by admitting that, nope, this was better. Very much better.
‘Hello!’ Mal greeted us as we arrived.
‘This is Pax,’ Lachlan said very, very quickly. ‘She just arrived today.’
Mal looked me up and down slowly and David wandered over to have a look too. Everyone else kept digging and I was a little bit scared that someone was going to comment on why these two random archaeologists were showing such an interest in me.
‘Hello,’ I said. ‘Nice to meet you.’
‘We think we’ve got Pictish carvings,’ David said. ‘We’re uncovering them now.’
As everyone else went to look, Kaylinn, David, Mal, Lachlan and I stayed on the edge of the trench, looking silently at one another.
‘So?’ I hissed eventually. ‘What happened? You’re here, so…’
‘Things are – different, yes.’ Mal looked as though he was trying out phrases in his head.
‘Was it real?’ Kaylinn breathed. ‘Did it really happen, all that stuff with George and Jamie and the goat and the turnips?’
Mal shuddered. ‘I feel such a visceral objection to even the word “turnip” that it must have done,’ he said. ‘I used to be quite keen on the odd mashed swede, but now I can’t even bear the thought.’
‘It’s weird, though,’ Kaylinn said. ‘I video-called my mom as soon as – well, when we got back here. We’d never been gone and she had no idea why I was crying.’
‘Everything’s changed,’ David put in bluntly. ‘Amber is in an assisted-living facility. I’m free to study for my Masters, and that’s what I’m doing.’ He frowned and bit his lip. ‘I dunno. I miss… I miss her. I miss the life we had. I know things are supposed to be better but…’ He swallowed hard. ‘I don’t know what to think. She needed me and she doesn’t need me any more.’
‘But you can still see her? You can visit?’ I touched his arm and he gave me a weak smile.
‘Oh yes. And I should be grateful, I guess.’ He shook his head. ‘It’s still weird.’
‘I think it’s payback,’ I said, carefully not looking at them, but keeping my gaze fixed on the softly rolling surface of the very blue sea beyond. ‘We did what Time wanted us to do and it gave us new, improved lives. If that’s a good thing.’
Now we all looked at one another again. ‘Are you mad?’ Mal asked. ‘Take a look. Is this better or not? I’ve apparently got an actor keeping my bed warm and my cat fed and I’m en route for the best PhD anyone’s ever seen. I’ll take that, thank you very much. He actuallycalls me.’ Mal looked around us all again. ‘I mean, seriously. Every day. To make sure I’m all right. It’s almost unnatural.’
I thought about Mal’s confession of loneliness. Now here he was, clearly in love. David no longer had to care alone for his sister. I had loved-up parents and my new, improved brother. ‘There’s going to be differences,’ I said. ‘We’re going to have toget used to things again. But I think we should stick together. We all remember the same things, don’t we?’
‘Turnips,’ Mal said. ‘Mostly turnips.’
‘I mean George and Jamie… falling. And the goat and the mud and the smell.’
‘And Jeannie doing all the work,’ put in Kaylinn.
‘“All for one, and one for all”, that’s what you mean, isn’t it?’ Lachlan moved so that he was on the edge of the trench, facing us all. ‘We’re the only ones who can understand how the others feel. Together for life, sort of thing.’
‘Looks like Kaylinn and I are going to be related by marriage anyway,’ I put in, raising my eyebrows at her, but she gave me a brilliant grin. ‘But yes.’
‘Does that mean we all have to buy your books?’
‘David!’ Mal jabbed him. ‘Actually yes, does it?’
‘It means we keep each other sane,’ I replied, quietly hoping that it really did mean that they’d all read my books. Hell,Iwas going to have to read my books to find out what I wrote about. I hoped I could still do it, but writing in a bothy in a deserted spot by a burn in the Highlands with Lachlan for company would probably inspire me.
There was a sudden flash of movement near the postern gate and a white streak came belting across the grass, landing in a tumbled movement at my feet. ‘Oh, look!’ I bent down. Cellar Dog, tongue lolling, flung himself against my leg in an ecstasy of ear scratching.
‘He turned up earlier,’ Lenny called over from the trench he was squatting in. ‘I thought he belonged to one of you lot. Unusual-looking dog.’ He went back to bending over some fragment of stone that someone was holding clear of the mud and discussing.
I heard Lachlan swallow. ‘He must have come through with you, Pax,’ he said.
