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Despite everything, she couldn’t distance herself from him.
“Aye.” She cleared her throat. “Drink?”
He nodded, and she poured some uisge from a jug in a nearby empty cup. He cocked his head as way of thanking her and downed the contents of the cup. Then he grimaced.
“Hmm.” He looked at the cup dubiously. “Again with the moonshine.”
Marjorie hid a smile. “I talked to Isbeil. She went to the ancient fortress to see the rock for herself. She found it and believes yer story about falling through time.”
Konnor raised one eyebrow and leaned back. “Oh, yes? And what about you?”
Marjorie straightened her shoulders. “I do, too. She’s never been wrong in her life. She knows those things, magic and such.”
“So you didn’t believe me before?”
“Nae. Nae completely.”
“But you believe her?”
“Aye.”
She wanted to add that she was sorry but stopped herself. She didn’t owe him an apology for suspecting he might be a threat. But she loved the glimpse of trust that had emerged between them after he’d saved her from the MacDougalls, and she wanted to keep it.
He sighed and poured more uisge into his cup, a small smile on his lips. “Look, I don’t blame you. I wouldn’t have believed someone talking about time travel, either.”
Relief eased the tension in her chest. “But now I want to ken everything about yer world. Tell me about the future.” Eager to hear his stories, she shifted to the edge of her seat and tangled her hands together on the table.
He chuckled. “What do you want to know?”
“Everything. The words ye mentioned, the hospital, phone, ambulance… How do people live? What do they eat? Drink? How do they dress?”
He leaned closer to her, and she shifted towards him, too.
“I do have something very important to say,” he said and raised the cup. “You Scotsmen make a much better whiskey than this in my time.”
He threw the cup back and groaned.
“Whiskey?”
“Well, it’s not like this moonshine in the future, I can tell you that for sure. The stuff is exquisite. I suppose history needs a couple of hundred years before you guys can catch up.”
“Good. Ye like a Scots drink.” She waved her hand. “What else?”
“There are huge machines”— he leaned closer and his scent reached her— “called airplanes that fly in the air. They transport people across the ocean in a matter of hours.”
Marjorie’s head spun. Machines? Oceans? Airplanes? What were all those things?
“Are ye telling me people can fly?” she said.
“With the help of technology. Yes.”
Goose bumps covered Marjorie’s skin. She imagined something like a dragon from stories and people sitting on its back. Aye, that would be a fast way to travel.
“What else?” she said, moving an inch towards him.
“A hospital is where sick people get treated. They have cured many diseases you guys have now, and people live much longer in the future. Older people get their hips replaced with artificial ones made of metal. Dying in childbirth is not as big a threat as it is in your time. Thankfully. Organs that don’t work can get replaced.”
The noises in the great hall quieted. She stopped seeing anyone else in the room. Only Konnor existed sitting before her, and those images he created in her head. Marjorie listened with an open mouth, her imagination running wild. It all sounded like skilled witchcraft being widely accepted and practiced. Colin would love to see it all.
