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She pulls me tight to her chest and holds me close while making shushing noises and patting my back. It’s as if the dike has blown and the flood is rushing out. I’m an emotional wreck. I’m lost, was kidnapped, almost raped, and rescued by a man who I can’t possibly know, but I feel like I do. She holds me until I’m spent. When I finish, her shoulder is soaked with my tears. Embarrassed, I pat at it ineffectually as I sit up and the final sobs work their way out.
“I’m sorry,” I say, wiping my tears on my sleeve.
“It’s fine,” she says. “I know you’re not from ’round here, but my question stands. Where are ya from?”
“I don’t think you’d believe me,” I say. “I was with a group from Dalmally.”
“Ach, I know full well no one in Dalmally is dressed like you,” she says, looking me over with a discerning gaze. “And, let’s be honest with one another, I felt the touch of the fae on you. You’re not from around here at all.”
The touch of the fae? What does she mean?
“I… no…” I say. “Well, I don’t know where ‘here’ is, but no, I’m not from Scotland. I’m visiting it for school.”
“Come now, child, tell me what you do know. You were visiting Scotland? From where? Why did ya come to Scotland?”
“I was on an archaeology dig.”
“A what?” she asks, her eyes widening.
“Archaeology?”
“What does that word mean?’
“It’s studying ancient places and cultures.”
“Ach, who would have time for doing that?”
A raven's caw splits through the room, and I jump. I look around for the bird but we’re in the house, which I only now realize I’ve gone numb to the smells of, but there is no sign of any bird. Déjà vu comes over me. I’ve been here before, done this before.
Before. Before what? Before… now. Before… oh….
As the thought leads me down dark paths in my own head, I realize I’ve been asking the wrong question. The question isn’t where I am.
“What year is it?” I ask, numbness spreading out of my chest and down my limbs.
“Year? It’s the Year of Our Lord sixteen hundred and three, of course.”
Chapter Eight
“What!” I exclaim.
My brain stops. The next thought won’t process. I stare at her face, knowing she’s telling the truth but unable to accept it. There’s a pressure on my chest making it hard to breathe. This can’t…No way. It can’t be real. Yet...
There’s nothing on her face that says this is a lie. She believes what she’s saying. Images dance through my mind, each one like a photograph as I see the events of the day. The battles. The death. The dead bodies.
“When do ya think you were?” Alesoun asks, calm as the day is long, as if she deals with this kind of thing all the time.
“The, uhm, the twenty-first century,” I say.
“Ach, well, that’s a bit of a shock to the system,” she says matter-of-factly.
“You think?” I shiver then force myself to stand up. I pace the small room three times, trying to process this. “How did this happen?”
“You’re fae touched,” Alesoun says as if that explains everything.
“What does that even mean?” I ask.
“Ach, child, do ya nae have fae when you’re from?”
