RESCUED BY THE HIGHLANDER

by Preston, Rebecca

  “Yeah, as a matter of fact, I am. I’m pretty sure I’ve been assaulted. And I’d like to call the police, and an ambulance, in that order, and if I were you, I’d help me.” She was aiming for tough and threatening — all that came out was plaintive and sad. She was really not on top of her game tonight. And who could blame her? A freezing dunk in icy water, nearly drowning half a dozen times, a run-in with some kind of frightening lake creature… what had that been? In the adrenaline-charged moment, she hadn’t interrogated the force that had carried her bodily to the surface, but with the woman claiming — farcically — that this was Loch Ness, the natural conclusion was…

  “Aye, lassie,” Maggie said softly, her eyes twinkling. “It was exactly who ye think it was.”

  “What’s that?” Donal asked, tilting his head to the side. “Are you mind-readin’, Maggie?”

  “For the last time, I don’t do that anymore,” the woman chortled. “It’s plain as day on the lassie’s face, Donal. She and my dear old girl had a bit of a run-in.”

  “Oh, aye? Then we know she’s Seelie,” Donal said. “Or she wouldn’t be standing here.”

  “Not Seelie, but sent by ‘em,” Maggie said.

  Anna looked blankly between them, not following, and for the time being too tired and freezing to interject. Taking control of the situation was a strength of hers, but it just wasn’t an option here. There was too much she didn’t know, and her body was still on the verge of giving out. Let them natter back and forth. It was only a matter of time before she’d be able to get her hands on a phone and check herself into a hospital. That was the training kicking in — condensing everything down to a singular point of focus. And that point of focus, for now, was surviving.

  “I wasn’t sent by anyone,” she said testily. “Again — the last thing I remember was going to bed. In these clothes. Now, I honestly believe that I’ve sustained a serious head injury that has led to some memory loss, which could indicate brain damage, which is definitely a good reason to call an ambulance, so if neither of you are going to help me with that, I’m going to go and find someone who will. Okay? Okay.”

  She turned on her heel and moved to leave the rickety little porch — only to find Donal standing in her way. Narrowing her eyes, she moved to step around him — he mirrored her, keeping her effectively hemmed in on the porch.

  The man looked down at her, an apologetic look on his face. “Sorry, lassie. You’ve got to stay here with us. The village folk mightn’t take kindly to someone like you in their midst, especially if you don’t know where ye are or what’s been happening.”

  “She hasn’t accepted it yet,” Maggie chortled, her wizened old face gleaming with mirth. “She’s one o’ those rational types. Isn’t it funny, that the so-called rational ones are the hardest to convince of what’s plain as the nose on their faces?”

  “And what’s that, exactly?”

  “There are no ambulances here, dearie. No phones, no hospitals. The stars aren’t where they were when ye went to sleep, and neither are you. You’re somewhere new. And you’re here because beings a great deal smarter than any of us decided that you should be here, so if I were you, I’d start payin’ attention to what’s in front of me instead of thinkin’ about hospitals and doctors and police. There’s nothing wrong with ye. I’d know.”

  Anna waited patiently through the speech, then narrowed her eyes. “You’re telling me I haven’t got memory loss.”

  “Aye. Crystal clear. Everything that’s happened to ye, you recall.”

  “So, you’re telling me that I fell asleep, then somehow woke up at the bottom of a lake.”

  “Is that all you remember happening?” the woman enquired, her eyes twinkling a little malevolently in the light of the lantern.

  “Yes. I mean, I had a dream, but —”

  “Exactly,” Maggie said conclusively.

  “It was a dream. Dreams don’t — happen, dreams aren’t real —”

  “Wrong!” Maggie grinned toothlessly at her.

  Anna was beginning to dislike this woman.

  “It’s the middle of the night, right? Why do you think your rescuer just so happened to be down at the lakeside?”

  She frowned. “I don’t know.”

  “Tell her, Donal.”

  “Because I was instructed to be here,” Donal said, flicking a glance at Maggie as though making sure he was saying the right thing. “Maggie told me we’d have a visitor. Maggie knows these things,” he explained to Anna, with the general attitude of an embarrassed grandson explaining his quirky grandmother’s habits to a friend. “She’s on good terms with them.”

  “With who?” Anna asked, curious despite herself. This was all beginning to feel more and more like a dream — and if she knew it was a dream, then she could have fun with it, rather than fighting against it as she had been. Yes — a dream. Something very comforting about that proposition. Just a silly dream about nearly drowning then being rescued by a handsome Scottish man and brought to his strange Scottish — grandmother? She didn’t get the sense that these two were related. Donal seemed to defer to the old woman, that was certain, but not in the same way you deferred to your family. More like — she knew something he didn’t. Perhaps she is the town witch, Anna thought with amusement. If Donal was anything to go by, they seemed a superstitious bunch. A simple folk who believed in witchcraft and so set great store by what the woman in the stone cottage on the hill seemed to think was going to happen.

  “With the Fair Folk, o’ course,” Maggie said patiently. “Who d’you think you were chattin’ to in your dream?”

  “How do you know what I dreamed?” Anna demanded, narrowing her eyes.

  “Because it wasn’t a dream,” Maggie snapped, suddenly angry with her — and despite her diminutive stature and rather comical demeanor, Anna couldn’t help but recoil a little from the explosive energy in that voice. “I’ll not keep my temper for long if you’re not going to listen. Tell her to mind her elders, Donal.”

  “It’s best to listen to Maggie,” Donal said, a little woodenly — she could see a smile twitching at the corner of his mouth.

  “That’s right,” Maggie said, satisfied. “It wasn’t a dream. The Fair Folk saw fit to bring you here, that’s what happened. I’d imagine they were speakin’ the Old Tongue, so you wouldn’t’ve been able to understand them, but that’s their way. They’d’ve been discussing what best to do with ye. They take people away, y’see, when it suits them. For good reasons only, mind you. So, you needed whiskin’ away, whatever it was you were doin’ with yourself.”

  She felt a flash of the deep resentment she’d been feeling when she went to bed — frustration with her lack of romantic success, with the terrible ex-boyfriend with whom she’d shared a terrible relationship. Was this woman really claiming that she’d been kidnapped by supernatural beings who’d somehow infiltrated her dreams?

  “And so here you are. Your purpose here will reveal itself soon enough, I don’t doubt,” she said mysteriously, her eyes twinkling.

  “So — some supernatural creatures picked me up and dumped me at the bottom of a lake. That doesn’t seem like they really had my best interests at heart.” Why not play along? Anna thought, giving up. Now that she was warming up a little under the cloak, she figured her health wasn’t such an emergency that she couldn’t humor this clearly mad old woman and her simple (if handsome) charge.

  “That’s where the burgh is.”

  “The burgh?”

  “The faerie mound,” Donal put in helpfully. “Their gateway. It’s not especially conveniently placed, we agree.”

  “Aye, but it does keep the Unseelie in check.” Maggie chuckled. “They think twice about comin’ through, especially with my girl to contend with.”

  Anna sighed, taking the bait. “Your girl?”

  “Well, you met her, didn’t ye? Not formally, perhaps, but I believe she gave you a bit of a helping hand on your way up from the burgh.”

  Anna remember
ed the mysterious force that had born her upwards when she thought she’d been about to drown. “Something — something helped me get to the surface, yes. What was it?”

  “Some people call her the Loch Ness Monster. I think that’s rather unkind, myself. She’s only monstrous to them that deserve it. Unseelie Fae, mostly — redcaps and the like, she’ll take a bite out of. But good girls like you, she’s nothing but a friend.”

  Anna couldn’t help but laugh. It felt good, that sound. “The Loch Ness Monster? Really? So, we are in Scotland. I guess that explains why it’s so cold,” she said whimsically. “And your accents. Great. Scotland.” She tilted her head, looking up at Donal. “And why are you wearing sixteenth-century armor, then? Oh, I suppose I travelled through time as well?”

  Maggie clapped her hands. “Oh, I like this one. She’s sharp. Come on inside, both of you.”

  The door behind her creaked open, and she bustled through, gesturing impatiently for Donal and Anna to follow her. Anna was halfway across the threshold when she realized that the door had opened completely of its own accord.

  Chapter 8

  “How did you — do that?” Anna squinted at the door, trying to figure out what had happened. She’d assumed someone else was inside the house, but as she peered into the sitting room that had been revealed, it was becoming clear that Maggie lived alone. Then how had the door creaked open? Some kind of remote-activated gadget? A Halloween trick? Maggie certainly had the right kinds of sleeves to conceal a button in.

  “Sit down, sit down,” Maggie was saying impatiently, bustling around a tiny sitting room that wasn’t much bigger than the balcony they’d just been on. The size of the room wasn’t helped by how tightly packed it was with things — overwhelming quantities of them, just piles and piles of knickknacks and toys, little carved wooden ornaments, seemingly hundreds of mismatched plates and bowls — but none of it dusty, none of it indicating any sign of dirt or decay. The place was scrupulously clean, it was just also incredibly, incredibly cluttered. For Anna, who preferred a sleek, minimalist look — a hangover from her army days, when more possessions in view meant more reasons to fail inspection — the place was unlivable.

  But she’d forgive it on the grounds of the fire alone. Maggie’s fireplace was a work of art. Huge and ornate, it seemed like it took up half the wall, a brick chimney shooting up above it and presumably to the roof. It was big enough for two fires to burn happily side by side, but Maggie had opted for just one enormous, crackling pile of logs that bathed the entire sitting room in a heat that would have been almost oppressive had it not been so desperately welcomed by Anna, whose teeth had been chattering for what felt like hours. On Maggie’s urging, she sidled into the room, moving around a couple of ornately carved wooden chairs at a little dining table (also heaped high with random ornaments and decorations) to wedge herself right next to the cheerfully crackling fire. The heat seemed to sweep over her, soaking into her bones, and she sighed, not caring if she was being rude as she dropped to her knees in front of it to warm her shivering hands.

  “That’s right, dearie, you dry yourself off. Wouldn’t be surprised if you caught your death of cold on the way up to the castle.”

  Anna didn’t hear that for a moment, so intent she was on warming her trembling fingers. They’d turned blue with the cold, and there was a strange but not entirely unpleasant tingling in them as the heat returned their usual color. Then she turned around, narrowing her eyes at the word Maggie had so innocently slipped into the conversation. “Castle?”

  “Now, Donal, you’ll be wantin’ that scrape seen to quick smart,” Maggie was saying, apparently interested only in Donal now that Anna actually had something to ask her.

  She rolled her eyes, not interested in taking the bait for now, and huddled a little closer to the fire. She already felt less soggy. Could that be possible? How quickly did fires warm people up? She’d love a house with a fireplace, she reflected, huddling as close to the flames as she could get without actually setting the fur-lined cloak on fire. All she had was a little oil heater. Cozy enough, and good for the power bill, but it lacked a certain style. How much did firewood cost, she wondered? Her power bill was always brutal in the winter, maybe wood would be cheaper.

  She set about peeling her soggy socks off. There was a little railing thing in front of the fire, like a grate, presumably for toasting marshmallows and bread and the like. Next to the fire were a range of gadgets, clearly designed for cooking more elaborate meals over the fire. This cottage definitely had a strong medieval vibe, that was for sure. Whatever silly sixteenth-century historical society nonsense they were playing at, they were doing it very accurately. Did Maggie even have a regular stove, she wondered? Maybe this was some kind of deep historical roleplaying cottage, kept preserved in as close to its original condition as possible, for nerds to come and play at Medieval Housekeeping in. Maggie seemed like exactly the kind of weird woman who’d do something like that. And Donal a fellow enthusiast? That would make sense. Maybe if she got them to break character, they’d be more fun to talk to, she thought sourly.

  After all, she was quite a history buff herself. Enough to have recognized Donal’s armor, for a start, she thought crossly, draping her socks across the grate to dry on the fire and extending her freezing cold toes toward the flames to warm them up. God, it was so much easier to think when you weren’t half-frozen. Perhaps Maggie would have a change of clothes she could borrow until she figured out how far from home she was? It was becoming increasingly clear that neither of her strange hosts were all there when it came to living in the real world. She’d decided not to hold their slightly addled state against them — after all, she didn’t seem to be in any immediate medical danger. No more gaps in her memory seemed to be appearing, and as she warmed up, she was feeling stronger. Still, she’d get to a hospital for a checkup as soon as she could.

  But first things first — she may have been cold and wet, but Anna Clarke would not let the mention of a castle go by without interrogation.

  “What do you mean by castle?”

  “The Sept,” Donal said, in a tone of voice that suggested that that should help her enormously. She stared at him blankly. Maggie was fussing about with his armor, moving back and forth between the table she’d sat him down at and a huge shelf full of mysterious little vials and jars of mysterious substances. “It’s up on the hill.”

  “The Sept,” she echoed, frustrated. “Okay. What do you mean? There are no castles in Washington, so, I don’t understand.”

  “You’re not in Washington, dearie,” Maggie caroled, pouring something strange and vibrant orange from a little jar into a mortar that was sitting amongst the other assorted bits and pieces on the table. “Washington’s not been invented yet, by my reckoning. You’re in Scotland, remember?”

  “Oh, right, Loch Ness, of course,” Anna said through gritted teeth. “With the monster, and everything. How could I be so silly.”

  “You’re going to have to start believin’ us sooner or later, lassie,” Maggie sighed, adding something jet black and, by the sound of it, crunchy to whatever she was concocting in the pestle. Anna looked at Donal with some consternation — then her eyes widened to see his bared arm. Sure enough, there was a huge, ugly-looking scrape on it.

  “Oh, shit. When’d you do that?”

  “Hauling you into the boat,” he admitted, looking a bit sheepish. “Didn’t want to trouble ye. Maggie’s a healer, I knew we were comin’ to see her, so —”

  “That looks nasty,” Anna said, frowning. “A guy in my unit got a scrape like that off some dirty piece of old splintered wood. Nearly lost the arm when infection set in. You better clean it properly.”

  “Oh, I trust Maggie with all that,” he said, waving his hand.

  Concern grew in Anna’s chest as she looked at the hideous concoction Maggie was now happily mashing up with her pestle. What on earth were any of those things? All the nonsense about Scotland and the Loch Ness Monster was fine
and harmless, but this man had a semi-serious injury — she felt rather less inclined to indulge their game when it could lead to a serious medical consequence. Anna hesitated, not wanting to be rude or to alienate her strange hosts, but also unwilling to let this simple, handsome man get a horrible infection. Especially if they were in some strange, remote area with no roads or streetlights.

  God, where on earth had she been dropped? She just had so many questions that were, frustratingly, being ignored in favor of all of this messing around. Just be patient, she decided. There seemed to be some kind of plan to take her somewhere — to a castle, or a Sept, or whatever they called it. That had to be a bigger place, right? Somewhere with electricity, somewhere with a phone she could borrow — somewhere, at least, with more people than these two weirdos. God, what a weird night this was turning into. A part of her was very tempted to just assume it was all a dream, and to go with the flow…

  But that wasn’t like her at all. Anna had always been the kind of woman who sorted things out. And now, as she stared at Donal’s arm, watching unhappily as Maggie started slathering whatever hideous concoction she’d made with the mortar and pestle on it, she found herself curious about exactly what kind of game this was. She’d play on their terms, for now, until she knew what they were up to. Knowledge was power, after all.

  “So — let me get this straight. You’re telling me that I — fell asleep, in my bedroom in Washington, and then these… these Faeries, or whatever, decided to take me and spit me out here and now. At the bottom of Loch Ness. In the sixteenth century. And you, Maggie, had been somehow warned of my impending arrival, I guess by these faerie creatures, I guess you guys have tea every Sunday or something, and you told Donal to be ready and waiting with a boat to come and save me.”