But it was a thorough lesson in the theory, if not the practice, and when they headed in for dinner, Melanie was feeling thoroughly satisfied with how she'd spent her day. She was doing this, wasn't she? Learning new things, finding a place here… and it didn't hurt that she'd spent the whole day by the side of the most gorgeous man she'd ever met.
Maybe she could get used to this bizarre place after all.
Chapter 14
In the end, she dined with the women again — they seemed to have decided to make a habit of communal dinners, at least for the time being, while Melanie was still settling in and getting comfortable in her new home. They talked at more length about Scotland, about the castle and the surrounding areas, the various political disturbances that had occupied the Laird and his men over the last few years. It seemed she'd arrived after a rather turbulent period in Loch history, and Anna took the lead on telling the stories, having been here since the start of it all.
It seemed that the men and women of the Sept were in charge of making sure that relations between the Fae through the Burgh and the humans on this side remained more or less civil. Unfortunately, it seemed that the various people of the village were determined to make that as difficult as possible. Every time an unfriendly Fae creature escaped through the Burgh — a common enough occurrence, and one that the Sept was more than equipped to deal with after all these years of practice — the people of the village were quick to cry witchcraft and call for religious intervention.
"It gets ridiculous after a while," Helen said, shaking her head. "At least three of us have been tried for witchcraft."
"Seriously?"
"Oh, yes," Elena said darkly, shaking her head. "They'd have burned me if they had the chance. Didn't help that I looked a lot like an Unseelie Sidhe…"
There was a word she knew paired with a word she didn't. Melanie frowned a little, glancing between the women. "Unseelie Sidhe?"
"That gets complicated," Anna said after a brief hesitation. "I think Julia knows a little more about it than any of us. She met one, after all."
"A few times," Julia agreed, though the look on her face didn't suggest it had been a particularly pleasant experience. "I… well, it's complicated. He was…" She took a deep breath. "So, the Seelie and the Unseelie are… well, to people on this side of the Burgh, it's good guys and bad guys, basically. Unseelie Fae tend to be malevolent — they range in intelligence and cunning, of course, but as a general rule, they dislike humans. Seelie Fae, on the other hand, think we're alright. Doesn't mean we don't have our disagreements and differences — but overall, they think we're okay and that we can be reasoned with."
"Right," Melanie said cautiously. "So, when we talk about the Sidhe who brought us all here…"
"They're the Seelie Sidhe," Julia clarified. "There are also Unseelie Sidhe, from rival political factions, basically… they are definitely not responsible for bringing us here. They'd happily watch us die, from what I can gather. Not nice people."
She felt a chill run down her spine, and a sudden urge to talk to Aelfred about all of this. Did he know much about the Unseelie Sidhe? Had he ever met them? "I knew one, too," Elena said quietly. "She came to shore when I did. Helped me a great deal, actually. But she was preying on the men of the village. Draining their lives, killing them. I made my choice."
There was an eerie silence at the table — Melanie got the sense, from the worried looks on the faces of her new friends, that this subject wasn't one that Elena spoke about much. But the gray-eyed woman continued, calm as anything. Cops were like that, she remembered. Always calm, even when talking about the most traumatic, horrifying situations you could possibly imagine… was it the training, she wondered? Or the trauma of the job? Little from column A, little from column B… "Anyway, the villagers," Elena said firmly, clearly closing that subject. "Don't trust them. They're good people, mostly, but they're simple. Superstitious."
"Very," Karen said with a roll of her eyes. She'd come up from the village for dinner again, wanting to spend more time with Melanie, who appreciated the calm doctor's energy a great deal. "I have to cloak half of my medical advice in superstition or they simply won't take it. I've had to frame hand-washing as a magic spell, can you believe it?"
"Careful with that," Elena said drily. "You'll be burned at the stake if you're not careful."
"How do they get on with Maggie?" Melanie wanted to know, thinking of the rather witch-like old woman whose cluttered cottage she'd stayed in that first night. "If they don't like witches… well, no offence to her, but her cottage… is she in danger?"
But to her surprise, that drew nothing but laughter from the group. "Oh, she might be," Nancy said with a grin. "If there was anything that a bunch of villagers could do against her, that is."
"Maggie's probably the most powerful person in the country," Kay said, shaking her head. "If not the world. The villagers have tried it a few times, but… well, she's spared them her wrath, which is a great kindness as far as I'm concerned."
"They listen to her, too," Karen said with a shrug of her shoulders. "They might speak ill of the witch on the outskirts of the village, but when they're unwell or worried about some grim fate befalling them or their loved ones, it's Maggie they go and see."
"I'm looking forward to getting to know her a little better," Melanie said with a smile. "I think I might make a trip to her cottage my first real ride."
"You're learning?" Anna leaned forwards, looking surprised. "Already? Who's teaching you?"
"Well, Aelfred offered," she said, bracing herself for the knowing looks — sure enough, the women all seemed to lean forwards a little, though to their credit they kept their expressions more or less neutral. "Don't," she warned them with a roll of her eyes. "We've come to an arrangement, that's all. He's going to teach me to ride a horse, and I'm going to teach him not to be so weird."
"A good trade," Anna said with a grin. "And it explains why he's been making apologies all evening to all the servants he harassed to dance with him yesterday."
"I suggested that," Melanie nodded. "I hope he's not making it weird."
"Oh, no. I think he might have trouble when half the domestic staff fall in love with him, though," Anna said, her eyes twinkling mischievously. "He's rather charming, isn't he?"
"I suppose so," Melanie said, deliberately keeping her tone neutral.
The other women, to their credit, didn't pursue her further on that subject, something she greatly appreciated. Did it annoy her, the idea that other women might find her… her friend, she corrected herself firmly when her mind tried to stray to other words… attractive? Well, were they blind? Of course, he was attractive. Those shining eyes, those broad, muscular shoulders, that face, the way he smiled… it was only natural that just about everyone who met him would notice how handsome he was, wasn't it? She wasn't the only single woman alive… and what was the use in panicking about that? She'd never been the jealous type, never been possessive when it came to men. Then again, she'd never met a man she felt as strongly about as she did about Aelfred. Was it a Sidhe thing? she wondered. Had those strange, alien creatures somehow taught him how to capture a woman's heart?
She was deep in thought when she headed up the stairs to her room. The good thing about having this — this friendship, or whatever it was, with Aelfred — was that it was keeping her mind off the slowly growing worry about where she was, about the life she'd left behind. Her apartment, her work, her family… she was worried about her father finding her gone, about what he'd do without her. Sure, he had friends and family besides her, but … well, she didn't like the idea of just being gone like that, without even saying goodbye.
"I'm gonna get back," she told herself firmly as she settled into bed again, already beginning to feel more and more at home in the cozy little room that had been assigned to her. "I'm gonna get back and it's going to be like I'd never left."
But already, that thought was beginning to twinge at her. Just up and leave the people she
'd met here — the other time-lost women from the future who'd made their lives here, who'd welcomed her so warmly to the castle? And what about Aelfred? That was a wrench, the idea of leaving him behind… was there a way she could take him with her? Or even better… did she have to choose? Could she find a way of traveling back and forth at her convenience… spending weekends at the Keep and weekdays back in LA with her father, working at their business?
She knew, deep inside, that she was dreaming. But it was a comforting thought that helped her calm her ongoing worries long enough to fall into a deep, restful sleep.
But there was something wrong tonight. Melanie woke in the middle of the night, disoriented and sweaty, and sat upright in bed, a little confused for a moment — what was going on? Was this some strange dream? No — as she sat up in bed and felt a pulse of sickly pain go through her head, she groaned with the realization that she felt an awful lot like she usually did in the early stages of a cold. Seriously? With everything else going on, was she expected to deal with getting a cold, too?
She tried to lay back down, but she found she was restless. Irritably, she got up, grabbing the quilt and tethering it around her shoulders to keep her warm in the chilly air. She needn't have worried, though… her fever was unpleasant enough that waves of prickly heat kept moving over her, keeping her unpleasantly warm even in the chilly night air. She found herself sitting by the window, gazing resentfully out over the water of the lake below. The night was calm and still, and she found it rather soothing to gaze out over the water, listening to the distant sounds of the waves lapping at the shoreline, the soft sounds of boats down below in the harbor clonking rhythmically into the docks. The moon was no longer full — she could see that it was waning — but it was still thick enough to shed a great deal of light over the water, illuminating what she could see with that beautiful, silvery glow of moonlight. Just like Aelfred's eyes, she thought distractedly. God, she'd spent the whole day with him. Had she been contagious that whole time? Could he have caught whatever she had? She supposed it was just as likely that she'd caught it from him. The two of them had come crawling out of the lake, after all… she supposed it made sense for one or both of them to have caught a chill from the icy water.
Something drew her attention as she stared out at the lake… something that didn't quite seem to fit in with what she was looking at. For a moment, she thought it was a shadow on the lake, something crossing over the moon… but no, the sky was clear, and the stars were bright. She sought out the shadow again, which was close to shore… and her eyes widened as it seemed to get larger and larger. The more she looked at it, the more it seemed like… what? A shape? It looked for all the world as though something was swimming beneath the surface of the water…
And then its head broke the surface, and she fought back a scream as the image suddenly resolved itself. Without a doubt, she knew exactly what she was looking at. A long, serpentine neck, a snakelike head… even from this distance, she knew what it was. The Loch Ness Monster.
"Holy shit," she breathed, rising to her feet and leaning on the window ledge, trying to get a better view. The creature was swimming lazily in the shallows of the lake — she could see its flippers propelling it this way and that. It didn't seem to be in any great hurry… there was something comfortable about its movements, like a dog lying on its side under the kitchen table, happy and content. She blinked again and again, trying to clear her eyes, getting rid of all doubt about what she was seeing. The Loch Ness Monster. Of course. Why not?
Finally, the creature seemed to tire of its time in the shallows, and turned and swam into the depths, disappearing quickly from her view. Making a resolution to ask someone about what she'd seen to ensure that it wasn't some highly specific fever dream, Melanie climbed back into bed, feeling the feverish clammy feeling take full sway again. Sleep it off, that was the trick, she thought to herself, settling back into bed. That was always her father's solution when she was unwell, as a child or as an adult — make sure you were fed and watered, then hibernate like a bear until your body was done fighting off the sickness. Well, she was well fed — dinner had been delicious as always — and she finished a quick cup of water, enjoying the cool taste of the water on her tongue. Time to hibernate.
And this time, her sleep was deep — and if she had any dreams, she didn't remember them. It must have been midmorning when she woke, feeling utterly drained and wretched, the fever rampaging through her body in all its horrible glory. She struggled into a sitting position, propped against the headboard of the bed, and poured herself another cup of water. More sleep; that was all she needed. More sleep and she'd be right. Something to eat wouldn't have gone astray, but she didn't trust herself to get all the way down to the dining hall, feeling as wretched as she did… and besides, she didn't want to infect anyone. What Karen had said about the villagers not believing in germs or contagion theory had stuck with her, and she decided to self-quarantine, to keep herself safe.
Still, it wasn't long until her uneasy sleep was interrupted by a gentle tapping on her door. She called a bleary 'come in', struggling into a sitting position again, and blinked in surprise when a stranger entered her room. The woman was tall and slender, with graying hair tied back in a simple, elegant braid. She must have been in her fifties or sixties, at the very least, but that wasn't what caught Melanie's attention. What surprised her most were her eyes — they shone silver against her pale skin, and Melanie knew without a doubt that she was looking at a Changeling just like Aelfred.
"Hello, dear," the woman said, that soft Scottish accent very pleasant on her ears. "You must be Melanie. My name is Maeve. I'm Malcolm and Donal's mother."
That rang a bell — the other women had mentioned Maeve a few times, mostly in the context of discussions of Aelfred and his changeling background. "Nice to meet you," she said blearily. "Sorry I'm a bit —"
"A bit unwell, I'd warrant," Maeve said softly, moving to her side and pressing the palm of her hand to her forehead. It felt eerily cool, and Melanie covered a cough with her own hands, feeling wretched. "Oh, yes. You've a fever and no mistake."
"Serves me right for swimming in the lake at midnight, I guess," Melanie said miserably, pulling the blankets up around her chin. "But at least I didn't get eaten by the Loch Ness Monster." The memory from last night came swimming up in her mind and she blinked. Had she dreamed that? But Maeve was laughing, a musical sound.
"Oh, my word. No, no, the Monster doesn't eat people," she said, those silver eyes shining. "Not friendly ones, at any rate. She's a little like a friendly guard dog. Only dangerous to those who mean us harm."
"She," Melanie echoed dully. "Right. Of course." She'd been thinking of the monster as an 'it' — but didn't they call her Nessie, even back in the future? The creature was a cryptid and generally assumed to be mythical… but then again, what did people from the future know anyway? They'd told her magic wasn't real.
And here she sat, in medieval Scotland, talking to another Changeling. It was enough to send a person completely mad.
Chapter 15
“How did you know I was sick?" Melanie asked blearily, trying to distract herself from her increasingly feverish thoughts. "I didn't call anyone, or…"
"I had a suspicion," Maeve said softly, taking a seat by her bed.
Belatedly, Melanie realized that there was a covered tray sitting on her bedside table — had Maeve brought her some breakfast? A feeling of overwhelming love and gratitude rose up in her chest, so strongly that she found herself biting back on the urge to weep. She really was unwell if she was getting this emotional about breakfast. "Especially after your companion fell unwell, too."
"My companion?" She blinked. "You mean Aelfred? He's not my companion. We're not companions. We just swam out of the lake together." God, she wasn't making any sense… she rubbed her forehead wearily, giving Maeve a rueful smile. "Sorry. I'm kind of incoherent at the moment."
"You're making perfect sense," Maeve reassured her wit
h a soft smile that made her want to cry again.
She was so kind. Was this what it was like to have a mother sitting at her bedside? Her father had always done his best, but… well, this was something new. She took a deep breath as Maeve continued.
"No, I visited with young Aelfred this morning. It seemed he collapsed on his way down to breakfast, the poor young man. He's not been sleeping."
"No, he doesn't do that very well," Melanie agreed drowsily. "He told me that time doesn't really pass the normal way in the Fae, so he doesn't know how to — be."
"Oh, yes, I remember," Maeve said softly, a reminiscent smile on her stately face.
Melanie took a moment to join the dots, then her eyes widened. "Oh! You — you remember! Your eyes — are you — did you live in the Fae like he did?" she asked, wishing the fever would ease up enough to let her at least speak like a normal human being. She felt so slow, so foggy and listless… but this was important, this was interesting.
Maeve was nodding. "Yes, I did. As a young woman, I spent… oh, not too long, but who can say? Not as long as your young friend did, at any rate. I was more or less an adult when I went, and an adult when I returned, with these silver eyes and a few fairytales to tell to my children," she said with a grin. "Oh yes, young Master Aelfred and I did have a good talk."
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