by Mariah Stone
Suddenly, Rogene felt like a little girl again, like the first time Mom had gotten her fascinated with history. They had been on a trip in Stirling, and Mom had told her a ghost story, and then the real story behind it. Life would never be the same for Rogene.
She wished she could spend more time here, but she needed to find David. The reception would be over soon, and the wedding party would head to the hotel for dinner. Huddling in her bolero, she walked towards the dark door.
“David?” she called.
The echo of her heels was loud and felt foreign here, as though she could wake up the ghosts of Bronze and Iron Age people, the Picts, and generations of Mackenzies and MacRaes. She could almost feel their eyes on her.
With a shaking hand, she pushed the cold wood of the door and it opened with a gnash. The scent of wet earth and mold breathed on her from the pitch darkness. Was it even safe to be here?
She stepped in.
For a moment, she had the weirdest sense she had left the world as she knew it and stepped into another one. She also had the sense that someone was there.
“David? Hello?”
The echo greeted her back.
She searched with her left hand against the rough wall and found a switch. A single electric bulb suspended from an arched ceiling illuminated the space, which resembled a dungeon, minus the iron grating and torture instruments. A pile of boulders and rocks rose to her right. Steel columns supported the ceiling.
Rogene shivered and huddled into her bolero.
To her left and straight ahead, the walls of rough stone and mortar were whole. Curious, she walked farther into the room, her heels sinking into the packed-earth floor. She held the edges of the bolero closed over her chest, but the wet cold crept into the marrow of her bones. Her knees shook, but she couldn’t say if it was from cold or from excitement.
With her eyes on the pile of stones, she approached it and went completely still. Among rubble, dirt, and sand, a carving on a flat rock caught her attention, and something else…
A handprint?
She gasped and her echo gasped with her. Sinking to her knees, she began clearing the rock. When the carving and the handprint were clearly visible, she tasted dust on her tongue. She realized she was touching her mouth with her dirty hand.
Light-headed, she felt the ground shift. Gently, she brushed the carving with her palm, every indent distinct against her fingers. There were three wavy lines and then a straight line and a handprint, just like the footprint on the inauguration stone of the Kings of Dál Riata in Argyll.
“Wow…” she whispered.
“Do ye ken what that is?” a woman said behind her.
Rogene jerked, lost her balance, and fell right on her behind. A woman in a green hooded cloak stood a few steps away from her.
Rogene sighed out. “Jesus Christ, you gave me a heart attack.”
The woman came closer and stretched her hand out. When Rogene accepted her hand, the woman pulled her to stand up.
“Sorry,” the woman said with a Scottish burr. “I didna mean to frighten ye. I always forget ye humans get so startled.”
Ye humans? She must be the castle worker and had probably gotten a bit too into her role or something.
“I’m probably not supposed to be here,” Rogene said.
“’Tis all right,” the woman said. “I dinna mind. My name is Sìneag, by the way. And ye are?”
“Rogene Wakeley.”
“Well, Rogene, ye found a fascinating stone.” Her eyes sparkled in the yellow semidarkness.
Rogene distantly wondered why a castle worker didn’t scold her for being in a prohibited area. Perhaps Sìneag was a bit more chill about the rules…and maybe this basement wasn’t as dangerous as it looked.
Sìneag lowered her hood, and Rogene marveled at her pretty pale face and beautiful red hair that cascaded in soft waves down her shoulders.
“’Tis a Pictish carving that opens a tunnel through time,” Sìneag said.
A tunnel through time? Rogene frowned.
“I’ve never heard of a time-travel myth,” she said. “Are you sure?”
“Oh, aye.” She nodded. “Very sure. The three waves are the river of time, and this line is the tunnel through it. A druid carved it.”
Rogene bent down and studied the lines and the curves. “Hm. It does look ancient. Picts, huh? So, between sixth and eighth centuries, probably.”
“Aye. That druid believed ye can fall through time and find the person ye’re truly destined to be with. The one person ye love. Do ye ken?”
Now Sìneag was clearly inventing things. Picts didn’t have written language, so they had no way of leaving such messages. The only tiny accounts of them came from the Romans and Christian monks, who wrote chronicles that were concerned with battles and wars. Not myths of romantic love.
“One romantic druid, huh?” she mumbled, not wanting to confront the woman.
“Aye. He was. This stone has always caused curiosity. When clan Mackenzie owned the castle in the fourteenth century, a certain Angus Mackenzie wondered what this carving could mean.”
Rogene glanced sharply at Sìneag. “Angus Mackenzie?”
“Aye.”
“The one who married Euphemia of Ross?”
“The very same.”
“Their marriage produced Paul Mackenzie, who famously saved the life of King Robert III. Did Angus Mackenzie have something to do with this rock? Did he leave some information about this myth?”
Sìneag laughed. “Nae he didna. But he is the man for ye.”
Rogene stared at her in disbelief. Then gave out a loud laugh. “For me?”
“Aye, dearie. Look.” She looked down at the rock and Rogene followed her gaze.
The carved lines glowed.
Rogene shook her head, not believing her eyes. The three lines of the river glowed blue, and the straight line through it glowed brown. Blinking, she sank to her knees by the rock and looked at it from different angles. What could glow like that? Puzzled, she ran her finger along the blue line, and a buzz went through her. Her heart accelerated. What the hell was that?
She looked at the handprint and had an inexplicable urge to put her own palm into it. Had the Kings of Dál Riata had a similar impulse to step into the footprint? Something called to her, and she just had to press her hand against this rock.
As though, if she did, everything would be all right in the world.
Blood pulsing in her hand, she pressed her palm into the print.
A shiver went through her. The sensation of being sucked in and swallowed consumed her. She felt as if she were falling into emptiness, hand, then head down, as nausea rose in her throat. She screamed, terror washing through her in a cold, paralyzing rush.
And then she became darkness.
Chapter 2
Eilean Donan Castle, May 1310
She was freezing. She lay on a cold, wet surface.
Then came the smell. Smoke.
She opened her eyes and went completely still. A man stared at her. A tall, muscular, dark-haired man holding a torch and dressed in a medieval tunic that reached his knees, with a belt around his narrow hips, and breeches and pointy shoes. He had a short beard—a bit longer than a week’s worth of stubble—and hair that curled around his ears. He was handsome, with a slight bump on his otherwise straight nose and intelligent, steel-gray eyes that bored into her.
Was he another museum worker, like the woman, Sìneag? Then she remembered the glowing carving and putting her hand on the rock. What in the world possessed her to touch the artifact without gloves, without anything…
Holding her throbbing skull, she scrambled to her feet.
“Sorry, I’m not supposed to be here, I know,” she said.
He slowly looked her over with his wide eyes, and even in the long dress and a bolero, she felt naked.
“Don’t look at me like that, sir. I’m leaving. Where’s Sìneag? I’m not sure what happened. I must have passed out…” But
why would she? She’d had a sensation of falling, so perhaps she’d hit her head? Gosh, how much time had passed? “Are the guests still there, or did they already leave?”
“Guests?” he asked. “Ye must be with the Ross clan… I’m Angus Mackenzie. Ye ken, of course, I’m the groom.”
He had a beautiful voice, low and husky, like distant thunder after an exhausting heat wave, promising sweet release. Distantly, Rogene realized he’d called himself Angus Mackenzie. Angus Mackenzie, the man Sìneag told her would be her destiny… How weird was that? A shiver ran through her. He must be the descendant of the historical figure Sìneag had mentioned. Perhaps he meant he was with the groom…
“No. I’m with the Fischers,” she said automatically.
She hugged herself, warming her arms. He stared at her bare arms and her cleavage, and then some realization seemed to cross his face and he visibly relaxed.
“Oh. I’ve never used the services of a fisher before,” he said. “Is that a new, secret word for what ye whores do?”
She gasped. “What did you call me?”
“Is ‘fisher’ another word for a whore?” he said slowly.
Blood scalded her cheeks. A whore? Her hand flew up before she could stop it.
Slap.
His cheek barely moved. It was like hitting a warm rock. Her hand stung, pain bursting through her muscles. At the same time, something small and metallic fell on a rock, and judging from the sounds, rolled somewhere.
His black eyes darkened even more, and if she believed in magic, she’d say there was fire blazing in them. His eyebrows snapped together, his mouth curved downward, and his neck corded. Suddenly she knew, whatever he had in mind would be very, very bad for her.
She fled.
Through the darkness. Through the open door. Through the long space with the curved rock ceiling, which now, surprisingly, had several torches in the sconces on the walls rather than an electric light. The torches illuminated sacks, barrels, crates, swords, shields, and even firewood. She didn’t have a second to think about how odd that was. If anything, it only spurred her fear and the urge to flee this space as quickly as possible. She heard his heavy steps pounding behind her and sped up.
Goddamn heels!
Up the curved stairs, and into a completely different space. There was no corridor that led into the Billeting Room. There was one large, square room with more torches on the walls and more casks, barrels, and the like.
She breathed heavily, not believing her eyes. Had she woken up into a nightmare? Had her single glass of champagne been spiked with LSD or something? That would have been a very, very mean joke on behalf of someone.
Behind her, the steps continued, and her adrenaline spiked to the next level.
“Karin! Anusua! Oh gosh, David!” she cried as she ran through the only door she’d seen and pushed it open.
She’d expected to see the small courtyard of Eilean Donan—rough, gray stone on all sides—the West Wing building, the tightly built small curtain wall where she’d stood and talked just a short time ago.
Instead, she ran out into a large bailey. The tall curtain wall was twenty or so feet away and ran in an uneven half circle from the left to the right. Built into the wall, two small towers—one to the left and one to the right. The courtyard was full of people walking, carrying things, rolling garden carts. The strangest thing was that they were all dressed in period clothes. Most of them were men, wearing similar tunics and breeches to the man downstairs, only in a worse condition. Must be thirteenth- or fourteenth-century clothes, the historian within her noted distantly. The men had shaggy hair and beards and linen coifs. The few women she’d seen wore caps on their heads and simple dresses with aprons. Several timber buildings with thatched roofs stood in the courtyard.
There were also warriors in heavily quilted coats called leine croich, the Scottish version of armor. They had mail coifs on their shoulders and sported swords on their belts.
Swords!
Heavy footsteps sounded somewhere behind her. Ground flashing by under her feet, she ran down the bailey, through the giant open gate, and onto a wooden jetty. Where the hell was the bridge? There was no bridge connecting the island to the mainland! She must be somewhere else, not in Eilean Donan. Had that Sìneag woman kidnapped her? Was the brute who called himself Angus Mackenzie in on it? What would he do if he caught her?
She saw an old man in a boat shoving off from the jetty. Without thinking, she sped up, giving it all she had in her legs, and jumped. She landed in the boat, her stomach connecting with something hard and sharp. The impact kicked all air out of her. The boat careened from her landing, and water splashed, soaking her already freezing skin.
“What, by God’s blood, are ye doing, lass?” croaked a voice roughened by age.
She sat back, gasping for breath, but realized the tall man might still be after her and sank to the bottom of the ancient boat, her beautiful dress soaking up a puddle of pungent greenish-brown water.
“A man is after me,” she said, looking at the old man. “Please, just get me as far away from here as possible.”
The old man moved his lower jaw from left to right as though he had no teeth.
“I can only get ye as far as Dornie.”
“Dornie is perfect,” she said.
He nodded and started rowing.
Then it hit her. Dornie?
“Is that Eilean Donan Castle?” she asked.
And as she spoke, something else occurred to her.
She wasn’t speaking English anymore—and neither had the old man…or the man down in the basement.
They all spoke Gaelic.
What?
She’d learned a little of Gaelic for her research, but she’d never spoken it. And never in her life had she understood it so well that she wouldn’t have had to mentally translate each word.
“Aye,” the old man said. “Ye’re a strange one. Of course ’tis. Why? Why dinna ye ken where ye are?”
She peered from behind the side of the boat. With a sinking stomach, she saw that this Eilean Donan was not the same castle she’d been at for the wedding.
The castle on the island now had a long curtain wall around the perimeter, three towers, and a low keep—just three stories high—smaller and simpler than the keep where the wedding had taken place.
This looked so medieval! Actually, it looked like the archaeological drawing of the castle from the thirteenth to fourteenth centuries had come alive.
’Tis a Pictish carving that opens a tunnel through time… She remembered Sìneag’s words. Angus Mackenzie is the man for ye…
The glowing rock.
The sensation of falling through something.
The sense of disappearing.
Time travel?
No. No, no, no, no! Impossible. Sìneag had probably drugged her or pushed her, and she was hallucinating or dreaming. Or maybe one of the rocks from the ceiling had fallen on her head and she was now unconscious, experiencing some sort of lucid dream.
As a little girl, she’d imagined so often traveling back in time. When she’d been a child and had gone to museums, castles, and historical ships, she’d often wished she could live in the past for a day. Taste the food, inhale the scents, talk to the people, see the villages and castles for herself, maybe even dance at a medieval feast.
Yes, that must be what it was. So if this were a dream, she wouldn’t get into trouble or danger.
She sat up straight, although not as confidently as she would like, and looked around.
Dornie village, which had been behind the bridge over Loch Long, was bigger than the one she remembered. The white two- and three-story buildings were gone, replaced by stone houses with thatched roofs. Among them, a short, round tower was visible with a flat roof, likely a Romanesque style—the early medieval style that was popular between the sixth and the eleventh centuries. A church! There was no church in Dornie in the twenty-first century.
The old man kept staring at her wi
th a frown.
“Lassie,” he finally said. “Whatever happened to ye? Ye dinna strike me as a whore, and yet ye’re dressed like one.”
Heat crept into her cheeks and neck, and she tightened the bolero on her chest. Another person telling her she looked like a prostitute… Which, she supposed, must be pretty realistic in the Middle Ages, as women’s outfits covered as much of their body as possible, and the lowest a woman’s neckline would go was below the neck. Her dress’s neckline plunged down between her breasts. There wasn’t much to look at, but still. She doubted even medieval prostitutes dressed so provocatively.
Cold wind grazed against her flaming cheeks. The oars splashed in the water, and waves rocked the boat. She was so cold in this dress. Was it possible she’d be this cold in a dream?
She doubted it.
“I’m not a whore,” she said.
He pursed his lips as though he wanted to believe her, but wasn’t convinced and needed more of an explanation.
Ah! Darn it. She probably needed to come up with some sort of believable backstory. Her mind worked fast, thinking of something that would work.
“I was robbed,” she said.
“Robbed of yer dress?”
“Yes.” She straightened her back. “I’m on my way north to Caithness to my relatives, and robbers attacked me, my bodyguards, and my maid. I was able to get away…at a great cost.”
“Ye poor lass,” he said.
To her relief, he didn’t ask any more questions until they arrived at a small port by Dornie. Several jetties stood there with plenty of fishing boats—or at least that’s what Rogene thought they were, based on the reek of fish.
Men were unloading nets full of fish—herring, from what she could tell. And then she remembered reading somewhere that Loch Duich, one of the three lochs that Eilean Donan lay on, was a major herring loch. Could her dream really be that specific? Yes, she knew a lot about history, but would she dream in such detail?