“Don’t pester the girl,” Douglas said irritably, thumping his friend on the arm. “That being said, anything you would like to share…” He lifted a quill from his inkpot, gesturing down at the parchment in front of him. “I’d be all ears.”
She spent a couple of afternoons with the scholars, more than happy to contribute to their vast stores of knowledge… though she wasn’t sure how useful her information had been. After all, she didn’t remember much — only shining figures and a language she didn’t speak. They were particularly interested in where she’d been when the Sidhe had found her, in the transitional space between being in North Carolina and being in Loch Ness. She gave them as much detail as she could and hoped that it would be enough. At the very least, she was pleased to have seemingly put an end to the argument they’d been having… even if it was only for as long as she was in the room with them.
It was a pleasant routine to settle into, and she was kept happily busy. Still, the homesickness prickled around the corners of her mind. She missed her dad — was worried about him, even though she knew that didn’t make any sense. It was the seventeenth century… he hadn’t even been born yet. But still, wherever he was, he was without her. It was bad enough that he’d lost her mother… now he’d lost her, too. Or … he would lose her, in hundreds of years. God, she was going cross-eyed just thinking about it.
One morning, she woke up with an unaccustomed prickle in her throat. Dismissing it as a result of the cold air through her window, she got out of bed… then a wave of dizziness hit her so hard she almost fell over. She sat down hard and took a sip of the glass of water she kept by her bedside, remembering bleakly what Anna had said about the horrible cold she’d gotten when she’d first arrived at the castle. She’d been hoping she’d avoid a similar fate… but it seemed that that wasn’t the case. She tucked herself back up in bed, feeling miserable but determined to get over the cold as quickly as possible.
Maeve came up to check on her after breakfast — trust the silver-eyed woman to notice my absence so quickly, Nancy thought to herself with a smile. Maeve had brought a tray of food with her, a bowl of porridge with just the right amount of honey and some oat bread, sweet and still hot from the ovens. Maeve pressed the back of her cool hand to Nancy’s forehead and tutted.
“You have a fever, dear. Best to stay in bed.”
“I thought I’d avoided getting sick,” Nancy complained, resentfully. “I’ve been keeping warm! I wore a scarf!”
“Hmm. Just fate, I suppose. Stay in bed,” she added sharply as Nancy shifted under the covers.
“For how long?” Nancy whined. “I was going to go and visit Jamie and Douglas this afternoon —”
“Well, they can wait.” Maeve softened. “At least you’ve got something to read,” she pointed out, nodding to the huge tome on Nancy’s bedside table. Nancy sighed. She’d borrowed it from the scholars, hoping it would be of interest for a person as keen on cryptids as she was. It was meant to be a record of all the monster sightings for the last hundred years, but from what she could make out, the vast majority were just regular animals that superstitious villagers had seen in the darkness. It was interesting to note, though, that monster sightings seemed to have died down over the last twenty years or so.
She pointed this out to Anna, when the woman came to visit her later that afternoon. Anna nodded, her hand resting absent-mindedly on her baby bump as she leaned over to look at the pages of the book. “Yeah, the villagers have gotten a lot less superstitious in the last little while. Most of them don’t believe in faeries at all.”
“Seriously? They live — what, a few miles from a faerie burgh and they don’t believe in them?”
“Mm. It’s because the people of the Sept are doing such a good job,” Anna explained with a grin. “The villagers don’t see many faeries, therefore they don’t believe in them, therefore they get resentful at having to support the people of the Sept.”
“So they should let a few Unseelie Fae through, right?” Nancy suggested brightly, her fever making her giggle a little. “Just to remind the villagers of what’s at stake?”
“I’ve suggested it, but for some reason Donal’s not thrilled about putting innocent people’s lives at risk just to make a point,” Anna explained, grinning. “Men. What can you do?”
“Ridiculous,” Nancy agreed. “Speaking of ridiculous… why am I sick?”
“Poor thing,” Anna said sympathetically.
“You shouldn’t be in here,” she pointed out, gesturing at Anna. “The baby and everything? What if you catch this cold?”
“I haven’t had a cold since I first moved here and I don’t intend to start now,” Anna said with dignity. “I think it’s just about acclimatizing to a whole new world of bacteria and stuff. You know how kids get sick and sniffly all the time because their immune systems are getting used to the world? It’s that, but — you know, in adulthood.”
“So I’m a sick baby. Thanks a lot.”
“You know what I mean.” Anna laughed, nudging her affectionately. “You’re from the twenty-first century, you’re immune to stuff that these people haven’t heard of. And these people, unfortunately, are immune to stuff that died out hundreds of years before you were born… and it’s still around. At least it’s just a cold,” she added, patting Nancy gently. “When I got here… oof, I could have died, I think. It got really bad.”
“How did you recover?” It hadn’t occurred to Nancy that a cold could be life threatening… but she supposed that without modern medicine to clear it up, something as simple as a sinus or chest infection could get pretty nasty.
“Maggie. She sent me some poultices that cleared me up in an hour.” Anna grinned. “I’d been here for days, but that was the first time I actually accepted where I was and what had happened to me. It’s hard to keep insisting there’s a rational explanation for everything when you literally get a miracle cure for your illness.”
“Maggie’s amazing,” Nancy said thoughtfully. “I didn’t realize she was that magical, though.”
“I don’t think anyone knows the full extent of Maggie’s powers,” Anna chuckled. “All by design, too. She keeps them to herself. I’m pretty certain she can control the weather, but she won’t let on no matter how cleverly I try to con it out of her.”
“She’s friends with Nessie, right?”
“I think so.” Anna grinned. “You’re really taken with that critter, aren’t you? Promise me you won’t go hurling yourself into the Loch until your fever breaks, okay?”
“I promise, I promise. I don’t have a death wish. That water is freezing.”
“Good.” Anna got to her feet. “I think you’d better get some rest.” Anna padded over to the door, then turned around, one eyebrow raised. “If you do go see Nessie… well, don’t ask me how I know this, but I’m pretty sure it eats meat. Maybe take it a ham, or something.”
“Good idea,” Nancy said thoughtfully. “Blair wouldn’t mind?” She’d met the fierce Headwoman of the kitchens only recently, but the keen-eyed woman had made quite an impression on her.
Anna laughed as she left. “Ask forgiveness, not permission!”
Chapter 16
Anna and Maeve kept checking on her for the few days that she was sick. It was nice, in a way, to have company — Nancy usually opted for sequestering herself away whenever she got sick, ordering takeout and watching Netflix until the worst had passed. She’d never had a long-term boyfriend or partner who’d offered to look after her, and she didn’t want to put that kind of imposition on her family or friends, so alone time was the best and easiest way to get better. But in medieval Scotland — was the seventeenth century actually medieval, or was it something else? God, she wished she’d paid more attention in history class — there was no takeaway, no streaming services to avail herself of. Just her new friends, bringing her meals and staying a while to chat. She was a little worried about infecting them with whatever lurgies it was she’d contracted, but Anna was dismi
ssive of that idea every time she visited.
“Everyone who lives here has an immunity to whatever it is you’ve got, I bet. When I got sick, nobody else caught it.”
Maybe that’s why everyone keeps checking on me so frequently, Nancy thought. From what Anna had said about the cold she’d contracted, it had been a very nasty one. Especially if Maggie had intervened, using her strange magics to heal her with what sounded like rather smelly and strange bandages that she’d wrapped around her chest. So it made sense that the women were keeping a close eye on her… and she appreciated it, but if she was honest, she didn’t feel that bad. And it felt a little grating to be trapped in her bed for so long.
But by the third day, even the most worried of her nurses had to admit that she was clearly on the mend. The day dawned bright and clear, and when she woke up, it was with a strong feeling that she had come through the worst of the illness. It seemed to her that her fever had broken. When Maeve brought her breakfast up, she pressed her hand to her forehead for a long moment, a frown on her face, before nodding acceptance that her temperature was back to normal.
“Thank God,” Nancy sighed, throwing the blankets off and getting to her feet. “No offense to the scholars, but if I had to read one more in-depth description of what was clearly someone’s escaped pet dog in the forest…”
“You should ask Anna to tell you a few stories about dogs,” Maeve suggested, her silver eyes gleaming. “She met an Unseelie Fae in her first few weeks here that by all accounts was a terrifying sight. A great wolf, with eyes like embers and huge, slathering jaws…”
“What happened to it?”
“Depends who you ask,” Maeve said, her eyes twinkling. “According to Donal, he heroically rode to her rescue at the last minute, saving her and a handful of servants from being mauled to death.”
Nancy gave some thought to the stoic woman she’d come to know — her military background, her intensity, her self-reliance and refusal to rely on anyone else unless she absolutely had to. Something about it just didn’t fit with the damsel in distress picture that Maeve was painting. The silver-eyed Changeling woman grinned at her. “Of course, Anna tells it a little differently…”
“I bet she does,” Nancy snorted. “Where is she today?”
“Training the men. In a supervisory capacity,” Maeve added, “as Donal’s frightened of her harming herself or the baby…”
“How do those two even manage to find time to be married, with all the arguing they seem to do?”
Maeve laughed. “I often wonder that myself. True love is being able to fight without taking it too seriously, I suppose.”
Nancy was dressed by this point, having pulled her clothes on over what she’d been wearing in bed. The corridors of the castle were drafty, and even though she was feeling better she didn’t want to risk compounding her healing illness by catching another chill.
Maeve looked at her and raised a finger in dire warning. “Now, don’t you go over-exerting yourself just because you’re feeling a little better,” she said sternly, and her voice reminded Nancy so much of her father that she felt a sharp pang of homesickness. It must have showed on her face, because Maeve frowned. “What’s wrong, dear?”
“Oh, you just sounded like my dad for a moment there,” Nancy said softly, smiling. “I just hope he’s getting on okay without me.”
“He hasn’t been born yet, dear,” Maeve said gently, smiling.
“Yeah, but you know what I mean. For all intents and purposes, I drowned in that cave. He doesn’t really have anyone else to look after him, you know? I just hope he’s okay.”
“Trust in the Fae,” Maeve said simply. “They have power beyond what any of us can understand, and their benevolence is clear in the way they keep bringing people to where they’re meant to be. I don’t doubt that your father will be cared for, Nancy. But I do understand how hard it is, to miss someone.” Her eyes looked a little less bright, for a moment. “I lost my husband some years ago, you see.”
“Oh, Maeve, I didn’t know.” Nancy reached out to clasp the woman’s hands in hers.
“Aye, he was the Laird before Donal. A good man. And I trust he’s in safe hands, wherever he may be.” She smiled. “One day we all will find out, I suppose. The last of life’s great mysteries.”
“Not for some time though,” Nancy said firmly. “Don’t you get any ideas about going anywhere.”
“And neither shall you, Nancy Kane,” Maeve said, squeezing her hands. “Which is why you’ll be very gentle and careful with yourself as you prowl about the castle, you hear? You must let yourself heal.”
It felt good to be up and about again — though Nancy had taken Maeve’s words to heart and walked with all due care. She could feel the remnants of the fever and the sickness still lingering in her body in the form of a strange feeling of weakness, and a slight cough that she did her best to keep contained to the crook of her elbow, as her mother had taught her. Perhaps I should teach everyone at the castle about germs, she thought to herself, frowning. It wasn’t as though microscopes had been invented yet… or had they? Still, she probably knew more than the average person around in this time and place. She was so lost in thought as she walked that she almost ran headlong into a gaggle of servants.
“Sorry!” she gasped.
Three young woman, all standing close together — they looked up at her as though she’d intruded on a serious conversation.
“I was miles away.”
“Not to worry, ma’am,” said one of the girls, grinning a little. “We probably oughtn’t be gossiping in the halls like this —”
“I love gossip,” Nancy said brightly, winning a laugh from the group. Among them were Amelia and Emily, the women she’d met earlier in her stay — before she’d been confined to her room with the illness for so long. She was pleased to remember their names, at least.
“I hope you’re feeling better, Miss Nancy?” Emily asked shyly. She was a beautiful girl — she couldn’t have been much older than eighteen or nineteen, with big blue eyes and a sweet disposition. She’d made fast friends with Anna when the woman had first come to the castle, from what Nancy had gathered. “We heard you’d been taken ill.”
“I hope it wasn’t the same sickness Lady Anna came down with in her first week here,” Amelia said, frowning. “Did old Maggie send along a remedy?”
“There was no need,” Nancy said, smiling to think of the old woman. “Thankfully I didn’t get too bad. A couple of days rest in bed sorted me out.”
“Good to hear,” Amelia said kindly. “Our poor Anna… honestly, I’d never seen her so unwell. And she’s been making up for lost time ever since,” she added with a laugh. “She’s all over the running of the castle. Blair would be able to retire, if that was even a possibility.”
“They should send her down to the village,” Emily said darkly. “Bet Lady Anna would sort out whoever’s taking all their food quick smart. I wouldn’t want to get on the wrong side of Anna. Remember how she dealt with that wolf?”
“What’s happening in the village?” Nancy enquired, curious despite herself. She had very much wanted to visit the village — it had been high on her list of things to do before she’d fallen ill. By all accounts it was a reasonable walk around the shore of the lake, but the walk would take her past Maggie’s house, too, and she could stop in to say hello. And check on her scuba gear — that was a strong motivating factor, too, if she was honest.
“Oh, nothing too serious,” Emily said dismissively. “My aunty does love to over-dramatize everything. It’s this time of year… a few things have gone missing, food and the like. Sacks of flour half-empty and spilled everywhere, a barrel of ale from the inn, even Father Caleb reported that something or someone had gotten into his larder and raided it of oats.”
“Do you think he eats them out of a nosebag?” Amelia asked quietly, then dissolved into giggles.
Nancy hadn’t met Father Caleb, but she imagined a man with a very long face. “Co
uld it be animals?” Nancy enquired. “Rats or mice or something?”
“Nobody’s seen any. Not any more than usual, that is… and the cats would usually bring home more dead mice if there’d been an upswing in vermin.” Amelia shrugged. “Might be some local lads playing jokes. Or some wandering vagrants who needed a meal, poor things.”
“Could it be… faeries?” Nancy felt ridiculous just saying it… but then she straightened her back. Faeries were real — they’d brought her here, they’d been the cause of the building of the castle she was standing in. There was no need any more to be ashamed of her interest in the paranormal. The paranormal, after all, was the new normal.
“Nothing’s come through the burgh that we’ve heard of,” Emily said thoughtfully, her eyes straying unconsciously in the general direction of the Loch. “Nessie’s pretty good at grabbing anything too nasty … anything bold enough to raid the village she’d at least have warned Maggie about, and Maggie always sends word to Donal when she finds out about things that need sorting out. But it’s a good thought,” she added, eyes bright. “You’re fitting in well, Miss Nancy.”
“Doing my best,” Nancy said with a smile. “But I think I better go back to my room for a little while. I’m still a little weak from the fever, and I wouldn’t want you girls to catch what I’ve got.”
They said their goodbyes and Nancy continued her slow circuit of the floor of the castle. It was frustrating to realize that she wasn’t completely back to full health — that she still had some healing to do, as evidenced by her exhaustion. A nice lie-down would be good… she’d walked around enough to get the blood pumping. Annoying, though. Talking about the village had made her all the more keen to go and visit it. Meet all the locals, ask them about faeries… God, there was a whole world to explore!
Once I’ve rested, she told herself sternly. There was no sense charging off exploring and then immediately falling ill with a much worse sickness. If Anna had really been as ill as everyone said, she was certainly not going to risk her own health.
Stranded By The Highlander: A Scottish Time Travel Romance-Highlander Forever Book 2 Page 10