“What did Cromwell do with your other boys?” Fleur found herself asking.
Helen looked up. “Shipped ‘em off to America. Duncan found out they were sent to Virginia, then he heard news how they were indentured servants, being sold to the rice kings down there. Do ye ken the rice kings?”
Before Fleur could shake her head, Duncan said, “Ma, I told ye, they aren’ real kings. They just have a lo’ o’ money, so they’re called kings.”
“Right, right,” Helen nodded. Then she looked up at Fleur, her hazel eyes grown misty. “Do ye happen to ken one of them?”
Fleur shook her head. “I’m sorry, no.”
Helen shrugged. “Just as well.” She smiled then in a wholly mischievous way. “My boys ran away from their plantation master, they did. They ran into” —she turned toward Duncan slightly— “tell her their name again.”
Fleur glanced up at Duncan. All the planes of his face were tense, the look in his eyes was hard and distant. His shoulders seemed to hunch powerfully, as if he were ready to strike. He shook his head. “Not sure how to say it. Something akin to Yama—er, Yamasay, mayhap.”
“Yamasee?” Fleur asked.
Duncan’s eyes widened. He didn’t nod, but he seemed as though he wanted to.
Well, that was a coincidence. She’d studied the Yamasee, a tribe mainly in South Carolina, but in 1653 it wouldn’t be called that. It was still considered the Virginia colony. South Carolina was a special colony in that many slaves and indentured servants ran away to the tribes there. The result was fascinating to research as a genealogist. Yes, genealogy held the promise of answers that historians begged for and had proof of people who loved and lived together, instead of the long-thought of feuding. Both might be historically accurate, but it was thanks to genealogy that finally the fighting was no longer the focus.
Fleur looked at Helen who smiled at her, seeming to silently beg for good news.
“I think your boys will be fine in Virginia.” Fleur tried to grin herself.
She looked up and over at Duncan who finally moved the last few inches to place the thick brown cups on a nearby small table that held tallow and beeswax candles.
“If ye ladies will excuse me,” he said and then hurriedly left through a part of the house that Fleur couldn’t see from where she was sitting.
After hearing a door slam shut, Fleur glanced back at Helen.
“He blames himself for the loss of my younger sons, carries too much guilt for any one man.”
“Why? He was in Sweden? Why was he in Sweden?”
Helen glanced up with a proud smile. “Makin’ money for me. Can ye believe a grown son like that would keep sendin’ me his money? But he did. I think he sent me near every cent too. He’s such a good lad.”
Fleur smiled.
Then Helen leaned closer. “Ye’re the answer to my prayers, aren’t ye?”
Fleur blinked. “Excuse me?’
Helen leaned away, but had a small all-too-clever grin on her beautiful face. “’Tis my Duncan. He keeps blamin’ himself for all of this. He wanted to go to America and find my sons and get them back here. But to what, I says? To Scotland torn apart from war and this supposed revolution? Nay, as much as I miss my lads, they need to be in a land where they can prosper.”
“And Duncan?” Fleur asked before she could properly censor the question.
Helen smiled ruefully. “Duncan, if he will ever let go of this blame, will prosper no matter where he lands. But I asked him to stay with me. I ken he wants to go, find his brothers, then return to being a mercenary, making the fine money he did, so I could have the grandest house in Durness, mayhap in all of MacKay country. But I asked him to stay, for I’m...well, I need him to stay for a bit. And now ye’re here, so he’ll stay as long as ye do. Will ye being staying with me in my house? I’d be honored if ye did. Oh, but I should go find my Duncan to help me get the house ready for ye.”
Before Fleur could respond, Helen was on her feet, shuffling toward the exit Fleur had yet to see. She stood and turned around, alone in the house. Alone and suddenly so scared. She rushed toward the front door, the one where Duncan had pressed his fingertips against the small of her back. When he’d done that—oh, the tingly sensations still rippled through her.
Fleur found herself in Helen’s garden, close to a thigh-high rosemary bush and wavy chamomile white and yellow daisies that flickered at her. This was so like her grandmother’s garden, back when Papa was still alive. And Helen looked so much like Rachel. Maybe...maybe all of this was a dream. But how could she wake from it?
“You don’t,” said a nearby female voice.
Fleur jumped when she looked just beyond the rosemary to see two dark redheads pulling weeds in a row of carrots. They both wore golden coveralls, and were covered in small smudges of dirt. One looked up at her and smiled, and that’s when Fleur took a step back.
“You’re...you.”
The redhead nodded.
The other looked up from pulling a dandelion then winced. “Shoot, they keep dandelions, don’t they? They use their roots and their leaves in teas and in tinctures, huh?”
The closest redhead nodded. “That’s okay. I think the dandelions were taking over the poor pansies over there. See? So you can pull a few of them.” Then she smiled up at Fleur. “Remember me? I’m Clio.” She then pointed to the other woman. “That’s my sister, Erato.”
Fleur snorted a laugh, remembering slightly her mythology. “The muses. Are you telling me you’re Greek muses?
Clio turned to Erato again. “She knows a lot for being a genealogist.”
Erato scowled. “I did tell you she was super smart. What was your high school called? The one you went to down in Texas?”
“T-Texas Academy of Mathematics and Science,” Fleur whispered, not quite feeling her feet any more, stunned that Erato knew so much about her.
Erato nodded. “An American Justice of the Peace went to school there. Which one?”
Both the muses turned to Fleur, their hands still in the sandy dirt, but paused as they waited for an answer.
Fleur shook her head. “This can’t be happening.”
Clio blinked. “Well, as you said to Duncan, it is, because you’re here. I’m paraphrasing, of course, but you said something like that. And quite honestly, I thought you were handling the switch in time rather well until now. There you were on the road, trying to get him to believe you’re from—”
“The future!” Erato finished with a triumphant smile that looked like she was attempting to imitate Doc from Back to the Future. She even had a finger pointed to the sky as she grinned.
Fleur sank to her knees. “Why? Why are you doing this to me?”
Erato was first to kneel close to Fleur, hugging her around her shoulders. “You know, this morning wasn’t what we expected. We’ve never worked with Coyote before. That’s why we decided to come back so soon and talk to you privately about...well, everything.”
Fleur didn’t know why, but after hugging Helen and now a woman who was trying to pass off as a muse seemed—God, she didn’t know what was wrong with her—but she didn’t mind at all.
Still, she wanted some answers. “So—so I really saw Coyote this morning?”
Clio nodded. “He loves you, which made things a little serious there for a moment. Not that Erato and I don’t adore you, but we haven’t been watching you since you were a child, like him. He’s much more, um, directly involved. So it went to a personal level this morning.”
“I really am back in time, aren’t I?”
Clio then sat next to Fleur and wrapped her arms around her too. “Yes, sweet girl. That is hard to swallow, isn’t it?”
“Why?” Fleur asked, trying to gain a little distance from the two, well, muses.
Clio looked at Erato, who nodded. “Okay, well, we saw what Coyote saw. You aren’t happy. You aren’t you.”
Fleur tried to stand, but could only crawl a few feet away. “How do you know, hmm? I’m happy.
I’m happy. Yeah, I’m happy.” As soon as she uttered the words she knew the lie she’d said. It felt like bile in her mouth, and she hunched over wondering if she would vomit.
Clio and Erato looked at each other, but then back at Fleur.
Without warning, Fleur felt a tear escape her eye and trickle down her cheek. She wiped it with the back of her hand, angry that her body was betraying her.
“All right! I’m not happy. But who the hell is?”
Erato shrugged. “Generally, I am.”
Clio nodded. “Most often I am too.”
“Yeah, but you’re muses. You don’t count.”
“Ouch, kitten’s got claws,” Erato said.
Fleur huffed. “I mean, humans. What human is happy?”
Erato nodded. “I see your point. There are many humans who aren’t happy, so Clio and I have our work cut out for ourselves. But this glimpse is so much more than finding your happiness.”
Fleur shook her head, thinking back. “So, what? Coyote thinks I’m a shell of what I could be, and you two think I’m not me. Subsequently, I’m supposed to find myself in sixteen-freaking-fifty-three? What the hell happens in 1653 that’s important to me? What does any of this have to do with me? If you were really looking out for my best interest, then you’d have taken me to 947, when—”
“That’s the carbon dating of the Viking skeleton that your friend Rachel found, isn’t it?” Clio asked. “You think this has something to do with your work?”
Fleur threw her hands to the slowly darkening sky. “Ah, duh. Yes! I love my work. It’s the only thing that’s kept me sane in these last few years. It’s been my one sanctuary. I can’t even trust Rachel as much as I trust my research and the clarity I find when I’m conducting it. Why wouldn’t you try to incorporate my work into my supposed glimpse?”
Clio pursed her lips and looked at Erato. “I don’t like her attitude.”
“Try to be patient.”
Fleur growled and tried to stand again, but she felt a powerful hand pull her back down to the garden. Before she could blink, hands held her own to the dirt, in the dirt. She looked up into Erato’s crystal turquoise eyes.
“Do you remember when your grandmother taught you to call back for your spirit when you touched the soil?”
Fleur felt her insides melt then vanish. A cool breeze swept along her intestines in an unpleasant way. She remembered days when Na had taught her so many things, things she’d tried so hard to disregard as the years progressed, because there was no room for them. There was no place for them when she was trying so hard just to...What had she been doing? Trying so hard to survive.
“She remembers,” Clio whispered.
“Yes,” Erato said, her face stern as she held Fleur’s hands in the dirt a little firmer, “I sent you here to call back for your spirit, because you’re lost, little girl. You have been for quite a while. And, yes, I know you can find yourself here. But there are two reasons why a glimpse is happening, because, you self-centered creature, it’s not just happening to you.”
Erato released Fleur and immediately stood, looking pissed. Clio came to stand beside her sister, taking her hand in her own. They looked down at Fleur still on the ground, feeling so small and angry.
“There’s someone here from the future too?” Fleur asked, even madder at herself from the way her voice cracked and sounded childish.
Clio shook her head. “There’s someone here who needs you as much as you need them. It’s your duty, your privilege to find them. When you help them, then you will find yourself and your inner strength.”
Fleur huffed, not sure if the sound she made was more a sigh or an attempt to deflect from crying. As ire coursed through her, she could no longer find words for how unfair this was, because she was scared she’d yet again sound infantile and whiny.
Erato suddenly knelt close to Fleur again and chucked a finger under her chin. “Learning to pick your battles is an excellent lesson, one which you will learn while you’re here. And don’t worry about picking the wrong ones. Maybe fight all of them, Fleur? Maybe you should be pissed at my sister and me? After all, we sent you back more than three hundred years to a time you hardly know, a place you know even less about, and more than likely nothing about this is related to your work.” Erato smiled then stood again.
Fleur swallowed.
“But I have to warn you of a couple things,” Erato said. “First, Cromwell knows well of the Highlanders’ rebellion. We need you to finish here before his army comes into Scotland. And we really should have warned our last glimpse participant better, but you can get hurt here as you would in your own time. You can even die. So stay clear of Cromwell and his New Model Army. They’re wiping the rebellion from the map and coming here soon.” Erato looked toward the large stone house then sighed. “The other thing is...well, you can probably guess it, but to be fair I should tell you about...Helen.”
Fleur stood slowly, holding her hands over her heart, holding her breath too.
Erato placed her head on her sister’s shoulder. Clio instantly patted it, making Fleur a little jealous of their relationship, how in tune they were to each other’s needs.
It was Clio who said, “She’s sick.”
That’s when Fleur thought of the smell. It permeated Helen. She knew it well because when her grandmother had been in the hospital, Fleur had to walk through the cancer wing. There was a sickly sour scent with cancer, especially if it was terminal. There had been a scent from Na too, but Fleur’s grandmother had had diabetes, a disease that made her Na smell too sweet.
“Helen’s got cancer,” Fleur whispered.
The muses nodded.
Sighing, Fleur realized that the kindly muses had given her a hint whom she was to find. Helen was sick. Helen must need her. And Fleur knew, God how she knew it, that she hadn’t taken as good of care of Na when she was dying as she had hoped. Years of resentment had reared its ugly head when Na had needed her. And although Fleur had held Na’s hand through all of it, even as Na took her last shaky breath, she still regretted one conversation they’d had. So she needed a good purging from the guilt, the shame, by being in the presence of someone whom Fleur could take care of. Helen. The pieces all fit into place then. She was here to nurse Helen, finally lessen the past hurt, and then—
“So when I find this person and help them, then I can go back to my time, is that the way it works?” Fleur asked.
Clio looked at Erato. They seemed to communicate a whole conversation with just a few eyebrow arcs and narrowed eyes. Finally, Clio turned back to Fleur. “I will tell you this: Unlike others who have had a glimpse, you will have many more choices. That might be a—”
“You might think it’s a blessing.” Erato finished for Clio.
“Or a curse.” Clio nodded, then smiled. “But like all of life, the choices you make will be your own. Yours.”
Fleur nodded, thinking that it could be a blessing. Maybe if she played along with the muses, she’d find peace, and then she’d be back at her lab in no time, grinding bones, discovering their ancestry through their intriguing chromosomes.
“Thank you,” Fleur said on a wide grin.
“She thinks she’s got this all figured out, doesn’t she?” Clio asked Erato.
Erato lifted her hand and smiled at Fleur. With a wink and a snap of the fingers, the muses were gone. Fleur stepped back until she fell on her ass close to some posy flowers. Blooms that supposedly warded off death, but had done nothing to stop the black plague. Fleur worried her bottom lip while she scanned the pretty blossoms.
Chapter 6
“What do you mean there’s something wrong with the lady?” Helen asked as she stood on a step leading to the colorful gardens at the hindmost of her home.
Duncan hadn’t meant to say it exactly like that. Yet it had come out anyway. How could he tell his ma that Fleur had said she’d come from another time? How could he tell her that Fleur might be crazy? Or worse, he might, because something in him believ
ed her.
Lord, that scared him too. A woman flung back in time to Scotland, that was the making of a good tale. His life was far from a story though. He’d been a mercenary far longer than he’d been anything else. All he knew was war, battle, and the consequences of such. He knew his sword, and he was learning how to aim better with the musket. He knew tactics and fighting. He knew blood and gristle.
However, lately fighting as a mercenary felt like a lifetime ago. Actually, several lifetimes ago.
When he’d gotten news his brothers had been taken to America after the horrible defeat to Cromwell, he’d sailed to Scotland faster than he’d ever traveled before. He’d expected to find his mother, then travel to London to get under deck of an even faster boat to find his brothers and bring them back. However, Helen had begged him to stay with her, even saying the lads were better off in America. Duncan hadn’t been the most obedient lad, though he’d always tried to listen to his mother, and when she had tears in her eyes, asking him to stay, he’d relented.
God, how he wanted to run though, to get away, do anything other than stay put. Durness hadn’t grown much since his youth, and he’d hated it then as much as he did now. Perhaps he would feel differently if the people around him didn’t know him so well. But they knew everything. They remembered how he and his mother only had each other for many years, until he was nine. Laughing, they’d recall his stepfather, Albert, and how Duncan hadn’t taken to the man. His mother was wed and pregnant before he could sneeze, it seemed. Then Duncan had started to sleep outside, because he couldn’t stand the sight of his stepfather. The townspeople would chuckle at Duncan who would sleep in the barn, thinking him odd, comparing him to a dog. Nonetheless it was better than being close to Albert who treated him no better than a dog.
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