Kaitlyn and the Highlander

by Diana Knightley

  Was I a widow?

  There would be a time, soon, when I would need to decide. Because searches for lost husbands couldn't go on forever. And if I needed to search the past — I didn't know how...

  I stared out over the ocean trying to wrap my head around the impossible. Magnus had traveled through time and space to get here. And now he had gone somewhere else.

  I wanted him to do it again.

  I was asking the impossible to happen twice.

  Technically impossible, but I had watched a Ted Talk on the possibility. What if there were threads of time, woven and wrapped, tied and unraveled, and what if my Magnus, had climbed away like an aerial artist, suspended over his own time, into my time? Could I lower into his? No, because it was ridiculous, impossible, and frankly made me sound insane just thinking about it.

  That's why I didn't tell anyone about my suspicions. I let them go on believing he was missing. He was. I let them go on wondering if he had left for Scotland. Probably. I let them think he might be dead now. Because it was true.

  I ran on the beach. It was about three quarters of a mile to the pier and then I ran back. I stopped twice, walking and searching for shark teeth. Usually Quentin trailed me, but some days I was chatty, or he was, and we would run beside each other talking and laughing. Like today, talking about the new Will Ferrell movie and speculating about the next Avengers movie.

  When we returned to the house, Quentin jogged up the walkway while I stayed on the beach, looking for shells. Then I sat on the dune, staring out over the horizon. It was about ten in the morning, but so hot I had a sheen of sweat on my skin already.

  The beach was growing crowded, Labor Day weekend, last hoorah of the summer and all. I had been invited to James's house for a cookout, with Pirate's Punch. All the gang would be there, and they were a good crowd. They took good care of me. Kept me laughing. Tried to get me out of the house. But they also didn't mention Magnus. Because it was weird, uncomfortable and what should they say — sorry your man disappeared that night?

  They were there, they saw it, and it was weird as hell.

  They kept looking for him that night, because it wasn't possible he disappeared into thin air. But that meant something much more tragic happened and . . . No one knew what to say about it.

  It would be easier on everyone if I would simply decide to call myself a widow.

  Hadn't that been what Magnus wanted? He had made sure every bit of money, paperwork, all the contracts and leases, were all in my name. The final actions of someone who is dying.

  “Aye, Kaitlyn. I am a dead man.”

  A little girl on the beach was running toward her mother's towels. Her father had brought a shovel to the beach, a big, full-size shovel, and dug a little swimming pool in the wet sand near the lapping waves. The little girl, maybe two years old, had been sitting in it, splashing, and now wanted her mommy to join her. I watched, wondering if it might be possible to dig to the past, like some Journey to the Center of the Earth movie plot or something, maybe Dwayne Johnson would know, did he have a Twitter account?

  — a deep dark cloud about a mile up the beach billowed up. I stood. A rumbling fury of a storm cloud, climbing the strata from beach to sky. It was a big storm, from nowhere, and there was a surging, flashing, sizzling, electrical storm at its front edge. I yelled up the walkway, “Quentin! Quentin! A storm, Quentin, a storm! I'm going!”

  I took off at a sprint to the north, weaving through all the beachgoers as they raced away from the storm to their cars and trucks.

  A few minutes later Quentin called my name from behind. I turned to look without breaking stride, and he waved at me to keep going.

  We had never discussed this. Our protocol was if Weird Shit Happens lock down the house. We didn't know why but did it anyway and then felt sheepish about it after. Like that was stupid to lock down the house and go quiet because of a thunderstorm.

  But I knew in my heart of hearts that the storms around Magnus's comings and goings weren't normal storms. They had an unexplainable quality. They materialized from nothing and grew to giant heights. They billowed clouds that behaved like smoke and were the color of coal fire. There was a blustering, gusting wind. And finally, an arcing electrical storm underneath. This one was acting just like that.

  I was out of breath by the time I was at all close, stumbling, holding my side. Full blown stitch there now, but ahead of me under the electrical storm was a pale lump of what looked like a lifeless body. I forced myself to keep running.

  The storm gathered itself up and retreated as quickly as it had arrived. And as I gained on the body I got scared, because it was lifeless and other people were gathering around, but not getting too close. The body was pale and naked and a man, and as I crunched through the shells, and arrived finally, full of gasping breaths and heaves — it was Magnus, oh god, naked, on his side, fallen, and very very very not looking alive.

  I collapsed to my knees beside him. “Magnus?” His forehead had a gash across it. Both eyes were black and his lip fat and split. “Magnus?” There was blood, a big angry wound on his shoulder, and his earlobe was torn. I wiggled his arm, “Magnus?”

  He grimaced, coughed, and bloody phlegm dripped from the corner of his mouth. A stranger on the other side of him said, “Look at his back.” I rose up on my knees to look over. It was gouged with deep hacking wounds, up and down and across and over and over and blood and—

  Quentin ran up. He whipped his shirt off over his head and draped it over Magnus's midsection, his phone already to his ear. He looked around at the growing crowd. “Did you see anyone, anybody, who left him here? Anything?”

  The people shook their heads, all blank stares and whispering.

  I dropped my face to the sand eye to eye with Magnus. “Hold on, we're calling an ambulance. Hold on Magnus, please.”

  His head nodded, grinding in the tiny shells. I grasped his hand and from it rolled a metal cylinder. About the size of a small energy drink can. It was warm. I shoved it into the waistband of my yoga pants and pulled my shirt over the bulge. He nodded again, barely noticeable.

  Then he made a croaking sound from deep in his throat, and he stopped. “Magnus?”

  I felt for his pulse, nothing, but I was no expert. Behind me Quentin's voice grew excited on the phone, “We need someone right now!”

  I shoved Magnus to his back, in the sand and crushed shells, and started my best imitation of a chest-pushing CPR. I couldn't really remember how to do it, it had been four years, but I started because I had to. “Does anyone know CPR?”

  No one stepped forward, so I went on, terrified that it was me, my shoddy memory of a lifesaving technique that stood between Magnus and no pulse.

  Sirens from way far off were screaming, coming closer, and I kept pumping, counting, begging. “Please, Magnus, please.” Until from down the beach a lifeguard truck was flying toward us, and over the boardwalk two paramedics were racing over the dunes, and finally they all converged on Magnus. I dropped away as they set about trying to save his life.

  “Will he live?”

  They answered me with a brusque, “Step back, Ma'am.”

  “Yes, of course, but his back, he's injured on his back.”

  They glanced under his shoulder, put a mask over his face, lifted him to a stretcher, and hustled him away.

  Forty-three

  I rode with the ambulance to the hospital. He had been brutally beaten, and whipped. His heart had freaking stopped, but everything was started again. He was alive. He just wasn't awake.

  Everything relied on him waking, safely.

  No one could believe the brutality. And of course, they began an urgent search for his captors, but he hadn't spoken yet. They had no clues, except combing the area where he was found. And waiting for him to wake up so he could tell them what happened.

  I was pretty sure there wasn't anything they could find.

  After he was wheeled away for hours, Magnus was wheeled back, still unconscious, and
deposited onto his stomach on a bed in a private room. I was told that he wouldn't wake for at least three hours. A large bandage covered his entire back. His face was haggard. His body devastated. Most of his skin had a purple tinge just under the surface or in places an angry deep red. His gashes had been bandaged. His deep cuts, including the earlobe, had been stitched so that most of his skin was covered. A tube of IV fluids stuck into the back of his hand. The beep beep of a heart monitor filled the room.

  He slept, for hours, while I watched.

  Emma called. “I heard, is he okay?”

  “Yeah, he will be eventually.”

  “Zach and I are coming, can we bring you food, anything from home?”

  “I need a change of clothes. My bag, my wallet. Yeah, some food would be good. I haven't had anything since breakfast.”

  “We're on our way.”

  A bit later, Quentin knocked on the door, and let Emma and Zach into the room. They hugged me, gave me a bag with sandwiches, cokes, chips, and my favorite chocolate bar. Also a change of clothes, a pair of drawstring pants and a T-shirt without a tight neck, just what I needed. Basically pjs. Zach and Emma stayed in the room, watching Magnus sleep for me, while I went in the bathroom to change and clean myself up a bit.

  I gave everyone in the hall updates. Quentin, Zach, and Emma hung out until visiting hours were over at about seven. I planned to stay the night in the room. Hours had passed and he still hadn't woken up. Thankfully Emma remembered my toothbrush.

  I pulled my chair up to Magnus's bed and fell asleep at 9:30, holding his hand. My head resting on his mattress, my forehead pressed against his arm still waiting for him to wake up.

  Forty-four

  Just past midnight, he shifted. Then he blinked. I pressed the call button for the nurse and three bustled in to perform a bunch of procedures. After they left, Magnus's voice emerged like a croak. “Kait. . .”

  I grasped his closest hand. “Hi Magnus. Welcome home.”

  His cheek pulled back in a sad attempt at smiling. I clutched his hand as he drifted back to sleep.

  My head jerked up. Three hours had passed. The room was dark, except for the glow of the lights, quiet except for the hums and beeps of the machines. I had been deep asleep, but Magnus was squeezing my hand. I wiped drool off my cheek and looked up. Magnus's face was pressed heavy into the mattress, and we were almost nose to nose. He whispered, “I needed tae see ye.”

  I kissed his fingers and tucked his hand to my cheek.

  He asked, “Can ye get closer?”

  I wanted closer too and figured I could slide under him easily enough. It was wishful thinking though, the easy part. I pushed his shoulder up and shimmied under halfway. He was a heavy weight along my side. My arm stuck under his chest.

  He said, “Raise your arm,” and with a groan and strain on his face, he lifted while I brought my arm up and under his forehead. “Am I too heavy for ye?”

  “No, I need the weight of you. It feels good.”

  He buried his face into my underarm. “It hurts terribly.” His shoulders heaved with sobs.

  “Oh, oh — Magnus, are you crying?” I wrapped around his head. Oh no. I held him, the parts I could touch, as tight as I could. I kissed the top of his head and held him. Spasms rocked his body.

  “I'll call the nurse, have her bring some pain meds.” I pushed the button beside his bed.

  It took a few moments before a nurse appeared. She quietly said, “Is he awake?”

  “He is and in a lot of pain.”

  She asked, “Mr Campbell, how is the pain, scale of—”

  He gasped, “Terrible.”

  She adjusted the bag on the pole beside his bed. “Mrs. Campbell, this will take a few moments; then he'll be able to sleep again.”

  “Thank you.”

  I held him quietly, scared, in the dark, for some long moments until slowly his large mass of muscle bound shoulders began to relax, to soften, and grow heavier on my body. He groaned and then sighed. “Tis a wee better now.”

  “Good.” I relaxed my grip on his arms.

  He burrowed his face into my side, his voice a whisper. “I missed the smell of you.”

  I said, “I ran for a long way to get you, and I'm sweaty and …”

  He inhaled deeply. “Kaitlyn is alive, the smell of ye means you art alive. I worried I would nae find ye again.”

  I burst into tears. “You almost died.”

  He remained quiet, still. I wished he could hold me while I sobbed under him, but I wasn't lying when I said I needed his weight. Having him heavy on my side helped.

  After a long cry, I wiggled to the side and flailed to get my fingers on a tissue from the bed stand. I wiped my eyes and nose, sniffling and wet, and wriggled back under him. I used the dry side of the tissue to wipe his cheek. “What happened to your back?”

  “I was whipped.” His voice was deep, quiet, and rumbling, vibrating my chest where his head was cradled. “Tis a long and complicated story, Kaitlyn — Lady Mairead is the keeper of three — I dinna ken what they are called. They are verra precious machines. I daena understand their power, but I know they are dangerous. They can transport a body beyond the world of flesh and marrow to an otherworldly time. Like a vessel. Tis a power that in the wrong hands could end wars, but might also begin them.”

  His body spasmed for a second, “Where is it?”

  “You gave it to me for safe keeping, I have it in my bag, here, by the bed.”

  His body relaxed. “My sword?”

  “You didn't have it. You didn't have anything with you.”

  His forehead, rubbed on my skin as he nodded. “I remember.”

  “You said there were three, Lady Mairead has the other two?”

  “Her new husband, Lord Delapointe wanted the vessels. She kept them from him for a time, but he is a brutal man.” Magnus grew quiet, in the darkness of the room, he was breathing heavy, but seemed determined to go on.

  “Delapointe has a black heart. He believed he could force Mairead tae give him the vessels, as he forced her tae marry him, but she would nae relent. He accused her of witchcraft, sentenced her tae death — I had tae fight tae save her, and in doing so I hae killed his brother.”

  “Oh.” Listening to this story it was easy to forget it was real.

  “Twas a mistake to do it. There was nocht else tae do but run. I brought Mairead here with only one of the vessels. While we were away, Lord Delapointe uncovered the hiding place of one and has been using it.”

  “That was the men who came to the restaurant?”

  “Aye, those were his men. I hae been his captive. He meant my whipping to be a warning tae my mother she should give all the vessels tae him. Then last night someone I dinna recognize passed me one and I was able tae escape my cell. I dinna ken which vessel it is. I am nae closer tae finding all three.”

  “Have you seen Lady Mairead?”

  “I haena seen her, she remained hidden.”

  “That's probably good, right? She is hiding a vessel, she's probably going to take the one from her husband, then she'll bring them both here.”

  “There is a chance she has one. There is a small chance she will do the right thing, but I canna trust her.”

  We lay quietly for a long time, I stroked my fingers up and down his shoulder, the one place that seemed uninjured.

  Finally I asked, “Magnus, what year is it for you?”

  He shifted slightly and inhaled and exhaled deeply. “Tis the year of our Lord, one thousand, seven hundred, and two.”

  I nodded. Because I was relieved to be right, and happy to have it finally out in the open, but also why was I nodding? That was terrifying, crazy — three hundred years ago? That's where this man was from. Three. Hundred. Years. “Thank you for trusting me, for telling me.”

  “We are tied by a vow, a name, and this — the vessels are verra dangerous. When I go back—”

  “You'll go back? Magnus you can't. You can't go back. You almost died, and I
have no way of knowing if you're alive and—” A tear rolled down my cheek. “You've been gone, and I didn't know if you were alive or how to find you, and it's been so scary.”

  “I hae been on the other side of that fear. I dinna ken if I could get back.”

  “You did though, but can't you please stay?”

  “I hae tae find the vessels and protect them.”

  “But you could live here, just forget it, stay here and not worry about it.” I hated how I sounded, pleading, insecure.

  “Kaitlyn, I dinna ken if that is possible. I hae turned time tae be here, broken natural law. Tis verra likely witchcraft, and if I hae used witchcraft, I am nae longer deserving eternal salvation. I may be a lost soul. Am I tae live here, as if I winna born three hundred years ago? I am nae assured of my life when I am in this time.”

  I was shaking my head against his forehead, silent tears streaming down my face.

  “I fear the laws of god and nature will catch up tae me. What is the price they will extract? How will I pay for crossing time, and with what, my life and my soul? When will the payment be due? I hae no assurances here. If the natural order has been disrupted, tis up tae me tae set it tae rights.”

  “It's not all your responsibility, Lady Mairead—”

  “Kaitlyn, imagine if one of your weapons ended up in my time?”

  I chewed my lip considering. I only knew of time travel from movies. There was always a downside to messing with the natural order of things, as Magnus had said. I could agree it was dangerous, but also, his broken wounded body weighed heavy on my heart. He almost died. It was too dangerous for him to take on so much. “Can we just — I can't think about you going back. You're hurt. You have to heal. Please stay until you're better and then please, we need to talk about it first.”