I chuckled. “I don’t think you used the f-bomb when you told me the story, but Mom and Dad say I have your mouth.”
“Well, I am sorry about that.”
“I’m not, it served me well, and is one of the reasons Magnus fell in love with me. The way I speak my mind.”
Grandpa Jack asked, “What color canoe were we in?”
“It was a wooden Old Town canoe, your pride and joy. Cedar. You got it before I was born. You always had it. There was another one in your shed, a green one, but this one was wood.”
He smiled. “You heard that, Barb? You let me get one — it’s my pride and joy.”
“I heard it, I guess you do convince me eventually.”
I said, “Oops, did I already tell you your future?”
“Yes you did, this is going to be a tricky visit. Let’s keep the information to a bare minimum, unless of course you brought me lottery numbers.”
I said, “You have a lottery? Isn’t this the dark ages?”
He said to Barb, “She seems legit and she looks just like John.”
“She does, it’s uncanny.”
Grandpa Jack asked, “You got any questions for her?”
“The young boy, Archie? He has a bruise on his head, faint, but I saw it. Would Magnus hurt him, would he hurt you?”
I shook my head, “No, not, it’s not in his nature. Besides, I warned him from the beginning that I’m the motherfucking matriarch and he better not ever lay a hand on me. He wouldn't.”
Grandma Barb’s mouth curved up in the corners. “She does sound like one of us.” Then she added, “Good, because I liked Magnus a lot and I’ve been very sad today while I considered all that he might be lying about.”
I said, “He honestly is from the eighteenth century. He doesn’t understand these vessels. He uses them, knows how, now, but he prays for guidance. He believed they were an act of God and that he — he’s trying to do the best he can. He had to ask me, like you just did, if time travel exists in my time, because cars blow his mind. So I’m very sorry he lied to you, but he was trying to get home to me with a very small working knowledge of how the world works.”
Grandma Barb patted the back of my hand. “Okay dear, I’ll go back to thinking of him as part of the family. What do you call us in your future world?”
“You’re Grandma Barb and Grandpa Jack. Most of the time Grandma and Grandpa. But now that I think about it, I should call you Barb and Jack. How about we let Archie call you grandma and grandpa and do our best not to screw up the timeline at all.”
She sighed. “You up for this, Jack? You might be old, but I’m only forty-eight!”
“Barely. But what are we going to do, put our granddaughter out on the street?”
Twenty-four - Kaitlyn
They sent Magnus in to my bedside where Archie wiggled from his arms to my bed, and curled up beside me, his head on my shoulder. “Mammy.”
I pressed my lips to his forehead and held him as tightly as I could.
Magnus sat in a chair, elbows on his knees, looking down at his hands. “I am sorry, mo reul-iuil. I ken ye dinna want tae come, twould mess up the history of ye, but I had tae...”
“I know.” I tried to reach for his face but he was about six inches off and Archie was on my arm. “Come closer.” I waved my fingers.
He pulled his chair closer, with a loud screech, and pressed his cheek to my palm. I pushed a lock of loose hair behind his ear. “Was it pretty frantic?”
“Aye. Twas difficult. I thought ye were lost.”
I stroked a hand down Archie’s shoulder and pressed my other hand to my husband’s face. “I’m not lost I promise. I’m right here. I’m sorry I froze back there, but I’m here, I promise.”
“Good. Because I told Archie when ye woke up ye would hold us and tell us ye loved us and make us feel all better.”
“God yes. Come here.” I waved my arm and he rose up and folded across us, holding Archie and me in his strong arms, nuzzling his face to my chest with his nose close to Archie’s nose.
Archie giggled.
Magnus chuckled. “Told ye she would put her arms around us.”
“Did I tell you today how much I love you?”
“Ye haena had time tae say it properly.”
“I love you.”
“I love ye too.” He kissed me and then nuzzled against me again.
Grandma and Grandpa took us home to their lake house. Grandma bought us some clothes from Kmart and food for the night. I helped Archie dress in warm clothes because it got very cold and while I dressed him I heard the murmuring voices of Magnus and Jack and Barb as he explained more to them — the deeper story, how we were being chased. Hunted actually. Through time. And had barely escaped.
Magnus and I would need to rest and decide what to do. He was asking if we could stay for a while.
Because they were my grandparents, they were saying yes.
The problem was, as we stayed, that I was a little problematic.
Magnus was a close friend, someone they knew. He got along with both of them eagerly and was an invited guest. When he woke up, he bounded out of bed to have breakfast with them, with shared stories and conversations.
I was two things, one, the plus one, the wife of the friend. Everyone was very pleasant, but it was ‘pleasant’, a little standoffish.
Because I was also, two, overly familiar, plus a foreign entity. Any conversation with me was awkward.
Our manners were formal and stiff.
It was just as well. Too much talking was going to make me cry.
We spent the day letting me rest until near dinner time when I declared I was done. Done. Done not feeling good.
We had a big dinner, chicken and dumplings because I asked for it and then we played cribbage, and then went to bed.
Lying in bed that night Magnus and I whispered to each other — Do you think they’re okay? and I think so and where do you think they are? and soothing each other with they are fine.
They have hidden.
They moved somewhere new.
We will see them soon, mo reul-iuil, and we will know.
Quentin will take care of them.
Aye, Master Quentin will handle it. As we slowly fell sleep.
The following day we all donned bathing suits. Archie wore inflatable floaties around his arms and we met at the end of the dock.
Barb jumped in and floated on a lounging raft. Jack climbed down the ladder and began kicking and pushing a large platform-dock farther out from the shore.
Barb yelled, “Not too far!” Kicking her feet to trail behind him on her raft.
As she passed the end of the dock, she held her arms out to Archie. “I’ll hold you on the raft, sweetie.” He shook his head.
I said to Magnus, “You first. I want you to be on the receiving end of my epic cannonball splash.”
He jumped into the lake, came up with his ‘fwish’ sound and I tossed four pool noodles to him.
He stuffed them all around his arms and legs and said, “Tis warm!”
Barb said, “Exactly, it’s a balmy seventy-four degrees.”
“Says the people who live in Maine and the Scottish man, to this Florida girl that’s freezing.”
I said to Archie, “Do you want to jump in, your Da will catch you?” He shook his head.
“Okay, I’m going to jump in, don’t be scared, this is fun.” To Magnus I said, “Ready, Highlander?”
“Och aye, tae see the little cannonball,” he joked. “I have been in the water with real cannnonballs fallin’ around me, I daena think I need tae be ready for yer tiny little—”
I backed up and pounded down the dock, bam bam bam bam, juuuuuuump, with a truly gigantic and epic splash all over Magnus, Barb, and even splashing Jack too.
When I emerged from the water, there was applause and cheering, and just in time I turned around to little Archie, his arms and legs flailing, leaping right after me, landing on me, puffing air from the cold.
/> Magnus yelled, “Twas a perfect cannonball, wee’un!”
I found a pool noodle and all of us lackadaisically swam, floated, and kicked to the larger inflatable floating dock and climbed up to sprawl in the warm sunshine.
The rest of the day was spent playing in the water, swimming and jumping from the docks. I was bossy about how to do it and everyone laughed and agreed I was the best.
Grandma and I went into the kitchen to make some hotdogs for everyone and I was getting things from the cupboards like I lived there.
She said, “You know your way around, which tells me I never rearranged my kitchen in thirty years.”
“True. Plus I was here every summer for as long as mom and dad would let me.”
“Oh.” She added, “I’m very glad I’m the kind of grandmother a child wants to spend time with,” as she pulled the ketchup and mustard from the refrigerator.
We sat at the picnic table outside, eating under the pine trees at the edge of the lake.
Jack asked, “Every now and then, Kaitlyn, you seem to go wistful and sentimental, as if you’re missing us, I’ve done the math and—”
Barb said, “Jack, don’t go asking the future, you don’t want to know it.”
“You might not, but me, this is a once in a lifetime.”
She put her hands over her ears. “La la la la laaaa.”
I said, “The truth is, now that I’m here, we don’t know if it’s going to be the exact same story or not. Even if I tell you, you won’t know. Like I might tell you that you were an astronaut and that you died during the flight of Apollo 79 on an expedition voyage to Mars, and yet by telling you, I might set a whole lot of other stuff into play, and therefore you might not die then.”
He leaned in. “Do I die on my way to Mars?”
Barb laughed. “Of course not! Have you ever in your whole life wanted to go to space? Plus, I’ll remind you, you’re too old to be an astronaut.”
To Archie, Barb loud-whispered, “He likes me to drive when it snows because it scares him when the tires skate on the ice. He’s an excellent mathematician, but would be a terrible astronaut.”
Archie giggled and stuffed a hunk of hotdog in his mouth with ketchup dribbling down his chin.
I said, “Either way though, I really don’t think I should tell either of you—”
Jack said, “But do either of us end up alone? Wait, don’t tell me — do, am I gone? Don’t tell me...” He deeply sighed.
I frowned, “I’m so sorry I came. I’m really happy to see you, but this is unprecedented and probably very very very difficult. I’m a literal Pandora’s box.”
Jack said, “That you are.”
Barb said, “I only needed to know one thing, that in my whole life, from beginning to end, my granddaughter still wanted to come see me, that means a great deal.”
Magnus joked, “I want tae see ye as well.”
“Exactly! If our grandson-in-law, king of a future land, jumper of time zones, bearer of heavy swords, wants to see us, that means a great deal too, that’s enough for me.”
Everyone grinned.
Twenty-five - Kaitlyn
Later that night after blueberry cobbler, and after Archie was fast asleep, we brought out the bags, placed them on the carpet, and arranged the vessels in rows on top of them.
Jack asked Magnus, “You haven’t fully investigated them yet?”
“Nae, I dinna have time, twas a great deal of… I have been told this is my weakness: my desire for peace and security. A life with Kaitlyn. I am told I daena worry enough or plan on what comes next.”
Magnus clasped my hand on his knee. “I daena like tae be weak. I should become better at guardin’ against danger.”
I brought his hand to my lips and kissed the back of it.
Grandma said, “And how many days of peace and quiet have you had?”
Magnus smiled sadly. “Perhaps only three since I married her.”
“Then don’t mope around here about your weaknesses. You have the right to expect a moment or two of peace and quiet, a chance to think about one other thing than time-traveling and danger. You’re human, not a god.”
I grinned. “We say that all the time.”
We had eighteen vessels. Most had rings around them similar to the ring Lady Mairead had added to ours so we could go to whenever we wanted. A few were without rings, we put those together. They were the broken ones, the ones with training wheels, or able to be controlled. We had another set that was exactly like the monitor we had over our house in Florida. Not that it did us a lot of good.
We turned things on until they buzzed. Talked about the numbers and speculated about the science.
One vessel at a time had always seemed mostly magical. Seeing them arranged before us turned them commonplace. These were the product of someone’s imagination, an invention, created to do the freaking impossible. And yes, magic, because none of the thousands of steps that led up to their invention had occurred yet.
We had leapfrogged past the inventing of the invention.
Like cavemen looking up to see a satellite coasting past their beloved stars, we were dumbasses looking down at a mysteriously perfect unexplainable object.
Grandma asked, her voice full of awe, “What do you think when you see them laid out in perfect rows?”
Magnus said, “I don’t think God would want me tae have this much power.”
I said, “I think, ‘Whoa humans are amazing — look what we can do.’”
Barb smiled. “Jack, how would you like to be a fly on the wall while these two figure out how to navigate their marriage?”
He looked up from one of the vessels, “It’s hard enough navigating a marriage between two numbskulls with almost matching doctorates.” He started to twist one.
Magnus said, “Careful Jack.”
“Oh, yes, of course.” He put the vessel to its row. “You know, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about the numbers on the equation you were working on last time you were here. I thought it was an interesting, yet basically useless exercise. But now I know it’s related to this and I want to know their origin, what they’re doing here, how to deal with them. I might never be able to turn off my inquiry. I’m worried my curiosity might change the timeline.”
I said, “I’m still here. But yes, this seems very dangerous, we should tread carefully.” We sat quietly. “I grew up in Fernandina Beach. Are mom and dad... I mean, John, is John there?”
Barb said, “Yes, John and his wife, Paige, have recently moved to Fernandina. They’re hoping to start a family as soon as she gets her real estate license going.”
“Good, perfect.”
Jack asked, “Since my head is full of information, and I don’t know what it will be like to meet you when you’re young, how will I act? I will second guess everything I think. We should stay here in Maine?”
I said, “God yes.”
“Is there anything in particular, anything at all that we need to say or do that is important?”
I sighed. “It’s all so freaking important. Everything you ever said to me.”
I kind of felt like crying.
Jack looked at Barb and shook his head, “Uh oh, she’s talking past tense.”
Barb said, “Well, this we know, you’re going to die, I’m going to die. You can’t stop the march of time, dear. Well, maybe Magnus can stop the march of time, he can apparently drop in and out of time all he wants, but you and I, we’re stuck in the endless march. You’ve learned nothing new except that our granddaughter loves us. This is a good thing. We should live our lives accordingly.”
I said, “Magnus can drop in and out, but he’s promised not to, because it sets shit too kerflooey. He has to be linear in his actions, not try to redo things. So in a way, though he can be creative, he has to deal with the march as well.”
“Aye, many time periods marching forward, side by side by side.”
“And there is a shit storm in each one to deal with.”
“Aye, Kaitlyn.”
Barb beamed. “The good news is that though life is linear, we are in a time loop and not much has changed, has it, Katie? You still have the love of your life, his son, your family, you haven’t lost anything, right?”
I looked from one to the other. “There is one thing, a really big thing. It might seem inconsequential, but it has influenced my life so much. It also influenced my friend Hayley, I told her about it and somehow now, almost every pep talk she gives me relates to it...”
Jack said, “Uh oh, this sounds big.”
“Not really, but it’s important. There was this time, when I was six, that you and Barb took, I mean take — god this is weird — you will take me to Disney World. And halfway through the day we lose Grandpa, I mean Jack. Grandma and I look everywhere for him and finally found him at the ‘lost children station’. He was wearing the mouse ears and had a sticker and a balloon. The lesson I learned was that if you’re ever lost, stay put, let the person who isn’t lost search for you. It was a very influential lesson.”
Magnus said, “It saved your life in Scotland when ye were kidnapped by the men.”
“It’s saved my life so many times, and anytime I get heroic about something, Hayley reminds me, stay put, wait for Magnus to solve it. You’re the one who’s lost. She’s usually right.”
Barb said, “Well that should be easy enough, Jack does have a terrible sense of direction.”
“Do not, I’m just usually thinking of other things, but this once I will make sure to be very lost.” He added, “Have you considered, you two, that there might be more vessels? And that it’s imperative you find them? You have the homing sequence — which one of these lets you remotely turn on the vessels? Perhaps you can use the homing sequence to find the ones that are still missing.”
Magnus pointed at three pieces of tech that we didn’t know what the hell they were. “Could be one of these.”
Again My Love (Kaitlyn and the Highlander Book 9) Page 10