Even In Darkness (Between)

by Cyndi Tefft

  Callison tsk’ed his tongue at me and shook his head. “Ah, how soon ye forget. I win. And the captain won’t be helping ye now, as these were his orders, direct from his mouth. Nighty night!” His laughter bounced off the walls as he headed back the way we’d come and disappeared from view.

  “Lindsey, what on Earth are ye doing? They told me both you and Willie would be kept safe at the captain’s residence in town.” The initial shock in his voice turned to disgust. “Filthy whoresons. Liars, every one of them!”

  “I chose to come,” I replied in a small voice, realizing that by saying this, I sounded like I was defending the captain.

  “You what? Why would ye go and do a—” The sound of Aiden taking a deep, calming breath seemed to echo in the stillness of the jail. When he spoke again, his words rang with finality. “Ye mustn’t stay here. ‘Tis not right.”

  “I’m not leaving you. Even if they carted you off to hell...” My eyes flickered over the wadded blanket in the corner that was probably crawling with lice and rats. A shudder ran through me. “I would go with you.”

  “Nae! Don’t say such things!” The anger in his voice made me take a step back. “You’ve your whole life to live yet and I’m naught but a condemned man. Don’t ye understand?” Footsteps scraping on the dirty ground told me he was pacing. “Find someone else, some bloke who can love ye like you deserve, not a criminal fated to swing from the gallows.”

  “But you won’t,” I replied. The dejection in his voice broke my heart and after a beat, I opened my mouth to tell him about the deal I’d struck with the captain, but he cut me off before I could speak.

  “Are ye daft? Of course I will! I killed five English redcoats in combat. Their king would call me a traitor and demand my blood. He’ll not be satisfied until every Jacobite is cut down and slaughtered. They are monsters and I’d not put it past them to hang you right beside me. Is that what ye want?”

  “No! I—”

  “Ye shouldn’t be here. When they next come with a meal, tell them you’ve changed your mind. Beg, whine, cry—whatever it takes—but get them to take a message to the captain that you want out. I’ll not have you die because of me.” With that, his feet scuffed the ground as he walked to the opposite end of his cell, moving as far away from me as possible.

  Tears ran down my cheeks and I shook my head at the stone wall that separated us. Part of me wanted to alleviate his fears, to tell him that I’d sacrificed myself so that he and Willie would live, but now I wasn’t sure how he would take that news. He was so resolute, so determined to be the martyr, that I didn’t know what to say at all. So instead, I just slid down the wall to the ground and curled in on myself. With my arms tucked around my knees, I lowered my head and let the tears come. It was my fault we were here to start with—I was the one who’d gotten us knocked off that cliff—and even with certain death looking him in the face, Aiden was trying to save me. But I hated the words coming from his mouth. How could I cling to him through this when he was shoving me away? We should have been helping each other, praying together. The thought gave me strength as I remembered the many times Aiden had held my hand and asked for God’s guidance and blessing. Sniffling, I offered up a prayer for both of us.

  “Och, dinna cry, love.” All the fight was gone from his voice. “Damn,” he muttered. He was moving in his cell again. “Come here.”

  Wiping my cheeks with the back of my hand, I walked over to the bars and gripped them tightly. I hated Eagan for keeping us apart. The captain was pissed off that I would rather be rotting in jail with Aiden than in a posh mansion with him, so he was making us pay. Fine. He wasn’t going to break us. Nothing would come between us.

  Pressing myself against the wall, I reached through the bars, curving my hand towards Aiden’s cell. The damp chill seeped through my clothes, but if there was a chance I could connect with Aiden, even a little bit, I’d take it. “I’m here,” I whispered. Long moments passed until my arm began to ache from holding it out, then his fingertips threaded with mine and the flicker of hope inside of me burst into flames.

  “Lindsey…” he started, his voice thick with emotion. “Thank you. I don’t deserve ye.”

  I stroked his fingers with my own, willing my voice to be steady despite the rapid thumping of my heart. “Well, you’re stuck with me, so you’d better get used to it.” My attempt at humor was rewarded with a strangled chuckle from the other side of the wall.

  “Aye, I’d like that. There have been many a time in my life I’ve wished for the sweet release of death that others receive, but now that you’re here…” He sniffled and started to drop his hand away from me. I grabbed on as best I could, desperate not to lose our tenuous connection.

  “When? What happened?”

  “Nae, I canna tell ye. ‘Tis embarrassing.”

  “Ooh!” I remembered swapping embarrassing stories with him once before. “I’m intrigued. Now you have to tell me!” Anything to keep his mind off the bars between us.

  “Well…” he began, then let his fingers fall away from mine. “I’ll sit here at the bars if you’ll do the same, then perhaps you’ll indulge me with a story of your own?”

  My shoulder ached from holding my arm out to touch him, so as much as I felt the loss of his skin on mine, I welcomed the chance to stretch a bit. “Okay, but you go first.”

  He sucked in a deep breath and then blew it out as if to say, ‘Here goes nothing.’

  “When I was thirteen years of age, I was sweet on a kitchen maid. Gretchen was her name and she had fiery red hair the color of sunset. She was older than I was and she never spared me a glance, excepting this one time we were washing dishes. She cut me a look and announced that she was off to visit the privy.”

  Though I couldn’t see him, I could envision him shaking his head as he told the story, an easy smile on his face. The thought of him smiling again warmed me from the inside out.

  “And?” I prompted.

  “Well, I had it in my head that she’d invited me to follow her, that she’d planned a secret rendezvous for the two of us, and that the time for my first kiss had finally come. So I mumbled some excuse and slipped out the door after her. Only when I got to the privy, she wasn’t alone.”

  “What?” I was so wrapped up in his voice that I could almost forget the thick grey wall that separated us. “Who was there?”

  “When I rounded the corner, I saw my sweet Gretchen flat on her back in the heather, her eyes closed in bliss, and my brother Duncan with his kilt up, rooting between her thighs.”

  “Oh no! He didn’t!” My eyes flew open wide and I clamped a hand over my mouth to stifle the giggles that threatened. Unable to see Aiden’s face, I wasn’t sure if he’d appreciate my reaction, but soon, his self-deprecating laughter rang through the air.

  “Aye, he did. Only, that wasn’t the worst of it.”

  “There’s more?”

  “When Duncan saw me, he swore and struggled to right himself so he could chase me down and beat me into silence. Uncle William was sure to lay into him for dallying with the kitchen maids, so he had to make sure wouldn’t go running off my mouth. So I took off toward the house, but I tripped over a tree root, where I fell flat on my arse and angered a colony of red ants that swarmed under my kilt and reigned holy hell on my bollocks.”

  I let out an unattractive snort that turned into crazy, unhinged laughter. Aiden joined in until we were both wheezing and panting.

  “Hey, ‘tis not funny! My poor bollocks itched like mad. Uncle William was constantly telling me to get my hands out from underneath my kilt or he’d be happy to cut them off for me. I didn’t know if he meant my hands or my bollocks, but I wasn’t eager to find out.” The vision of poor little Aiden struggling to keep from scratching himself set me off into another fit of giggles until my ribs ached from laughing. “So, aye, death would have been a welcome reprieve right about then,” he said, a grin ringing in his voice. “Now it’s your turn and don’t try to get out of it, lass.�
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  I struggled to think of a story that wouldn’t give way the fact that I was from three hundred years in the future. Everything about my normal life was foreign to him and I didn’t want to break the news to him. Not here, not like this when I couldn’t see him, couldn’t touch him. Willie seemed to take it well, but he was a little kid, probably more likely to believe in fairy tales and fantasies. But Aiden had always been the practical sort and I could just imagine how he would react. He’d think I’d lost my mind, that they’d fed me some hallucinogen in order to try and get to him, to break him. No, he wasn’t ready for the truth, and I wasn’t ready to tell him. Not when I had no plan to get us out other than sleeping with the enemy.

  “Well, um…” I stalled.

  “Out with it!”

  “There’s the one with my swimsuit,” I mumbled to myself, “but I’ve already told you that one.” The words were out before I realized what I’d said.

  “Well, I wouldn’t remember hearing it now, would I?” he said a little defensively.

  Desperate not to ruin the fledgling peace between us, I hurried to retell the story. “I was swimming at the lake with a bunch of friends. We took turns with the rope swing, swooping out over the water and then letting go and falling in. Only, when it was my turn, I let go too late and landed flat on my face.”

  “Ouch.” I could feel him wince.

  “And when I swam to the edge of the lake and walked out, all the boys were staring at me. The top of my bathing, er, my swimming outfit, had fallen down around my waist. So, um, yeah, they all got quite an eyeful.” My cheeks burned with the memory of them pointing and laughing.

  I expected to hear laughter from the other side of the wall, but instead found only silence. Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore.

  “Say something!”

  His breath came out shallow. “I can’t stop thinking of you like that.”

  “Like what? All beet red and so embarrassed, I wanted to dive back in the water and never come out?”

  “No. Seeing your bare skin. Touching you.” The heat in his voice spread over me like a chocolate fountain.

  “Oh.” I placed my hand against the wall between us and imagined him doing the same. I could swear the stone warmed under my palm.

  “All that time you cared for me, you tended my wounds, you washed me… I never had the chance to touch you, to show you how I felt.”

  “How do you feel?” I knew it was a risk to ask, since Aiden didn’t remember me, didn’t remember any of our life together, but I was desperate to know.

  “Like I’ve been a caged animal all my life, snarling at the world, accepting the scraps they’ve thrown at me and thinking that was all there was. And then you came and opened the cage.” His voice dropped so low that I had to strain to hear him over the beating of my heart. “I was afraid at first, afraid to leave what I knew, even though it’s brought me nothing but misery. I thought I had a plan, I thought I knew what I wanted, what I needed. And now everything has changed. I don’t want to go back in the cage, but I don’t want to lose you. And I can’t have it both ways.”

  “You won’t lose me. I’m not going anywhere.” I scooted over to the bars again and reached for him, but he didn’t do the same.

  “I didn’t expect to love you. I didn’t know I could. And that complicates everything.” I heard him pacing now, so I pulled my hand back inside my cell. “If only I could start over, do things differently. But I can’t. You’ve shattered the shell that kept me contained and safe, leaving me exposed. All I can think about is your smile, your fingertips against mine, your kiss. It’s like nothing else matters and I’m falling and falling, knowing the end is going to rip me apart, but doing it anyway. You’re killing me, Lindsey.”

  Every muscle in my body ached to hold him, to kiss him, to tell him everything was going to be okay. I’d never heard him so confused and dejected. My fists pounded the wall between us in a futile attempt to unleash the frustration inside.

  “Stop, Aiden. Just stop. This isn’t the end. You have to trust me. Can you do that?”

  Silence pressed between us, shoving me in the face. I fought back.

  “When you were a little boy, you lost your father and you spent days crying out to God to bring him back. Do you remember?” When he didn’t answer, I yelled, “Do you?!”

  “Aye,” came his soft reply.

  “Well, God didn’t bring him back, but he gave you a gift instead. You told me that God’s presence washed over you and through you, that it’s never left you, and that it keeps you tethered like gravity. Do you still believe that?”

  I counted my heartbeats while I waited for his answer.

  “Lindsey…”

  “Do you still believe that?” I repeated, unwilling to let him off the hook.

  “Aye,” he said finally, though the admission sounded like it cost him more than I could fathom.

  “God has not given up on you, Aiden, and neither have I. So screw the cage that bound you, let go of what you thought it was, and be here now. Be with me. Just…be.”

  I heard him scraping toward the bars, so I reached out to touch him. The tips of his fingers caressed mine.

  “The way I feel about ye…” His voice was rough and hoarse like he’d been crying. “It scares me to death, to tell the truth.”

  “Don’t be afraid. I don’t bite. Well, unless you want me to.”

  His thick laughter sounded like music to my ears. “What am I going to do with ye, woman?”

  “If we didn’t have this damn wall between us, I could think of a few things,” I said, letting my voice trail off. A low growl came from his throat and I grinned.

  I’d won. I didn’t know what deep pit we’d just emerged from, but Aiden was back and I would keep him smiling and light if it took every last ounce of strength I possessed.

  Chapter 12

  Time crawled by like an ant under a magnifying glass, unaware and unwilling to change its course, though it should have been racing to get away. If it weren’t for the meals of slop and mush that the guards begrudgingly brought by twice a day, there would have been no way to determine how much time had passed. The cells didn’t brighten with the daylight. Not even a tiny slit of a window interrupted the stone walls that held us prisoner. I would have given my right arm for a breath of fresh air.

  A loud growl from my stomach let me know we were coming onto dinner time again. Heavy footfalls scraped down the hallway toward us. I got to my feet and wrapped shaking hands around the bars.

  “Let us out of here!” The words felt ripped from my throat as I hadn’t had nearly enough water in the days we’d been stuck in this filthy hole.

  “Aye, ‘tis what I’ve come for,” came Callison’s too-jolly voice in return. “Only, I’ll be taking him first and then I’ll be back for you.” Metal keys jingled against one another as he searched for the right one to open Aiden’s cell.

  Scuffling feet. Grunts. Aiden appeared briefly in my vision through the bars like a poorly spliced video. Callison cuffed him, then grabbed one arm in his meaty claw.

  “Lindsey!” Aiden called. I strained so hard against the metal between us that the bars should have snapped like twigs.

  “That’ll be enough out of you, lover boy,” Callison snarled and shoved him forward, out of my sight.

  Cold and alone, I slid down to the ground and awaited my own release.

  When Callison finally returned, all the fight had gone out of me. Weakly, I lifted my wrists to him so that I could be handcuffed, but he just laughed.

  “As if I’d need to restrain a wee thing like you!” He hauled me to my feet and pressed me forward down the hall. “If anything, looks like I’d have to carry ye out of here. Don’t faint on me, now.”

  My legs felt like wet spaghetti noodles as I trudged toward my doom. I thought back to the relief that had flooded me when I’d struck the deal with the captain and secured a pardon for Willie and Aiden. The sweetness of that moment dissolved on my tongue, and was rep
laced by a sickening dread of the payment due. And not just once, I reminded myself. Every night in his bed.

  My feet deserted me.

  Callison shoved me from behind, his heavy fist landing like a club between my shoulder blades as I fell to my knees. “Keep walking!”

  Struggling upright, I did as he asked and swallowed the anxiety churning inside. It wouldn’t help to dwell on it.

  When we emerged from the jail, the fishy scent of seawater stung my nostrils, but I nearly sagged with joy at breathing the open air again. As we walked, the morning sun forced my gaze to the ground until I was able to adjust to the brightness. Callison practically flung me into the waiting carriage and deposited his girth into the opposite seat. Immediately, I pulled back the shade covering the side opening and let the air flow across my face. The bumpy streets jarred my bones as we made our way to the port, but I was so thankful to be out of the jail cell that I didn’t even care. My hatred for Callison even dimmed a fraction and I offered him a half-smile.

  “Glad to be out, are ye?” he said with a gap-toothed grin of his own. “I’ll bet ye’re rethinking your stupid decision to choose the gaol over the captain’s house now.”

  And just like that, I was back to hating him.

  When we finally arrived at the ship, I expected Eagan to meet me, but he didn’t. Callison directed me across the expanse of the enormous boat. Three thick masts rose up along the deck like telephone poles, then seemed to disappear into the clouds. Thick bundles of white cloth surrounded each of their limbs—sails tied up while the ship was at port. Peering up from the base of the center mast, I saw a sailor working to loosen the sails so that we could catch the wind and depart. Eagan must have waited until the very last minute to fetch me from the jail, presumably to teach me a lesson. Irritation spiked inside me and suddenly the breathtaking ship and its smooth, polished railing felt like nothing more than another floating prison.