[Druids Bidding 02.0] RenFaire Druids: Dunskey Castle Prequels

by Jane Stain

  “Look,” Vange said, “I know you guys are really into the faire and you work there and all, but not everyone appreciates that. Your parents might be embarrassed if he shows up at the restaurant in his kilt.” She still sounded sad, but in a resigned, amused sort of way. That was much better.

  “I know.” Emily sighed and admired her man’s distinctive form while he ran his fingers up and down the glass wall that enclosed a children’s clothing store. “I’ve known all along that Dall should be wearing ‘normal clothes’ whenever we go see my parents, but I’ve been resisting because he just looks so hot in his kilt.”

  “I wasn’t going to say so.” Vange looked over at Dall and laughed. “But now that you mention it…”

  The two friends hugged. Things appeared to be back to normal from the outside, but Emily could tell Vange still felt sad and left out. And Emily knew it wasn’t just that she’d gotten married. The truth was, Vange was left out of the amazing fact that time travel was real. Emily didn’t doubt that her friend could sense Emily was hiding something big from her.

  After two hours of mall shopping, Dall wore some loose black jeans and a respectable looking T-shirt. He also had a new card wallet in his back pocket, but Vange didn’t know it was empty.

  In a grey nylon daypack that Vange had also insisted they buy, he carried more normal clothes, his kilt, and his sporran. He still wore his boots. He had left his sword in the trunk of Vange’s car when they went into the club. Emily wondered if it would be in there if she went out to the parking lot right then and looked.

  When Emily hugged her best friend goodbye until Friday, she thought she saw a tear falling from Vange’s eye.

  Lunch with Emily’s parents was fun. They ate at Madam Wu’s, Emily’s favorite restaurant in town, and she grudgingly admitted to herself that Vange had been right to make Dall wear ‘normal clothes’ for it.

  “You were right about Dall’s clothes,” Emily texted Vange under the table.

  Vange texted back immediately. “Quit texting at the table before your mom takes your phone away.”

  Emily laughed, and then she passed it off as laughing at Dall.

  It was funny watching his reaction to Chinese food. Emily was pretty sure her highlander had never seen chopsticks before, let alone eaten with them. But he watched her and her parents and mimicked what they did, and she was proud of him. He did OK.

  While it had only been two weeks for her parents since Emily got married, it had been six months for her. She was already quite comfortable and very content in her new role as Mrs. MacGregor. Which was why she was quite off guard when her mother took her aside on the way back to their table from the ladies’ room.

  “Emily, hon, take it easy on the alcohol from now on. I want my grandchildren healthy.”

  “Uh, yeah. OK. That’s… That’s true, Mom. Thanks. I will.”

  This put Emily into a kind of shock. She thought back on how weird Dall’s family had been treating her. It made sense now. Dall’s family expected her to be pregnant by now. And why shouldn’t she be?

  And when she thought about it, she realized she hadn’t had a period since she started time traveling. And her belly was normal size. All she could figure was that the world going swirly prevented her from being fertile. This was huge news.

  “Dall.” Emily called out frantically to her husband when she saw him, completely forgetting they were in a crowded restaurant.

  Dall was halfway out of his seat with his hand hitching up his pants leg to get to one of his boots before he settled back down again, presumably upon seeing she was unharmed and unmolested. “Aye?” He looked around, probably just to make sure no attackers were coming in through the windows.

  “Sorry, later,” she told him in Gaelic with what she hoped was an apologetic look on her face. That was a look she had not needed for any play she had done, so she wasn’t sure she was doing it right.

  All was well. He threw his arm around her and hugged her when she sat next to him.

  “Wow, honey, you’re learning to speak Scottish.” Her mom looked impressed. So did her dad.

  “Yeah, Dall thought it would be a good idea, for when I visit his family.”

  Her dad smiled and nodded. “Yes, and knowing another language is always a good thing. That’s great, Em.”

  She smiled back at him. “Thanks.” but her mind was making a mental note to definitely tell Dall the huge news later. They were going to have to change their time travel schedule, or at least hers, when they wanted to have kids, which she thought should be before she was 30…

  And then she realized that with her time travel, she had already lived enough days to be 23 and 9 months, but her calendar age in her correct time stream said she was only 23 and 3 months. Yikes. Obviously, her biological clock had 23 and 9 months. Yep, she was going to have to talk this over with Dall before too long.

  After they all laughed over their fortune cookies, Emily realized two things. One, she had now been awake 24 hours in a row and needed to get some sleep or she was going to collapse. Two, she wanted some pictures of her parents on her new phone. They had given it to her for her birthday, just three months ago to them. In that time, she hadn’t taken any pictures of them.

  Emily got up and took her phone out of her tiny evening bag.

  “OK, Mom, Dad, cuddle up and smile for me.”

  Her parents were so cute together. They cuddled up and smiled just like two teenagers would. It made Emily realize how much she would miss them if she couldn’t visit whenever she wanted. Yes, marking a destination near them was worth the trouble she was in with Vange.

  “I wish I could just think of my parents when I wanted to travel to them,” Emily said to Dall in Gaelic while she took some more photos. “Like in some books I read. Let’s drop by and mark in my room at their house before we leave town.”

  “Aye lass, good thinking that is.”

  She didn’t want to leave, but it was time. She gave her parents each a big hug. “I love you.”

  “We love you too, sweetheart. Drive carefully back to the festival site.”

  Dall and Emily walked around the corner and down the street, and called a cab.

  Emily still had her key to her parents’ house. She took Dall into the garage as an extra precaution and got ready to mark the location.

  She reassured herself that in the off chance that someone was home during work hours when she planned to travel there, they wouldn’t be in the garage, and if they were, she could ask in

  Gaelic for a do-over. And the garage had a back door they could leave by and then enter through the front door to make their arrival seem natural to anyone in the house.

  Emily marked the location, and went through the process of labeling it “Mom and Dad Shaw’s Garage.”

  And then her finger froze on the drop-down menu.

  “Dall. Dall. Ack. You have to see this.”

  She saw a new destination she couldn’t account for. It was labeled with today’s date and a little icon she didn’t recognize.

  “What, lass?” He stopped examining all of her dad’s guy stuff in the garage and came over to look at her phone, putting his arm around her in a gesture she knew she was beginning to take for granted.

  Sinking into Dall’s embrace, Emily tapped the new destination to open up the larger window with the details on it.

  “Huh.” Emily gasped.

  There, where a destination should have come up, was one of the pictures Emily had taken of her parents.

  Dall chuckled that deep sexy chuckle of his and rubbed his palm up and down Emily’s arm.

  “What’s so funny?” Emily turned her head to look at his face, not understanding what he could possibly find to laugh about. This was weird, not funny.

  “You have done it again, lass.” He smiled their contented cat smile at her.

  “What? What did I do?” She wanted to be able to return the smile, but she was just puzzled.

  “You commanded the wee phone app, and it o
beyed you.”

  “I did?”

  “Aye.”

  Now she was able to return his smile, and the two of them got lost in each other for a minute, first in their eyes and then in their kiss.

  Emily came up for air. “What did I say exactly, while I was taking this picture?”

  There followed another hour-long lesson on Gaelic’s subtleties.

  Once she was certain she could duplicate the effect of marking a person as a destination, Emily realized how tired she was. She and Dall had been awake now for far too long.

  “Ug, we still have to drive back to the festival from that club.” she said, burying her face in Dall’s chest.

  “We can make some time to have a rest first, lass.” Dall smiled his new knowing smile at her.

  Emily laughed. “What was I thinking?” She set the Time Management app for 9 am the following morning, right here in their current location. The world went swirly, and then the two of them slept six hours in Emily’s old room at her parents’ house.

  Her phone woke them at 3pm Tuesday afternoon, well before her parents would get home. They carefully made the bed and then took a shower in the bathroom down the hall and got back into the clothes they had been wearing when they first left the club.

  Dall was putting his new clothes into his new backpack. “Lass, we will need to go and put this in Vange’s car before we meet up with the others in the club, aye?”

  Emily tried Dall’s new knowing look on for size.

  He looked at her and laughed.

  Still grinning, she said, “We can just swirl over to our trailer and drop that off before we swirl back into the storage room at the club.”

  He grinned back. “To my way of thinking, lass, the trouble will be in knowing when we will not be there already.”

  Emily nodded yes, laughing, while she went through her list of destinations. And then she saw it.

  “Dall. Look.”

  He leaned over her shoulder and hugged her tighter, peering at the phone. “What is it, Drusilla? I have only the smallest knowledge of how these wee phones work, you ken?”

  “It’s so cool. The Time Management app is well-named. See? This calendar is keeping track of when we’ve been where. These orange spaces indicate where we’ve been and when. Green spaces indicate times we haven’t been anywhere yet, so we can go someplace.”

  “There is yet the time I must go to the castle and lend my own support to Alasdair. Because who of the castle men might die if I don’t? Do not forget that, lass.” Now Dall’s brow was furrowed, but Emily didn’t care if he got wrinkles.

  “Yeah,” she said, “if this calendar is any good, then there should be a way to mark those times on it so we don’t make a mistake and go someplace else during that time. Let’s see…” She fiddled with the settings and the various drop down menus until she found just what she was describing. “There. See, it marks scheduled appearances in blue. OK, now when do you need to be there…”

  After they worked that out and marked the calendar accordingly, Dall said, “I do not think that I could make the wee phone app work, lass, but I trust you if you say so.”

  “OK with me. I’ll do the phone stuff. You watch my back.”

  “With pleasure will I do that, lass.”

  They were busy for a few minutes, and then the world went swirly. They dropped Dall’s new bag off at their trailer, the world went swirly, and then they were back in the storage room at the club.

  Vange wolf whistled when the two of them came out of the hallway arm in arm. “Are you guys pottying together now, too, or did you just spend ten minutes in the closet?”

  “Ooh.” Various snickers were heard.

  “Very funny, Vange, but we’re married, you know.” Emily flaunted Dall’s mother’s ring on her left ring finger. “So we can spend all the time in the closet we want.”

  Everyone laughed, and Emily took advantage of their smiling faces to take pictures. She especially took some of Vange, but figured what the heck and took individual pictures of all their new best friends, too. And while she took them, she said the Gaelic phrase that made them destinations.

  She hoped it at least worked for Vange, but she didn’t dare bring up the Time Management app while all these phone-savvy people were around.

  Emily got a few more slow dances in with Dall, loving every movement. While they sat and watched everyone else dance in between slow songs, it was easy not to drink any alcohol because after all, she was the designated driver. Pregnancy didn’t seem to be a worry now when she was popping around through time, but her friends didn’t know that. And it might seem like pretty soon to them, when she did get pregnant. She rather hoped so, actually.

  Everyone’s faces started to droop a little come 1 am.

  Dall took charge. “Och, this is fun and all, but Emily and I must be at Murray’s weapons booth by nine of the clock tomorrow, and we still have a two-hour drive back to the festival, you ken.”

  The others at the table started to protest, but Brittany agreed. “Yep. Time to hit the road, everyone.” She stood up and waited for them all to follow her lead.

  “Me and Cody would like to ride with you again, Emily, if that’s OK with Vange.”

  “If what’s OK with me?” Vange came back from the dance floor just then, smiling and having a great time, still kind of dancing to the upbeat music.

  Looking at her best friend standing there so happy and trusting, Emily wanted so bad to warn her about the call she would receive from her cousin Emilio Monday morning. But that would just sound crazy. Well, Vange wouldn’t care if Emily sounded crazy. But they didn’t need their five new best friends asking the wrong questions.

  Dall kept himself in charge though, and Emily was glad to be relieved of that duty. “Vange, lass, do you wish to ride with us? Cody and Ashley say they do, but as it is now mostly your … car, you have the choice in the matter.”

  Ashley must have realized what was going on, though. Well, not exactly, but close enough. “Oh that’s OK. We’ll see you all tomorrow, and we’re camping near each other anyway, so we’ll ride with Brittany and them.”

  Yay.

  They all stumbled out to the cars. Brittany looked sober, though, so Emily relaxed.

  “See you tomorrow.”

  “We’ll come to your booth again.”

  Emily pulled up next to Brittany’s car then, so they could talk better. “Actually, I think you guys better go to the Scottish dancing from now on, or Siobhan’s liable to blow a gasket. I’m already a bit worried how she’s going to be tomorrow, about us missing the staged guild meeting and the ring-out parade.”

  Brittany laughed at the part where Siobhan might blow a gasket. “Can we at least do the pre-demo with you still, before the all-guild sword demo? That was really fun.”

  Emily looked to Dall.

  He smiled and nodded yes.

  “Fine by us,” Emily said, “but really, you should ask Siobhan. She’s the guild leader. Dall is the weapons advisor, but she outranks him.” There. That was a diplomatic way of putting it.

  “I was afraid you were going to say that.” Brittany made a funny face.

  “I think she’ll say you can, but she’ll be much happier about it if you ask her, if you know what I mean.” Emily showed her teeth in a cheesy smile.

  “Gotcha.” Brittany winked. “OK, so we’ll see you at ‘Taming of the Shrew’?”

  “We wouldn’t miss it.”

  “OK, see you tomorrow.”

  “Bye.”

  Almost as soon as Emily had the window rolled up, her friend leaned forward on the front seat between her and Dall, who she now realized she was going to have to teach how to drive.

  “OK, that was fun,” Vange said, “but what gives? Why do we suddenly have five new besties?”

  Dall surprised Emily by speaking up. “Siobhan does govern us with a strong arm. It is difficult for us, getting away from her, even for an evening like this.”

  Emily chimed in. “Yea
h, but at the same time, she’s always on us to mingle with the locals, so we just killed two birds with one stone.”

  Dall sighed. “She will be angry with us, however.”

  Emily blew her bangs out of her face. For now, they had sidestepped discussing time travel with Vange. But Emily really wished they could just tell her best friend everything. She resolved to at least think of some way to soften Vange up so she would forgive Emily after Monday.

  “We all might as well go to the trailer tonight,” Vange said. “I always use your extra bedroom, anyway. We’ll get more time to sleep if we don’t stop at the hotel.”

  “Yeah, you’re right. OK, that’s what we’ll do.” Emily was good to go for a while, and she knew Dall was too, thanks to sleeping Tuesday away. But what else could she say that wouldn’t sound crazy to Vange?

  And then Emily knew how to give her friend a hint at what she and Dall were up to without ‘discussing it’ with her. By the letter of the command she and Dall had been given, ‘discussing it’ was all she was forbidden to do.

  When they arrived at the renaissance festival’s parking lot gate at 3 am, they got stopped at first, but when the guards saw Dall, they waved them in without asking for passes. Emily thought she heard them saying his name and Siobhan’s name into their radio, but she wasn’t going to worry about it.

  “Done is done,” Emily told herself.

  Her common sense talked back. “You know Siobhan will actually blow up at you if she finds out Vange knows you time travel, no matter how Vange finds out, right?”

  “Shut up,” she told it. “You were all paranoid about me getting close to Dall, too, and that has been nothing but wonderful.”

  Her common sense shut up.

  They parked, walked across the festival grounds into the backstage area, and unlocked the trailer. And then Emily made a big show of getting out Dall’s new grey nylon daypack in front of Vange. “Look at Dall’s new backpack. Isn’t it cool? And look, normal clothes.”

  Vange was so sleepy, all she said was, “Yeah, cool,” but she said it with a warm smile, which was so unlike how sad she’d been on Monday morning, or would be, come Monday morning.