I bucked him off then and shoved him away and lumbered again my feet full of fury.
He stood in front of me, his hands clenched in fists. “Ye canna survive it, Og Maggy.”
I was weavin’, unable tae stand straight from weakness.
He pulled his fist back and swung, directly for my stomach, connectin’, knocking me stumblin’ back a couple of steps. He followed.
I swung at him but he ducked, stepped away, swung and hit me against the side of my head and dropped me tae my knees.
He stood over me. “Ye will die. I daena want tae keep hittin’ ye, seems a waste tae fight ye as ye are weak as a bairn. I have told ye ye arna in any condition tae fight or even walk. Tis nothin’ but death ahead of ye.”
“I daena want tae die, but I canna live without returnin’ tae the fort.”
“Dost ye have a brother?”
“Aye.” I tried tae stand but couldna get my feet under me and fell back tae my knees.
“He will thank me for savin’ ye from this mischief. It makes nae sense. You should return home. Where is your home?”
Home is where you are, Kaitlyn. She was in Scotland in the year 2382. “Balloch castle.” I wiped my mouth on my sleeve. “On the River Tay.”
He shoved me down tae my side in the leaves and mud of the clearing. I had nae idea how tae get up again, much less from here in these woods tae there in the future. My only choice was tae get a vessel.
Fraoch sat down and leaned against another tree.
“Ye almost got us killed. Twould be a pity for two Scots tae die here because they couldna agree on whether tae live or nae.”
I tried tae calm myself. I focused on the dim light as it filtered down through the trees above us.
Finally he said, “You should say somethin’ Og Maggy, ye almost killed us, I saved yer life again, and ye have gotten the beatin’ ye deserved for it.”
I tried tae rise over my fury. “I will kill ye when I have a chance.”
Fraoch said, “Nae, ye winna. Ye ken if your brother was here he would have fought the sense intae ye. He will thank me for doin’ it.”
I groaned. “He would, tis true.”
Fraoch said, “What is his name?”
“Sean.”
“And ye wouldna fight him back because ye are a good obedient brother and ye ken that he would be in the right on this.”
“Dost ye have a brother? My brother wouldna be in the right, but he would demand I follow him anyway.”
“I have a brother, he is young and he daena listen tae me though I am right in most things, as I am now, in this. You need tae sleep, Og Maggy. In the morn ye will see my side on it.”
I sighed and turned tae my back. “Will we stay here taenight?”
“Aye, we shouldna move, but we needs tae keep watch for men. They are in search of fresh water.” He adjusted his back lower against the tree, settlin’ tae keep watch.
“I ken ye daena want me tae, but in the morn I have tae return tae the fortress. I must find a way tae break in, tae retrieve what I left.”
He shook his head sadly. “Og Maggy, ye are mistaken on it, ye should let it go, tis nae worth yer life. What is worth a man’s life? I have been thinkin’ on this question: family, a bonny lass, some land of yer own. Tis what I was promised here in the New World but all I have been given is a rash-covered arse from the heat, and a New World where the logs have teeth. Now I am supposed tae die for it? Nae. Nae I have come tae it, Og Maggy, tis nae worth yer life tae fight for anythin’ but your home.”
“I canna agree. In this I have tae fight here, for what I lost.”
“Do ye have a bonny lass back home?”
“I do. She is…”
“Och, ye should get tae her and daena leave searching for yer fortune nae more. I tell ye, there is naethin’ good comes from it. Start yer farm, love yer woman, live tae be an auld man with your bawbels hangin’ below yer kilt for all the world tae see and daena care. Tell them tae nae look if yer gingamabobs hang low.” He laughed and got me chucklin’ too.
He added, “We have been walkin’ much of the day, tae return tae the fortress will be tae do that distance once more, ye are too weak for it. Do ye ken tae talk tae the Timucua?”
“Nae.”
“The Timacua daena want ye here. Ye have tae ken how tae talk tae them tae pass through their lands. And ye daena have provisions. I can share but I canna give it tae ye. And Og Maggy, ye haena been payin’ attention tae the soldiers, they are in movement, and they have been speakin’ on the siege. It has turned. The Spanish took Fort Mose. We are bein’ pushed north. You canna walk intae a territory that is held by the Spaniards, nae alone. And I have proven myself untrustworthy as a fellow soldier.”
“So what do ye propose we do?”
“We are verra close tae the river, at dark we will steal a boat.”
“Och, ye are a deserter and a thief.”
“I am also verra good at navigatin’ and I am the only friend ye have in the New World.”
“We are friends?”
“Unlikely, but aye, we are friends.”
I let out a low breath. “Can ye spare some more meat?” He broke off a large hunk and passed it tae me on his blade. I ripped it apart with my teeth and chewed hungrily.
Eleven - Kaitlyn
I woke in a clearing, face down in a Scottish forest. I looked over at Hayley, she was staring up at the sky and for a red hot panicked moment I thought: dead. Then she groaned. She turned her head to me. “How come you do this?”
“I haven’t ever really had a choice.”
Beaty groaned nearby, “Beaty, how are you?” I couldn’t sit up to see, but had to hope she would answer.
She said, “Tis fearful and verra painful. Why is it so dark? It looks as if tis mid-day but I can barely see.”
I was able to lift my head. Quentin was sitting up, unlocking the chains that locked him to the ATVs.
Hayley and I slowly got up bit by bit, groaning and not overdramatizing at all.
She asked, “How do I look?”
“Like you’ve been through an ordeal, brush your bangs down to cover your bandage.” She did. “Now you can barely see your head wound. And ‘just been through an ordeal’ is basically how everyone looks in the 18th — I mean in this century.”
I felt around me in the dirt and leaves for the vessel. Nothing.
Wait...
I searched some more.
I got into a crouching position and flailed around wildly, “Where is it?”
Quentin said, “What, the vessel?”
“Did you take it?”
“No, I didn’t.”
Hayley said, “But my eyesight is making everything super dark, is yours doing that? How can you even see it?”
I said, “I can’t, that’s the point, I can’t see it.”
Quentin drew his handgun and went into guard-mode in case someone was with us. Hayley, Beaty, and I crawled around searching and digging in a wider and wider diameter.
Finally I said, “This is fine, I have another one. It’s on the, you know, thingy…” I waved my hands in the direction of the ATVs unable to form the right words.
I rifled through one of our bags for the second vessel, the one I brought just in case, the one no one else knew about. Shit. It was gone.
I looked through all our bags, and my searching grew more and more frantic. By the last one I was throwing our stuff all over everywhere.
My breath was coming fast.
We were in the fucking — where were we? God, we were in the freaking forests of Scotland in the mid-16th century and we lost — I lost the vessels. Holy shit. I dropped down to my butt and looked around at my friends. “What are we going to do? The vessels are gone.”
Quentin said, “We must have been robbed.”
“But no one is here. Why would they just take the vessels and would they know what it was? How would they also know where the second one was?”
Hayley asked, “Has this ever happ
ened before?”
“No, whenever we travel it’s always lying right beside us. It falls out of our grip but it’s there, always right there.”
We all looked around at the space. It was like they just disappeared.
Unless.
“Could it — I mean, that would be weird — could it be that we traveled to the day before the vessels all got here? Could it be that our vessel isn’t here because the aliens have them all? Did we just discover the back edge of where they could travel to in the past...?”
“Shit,” said Quentin, “I seriously hope you got the date right.”
I gulped. “Yeah. Um. Yeah. I hope so.”
He said, “And we, of course, didn’t tell anyone the date, so no one knows where we are...”
I drew in a breath but then couldn’t let it out and gasped for another. Then that wouldn’t go in or out. I doubled over, clutching my skirts, trying to get any air at all.
Hayley said, “Wait, Sweetie, you breathing?”
I managed to shake my head.
Then I fell forward onto my hands.
Hayley got down beside me. “See me? Look at me? You aren’t looking at me. You’ve got crazy eyes, stop the crazy eyes and look in mine. Now purse your lips like this — see me? Now breathe in. Try it.”
I pursed my lips and drew in a short jagged breath. I shook my head.
“No, do it again, purse your lips, breathe in. Breathe in. Now do it again, breathe in. That’s a girl, do it again. Good. See, you can breathe like a normal human again.”
“You’re being so nice to me but I just killed you. I just stranded you in a medieval forest. We’re as good as dead.”
Beaty looked down at her clothes. “I am nae dead, Queen Kaitlyn, I am standin’ afore ye with a breath in my lungs, tis nae as dark as ye are makin’ out.”
I moaned. “To me it’s dark as hell.”
Hayley looked around at the trees, “Yes, it’s very dark, but it looks exactly like a 21st century Scottish forest and Quentin and I got out of one of those, so I’m not convinced this is that drastic.”
I moaned. “Oh this is very, very drastic. We can’t leave. We’re stuck here. We might have to live our whole lives—”
“Does anyone know this date?”
“Magnus does. Me.”
“Well, you don’t matter, you’re stuck.”
Quentin said, “But Magnus will come get us.”
“We’re getting him.”
Quentin said, “I don’t know. I just know Magnus will be here in the morning. He might be a prisoner but he’s also sure to have a plan. A bunch of aliens with vessels will be here in a few hours and we have to get a vessel from them before the Scots get here. We have tasks. But we can do them. We just don’t have any room for mistakes.”
Hayley held out a hand and helped me up. “Right, no mistakes. When the aliens land we’ll rush over, grab a vessel, and run away before the Scots get there. Easy. We’ll find Magnus, he’ll be there somewhere — maybe we should divide up the jobs.”
Quentin said, “I’ll go in, search the aliens, steal a vessel, and then I will kill Reyes.”
“From a safe distance, in a way that doesn’t affect any of the rest of the moment, while you’re getting the vessel you won’t kill anyone, or fight anyone, or even get seen, right? Your job is total stealth.”
“One hundred percent.”
I said, “The rest of us will keep watch for a sign of Magnus.”
We didn’t want the noise of our ATV engines to attract the attention of the Campbells, especially when we didn’t have a vessel for an escape, so we decided to push them out of the clearing to a hidden spot in the forest. I said, “No worries, we got this. Our plan is perfect, we’ll get this all done. For now we just watch for the storms.”
We all pushed the ATVs to a place that seemed good to wait and watch. It was hidden in trees but on a bit of a rise for a view. It was exhausting to push them here, but we were warm at least. Quentin and Beaty sat together and talked and whispered.
Hayley asked me, “You know what’s cool about this?”
“What?”
“You know something now. You know that the vessels can only loop back to this date for some reason. Even if you wanted to you couldn’t go see the dinosaurs.”
“Or Cleopatra’s time.”
“Yep. You can only go back to this time, when is this by the way?”
“Not telling you, but it’s way before the signing of the Declaration of Independence.”
“We aren’t even Americans yet?”
“Nope, weird, huh?”
Beaty loudly said, “Queen Kaitlyn, dost ye have your camera? I was thinkin’ ye could take a photo for my Insta.”
“Beaty what are you—”
She started giggling. “Quenny told me tae say it tae ye. I daena ken what it means…”
“Well, it’s very funny, and funnier if you do get your own Instagram account long before Magnus figures out how to use a phone.”
I tried to push down my growing fear. We were stranded in the 16th century. Again, totally responsible for these people. Trying to rescue Magnus. What if we couldn’t?
Night was coming on.
It was crazy cold.
We had parkas and mittens to put on over our clothes. We were too close to the castle to start a fire so we just had to shiver together. Beaty was wrapped up in Quentin’s arms. Hayley and I were huddled listening to Quentin as he showed Beaty how to work her flashlight.
I thought about how weird it was that the Scots from the castle didn’t come to check out our storm. They would come to see the next storm though, that was a part of the story. What made them do that? Was it because there had been so many storms, ours and then theirs? Had this all happened before? Was our loop a part of all the loops? It was mind-boggling and I didn’t want to think about it anymore.
Hayley said to me, “This is just like that night, remember, when we told your mama that we were staying at my house and told my mama we were staying at yours and we knew they wouldn’t call to check on us because they hated each other? We wanted to spend the night with those boys, remember?”
“That’s right, the ones from the country club, down visiting Amelia Island for the summer, from Atlanta.”
“Yeah, they were really hot and they said a bunch of sweet things about wanting to stay out all night and the one, he played guitar, right? I’m a sucker for that.”
I snuggled in closer for warmth and comfort. “Who isn’t?”
“True. So we arranged to stay out with them and then they got busted and had to go in for the night, but we were stuck, out, nowhere to sleep.”
“We slept in the sand dunes.”
“Exactly, like hobos, it was just like this.”
“I love you Hayley. I’m sorry I put you in this much danger.”
“I love you too, sweetie. And what I’m trying to say is this doesn’t feel like that much danger. I can’t wrap my head around it, so whatevs. Love ya Quentin. Love ya Beaty.”
Quentin said, “Ya’ll need tae quiet down, the aliens are comin’.”
Beaty said, “What is an alien, Quenny? Tis like a beast?”
He said, all heroic and romantic, “Don’t worry about any beasts, Beaty, I’m going to keep you safe.”
She murmured, “Good, because taenight feels the kind where uile-bhéists be lurkin’.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“It feels like Oidhche Shamhna, the night of spirits.”
“Oh.” I said.
“But it wouldna be, I daena think anyone would be heedless enough tae sleep outside on that night.”
I said, och, to myself and tried to remember through the sounds of bugs and the wind rustling through the trees and the high dark sky and the freezing cold, that I didn’t believe in monsters.
Though, of course, we were waiting for aliens.
So I tried to relax while we waited for the night to turn to day.
Twelve - Magnus
A few hours later, Fraoch woke me with a nudge. “Tis time tae find the boat.”
“Och.” It hadna been enough rest, but twould have tae do.
“You arna plannin’ tae leave this morn?”
I held my head in my hands trying to find the strength tae rise from the dirt. Fraoch had been right, I wasna strong enough tae do what needed tae be done. “Nae.” I lurched tae my feet.
We dinna have tae walk far before we found the banks of the river, sparklin’ in the moonlight. Fraoch warned me that there would be encampments along the banks so we crept along silently and used signals tae communicate as we searched for an unguarded boat.
We first found three skiffs tied tae a low hangin’ branch of an oak but there were men stationed nearby. We waited for some long moments but the guards were awake and watchful.
We crept around their camp and walked farther north.
Then we found it, a lone skiff, pulled up ontae the rocks and brush of an unguarded shore. We watched and listened and then I fell in behind him and we crept closer.
On investigation it looked recently used, watertight, but as we drew near it, a verra long beast, its tail directly under Fraoch’s foot, shifted, causin’ Fraoch tae yelp and jump intae the air. With a heave the beast tossed itself intae the water and slid away.
Fraoch lunged for the rope that bound the boat, untied it, and together we shoved it clear of the shore. I dove intae the skiff tryin’ nae tae drag my feet in the water where the vile beast was still swimmin’.
Fraoch and I both lay as quiet as possible on the bottom of the boat and allowed it tae drift from the shore.
Under the Same Sky (Kaitlyn and the Highlander Book 7) Page 5