Snowflakes in Summer (Time Tumble Series Book 1)

by Elizabeth Preston

  After a while, Bern returned. “Right, we’re off.” I nodded and scooped up my dresses and other things we’d dumped on the bed in my haste to go back to the twenty-first century.

  “Ye have no’ changed, lassie, into ye bonnie Scottish frock.”

  I sighed. “I was distracted. Sorry.”

  “Never mind. Plenty of time for that later. Off we go.” I followed behind him, keeping my head down, avoiding all the smirking Campbells. They seemed to think it funny, that Laird Bern had to travel across the countryside to fetch his reluctant lady and drag her home. I was more than ready to get over the wooden bridge and out of there.

  We’d hardly traveled any distance before we both spotted Silis and his row of rundown huts.

  “Look. Bern. He’s had some of the thatches fixed, and it looks like he’s got other families living with him again. Let’s call by and say hello.”

  Bern guided his horse toward the small peasant village. Silis looked up and we waved, as if we’d spotted an old friend. In return, his face broke into a warm smile. Bern sent the horse trotting toward him.

  “I’ve a coin or two for ye, Silis. I’m sure you’ll be able to trade it with the Campbells for food. Someone in Doral will know what to do with a coin.”

  He smiled his thanks and held the coin up to the sun.

  “Silis,” I said, slipping down from Bern’s horse. “You have thatch on a few of the huts now.”

  “Aye.” He was like a new father showing of his precious child.

  “Beautiful.” My face fell remembering that his wife and child were still missing. “Any word of your wife and daughter?”

  “Laird Campbell is doing what he can for me. He’s hoping to buy them back. These coins will help.”

  “When we get back to Tor, we’ll send more your way. Everything helps.”

  “Thank ye, Lady.”

  “Not at all.”

  Silis led Bern forward, pointing out changes the castle folk had helped him make to his little village. I wandered off in the opposite direction. The peasant village was in far better shape than when I’d arrived a few months ago. For one thing, there were no dead bodies lying in the dirt now. The pens were fixed too, and the pigs moved to a bigger, cleaner paddock. I stopped outside the broken corral I’d landed in, remembering those first few moments when I found myself in that very spot. The gate was still broken so I wandered in. The animals were gone, the paddock left in fallow to grow a weedy, grassy layer over the boggy mud. I moved to the middle, caught in my dream of all that has happened to me in the past few months.

  Just then I heard Bern call my name. I looked up and waved and he waved back. I moved two steps to the left, heading for the gate and the way out. But that was as far as I got. Next thing I knew, I was dizzy and sleepy and could not open my eyes. Finally, the wave of sleepiness passed. And I could prize my eyes open again.

  When I looked for Bern, he was gone. Everything else was gone, too. I wasn’t in Silis’s peasant village any more. I was in Doral Castle, in the twenty-first century.

  I was home.

  Chapter 19

  Bern

  No.

  No, no, no. Where did she go? “Caitlin, Caitlin come back. Where are ye?” I tore through the bracken, through the broken gate and into Silis’s bare paddock. “Caitlin,” I hollered into the wind, screaming till my lungs were fit to burst. I knew I was acting like a crazed beast, but I didn’t care. With my head spinning, I searched every inch of that ground, looking for the tiniest sign of my lass.

  Nothing.

  “Come back to me, please!” I yelled then stomped over every patch of that wretched enclosure, ploughing through the bare air like a madman, looking for someone that was clearly not there.

  “Come back, my love, take me with ye.”

  In the end, I stopped charging about and stood on the one spot. This was exactly where she’d last stood, on this patch of green before something whisked her away. Something stole her from me. I didn’t care who or what it was, only that I was still here without her. I wanted the thing to suck me away, too.

  It didn’t happen. I slumped on that patch of thicket and waited. The memories would come now, those memories I struggled to bury. It was always this way. Whenever I was under the greatest duress, the memories from long ago came flooding in. There would be no denying them this day. Those disturbing times around my mother’s disappearance, those were not easy days to forget . . .

  ~ ~ ~

  I was a young lad of only five summers when I first realized that something was wrong with my mother. She had sore patches on her skin, areas I was told to keep well away from. If ever she brushed against a table or banged into a wall, she’d wince in pain. I tried to compensate for her suffering, tried to please her with bunches of wild flowers and with long stretches spent praying on my knees. She always wanted me to remain close to the Lord. All I wanted was to see her smile. She bathed me in love and I didn’t care what she looked like, just as long as we were together. We were special, her and I. But the older I grew the more the taunts from the others stung.

  I remember being in our solar, bursting in one morn while Ma had her woolen stockings off and was bathing her feet. I was shocked by the sight of her bare skin. It had been a long while since I saw her feet without shoes or stockings because she was careful to always keep herself covered. Her lower limbs had changed shape, and her feet were swollen. Even worse, her toes were all but gone. She saw me staring, open-mouthed, and hurriedly pulled her woolens back on.

  “Your feet Ma?”

  “Nothing to fret about, my sweets,” she said, forcing cheerfulness into her voice.

  It was then that I noticed the hollowness of her cheeks and how the features of her face were rearranging, too. Her pretty nose was flatter than it used to be. From then on, I started to pay more attention and notice more about her. The sourness in my belly increased, too. I sensed that something was horribly wrong, I just didn’t know what.

  About then, Pa paid healers to travel to us, coming from afar. He did what each recommended too, following their advice right down to the last frog leg and the biggest butterfly wing. I remember Pa ordering our warriors into the forest to shoot deer. The healing blood of a buck and a doe was drained, saved, and poured into a tub big enough for Ma to bathe in. But, despite the frogs and butterflies and deer blood, Ma’s face remained distorted. Her nose resembled a weathered thing, like a stone that had been left in the sea too long.

  I was seven summers old when Pa said it was time I leave Tor and begin weapons training under MacKay’s guidance. The season of my fostering had arrived. “They have much to teach ye, son.”

  I shook my head. “I’m staying here with Ma. I’ll not leave her in Tor to suffer alone.”

  “It’s my job to see to your Ma. You’re leaving, son, and that be that.”

  “Nay. I’ll not stay with MacKay. I’ll run home every chance I get. You’ll ne’er keep me there, not while Ma’s ailing so.” Pa relented and let me stay on at home but my days with her were running out.

  “Will Ma be well again soon?” I asked him most morns.

  “Do ye trust me, son?”

  “Aye.”

  “Well, away to your training then. And eat more. Ye’re awful thin. The next laird of Mackenzie castle can nay afford to grow up sickly and small.”

  I forced bread into my tensed, quarrelsome belly and tried to stay calm. I trusted Pa. He’d do what was needed.

  I was eight summers old when I first heard the name of Ma’s condition. It was the blacksmith’s son, Jonas, who told it to me.

  “She’s a filthy leper and a sinner and that’s why she’s going to die.”

  Jonas got a bleeding nose that eve.

  I’d wiped my cut knuckles on my tunic before I remembered the bl
ood. Ma would see the red stains on my clothing and know I’d been fighting again. But I had to shut Jonas and the other lads up.

  Jim was a nasty one, always mimicking my ma, making fun of her. He’d puff out his cheeks and contort his face and limp, acting like a monster thing. “I’m Laird’s wife,” he’d call out as he hobbled along, making the others laugh.

  I ground my teeth. “You’ll pay, Jim.”

  He ran further away from me before turning and starting again. “Lep-er, lep-er, lep-er . . .”

  “Liar,” I counted. Even though I fought back and denied it all aloud, deep down I knew. I rubbed my bleeding fingers through my hair. If only Pa could find the right healer, then Ma would lose those bumps on her back and her beautiful face would heal, too. Not that it mattered to me what she looked like. She was my ma, and the sweetest, kindest woman in the world.

  Eventually, though, the roar of condemnation grew too loud to silence. One day I came in from practicing the crossbow and sensed that something was different. The keep was airy and empty and straight away I felt the chill. The fear inside me mushroomed into a bulbous thing. I ran to the solar and when she wasn’t there, knew that my world was closing in.

  “Ma,” I screamed over and over, running from one bed chamber to another, then to the hall and then into the kitchens. I ran around both baileys calling her name and no one stopped my frantic search or offered a word of consolation. They kept their eyes averted. Much later that night, Pa rode in and there was a heaviness in his step I’d not seen before. Of course I darted to him as any youngling would.

  “Ma’s gone. Do ye know where she is, Pa? Have ye found a healer for her?” He guided me back up the stairs and into our solar.

  “I’ve had to put Ma in a special place.”

  “What? But this is her special place, this solar with us. That’s what Ma says.”

  “’Tis a place where those with Ma’s illness must go.”

  I shook my head. “Nay. There’s no such place. Pa, ye must bring her home. She’s not that ill. She’s not one of those that has to hide away and ring a bell when she comes close.” I couldn’t bring myself to use the word, leper.

  “Ma can’t return, I’m afraid, son. ’Tis not safe for ye, or anyone else in this castle. She must stay away for good now.”

  “No, no, no. Bring her back.” I couldn’t believe he’d done it, dumped my precious Mother somewhere, left to rot like a piece of rubbish, only fit for the fire. My hand clenched into a fist.

  “Nay, son. I will not be bringing her home.”

  I hit Pa then, hit and kicked and punched, until he finally belted me back. I never saw Ma again, never even got to say goodbye.

  I’ll not stand for that with Caitlin. I’m a warrior now, and no one takes my love from me, not ever again. I’ll find her, even if it takes all of my days to do so. I’ll find her.

  I spent much of the next sennight inside Silis’s paddock, searching for a way to reach her. Mostly, I waited. Eventually though, I had to go back to Tor. I had a castle of folks there to care for, too. So in the end I settled for dividing my time between Tor and Silis’s village.

  “I’ll never give up on ye, Caitlin. Never.”

  Chapter 20

  Caitlin

  My overwhelming emotion at being back in the twenty-first century was relief. I’d landed safely in my own time, back onto the bench seat in the room I used to think of as the original kitchen. But now I knew better. Doral Castle’s original kitchen was the one Bern and I’d been in an hour or so ago, talking to cook. I stood, trembling on shaky legs and made my way toward the sunlight. I drew in a huge lungful of twenty-first-century air and felt safe. Then I looked around, taking it all in. I studied the hills beside the castle, the position of the loch, the wider sea mouth and turned and spied Doral village in the distance. No wonder the way home was not back through Doral Castle. This castle, the one I’d always believed to be built over the ruins of the original, was nothing of the sort. Doral had been rebuilt but not in the same spot. Sometime in the past, they’d rebuilt the current castle over Silis’s paddock.

  I thought of Bern. Would he think I’d done it on purpose, pretended the way back was through the castle when all along I knew it was through Silis’s animal pen? Would he think I’d tricked him so that I could leave him in the past? Must not dwell on all that; I’d just get upset. If I focused too much on my sweetheart, I’d end up back on that bench seat zooming straight back into his arms.

  I looked up into the sky and guessed the time to be around late afternoon. Surprisingly, it was colder here than in 1263. At school and at university, whenever we talked of medieval times, we imagined gloom and darkness and bitter cold. But it wasn’t true. Just now, I’d left a sunny afternoon in late August in medieval 1263, and arrived back in modern times, still in August but to an icy still, white sky. Was that snow falling? I stretched my arm up and caught a snowflake. Snowflakes in summer. What a wonderfully diverse, surprisingly magical place this world really was. Up till now, I’d trudged through life with my eyes shut only seeing what I’d bumped into. No more.

  As I wandered away from the castle, toward the bridge, Doral Village grew larger. I’d always thought of that cluster of houses and shops as quaint, toy-like, as if the town belonged in a picture book. But that perception was gone now, too. The village was, in fact, a bustling hub of activity. Well before I got to the bridge, I heard busses roaring, car horns sounding, people calling out, and even cell phones ringing. Had it always been this bright, and this noisy? There was color everywhere: gardens rioting in oranges and reds and pinks. People walked around wearing bold patterns on their clothing, in a wild jumble of colors. Street signs and flashing lights were everywhere too, desperately fighting for attention.

  I walked down the main street, smiling at people as I went. They looked back and some smiled a greeting, but no one made a fuss of my Viking costume. It seemed as if no one cared what I wore. If they did think anything at all, they might imagine that I was on my way to a costume party, or maybe part of a shop promotion. Or, I might have been just another hipster. No one cared, and I liked that very much. Not wearing the right thing in 1263 nearly got me killed.

  I made my way toward the back streets that led to my flat. My little home would be locked and my key well-and-truly lost by now. I’d left the key with my bundle of clothing at the film set months ago. The police probably had my clothing and keys by now. No matter. I kept a spare hidden under the white concrete cat that sat under my crab-apple tree. My rent was paid on automatic payment from my bank account and there was more than enough in my account to cover another six months’ rent. I’d lost my mobile, left it in the changing tent too, during my stint as a film extra. But I still had the landline at home. I’d only gotten the landline because of the cheap Internet that came with it. That meant I could phone Lily as soon as I got in, and I’d need to call Mum in Australia, too. Lily, especially, must have wondered where I’d gone. Mum, well, not so much.

  I was nearing my flat, just needed to turn the corner and then another few minutes’ walk up the hill. As I turned, I saw the poster. “Missing” it read, and had my photo on it. I snatched the poster off the pole. Looked like I’d need to phone the police too, and invent some story.

  I let myself in using my hidden key. The curtains next door moved, so I knew my prying neighbor was watching. I was just about through the door before Mrs. Carmichael dragged her window open and poked her head through.

  “We heard you were missing. The police were in there, looking for you.”

  “Oh. I’m sorry for the bother, but, as you can see, I’m not missing. I went away, that’s all.”

  “Maybe next time you disappear, you could tell someone where you’re going. It’s not right, vanishing off like that.”

  I slammed the door closed. The only thing I liked about Mrs. Carmichael was h
er plump, fluffy cat. So, the police had been in here. Can’t say I was surprised. Someone had opened drawers and rifled through my wardrobe. Lily must have rung the police. I would have done the same if she’d vanished from the face of the earth, too. My coveted teaching position would be filled by now. They’d have found themselves a substitute teacher. Couldn’t be helped. There was always next semester. Something else would come up.

  Funny the things we miss. I was desperate to jump into the warm shower and looking forward to using the flush toilet, too. But sitting in my living room, all alone, I was acutely aware of the quiet. Castles are filled with people and the hustle and bustle of busy life. There’s always something happening; that can be both a good and bad thing. As soon as the thought of what I’d done—killed someone—entered my head, I thrust it out again. I did what I had to do, no more than that. Leave the memory in the past, Caitlin! You can’t deal with it.

  I picked up the phone and pressed in Lily’s number. She didn’t answer so I left a message:

  Hey Lily, I’m back. I’ve been in Australia all this time. Sorry I couldn’t get hold of you till now but you know how remote my parents’ farm is. Dad had an accident but everything is all right again. I’ve missed you. Saw my ‘missing’ notice in the village. I’ll ring the police and sort that one out. Hope I didn’t worry you too much, hon. Catch up soon.

  It was an inadequate excuse but under the circumstances, the best I could do. Next, I phoned the local police and talked to the man on the desk. I apologized for all the trouble I’d caused, feeling irresponsible and more than a little embarrassed, but he accepted my apology with good grace. “Just pleased you’re back with us. It’s a good result. Always worries me when young girls go missing.”

  Done. I ripped off my Viking outfit, kicked it under the bed, and then had the longest shower of my life. Loved the silky feel of my hair after a good dollop of conditioner. Toothpaste was a truly meteoric invention. I shoved myself into jeans and a baggy jumper and was headed for the kettle when I saw Lily’s bright yellow Mini Cooper pull up outside. Yikes, not sure I was up to the inquisition I was about to receive. She’d be mad as hell at me, and hard to fool, too. Trouble was, she knew me so well. The police were a pushover compared to her.