And honestly, anything was better than spending the day with Herbert after their uncomfortable little conversation that morning.
In the end, it was a long, exhausting day. When she got there, the cow was still in early labor — she grinned to herself at how attentive the farmer must have been to catch it so early, to call their emergency line. She waived the after-hours callout fee — ten minutes before the office opened was barely after-hours, after all. The goodwill that generated earned her more than a few cups of coffee and offers of home-baked cookies as she sat by the cow.
To everyone's relief, especially the farmer, the delivery went well. Two damp, spotted calves slid out one after the other, their mother licking them both clean as Kay checked her over for any signs that the delivery had overtaxed her. It was late afternoon before she was packing her gear up — she knew that by the time she reached the clinic, it would be closing time anyway. Good. She wouldn't have to see Herbert again… not until tomorrow, and maybe by then he'd be over his little huff.
"Thanks, missy," the farmer said, shaking her hand firmly.
Not wild about 'missy' — but preferring it a great deal to Herbert's preferred option of 'beautiful' — she accepted the handshake, giving the farmer a broad smile as she did.
"She's a good girl. Make sure she's got plenty to eat, and plenty of quiet time to bond with those two calves. But like I said, everyone looks healthy. She's clearly been taken good care of in the leadup."
The farmer beamed with pride — she had a suspicion he'd like that little bit of praise. "Well, I do what I can," he said gruffly, hiding how pleased he was.
"Give us a call if you're worried about anything — I'm more than happy to come out and check them over. Twins aren't super unusual, but they're worth keeping a close eye on."
"I'll do that. You drive safe, now," the farmer called as she hopped up into the truck.
Would he have said that to a male vet? she wondered idly as she waved goodbye. Was it sexism, or was he just being polite? Or was it a bit of both? That was the difficult thing about being a young woman in a frequently male-dominated profession — you were never quite sure if you were jumping at shadows when it came to discrimination. Some, like Herbert's treatment of her, were obvious… but sometimes the sexism was more insidious.
Either way, it had been a rather good day. She grinned to herself, thinking of how pleased her mother would be to hear how well she'd done managing a calving all by herself. Maybe she'd give her parents a call when she got home. It was kind of sad not to have anyone to talk to about days like this one… days tainted by the bad, like Herbert, but redeemed by the good, like watching that cow getting to know her brand new babies. Kay prided herself on her independence, her fortitude, her self-reliance… but was it really a sign of weakness to want someone to share your life with? Not for the first time, she wished she was driving home to someone… to a light in the window and a pot already boiling for a cup of tea, to someone asking her how her day was and really caring about the answer….
She was pulled from these thoughts by a sudden blast of sound that brought her crashing back into the present moment. She was driving through the countryside on the way back to town, just passing a big lake — but that wasn't what had caught her attention. No — ahead of her, blithely swinging over the lane lines into oncoming traffic, was a bright red car veering and swerving every which way, clearly going miles above the speed limit, too. There was a truck behind her, honking its horn furiously — but there was no time to react, to dodge around the oncoming car, to do anything but grit her teeth and yank the steering wheel. The truck had decent suspension and decent brakes, and it was designed for some off-road travel — she'd just hope she could get it off the road to avoid a head-on collision with whatever drunk idiot was piloting that red car —
But to her dismay, as she came off the road with a thud, the truck's wheels failed to find any kind of purchase in the long grass. She was flying, even as she hammered on the brakes, her truck out of control as it spun through the tall grass — and then she screamed as the grass disappeared, replaced abruptly by the blue surface of the lake…
And before she could even realize what had happened, the truck was underwater.
Chapter 4
Something strange happened to Kay, then. When she looked back on it, she couldn't for the life of her reassemble the memory properly. She remembered seeing the bright red car on the highway, swerving and veering left and right. She remembered the panic she'd tempered as the car got closer, trying to figure out what she could do to avoid it — the realization that she'd have to go off road to avoid a certainly fatal head-on collision with the little car. And she remembered the impact as she'd swerved off the road, the skidding of her tires as they failed to get a grip on the grassy embankment, she crashed down…
And she remembered the lake, looming up ahead of her… but that was the part where it all seemed to fragment. It was like the memory itself came to pieces… there was an impression, certainly, of the truck hitting the water, of the tremendous splash it sent up as the water rushed into the cabin… she could feel cold water on her skin, feel real panic beginning to well up, feel pain, distant and strange… then it was a handful of strange images, like bubbles floating up through water. Scrabbling helplessly at the seatbelt. Taking a deep breath of air, terrified that it would be her last. Yanking at the door handle. Blood in the water… darkness as the car pulled her deeper and deeper into the water… darkness behind her eyes…
And then a series of images that felt like they had barely anything to do with the water around her. Her body, surrounded by darkness… but a different kind of darkness entirely, the kind of darkness that had never seen sunlight. The kind of darkness she always imagined as belonging to space, not to the bottom of a body of water… the kind of darkness that surrounded her, held her, lifted her up as though she was floating in water. But there was no water here. Nor was she breathing… but somehow, that knowledge didn't frighten her.
What did frighten here were the lights.
Tiny little points of light, seeming to come from unfathomable distances away… the same way that stars shone in the night sky, the way you knew they were as big as the sun or bigger but couldn't quite conceptualize it… they danced around her, swayed, seemed to come together and coalesce gradually and all at once, so that before she knew it, they weren't' individual points of light she was looking at, but whole constellations… and then the constellations were getting denser and denser, grouping together and forming the shapes of …
Not humans. She knew that, deep in her bones. Though they had heads, arms, and legs, none of these figures were human beings. Why was that so clear to her? Why did it fill her with peace, and not deep terror?
There must have been about twelve of them — she couldn't see behind her, but they'd formed a circle around her without her knowing. Time was passing strangely here, in this place — she couldn't tell if she'd been here for a heartbeat, or a year, but either way, something was happening to her. Was this a hallucination generated by her dying brain, she wondered, her mind helplessly clinging to the last concrete memory she had — the memory of crashing her car into a lake? Was she discovering first-hand what truly happened to you when you died? Why wasn't she afraid? She'd never felt so full of peace… then one of the figures extended one of its long, luminous limbs to her, brushing the tip of the limb — a hand, perhaps? She couldn't see it properly — across her forehead.
If she'd been able to move, or breathe, she might have sobbed, there was something so gentle and loving about that touch. As it warmed her — not physically, but spiritually — she felt the oddest sense that something had been healed or set right. As though the creature had adjusted a picture frame to hang straight… something as simple as that, and as meaningful. There was water in her lungs. She only realized that because it was rising, as though it were being pulled gently from her body like a colorful flag from a magician's pocket. Evaporating, rising through her m
outh and away. Once the water was gone, she took a breath. The air felt strange and cool in her lungs… and then the glowing figure before her nodded once.
The vision began to recede. The shapes, so bright, so clear, began to dissipate, darkness appearing in between the solid masses of their bodies. Kay wanted to cry out, to ask them not to leave… they were her only protectors in a space that felt unbelievably vast, cold, and lonely, and her forehead was still tingling with the loving caress of the one who had pulled the water from her lungs. They were closely grouped constellations again… then the constellations were drifting further and further apart until it was just void and stars, dancing around her. Then fewer stars… and fewer… and she was enveloped by darkness again…
And then, Kay became abruptly aware that her eyes were shut. They'd been shut the whole time. And she wasn't floating in some void space — she could feel that she was lying on something that felt a lot like wet grass… and when she took a breath, she confirmed that it smelled like wet grass, too. The air was cold, and she shivered a little, realizing as she did that her clothes were soaking wet where they clung to her skin.
She wrenched her eyes open, blinking a few times as her eyes adjusted to the darkness around her. Night must have fallen while she was in the lake, she realized dizzily, blinking around. Had she managed to get out of the car, to swim to safety? She must have — she was on the bank, or close to it, right? Kay struggled upright, coughing a little — but there was no water in her lungs. Just soaking her clothes. Now that she was waking up, she was aware of the distant lapping of water — she wasn't far from the lake, then.
But — was that the lake? It looked so much bigger from this angle. And she was lying close to a dirt road, not a proper highway like the one she'd been driving on. How had she gotten this far away from the road? Surely her car couldn't have crashed that far into the lake… but that particular thought was banished as she felt a sharp prod in the small of her back. With a squeak of alarm, she spun around — to see a little old woman looming over her. The source of the prod became obvious almost immediately — she was holding a long, rather wicked-looking walking stick, which was extended in Kay's direction. And when she spoke, there was another surprise coming — a thick, resonant Scottish accent dripped from her words, giving Kay pause as she deciphered what the woman was saying.
"Well, would you look at this. The Sidhe have delivered us yet another little gift."
Chapter 5
"What was that?" Kay asked cautiously, glad to feel that her voice was with her.
The woman cackled. "Aye, you talk just like the others! Oh, wait until I tell them there's another lost sheep to add to the flock. Forgive me, dearie," she added with a chuckle, fixing an inquisitive eye on Kay. "My name's Maggie. I live here."
"I'm Kay. Nice to meet you," Kay said faintly, looking beyond the wizened old woman to the little house she'd gestured to, lit up by what looked like an old-fashioned lantern on the front porch. The cottage itself was old-fashioned, too — the roof looked like it was thatched, and there was an antique armchair on the porch with a cardigan draped on it. What it looked like, Kay thought with amusement, was a witch's cottage from a storybook. And Maggie, as she had introduced herself, certainly seemed to fit the part of a forest witch. She was wearing what had to be ten different layers of jumpers and cardigans, the overall impression being of an ambulant pile of rags, and a pair of sharp blue eyes twinkled out from a face that was a mess of wrinkles. Still, Kay got a kindly sense from the old woman. Could she have seen some of what happened with the crash from her vantage point here by the lake?
"I crashed my car," Kay explained. "Some idiot was drunk, or something — I had to swerve to avoid them, and I hit the water."
Maggie was listening intently. "That's a shame," she said, gently but firmly, with a seriousness that sent a shiver down Kay's spine. "I'm sorry, dear."'
"Oh, it's okay. It was a work car. But I should call someone, let them know I'm — oh, no!" She'd reached into her pocket and pulled her phone out — but the little device was absolutely waterlogged.
"I have a suspicion you'll not be making many calls, dear," Maggie said gently. "Now — it's the wee hours of the morning, I must insist on getting you warm and dry before dawn."
"Dawn? It was barely six when I crashed, there's no way."
"Where are you from, Kay?"
"Casper," she said automatically. "And Cheyenne before that, and before that — well, you wouldn't have heard of it."
"I haven't heard of Casper or Cheyenne." Maggie chuckled. "Such wonderful names, you girls bring back."
"Haven't heard of — it's twenty miles that way," Kay said blankly, pointing. "Unless you're going to tell me I'm not in Wyoming."
"You're not in Wyoming," Maggie agreed brightly. "Not even close, I'm afraid. Usually the other girls are incredibly careful about breaking this news, but you seem like a tough cookie, Kay. You're in Scotland."
"Oh, sure," Kay snorted.
But Maggie wasn't smiling. She blinked a few times — was this old woman out of her mind? Her own grandmother had made some pretty wild claims when she was getting toward her end… it had been funny, in a sad way. But Maggie didn't seem to be out of her mind. Quite the opposite.
"Take a look at the Loch, dear. Does it look much like the body of water you crashed into?"
She turned as instructed, blinking out at the dark water of the lake behind her. Maggie, who was holding another of those old-fashioned lanterns lighting up her porch, lifted it up obligingly, shining a little light onto the water… and beyond it, it was illuminated by moonlight, enough for Kay to see just how far the water spread. But… but something was wrong.
"That can't be," Kay said softly, taking in the full size and expanse of the lake. "It wasn't… it wasn't that big." Why, this lake seemed to stretch well beyond what she could even see. The lake she'd crashed into wasn't that large, surely. Nor, she realized as her body shivered more and more in the cold night air, had it been anywhere near this cold out. Just what was going on? Was it possible that she'd been moved while she was unconscious? "Did someone… take me somewhere?"
"Aye, lassie, they did. Spot on. They're called the Sidhe, and they love to rescue young women who stumble into fatal accidents."
But Kay wasn't listening, not really. Her mind was reeling, her body shaking, and she realized abruptly that she was on the edge of a panic attack. The cold, the shock — she felt the medical part of her brain jumping into gear, dispassionately analyzing what was going on with her even as the rest of her mind was swamped by panic. Just like a baby sheep that was away from its mother too long, she thought numbly — but her whole body was shuddering and then Maggie was at her side, gently draping a cardigan around her shoulders, and she clutched at it gratefully, a little shocked by how warm it felt against her cold skin. She really was cold, she thought distantly as her body shuddered. It would be just her luck to fall sick right now — could she get leave from work to recover? She'd had that flu a few weeks back that had eaten through a lot of her vacation days…
"There, there," Maggie kept saying, and she could feel the little old woman's hand on her shoulder, steadying her.
A simple touch, but a highly effective one — she felt the panic ease up a little, though it didn't go far, circling her mind warily like a wolf. She looked up at Maggie, stammering apologies — she was still sitting in the grass, and she felt an impulse to get up, but she was worried her legs wouldn't support her. The world seemed extremely far away, somehow.
"Do you think you can walk? I'd like to get you inside by the fire sooner rather than later. We've a lot to talk about, you and I. Some adjustments to make, I'd imagine."
"What did you mean by — I'm in Scotland?" she asked weakly, her mind unable to leave that particular point alone.
Maggie sighed. "Just what I said, I'm afraid. And there'll be more to learn and more shocking than that. But for now, let's get you warm — oh, not now, you daft old lady."
&
nbsp; Kay blinked at the shift in Maggie's tone. She looked around the lakeshore — but they were alone out here, no sign of any other figures out here in the moonlight. Who was Maggie talking to? Her eyes were on the waters of the lake. Kay turned, a little confused — somebody on a boat, or something?
But there were no boats. There was, though, a long, slender cylinder poking out of the water, maybe eight feet long — she followed it up, and up, a little confused — a tree, growing out of the lake? Such a strange feature — how had she missed that when she'd looked? But when she saw what was on the top of the shape, her rational mind gave way to panic again.
Two curious beady eyes, a short snout, and a jaw full of sharp teeth.
Chapter 6
"Don't mind her," Maggie said reassuringly.
Kay was still staring at the thing in the lake. It looked like a dinosaur. It had to be fake, she told herself — some kind of tourist attraction, a fake monster for people to take photos with — but even as her mind seized upon that reassuring explanation, she saw the thing blink its eyes, and with a splash, it began to descend into the water, the long neck retreating beneath the waves until just the eyes were left, peeking up above the gently ruffled surface. Beady, curious, and overall… intelligent eyes. Looking straight at her.
"What the hell is that," Kay said faintly, realizing as she did that, she didn't want to know the answer.
Distracted By The Highlander: A Scottish Time Travel Romance (Highlander Forever Book 4) Page 2