Chapter Three
I opened my eyes to see seagulls flying overhead, soaring under the bright-blue sky. With a gasp, I jerked upright from my prone position. Brisk waves smashed against the beach near my feet. I didn’t know if I had fainted or what had happened, but the roiling sea was much closer than it had been, and had I not awakened, I think I might have soon drowned.
I tried to rub my eyes free of a hazy cloud, but could move only one hand. My left hand was immobile in a warm cocoon.
Dylan!
I looked down to see him seemingly asleep or unconscious, one hand holding mine. Like me, he lay on his back.
To my right, the dagger twinkled on the rocks where I must have dropped it, the metal suddenly gleaming as if it had been polished.
Movement out of the corner of my eyes distracted me from my immediate surroundings, and I turned to look out to the white-capped sea. The tail end of a Viking-style boat disappeared from view around the northern end of the tidal stack, sails billowing in the wind.
“Dylan!” I said, jerking my hand free. A quick glance showed that the blood from my wounds had already started to clot. I shook his shoulder.
He bolted upright as I had, blinking, rubbing at his eyes.
“What happened? Did I faint?”
“Well, if you did, then I did too! Did you see that boat? That looks like a birlinn!”
“What boat?”
The boat was gone, and I didn’t take the time to describe it. Waves rolled up onto the beach again as the tide rose. I eyed the dagger, momentarily afraid of touching the thing. Something made me look over my shoulder toward the top of the cliff.
Two women, long red skirts flapping in the wind, stood there, several children clinging to them. Even from here, I recognized one of them instantly.
“Dylan,” I muttered. “I think we found Cynthia...and Ann.”
Dylan looked over his shoulder, and his eyes widened. He jumped up. A smile broke out on his face, and he shouted toward the women, waving his arms without restraint.
“Cynthia! Ann! Ann!”
I rose more slowly.
The women looked at us for a moment before Cynthia, holding what looked like a blanketed infant in her arms, held up a hand and waved. At her side, Ann held not one but two infants.
I turned to Dylan and grabbed his arm.
“Do you realize what has happened?”
He looked down at me, the white flecks in his blue eyes sparkling like happy diamonds.
“Oh, I do! I do! Though I don’t know how!”
“Dylan!” one of the women called down to the beach.
“Well, you’ve touched the dagger before, right? And nothing happened?” I asked. “So I’m guessing you must have traveled with me because you had hold of me?”
“I really cannot say at the moment! Could we talk about this later? Let’s go greet Ann and Cynthia!”
Dylan turned toward the cliff, and I grabbed his arm.
“Wait! The dagger! The tide is coming in.”
As I spoke, a rogue wave swept up onto the rocks and pulled the dagger with it.
“Dylan!” I screeched. “The dagger! We need it to get home!”
Dylan turned toward the cliff and then back to the water, as if torn between his desire to greet Ann and Cynthia and grabbing the dagger.
“I’ll go!” I said. I ran toward the water, but the foaming waves blocked the dagger from view.
“Help me, Dylan!”
Dylan rushed into the waves, slipping as one caught him from underneath. Falling onto his backside, he appeared to search the rocks beneath him.
“I can’t find it!” he cried out.
I waded in, struggling against the powerful incoming waves that threatened to drag me out to sea. I knelt on my hands and knees, searching, hoping this time to feel the sharp point of the blade. A wave blasted over me, and as it withdrew, it dragged me with it. Unable to regain control, I slipped off some sort of rocky shelf and fell into deeper water.
“Help!” I screamed through a water-filled mouth.
A hand grabbed me by my jacket and hauled me out of the water to land on top of him. Dylan struggled to his knees and dragged me with him out of the surf.
“The dagger!” I shouted.
“Let it go for now! Let it go! We’re going to drown if we don’t get out of here!”
Dylan and I crawled out of reach of the waves and paused for a moment, watching as the surf hid the knife. I doubted that such a heavy item would float out to sea, but for now, it was out of reach.
“Dylan! Debra!” a voice called from above. “Hurry! Come up here! The tide is coming in!”
Dylan, drenched, rose and pulled me to my feet.
“We’ll sort this out later. Let’s get off the beach and get dry. I’m freezing!”
I looked at him. His lips were blue. I felt the same. While the sun had shone warmly on the rocks, the month was May, and the water ice cold.
Dylan kept hold of my hand as we trudged across the beach, dragging our sodden selves to climb the path. When he would have kept hold of me as we reached the tabletop, I pulled away self-consciously, which was just as well because Cynthia and Ann moved toward him. As I had expected, both women wore sixteenth-century clothing—white shifts, bodices and the muted red tartan skirts I had seen Cynthia wear when she’d traveled back to the future.
“Dylan!” Cynthia exclaimed, embracing him with one arm while she carried a redheaded baby in the other. Two Nordic-looking blond children clung to her legs, staring at us with rounded azure-blue eyes. I noted white specks in their eyes similar to Dylan’s.
“Cynthia!” Dylan murmured, laughing.
I wrapped my arms around my body, freezing as sea breezes blew across the tabletop of Dun Eistean.
“Dylan!” Ann said. “I don’t have any spare arms to hug you, but...”
Dylan laughed again, clearly happy.
“Ann! It is so good to see you!” He leaned forward and kissed her cheek. Her babies, twins from the looks of them, and sporting wisps of blond hair, appeared older than Cynthia’s infant.
Between staring at the women and their traditional clothing to staring at Dun Eistean in what must have been its heyday, I didn’t know which way to turn. I blocked out the chatter as I scanned the stronghold that I’d only ever seen abandoned—largely covered by mounded dirt and turf.
The nearby boathouses were indeed made of stacked stone with turfed roofs, as we had documented. A small village of stone crofts with similarly turfed roofs lay across the tabletop to the right, the towering keep, approximately fourteen feet tall, to the left. Beyond, I saw a stone wall encircling about two-thirds of the island. I knew that to be the perimeter guard wall.
Two tall, well-armed kilted men moved toward us from the direction of the boathouses. Muted red great kilts hugged their sturdy frames. I guessed them to be in their twenties, one with shoulder-length brown hair and beard, the other a strawberry-blond with matching beard.
I looked over my shoulder, wondering if I was going to have to run down the path again...to what?
“Debra!” Ann said, moving toward me to kiss my cheek. “I certainly never expected to see you here. Look at you!”
One of the babies grabbed my wet ponytail, and Ann laughed as I tried to extricate myself from his grasp.
“Oh, I’m sorry!” she said. “How did you guys get here? And what happened on the beach? One minute you were there, and the next you two ran into the surf!”
“Debra!” Cynthia said. “You must have found the dagger!” She looked at Ann. “So now we know where Andrew buried it!”
I didn’t know which comment to address first, and the sight of the two grim-faced Scots heading toward us kept me from focusing on the questions. I heard Dylan explaining that we had found the dagger, clearly traveled through time, and that a wave had dragged it offshore.
“Oh, that’s right!” Ann exclaimed. “John said there’s quite a drop-off in one spot.”
“Who are they?” I asked, nodding toward the men.
Ann looked over her shoulder.
“Oh! That’s Euan and Kenny. And I see Rob is coming over from the crofts.”
Another kilted man walked over from the village area.
“Don’t be afraid, Debra. I recognize that look,” Cynthia said. “I had it myself.”
I took a deep breath and looked at Cynthia. “So, a baby.”
“A bonny bairn!” Dylan said, smiling down at the redhead. “And you too, Ann! Are these my—”
“Shhhh,” Ann said, looking down at the two children clinging to Cynthia’s skirts. “Just follow my lead.” She turned to the three men, who had arrived at the same time.
“Euan, Kenny, Rob, please meet my...cousin, Dylan Morrison,” Ann said. “And his...sister, Debra. Also my cousin.”
I quirked an eyebrow.
“Pleased to meet ye,” Rob, the oldest man at about thirty-five, said. Tall like the other two Scots, his curious smile was at odds with their suspicious expressions. He wore his long brown hair combed back into a ponytail at his neck. A dark beard covered his face. Over his shoulder, I saw more people emerging from the village and approaching—mostly women and children.
“Morrison, ye say, yer ladyship?” Rob said with a nod. “I thought ye were named Borodell.”
“Oh, yes, I meant John’s cousins...you know,” she amended hastily.
Dylan, on the act of thrusting out his hand, withdrew it. I agreed with that move. I didn’t know if sixteenth-century men actually shook hands or not. We would have to allow the Scots to take the lead.
Euan and Kenny gave a short bow but did not offer their hands, instead keeping one hand near their pistols, the other over the hilt of their swords.
“Pleased to meet ye,” the two young men murmured, their eyes straying toward my legs.
Rob did extend his hand after all, and Dylan took it. He didn’t offer his hand to me though. I noted he averted his eyes from me after a quick glance at my legs. I understood that my blue jeans were presenting a problem.
As the villagers gathered around, a rosy-cheeked plump blonde woman appeared at his side.
“What have we here, Rob?” she asked.
“This is my wife, Catherine,” Rob said. “Cousins of ours, it seems. Dylan Morrison and his sister, Debra.”
“Well, look at the pair of ye, wet and freezing! I do not know how that came about, but come and get dry.”
“Oh yes! I’m so sorry,” Cynthia murmured.
Rob’s wife, her accent more English than Scottish, grabbed me by the arm and propelled me toward the crofts.
“Welcome! Those three—” she began in an exasperated voice as she looked over her shoulder toward the men, veering off toward the boathouses, while Ann, Cynthia and Dylan trailed with the children. The rest of the villagers followed, obviously curious about us.
“Well, how did this happen to ye? Did ye fall out of a boat? Were ye caught by the tide?”
“Yes, the tide,” I murmured. “Crossing over.”
I hoped those were enough words to suggest we had somehow crossed over from the mainland, without explaining how we had gotten to the other side of the island.
“It’s treacherous, and I saw that the tide was coming in.”
“Yes.” I continued to study the stronghold, marveling at the structures now uncovered from centuries of blowing dirt and abandonment.
“And ye are a Morrison? Ye know Ann and Cynthia?”
I nodded. I wasn’t a Morrison in truth, but apparently I was going to be for however long I was in the sixteenth century. I glanced over my shoulder. Ann’s babies appeared to be a little over a year, and Cynthia’s baby was newborn. Dylan had told me that Ann had traveled to 1590 and Cynthia 1591. I assumed the year was 1592. I wasn’t about to ask though.
“Are you English?” I asked as Catherine guided me toward a specific croft.
“Aye, I married my Scot, and here I am. Now, I speak like a Scot.”
I nodded.
She pulled us into an open doorway. The croft looked much as I had imagined—domed and timbered, insulation provided by thatching and clay, stone walls supporting the roof. A small fire, ringed by stones, burned in the center with a tripod holding a pot braced across the middle. Furniture was minimal, weathered, aged, and consisted of a bed against a wall, a table and chairs and a sideboard. The dirt floor was covered with various lengths of thick tartan.
I presumed that most of what the Morrisons had at Dun Eistean, they had brought from their home either at or near Ardmore Castle, the ancestral home of the Morrison Clan.
“Come in. Come in!” Catherine said, shepherding Dylan in as well. She turned to Ann and Cynthia, hovering just outside the door.
“Ann, Cynthia, do ye have some spare clothing for the lass? Rob has another kilt I can loan the lad, but no spare shirt.”
“I’ll go get some things,” Ann said. “I’m going to drop the kids off with Mistress Glick, and I’ll be right back.”
Just then, Cynthia’s baby awakened, and she grimaced.
“I have to take care of the baby. I’ll be back in a jiff!”
The women left, and Dylan and I looked at each other.
“Take yer wet clothes off then, and let’s hang those by the fire. Here are two blankets. Since ye’re brother and sister, ye can change behind the curtain.”
She guided us to the area that had been set off as a bedroom and pulled a curtain of the ubiquitous red tartan and thrust the blankets at us.
“I have some soup cooking that will warm yer bones.”
She pulled the curtain closed behind us. Dylan and I looked at each other, less than a foot of space between the bed and the curtains.
I shook my head and motioned for him to turn around as I turned my back. He narrowed his eyebrows and gave me an inquiring look, and I did my best to tell him silently that we weren’t a couple anymore, and I had no intention of undressing in front of him.
He must have understood because he turned his back and shrugged out of his windbreaker. I turned my back, wriggled out of my own jacket and peeled off my wet T-shirt and jeans. I was unwilling to discard my underwear but did step out of my socks and hiking boots. I buried myself in the blanket, surprisingly thick and warm. Glancing over my shoulder, I saw that Dylan had wrapped himself in his blanket as well.
I turned toward him and rolled my eyes with a half smile. He returned with a lift of his eyebrows and grin of his own. We emerged from the curtain just in time to see Ann enter with a handful of clothing. Catherine had set several chipped porcelain bowls on the small square wooden table.
“Come. Have some warm soup. Yer lips are blue, the pair of ye. I will hang yer clothing to dry.”
We shuffled awkwardly out to the center of the room while Ann moved over to the bed and laid the clothing down. She returned to stand by the table but declined anything to eat.
“I can’t stay. The kids are getting to be too much for Mistress Glick. I brought some clothes. Do you think you’ll need help dressing?”
Ann directed her question to me. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Catherine holding up my jeans, as if studying them. She quirked an eyebrow and hung the jeans, along with the rest of our clothes, over the back of a chair, moving it near the fire.
I opened my mouth to answer Ann, but Catherine jumped in.
“And why should she?” she said. “If anything, it is the lad who will need help with his kilt, for I’ll wager he wears only trews. Are ye from the city, Dylan?”
“Aye!” Dylan answered. “Glasgow.”
Ann gave me a pointed look.
“You may be right about that. It’s a great kilt, Dylan, not quite like the ones you wear in Glasgow.”
“I ken how to wear such,” Dylan murmured, slipping into a thicker Scottish brogue.
“Ah! A son of Scotland!” Catherine said. “If ye had been English, ye would be lost in all the cloth.”
Dylan nodded, reaching for a plate of round, crispy-looking biscuits, which I suspected were oatcakes, soon verified by Catherine as she pushed the plate to me.
“Have an oatcake, Debra. Mistress Glick makes them.”
“That she does,” Ann murmured. “Maybe you can both come see me when you have finished.” She threw a glance at Catherine.
“Aye, of course they will. They are yer family, after all. I only brought them here to warm up.”
“Yes, of course, and I am so grateful, Catherine!” Ann nodded, threw us another pointed look, probably expressing caution, and left.
“Now, why do ye not speak with a Scots accent, Debra?” Catherine asked. “Did you and Dylan not grow up in the same home?”