She drove to her house, and I went straight for the shower dropping the hundred pounds of wet woolen clothing into a sodden pile on the floor. I stood in the warm water. I shampooed. Haley had the best-smelling, nothing but the best, products. I lathered soap all over my body.

Four months? Had I been gone four whole months? It had just been a few days, a few nights. But then I had traveled through time; how long would that take? I checked my armpits — recently shaven, barely any hair. My legs were in the same state. Three days worth of growth maybe. Not two months worth.

I felt a lot better. The pain wasn’t as sharp. I toweled off. Haley knocked and passed me a stack of clothes. A pair of soft, really soft, not scratchy sweatpants. A big oversized, also soft, rugby shirt. A pair of underwear that fit. I found some tinted cream in a drawer and patted it on the bruises on my cheek and my neck. The bruises were light, but I didn’t want to have to talk about them. I wrapped my hair up in the towel and emerged in the living room. Haley was in the kitchen. “Want a beer? Wait, can you have beer? I mean, rehab — want a soda?”

“I want a beer. Can I have an aspirin too? My whole everything hurts. Also some ice water. Yeah, ice water. You know, I’m famished. Do you have anything to eat?”

She said, “Yeah, um. . .” and opened the refrigerator to look. Then said, “Not much, let me call Michael, what do you want?”

“McDonalds.”

She called. “Can you stop and bring food for Kaitlyn, from Mackydoos?. . . I know. . . Yeah.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “I know, it looks like she hasn’t eaten. . . I know. . . okay see you in a few.” She tossed the phone casually on the side table and dropped to the end of the couch. I placed the beer and the ice water on the coffee table, downed the aspirins, swigged water, and then sat on the couch.

But then I wobbled. “Can I lie down?” And before she could answer I had my head in her lap. “Four months?”

“Kaitlyn, you’re freaking me out, girlfriend. Yes, four months.” Her hand rested on my shoulder.

“What day is it?”

“Friday, January 5th.”

“I missed Christmas…”

“Yeah and New Years and Halloween. Where were you?”

“Scotland, but it’s a whole crazy story, and you aren’t going to want to believe me, but you have to, okay?”

Her eyes drew down. “Um, okay. Sure.” She got up and went to the hall closet for a blanket and spread it over me. Then she pulled my head up and sat under me depositing my head onto her lap again. I could have dozed with the blanket tucked under my chin, almost the right temperature, Hayley’s hand on my shoulder, beer filling me warm and delicious. But instead I needed to talk.

“So why don’t I have a house anymore?”

Hayley said, “When you disappeared like that, Zach told everyone you checked yourself into some kind of hippy-dippy spiritual away camp in Nepal or something. And that you would be back. But then six weeks passed, and no one knew what to do. Your mom and dad decided to lay off the staff and close up the house.”

I rubbed my temples looking up at the ceiling. “Mom and Dad laid off the staff?”

“Yeah. So where were you? Where’s Magnus? Did he do something to you?”

“No. He didn’t do anything.” I sat up and wrapped the blanket around my shoulders, feet tucked under me, bundled, head poking out the top.

“So you were in rehab for four months. And now you’re back in some crazy get up, sopping wet, starving. What happened?”

“If I tell you something, about where I was, you’re going to think it's crazy. That I’m crazy, but hear me out. Okay?”

Hayley’s face was already skeptical. I was in a full panic about my house, my stuff, and Magnus might be right behind me. If he survived. If he got the extra vessel. He also might be dead, but I couldn’t think about that. What if he was walking home right now and his home was gone?

Grabbing his arm before we left continued to be a monumental mistake.

“Promise you’ll hear me out before you decide I’m crazy, okay? So you know how Magnus always seemed like he was from the past? He was. From the past. He’s actually from the eighteenth century and—“

Hayley said, “So it’s not that he’s into cosplay—“

“No, he’s not cosplaying.”

Hayley, squinted her eyes.

“I know it sounds totally crazy, but this is the truth.”

“It’s impossible, Katie. You do sound crazy. Totally crazy. Time travel is a storyline in a Marvel movie. It’s fiction—“

“It happened. That’s all I can say. Magnus and his mother came forward in time using a vessel — wait, it’s in my purse on the bathroom floor. Can you get it?”

“Sure.” She returned a second later with my bag. I sat up and pawed through the sopping wet contents. My phone was dripping wet, plus cracked from when I dropped it on the stairwell in the castle. The last fingers touching these things belonged to Lord Delapointe rifling through it three hundred years ago.

My drivers license wasn’t here, great. I would have to go to the DMV.

I held up the vessel on the palm of my hand. “This is it. If I hold it and say a series of numbers, I’ll travel back and forth from Scotland, 1700s to here, 2017.”

“2018,” corrected Hayley.

I groaned and put my head back on the couch.

Hayley took the vessel from my palm and turned it over and over investigating it. “So Magnus came here from the past…”

“And when he disappeared after our wedding, that was to go back to Scotland. Those men he was fighting in the restaurant—“

“They’re also from the past.”

“Exactly. And then Magnus was going to go to the past again, and I touched his arm. I was dragged there with him. And that’s where I’ve been.”

“You spent four months in the 18th century?”

“I spent three days in the 18th century, and it was plenty. Oh my god, it was…” I let my voice trail off with a shiver.

“I’m not saying I believe you, not at all, but if it’s awful why does he keep going back?”

“There are more of these. In the wrong hands they’re very dangerous.”

“So again, not believing you, but please don’t tell Michael any of this. He’s six weeks into a history class and thinks he’s an expert on anything that ever happened, and he’ll want to go help.”

My jaw dropped. “He’s taking classes?”

“Yes, and any excuse to drop some fact about history or philosophy into any conversation — aargh, if I didn’t love him, I’d kill him.”

“Well, I’m not telling him and no one wants to go help. It sucks Hayley. It hurts so bad to travel through time. Like really. Like you die and you’re yanked back to life. I don’t want to go back again. You’ll have to believe me. Plus, like I said, like I keep saying, I was only there for three days.”

“Really?”

“Really, three nights in the eighteenth century. That’s it. And four months are gone. I know it sounds crazy. I woke up in a marsh after time-jumping from the early eighteenth century. Look at the clothes. Look at the weird vessel I’m carrying. Think about everything you know about my husband, Magnus. I can’t explain it, but it’s true.”

She took a deep breath.

“Zach believes me.”

“He does? When did you tell him?”

“He figured it out, before I left.”

“Well, he did get all the brains in the family.”

“Hayley, Michael is going to college.”

She waved it away with her hand. “Whatever, a couple of classes at the city college. I’m very proud, blah blah blah.”

“You are too proud, I can see it in your face.”

She smiled down at the blanket. “I am. It’s really great.”

“So, do you believe me?”

“I don’t, not really. It’s a harebrained story, but it’s way more believable than Magnus, as hot as he is, doesn’t know anything about the world. He should be a trash-talking f-boy, but he’s not — clearly he’s been living under a rock or traveled here from the past. So I don’t believe you, but I can admit that it’s probably true. I just need more proof. Can I be a cautious believer? Not sure?”

“Yeah, I mean I’m asking for a lot.”

“So where is he now?”

“I went on an information gathering mission to Lady Mairead’s castle. Her husband Lord Delapointe killed one of my guards and then held me captive. Magnus turned himself in and there was a big fight and I was able to escape –“

“Man, Magnus is such a bad ass.”

“Are you listening? I was captive. I almost got murdered. I saw someone get murdered. I punched the guy with my keys in my fingers, like this…” I dug my keys out of my purse, brought them up, and then dropped them back. “There’s still blood on them.”

Hayley said, “No way.” She picked up my bag to see the keys. “Crap, there’s blood on the keys.”

“I punched the guy and then swung something heavy, like a candlestick, against his head. While I was doing that, Magnus was fighting two guards. He yelled, ‘Run!’ So I ran. I ran through the castle, out to the woods, found where Magnus hid the vessel, and now I’m back here.”

Hayley sighed, “Your clothes are way old.”

“And remember, I’m rich because my husband has the largest collection of rare antique coins and jewels from the turn of the eighteenth century. They’re in pristine condition. Like they were crafted yesterday. Also, Lady Mairead collected paintings, I haven’t had them appraised yet, but they look to me like they were painted by Picasso.”

“Picasso? Like the Picasso? He’s not that old.”

“I think Lady Mairead was jumping to different time periods.”

She looked at me skeptically, then took a swig of beer. “You don’t know if Magnus is okay?”

“Nope. He might have died. He also might have survived but doesn’t have a way to get home because I took our only vessel. So many things might have happened, and I won’t know anything until he comes back.” I laid my head back in her lap and stretched down the couch.

“I’m sorry sweetie, that really sucks.”

“I left him behind. I didn’t want to, but I promised him I would do what he told me to do. Basically, I owed him to do it. I had to prove I trusted him, and he could trust me.”

She scoffed, “You’re the most trusting person I know.”

“It’s a different kind of trust. I’m loyal, but I also have a mind of my own. I don’t like to follow orders. As you know.”

“He’s giving you orders?”

“Shit got pretty life and death. Someone needed to tell me what to do. But Magnus takes orders too. You know me Hayley; you’ve known me all my life. I’m not making this up. I’m not in a cult. I haven’t gone and become a brainwashed bride to some lunatic abuser. I just — Magnus.”

She frowned down at the vessel in her hand. “So where did this come from?”

“Magnus’s father gave it to Lady Mairead.”

“So is his dad from the future, or is he an alien?”

I looked at Hayley dumbfounded. “Um I don’t really know."”

“You never asked?”

“There wasn’t a lot of talking going on, like I said — murder, rape, mayhem.”

“Rape?”

“Yeah. Shit got really real.” I looked down at my hands. “This guy, he attacked me. He was on me and I couldn’t breathe and he was ripping my—“

“Aw honey…” Hayley took my hand and squeezed it. “Are you okay? Is that the bruise on your face?”

I nodded. “But a lot happened since then. A lot. Somehow the three-hundred-years thing made it fade into memory pretty fast.”

Hayley opened her purse and took out a little compact with cream foundation and began patting the makeup sponge against the bruise on my cheek. I pointed at my neck. She made a tsk noise and patted cream over that bruise too. “What did Magnus do?” Her voice was quiet, serious.

“He tried to kill him.”

She returned the sponge to the compact and hugged my shoulders. “If you need to talk about it, you can, I’m listening.”

“Thank you babe. I will if I need to, but right now there are bigger things to deal with. And to answer your question, I haven’t asked where the tech is from. I have no idea. It must be from the future though because alien technology would be totally ridiculous.”

“The boys will be here any minute now, you just, you can’t tell them, sweetie. You can’t tell anyone about this. You were in rehab. Your husband is working in Scotland. The world isn’t ready for the story you’re telling. I don’t know what kind of trouble it could cause, but I imagine it would be big, big trouble. The kind that requires helicopters and hazmat suits. You saw ET, you know. And you don’t think you have the plague do you?”

“The plague, god no. That’s like a whole other century. You should let Michael explain it to you later tonight.” I mimicked their lovemaking sounds, “Oh, oh, Michael, oh god, Michael, tell me about the plagues. Oh Hayley, the plagues were like, centuries ago.”

“Very funny.”

“Yeah, now that you’re screwing a college boy your sex life will have to get more educational.”

She rolled her eyes.

James and Michael walked in.

“Shit Katie, what the hell is this, jeezus I thought you were dead.” James plopped the bags of food and a giant coke on the table in front of me, gestured for me to raise my feet, sat, and offered his lap for my feet to settle on. He dug in the bag and handed me food. He had ordered two Big Macs for me which seemed like it might almost be enough. As long as fries happened too.

Everyone watched me scarf down the burgers until finally I felt enough normal to be able to talk. James asked, “When did you get back, and where the hell have you been?”

I began a bullshit tirade: “I went to this spiritual retreat, in Nepal to help me, because I was living in LA you know. All the celebrities are doing it. So I went, and you’re not going to believe this, I had no idea when I signed up, but it was a ‘no contact with the outside world’ retreat. And I already signed the paperwork.”

Michael said, “Is that even legal?”

“I don’t know, but the hot springs were totally worth it.” I glanced at Hayley. She had her beer bottle pressed to her lips.

James said, “You’ve been there for four months. Why would you do anything like that for that long?”

“I was meditating, getting in touch with myself. Apparently I was very very lost.”

James’s eyes squinted suspiciously. “You look like hell.”

“Thanks man. That means a lot. The food was vegan, so that might be part of it. And my trip back was absolute hell.”

“Vegan meditation, sounds like hell on earth. We need a bacon party pronto.”

“True that.” I slurped a huge slurp of coke. “God that tastes good.”

Michael took a big swig of a beer. “Why did Hayley find you on the side of the road?”

I rubbed my temples dramatically. “Ugh, I had to take a four-hour bus ride down a mountain that turned into a fourteen hour bus ride from hell. I missed my flight, had a layover in Dallas, barely slept in two days and then my taxi driver from the airport didn’t speak any English and dropped me on the side of the road. If Hayley hadn’t come along just then I don’t know what I was going to do.”

Michael said, “See, James, told you there was an explanation.”

“You said Katie was undead and came back as a zombie.”

“Now I know the facts, Occam’s Razor, the simplest explanation is usually true.”

I said, “Occam’s Razor?”

Hayley stifled a giggle.

“I learned about it in my philosophy class just last week.”

“Hayley mentioned you’re taking classes, that’s awesome Michael.”

“I decided to go to school. This minimum wage stuff is for the birds. Plus, if Hayley and I are going to get married—“

“What — you’re getting married?” I scrambled up and jumped on Hayley throwing my arms around her neck. “When did he ask you, what did he say, oh my god."

Hayley laughed. “One night he said, ‘You know we should get married someday, just not now, but someday.’ And I said, ‘Yeah, sounds good.’ But we haven’t planned anything yet. But he’s enrolled at the community college now, so yeah…”

I pretended to wipe a tear. “It’s the most romantic thing I’ve ever heard. And also, I’m so happy for you both.“

James said, “So where’s Magnus. He didn’t come back with you?”

I shook my head slowly. “No, he still has business in Scotland. It could be awhile.” I looked around the room. Hayley was looking away, awkwardly, Michael was oblivious. James’s eyes squinted, as if he didn’t believe me.

Michael said, “Too bad Quentin isn’t here, he’s been worried sick about you guys.”

“Where is he?”

“Doing time for ‘failure to report’ for that ‘discharging a gun in city limits’ citation he got last summer. He has four weeks left.”

“Oh no, poor Quentin. Did he have a lawyer?”

“Nah, and no job, no house. He’s been drinking a lot. His parole officer was warning him. Trouble was bound to happen.”

“What about Zach and Emma, and oh my god, the baby?”

Hayley looked over at Michael. “He and Emma aren’t really talking to us at the moment. So we don’t really know.”

“Why?” I rubbed my temples, not sure I wanted to hear.

Michael said, “Because when they lost their jobs with you Zach went back to temping but Hayley couldn’t find him anything permanent. He’s staying on a friend’s couch working as a line cook. Emma is living

with her parents in Gainesville. Zach is freaking out and mad at everyone. He kept telling your dad you promised him a job and health insurance and—“

Hayley added, “Your mom said she would have the police escort them off the property.”

I groaned. “Oh my god. I did, I promised them. Magnus did. Magnus is going to be so upset when he finds out Zach is out on the streets. I only —“ I stopped myself before I said, ‘grabbed my husband’s arm’, and continued, “I just wanted to go away on a spiritual retreat, and now my whole life is falling apart.”

James said, “Let that be a lesson, nothing good comes of ditching your friends for months of meditation with no contact. I mean seriously, you scared us.”

“I’m sorry about that. It won’t happen again.” I raised up and squiggled my hair into a messy bun. Hayley, without being asked, handed me a hair-band off her wrist.

“I need a piece of paper and a pen to make a list. First, I need to kick my parents’ asses. Seriously, their daughter goes into rehab, and they fire all her employees?”

“You didn’t leave instructions. They didn’t know what to do.”

“True, but still. Second, lease my house again. Third, beg Chef Zach to come back to work. Fourth, spring Quentin from jail.”

James said, “You need another beer, this is a long list.”

He got up to go to the bathroom and returned a moment later. “What the hell is up with the giant brown soggy dress?”

Hayley and I looked at each other. I said, “Oh that, that was for a joke. I wanted to look just like Lady Mairead when I came back to freak you guys out, but after that trip home I lost my sense of humor.”