Eight

M airead walked up the meadow a pair of hours after dawn, keeping to the shadows of the witch's forest to avoid attracting the attention of either cousins or sprite-like creatures peering at her through blades of grass, and considered the events of the previous day.

She'd gotten herself home after her encounter with Oliver, pled a headache to anyone who would listen, then shut herself into the small hut where she dyed her wool and kept it hanging from the eaves. She'd remained there until well after supper, only allowing herself to seek the warmth of the kitchen when she'd been certain most of the clan had already fallen into peaceful slumber.

If she'd slept, she didn't remember it. Her thoughts had been consumed by doorways and faery rings and a man who claimed not to be any sort of nobleman but had manners finer than any lord she'd ever seen. When the cock had begun to crow, she'd resigned herself to the fact that she couldn't leave unanswered the question that kept her awake for the whole of the night.

What world was it that lay on the other side of that doorway in the meadow?

She had made herself a poor breakfast from the last of the previous night's pot scrapings, bribed a different cousin to tend her animals, then slipped out of the keep whilst the household had been distracted with breaking their fasts. She wouldn't say she'd run up the meadow, but she'd definitely walked swiftly which had left her where she was at the present moment: looking down at that odd ring in the grass and wondering where it led.

She closed her eyes briefly, stepped in and out of it, then gathered her courage and looked around herself.

She could no longer see her sheep, though she'd watched her cousin gather them up and head off to their usual spot for grazing. The air was a bit warmer, though it was obviously still autumn. For all she knew, she was ablaze with a fever that had roasted her wits. The forest was full of trees just as she'd seen it not a handful of moments before and she was still in her proper form.

Perhaps ‘twas time to do the unthinkable and brave the inside of the witch's croft.

She made her way along the eves of the forest until she found a path that led inward. She walked silently along that until she came to a halt twenty paces away from the healer's croft. It was still fashioned from sturdy stones, the doorway was still boasting a solid piece of wood as a defense against the night and enemies, and the path that led there was still flanked by what poor bits of land anyone had ever managed to clear for the cultivation of healthful plants.

She put her hand out on her tree, then pulled it back to herself quickly. She realized with an unpleasant bit of alarm that her tree wasn't the same, her hiding place was gone, and even the bark was so weathered that she couldn't believe the tree still lived—

She heard voices and the sound of light laughter. A woman's laughter, as it happened, as well as the sound of a man's deep voice. It wasn't a terrible noise, which was reassuring. In fact, if she'd had even two wits left to rub together, she might have considered it a good, homely sound that left her wanting to join in and become a part of what sounded like familial happiness.

The door to the croft opened and two souls crossed the threshold, light spilling out from behind them. She pushed away from her tree and staggered forward a handful of steps, not because she particularly wanted to, but because she couldn't help herself.

A woman stood there, holding onto the arm of a man. She was very beautiful, with long, curling dark hair, a lovely visage, and a blossoming belly that spoke of joys to come in a few months' time.

The man standing next to her was one she recognized. His fair hair was, as it usually was, golden in the pale light of the morning. His visage was also as it usually was, full of noble planes and angles with a beautiful mouth that gave voice to kind words and wry observations. His form was, also as usual, enough to put any of the lads of her family to shame. He wore some species of tunic that reached down to a reasonably modest level and covered things it should.

But his legs were covered in spots.

She gaped at him. "Did ye catch the pox?" she asked in astonishment.

Oliver's mouth worked industriously, no doubt as he looked for something useful to say.

And then something else occurred to her, something that left her suddenly and quite ridiculously unhappy. She gestured to the beautiful woman who had been holding onto his arm on their way through the doorway but had now released him and taken a step forward.

"Is that your lady wife?" she managed, wishing she sounded quite a bit less devastated and far more aloof.

The woman didn't even bother with a glance in Oliver's direction. She did look over her shoulder to the innards of the croft, then walked forward and held out her hand.

"I'm Sunshine, Oliver's cousin," she said in reassuringly perfect Gaelic, "though I'm more of an older sister than a cousin, actually. Who are you?"

Mairead took Sunshine's hand and wished hers weren't so chilly. "Mairead," she managed. "How are you here as well?" She looked at Oliver. "Did your mates rob her and leave her with you to tend?"

He was still wearing the sort of look she'd seen on more than one man's face when he simply didn't have the words to use in addressing the madness lying before himself. At least a closer view of his fine self—not too close, of course—revealed that he wasn't covered in pox sores, but rather oddly patterned trews.

"And what, by all that is holy," she managed. "are you wearing?"

Sunshine laughed and it was as though a merry fire had simply sprung to life there before them all. "A terrible gift from his friends, I'm afraid."

"Lady Sunshine, I do not think they are his friends," Mairead said. "They've robbed him of his goods and left him here to see to foolish tasks in order to regain their company. No number of horses are worth that."

"I would imagine Oliver agrees," Sunshine said with another cheerful smile. She began to chafe Mairead's hand, then reached for the other to attend to it as well. "How did you come here?"

"I walked," Mairead said, beginning to wonder if she shouldn't have stayed at home. "Though I'm afraid my journey here is not one you would believe. I'm not sure I believe it myself."

"You might be surprised," Sunshine said, her smile faltering slightly. "Will you tell me how it began?"

Mairead supposed there was no reason not to be honest. "I stepped inside a ring in the grass near our border with Cameron soil." She would have attempted a smile, but she was too chilled to. "No one puts foot inside it, usually."

"But you did, because you're not afraid."

"I'm afraid of several things," Mairead said honestly, "but not that."

Sunshine smiled again, her expression full of understanding and sympathy. "I understand, believe me. I imagine we would have many things in common if we had time to talk about them, but I'm afraid you might be missed if you're away too long. Shall we walk you back to the meadow and start you on your way home?"

"But I came to learn the truth," Mairead protested.

That was perhaps stating it badly. She'd spent her previous sleepless night trying to smother a curiosity that burned within her like a bonfire and refused to spend another night in like manner. She couldn't go home until she had at least had a few answers about things that perplexed her.

"Why don't we find somewhere to sit and we'll satisfy your curiosity at least about a few things," Sunshine said carefully, "though you'll need to keep what we discuss to yourself. That looks like a decently comfortable stump over there we could share."

That was a sapling earlier was what Mairead wanted to say, but she didn't. She also noted that since the woman was obviously with child, surely a seat by the fire would be more comfortable.

"'Tis chilly out," she offered. "Perhaps the inside of the croft would be warmer?"

Sunshine smiled briefly. "Mairead—may I call you by your given name?"

"Of course, my lady."

"Then call me Sunny," Sunshine said, "and we'll be comfortable with each other from now on. I think there are things inside that you might find startling until I've told you my story, so let's stay outside. If you want to go inside after that, I'll go with you."

Mairead supposed that was reasonable enough. She watched Oliver go inside the croft, then return swiftly with a pair of cushions and another chair. He made two comfortable spots from adorned chair and stump, then stepped back and made them both a small bow.

"I'll fetch water."

Mairead perched on the edge of the tree stump only after having had a lively but friendly discussion with the lady Sunshine over who deserved a softer seat, then took the opportunity to look around herself and note differences she hadn't had the courage to before. The most glaring was the forest. What trees she recognized from their positions near the croft were enormous and obviously much, much older.

Oliver came outside moments later, dressed sensibly in shirt and plaid, and bearing a wooden trencher with three wooden cups atop it. He offered her one, handed one to Sunny, then resumed his spot against the wall of the croft. Mairead suspected there was no time like the present to have difficult things over with, so she looked at Oliver's adopted sister.

"I'm ready."

"Can you bear the truth?" Sunshine asked carefully.

"Aye, unless you're a witch or a faery," Mairead said without hesitation. "Then I likely shouldn't believe you."

Sunshine smiled. "I'm neither, though I did live in this house for a while, pretending to be the clan witch to amuse the laird down the way."

"Then you're a MacLeod?" Mairead asked in surprise.

Sunshine shook her head. "I'm not, though my sister is wed to one." She nodded toward Oliver. "Oliver and I share Phillips ancestors, so my sister and I decided to claim him as our wee brother. And now you know how things are here, let me tell you a story about things that happened a couple of years ago."

"Are there faeries and bogles involved?" Mairead asked skeptically.

Sunshine laughed a little. "It might seem like that, but no, this is about a man and a woman who Fate brought together against terrible odds." She looked at Oliver briefly. "This might be more difficult than I thought it would be."

Oliver held up his hands. "Don't look at me for help. There's more romance in it than I can stomach easily."

Mairead wasn't above listening to that sort of tale if pressed, so she nodded and hoped she wouldn't make any untoward noises of disbelief.

"One evening while I was living in this house," Sunshine began, "there came a knock on the door. I opened it to find the laird of the clan Cameron standing there."

"Giles's father Alistair?" Mairead asked in surprise.

Sunshine hesitated, then shook her head carefully. "It wasn't, but I'll tell you who it was in a bit. Let's just say that a Cameron clansman came to fetch me back to Cameron Hall to try to save his brother who had been wounded in battle." She paused, then smiled sadly. "I came too late, unfortunately. Things unraveled from there, as they sometimes do, and he decided to come back here with me to this house."

"He must have loved you greatly," Mairead murmured.

"He did," Sunshine said simply, "and I him. The problem was, when we crossed the threshold there, we…" She considered, then smiled gravely. "We found ourselves in different places."

"As if you'd walked into different keeps?"

"That's a perfect way to put it."

"Oliver suggested it."

Sunshine smiled at him, then looked at her. "That's exactly what happened. I went one place and he went another. We found each other eventually, we were married, and here we are today where he is laird of the clan Cameron." She paused. "This is where things might become a bit difficult to believe, but I promise it's the absolute truth."

Mairead was tempted to blurt out that she'd earnestly believed for a moment or two that she'd actually stumbled into a book and anything else might seem rather tame by comparison, but she imagined that didn't need to be said. She glanced at Oliver to find him leaning against the side of the croft, watching her. He smiled briefly, which she appreciated. She nodded, then turned back to Sunshine.

"I'm listening."

Sunshine smiled briefly. "My husband was laird of the clan Cameron in the year 1375," she said carefully. "That would make him, if the genealogy holds true, the uncle several times removed from the current laird—what did you say his name was?"

"Alistair," Mairead managed. "But, my lady, that is madness. We're in the year of our Lord's Grace 1583." She had to take a restorative breath or two. She thought waving away Oliver's attempting to hand her another cup was very wise. "How is it possible that he would be born in such a year? ‘Tis two hundred years ago!"

Sunshine nodded carefully. "From the year 1583 it certainly is. But there are more years than 1583, aren't there?"

Mairead opened her mouth to argue that there certainly were not, but she found herself suddenly considering things she hadn't before. In her book, in the very beginning of it, there had been a series of numbers that she had assumed were perhaps the number of bottles of port the Duke had consumed, or chickens the kitchen maid had slain, or pistol balls either of the pair had sent winging toward a foe.

But what if the numbers 1823 weren't any of those things, but instead a date?

Some 250 years after her time?

She looked at Sunshine. "What is the year in this place?"

Oliver pushed away from the house, though his hands were still in plain sight. She scowled at him.

"I won't filch your blades, ye wee pox-marked fiend."

Sunshine laughed and it was again as if the sun had come out from behind a cloud. "You, Mairead MacLeod, are a properly fierce Highland lass. And the current year in this place is 2009."

Mairead attempted a snort, but it didn't go very well. Those were numbers that made even less sense than the lady Sunshine's delusions about 1375. Men lived and died in their proper sphere and their proper time. Anything else was something only her uncle would have believed.

"I know it's difficult to imagine," Sunshine said quietly.

"Not difficult," Mairead said. "Impossible." She considered, then hit upon a perfect way to prove her point. "Who is king presently?"

"Queen," Sunshine said gently. "We have a queen, and her name is Elizabeth."

"In Scotland?"

Sunshine hesitated. "That's a bit complicated. Scotland doesn't have a ruler any longer."

"Of course we do and his name is James," Mairead said firmly. "They have a queen down in that wasteland in the south and her name is indeed Elizabeth, so forgive me, Lady Sunshine, but that proves nothing."

Sunshine looked at Oliver, but he only held up his hands in surrender. Sunshine smiled briefly at him, then turned that same gentle smile on her. "Ours is the second one," she offered.

Mairead frowned because there was no way of confirming that and it seemed a bit too easy. She looked at Oliver. "Do you believe this?"

He nodded solemnly.

Mairead looked back at Sunshine. "Perhaps we've all been struck upon the head whilst we were sleeping and now are sharing the same fantastical dream." She cast about for something else that made more sense than people leaping over years with the same ease as they might have a pile of horse dung. "My uncle claims there are faeries and sprites in these woods that carry off the occasional unsuspecting MacLeod when it suits them. Perhaps that happened to you and your husband." She paused. "Perhaps it happened to me as well."

"Do you believe in faeries and sprites?" Sunshine asked with a faint smile.

"'Tis utter rubbish," Mairead managed. "As is a man stepping across a threshold and finding himself elsewhere."

"Or stepping in a faery ring in the grass," Sunshine said gently, "and finding himself in a different time entirely. That would be something, wouldn't it?"

Mairead had to concede it would be, but she did so silently. She looked at Oliver who was standing there, leaning against the wall of the croft, his head touching the thatching where it ended above the wall, but he was only watching her, grave and silent. She turned back to Sunshine.

"It seems ill-mannered to ask," she began slowly.

"For proof?" Sunshine smiled. "It isn't, though I don't want you to regret starting down a path that may lead you places you don't care to go."

"My lady Sunny, I'm well down the path already. Another league or two won't change things."

Sunshine laughed a little, but uneasily. "I suppose not. Let's go inside, then, and you can see if that's proof enough. There may be things there that are startling, though."

Mairead was somehow unsurprised to find Oliver stepping forward the moment Sunshine moved to push herself out of her chair. She was surprised, though, to find him offering her the same courtesy. She also decided it might be best not to comment on how Sunshine had hold of one of her hands and Oliver the other as they crossed the threshold into the healer's croft. Whatever the truth might be in its whole, there was obviously something to Sunshine's unease about that doorway.

Sunshine paused with her just inside.

"Door open or closed?" she asked gently.

Mairead wasn't one given to weakness, but she was heartily tempted to simply give up and faint.

"I don't know," she managed.

She found Oliver's hand suddenly under her elbow and his beautiful face closer to hers than was good for her wits.

"Come and sit for a minute first," he said quietly. "I'll make you a fire. You're perfectly safe here with us."

The saints pity her for a fool, she couldn't help but believe that. She walked—or was helped, actually—across the wee croft and put into a chair that was covered in the finest weaving she'd ever felt. It also seemed as though the fleece from surely a dozen of her finest sheep had been stuffed beneath that fabric to fashion a seat that surely even the King had never enjoyed beneath his royal backside.

She watched Oliver quickly bring the fire back to life and move her, chair and all, a bit closer to that warmth. She looked up at him quickly.

"Fire makes me uneasy."

He moved her back to her previous spot without delay and without comment, then squatted down in front of her. He was just so gloriously beautiful, she could hardly stop herself from reaching out her hand to put it against his cheek—something she realized she'd done before she thought better of it. She pulled her hand away, but he caught her hand and held it in both his own.

"You're very cold."

"I'm terrified I'll catch the pox from you," she managed.

Oliver shot her a quick smile, then stood up and made certain Sunshine was seated comfortably before he went to busy himself in a different part of the croft. She supposed by the sound of things that he was rummaging about to make them something to eat.

At least he was properly dressed, which was remarkably soothing. It occurred to her at that moment that Sunshine was wearing long-legged trews and a generously sized shirt, both in a cheerful color of blue she had never managed to achieve in all her years of dying wool and cloth.

Mairead sniffed before she could keep herself from it. Whatever it was Oliver had in his stew pot smelled better than anything her father's cook had ever prepared. She stared at the things loitering there in that part of the croft that seemed as though they belonged in the kitchens. Bowls on shelves, cups, crockery that might hold very useful bits of herbs and dried roots. There were also things, shiny things, that made her uneasy, so she turned away and looked back at the lady Sunshine.

"The croft was empty yesterday when I looked inside it," she said hoarsely.

Sunshine only nodded. "I imagine it was."

"And all these things inside," Mairead managed. "They have all been added in your year?"

"Perhaps a bit of the furniture," Sunshine conceded. "The walls and the hearth have been here for centuries, I would imagine."

"I've never been inside," Mairead admitted, "but it looks the same from the outside. Perhaps something added to the back. And the rock of the walls is more worn."

"Very likely. Oh, Oliver, what did you make?"

"Soup that I didn't make myself, which you know given that you brought it for me," Oliver said dryly.

Mairead accepted a bowl of something that smelled so good, she almost swooned. She had been convinced she wouldn't manage a single spoonful, but she realized only after there was no more that she'd eaten the whole thing.

"More?" Oliver offered.

She shook her head. ‘Twas Future food, that soup, and who knew what it might do to her form?

A knock startled her. She watched Oliver go and open the door, then watched as a man ducked a little and came inside.

"My husband, Cameron," Sunshine said happily.

Mairead helped her up, took their bowls to the wee kitchen and set them on what she hoped was the appropriate spot, then returned hesitantly to the hearth. The Cameron, if that's who he truly was, made her a slight bow.

"My lady tells me that you're a MacLeod lass," he said.

He spoke her tongue without any trace of an accent, which she found both comforting and alarming. She was certain she'd returned an equally polite greeting, refrained from remarking on his clothing which was definitely more modest than Oliver's pox-marked trews but not at all like the garb Giles's sire would have worn, and soon found herself outside the croft with her companions. The Cameron seemed to find something slightly amusing about the glares Oliver was sending his way, which she thought rather brave on Oliver's part given who he was glaring at.

Sunshine embraced her own poor self right after she'd given the same sort of farewelling to Oliver.

"I wish we had more time," Sunshine said with a smile. "I think we would be good friends."

Mairead could only nod. Her head was too full of things she'd heard and seen and her heart a bit pained by the thought of having people around her who might want to pass time with her for her to manage any speech.

She watched Cameron take Sunshine's hand and they both turned and walked down a path to points unknown.

Mairead looked at Oliver. "Well."

He lifted his eyebrows briefly. "Indeed."

"This doesn't feel like the Future. I feel the same."

"Time is a strange thing."

"And you?" she asked. "What do you think of this?"

"I thought it was daft," he admitted. "At first."

"And now?"

"Hard to argue with it now." He paused. "What do you think?"

"I'm trying not to."

He smiled and turned to pull the door of the croft closed. She then found herself walking with him through woods that were silent save for the whisper of wind in the trees.

"How many souls do you think have been lost to this place?" she asked.

"James, your ancestor," he said, frowning thoughtfully, "and his brother Patrick. And Sunny's husband, Robert Cameron. How many others?" He shrugged. "No idea."

"My uncle claims that faeries steal the occasional MacLeod that they fancy."

He only looked at her with raised eyebrows. "This might be a better explanation for the losses than wee creatures filching them."

She had to agree, but she did so silently. She studied the forest as they walked and had to admit that it somehow didn't look as if it belonged to her time, though she now suspected that it did indeed belong to his time.

Though she could scarce believe it at all.

It took far less time to reach the meadow than she suspected it might. She looked up and down that stretch of field, but saw no enemies. She didn't hear her sheep or her hounds or men training, either.

"I would prefer to see you back to your hall," Oliver said quietly.

She wanted to say she'd forgotten he was there, but she suspected she would never stand next to him and not be aware of him. "I'll be fine."

He reached for her hand and bent over it, then straightened and looked at her. "You are the bravest woman I know."

"Braver than Sunshine?" she asked.

"Well," he said, stroking his chin with his free hand, "she is fairly brave as well, enduring Robert Cameron as her husband."

Mairead smiled a bit in spite of herself. "I wouldn't let him hear you say as much."

"His swordplay is terrifying," Oliver admitted, "so you might be right there." His smile faded. "Safe home, Mairead."

"Thank you, Oliver."

He didn't release her hand and she couldn't bring herself to pull it away from his. She looked up at him.

"I'll find my way home easily enough."

"I imagine if you don't, no message you leave me telling me as much will last."

"Not over four hundred years of rain, ye daft lad."

He squeezed her hand, then released her and stepped back. He said nothing more and she couldn't find anything in any of the languages she knew—including her very poor Latin—equal to the moment.

"What do you say in your tongue as farewells?" she asked.

"'Ta-rah,'" he said with a faint smile, "if you're a Birmingham lad."

She pointed her finger at him. "You have things to explain."

"If we had time," he agreed. "Or you could just settle for a pleasant, ‘cheers, ducks.'"

"That's vile."

He smiled. "Maybe, but that's England's problem, not ours."

Not ours . The only reason she didn't break down and weep was because she never wept. Put her chin up and soldiered on, raged against the injustices of it all, but weeping? Never. She took a step backward, because she had no choice.

"Ta-rah, then," she managed.

He smiled very faintly. "Cheers, me lovely ducks."

She blushed, because he was ridiculous, but so had become her entire life. She turned and walked into the equally absurd circle in the grass, because she could see her sheep in the distance and hear her hound barking his bloody head off. She stepped out of the circle and refused to look over her shoulder.

Well, she looked over it once, but there was nothing there but fall grasses and the view of mountains in the distance that kept them safe from dastardly McKinnons and all manner of other things.

Perhaps not the Future, apparently, but that was something to perhaps think about while she was keeping herself warm in the kitchen, not sleeping through the night.

She hoped what she'd just been through didn't show on her face, because it had certainly ruined her wits given that she was vastly tempted to take her courage in hand and skip across the centuries again very soon, though she had no idea to what end.

Perhaps to have one more glimpse of a man who had called her lovely when she so perfectly didn't deserve the same.