Then lightning flashed all around them, thunder booming across the night, as William reached for his wife as if he could shield her from the storm.
When Callan tried to ask them what was wrong, the hair on his head floated in the air, the smell of something burning filled his nose, then a burning pain started at his head and traveled to his toes, lifting him off his feet as he felt as if he were being pulled apart. Then there was silence, so many colors, then darkness.
The stone walls of Blackford Castle were no more. In their place loomed enormous buildings stretching higher than any castle tower he’d ever seen. Strange noises rang in his ears and multi-colored lights flickered all around as he shivered in his plaid. Why was it dry? He should have been soaking wet, but nay, he was dry. Cold, but dry.
Was he in purgatory? Or had the faeries come and taken him away to live with them? For he had heard the stories of odd Lady Blackford, had listened to her strange speech, she sounded like no noblewoman he’d ever encountered.
Callan’s hand went instinctively to the hilt of his dagger, only to find the sheath empty. He was weaponless. The jeweled daggers, a gift from William, were also gone, the leather sheath scorched as if burned in a fire. Yet the two small bags of coins in his boots remained.
How had he come to be in this strange place?
Cautiously, Callan got to his feet, steadying himself against the wall. His head swam and stomach roiled as he slowly breathed in and out several times until his legs were steady enough to hold him up.
Callan ventured out of the alley he’d awoken in. It was too cold in this place to be hell and he thought purgatory would be full of those he had killed or his sins come back to torment him. Neither were before him.
The sight that met his eyes stole his breath away. A wide stone path bustling with people and... what sort of horseless metal carriages were those?
They moved on their own, spewing smoke, stinking, and making a terrible racket as the people inside them laughed and talked. So many colors and things to see. The strange way they spoke hurt his ears, yet there was something in the cadence of the words that reminded him of William’s wife.
Nothing about this place made any sense. He spun around, desperately seeking something familiar to cling to. But the strange sights and sounds bombarded Callan from all sides. He could smell the water but could not see it.
Then a moving sign in a building caught his eye. There was a person in the sign, talking. Callan shook his head, moving closer until his nose touched the glass.
What witchcraft was this?
The man’s face was almost orange. He spoke of the weather and what was to come. How could he know the weather?
But it was what he said next that made Callan brace a hand on the glass to keep from swooning like a lass.
The voice said ’twas the eighth of November … the year two thousand and twenty-three.
Callan rocked back on his heels. 2023? That would mean... over 700 years had passed since his last night at Blackford Castle. Callan swayed, going down on one knee.
The outlandish clothing these people wore, the odd metal carriages, the towering buildings.
How could it be? Were the fates punishing him for seeking his brother? What had he done to offend them so?
His mind reeled, trying to make sense of everything. Somehow, he had traveled through time.
Small details came back to him. When Lucy talked of the eighteenth century as if it were part of her past, five hundred years from then.
Two lasses passed by, making his mouth drop open. They were scandalously clothed in dresses that went halfway up their legs and showed off their arms. How did they not freeze in the cold air with hardly any clothes? And their shoes … were tiny spikes they pranced about on, somehow without falling over. He would have stared at them until they were out of sight, but ’twas the word they used that made him blink.Whatever. The same word Lucy used, and in the same tone of voice, as if annoyed.
Was she from this awful future time?
Numb and cold, Callan began walking. He stayed in the shadows, watching the people around him, in their strange garb, speaking a form of English he had trouble understanding.
They paid him little mind beyond an occasional puzzled glance at his plaid. A man passing by pointed at him, calling out, “Hey buddy, Halloween is over. Must have been quite the rippah.” The other man with him held his nose. “He must have bathed in beer at the party.” He cupped a hand over his mouth. “And take a bath, you reek.”
Halloween. He had heard Lucy call Samhain Halloween. If she had traveled back in time and had been there for several years, did that mean she could not go back to her own time, or had she decided to stay?
Callan tried to find his way back to the alley where he firstwoke, but the streets were confusing, the lights and noise overwhelming, and so he gave up.
When he leaned against a pole with bright light like a summer day inside, a man dressed in a gray form fitting jacket and pants handed him green paper, telling him, “things will get better, dude. No need to walk around wearing a blanket.”
He came upon merchants selling food and odd objects unrecognizable to him. The smells wafting from the metal food stalls on wheels made his stomach rumble, but they scowled at him so he did not approach them.
As darkness fell, Callan stopped and stared as something suddenly illuminated the towering buildings from within, glowing like they had captured the sun. The streets, too, were lit with odd lights.
