Somehow, he had started out watching a video demonstrating how to shoot a longbow. The man’s technique was good, but then Callan found himself watching a video of a cow who was treated like a member of the family, coming into the house and wearing a crown of flowers. It was utterly ridiculous and yet it made him smile and he could not stop watching.
When he saw a video of men on boards riding the waves of the sea, he thought of Lucy. Her kin was from North Carolina, and he remembered her telling him her name was Lucy Merriweather, even though she was Lady Blackford. In searching online, Callan found a woman named Mildred, and stories about the disappearance of Lucy, both her sisters, Melinda and Charlotte, and a girl named Chloe. They had all vanished. Perchance they had traveled through time? But it did not seem so, for surely Lucy would have said? All she told him was they were far away. Callan hoped they had found each other and had not gone to another time or truly perished.
Mayhap when his labors for the Faire were finished, he would ask Daisy if she wished to travel with him to this North Carolina so he could meet Lucy’s kin and tell them she was alive and well in the past.
One Saturdaywhile Callan was working and Daisy was covering a booth that sold hand-knitted shawls, she looked him up on social media, only to find … nothing at all. Sure, there were tons of Callan Graham profiles, but none of him. Not a single picture or anything.
There was one more weekend and then the Faire would be over. Once that happened, she wouldn’t have any excuse for him to continue staying at her place.
Who wasn’t on social media nowadays?
As much as Daisy wanted to believe Callan, she couldn’t reconcile the idea of time travel being real. Because if his story was true, what exactly did that mean?
He wanted to go home back to the brother he’d only just reconnected with more than anything. He’d told her as much. Then he’d leave her, just like all the others. Like her own parents.
Even if somehow it was true, and she could go back, there was no way Daisy wanted to live in the past. She loved modern conveniences way too much. With a sigh, she pushed the tablet across the table as Frankie twitched, sleeping next to her feet in the booth. It was time she started distancing herself from him before he hurt her when he left. And when he did? Daisy knew the truth. It would break her.
Callan paused at a stall.Nay, ’twas called a booth, adorned with weapons and shields. Among the replicas and trinkets, he caught sight of a broken dagger blackened with age; the blade torn near the hilt, which was missing its stone. Something about it seemed hauntingly familiar.
“Welcome. I’ve seen you in the demonstrations. Certainly know your way around a blade.” The merchant, a portly man with a booming voice and hair as black as night, followed Callan’s gaze.
“They say it belonged to a lord somewhere in England. A farmer found it buried near the ruins of an old castle and sold it to me when I was on vacation.”
The man handed the blade to him, and when the dagger touched his hand, Callan gasped.
His voice rough, he asked, “Did they say which castle?”
The man rummaged around under the table, coming up with a notebook. So much paper in this time that people cared naught if they threw it away.
He pushed a pair of spectacles up on his nose, finger running down the pages as he mumbled to himself.
“Here it is.” The man turned the page to him so he could see.
“Blackford Castle.”
“Blackford?” Callan echoed, a surge of memories filling him like the relentless waves outside the castle—the storm, the battles, his brother, William.
“Indeed,” the man continued, oblivious to Callan’s inner turmoil.
“The farmer and his ancestors worked that land for generations. He told a curious story about Lord Blackford. The lord took in a Scot, if you can believe it, called him brother.”
The man looked up at him. “No offense, but in that time the English and Scots didn’t mix.”
He looked off into the distance.
“The story goes that Lord Blackford and this Scottish brother fended off a band of hired bandits intent on taking the castle. ’Tis said this very dagger was plunged into the bandit leader’s heart.”
The man shrugged, a smile on his face. “Well, it makes a good story, at least. I couldn’t find anything to substantiate the old farmer’s tale.”
They haggled over the price, coming to a mutually satisfying amount. As Callan took the broken dagger, thanking the man, he sent up a prayer to the fates. Send me back, send me home. Though why was it her face he saw instead of Blackford when he thought of home?
As he walked away from the booth, Callan knew he must undertake the journey to Holden Beach. At least he could give them something Lady Blackford had touched with her own hand.
With a renewed sense of purpose, Callan walked through the bustling crowd of the Faire to find Daisy, eager to tell her about the dagger, and to share his plans to travel to Holden Beach.
As he made his way through the throng of people, there was a commotion near the food stands. Two visibly drunk men, their speech slurred and movements unsteady, were harassing a young boy who appeared to be no more than twelve years old. The men towered over the child, their taunts growing louder and more aggressive with each passing moment.
Without hesitation, Callan stood next to the boy. “Move along. The lad has done nothing to warrant such treatment.”
