But the strange sights and sounds bombarded him from all sides. He could smell water in the distance 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 clear glass.
“What witchcraft ’tis this?” He placed his hand on the glass, but the man did not pay him any heed.
The man’s face was almost orange as he spoke of the weather and what was to come. He shivered, making the sign of the cross. How could this man know the weather?
But it was what he said next that made Callan brace both hands on the glass to keep from swooning like a lass.
The voice said ’twas the first of May … the year two thousand and twenty-four.
The breath left his body as Callan rocked back on his heels. 2024? That would mean over 700 years had passed since his last night at Blackford Castle. Callan swayed, going down on one knee, oblivious to those around him.
The outlandish clothing these people wore, the odd metal carriages, the towering buildings.
How could it be? Were the fates punishing him for seeking out his brother? What had he done to offend them thus?
His head ached, trying to make sense of everything. Somehow, he had traveled through time and into a future that looked nothing like home. This was not Scotland. Nor England.
As he forced himself to continue on the odd road, small details came back to him. When Lucy had talked of the eighteenth century as if it were part of her past, five hundred years from 1311, his own time.
As two lasses sauntered by in scandalous clothing, dresses that ended halfway up their legs and showed off their bare arms, Callan’s mouth dropped open.
One of them laughed, smelling of apples as she passed, talking with her friend.
“Can you believe it’s finally quit raining?”
The other lass, in a black dress that barely covered her lady bits, with boots to her knees, ran a hand through hair shorn short as a lad as she tilted her face to the sun.
“I feel like it’s been weeks since we’ve seen the sun. Better enjoy every second before it’s too hot to be outside.”
The one who smelled of apples wore shoes surely designed for torture … tiny spikes she pranced about on, somehow without falling over. He would have stared at them until they were out of sight, but ’twas the word the one who smelled of flowers used as she said something to a man she passed by, that made him blink and stagger back a pace.
Whatever.
The same word Lucy used, and in the same tone of voice, as if annoyed.
Was Lucy from this awful future time?
Numb with shock, Callan forced himself to continue walking, letting the sun banish the chill deep in his bones. He stayed close to the edge of the road, out of the way of the metal beasts, some with four wheels, and others with two. The ones with two were most unusual, the beast growling as the riders leaned low, wearing coverings on their heads, and going faster than he ever imagined ’twas possible.
Then there were men dressed in bright colors with colored hard hats on their heads riding quiet two wheeled metal carriages, but Callan did not care for those, for they were not as fast, and the men looked as if they were in pain as they pushed the metal beasts onward. All of the people were dressed in strange garb, speaking a form of English he had trouble understanding, and not a single person went about armed. Was there no war in this time?
He watched a group of brightly dressed people and heard a man talking about Boston. But where was this Boston? Callan knew not of such a place.
They paid him little mind beyond an occasional puzzled glance at his dirty linen shirt and stained plaid, the blood now dried to look like dark stains on the muted brown, slate blue-grey, black, and cream colors of the plaid.
A man passing by pointed at him, calling out, “Hey buddy, the weekend is over. Must have been quite the rippah.”
The other man with him held his nose.
“Smells like he bathed in beer at the party.”
The bastard cupped a hand over his mouth. “Take a bath, you reek.”
Party. He had heard Lucy use the word when talking about a celebration. If she had traveled back in time and had been there for years, did that mean she could not go back to her own time, or had she decided to stay with William of her own choosing?
Callan tried to find his way back to the alley where he first woke to try and return to his own time, but the streets were confusing, the lights and noise overwhelming, so he gave up and trudged on, grateful the sun shone down, warming him as he walked, knowing he must keep his wits about him.
