Inside the broken walls, moss blanketed the stones where monks or nuns once prayed, and weeds sprouted between the cracks. Claire trailed her fingers along a column, its grooves worn smooth by centuries of weather, and let her breath slow. She wished she could share the moment, wished her husband could feel what she did. But when she glanced back, he was scrolling through his phone as he walked, uninterested, toward the ruins, barely looking up.
Or rather, she corrected herself, she wished she was sharing this with someone else.
She moved on alone, following the outline of what had once been the nave. She could almost hear the echo of chants, the low hum of voices rising together.
“Claire.”
She turned. Jason was holding his phone out, showing a call coming in, too far for her to see the caller ID. “It’s work. I need to take this.”
“On vacation?”
“Emergency,” he said shortly.
She didn’t bother to protest more, didn’t care enough to do so, actually. Anyway, his gaze had already shifted away, his voice dropping as he walked back toward the car. Work—or her, the other woman, Darcy.
Claire turned from him and crossed into the chancel, where the last shards of stained glass clung to their frames. A wash of light poured through, muted but colored faintly red and gold and green.
She closed her eyes, standing in the broken heart of the abbey. The air carried only wind and a breath of dampness. Crows circled high above, below blue-gray clouds. For a fleeting moment, she let herself pretend the walls stood whole, that voices rose in prayer, that the silence was reverent and not ruinous.
Hmph, just as she’d been pretending in her marriage for years.
She laughed internally at her snarky comparison—a silence reverent and not ruinous, rather poetic if she did say so herself.
The wind seemed suddenly to shift and then it stilled altogether, so starkly that Claire was aware of it immediately. Goosebumps rose on her arms and along the back of her neck. The air pressed close around her, heavy and charged, and at the same time the ground seemed to hum beneath her feet. Not a sound exactly, but a vibration she felt in her bones, as though something vast and unseen had turned its attention her way.
“Jason?” she called, though she dared not move but didn’t know why she held herself so rigidly.
It was just weird, whatever feeling just passed through her, or was in the air around her. Like, how often was she aware of air? But now she was.
Jason didn’t answer her, and she could no longer hear the distant murmur of his conversation on that phone call.
Slowly, Claire turned, wondering if Scotland had earthquakes or other strange weather phenomena. It seemed that the colors around her wavered; light bled strangely across the stones, sliding in unnatural patterns as if someone was shining a pale flashlight through the remains of the stained glass. She reached for the nearest wall, which felt strangely warm where a moment ago it had been cool.
She gasped and spun, and her hand flew to her chest, confused by whatever was happening—even as it seemed nothing was happening. Except that she could still feel the echo of that strange current thrumming inside her, which was reminiscent of a heavy bass felt during a live concert. But there was no music, of course.
Unnerved, Claire stepped outside the wall and glanced up at the ruins. She stared, baffled, and called again, wobbly now, for Jason.
This was not....it was different now.
The abbey walls soared intact above her, the roof was whole, and archways were unbroken. But...how? That was impossible. Claire blinked hard, certain she was concussed, that she’d fallen and hit her head.
She staggered backward. “Jason?” Her voice cracked, small and weak inside air that suddenly seemed to have its own voice. “Jason, where are you?”
She turned to where their rental car should have been parked on the narrow road, but saw nothing, no car, no Jason, saw only brighter and greener brush and plants and hardly any sign of the asphalt road. Christ! Had he left her? Did he just drive away, leaving her in the middle of nowhere? Even for Jason that was unexpected, very low.
Her nerves seized when she understood what she was seeing—or not seeing. There didn’t appear to be any road—where had the highway gone? Where the car and road and Jason should have been was nothing but an endless sweep of hills rolling green and untamed beneath the gray sky.
Claire’s chest tightened. She pivoted, scanning the horizon as if she could force the familiar to reappear, or as if something would suddenly make sense. But there was nothing, and she experienced a confusion greater than any she had ever known.
Her hands trembled. She curled her fingers into fists to steady them, dragging in a breath as panic began to crowd her. “This isn’t real,” she whispered.
Another sound stirred then, faint but distinct—the sound of a distant horn. A bugle? An animal?
Claire spun toward it, pulse leaping.
***
Caeravorn Keep
