Found.The word felt alien on her tongue. “Found,” she repeated, as though saying it might make sense of it. “By whom?”
“A traveling tinker,” Ivy said, then, seeing Claire’s confusion, added, “Think... repairman with a cart, with the personality of a used car salesman.” The corner of her mouth tugged upward, a quick, incongruous smile. “He did the right thing, though, bringing you here. Do you...remember anything? About what happened—how you ended up in the mountain?”
Fog. That was all it was—fog in her mind. She tried to chase memory, but it slipped from her grasp. “I... I don’t know. It’s foggy.” Her voice broke with frustration. She pressed her lips together and shook her head faintly.
“That’s okay.” Ivy smoothed the blanket at her shoulder, kind but firm. “Don’t push yourself. You’ve been through a lot.”
Claire’s eyes roamed the room again: the stone, the beams, the flicker of firelight. This wasn’t a hospital. Not even close. Panic flickered at the edge of her thoughts. She reached for something solid, something normal. “My phone?”
“I didn’t see a phone with you,” Ivy said, cautious now. “You came with nothing but the clothes on your back. And, um... phones wouldn’t work here anyway.”
Claire frowned, clinging to the simplest explanation. “No service?”
“Right.” Ivy nodded gently, but her tone made Claire’s stomach twist.
“Is there a land line here?” she pressed.
Ivy winced. “There’s not. I’m sorry.”
Claire’s chest tightened. She was too weak to argue, too dazed to untangle what this meant. Ivy’s voice came again, a quick distraction: “Obviously, you’re from the States. Were you—are you—just vacationing in Scotland? How long have you been here?”
The wordvacationsounded strange in her own mouth, but she heard herself say, “Vacation. With my husband.” A pause. “We were separated—I’d been searching for him for a long time it seemed, but nothing... nothing seemed right. Nothing made sense.” Her fingers clenched at the blanket. “I can’t piece it together.”
Ivy’s expression softened, a flicker of sympathy that only deepened Claire’s unease.
“Don’t force it,” Ivy urged. “Memories will come back when you’re stronger. Right now, all that matters is you’re safe.” She hesitated, then added, “Do you remember where you were last? What you were doing before you were separated from your husband?”
Claire shook her head. “I can’t.”
“Maybe you were hiking near the mountain? Where you were found?”
Another shake. Nothing.
“Did you notice anything...odd before you were separated?” Ivy’s eyes searched hers intently. “Like, something felt off, or odd?”
Claire stiffened. The question unnerved her. What kind of “odd” did she mean?
Ivy must have seen her alarm, for she quickly waved it off with a smile. “Sorry, I don’t mean to sound like I’m interrogatingyou. I just... thought it might help you, to talk it through.” She pressed the cup back into Claire’s hands. “Here. Another sip. You can rest, and when you feel stronger, we’ll talk more.”
The suspicion lingered in Claire’s gaze, but weariness was stronger. She drank, then let her head sink back, her lashes lowering despite her fight to stay awake.
Chapter Three
Out of Time, Out of Place
––––––––
She had no idea how much time had passed before she woke again, but the light in the room had definitely changed. Claire’s eyes were drawn toward the lone window in the room, with indoor shutters that were pulled open. Outside, the sky was painted in the colors of dusk, purple, orange and blue. Sluggishly, she turned her head on the pillow, noticing a faint fire burned in a large stone fireplace, the kind of hearth that looked like it belonged in some country hunting cabin. She was alone, she realized, and dressed not in her own clothes but someone else’s soft cream colored nightgown. She was happy to be able to recall that the woman who’d been here earlier had told her she’d had a fever—she was not pleased to know she’d been out with a bad fever, but only glad she recalled what had been said earlier, since nothing else—in...well, however long it had been since she and Jason were at those abbey ruins—made sense.
A frown creased her brow as she tried to recall the sequence of events, what had happened until she came to be here; hopefully, some parts would be provided by that woman if or when she returned.
Jason and her driving. The ruins. Jason taking a phone call. That weird sense of foreboding she’d gotten, and how the air had changed. That’s where it became very fuzzy, how she’d ended up somewhere else, and then tried walking back to town, or just finding a road, crossing that mountain—good Lord, what had she been thinking!
At some point she had curled into a hollow of rock and slept. When she woke, she had climbed again, certain she’d find a path on the other side. Instead, she’d reached a ridge and saw nothing but more wilderness and more mountains stretching in every direction. The realization had terrified her at the time, she recalled. After that, the memories were even hazier, blurring together as flashes of stumbling steps, circling, the sound of wind rushing through the trees. And sleep—always sleep, claiming her without warning. She couldn’t remember how many times it had happened, how many times she’d simply sat, exhausted, drained emotionally as well, and had slept. She tried to recall if she’d been aware she’d developed a fever, but she wasn’t sure. She didn’t even know how many days she had been on that mountain.
Frustrated for having so many more questions than answers, Claire sat up, focusing instead on her body, trying to discern her well-being, how strong or weak she was. Fairly weak, she decided pretty quickly, and did no more than prop herself up on the pillows.
Within a quarter hour of waking, the woman with the strawberry-blonde hair returned—Ivy, Claire recalled—balancing a tray in one hand while she opened the door and closed it behind her after she’d entered. Her face lit up when she saw Claire.
