“What are ye going tae do now?”
“I’m thinking I could look up this Lady Gail person.”
We began walking down the stairs.
He looked thoughtful, then asked, “What dost ye mean, ye will ‘look her up’? She was alive a long time ago, I believe, and we are far away from Scotland. Ye told me twas a great distance.”
I said, “Remember when we looked things up on the computer at dinner that night — when you were here? Like that. I’m going to do some research.”
He said, “Good, I will put this here tae the side.” He placed the ‘things I couldn’t deal with’ in a small stack on a table in the hallway, kissed me on the temple, and went through the side door to the stable yard.
I wentinto my hobby room and sat down in front of my computer, and opened the prayer book to the yellowed page, having forgotten what Torin told me the Latin meant, of course.What was I looking for?
I used the computer to decipher the Latin, promising myself I would learn Latin as soon as I learned Scottish Gaelic.
First, I looked up the castle. It was named Kilchurn and was on the edge of Loch Awe and was now a ruin, which was unsettling. The building had collapsed but somehow I had a book from someone who had once lived there. A long, long time ago. Then I searched for Lady Gail and found her on Wikipedia.
At the top:
Lady Gail Campbell,
Duchess of Awe (1624 – 1671)
The page was short — just a few paragraphs, a small crest, and an image someone uploaded of an oil portrait of her that was too pixelated.
I read out loud, “Lady Gail of Awe… wife of Duncan Campbell, 3rd Duke of Awe… maintained residence at Kilchurn Castle until her death in 1671.”
I blinked.
This book was soold.I counted on my fingers, more than three hundred years. I was marveling at the age of it when I remembered Torin was even older.
Whoa.
I looked down at the prayer book on the desk beside me — its cracked leather cover and gilded edges making it look very loved, oft used.
If my father was the Duke of Awe, was this one of my ancestors?
But the castle was a ruin, had been for centuries — how was it possible that he lived there?
Time travel kept being the only explanation.
I sighed and scrolled further. Names appeared, but most of them didn’t have links as if they were unimportant.
No mention of me, of course. Nothing about a child disappearing, nothing about a girl who would someday wake up in North Carolina in 1986.
No talks of kingdoms or princesses.
At the bottom, there was one more line:
Pray for my soul, and for the Royal House of Awe,
that eternal light may shine upon us for ever and ever,
and that we may remain safe and protected from every storm.
The same linethat was in the front pages of the prayer book.
I leaned back in my chair, the glow of the monitor pale against the darkened hobby room. Outside, I could hear the faintwhicker of a horse, Torin’s low voice talking to them, carried to me on the breeze.
