“Right this minute.”
“Then let me come with you. You look like you’re struggling to walk.”
“I’m fine.” Janet climbed out of bed and staggered on her feet for a moment. “Which way’s out?”
“Come on. We’ll go together. Find your daughter and then get back to our own time.”
“Our own time. What do you mean our own time?”
Kerry swung her legs out of the bed, testing her balance as she stood up. Nothing seemed broken though she felt as bruised as she had when she woke up in the middle ages for the first time. “Brace yourself for a bit of a shock but this isn’t the twenty-first century.”
“You’re kidding, right?”
“I’m not. This is the twelfth century and we’re in the middle of clan territory in the highlands.”
“Are you sure you didn’t hit your head when you went underwater?”
“You’ll see soon enough. Come on, let’s get going. The sooner we head north, the sooner we get home.”
As they made their way outside, Kerry thought fast. They needed to get to the old hall. That part should be easy enough. Edward might be hiding there though, waiting for her to come back. She would need to keep an eye out for him.
Once she was certain it was safe she would get the two of them through to the present, hopefully with Beth with them too. Then she would find a way to destroy the doorway so Edward couldn’t follow them.
That was if the doorway was still there. What if the fire had destroyed it? She tried to think about how it had looked. It was made of stone. Wouldn’t that give it a chance to survive the inferno?
Eventually she decided not to worry about it. There was nothing she could do but get there and find out for herself whether it still existed.
To do that they needed to get out of the abbey, not easy when the entire place seemed surrounded by a tall stone walls.
When they got near the church she heard the sound of male voices singing in unison, the sound echoing out toward them, loud in the quiet of the day.
“They must be in the middle of a service,” she said. “Perfect timing for us to get out of here.”
“How? There’s a guard on the gate.”
Kerry tried each door they came to. She found what she wanted on the third attempt. A pile of clothing waiting to be washed. “Put this on,” she said to Janet before slipping a habit over her own clothes.
A few minutes later they were outside the walls and heading north, just two laborers walking from one job to another.
