“You okay?” Jessica asked.
She wasn’t. She looked like she’d been crying again. “I’m okay.” Caroline nodded toward the suitcase, sniffing loudly as she did so. “You going somewhere?”
The sound of yelling came from the apartment around the corner.
“Just for tonight.”
“Can I come with you?”
“You don’t even know where I’m going.”
“I don’t care. It’s got to be better than here.”
“I can’t take you with me. I’m sorry.”
“Why not?”
Jessica let go of the suitcase, holding her arms out, wrapping them around Caroline and holding her close for a moment. “When I get back, I promise I’ll do something about them.”
Caroline pulled away, wiping her nose with the back of her hand. “It won’t make any difference. They won’t listen. Please, let me come with you.”
“I’ll be back before you know it. I’ll bring you some ice cream with me, okay?”
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
They shook pinky fingers before Caroline stepped aside to let Jessica pass.
Outside, she looked up at the building. “Poor kid,” she thought out loud, making a mental note to ring Social Services again when she got back. Would she be able to adopt her?
The rational adult inside her knew it was a non-starter but the optimist whispered that maybe, just maybe she could be her mom.
She walked to where her car was parked, pulled the flyer out from under the wiper and looked at it. MacGregor Castle Open Day. “I get it,” she said, looking up at the sky. “I’m going, all right?”
With the suitcase safely stowed in the trunk beside her tent and sleeping bag, she climbed into the car, holding her breath while turning the key in the ignition. It started on the third attempt. “Make it, Reg,” she said as she revved the accelerator. “You can do it.”
The car spat fumes, hitched, and then roared into life. “I never doubted you,” she said, patting the wheel. The fuel gauge wobbled up to around the halfway mark. That wasn’t enough to get her there.
She would have to use her emergency tenner, the one hidden at the back of the glovebox behind the antacid pills and the few cassettes that still worked in the music player.
She wedged her cellphone into the holder, loading Google Maps before typing in MacGregor Castle.
Five hours thirty minutes. She’d be there by half past one if she didn’t stop.
She did stop. Once for fuel, kissing goodbye to the emergency ten pounds and feeling oddly sorry to see it go. The second and third times were to cool down the engine which was enjoying the sunshine as much as a vampire with a migraine. All it wanted was a little cold spot in the dark.
She felt much the same. The only way to keep it from overheating was to keep the heater blasting. She then had to counter that by having the windows open so the noise of the motorway made her ears ring as she slowly made her way north.
She crossed the border just after eleven, letting out a quiet cheer. The invaders of the past would have had to fight for every inch and yet she was able to simply drive across with only a single “Welcome to Scotland,” sign to mark the momentous occasion.
The further north she traveled the more hills appeared. Gradually the hills became mountain ranges, the car cutting between them along bending ribbons of road. Lochs would appear momentarily behind trees. She would get flashes of azure blue before they vanished behind thick foliage once again.
It was when she stopped for the last time to let the engine cool that she was able to take a proper look around her.
She was standing on the edge of a quiet country road. There hadn’t been another car since she turned off the motorway. It looked like wherever MacGregor Castle was it was out of the way.
All she could see was brown and gray mountainsides, the tops wreathed in fog. In the valley below her a river ran, gleaming in the sunshine. The air felt fresher than any she’d ever known and she breathed in great lungfuls of it.
