“I’m not offended that you have a siege to deal with. Don’t worry.” She found herself feeling sorry for him. He looked hurt. “There is something else, isn’t there?”
“The clan think you might be a spy for the Frazers. They think I should send you away.”
“And what do you think? Do you think I’m spying on you?”
“I dinnae ken yet but you must agree to stay in here for now unless I am with you. I cannot vouch for your safety if you were to wander about unchaperoned.”
“And how long do I have to agree to be imprisoned?”
“I do not ken but I have already sent a messenger out. We will hopefully soon discuss peace with these outlaws and with the Frazers.”
The peace negotiations, Heather thought. Of course, that was what her deadline was. She had to get the knife before the peace negotiations began if she was to succeed in her goal.
Could she betray the man standing in front of her? All of a sudden it seemed impossible. He looked handsome. So handsome. He yawned, stifling it behind his hand.
“Sit,” she said, tearing off a hunk of bread. “You look exhausted. When did you last eat?”
He took the bread from her and crammed it into his mouth. “I must go,” he replied. “There is much I need to attend to. Do not be afraid, Heather Frazer.” He squeezed her arm with his hand. I will make sure you are safe while you are here.”
She looked at his hand, watching as it let go of her. She tried to speak but nothing came out.
He turned and headed to the door. In the air hung all the things he had not said. She looked at him, aware too of all the things she could not bring herself to say.
He was gone a moment later and then she was alone again. She hurriedly dug out the cellphone, reloading the book and skipping through to the chapter on the siege.
Something was wrong with the file. The page was blank. She scrolled forward. Blank all the way to the end of the book. Scrolling back, the text was there. Everything was fine up until this chapter. No, half the previous one was gone as well.
All of a sudden she realized. She could only read up until the point when she arrived in the past. Nothing after that.
With her head throbbing from the effort she tried to wrap her thoughts around what that meant. The future wasn’t in the book because 1300 had become the present. It hadn’t been written yet.
Did that mean things could change? For all she knew the future had already changed just from her being here.
The battery flashed a warning red light so she turned the cellphone off once more. It didn’t matter. She couldn’t find out the information she wanted. No spoilers for her about the siege. She would either have to go back to the future and read about it or stay and experience it.
She fingered the key slowly. She could still go home. What would happen if she did? Tony Carson would take the key back off her and probably fire her from the company. Or get Boris to send her to run a brand new Antarctic suboffice as punishment for not bringing the knife back.
Her family would remain failures, bitter, angry, losers. She would end up back with David, marrying him and then have to watch him having an affair with his first love, the stock market. At least Donna would have some help at her wedding though. That was something, right?
But what if she stayed here? Firstly, she might get killed. She might end up falling completely for Gavin and that was just stupid. He was going to marry some noblewoman from another clan like they all did at that time and she’d be just one more spinster rattling around the castle, lonely and miserable.
What a choice. Misery in the future or misery in the present. Or was it the past?
Her head hurt trying to work it out. She lay back on the bed, suddenly exhausted. The thoughts of the siege died away. It was as if her brain just couldn’t cope anymore with the sheer amount of tension she was experiencing.
She closed her eyes, thinking hard. Gavin was going to go out to the peace negotiations and Mungo, her ancestor, would be killed.
That would set off the chain reaction that ruined the Frazers. She thought about what Tony had told her when he’d sent her back here. He’d made no mention of a barefoot man, some devil of superstition, no doubt embellished after generations of storytelling.
She had completely forgotten how frightened she’d felt in the mountain pass, how the old crone had sent icy chills down her spine. Her mind was protecting her, not letting her remember. The only problem with that was the memories were bound to come back at some time. They couldn’t stay hidden forever.
It was when she fell asleep that her thoughts really began to churn. In her dream she was a noblewoman. She was married to Gavin MacGregor and they had a family together, a boy and a girl. She wore tartan and the air was sweet and clean.
There were no wars anymore, no barefoot man, no old crone, no sieges. There was just a stony shore beside a loch. The children were rowing with their father and she watched from a picnic blanket, waving back when they called to her.
She sat bolt upright in bed, her eyes open. She was crying before she even knew it was happening. Why was she crying?
All of a sudden the dream came back to her. It had been so real, so vivid and all the more cruel for that. An impossible future she could not have. A family that would never exist.
It wasn’t the dream that had woken her. The bedroom door was ajar. There was a smell of smoke in the air. Smoke and something else. Was that lemon? A candle had been lit nearby, the light flickering in the corridor. Why could she smell lemons?
“Is there someone there?” she asked.
A creaking floorboard in response but no one spoke. There was someone out there. “Who’s there?”
She got to her feet and crossed the room quietly, peering out. The light vanished around a corner in the distance. She went to follow but tripped over something, crashing to the ground with a thump.
She groped in the darkness, her hands feeling for whatever it was she’d tripped over. Her hands found it and she realized what it was a second later.
Then she screamed.
