Janet’s heartbeat picked up. Her skin began to tingle as it had back in the mist. She didn’t have any idea what Morag was about to say, but whatever it was she knew she wasn’t going to like it. “Go on.”
“These men…” Morag’s eyes widened as her voice dropped. “These men are no’ like any men of our acquaintance, Janet. Their bodies are covered in battle scars, they ride upon horses instead of in cars.” She waved a hand through the air. “They carry swords and wear almost no clothing save scratchy blackish plaids for the love of Mary!”
Janet drew her knees up against her belly and wrapped her arms around them.
“We traveled on horseback for hour upon hour last evening and no’ once,no’ even once, did I see a home of normal appearance.” Morag began to shiver. She rubbed her arms briskly, warding off the chill. “Every last home I saw with my verra own eyes—every last one, Janet!—was made of thatched twigs and clay.”
“Like something out of a history book?” Janet murmured. She closed her eyes briefly, remembering only too well the row of thatched huts she’d run into before the gigantic dark-eyed man had captured her.
“Yes,” Morag sobbed quietly, “just like something you’d see in a history text, or on a tour of preserved relics. Only peoplelivein these relics.”
Janet sucked in a deep tug of air. Her lungs burned, felt heavy. “So what you are saying,” she rasped out, “is that…”
No! Things like that don’t happen!
“What I’m saying,” Morag continued for her, “is that…” She looked away, couldn’t go on.
Janet closed her eyes. “That we’ve traveled through time.”
The words hung there between them, feeling more than a bit strange on the tongue and yet, perversely, feeling more than a bit right as well. Morag was the first to speak. “Well,” she murmured, “as fantastical as it sounds, I for one do no’ think we are in our own time any longer.”
Janet’s eyes flew open. She blew out a breath. “You sound quite calm about such a terrifying possibility.”
Morag shrugged helplessly. “I’ve had more hours awake to deal with all of this than you.”
“True,” Janet murmured. She searched Morag’s eyes as she considered for the first time since she’d awakened just what else her best friend might have seen, might have been made to endure. “Morag…” Her throat felt dry, parched.
“Yes?”
“The man who took you. Did he…I mean…” She stumbled over her words, unable to find the right ones. “Did he…”
“No.” She shook her head. “He fondled me a wee bit, but he did no’ rape me thank the lord.”
Janet released a shaky breath. “Thank God for that at least.”
“But he will,” Morag said quietly. “They mean to do with us what they will, Janet. Make no mistake.” She shivered. “The way the fairer-headed man looks at me, the way I saw that brutal-looking black-haired man staring at you…” She let her words trail off portentously, not finishing her sentence.
“Shit.” Janet drew her knees in closer to her body. “What do we do?”
“We escape.”
“But how?”
Morag found her first chuckle. “I have no’ got that far in my plans.”
Janet snorted at that. “And if our time travel theory is correct and we are indeed existing in some prehistoric, barbaric era…” She shook her head slightly as her gaze found Morag’s. “Then what good is escaping? Where will we go?”
Morag nodded definitively. “Back toward Nairn.”
Janet raised a brow as she considered that. “Good idea. Maybe that weird fog will still be there and we can get back home.”
“Exactly.”
“Or maybe this is just a dream.”
“Maybe.”
Janet sighed. “But you don’t think so.”
