I picture him appearing at any moment. Imagine how it would be. How his eyes would crinkle, smiling to greet me. He’d be concerned to see me soaked through. He’d take my cloak, his hand warm and strong. The low timbre of his voice would reassure me.Rosie-love.
My heart plummets.
Who am I fooling? Ididwant to see him. That’s all I want.
The Hamish thing rattled me. Then came the cold rain. My hunger. And my aching back, which I hadn’t even noticed until now, sore from scrubbing, leaning over for hours.
Callum would make it okay. He just makes things better. I’ve come to rely on him.
I don’t just want to see him. I need to.
I’m clearly, thoroughly, completely crushed out on the guy.
How did I let that happen? Apparently, it’s not enough for me to be sad, disappointed, and let down in my own era. I have to time-travel to experience it historically, too.
And soon I’ll be leaving here.
Leaving him.
Adding yet another chapter of loss and isolation to the tragicomedy that is my life.
How am I supposed to go back and pretend none of this happened? Pretend I haven’t learned to start a fire without matches or felt what it’s like to go to bed hungry? Pretend I don’t know what real survival means, beyond what I’ve seen in movies?
“Crap.” I lean against the wall and slide to the floor.
History isn’t just dates and battles anymore. It’s the smell of peat smoke in my hair. The weight of an iron potagainst my hip. The sound of Gaelic prayers before meals. It’s Donag’s face every time someone mentions the Campbells. How am I supposed to return to normal? Not without feeling like I’ve left a piece of myself behind. I’ll be obsessed with all things Scotland. Campbell versus MacGregor.
Obsessed with Callum.
I barely felt normal in the first place. How will I tolerate my peers without finding them ridiculous? They freak out over dead phones, while I’ve learned to track time by the sun. They whine about cafeteria food while I’ve seen Aoife stretch a single salmon to feed twenty people. They talk about their “crew” while I’ve seen a real clan—people bound together by more than just friendship, sharing everything to survive.
How can I possibly go back, knowing what I know? That these weren’t just stories in a textbook. They were real people with real lives.
Real people like Callum.
The thought makes my chest ache. There’ll be no looking him up. No way to know what happens after I leave. Did he find happiness? Did he marry? Have children?
His future is my past, written in stone somewhere, but I’ll never know it.
The barn creaks around me, old timbers shifting with the wind and rain. In the darkness, I make out the familiar shapes of farm life. The sharp angles of tools along the wall, the gentle slopes of hay bales, the solid warmth of sleeping horses.
How many nights has Callum spent here, surrounded by these same sights and sounds? How many mornings has he woken to the scent of hay and horse, to the first dawn light streaming through the slats? I press my hand against therough wooden wall, as if I can absorb something of him from this place that knows him so well.
Somewhere overhead, a board creaks softly. I close my eyes, imagining Callum moving through the barn. I can almost hear him. His steady footsteps, the shift of hay under his weight. His presence is as much a part of this place as the beams and rafters.
“Are you finding the accommodations to your liking?”
My eyes fly open at the sound of his voice—low, amused, drifting down from above. My heart leaps, but I’m not startled. It’s as if my thoughts conjured him.
“’Tis an impressive amount of contemplation for such a late hour.”
A moment later, his head appears from the loft, hair charmingly mussed, grin flashing white in the darkness.
I can’t help but smile back, even as my pulse quickens. “I was just thinking about you, actually.”
His grin deepens. “Were you now?” His voice drops, deeper and warmer. “Mayhap you’ll come up here and tell me more about these thoughts of yours.”
I force myself to breathe.
