Help.Wasn’t he just dragging me down the hallway?
He looks vulnerable, like he’s as scared as I am.
It makes me braver.
“You have a weird way of showing it.” I wipe my face with my sleeve. “Fine. You want to help? Then tell me where I am.”
A strange look crosses his face. “This is Campbell land, lass. ’Tis 1622.”
Dread coils tight in my gut. I shake my head, vehement. “No. No, this…” I gesture wildly around me. “This isn’t possible.”
Callum watches me carefully. “Aye,” he whispers. “It is.”
The room seems smaller, the walls pressing in.
“No,” I say again, but the word is weaker now.
I try to edge past him, feeling cornered. He blocks me.
“You dinnae understand. You cannae just walk out of here.”
“Why not?” Silence stretches thick between us, pressing against my skin like the air itself is closing in. I try again toget around him. Again, he stops me. Frustration flares, but underneath it, my fear grows.
I alter my tone. “Please.” It’s a whisper now, stripped bare.
Something about my pleading flips a switch in him, and he snarls at me like he’s the one with a right to be angry. “Hush for one moment,” he hisses, “and listen to me. There’s nowhere for you to go.”
Nowhere to go.
“Then send me back.”
“I cannae?—”
“Not that again.”
“I’m sorry, lass. But you’re here. For good. And here you must stay.” He’s using the same slow, patronizing voice I use with my mother. The realization hits wrong. I am not Janet. I’m a perfectly reasonable human being.
“There must be an explanation for this,” I snap.
“You’re in your past.” He enunciates each word carefully, deliberately, like he’s speaking to someone too fragile to grasp reality.
The floor feels unsteady beneath me. “Why are you doing this? Why won’t you just help me?”
There’s a crash downstairs. The answering sound of voices down the hall. Callum freezes, on alert. He peeks out, quickly looks right and left. “I’ll explain everything. But we must go. Now.”
Rowdy banter erupts from the pub downstairs, and it startles me into silence. The fight drains from me. Callum looks nervous, which is enough to make me nervous, too.
His grip eases, and I let him guide me down the stairs. We make it to the ground floor. He pops his head around the corner to check before guiding us down the hall. The exit isin sight. He walks us rapidly toward it. The front door creaks open, and Callum ducks us into an alcove.
My pulse kicks up. We’re in the hotel reception area—or at least whatwasthe reception area.
With a sweep of his arm, he presses me behind him, using his body to hide me. And I let him. What else can I do? It’s too surreal for me to do anything but let this riptide carry me along.
A man is shouting in the other room, switching between English and Gaelic.
Your mum. It’s always good to hear the old tongue.
My mother spoke Gaelic to me, sang it to me, when I was young. The memory helps me pluck familiar words from the babel.
