Chapter 6
CHAPTER 6
Adeline set the stool in front of the iron bars, the cold metal digging into her back as she leaned against them. She racked her brain desperately, sifting through mental notes from years of studying, trying to remember any remedy or trick to wake someone up from unconsciousness… from the inside .
But everything she thought about required outside help, and most only had circumstantial evidence of working, like playing a favorite song, and others depended on the severity of the head injury, like wafting smelling salts under her nose.
“This can’t be real,” she told herself, her logical mind struggling. “Time travel is impossible. Time travel through a freaking snow globe… that’s what? Magic? And magic doesn’t exist.”
If it did, she would’ve magicked her mom and dad back to life, would’ve magicked Dr. Platt into a toad, would’ve magicked her way through medical school, would’ve magicked her sister back from Scotland for the holidays. She wouldn’t have magicked herself to some island in Scotland three-hundred-plus years ago.
The trouble was, she couldn’t get the bombardment of senses out of her head—the sights, the sounds, the textures, the smells of the world she’d entered. If she’d been knocked out, it was highly unlikely that she was lucid dreaming, where those things might be possible to replicate. Nor had she ever lucid dreamed before, and, apparently, it wasn’t an easy thing to master, whereas everything around her was a masterpiece if it was purely an invention of her mind.
“He felt so… solid,” she whispered, staring down at her hands.
A gasp slipped from her lips as she realized there was something new on the palms and fingers she knew so well, something she hadn’t noticed until now. There were small, fresh cuts in her skin, and protruding from the fleshy pad under her middle finger, something glinted.
She pinched the sharp corner between the thumb and forefinger of her opposite hand and pulled out the offending thing. She gulped as she brought it up to the low light of the lantern that Logan had left outside the cell. It was a tiny shard of glass, with an even tinier piece of glitter still attached.
Wherever she was, whatever year it was, however she had gotten there, she had brought a piece of the snow globe with her. Suddenly, with a sinking dread, her head roaring with pain, the impossible no longer seemed so ridiculous.
I’ve… traveled to the past.
She tried out the thought in her mind again, but the pain washed over it, dragging it down into the pulsing, dark part of her head. She just needed to rest. Once she’d slept, she’d be able to figure this all out—she was certain of it. The truth couldn’t be the truth, her brain wouldn’t allow her to comprehend it.
“I’ve traveled to the past, and I’ve just been thrown into a dungeon,” she repeated quietly… and immediately began to laugh until she cried.
“If ye ask me, ye shouldnae have done that,” Moira said, combing through her long, dark hair, apparently recovered from her absolute terror now that the storm had moved away to the other side of the island.
Logan shot her a warning look through their reflection in her mirror. “It’s me duty to ensure the keep is safe from anyone who might cause us trouble,” he replied. “I daenae ken what she is, but she’s… troublesome.”
“She’s a witch,” Theo insisted, standing politely in the doorway of Moira’s bedchamber.
Logan groaned. “I cannae be certain if she’s a witch or nae. Part of me thinks that, aye, she is, and part of me thinks that she’s… stranger than that. The story she just told me is the most ridiculous thing me ears have ever had the good grace to hear, yet… I cannae fathom how anyone could fabricate so many peculiar things.”
His mind had bounced back and forth between hailing Adeline as a witch and believing her wild tale, ever since his return from the dungeons, and it showed no sign of settling one way or the other. Both possibilities seemed too outlandish to him, but he could not think of a third.
“This country used to respect witches, once upon a time,” Sophie interjected, her gray eyes turned toward the sea, her expression pensive. “A witch was just another word for a healer, a midwife, a physick, though we have long forgotten that. Now, if a lady sings a song at dawn while she’s pickin’ mushrooms because it makes her feel joyful, she is accused of witchcraft. It is… shameful.”
Theo cleared his throat. “Aye, m'lady, but there have always been the cursin’ kind of witches, too, and we shouldnae pretend they daenae exist, considerin’ our situation.”
“I am nae pretendin’ anythin’,” Sophie argued coolly, “but I daenae believe that young lady is a witch. I cannae explain it, but I feel it in me bones. Ye shouldnae have taken the lass down to the dungeons without givin’ her leave to speak.”
Logan expelled an exasperated sigh. “Are the pair of ye turnin’ on me now? I did what any Laird ought to do when there’s someone shoutin’ about bloody Christmas in me halls.” He shook his head. “That bein’ said, I’m convinced she’s nae a Catholic.”
“So, what is she doin’ down in the dungeons still?” Sophie fixed her flinty eyes on him.
“I want to give her time to think, so she can tell me the truth,” Logan replied. “Her story just isnae. It cannae be.”
Sophie tilted her head. “Tell it to us. We can be the judge of that.”
Feeling somewhat annoyed that his mother and sister were trying to question his actions, Logan took a breath and told them the same story Adeline had told him, fumbling over some of the words here and there, for they were as foreign to him as Spanish.
He had no idea if he was saying them right, or what they meant, and as he came to the end of the story, his mother and sister looked almost as confused as he felt.
“May I see her?” Sophie asked, getting up from her seat by the window.
Logan shook his head. “Nae tonight. I’ve told her she can think ‘til mornin’, and if I change me mind now, what sort of message will that send to her, eh? That me ma is the one with the power?”
“Ah, but ye’re forgettin’ somethin’.” Sophie smiled. “If ye leave her in those dungeons ‘til mornin’, even wearin’ that… animal skin, there willnae be anyone to ask. The cold will get her, and I’m nae about to allow a poor lass to die, simply because she’s unusual to us.”
Logan had not, in fact, forgotten that it was bitterly cold down in the dungeons, for it had plagued his thoughts since departing that icy underbelly.
Several times upon his return, he had wanted to go back and find alternative accommodations for Adeline, but he had thought it might make him look weak. He did not want her to think him weak… nor did he want her to die.
“Ye can visit her, then,” he relented. “But if ye cannae come to a conclusion as to what she is or where she comes from, then she stays where she is.”
Meanwhile, inwardly, he knew his mother would remain true to her word, insisting that Adeline be placed somewhere warmer for the night. She was just giving him the excuse he needed.
With that, all four of them—Logan, Sophie, Theo, and Moira—traipsed back through the windy, frozen castle, making their way lower and lower, their shoes scuffing on an endless array of winding staircases, until they were deep into the earth.
Sophie went ahead of them, through the door to the dungeons, striding with purpose down the narrow passageway that ran alongside the cells. She did not have to go far before she came to the place where Adeline was being held.
“Are you here to set me free?” Adeline’s voice whispered to her, tugging at something in Logan’s chest. “I knew you had a kind heart the moment I met you.”
Sophie reached out a hand to her son. “The key, if ye please.”
Logan handed it over.
“Ye’re nae free, exactly, but this is nay place for a woman,” Sophie explained. “I thought a guest chamber might suit ye better, so ye can rest and put yer thoughts in order. And I couldnae have slept a wink tonight without seein’ the back of yer head, to make sure ye’re nae bleedin’. The Laird wanted ye to remain here, but I insisted.”
“Oh…” Adeline murmured, sparking guilt in Logan.
He knew his mother had only said that last part to help him seem steadfast, but he was beginning to wish he had just given the command for Adeline to be released himself.
The cell door shrieked open, and Adeline emerged. She dipped her chin to her chest, refusing to raise her gaze, as Sophie took her by the hand and began to lead her back the way they had come, straight past Logan.
He waited for Adeline to glance up at him, in fear or respect, but she did not. Yet, as she passed by, her elbow grazed his stomach, igniting memories he knew he ought to forget as quickly as possible.
Soon enough, they had all reached the doorway to one of the guest chambers, high up in the keep tower—a spot where Logan had spent many a golden afternoon in his childhood, watching the sea for any sign of his father returning.
His mother and sister went in first, but as he prepared to enter the room, his mother appeared in the doorway, blocking his path. “I think it would be best if we ladies contend with our guest,” she said firmly. “Ye’ll only scare her with yer presence.”
Logan narrowed his eyes. “And if she should hurt one of ye?”
“She willnae,” Sophie replied. “Now, away with ye.”
“Are ye forgettin’ that I’m the Laird of this keep?”
She smiled. “Nay, but ye’re forgettin’ that I’m yer maither, and I was once the true Lady of this keep. I may nae have much jurisdiction anymore, but when it comes to the peace of young lasses, I will take charge.” She patted him gently on the chest. “Go on with ye. If there’s trouble, I’ve nay doubt ye’ll hear us scream.”
She closed the door in his face, leaving him out in the hallway, feeling as if he had just been scolded by a tutor. Behind him, Theo pulled a face.
“I suppose it’s to maintain the mystery, eh?” the giant of a man said too brightly, as if relieved that he did not have to spend any more time with the potential witch.
Logan set off down the hallway, tossing back over his shoulder, “I need a drink.”
With thoughts of Adeline’s slender figure, pert breasts, and the secrets between her thighs running through his mind, Logan suspected that a nip or two of something potent was the only way he would be able to sleep that night.
Could it really be true? What if she’s nae lyin’?
He tried to imagine what the world might look like three hundred or so years from now, but it was like trying to see a ship that had gone beyond the horizon. Yet, there were things he could not explain about Adeline, things that would trouble him, no matter how much he drank. Things that, perhaps, were so ludicrous that they really might be true.
A few years ago, he would not have believed that curses were real, but fate had seen fit to prove him otherwise. Maybe magic was real, too—a magic beyond his comprehension, that had somehow sent her to his shores.