Chapter 7
CHAPTER 7
“Was he really going to leave me in the dungeons?” Adeline asked while Moira wrapped her up in blankets and furs, and Sophie went to the armoire on the far side of the room, searching through it for something.
Moira chuckled. “Heavens, nay. He isnae a cruel man, though he behaves like a brute sometimes. I reckon he’d have left ye stewin’ for an hour or two, then brought ye up here with a grumpy look on his face.”
Brought me up here?
Adeline’s exhausted, throbbing mind drifted to strange places, her palms tingling with the half-remembered sensation of running across broad, powerful muscles. She thought of how easily he had carried her from the beach, and how delicious his arms had felt when she’d squeezed them, wondering what he might have done with her once he got her to the guest room.
That pleasant thought quickly morphed into horror, realizing that if all of this was real and not an elaborate, lucid dream, then she’d genuinely run her hands all over Logan’s body, treating him like a piece of prime meat.
A second later, her words to him came back to haunt her, her stomach lurching.
You’re exactly what I’d dream of.
Embarrassment blazed in her cheeks as she barely resisted the urge to bury herself beneath the blankets and stay there until what was happening made sense.
“I’ve heard yer story, Adeline,” Sophie said, returning from the armoire with a long, white garment, easily recognizable as a nightdress. Not exactly Adeline’s style, considering her devout loyalty to onesies and pajamas at bedtime, but fashion was the least of her worries.
“It’s obvious to me and Moira that there’s more to ye than meets the eye,” Sophie continued, passing her the nightdress. “So, put that on, and while ye’re dressin’, I’m goin’ to ask ye some questions. Answer me honestly. I willnae contest what ye say, but ye must be honest with me.”
Adeline took the nightdress and searched for somewhere to change. She spotted something that resembled an old-fashioned dignity screen and shed her blankets to maintain her own dignity.
This is probably some newfangled thing here, not old-fashioned at all.
She looked over the beautiful designs that were printed on the three folding parts of the screen.
“Me son told me that ye hail from the year 2023,” Sophie said. “Is that true?”
“Unfortunately, yes,” Adeline replied, slipping out of her onesie.
“And he mentioned ye were a doctor. Do ye mean ye’re a doctor in the healin’ sense?”
Adeline frowned. “Is there any other meaning?”
Sophie seemed to ignore her question. “So, where ye come from, women are permitted to be doctors?”
“They are. There are thousands of us.”
“And where did ye learn to be a doctor?”
“At a university,” Adeline replied, peeling off the yoga jumpsuit.
She only had her panties on, feeling exposed despite the screen, and she hurried to slip the nightdress over her head. It was too large and too frilly, the high neck suffocating, but it was better than nothing.
Moira gasped. “Ye attended a university and ye’re a doctor? All of that is somethin’ ye can do where ye come from?”
“All of that and more,” Adeline said, realizing the power of those words as they tumbled out of her mouth.
She couldn’t say she’d ever been very good at global history, but even she knew that women’s rights in the 1700s weren’t great.
Yet, to her, the idea of women going to university and becoming doctors, lawyers, engineers, and anything else they wanted to be was as normal as catching a bus.
They don’t even know what a bus is…
It blew her mind a little, and it must’ve been blowing theirs.
“And that wasnae a bearskin ye were wearin’?” Sophie asked as Adeline came out from behind the screen, holding said “bearskin” as well as her jumpsuit.
“It’s fake,” Adeline explained, showing her the garment. “It’s designed to look like a bear—a panda, to be more specific—but there’s no real fur.”
Moira climbed onto the bed, propping her chin on her hands. “What’s a panda?”
“It’s… well, this, but… uh… filled out.” Adeline laughed, spreading out the onesie. “They’re bears that live in Asia. China. Not many of them left, though.”
“Because too many people were skinnin’ them for their pelts?” Moira asked, with a look of genuine sorrow.
Adeline grimaced. “There are a few reasons. One is that they can’t get them to make enough babies. They’re lazy lovers, apparently.”
“Goodness!” Sophie gasped, a sly grin appearing on her lips. “Ye speak quite coarsely for a lass. Is that… common where ye come from?”
Adeline shrugged. “I suppose it must be. I… um… didn’t mean to cause any offense.”
“None taken, but daenae be repeatin’ that sort of thing, Moira,” Sophie warned gently, running her fingertips down the front of the onesie. “What is this? I’ve never seen anythin’ like it before.”
“It’s a zipper.” Adeline reached out and demonstrated. “It keeps it closed.”
Sophie gasped louder than she had with the coarse panda comments. “That’s… sorcery!”
“No, it’s just engineering and manufacturing,” Adeline replied, understanding that what seemed ordinary to her was likely the closest thing to magic to these kind people.
If a zipper could thrill them like that, she wondered what the sight of a cellphone would do, or a TV, or… running water, even.
Running water.
Adeline cringed inwardly, fearful of how she was going to wash in the morning. There wouldn’t be any hot showers, that was for sure.
Sophie stopped cooing over the zipper for a moment, meeting Adeline’s gaze. “It’s clear to me that ye daenae belong here,” she said softly. “I daenae mean that unkindly, but even if I dinnae hear yer story, these… strange contraptions are evidence enough that ye’ve lost yerself between our time and yer own. I cannae fathom how, but I’ve seen enough strange things in me years on this Earth to nae dismiss somethin’ just because it seems impossible.”
“You… believe me?” Adeline choked out, somehow moved by the older woman’s willingness to put faith in a time-traveling stranger.
Do I believe me? she had to ask herself, still clinging to the hope that she’d wake up in New Jersey, and that all of this was just a weird dream.
Sophie nodded. “Aye, but if ye are from where ye say ye’re from, then we ought to find a way to help ye back to yer own time as soon as possible. Difference isnae celebrated here, Adeline. Ye’ve heard me son and his man-at-arms ask ye if ye’re a witch—now, they willnae do anythin’ to harm ye, I mean that, but if word spreads, there willnae be much that anyone can do to aid ye. People are fearful of the strange and inexplicable, and ye, me dear, are both of those things to them. It wouldnae be safe for ye to stay.”
“And ye’ll have to cut that beautiful purple out of yer hair,” Moira chimed in sadly, toying with the ends of her own raven-black hair. “That’ll mark ye out as different before anythin’ else, though ye must tell me how ye did it.”
Adeline glanced down at the purple. “It’s just dye. Well, bleach and then dye.” She paused, remembering to be sensitive to their era. “Bleach basically strips all the color out of the hair, turning it kind of white. Then, you put the purple dye on top, and… you get hair like this. People dye their hair all sorts of colors where I’m from. Bright pink, green, blue—you name it.”
“When ye go, ye’ll have to take me with ye,” Moira said with a sigh, turning onto her back so she could gaze up at the ceiling, likely imagining herself in the future with some sort of rainbow hair.
Strangely, Adeline could imagine it, too, picturing her as a young woman of fashion taking as many sartorial risks as possible.
Sophie cleared her throat sternly. “Ye’ll be doin’ nay such thing,” she remarked. “Everyone ought to be where they belong. I cannae profess to ken much about the ways of fate and the heavens, but this is clearly a mistake, and it must be remedied, leavin’ everyone in their proper time.”
Adeline fiddled with the strangling collar of the nightdress, asking the question that no one else seemed to be asking. “But how do I do that? How do I leave?”
“Why, the way ye came in,” Sophie replied, like it should’ve been obvious.
Adeline thought of the piece of glass in her hand. “But… I don’t know how I came in.”
“Then we’ll help ye to figure it out,” Sophie promised. But there was an odd look on her face, as if she’d just been given an exam paper she hadn’t studied for.
Adeline had no doubt that the same look was reflected on her face. If she didn’t know how she got into this world, how the heck was she supposed to get out of it?