Chapter 12
Chapter
Twelve
Callum limps silently beside me. He just took a beating.
For me.
“I’m so sorry,” I whisper hoarsely. “So, so sorry.”
“Dinnae fash yourself,” he says flatly.
That’s it. That’s his only reply.
“I really am so sorry…”
I don’t know how else to apologize. How do you thank someone for taking a beating for you?
There must be something more to say, but I’m barely keeping it together. My life has been torn so far beyond control or reason, that I have to grit my teeth with each step just to keep from unraveling.
As we walk, I scour the surroundings, desperate to consume every detail, to make sense of it. But my mind refuses to accept what I already know: not just where I am, but when.
“How is this possible?” I mutter. “People don’t just get sucked into the past. If they did, we’d know it.
Everyone would know. Right?” I scrub a tear from my cheek.
“I mean, people would be going back and forth all the time. That kind of thing would be impossible to keep secret. Which means”—my breath catches—“maybe I’m losing it.
Maybe I’m actually asleep in my bed, dreaming this.
Or I’m in a coma. Maybe I never even left New York. ”
A woman appears on the path ahead, leading a scraggly pony. Instead of a saddle, two baskets are slung over the animal’s sides. One is filled with kindling. The other holds a snotty, filthy, screaming toddler. He’s gnawing on something that looks disturbingly like a strip of rawhide.
I watch him and suddenly give into the truth. I doubt my brain could’ve conjured that.
I limp to catch up with Callum, my bare feet stinging with every step. “This is real, isn’t it? This is really happening.” I shade my eyes and scan the horizon. It seems so obvious now. There’s not a car or plane in sight.
But it’s more than that.
There’s an essential silence here, broken only by natural sounds. The rustling of trees. Sporadic birdsong. The fading cries of that kid. And the shuffle of Callum’s weathered leather boots.
I stop short.
“Here I am. I’m here. 1622. How did this happen?” I cast a wild look at Callum. “Is it me? This happened when I walked through your door. What if I walk through another door and end up with Vikings? Or dinosaurs?”
A mad giggle bursts from me, and this time, I can’t stop it. My shoulders shake as laughter turns into a sob and back again.
“Hush, hush.” He gives my shoulder an awkward pat, clearly unsure what to do or how to touch me, which only makes me feel more alone.
“Please, lass. Dinnae fash yourself so. ’Tisn’t only you. Others have traveled the low road. And you’ll not be swept away by accident. ’Twas on account of Donag’s summoning curse.”
The low road.
I think of my mother. Of her song.
The realization shifts something inside me, casting her in an entirely new light.
Who is Janet, really?
“The low road,” I repeat. “My mother had a song about it. She called it the road the ghosties travel.” My throat clenches as I confirm, “But I’m not a ghost?”
His voice goes utterly tender. “Och, no, Rose. You’re alive. Verra much so.”
The way Callum says my name, soft and certain, draws my eyes to him. He’s staring.
We both look away so fast, it’s a miracle neither of us pulls a muscle.
Cheeks burning, I scramble for the first thing that comes to mind. “Then, how? How is this possible?”
His expression turns guarded. “Only the most powerful of witches can manage it.”
“Wait. You’re saying Donag is a witch?”
“Wheesht, lass.” He glances around hastily. “Aye,” he murmurs, “she is that. Though she had forces to aid her. Yesternight ’twas a time of great power. When you came, the eve of Samhain—”
“The eve of sow-what?”
“Sow-wen.” He pronounces it slowly, his brow furrowing. “Do you nae celebrate the last day of October?”
“You mean Halloween? Are you kidding? That’s really a thing?” I snort. “Of course it is. Why not? All Donag needs is a broomstick and she’d be ready to trick-or-treat.”
“No trickery,” he says slowly, clearly unsure how to deal with my outburst. To him, this is all completely natural. The sky is blue. Water is wet. Donag’s a witch.
“’Tis real indeed. But this year’s Samhain was different. A black moon rose—a second new moon in a single month. A rare omen, that. A time of great power.”
My expression freezes as realization dawns. “Wait…does this mean I have to wait until next year to return to my own time?”
“No, you need only a time of power. ’Twas the eve of Mabon when Donag sent Janet away.” Noting my confusion, he adds, “The harvest festival, marking the start of autumn.”
“The autumnal equinox,” I mutter to myself.
“As you see, there are other ways to travel.” He shrugs. “I’ll not be knowing them.”
My attention drifts. I stare at the land around me, taking it all in with fresh eyes. How will I survive? I’m self-sufficient, but this is ridiculous. I’ll need food, clothing, shelter. What will I have to do for it?
I shake my head. “I can’t do this.” I’m trapped, a prisoner here. Maybe Donag’s, maybe Campbell’s, it doesn’t matter. If I were to escape, where would I go?
“I can’t.”
Callum’s voice seems to come from far away. “You can,” he’s saying, and, “I’ll help you.”
He’s so steady and sure, his presence so oddly calming, my breathing slows, then steadies. I scrub a hand over my cheeks to dry them and let out a heavy sigh.
“Poppa.” My voice cracks on his name.
Poppa will be frantic. It’s bad enough his son died so young. For me to just disappear? This will kill him.
Then a far worse realization strikes.
Will he even know I’m gone?
It’s 1622. Poppa won’t be born for hundreds of years.
And somehow that’s even worse. My entire life—the farm, my school, my friends, everything I ever valued—doesn’t even exist. I clench my fists, sudden anger scorching away the fear.
“Why?” The word bursts from me. “Why did you bring me? How do you and Donag know so much about witchcraft?”
“Nae so loud,” he hisses. He reaches for my arm. “Come.”
I pull away. “Don’t touch me. I’m not budging until you tell me. Out of all time and space, why choose me?”
Callum sighs, looking thoroughly aggrieved. “You’ve my word. I didn’t choose you. I chose none of this.”
The words cut me, though they shouldn’t.
“Yeah, well I wouldn’t have chosen you, either.”
I sense someone nearby. A young boy. He’s staring at me like I’m an alien, eyes wide as he takes in my soiled Target dress and my muddy, bare feet. The chipped remnants of pale blue polish on my toenails.
Callum stomps a menacing foot toward him. “Och, you. Be gone.”
The moment I have his attention again, I blurt, “What does Janet have to do with any of this?”
“Hush with that name.” He grabs my arm this time, his gaze darting around. “Somewhere else.”
“Fine.” I let him steer me down the path, but I can’t bear the silence. “What’s your connection to this Campbell guy? Are you related?”
“Good Christ, no.”
I study him. His vehemence is almost comical.
“He said you serve him. You work for him or something?”
He hesitates. “Aye. Or something. I work as a smithy. Mostly, I’m with the horses.” He nods toward a nearby barn. “Just there.”
“What about Donag? Is she like…the staff witch?”
He makes a strange sound, halfway between a laugh and a panicked shush. “Please, you must mind your words. None know Donag for a witch. Folk call her skillie.”
“A whattie?”
“Skillie. She tends to things like midwifery. Healing.”
“She doesn’t work in the castle?”
He chuckles. “She’s nae precisely Campbell’s favorite. But he keeps her around, despite it being…dangerous work.”
“How is delivering babies dangerous?”
“Those who can heal can also harm. ’Tis cunning work, healing.”
The barn looms ahead, dark and ominous. I stop short, yanking free before he can drag me inside.
“I don’t think so.”
He exhales sharply. “You must trust me. You don’t want to be here, but you are. There’s no returning now. You say you cannae do this, but you can.”
“Yeahhh, I don’t—”
“I know you can.” His voice is firmer now. “Donag’s curse called you here. That’s the proof.”
“How does that prove anything?”
He jerks his chin toward the door. “Inside. Please.”
When I don’t move, he adds, “Campbell has ears everywhere.”
The name is an electric shock, jolting fear down my limbs. I follow.
Inside, the barn is dim. It smells rich and lush—hay, oiled leather, manure. Beams of sunlight cut through slatted walls, dust swirling in their paths. A horse exhales a gentle huff, another whickers in reply.
This world, at least, I understand.
I turn to face him. “Okay. Now tell me. Why would Donag curse me? How would she even know about me?”
“She didn’t. The curse was meant to summon Janet.”
I put up a hand. “Hang on. How does she know my mother? And why is a portrait of Janet in Campbell’s castle? Have these people been to the future?”
“Och, no—”
“I mean, what the hell? Are there, like, flights to and from the past out of JFK?”
“Janet was born here,” he says, speaking over me. “In 1603.”
“What? No.”
It’s too much. How did she end up in the future? How did she survive?
Then it hits me. My father. He must’ve been her safe harbor.
I look up at Callum. Because here I am, relying on another man.
Well, if Janet could hack the seventeenth century, then so can I. “She really came from here.” It’s not a question.
Callum says nothing, just watches as it sinks in.
Una said my mother knew all the old songs.
Spoke the old tongue. And Janet’s bedtime stories were all sieges, clan wars, bloodied swords.
No fairy tales, no princesses, just brutal history.
I remember, in third grade, telling her I didn’t care about Scotland.
That everybody knew the cute princes lived in England.
She’d hated that. The stories stopped. So did the songs.
Were they just stories…or had she been trying to tell me about her life?