Chapter 5
CHAPTER 5
“ O h, crap, I didn’t mean to make you cry. What is it? Is it the breakfast? Are you vegan?” Mae asked, rubbing Catherine’s back.
It was such an odd question in this ancient place that Catherine began to giggle through her tears. “No, it’s just all of this.”
Mae made a face. “I get it. It’s overwhelming being here for the first few days. It does take some getting used to. We don’t have to talk about it right now. There’s loads of time to do that. For now, let’s get some food into you and then I’ll take you to your room where you can rest, because I’m sure you’re dead tired. I know I was.”
Catherine had to agree. She felt as though she hadn’t slept in a year, but couldn’t understand why that was. She’d often gone a day or two without sleep and not felt this crazy kind of tired that she did right then.
Mae handed her a bowl and said, “Eat, you’ll feel better soon. I promise.”
Catherine took the offered bowl and spooned a mouthful into her mouth. The flavor of the porridge with honey dancing on her tongue. “Oh, wow. This is good.”
By the time she finished, Sally had returned and given Mae directions to the room she’d fixed for Catherine. “If you be needing anything, you jest ask for Sally. There is a bath already prepared for you and I’ve set out a nightdress as well as a gown for you. Though you may be needing a bit o’ help with it. Lady Jen and Mae both did.” She smiled.
“Thank you,” Catherine murmured as she and Mae stood.
Mae led her up the stone staircase and down a hallway to a wooden door. She opened it, and Catherine saw it was a medium sized room with a single bed, nightstand, small table and chairs, and a wardrobe. There was also a fireplace that held a roaring fire, and in front of it sat a tub filled with water. It looked like one of those metal water troughs that cows drank out of.
“I know it’s not what you’re used to, but I promise, the bath will feel good, so take it while you can. I’m sure you can manage the nightdress on your own, but I’ll come back tomorrow and help you with the gown.”
“Tomorrow? But it’s barely mid-morning,” Catherine replied.
Mae grinned. “Trust me. You’re going to fall asleep and I’m betting you’re not going to wake for about eighteen to twenty hours. You’ve been through a lot, it’s exhausting.”
Catherine frowned, but didn’t say anything to that. Instead she asked, “So is there not a bathroom?”
“About that…” Mae moved over to a table that held a bowl and pitcher on the top shelf, and a pot on the bottom shelf. “The bathroom.” She gestured toward it. “Your sink,” she pointed to the pitcher and bowl, and then to the pot, “Your potty.” She gave a cringy smile that was more of a grimace. “Sorry, one of the downfalls of being here, but the staff will take care of cleaning it, so there is that.”
Catherine’s heart dropped to her stomach. “You mean…”
“No modern conveniences here, well anywhere anymore. But we’ll talk about all that tomorrow. Anything else you might need?” Mae asked.
Catherine shook her head. “Thank you, Mae.”
“Get some rest.”
In the wake of Mae's departure, Catherine found herself enveloped by the room's solitude. The door's quiet closure made the weight of her situation press heavily upon her. She lowered herself onto the chair by the small table and began to cry softly. How had she gotten here? Why was she here? How was this possible? The questions ran through her mind on a loop.
The minutes stretched into an eternity as Catherine sat with her thoughts. The near silence seemed to mirror the vastness of the unknown that stretched before her. All she could hear was the crackling of the firewood.
Her gaze moved from the fire in the fireplace to the tub of water in front of it. She decided Mae was probably right. She should take advantage of the bath while she could. Undressing, she slipped into the tub, which wasn’t large enough to fully stretch out, but was bigger than she had originally thought. There was a washrag and piece of soap on a small stool next to the tub as well as a larger, rough piece of fabric she took to be her towel.
Catherine tried to relax in the water, but it wasn’t working. She decided to just wash and get out. She’d just put on the nightgown when there was a knock at the door. Eamon immediately came to mind, but she was pretty certain he had no clue what room she was in, so she dismissed that thought as she pulled the door open.
“Miss Catherine, you’ve had a nice bath then?” Sally asked, a glass decanter in her hands.
“Yes, thank you, Sally. Did you need something?”
“Oh, aye, sorry. I thought you might like a wee bit o’ whisky afore your slumber. An’ I thought I’d send the others in to clear the tub if’n you’re finished.”
“Whisky would be good,” Catherine replied with a nod. Something to help relax her would be amazing.
Sally waved to a couple of women in the hall who were dressed the same as she was. They came in and made quick work of bailing out the tub into buckets and then carrying them and the tub out of the room as Sally poured her a glass of the whisky.
“Here you are, Miss. That will do you well. Is there anythin’ else I can get fer you?”
“No, thank you.”
“Then I’ll leave you to your rest,” Sally said as she headed out the door and pulled it closed behind her.
Catherine lifted the glass of whisky to her lips and took a sip, feeling the burn all the way down her throat. It was just what she needed as it helped to calm her frayed nerves. The bed beckoned, and she suddenly felt a wave of exhaustion hit her again. She set the half drank glass on the night table and climbed into the bed. As she lay down, her eyes began to drift closed.
A proper deep sleep remained elusive, though, like the flicker of a distant candle in a vast, shadowy room. Dreams danced on the periphery of her consciousness, teasing her with fragmented glimpses of both the reality she knew and the enigma she had stumbled upon. Each time she stirred, she half-expected to awaken in her own bed, casting this surreal escapade as nothing more than a bizarre figment of her imagination.
Catherine's sleep remained restless, each passing moment pulling her deeper into her own thoughts. She had expected that by closing her eyes, the medieval world she had found herself in would dissolve, leaving her safely ensconced in the familiarity of her university apartment, as if it had all been a bad dream. Yet, even as her body succumbed to the embrace of the hay-stuffed mattress, her old world surroundings persisted in their stubborn existence.
As consciousness reclaimed her the following morning, Catherine's gaze traversed the room. The stones, ancient and solid, remained in place. She was still at Fort Donald, and not back in her university apartment. It hadn’t been a dream, much to her dismay. She still couldn’t believe that she was, as Eamon had told her, in the past. It was impossible. But her surroundings told a different story.
She climbed from the bed and moved toward the window where the sunlight was streaming in. She could see a lake in the distance and if she looked closer in, the village at the bottom of the hill.
A gentle knock on the chamber door roused Catherine from her contemplation. With a hesitant breath, she eased the door open, revealing Mae accompanied by Sally. “Oh, good morning,” she said, only feeling slightly disappointed that it wasn’t Eamon, and she wasn’t even sure why she’d thought it might be him.
“Good morning,” Mae practically sang. “How are you feeling? Rested?”
Sally moved into the room, a tray in her hands, and headed for the table. “I’ve brought you some breakfast, we thought you might like to eat here afore takin’ in the sights.”
“Thank you,” Catherine replied. “And I feel okay, massively confused, but yes, I got some sleep.”
“Good. I thought we could eat, then I’ll show you how to get into the dress, and we can talk as I show you around Fort Donald.”
“I’ll leave you to it,” Sally said, excusing herself from the room.
Catherine sat down across from Mae and fixed a plate from the food on the platter Sally had brought. Her thoughts were going a mile a minute as she ate, savoring the taste of everything. It was all so good. “Is this bread homemade?” she asked.
Mae laughed. “Everything is. Kind of have to do it all, well Mira and her staff do anyway, but yes, everything is made with natural ingredients. No more processed foods for us.” She smiled. “And after a while, you won’t even miss them.”
Catherine didn’t like the way she kept making statements like that. As though she was going to be stuck here. Like she was trapped with no way out. There had to be a way back to the university. Even if she had to steal a horse and ride out herself. She’d go and get somewhere that wasn’t lost in time, find a phone and get the heck back to reality.
“You don’t believe me, do you,” Mae said, smiling. “That’s okay, you will, but we don’t have to talk about it just yet. Finish eating and let’s get you dressed.”
They did just that, though eating took a lot less time than putting the dress on, it seemed to Catherine. She’d always admired period clothing, but she’d never imagined having to wear it herself.
"Now that you’re dressed, I’ll show you around the fort. This is your home now, for as long as you want anyway, and you should know how to get around."
Catherine’s voice wavered as she responded, "I get that I’m staying here right now, but my home ? I already have an apartment at the University of Edinburgh. "
“Oh, sweetie, sit down.” Mae gave her a gentle look as though she was fragile and might fracture at any moment. “Did Eamon not explain?”
Catherine frowned. “He said I’d traveled back into the past, and while all of this gives me pause,” she waved her hand about the room but really meant the entire fort and the surrounding area, “I simply can’t believe that. Time travel is impossible.”
“I believed that too, but it has happened. And it’s not some science fiction machine or anything that brought you here, it was actually a Fae.”
Her brow furrowed as she stared at Mae. “Fae aren’t real.”
“I know you think they aren’t, but I can assure you, they are. What do you recall from right before being in that field where Eamon and the others found you?”
“I went to see a professor. I knocked on his cottage door, there wasn’t an answer, so I went around to the back. The door was open and when I looked in?—”
“Let me guess. You met a man with a scarred face, black hair, and brilliant blue eyes.”
“I—how did you know that?” Catherine gasped.
“You met Dub Sith. He’s a Sidhe Fae with the power to move through time. He brought you here.”
“But…why?”
“That is a long story, but I can assure you that were currently in the mid-1600s and there’s no going back home.”
Catherine felt tears well in her eyes. “But there has to be a way… right?”
Mae shook her head. “None that Jen or I’ve found, not that we’d want to go back anyway.”
“What do you mean?” Catherine sniffled. “Why wouldn’t you?”
Mae’s face lit up like it was Christmas and she had just opened the best gift ever. “Because of Niall. And I know Jen would never go back and leave Cam. She’s married to the Chief.”
“So you’d stay for these men?”
“Pretty much. But honestly, being here, it’s kind of amazing. Peaceful. Easy, even without modern conveniences.”
“I’ll take your word for it then.” Catherine brushed the few tears that had fallen from her cheeks.
“Come on, let me show you around. I really think you’re going to end up loving it here.”
Guided by Mae, Catherine stepped into the heart of Fort Donald, a world both strikingly foreign and oddly familiar. First she led Catherine outside to the courtyard to start off their tour. Catherine was amazed at the activity. There were children running and playing games, though some of the older ones looked like they were doing work, carrying things for some of the men, brushing horses, and feeding chickens.
The entire courtyard was alive with activity, people going about their tasks with a sense of purpose. Catherine's gaze swept over the scene, from the women tending to the gardens, to the men repairing tools, a picture of unity and industry. There were men honing their skills in the practice fields, the glint of steel catching the sunlight, their movements a dance of strength and discipline as she watched completely enthralled.
“The guardsmen are pretty fun to watch, right?” Mae said from her side. “You should see Jen out there with them. She’s taught them some more modern ways to fight. She’s a mixed martial artist.”
Catherine glanced at her. “She taught these Scottish Highlanders to do martial arts?”
Mae giggled. “Yep, pretty much.”
Mae led Catherine back into the castle to the heart of the fortress as she called it, the great kitchen. The aroma of herbs and roasting meats enveloped them, mingling with the warmth radiating from the massive hearth. She introduced her to Mira as well as the kitchen staff who were all busy preparing the evening meal. Catherine had asked about lunch, but had explained the mid-day meal was sliced meats and cheese with chunks of homemade bread.
As they continued their journey, Mae opened the doors to what looked like a seamstress’s workshop. The scent of wool and the rustling of fabric greeted them. Bolts of cloth in a solid colors as well as the clan tartan lined the walls as the rest of the room held looms and sewing tables.
Mae introduced Catherine to the two clan members that were in charge. “Catherine, this is Seamus and Bridie, the Donald’s clan’s tailor and seamstress. Seamus takes care of clothing the men while Bridie designs the most beautiful gowns for us.”
“Oh, Mae, you flatter me,” Bridie said, turning a bit pink in the face. “Pleased to meet you, Miss.”
“Pleasure,” Seamus murmured, giving her a nod before returning to the project he’d been working on.
“Do you have time to take Catherine’s measurements, Bridie?”
“Of course. We’ll get you turned out quick as can be,” she replied.
“Do you make everything?” Catherine asked in wonder as Bridie measured her from top to bottom.
“Aye, me and my girls, my daughters, you understand. I’ve taught them well, you needn’t worry about tearing a seam with our dresses.” She smiled. “Now, we’ll have a proper wardrobe ready for you soon. You just go enjoy the rest of your day with Mae and leave the sewing to us.”
“Thank you, Bridie,” Mae said, smiling and then showed Catherine back out of the rooms.
Throughout the tour, Catherine marveled at the seamless integration of life within the fort. Every corner seemed to whisper of heritage, every stone seemed to echo with tales of generations gone by. The people moved with a purpose, a shared camaraderie that was woven into the very fabric of their existence that Catherine realized could not be taught in a lecture at school. It was as though history had come to life before her, and she was amazed by it.
As they finally emerged into the open air of the courtyard once again, Mae led her to a set of steps that led to the wall. As they reached the top walkway, Catherine took a moment to absorb the sights and sounds around her. On one side she could see the hustle and bustle of the courtyard. On the other, the hill sloped downward toward the village and beyond that, stood a lake, or a loch as it was called here in Scotland. “Which loch is that?” she asked, pointing toward the water.
“That is Loch Ballygrant. If you follow the road out of our small village down there,” Mae pointed toward the dirt road, “it will take you to the town of Ballygrant.”
Catherine looked around, her gaze turning toward the clear blue sky. Not an airplane in sight. “I still can’t believe this place. I can’t believe I’m here,” she said, but this time her tone held a hint of wonder and amazement.
Mae's gaze met Catherine's. "Welcome to your new home, Catherine," Mae said, grinning.