Chapter 3 #2
She dragged her head up. Wishing wasn’t going to get her home. The orb. That was the last thing she’d touched at home. She stared at her shaking hands. Where was the orb?
Careful not to make any sudden moves that might bring attention to her location, she bent her head, shook out the cloak, and patted down her clothes. Her heart picked up its pace as she felt the surrounding ground. She needed the orb to go back home.
More gunshots and cannon blasts out-roared an army of men’s screams.
She looked over her shoulder through the back of her hiding spot to a couple trees and more low shrubs. She should go there to try to distance herself further from the battle, but the overwhelming noise had her rooted to the spot, and she stared once again at the battlefield.
Her every nerve trembled with fear. Her eyes bulged as more combatants became visible.
Men in tartan were on foot and on horses.
Scottish men, some holding long muskets, some with axes, scythes, or pitchforks, fighting mounted Redcoats.
The English. She tried to think of places in the American Revolution that looked like her surroundings.
She couldn’t think of any, but that didn’t mean there weren’t any.
She didn’t want to believe it, but she was smack dab in the middle of a crazed battle during the American Revolution.
A bullet whizzed past her ear, breaking her stupor.
She pushed the cloak into her mouth to stifle a scream. She had to move as far away from the battle raging in front of her as she could. She pushed through the back of the shrub and crawled as fast as she could around and behind a bigger shrub.
Once she was behind the foliage, she kept her head down. The guns and their reports echoed in her head, and she jammed her hands into her armpits in a self-embrace. Now and then, a mortar would fire and have her heart nearly jumping out of her chest.
Blinking and trying to make sense of the sensory overload, Abby wanted to scream, but she knew once she started, she wouldn’t be able to stop.
She had to keep control, think of what to do, but the only choices that came to her were fight or flight.
She couldn’t fight, and she was too scared to try flight.
The ongoing fire from the guns made her constantly jump, and the boom from the cannons shook the ground under her.
The swords clashing and the chorus of screams sounded like a dreadful song.
With every noise, her temples throbbed and her whole body shook.
Keeping the cloak over her nose and mouth, she stretched out on her stomach, hoping no one could see her there.
Abby forced her brain to grasp for more information about the men, but she couldn’t make out what they were yelling.
Their shouts weren’t in English. A loud crash of cannon fire had her snapping her head up.
She hugged the damp ground and inched to the side of the brush just far enough to peer through the outer leaves.
The contraption had no wheels. It wasn’t a cannon; it was a mortar.
Mortars had smaller ammunition than cannons, but to Abby, they were just as loud.
The details of what she was seeing made her heart flip.
To her right was what was left of one side of an army and a lone man still valiantly holding a flag.
It was emblazoned with a thistle and St. Andrew’s cross, with Latin script in a ribbon above.
She murmured the rough translation without conscious thought.
“No one provokes me with impunity.” Or something like that. It was definitely a Jacobite flag.
Men in kilts, the English army, and a wet, bloody field. No, it was a moor. A moor in Scotland.
Battles of Scotland and England flitted through Abby’s mind as she realized she wasn’t in America anymore. She was in Scotland. She didn’t know what battle it was, and she didn’t care. All she wanted was to get as far away from the death and destruction as possible.
But without meaning to, her thoughts raced even faster at the possibilities of her location. The names of the combatants filled her mind.
Charles Stuart, also known as Bonnie Prince Charlie, otherwise known as the Young Pretender, and he had wanted the throne of England.
She was certain she was right on the edge of the Battle of Culloden, but that would mean she had gone back in time.
She wiped her hands hard down her face. Had she really time traveled, or was she asleep and all this was a dream?
Or maybe she was in a coma. She couldn’t remember having an accident, but she recalled the feeling when she touched the orb. That could have been her fainting.
Abby pinched her clammy cheeks. Surely it wasn’t possible.
Her parents’ faces emerged in her mind. Had they really spent their lives traveling throughout time, collecting artifacts, and seeing history as it was being made?
The orb. She scanned the area where she’d first arrived, hoping to see the slightest glint of the device in the few sunbeams that managed to hit the ground.
Her chest tightened. Had she dropped the orb when she passed out?
No. Through the cacophony of horror around her, her logical mind surmised the orb had to have traveled with her. How else would her parents have returned home?
The ground was wet and muddy. Maybe she dropped it when she landed and fell on it. Maybe she pushed it into the mud. She had to go back and look for it. She had to get it.
More gunfire, mortar blasts, and screams broke through her thoughts, and shivering, she wrapped her arms around her chest. Whether the chills were from the cold or shock, she didn't know. A sob hitched in her throat.
She was really in the middle of the Battle of Culloden.
The Jacobites’ last stand against the English army, led by the Duke of Cumberland.
And to make matters worse, judging by her surroundings, she was behind the already-defeated Jacobite line.
As the English pressed forward, the Jacobites were being pushed to the upper edge of the moor.
If they came further her way, someone would see her.
She cautiously squirrelled into the shrubbery.
Forcing her breathing to deepen and slow, she closed her eyes and concentrated on the sound of the air passing through her nose.
That relaxed her somewhat, but the fighting continued to make her jump with its ferocity, and her body shuddered at each horrific sound.
Silently, she willed herself to keep still.
She hissed out a breath. Part of her mind screamed none of what was happening was possible—there was no such thing as time travel—but the other part, the more logical side, calmly told her she had truly time traveled and was now on the sidelines of one of the most famous battles in history.
She had no choice. She couldn’t go home without the orb, so she decided to wait the battle out and stay safe, and then she would get the time device and go back home.
Not more than an hour later, she watched as the English chased their enemy from the battlefield, and at long last, all was quiet except for a stray gun firing or a shout here and there.
She squinted out over the many prone bodies. Something moved. No, someone. One of the soldiers was still alive.