CHAPTER FOUR
Emily waded through the cobwebs of sleep, lingering in the fuzzy domain just beyond wakefulness. Something irritated her nose. She scrunched her nostrils trying to ease the prickle.
She sneezed. What on earth was that pungent herbal scent making her nose twitch? She opened her eyes expecting to be in her room at the inn with the window open to the garden.
The strong odor faded as an unfamiliar gray-haired woman stepped away from the bed. Emily wrinkled her brow. “Who are—”
“Em! You’re awake.” Tevin sat on the edge of the mattress beside her, eyes brimming with unshed tears. He lunged, hugging her tight, little fists clutching her sleeves.
“Oh, hi.” Her voice sounded…feeble.
“I was so afraid you would never wake up.”
A feminine chuckle made Emily jerk her gaze to… “Isobell? When did you arrive?”
“Tevin, I told you she would be fine.” The ebony-haired beauty glided closer to the bed.
A velvet curtained, antique bed. Whose bed? Whose room? Not mine. This is all wrong.
“Tevin, give Emily some breathing space.”
He slid to the side, gaze glued on her as if he feared she’d disappear before his eyes.
She sat bolt upright and slid back on the mattress, taking in the surroundings.
Everything was strange. The furnishings antique yet new.
None of the rooms at the inn had stone walls with slit wooden shutters covering the windows.
And…this room had no lamps. Only candles lit the space, tainting the air with a burnt scent.
“Where am I?” She tried to sound nonchalant, but failed miserably.
“’Tis a long tale.” Isobell dropped into a chair next to the bed. “Tevin, perhaps you would like to go play with Lach in the courtyard.”
“Please let me stay with Em.” He cuddled close to her side. He was definitely frightened of something, which made her nervous, too.
“What is going on, Isobell?” she asked. “Where are we?”
“You might want to brace yourself for what I have to tell you,” Isobell said. “Please keep an open mind.”
“You’re scaring me.”
“I dinnae mean to. It’s just…” The woman hesitated as if gathering her thoughts. “You are at Castle Lachlan.”
“That’s impossible. Castle Lachlan is in Scotland. I haven’t traveled to Scotland.”
“We did, Em,” Tevin blurted. “The little faeries brought us here.”
“That’s ridiculous. There are no such beings.”
“The lad tells the truth, Emily. You have both travelled back through time to Scotland and the Year of our Lord 1521.”
Emily frowned and shook her head. “It’s not possible.”
“’Tis. You must have heard rumors of strange happenings involving my in-laws, your employers, in Anderson Creek.”
“Well, yeah, but I’ve never given the local gossip any credence.”
“Perhaps you should.” Isobell’s husband Archie said as he strode into the room, looking so much like his twin brother Patrick from Anderson Creek, with his chestnut hair and muscular presence, Emily experienced a moment of confusion.
Though rather than blue, this man’s silver eyes gazed at her with compassion.
“I am glad to see you are well, lass. This mornin’ we feared for your health when you did not wake from your faint. ”
“I am fine. Thank you. But…”
The couple waited.
“Well, let me get this straight. You both expect me to believe faeries exist and have the ability to whisk people, against their will, through time and space on a whim?”
Isobell and Archie nodded, their features solemn.
“Told you so.” Tevin crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back against the intricately carved headboard of the four poster bed, looking smug.
Had they all lost their minds?
“I have come to collect Tevin so Isobell can explain what we need of you, Emily,” Archie said. “Come along, lad. Lach needs a sword sparring partner.”
The boy hesitated, chewed on his bottom lip.
Emily ruffled his hair. “Go ahead, Tev. I’ll be here when you are done. Just be careful. ’Kay?”
His frown burst into a grin. He nodded and joined Archie without a backward glance, bombarding the poor man with all sorts of questions.
She needed to get her questions answered. “So…”
“Do you remember anything from before you fainted?”
“It’s a tad fuzzy.” Emily massaged the ache building at her temples.
“You ken the mound behind the display garden at Foxgloves, aye? The one just beyond the garden gate?”
“Yeah. Iain warned me to never go there and to never allow the children to go there, but Tevin and Malcolm ran away from me during a heavy fog. I found them at the knoll and…”
“Then what?”
“Tevin vanished. I was standing there dumbfounded when Malcolm pushed me onto the mound and everything spun.”
“That is the sensation of traveling through time. Although I understand everyone’s experience is a wee different.”
“How do you know all this?”
“Remember when Archie and I travelled to Anderson Creek years ago? Afterward, we returned here to your past. Our present.”
“I can’t even believe I’m in Scotland and you expect me to believe I traveled to the past?”
“Aye. Look out the window.”
Emily cast aside a very real-feeling fur and slid from the bed.
She walked across an authentic stone floor, threw open the shutters, and gasped.
Holy shit! She leaned out over the stone sill.
Sure enough she was in a castle that appeared to be surrounded by water.
Across the waterway was a heather covered hill.
Rustic cottages were grouped in a village of sorts.
In the field below the window, men dressed in reenactment costumes slashed at each other with sharp-pointed swords—sun glinting on metal—like some of the men did in Anderson Creek.
An uber-attractive guy, with long brown hair of which many women would be envious, shot arrows at a muslin dummy, hitting the bulls-eye over the heart with each shot. Emily placed a hand on her stomach, feeling a tad queasy all of a sudden. He seemed so familiar.
“Are you feeling ill?” Isobell asked, voice laced with concern, as she came to stand behind Emily.
“Who is that guy with the bow?” The one with the yummy, ass-hugging leather pants?
The other woman chuckled softly. “That is Gregor, the lad who found you in the wood.”
Emily spun around and faced her. “I admit this appears to be Scotland, but I don’t remember traveling here. And, I certainly didn’t travel through time.”
“Come. Walk with me. I will give you a tour of the keep, and you will see I speak the truth.”
Emily grasped Isobell’s hand. “I don’t mean to insult you.”
“You have not. I felt as confused as you when I traveled through the faerie mound to the future.” Isobell walked to the door and stopped.
She glanced over a shoulder at Emily and frowned, turning back into the room.
“This will not do. Your garments are all wrong.” She opened a chest at the end of the bed and pulled out a linen gown.
“Before you can be seen by the castle inhabitants, you must change into something more appropriate to this time. Archie believes the sheriff has placed a spy amongst us.”
“Really, Isobell, aren’t you taking this reenacting thing a bit far?”
“This is not make believe, Emily. You are in the past.”
Emily glanced out the window again and chewed on her lip. “The men fighting in the yard do appear more…fierce than the reenactment guys in Anderson Creek.”
“That is because they are more fearsome,” Isobell said softly. “Their lives often depend on their skill with a weapon.”
Emily accepted the garment and ran trembling fingers over the pale green fabric of a gown similar to the lavender dress Isobell wore, and akin to the dresses Elspeth sported at the living history exhibit during the Highland Games and Gathering of the Clans at Grandfather Mountain.
Was Isobell telling the truth? With a heavy sigh, Emily removed her tunic-length hoodie, slipped the dress over her head and down her torso, covering her black lace trimmed bra, then shimmied out of the cotton leggings and slid the fine linen over her hips to drape just above the tops of her hiking boots.
“Did you bring anything modern with you besides your clothes? Perhaps a phone?”
“I dropped my cell when Malcom pushed me.”
“Good. I guess no one will be aware of your modern undergarments.” Isobell chuckled and helped with the lacings on the gown. “There. You look like a proper Highland lass.”
“Now what?”
“I will show you the castle, and you will come to understand that you and Tevin are truly in Scotland, and in the past.”
The circular stairs posed a challenge in the long gown. And the castle did appear to be lost in time. Still—
“Okay,” Emily said. “I admit the rustic kitchen seems to imply the castle is not of our time, but—”
“Not of your time.” Isobell guided her through the great hall.
“It is exactly as it should be in my time. Castle Lachlan as you see it now is naught but a crumbling ruin in your time. That is why it is known in modern times as Old Castle Lachlan. This castle will fall into ruin after the MacLachlan chief is killed during the Battle of Culloden. Archie’s descendants will build a new home on the mainland which will also be known as Castle Lachlan. ”
“How do you know such things?”
“Iain read to me from one of his many history books when I visited your future.” Moisture pooled in Isobell’s amethyst eyes, but the woman didn’t shed a tear.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you sad. It must be terrible to know of awful things that will happen in the future.”
Isobell’s features brightened. “You finally believe?”
“Let’s just say I’m begrudgingly considering the possibility that something otherworldly happened to me and Tevin.” Emily tucked a stray hair behind an ear. “You mentioned a faerie mound.”
“Aye. Foxgloves’ garden gate and the mound beyond are enchanted by the Fae.”
“Faeries really exist?”
“They do. As do other fae creatures such as—”
“Unicorns?”
“Perhaps. Though I dinnae really ken much about the horned beasts. I intended to tell you about Munn. Archie’s wee man. He is a brùnaidh—a brownie. He found Tevin at the Sithichean Sluaigh, the faerie mound here in the Fir-wood, and brought the lad to us.”
Before Emily could respond, Archie stepped from a doorway and signaled for them to join him.
Isobell touched Emily’s sleeve. “Come. I believe Archie wants to introduce you to your savior.”