Chapter 33
A t Brigid’s best guess, she’d been lying beside the cross for an hour. It could have been longer, though. She felt as if she was losing all sense of time - as if the strange energy of the cross exuded a cloud of timelessness. It was hard to focus on the passing seconds, let alone the moments.
She knew she had to act. She had to do something. But it all sounded much easier in theory. When it came to action, it was much easier to simply lie still and let her mind drift through a haze of shifting time.
So, she had some kind of special power. But how did she use it? How could she manipulate this gift of time travel and use it to her own advantage? Especially when Edmondson was so much more experienced than her.
Besides, thinking got harder and harder with every passing moment. It was difficult to even imagine fighting. Right now, all her energy was focused on stopping Edmondson from using her own powers against her.
After she was dragged from the shed, screaming out Sandy’s name, Brigid had been tied down to some sort of table. She lay there still, unable to move her arms and legs. At least it was more comfortable than having her hands and feet bound. Edmondson had wired her up, with strange metal wires puncturing the skin of her fingertips. They travelled from there to the cross, where wires wrapped around the stone in a crude echo of the carved designs. She could barely feel anything - had the wires even gone deep enough draw blood? Now that she thought about it, how did any of this even work?
If only she’d asked her mother a little bit more about time travel, shown a bit more interest. Perhaps that extra knowledge would have changed everything.
Her thoughts wavered for just a moment - and, apparently, it gave Edmondson the chance he’d been waiting for. Brigid gasped as the world around her subtly changed.
“Hah!” Edmondson shouted in triumph. “Pictish Scotland. We’re almost there, my sweet. Goodness, you really are stronger than your mother. Just a little bit further. One more push. Perhaps this time, we’ll make it.”
Brigid had no idea where he wanted to go, but she was determined not to take him there. She focused her thoughts, even though it brought beads of sweat to her face. The eighteenth-century camp snapped back into focus.
“Damn it,” Edmondson hissed. Quick as a snake, his hand shot out and slapped her. Brigid’s head snapped sideways, already smarting from the blow. Despite herself, she moaned a little. She was still desperately fighting to maintain control, but she could feel Edmondson’s strange machine tugging at her, drawing on her strength.
But at least she now knew what time travel was supposed to feel like. What she should feel like. On her previous journeys, Kara had done all the work. Now, it was Brigid’s turn. She just had to focus.
There had been something strangely familiar about Pictish Scotland. Something that called to her. If she could distinguish time periods like that, surely her own home time would be even more distinctive? She focused on thoughts of her own house, her brothers, her childhood. Drifting into a haze of memory, she let go of her body and her pain. The tents around her began to fade away.
Somewhere in the distance, Edmondson shouted in fury. Then someone punched Brigid in the stomach. She jerked in pain, her bound arms unable to clutch at her stomach, but she refused to let her focus break. Edmondson could not stop her now. Home was close - so close she could smell it in the air.
Then she heard a sudden angry roar - and realised it was not Edmondson. She snapped back to the eighteenth century with such force that it left her head spinning. She opened her eyes just as her three friends crashed into the cluster of Edmondson’s men, all fighting their way towards her.
Brigid could have shouted with joy. They were free! And she had the power. This was it, finally - time to defeat Edmondson.