Timeless (Return to Culloden Moor #9)

Chapter 1

CHAPTER ONE

The scent of wood smoke and cooking fires drifted through the early evening air as Noah Wheeler made his way home. Just ahead, the small village of Havenwood hummed with a peculiar mix of inhabitants, plucked from various times and places.

His adoptive mother called what they’d all experienced, time-travel, but even after five years, Noah was still struck by the peculiarity of seeing a woman in pioneer dress drawing water from the well, while nearby a man in medieval clothing chopped wood.

He considered how strange his own colonial clothing, speech and customs must have seemed to everyone else when he and his sister first arrived.

Children’s laughter echoed from somewhere beyond the meticulously tended fields, their games a blend of ancient and modern play, made even more interesting by the abundant mix of languages and accents.

Adjusting the weight of the two pheasants slung over his shoulder, Noah made his way down the narrow path toward their stone cottage as the last of the setting sun cast long shadowy fingers across the community’s patchwork of crops and tidy gardens.

Like the rim of a wheel, the fields surrounded the village forming a protective buffer. Inexplicably, the motley collection of structures at its center seemed to make a cohesive whole. Just like the diverse people who, through no choice of their own, now called this place home.

Over an unknown span of time they, like he and Emily, had arrived on a moonless night, thrust into this timeless realm without warning or explanation.

Though he missed his parents desperately, the life he’d lived with them seemed more and more like a dream than reality.

He still remembered the difficulty he and Emily had adjusting in that first year.

If not for Taran and Paige Fleming taking them in, adopting them, Noah couldn’t imagine what the outcome might have been.

Although twenty-one at the time, a man grown, despite his vow to protect his sister, Noah knew he could not have succeeded on his own in this strange new world.

Looking back, he knew they’d have managed somehow to survive in this extraordinary other-world, but they certainly wouldn’t have thrived as they had with the Flemings.

Little more than a decade younger than Taran, whose experiences deemed him worlds older and wiser, Noah had become far more skilled under his adopted father’s tutelage.

Under their care, Emily had blossomed from a terrified, almost non-verbal eight-year-old to a cheerful, loving thirteen-year-old who literally doted on Taran and Paige’s son, Brody.

Emily was flourishing here and Noah loved watching it happen. She could be a child one moment, as in tune to Brody as if she were five herself, and at the same time a woman-in-training as she mimicked Paige’s every move and gesture.

She was special, his Emily. And his determination to protect her and his new family had never been stronger.

As he got closer, the familiar evening bustle of the village tinged the air. Children’s laughter, the clang of cooking pots, and snippets of conversation floated across the fields.

But as Noah approached their stone cottage, nestled, unlike the others, on the outskirts of a field, something felt wrong, sending a warning tingle through his belly.

Where were the usual scents of supper simmering over a fire?

Or Brody’s animated laughter, or the sweet sounds of Paige humming softly as she went about preparations for their evening meal.

Or Taran working outside to take advantage of the last light of the day.

But most stark of all, the lack of Emily’s laughter.

She hadn’t felt well when he’d set out this morning.

But he’d thought it only temporary. Although, in truth, she had seemed excessively tired of late, falling asleep easily, not as quick to engage with any of them.

If he allowed himself to scrutinize her behavior, she hadn’t really been herself for days. Even weeks.

Seeing only a dim glow from the windows, he picked up his pace, concerned over the unusual silence.

Heart thudding against his ribs, he pushed open the wooden door, squinting into the dim interior. A single candle flickered on the otherwise empty tabletop. No plates or bowls sat ready for their meal. Nothing bubbled in the pot hanging over the dying embers in the hearth.

Paige sat in a chair with Emily curled on her lap, her arms wrapped protectively around the child as if she could hold what ailed her at bay by sheer will.

A chill crept over Noah’s skin.

In the corner, five-year-old Brody stacked blocks with unusual quiet, as if sensing the vulnerability in the air.

Noah dropped the game birds and crossed to Paige’s chair in three long strides, gently pulling Emily’s hair aside to reveal her face, flushed and hot to the touch.

Her usually bright eyes were glassy and unfocused beneath the compress Paige pressed to her forehead.

She’d always been small for her age, but in Paige’s arms, she seemed impossibly fragile.

Noah’s stomach clenched. “How long has she been like this?”

“The fever spiked an hour ago,” Paige whispered, her violet eyes swimming with tears. She’s having intermittent bouts of chills, and her lethargy seems to get worse by the day. I’ve noticed subtle changes in her over the last few weeks, but…I hoped against hope that…”

Her voice caught, and she looked away.

“That…what?” Noah demanded. “What aren’t you telling me?”

Taran burst through the door with water sloshing over the edge of his bucket. “’Tis icy cold, Love. Direct from the river, just as ye asked. What would ye have me do wi’ it?”

“We have to bring her fever down. Gather some rags so we can sponge-bathe her.”

“Aye.”

“Da?” Brody tugged on Taran’s pant leg. “Emily can’t play. Ma says she’s sick. Can you fix her?”

Noah and Taran exchanged unspoken looks of helplessness.

“We’re going tae try, son,” Taran patted Brody’s shoulder. “Would ye help Noah bring in some wood tae build up the fire? We dinnae want her tae get too cold, aye?”

Noah didn’t want to leave Emily. Not even for the mere minutes it would take to grab an armload of wood from beside the cottage.

He’d vowed to protect her, and he’d failed. He thought about the first rule of battle Taran had taught him.

You must know your enemy if you hope to overcome him.

Noah turned to Paige. “I’ll build up the fire, fetch and do whatever you need. But you must tell me what plagues her so we can fight it together.”

Pressing her lips into a tight line, Paige merely nodded.

“We will win this battle,” Noah whispered, his eyes locked on Emily. He’d lost his mother, his father and two siblings when he and Emily had been inexplicably swept away from the world they knew. He would not lose her, too.

Minutes later, he and Paige knelt beside the pallet Taran hastily put together near the fire and sponged Emily’s feverish body. Her weak murmurs and feeble attempts to push them away only increased Noah’s concern. The light was gone from eyes that seemed far too heavy for her to keep open.

He turned to Paige as the fire cast eerie shadows on the stone walls of the cottage, making the moment feel even more surreal. “What is this strange affliction that has overtaken her? There must be more I can do. Tell me. I’ll do whatever is required.”

Taran sat Brody down to a hastily prepared cold supper before joining them. “Tell him, Love. All of it. He needs tae ken the truth.”

Paige looked from Taran to Noah, drawing a shaky breath. “When I was a teenager living in foster care, before we came here, I lived with a family for a long time. The Masons. They had a little girl…. Chloe.”

Alarmed by the tremor in Paige’s voice, Noah gritted his teeth and waited for what must surely be bad news.

“She had leukemia.”

Noah stared at her. The word had a heavy, foreign ring to it. “What are you saying? What is that?”

He hadn’t meant to sound so sharp, but he couldn’t help it.

“I don’t know for sure if that’s what Emily has,” Paige admitted. “I’m only guessing by all the familiar symptoms. But Emily’s fever, the bruises on her arms and legs that don’t heal, the increased exhaustion…” she inhaled deeply before whispering, “All of it reminds me of Chloe.”

“If she has this…leukemia,” he struggled with the strange word, “what does that mean? What does it do? Will she be sick long? How do we treat it? Tell me what you need to cure her, and I swear I’ll find it.”

Tears sprang to Paige’s eyes, and the quiver in her chin sent chills up his spine.

“She needs care that we can’t give her, Noah. Leukemia is a disease of the blood. If that’s what she has, she needs specialized care and medicines that only doctors and hospitals from my time can provide.”

Noah studied Emily as if seeing her for the first time. How had he not noticed her weakness? The dark smudges beneath her eyes? “There must be something we can do.”

“I’ve tried everything I can think of. When I realized her symptoms were worsening and I discovered nodules at the base of her skull, I spoke to Aiesha about her.

We tried poultices and various herbs and teas, thinking it was an infection, but to no avail.

Even Aiesha admits whatever ails Emily is beyond her expertise. ”

Noah stood abruptly, his breath coming too fast. No, this wasn’t happening. Emily was fine. She had to be fine. “She just needs rest,” he muttered, shoving a hand through his hair. “It’s just a fever. She’s had them before. We all have. She’ll get better.”

Paige didn’t argue, but the grief in her eyes gutted him.

“No! It can’t be true.” Noah backed away, shoving the heel of his hand against his forehead.

How could he fix this? He was supposed to protect her.

From the moment they’d been ripped from their time, from their family, from everything they knew, he had sworn to himself that no matter what, he would keep Emily safe.

But how was he supposed to fight something he couldn’t even understand?