Falling in Time (3 page)

“You can be letting me out here,
lassie."

Lindy glanced at the tiny
black-garbed woman she’d picked up along the roadside shortly after driving out
of Talmine village. Grizzled and ancient-looking yet surprisingly spry, the old
woman was leaning forward to peer through the car’s rain-splattered windscreen.

“That be the turn-off I need, up
yonder." The woman sat back and rubbed her hands in glee.

Or so the gesture struck Lindy,
flashing another glance at her strange passenger.

In fact, if she’d taken a better
look before slowing the rental car that morning, she might not have offered the
woman a ride. But she’d appeared harmless enough, hobbling along the edge of
the road with a woven-wicker shopping basket on her arm. It was just too weird
that on such a wet and windy day, the crone’s heavy waxed jacket hadn’t shown
even a few speckles of rain.

And – Lindy really couldn’t explain
this – the woman’s small black boots, jauntily tied with red plaid laces,
weren’t at all muddied or damp-stained.

But she did have kindly eyes.

Bright blue eyes that twinkled with
merriment as Lindy drove past Sutherland’s great mist-hung hills and through
the dismal morning. And each time Lindy assured her that such wild weather and
the rugged landscape were reasons she’d wanted to come to Scotland, her odd
companion nodded enthusiastically.

“Och, I know." She trilled
agreement, sounding as if she did. “There be some folk what belong here, they
do. These hills are in their blood, no matter where they’re born. And when that
happens, there’s naught what can keep them away. No’ time or the span o’ the
ocean.”

She bobbed her head again, sagely. “They
always return.”

They always return
.

The old woman’s words echoed in
Lindy’s mind as she scanned the winding road ahead, looking for the turn off. But
all she saw was miles of bleak moorland and the dark, choppy water of Loch
Eriboll.

Until her passenger grabbed her arm
and pointed, indicating a narrow, heather track that could or couldn’t be a
path leading to a croft house.

“That’s it!" The crone’s
insistence convinced Lindy.

And indeed, as soon as Lindy
stopped the car and the old woman clambered out, Lindy spotted a low white
croft in the distance. Half-hidden by the shoulder of a hill, the little house
was thatched with heather in the old way and appeared to stand very close to
the loch.

“I’d be for asking you in for a cup
o’ tea, but” – the crone turned up her jacket collar against the wind, her eyes
bright in the watery sunlight – “you’ll be a-wanting to get on to Smoo afore
the day gets too long!”

She leaned close, saying something
else, but great buffets of wind were rocking the car and the shrieking gale
snatched her words away. Lindy only saw the old woman’s lips moving. But she
caught the almost mischievous wink she gave Lindy just before she stepped back
and, turning into the wind, hobbled off down the path to the cottage.

A cottage where – Lindy only
registered after starting to drive away – the two deep-set windows shone with
flickering candlelight.

Lindy frowned and hit reverse, just
to be sure.

Scotland did seem like a land where
time stood still, but the last she’d checked, electricity was in use. Even in
wild and remote Sutherland.

But when Lindy slowed the car and
came to a halt where she’d let out the old woman, the narrow heathery track
leading to the croft house was gone.

Lindy blinked.

Then she looked again, even getting
out of the car and shading her eyes against the sun that was just beginning to
break valiantly through the clouds.

But the track really wasn’t there.

Nor was the low-lying croft house,
though – the fine hairs on her nape lifted – the shoulder of the hill that had
kept part of the cottage from view still raged distinctively against the
backdrop of the loch.

Lindy’s heart began to pound and
she whirled around, scanning the empty moorland for the old woman. But, of
course, she, too, was nowhere to be seen.

Nothing stirred anywhere except a
few clumps of scrubby, wind-tossed gorse and several wheeling seabirds,
determined to take advantage of the howling gale whistling along the loch
shore.

Then the sun dimmed again, once
more slipping behind the clouds, and – for one startling moment – Lindy was
sure she saw a man standing in the distance, watching her. Tall and
broad-shouldered, he stood, unmoving, on a narrow curve of the dark, pebbly
strand.

He looked as powerful and
forbidding as the wild landscape surrounding him. In fact – Lindy swallowed –
everything about him screamed that this was where he belonged. He was as much
as a part of the big, brooding sky, the sea, and the dark, rolling moors as the
cold, racing wind that seemed to quicken and chill the longer she watched him.

She could feel his stare.

It was fierce, almost compelling.

Lindy put a hand to her breast,
unable to look away. The wind was icy now. It made her eyes tear, but she was
afraid to risk blinking. The man hadn’t budged a muscle that she could tell,
but something about him made her believe that any moment he’d come for her.

He’d move – she just knew – with
incredible speed, appearing suddenly before her. And then, before she could
even realize what was happening, he’d pull her into his arms and start kissing
her.

Or so she thought until the sun
peeped out from a low bank of clouds again and she recognized the silhouette
for it was: the stark black outline of a tree.

No braw Highland laird readying to
stride across the heather and seize her.

It was only a tree.

Feeling foolish, she turned back to
her rental car and scrambled inside. She gladly turned the key in the ignition,
driving away a bit faster than she likely would have done otherwise.

Thinking about how much the man –
no, the tree – reminded her of Rogan MacGraith, didn’t hurt either.

It also helped that she found the
passing scenery almost surreal, as if she’d left the real world and driven
straight into the fabric of her dreams.

Whatever the reason, she kept her
foot firmly on the gas pedal and knew she was still in the twenty-first century
when she spotted a sign for Smoo Cave. The attraction’s tiny car park loomed
quickly into view. And if she’d still had any doubts about reality, a small
blue car, quite old and battered, was parked right in front of the little
shop-cum-museum, claiming pride of place and letting her know she wasn’t the
day’s only visitor.

Torn between relief and annoyance,
she sat for a moment to collect herself and then climbed out of the car. She
had to lean into the wind as she crossed the car park to the well-marked
entrance to the cliff path. Incredibly steep steps led down to the cave
entrance far below and she surely wasn’t the first tourist to worry about the
danger of being blown away at some point during the perilous descent.

Och, even auld as I am, I could
take thon steps in my sleep.

You’ve no cause to fash
yourself.

The words – spoken in the soft
Highland voice of Lindy’s earlier car passenger – came from right behind her.

Whirling around, she saw the old
woman standing there. She still sported her heavy waxed jacket and the small
black boots with red plaid laces. Her wizened face wreathed in a smile when
Lindy blinked, her jaw slipping.

“Time’s a-wasting, lassie." The
crone tilted her head to the side, her blue eyes dancing. “‘Tis now or never,
lest you wish to miss-”

“I can’t believe this is the place
you said we couldn’t miss!" A heavy-set woman, shaped roughly like a
refrigerator and wearing a bright yellow oilskin, loomed into view, bearing
down swiftly on the crone.

Except – Mindy’s heart stopped –
the crone was no longer there. In her place stood a thin, sparsely-haired man
wearing a wrinkled gray suit made all the more incongruous by his
tightly-knotted blue tie.

The old woman, if she’d even been
there, had vanished into thin air.

But before Lindy could puzzle over
what she’d just seen and heard, or hadn’t, the overbearing woman gripped the
man’s elbow and marched him across the car park towards the battered blue car.

“I told you we’d find only wind and
rain up here with the heathen Scots!” she scolded, her English accent - one
Lindy usually found almost as enchanting as Scottish – losing its charm as the
woman ranted at her husband. “Those steps are murderous. Only a fool would risk
their neck traipsing down them, rain-slick as they are.”

She threw a glance over her
shoulder at Lindy, shaking her head, before she gave her husband another glare.
“Some anniversary trip you planned!  We could be in Blackpool now, or Brighton.
But no-o-o, you had to drag us up here to the wilds of-”

The slamming of the car doors cut
her off, but Lindy could see the woman’s jaw still working as she revved the
engine. With a puff of smoke, the little blue car chugged away, disappearing
down the road and leaving Lindy alone in the wilds of bonny Scotland.

That was what the woman had been
about to say, after all.

Though Lindy was sure she’d have
left out the bonny part.

More fool she!

Lindy was glad for the sudden peace
that descended.

Somewhere a dog barked in the
distance. But otherwise, all was silent except for the rhythmic wash of the
sea, the wind, and the cries of seabirds.

Lindy’s heart swelled.

This was her idea of heaven.

She turned back to the entrance to
the cliff path, thanking the weather gods for such a damp, blustery day. Had
the sun been shining and the lovely, remote sea cave baking under a Highland
heat wave, there’d surely be people crawling about everywhere, ruining the
atmosphere.

Spoiling the otherworldly ambiance
she’d traveled so far to enjoy.

Now….

She couldn’t have wished for a more
perfect day.

Eager to plunge right into it, she
rolled her shoulders and splayed, then wriggled her fingers, before starting down
the narrow steps to the rocky little bay and the cave at the base of the cliff.

Her descent raised the hair at the
nape of her neck, made her breathing difficult. She’d only gone a short way
when her scalp tingled, and in momentary flicker, her long flaxen braid swung
round from behind her, bouncing against her hip, she stopped in her tracks, her
blood freezing.

She didn’t have long white-blond
hair.

And she hadn’t even worn braids as
a child.

Her hair was auburn and reached
just past her shoulders. At the moment, it was caught back by a clip, because
of the wind and how much it annoyed her to have the strands fly across her
face, whipping into her eyes.

She knuckled her eyes now.

She couldn’t have mistaken her hair
for a long blond braid. She’d surely just caught a reflection of the sun
glancing off the water.

It wasn’t a bright day, but there
were moments when the cloud cover parted a bit.

Even so….

She shivered and rubbed her arms,
glad when she again caught the sharp barking of a dog. She liked dogs. And this
one’s barks lent an air of normalcy to a day that, for all her love of the woo,
was beginning to turn just a tad too unusual for her liking.

She saw the dog then. And when she
did, she knew such a strong rush of relief that she almost laughed out loud at
her nervousness.

Huge, gray, and scruffy, the dog
looked old. He wasn’t wearing a collar and a tag either. But he seemed to be
enjoying himself as he trotted along the damp shingle, pausing now and then to
sniff at tide pools near the dark-yawning entrance to the cave.

Hoping to catch a good picture of
him – after all, such a shot would look grand as an accompaniment for her
Armchair
Enthusiast
chapter on Smoo Cave – she dug into her jacket pocket for her
digital camera.

Just as she pulled it free, something
caught her eye and she glanced around, sure it’d been one of the seabirds she’d
seen earlier.

She didn’t see any birds, but she
did note a heavy bank of thick, roiling mist far out at sea, its drifting, gray
mass almost blotting the horizon.

Lindy stared, shivering.

The wind felt icier now. And – she
was sure her imagination had kicked into overdrive – but she’d swear the air
smelled different. It seemed tinged with a deeper, brittle kind of cold one
might expect to find in Iceland.

It was definitely a crisp, Nordic
type of cold.

Lindy frowned.

She could almost taste the snow.

She half expected to see little
sparkly bits of frost clinging to her jacket sleeves when she looked down to
examine them.

But, of course, she saw no such
thing.

Yet she did see something
extraordinary when she glanced up again.

Three large open-hulled boats were
pulled up at the water’s edge, their elaborately-carved prows and rowing oars
proclaiming their identity. Not to mention their square sails, raised and ready,
and the colorfully-painted shields hanging along the wooden sides.

They were exquisite replicas of
Viking longboats.

Lindy stared, eyes rounding.

They looked so real.

The bulky fur-wrapped packages and
wooden barrels and crates crammed into the narrow space between their rowing
benches looked equally authentic. Clearly provisions, the supply goods
indicated that the re-enactors were about to embark on a staged journey and not
a warring raid.

Only….

Lindy gulped.

The little group of men who came
into view just then, striding down the opposite cliff path, didn’t look like
modern day men dressed up as Viking re-enactors.

They looked like the real thing.