She eyed the dress for a while. “He’s safe?”
“Yes. I swear. I invited him in,” I pleaded.
She nodded. “Once he wakes, he leaves. Da will be home soon.”
“Thanks,” I said, covering my underdress or whatever it was called with the cloak.
I took one last look at Duncan before I slipped out, hating all that would come next. I kept an eye out for the witch as I left as the event from the past played forward in my present. When I caught sight of a hooded woman heading my way, I had the strongest feeling it was the witch. Quickly, I rounded the corner to the side of the tiny home I’d been in. That side faced the main road, but the entrance to it was on the side street I’d fled.
A man stumbled into me. “Sorry, lass,” he said, sounding drunk. He kept going thankfully but didn’t go far. He turned the corner I’d come from and entered the house I’d been in.
“Now who’s this?” he bellowed, the sound easily penetrating walls made of sticks and branches and not sealed shut.
I leaned forward to peer in one of the tiny gaps. The man was the girl’s father I surmised. I glanced at the sky, which was still dark. He was home early, based on when she’d said her dad would be home.
Duncan’s voice, sluggish, came next. “Sorry. I’m so sorry. Here—” He’d gotten a hold of his pants and pulled out a small leather pouch. He held it out to the man. I was certain it was full of coins.
As much as I wanted to stay, I couldn’t. The part of Duncan’s story about this day that should have clued me in that the past couldn’t be changed was when he’d mentioned feeling the same thing with the girl he felt when I was nearby.
It wasn’t witchcraft, at least not in the way he thought. He’d felt me. I’d been here in his past, my present. We’d experienced the same events in a different order.
I had to go before he felt me now and his memory of what had happened would change. Something in my gut said that as much as I wanted to take away his torment, he was the man he was because of these events. So I ran.
The sky screamed, and it wasn’t from the storm. Night had fallen, and I lost my way. I could have stepped through time and saved myself. But taking this cloak from someone could be the ripple that changed history.
“Elin.” It was a wicked whisper in my ear. I ran faster and finally found the clothesline. The clothes were still there, so the cloak hadn’t been missed. I flung it off me and then over the line when a man—or thing—appeared before me.
“Little bird, little bird, let me come in.”
I stepped back and someone or something caught me. Instead of screaming, I focused and let my body become deadweight. My captor hadn’t expected it and loosened the hold on me long enough for me to slip through time as if I melted into the ground.
When I arrived at my destination, I was not the same as I’d been since learning of my gift. I wasn’t Elin, the adult, but Elin the child. Through slats, I could see a hallway I remembered, but it was different all the same. The table near the door wasn’t a mass-produced item found on any website of my present. The table that was there had been handcrafted of solid wood. It wasn’t as fine as the furniture in Duncan’s castle, but it looked sturdy and tough to take the wear and tear of time long past.
The wall it stood against was free of paint and bore the natural color of the wood that created them. Though it was a shock, I realized that younger me wasn’t in what I thought was near my present but closer to that of Duncan’s past.
I was hidden in a cubby not far from the hall, experiencing my past as if I was reliving it as my younger self.
Mom lay on her back in that hallway. I was hidden from the man who hovered over her.
“Where is the child?” he barked. The man was dressed in armor covered by a light-blue tunic.
Worse, I could feel he wasn’t a nice man, my nine-year-old self thought. Mom had told me to stay hidden no matter what. But I didn’t like the gleaming sword in his hand.
“Where is my child?” he asked again.
Thirteen
Memories fade over time and one cannot be expected to remember events of the past with the same vigor as those in the present. But thrust back in time as my former self, I was confronted with all the things I’d chosen to forget.
“Michael, please,” Mom begged.
Michael was my father. I’d been given his name as my surname.