Cuckoo in the Coven

“Oh, trust me, ghosts don’t scare me.” She gave a weak smile. “It takes more than that to spook me. Although I have to admit I’m pretty spooked right now.”

She had a faraway look in her beautiful brown eyes. They gleamed with some knowledge he didn’t understand. She was a strange, fey woman. “There’s magic at play here.”

“You aren’t kidding.” She gave a disbelieving laugh.

“No, I meant you, lass, it’s witchcraft, isn’t it? I’m in league with a witch.” Even as the thought had occurred to him, he realized the idea didn’t shock him as much as it might have done. Cornwall was full of tales of white witches and those not so white, women and men who could weave magic with their words and spells. Raven’s Landing was legendary for such goings on.

“I wish I were, because then I might understand this, or have some control over it.”

“Tell me what you mean, tell me about where you are from, your place.”

Even as he asked her–and yes, he did mean to find out what was behind her sudden change of mood and her earlier comments–he brushed his fingers over the shirt that bunched and nestled between her soft, full breasts, and stroked the malleable flesh, weighing it gently and sighing as it took its effect on him. Something about the wench made him grow drunk on her presence. Was it witchcraft?

He would never tire of looking at her—he knew that much with certainty. She was so pleasing to the eye and had a peculiar way about her he hadn’t found in any other woman, some spark, some lack of shame or the like. No simpering maiden and he liked that, he hungered for more of it. It would be difficult to leave Cornwall, doubly so since she had come into his life. Would she accompany him on his travels? He would try to convince her.

“The place I live in, well it’s here, but it’s not here.” She looked sad. “I think I’ve gone back in time, I mean, I’ve come back in time...to you.”

Whatever he was expecting her to say, it wasn’t that. Come back in time? Her brain was surely addled.

She looked at him with sudden, dark intensity glistening in her eyes and then she looked away and stared at the cave walls. “You think I’m mad, don’t you?”

“What you are saying makes little sense. Maybe you gave your pretty head a bash last night.” He was eager to draw her attention back to him.

“Maybe I did.” She gave a sad sigh.

He sensed confusion in her, rather than madness, and wondered if she were weaving some strange tale to amuse him. Her eyes were still focused on the far wall of the cave. “You’re not from these parts, I can see that, but you’ve no need to try to impress me with tall tales.”

“No, Cullen, please listen.” Her eyes shone with tears, and she gripped his arm with sudden desperation. “I thought it was a dream, but it isn’t.” She shook her head. “I’m meant to be in the future, two hundred years from now.”

Two hundred years hence? He laughed heartily, then he caught sight of the reprehension in her eyes and guilt stole into his heart. He stared at her. “What makes you think you’re from a different time?”

“I live here, here in Raven’s Landing, but in the twenty-first century.”

Annoyance hit him. “This is ridiculous talk.”

She shut her eyes, one hand clutching at her hair, the other on the locket at her throat. “How can I explain it, when I can’t even understand it myself?” She growled with frustration. “If only I could show you,” she murmured, seemingly to herself.

He stood up and paced across the cave, turning back to look at her. She was yearning for his understanding, he felt her reaching across the space to him. He shook his head. No, it was nonsense. It had to be madness.

“Wait,” she said, clambering to her feet. She darted toward him, holding the locket she wore at her throat. “Look here.” She held the locket up to him, her hands shaking as she prized it open. “Look inside.”

He was wary, but did as she requested. Inside the locket was a small miniature likeness of Sunny, standing by a doorway. It was incredible work, for it looked almost real, as if she were standing right there inside her own locket. It was the strangest thing he’d ever seen.

“Can you see it, on the photo, the cottage, see how different it looks?“

He glanced at the doorway, the walls. Astonished, his gaze ran over the miniature again. The beams above the doorway were well worn, as if they had been there many years, the plasterwork in dire need of attention. It was indeed the cottage, though. Nathaniel’s aunt’s home. “It is as if...as if it is old already.” He said it without thinking.

She nodded vigorously. “Yes, you see, this is a photograph of me in my own time, at the house.”

He felt uneasy. “The artist has painted it this way.”

“No, it’s not a painting. It’s what we call a photograph. In the future, we can capture an image like this, with a device called a camera.”

He shook his head, understanding far from being within his grasp. And yet...He looked at her. Her eyes were filled with hope.

Everything about her was unusual and forthright, that much was true. And she didn’t even own her own shoes, for heaven’s sake. Could it be true? It made sense of her strange ways though, and the odd things she had said. He couldn’t deny that. Confusion battled within him, his mind and his heart at odds.

“I