Page 70 of Beyond Dreams

Most incredibly, while her husband nodded dutifully at his wife, the men Aedan and Michael exchanged grins.

It was too impossible to believe, but then these people were too convincing to be faking all this—these men, rugged and earthy, were simply not modern; these women, though dressed similarly to Holly, were clearly not medieval. She sent a look to Graeme, and deciding his expression was as befuddled as hers, though he lacked the extra knowledge that she and these women apparently possessed, of the 21stcentury, she faced the women again and said, “My name is Holly Wright. I was born in 1999. I’m from Pennsylvania.”

No one said a word, though plenty of knowing and compassionate glances were exchanged.

It was, after several seconds, Graeme who spoke.

“Hold,” he said. “Cease with this...this madness.” He held up his hands, staring at Holly though his outburst seemed to include everyone in the room. “Just...cease. Why? Why are you doing this?”

“Michael?” Kayla said pointedly. “Maybe it would be best if we spoke with Holly alone.”

“Aye,” said Michael MacClellan, beckoning to Graeme.. “Let’s leave the lasses—”

Graeme snorted. “I’m nae leaving her here with them. Duncan would have my head if anything happened to—”

Holly interrupted this BS with a snort of her own. “I doubt that, Graeme.”

“Ohhh,” said Cora, the single word drawn out.

“Oh!” Agreed Gabby. “I thought you were with—oh, I see.”

“Who’s Duncan?” Kayla asked.

Cora’s whisper was not very quiet. “Duncan MacQuillan, Graeme’s cousin. Laird of Thallane.”

“Why is he not here with her?” Kayla whispered back.

“We don’t know that yet,” Cora answered and then smiled prettily at Holly.

Gabby shooed the men out of the room. “She’s in good hands, sir. Never you fear.”

Lucas Thain pulled the door closed after the three men had exited, raising Holly’ brow and shading Cora’s cheeks pink with the wink he gave his wife as he back out.

Holly then faced Cora, Gabby, and Kayla, scarcely able to fathom that they were all form another time as well.

“Now what?”

“Now,” said Gabby, “we’ll share out experiences and try to help you any way we can. We’re all in the same boat.”

Holly knew a sense of solidarity at the same time she felt distinctly alone. Considering three of the men who’d just left, she said, “I have a feeling my boat is the only one sinking.”

The next few hours were both enlightening and almost as unbelievable as what she’d endured over the past two weeks. First and foremost, there was another young woman, Eloise, who’d likewise been tossed backward through the centuries.

“She lives at Brechmont, near us,” said Gabby. “She’s alive and well. She’s close to delivering her second child or she’d have come as well.”

The women shared their tales. All had been visiting Scotland for different reasons. No two circumstances were alike; some, like Holly, had seen or met the witch prior to being transported; Cora had met Lucas within hours of coming here but Gabby had survived for weeks before she’d met Michael; some had endured more frights and hardships than Holly could have imagined. But not one of them wanted to go home, which Holly felt separated her from the bunch.

“So,” said Cora, after a while, using her knuckle to push her glasses further up on her nose, “what’s going on with you and the MacQuillan laird?”

Holly sighed and opened up about her own story, all of it. Just before she began, Cora nudged Gabby. “The notebook.” When Gabby jumped up and went to the writing desk, Cora explained, “We’ve all just connected recently. This is only the second time we’ve met—

“Our poor husbands,” Kayla inserted. “They’re more confused than we are.”

Cora continued. “But we decided to keep a record, both a journal and a present account of our lives.” She shrugged, a twinge of sadness seen in her bright green eyes. “You know? In case we never do manage to get back there, in case history wants to know what happened to us.”

The museum studies girl inside her considered the spiral bound notebook and ball point pen Gabby returned with.

“You will have to figure out a way to preserve it,” Holly said. “That won’t survive seven hundred years.”

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