“You’re in Cowal, Scotland, the Highlands. The year is one thousand and fifty.”
Mildred ground her teeth and nodded. “So a few minutes ago it was nineteen forty-two and now it’s one thousand fifty. Keen.”
Adlin smiled. “It’s only a thousand years or so.”
His grin dropped beneath her stern expression.
“Seems to me you have the easier end of all this,” she pointed out dryly.
“Aye, it would seem that way.”
“Well, it is that way,” Mildred spat.
Adlin cocked a brow. “So is it safe to assume you’ve accepted your surroundings?”
As if she offered him a boon, Mildred nodded her head once and continued to eye their surroundings. “Suppose I’ve no choice, do I?”
“I wish you did but nay.” Adlin nodded over his shoulder. “But I can promise you one thing. Going that way, following me, won’t be nearly as bad as your dream.”
“Nightmare,” she muttered.
“Nightmare,” he conceded. What else could he say? Not much. Nothing she would believe anyway.
Mildred seemed to be a little more accepting of her current situation. He could see and sense it in her posture. She looked in the direction in which he’d nodded. “What’s there?”
“My castle.My clan.”
“Scotland, a thousand years ago or so.” She brushed hair away from her forehead in a determined gesture. “That can’t be good.”
Adlin couldn’t help but grin. “Oh, ‘tis not that bad. In fact, you might be surprised.”
Her eyes shot his way. “You said it was your clan?”
He shrugged. “As much as a clan can be any one man’s but aye, the MacLomains are mine, lass.”
“You like to be evasive, don’t you?” Mildred started to walk into the forest.
“Actually, I do. ‘Tis my thing I suppose.” The lass walked in the wrong direction. Catching up, he slowly steered her in the right direction.
“I’m scared,” she stated as she walked. “You should know that.”
“Aye,” he agreed quietly.
But she plowed on, her determined gait moving her steadily through the highland woods as though she owned them. He couldn’t help but wonder if she truly understood that this was actually happening. After all, she’d dreamt of it her whole life. Yet he knew meeting him for the first time was the easy part. She might think it hard but what she was about to encounter would drive it all home, would probably make her drop to her knees.
“It’s beautiful,” she whispered, her eyes scanning the horizon as they broke free from the trees. But Mildred’s stride didn’t slow. Her pure determination remained intact despite such an odd visage.
Adlin watched in wonder as she seemed to swallow her fear and continue walking. His wooden castle shone sturdy in the early morning sun. Bright green grass spread out like a soft, velvety carpet. The loch surrounded it on three sides in a sparkling splendor of blues and greens and shimmering iridescent shadows.
It was only when she’d walked halfway across the wide field that she slowed and said, “I shouldn’t walk up to it first.”
“Dinnae worry, lass, they willnae stop you.”
Mildred finally stopped and stared, her expression lost. Her long hair blew in the wind, chin stayed strong. Her eyes grew sad before she whispered, “No, of course not. But I do not belong.”
“So many heavy thoughts so soon,” he said immediately and took her hand again. Before she could respond he started walking. “If you had not had the dreams and then traveled back in time you would not belong. But ‘tis not the case.”
She stopped short and their hands fell apart. “That’s where you’re wrong, Adlin. I tend to think none of this would exist had I not had my dreams.”
“Then you give yourself too much credit.”
***
Mildred stared blankly at Adlin then again at the castle. She gave herself too much credit? Highly unlikely. The castle was beautiful, the man beside her equally so. No, everything she thought, saw and felt right now was very, very real. No ‘credit’ needed.
What amazed her most was how comfortable she felt. Somehow that should be alarming. But it wasn’t. Had the dream/nightmare prepared her that much?
Or had her mother?
She stopped several hundred yards before the gates and looked at Adlin. There was no doubt that she gazed upon a Scottish highlander, a man born in a different time than hers. Though it was all hard to believe, Mildred wasn’t such a fool to find the whole scenario impossible.
After all, she came from a lineage of magic.
Yet nothing of what her mother had spoken of in the past could have prepared her for this. Did her mother even know? Did Adlin? Obviously.