“Well, I’m mostly speaking Gaelic right now anyway. What do I know? So she wasn’t over-comed, she was overcome.”
“Yeah, misty-eyed.”
“Oh sure, that makes more sense.” She asked Emma, “Did you see it?”
“No, I was in the back room, listening over the baby monitor. Truthfully though, she sounded moved.”
Hayley shivered. “Truthfully, that lady doesn’t need to be moved, she needs to be fed to alligators. And that doesn’t explain why you time-jumped.”
“So the next day...” I moved Isla to nurse the other side. “I was putting Archie to bed, reading him a story, and he said, ‘Mammy come to park.’”
Hayley’s eyes went wide. “Katie, who the fuck is mammy?”
I said, “You can guess — it’s not me. He said she came to the park and was going to take him home.”
“That bitch was on the island?”
I solemnly nodded.
“Did you tell Magnus, did you tell Magnus that he better clean that shit up? That bitch better not be coming around there and—”
“Hayley, yes, I told him. We had a long talk about it just now.”
“So what’s he going to do?”
“I don’t know yet, we’re still at a loss, the security guard was gone, someone was banging on the door, we got scared, and jumped away from Florida to here, last night.”
“Shit, so whoever it was, you’re like, ‘Here’s my house, take it?’”
“Kinda — a lot like that. But Hayley, we had to get the kids out of there.” I sighed. “Also, remember, you and your little dramas here, you had: Magnus, Fraoch, Quentin, James.”
Emma said, “We only had Zachary.”
I said, “Yep, he is not the best protection.”
She shrugged. “He is pretty great with knives. He can shoot. He’s practiced with swords, like he’s not the worst, but he’d definitely rather compete in a cook-off than a battle to the death against evil time-jumpers.”
“Exactly. So we jumped here, it was death defying and terrifying and really like, awful, like I thought I might have hurt the baby, so don’t be judging me about it. Magnus and I argued about it and I am in no mood.”
Emma raised a brow. “You argued? Have you ever argued before?”
“God yes, all the time, have you met him? He can be very stuck in his ways — always thinking he knows everything about—”
I looked at both Hayley and Emma looking back at me. “Fine, we’re both that way, I get it, but I’m not kidding when I said I’m in no mood. I did the best I could. I came here. That’s what I did. Magnus was here.”
Hayley softened. “I’m not questioning why you came, honey. When I hear your stories, about what goes on with your life, I never know how to advise you. I don’t know. I do know this: you’re usually doing the best you can. But... seriously, you need mad skills. You need to be armed. You need more hand-to-hand combat training, more kickboxing or dagger fighting.”
“Magnus used to run me through drills all the time.”
“I bet he did.”
“Very funny. Plus I took a defense class, my first year in college. It actually came in handy once when I used keys in my fist against Magnus’s step-dad. He’s dead now, Lady Mairead should totally be thanking me.”
“Perfect, like more of all of that, you need skills.”
Isla was done nursing, I pulled her off my breast and up to my shoulder and rocked her there. “So, right after I get Isla and Archie down for a nap, when I’m at my most sluggish, needing a nap myself, then — you and I will run through some fighting moves.”
“You’ll be a mom-slash-superhero. Instead of Black Widow, you can be Plaid Slug.”
I rolled my eyes, but laughed too. “I know you’re joking, but you aren’t wrong.”
“So what’s our plan?”
“We need to get Emma’s family out of here, tonight, after the scouts return. Once Magnus and the boys are back, we’ll discuss where to send Emma and Zach and Ben. We might send Beaty with them, perhaps Archie.” I looked across the room at Archie jumping off a chair like he was a bird, a little line of eighteenth century children following his lead. “Or maybe not Archie. In a perfect world he would go where Ben goes, living the toddler life, but he’s the son of a king and his murderous bitch mom is hunting for him, so he needs to stay with me.”
Hayley said, “Again, you need to be better armed.”