The Wellspring (Kaitlyn and the Highlander #12) - Diana Knightley Page 0,111
coffee. “Whoa! Hot Fernandina Fudge, it’s fucking frigid out there!”
Emma called out, “Zachary! Language!”
He said, “What? I said Hot Fernandina Fudge, the kids don’t like fudge?”
Archie giggled. “Zach said fudge.”
James and Quentin and Fraoch took turns on watch. There wasn’t much to do all day except be freezing and jokingly complain about how cold we were.
The kids put on all their coats and boots, long minutes of struggle, only to play for three minutes — trudging around in the snow. Then they ran back to Zach’s tent to play together in the relative warmth.
After coffee and a nice breakfast, from inside my tent, I called out, “Hey we should have a snowball fight!”
It was a massive snow battle, that went from casual and silly to massive and wide-ranging, with James and Quentin and Hayley against Fraoch and Magnus and me. Zach pretended to be on both sides, until we realized he was playing both sides. So we chased him around with arms full of snow but he was fast, and wily, and so very lanky, high stepping through the snow. We about died laughing watching him in a gangly high-knee run with his face twisted in a grimace, while we all chased him.
Emma was barely able to speak she was laughing so hard. “Oh my god, honey, you have the funniest run, your arms going…” She acted it out and then he ran by her, picked her up, and dumped her in a snowbank. We all descended on each other in a giant free-for-all, lobbing handfuls of snow until we were all collapsed in the snow banks and then the kids roared up and threw snowballs. We were done fighting, so Fraoch declared that Archie and Ben won the day.
Archie and Ben hopped around yelling, “We won! We won!”
I said to Magnus, “You cool?”
“I am verra cool.”
We all went to our individual tents for nap time.
Climbing into our warm bedding, Magnus said, “Ye are right, we will make a place tae live, in Scotland as soon as I am able tae travel.”
Sixty-four - Kaitlyn
By the time we jumped to the eighteenth century, we were all completely over camping in the snow. Magnus had felt ready to move two days before, but I made us wait, because I was nervous and though everyone else was tired of camping, stir crazy in our tents and the cold, they understood my hesitation. We argued against going too fast and jokingly pretended to be having more fun than we were like Zach saying, “Nah man, I love freezing my ballsack to get a cup of coffee brewed.”
And James saying, “Nah man, I love staying up all night staring out at the freezing dark void.”
We were relieved to leave, headed to Balloch, 1706.
We landed at the clearing, we chose spring time, and Sean met us, “Young Magnus! Ye hae returned with all yer friends — are ye bringing another army down upon us as well?”
“Nae, Sean, I hope not. I want tae simply see m’family without a war at the walls.”
“Sounds good tae me.”
And we were escorted to the castle, our things portered in trips.
Lizbeth rushed up to us, “Kaitlyn! Madame Hayley! Beaty! Madame Emma! Och! I see a wee bairn with the countenance of her mother, tis Isla? Now so grown? Are ye ten years auld now?”
Isla said, “I am two!”
“Two years auld, seems only a few months ago we were tae see ye a mewling bairn.” Her eyes glistened merrily and she joked, “If I dinna ken ye were time travelers I wouldna ken what tae think of the bairn growin’ so tall. Ye will catch up tae yer cousins if ye arna careful. Now look at the lot of ye.” She put her hands on her hips. “Ye are as unwashed and full of stench as if ye had been a month on a hunt.”
“Kind of, can we go up to some rooms, get warmed up and better looking?”
“Aye, if the Earl sees ye in this state he is liable tae turn ye from the castle.” She laughed and then went into her organizational mode, arranging to have our rooms cleaned and readied while we milled about, waiting for her to work her magic.
Then she accompanied us up to our room. Magnus said, as we climbed the stairs, “I am glad tae hear that the Earl is in residence, I need tae speak tae him on a matter.”
Lizbeth paused, mid-step. “Are ye well, Young Magnus? Ye daena look yer usual vigor.”