Page 19 of Her Highland Prophecy
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“Ibelieve ye,” Gordain said, as she pondered what more she could tell him.
She had been trying to think of other ways to prove that she was telling the truth, more inventions from the future to prove that she was not crazy. She was struggling to find ways to explain trains and airplanes when he spoke.
“You do?” she asked in surprise.
“Aye, I do,a nighean,” he said, his eyes warm. She smiled back at him, grateful. “We still have a bit of a problem though.”
“What’s that? And what does that word mean? You said it earlier as well.”
“A nighean? It means lass or girl,” he explained. “The problem is that ye cannae tell anyone yer tale. I’m afraid that they wouldnae believe ye and ye would be accused of being a witch.”
She shivered violently at the idea of being anywhere near the witch trials of the era. The stories she had read about the women who were called witches never ended well in her history books.
“You don’t think that I’m a witch?”
“Och, nay,” he shook his head. “I’m nay superstitious, but many of me kin would nay hesitate to turn ye in.”
“Definitely a bad idea to talk about it then,” she agreed with a shudder. “It would only be or a few weeks anyway. You said that the fair in Ballachulish would be starting soon, right?”
“Aye, in three weeks.”
“I would only need to stay silent until then. After that, I’ll go to the fair and see if I can find a gypsy to tell me how to go back.”
At least, that was what she hoped would happen. The chances were small, but she remembered how the gypsy Esmeralda had said that the medallion had been in her family for a long time. Maybe Diana could find one of those ancestors at the fair in this time. Or someone who would know how to find that cave. She gasped in excitement and turned back to Gordain again.
“Maybe we could find the cave! It was not too far from the fairgrounds near Ballachulish, in the valley just behind it. Do you know the place I’m talking about?”
“There is nay valley near Ballachulish. It is surrounded by forest. Ye could search forever and not find it unless ye kent exactly where it was.”
Her face fell further with each word he said as any hope of finding the cave she had used to travel disappeared. The only possibility now was to be given its location by one of the gypsies. Maybe…
“There are no caves at all in the area?” she asked again with a tiny spark of optimism.
“The only caves that I ken about are far north of her, near the Castle of me clan. I’m sorry, Lass.”
“I guess I’ll have to wait until the gypsies return then.”
She could not even imagine the alternative. Staying alone, in Scotland, in the seventeenth century where she could be killed by anything from a sword to a simple illness was not an option. She would go insane if she thought of it too long.
Beyond that, she had no skills to protect herself or even to find things to eat. She didn’t know how to hunt and with her luck, the first berries she picked would be of the poisonous variety and then time travel would be the least of her worries.
“‘Tis a guid plan,” Gordain said, “to wait for the gypsies to return. But I think we can help each other while ye wait.”
“How?” she asked curiously.
He had saved her life more than once it seemed. Once with the brigands earlier and then again by warning her not to spread her story. If she could offer him any help while she was still in the past, she would gladly do so.
“I told ye earlier how I have to marry into a wealthy family so we can keep the Lairdship in me family, do ye recall?”
“Yes, although I don’t understand how that works exactly.” She tried to remember if she had ever read anything about how the clans chose their Laird but could not remember anything past it being passed down from father to son. The reality must have been different than what she had learned.
“If our Clansmen feel like we are nay doing what we can for the Clan they can rally behind someone else who has claim.”
“Like a coup?”
“A what?
