Chapter 4 - Revised

Chapter 4

She removed the thread from her leg and almost gagged. Although the skin had grown back together, it left her with a grotesque jagged scar that Kyla knew she’d have forever.

She was grateful for the long skirts that Mary brought her which reached her ankles. She’d have to find a good plastic surgeon for this one.

Maybe she could even show Jeanette modern medicine when she could finally return home, though she doubted the woman would ever switch from her ancient healing traditions.

She gave in, after an argument, when Jeanette brought her a makeshift crutch made of wood. She was determined to walk on her own, but quickly realized that Jeanette had been right. She couldn’t do it without the crutch. Always being in control, ahead of the game and the leader of the class, Kyla grabbed it stubbornly and began to slowly hobble away.

She limped around the lands, mad at her body, and set upon a large hill to the right of Jeanette’s house.

By the time she reached the top she was breathless and her leg ached fiercely. She sat on the ground and massaged the sore muscle in the morning sun.

The land below was a mystery to her. She could see many houses now, since that’s what they called them, she referred to them as houses as well. To Kyla they were no more than small little straw mud rooms.

“Tis beautiful aye?” a voice came from the trees and Kyla turned in all directions. When she saw Alistair walk from behind a large trunk, her heart sped up and she cursed herself. She was his prisoner, yet he intrigued her more than any man she’d ever met.

“Yes, it is beautiful.” Kyla never liked the wilderness, but there was peace here that she never let sink into her soul before now. She was too busy thinking about school or getting back to London; she felt it now as the soft breeze moved against her face and the warm sun enveloped her. The smell of spring was in the air.

Alastair sat next to her with his knees pulled up and his arms slacked over them. His hands held papers that Kyla wanted to see but didn’t dare ask. He wore tan britches with a beige shirt that was cut at the collar. He smelled of grass and rain mixed with the musky scent of man. It would have disturbed her before, now she found it intoxicating.

She turned her head to find him looking at her with eyes the color of the sea on a clear day. He hadn’t shaved and his normally smooth skin was dusted with red fuzz.

Kyla’s instinct was to turn away, to stand up and walk away from the man that threw her into a frenzy. He was strong and stern he was a leader while she was a captive under his care.

“Yer a curious lass,” he finally spoke after studying her for what seemed an eternity.

Kyla laughed without humor. “I’m the curious one?”

“Aye yer the curious one indeed,” he winked at her with a wide smile, amused at her spirit. “Where do ye come from?” His smile faded quickly when the question left his lips.

She looked down at the primitive homes. She looked at the two large stone houses that sat atop the adjacent hill. She assumed they belonged to Alistair and Colin. They were large and overlooked the lands.

Where did she come from? She couldn’t tell him the truth. She certainly didn’t come from here or anywhere around here. The idea that this was not a dream was becoming more of a reality for her. Too much time had passed. Too many things had transpired and the curvy thick line that ran down her leg was certainly real enough for her.

“Ye won’t say?” Alistair took her silence as an answer.

“I can’t say.” Kyla corrected him.

“Is someone threatening you lass?” Alastair’s gaze softened.

Even out of her dreams, he was protective over her. She was sure it was him now. She didn’t know how or why but there was no doubt in her mind that the man sitting next to her was the man she had dreamt about for the past two years.

Kyla shook her head.

“I don’t understand you Kyla.” Alistair reached out and tucked a blonde streaked lock of hair behind her ear. He pulled back quickly when she pulled her face away from his hand.

“I don’t understand me either.” She regretted pulling her head back from his hand. She sucked her bottom lip into her teeth to stop herself from biting her already bitten to the skin fingernails.

Alistair watched the dimple in her right cheek grow deeper as she sucked in her lip. Her golden eyes lit up from the morning sun making them look like they were on fire. He could almost see the flames behind them as flecks of amber sparked throughout them.

“What don’t you understand? Tell me how you came to be on my lands and maybe I can help you.”

“That’s just it…I don’t know.” Kyla sighed deeply.

“Colin said ye had a lot of the drink in ye.” He nodded, thinking he had it all figured out.

“Yes, I did. The night is mostly a blur for me.” She looked down at the papers in his hands. “Is that a book?”

“Aye ‘tis the most important book of all. These are the scriptures. It’s the Sabbath today.” He looked down the hill to see his people gathering in the large stable next to his house. The Kirk had been destroyed but not their faith.

“May I see?” Kyla reached for the papers and began to read. She didn’t notice Alistair’s wide eyes or his slackened jaw, not until she pulled her head up after reading the first verse.

“You can read?” His voice was filled with awe.

“Of course,” she answered slightly surprised by his reaction.

“Well I’ll be,” Alistair shook his head. “Ye are a curious lass.”

“Can you not read?”

“Aye, I can read as can Colin. Our father taught us. Do you think you might show Mary and the others?”

“They can’t read?” Kyla asked in amazement.

Alastair’s features hardened. “Nay, they weren’t taught to read. There is no reason for a woman to know how to read.”

At first Kyla was offended at the chauvinistic comment. She was about to tell him just that when he spoke again.

“But Mary is verra smart as are the other women here. I’ve always thought it to be a foolish tradition not to teach the lasses to read.”

She shut her mouth.

“I’d be happy to teach them.”

“Will ye join us for prayer then?”

Kyla shook her head. She stopped going to church even at her mother’s insistence. She wasn’t going to start now. She believed in God, She prayed to God, but she did it in her own way. Her mother was scandalized by Kyla’s decision not to attend church. The Catholic Church meant everything to her mother. She wondered now if it was more a teenage rebellion thing for her not to go or if she truly just lost interest. She had been baptized Catholic and felt Catholic, but she couldn’t bring herself to attend mass.

“Is yer leg still hurting you?” Alastair assumed the only reason she wouldn’t attend church would be out of pain. He could think of no other excuse.

“Yes, it is a bit sore. Are you Catholic then?”

“We are papists’ aye.”

“Where is your church?” Kyla also watched the clan gather in the stable with gravestones behind it. She would assume they would have a church with the graveyard next to it.

“Burnt to the ground like all the other Kirks from the surrounding clans.”

“Who would burn your church?” Kyla asked in shock.

“You,” Alistair said abruptly and then stood up wiping his pants from behind.

“What are you talking about?”

“You, the British, the Kirks were outlawed. We are now supposed to follow the Common Book of Prayer. Ye should ken that being English.” He was angry at her ignorance.

“I’m not English! I’m a Scot just like you!” Kyla’s own anger rose, she felt it bubbling inside of her ready to burst like a shaken Coke can.

“Ye may be a Scot and ye may not be, but yer not just like me.” Alastair was down the hill before she could ask what he meant.

“Bloody hell,” Kyla picked up a rock and threw it in his direction. She was mad at herself for pulling away from him.

More confused than ever, she hobbled back down the hill determined to find out exactly what was going on.

Why did she have to bathe in the lake? Why did they have no bathrooms? She saw no electrical lines above, no phone lines hanging from pole to pole littering the land. They lived primitively with no cars or trains not even a bus station. There was no grocery store, that she could see.

They ate from the land and slaughtered their own cows. The MacFarlane’s lived in a place where time stood still and the inhabitants stood still with it.

Their odd talk and old ways had her reeling. At first she thought she had been taken into a strange cult.

Alastair refused to take her into Edinburgh until her leg had healed completely. She begged and pleaded with him to no avail. He was a hard man but a fair man; she’d have to give him credit for that. Colin had promised her that they would not hurt her and he hadn’t lied. In fact, they had been nothing but kind to her. The tenants of Loch Lomond weren’t so trusting of her, matching Duncan Keir’s feelings. But Colin and Mary were becoming her friends and Jeanette was the kindest woman she had ever met.

Ah, who was she kidding? It was Alistair that stopped her from running into the woods for help. It was the tall stranger that had her heart in her throat every time he turned his moss green eyes her way and flashed a bright smile. She felt a bond with him and wanted to get to know him. She just wasn’t sure he felt the same way. In fact, she really wasn’t quite sure what Alistair thought of her.

She watched as people scurried out of their houses to attend church. The mud houses made the countryside look like giant ant hills with tiny ants scurrying out of them single file towards their prize…prayer.

She took her chance when she saw most of the people empty out of their homes and into the stable.

Kyla walked up the hill to the two large houses made of carved limestone. Large gaps in the houses were filled with sticks and moss.

She knocked on the door of the house to the left making sure it was empty. When no one answered she opened the heavy wooden door.

The smell almost knocked her over.

The house was dark and Kyla focused her eyes to adjust to the lack of light. The floor at least had stone blocks instead of dirt.

Kyla saw a large area with a fire pit in the middle. Stone shelves adorned the walls and bowls and pots sat on the shelves. A heavy kettle simmered over the fire attached by a large log. Kyla put her face into the steam and smelled meat and vegetables, removing the putrid smell that seemed to stick to the lining of her nostrils.

A curtain lay to the left and Kyla peeked behind it to see a large bed. She noticed this bed was made of down, not straw.

A curtain on the other side of the room showed two smaller beds, one built on top of the other resembling bunk beds.

Colin’s house, she thought. Colin and Mary had two children, Neil and Rose. Mary was making stew for after church.

She heard movement in the next room and jumped quickly behind the curtain sitting on the little bed with her heart beating in her ears. She waited a moment without breathing. Her lungs could take no more and she quietly let the air out of her lungs. Hearing no more movement, Kyla peeked behind the curtain seeing the wooden door still shut. She glanced around to the other side of the house and gasped.

A large hairy cow stood staring at her with big brown eyes. Tufts of hair covered his forehead and two pointy horns burst out of his head. She almost laughed. She had read about the Highlanders holding cattle in their houses. She didn’t think they did so anymore. He blew out through his nose at the sight of her, lifted his tail and urinated loudly.

“I won’t tell if you won’t tell,” she whispered to the large beast. “It explains the smell in here.”

The cow answered with a bite of straw. His mouth moved back and forth lazily as he watched her trespass in his home.

Kyla snuck back outside after cracking the door open and seeing no onlookers. She quickly hobbled to the house next door, Alistair’s house.

This time she wasn’t surprised when she saw two hairy cows take up half the large house.

Alistair had the same fire pit, but no large kettle of food was cooking over it. She saw one lonely bed in the corner and sat on it feeling the down enfold around her. She felt as if she was sitting on a cloud and wished she could sleep in it…just for a moment. She knew she was running out of time so she stood up and continued her search. Just what she was searching for, she wasn’t quite sure.

He was Laird here; he’d have to have some kind of papers to tell her where in the Highlands she was. She had been to Loch Lomond…this was not it.
She walked the house feeling every nerve ending in her body tingle. Kyla knew if someone were to touch her they might just feel the jolt of electricity that seemed to radiate off her. Her palms began to sweat and she glanced at the door every second, sure that he would come through it and find her in his home.

Kyla found a desk with some papers on it. She lifted one, staring at the fine sharp curved handwriting of Alastair MacFarlane. Dots of ink splattered the page and the writing faded off in certain places. Kyla looked down to see he was writing with a quill and some dark ink.

Intrigued by this old way of living she turned her attention back to the letter. It was written in a language she didn’t understand. She turned it around looking for some sort of name or town.
She glanced at the top and felt her hands begin to shake. Clearly, neatly she saw one line that chilled her to the bone.

In the year of our Lord, 1715, written in English, written on thin cotton-like paper.
Kyla felt her body tingle as pins and needles seemed to take over her already electrified nerve endings. The answer was there, she had known it all along she just hadn’t been able to accept it. As realization hit, she felt her knees buckle and knew her body was trying to faint on her.

The door swung open and Kyla looked up in a haze. Mary stood there. At first she looked confused then her face turned to fear.

“Kyla, what’s wrong? Ye look as if yer about to drop.” Mary ran quickly towards Kyla, just as she was about to drop.

She snatched the paper from her hands. “Are ye spying lass? Looking for information to bring back to the King?” Mary’s tone changed to anger. Her face held a look of shock as she stood with one hand on Kyla’s elbow and the other holding the document. Kind, sweet Mary looked hurt as she glared at her, waiting for an answer.

Kyla’s mouth slacked. Her puzzled mind slowly began putting the pieces together.

It was the stone. The spinning, the lights…somehow it had brought her back in time. She dropped to the floor into a puddle of gray gown.

“I’m not a spy Mary…I’ve gone crazy…but I’m not a spy.”