There was another photo, with white edges, very vintage and faded. I was about ten years old in one of the Adirondack chairs with a big grin. He said, looking down on the photo fondly, “I stole this from Barb because I liked it, ye hae the same smile and eyes, yet ye are so wee and silly there.”
Isla reached for it. I said, “This is a photo of me when I was a kid.”
She narrowed her eyes and dropped it to the side. “What else inside the box?”
Quentin lifted out a bundle wrapped in tartan cloth. He gingerly unwrapped it and there was a vessel.
“Och, we canna escape them, they are everywhere.”
I said, “Remember when we thought we could record them all and protect them all in one place?”
Quentin said, “Ah, the folly of youthful time travelers.”
Magnus said, “Each vessel exists in every time, so we are finding them over and over, but also, ye ken, there are more we dinna ken about. I thought we did, but we ken less than before.”
Quentin said, “Like all your brothers.”
I teased. “I wonder if you have more brothers, or more vessels?”
Archie said, “You have so many new brothers. Are they all my uncles?”
Magnus said, “Aye, all of them, and Uncle Lochinvar is older than yer father, I want ye tae ken.”
Ben said, “He looks alotyounger.”
Magnus chuckled. “He is still old, I ken it is confusing. Just like I’m technically older than Fraoch, but if ye lined us up it would go, Fraoch, then me, then m’new brother, the song bird, Finch Mac, then Lochinvar. And there is yer Uncle Sean in Scotland.”
He and Ben looked at each other with their eyes wide. “Wait, Finch Mac is my uncle? That is so freaking cool!”
“Aye, I thought ye heard!”
Archie said, “You don’t tell us anything.”
Ben, looking so much like his dad, said, “Yeah, you try to,” he made finger quotes, “protect us.”
Next Quentin pulled from the box a sgian-dubh.
“Tis one of my favorites!” Magnus turned it over in his hand. “See the Campbell crest? Twas from Baldie, I dinna ken where it had gone.”
Then there was a small silver box, with beautiful decorations all around it. Magnus said, “Guess what is inside?”
Ben and Archie said, “Gold and jewels.”
Magnus said, “Even better.” He lifted the lid and inside were five shark teeth.
Everyone oohed and aahed.
He said, “I kept them with me tae guide me, but the last time I jumped tae get back tae yer mother I dinna hae them with me. I suppose they were packed up and put away for my return.”
Then he pulled out a few pens.
“You were already collecting them?”
“I wrote ye many letters with them.”
“Can I keep them?” I clutched them to my chest.
He nodded and dug through the box and pulled out an embroidery hoop with a rudimentary thistle embroidered in the middle.
