But it wasn’t Kaitlyn and James. The time travelers this time were Lady Mairead and General Hammond.
CHAPTER 28 - MAGNUS
We waited for them tae waken, finally Lady Mairead groaned, sat, and then nudged General Hammond. “Get up, if I must, ye must.”
He sat up without a word.
She looked around. “What are ye men doing there with yer mouths open, agog? Ye ought tae help me up, and tell me what the hell is going on — we hae gone tae three different times. They are all empty, nary a person exists, nor a memory of us on the timeline.”
I greeted the bairns and had a sandwich in front of me. Lady Mairead sat primly on the sofa. “I daena suppose we could meet anywhere else? I hae a fine house called Elmwood in the Upper East Side, tis nae nearly so…” She brushed something off the cushion and looked around at the paneling in the room. “I daena ken why there is so much wood everywhere.”
Emma pulled a long sheet from a roll of butcher paper and taped it tae the wall. She pulled the cap off her marker and drew a long horizontal line. “Where are Archie and Ben supposed to be in the future? We ought to make contact to see if they can help.”
I said, “They ought tae be in the year 2405, I went there and dinna find them, twas an empty desolate land.”
Emma wrote 2405 on the right side of the paper. “Great.”
Beaty, sitting on the couch, said, “Why dinna ye bring Haggis with ye this time, Magnus?”
“I think he needs tae remain at Stirling until I hae figured out how tae get tae Kaitlyn. He senses she is there, perhaps she senses he is there as well. Perhaps he is familiar while I am away.”
Hayley said, “You really heard her ask for help?”
“Aye.”
She had her arm around Fraoch and was rubbing his shoulders, comfortingly.
I said, “Are ye well, Fraoch?”
Hayley said, “He hasn’t slept, he’s been up guarding every night.”
“I canna sleep with all this goin’ on, I might as well watch on the high walls.”
In unison we all looked around the interior of the room. We were inside a one-story cabin, tucked in the trees. He chuckled. “The walls may nae be high, but the dangers are.”
The kids ran through with Mookie trotting along behind them. Emma called after them. “We’re working and we’re all necessary for it. Archie and Ben, watch your little sisters, don’t let them near the lake.”
Isla announced, “We going to bunkhouse.”
Emma said, “Perfect.”
Beaty called after them, “Daena feed Mookie anythin’! He gets a tummy ache from too many treats.”
Isla said, as they left through the back door, “That’s silly Aunt Beaty, there no such thing as too many treats.”
“For Mookie there is!”
Then Emma asked, “What about the year of Magnus’s arena battle with Domnall?” She wrote the year on the paper and circled it. “Empty?”
Lady Mairead said, “Aye. Then I went forward a few years, and twas empty, and before it was also empty.”
Quentin said, “The year that Magnus was in the arena with Domnall was empty too, like a ghost town?”
General Hammond said, “Completely desolate. We couldn’t find a year in the kingdom of Riaghalbane that wasn’t affected.”
I moaned.
Emma circled another date. “What about 1707, has anyone checked in on Lizbeth and Sean?”
