“I ken.”
We walked for a bit then emerged from the woods on a newly worn path, we walked a bit then he stopped in his tracks.. “Ye see it, Kaitlyn?” He pointed at three marks slashed on a tree trunk. “Tis a road.”
“Good, I think.”
“At the end of it will be a town.”
“These are the miracles you were talking about.”
“Aye.”
CHAPTER 60 - BLAKELY
LIAM AND BLAKELY CAMPBELL BESIDE THE RIVER TAY - PRESENT DAY
Iwas sitting on a boulder on the bank of the river, sipping from a mug of coffee, and reading over the letter that Lady Mairead had dictated to me. She had commanded Liam to carry it in his pocket.
It made no sense.
I said, “It says here that we are bringing him a vessel?—”
“I ken, I was there when ye wrote it.”
“Who is him? And what does she mean by bringing it to him?”
“She told me tae dig, tis all I ken, dig the hole.”
Liam was all hotness in front of me digging with a shovel around the base of a tree. “Your ass is very fine when you’re shoveling, my love, this is a lovely view.” He chuckled. “Ye are just randy because of the Scottish air, tis fresh and invigoratin’. Ye are thinkin’ ye want tae hae yer way with me.”
“That must be it, not at all the pull of your pants across your...” I stood up, walked over, and stuffed the letter in his pocket. I kissed him on the cheek. “I don’t want to cross her.”
“Plus twas a chance tae touch m’arse, I ken how ye are, Woodshee.” He grinned. Then he stepped on the shovel and dug up a shovelful of dirt. “Ye canna proposition me out here, I am aman who has been turned upside down — we slept all day, and almost missed the sunlight, I hae been asked tae dig a hole by a time traveling Lady from the future who matches the description of a Lady from the past. I hae been given a mission, I must dig...” Another shovelful was dumped to the side. “But whatever we are looking for, it must not be here.”
He stood looking up at the trees and then around at the base of them. “Maybe I picked the wrong one. This might be…” He walked six paces to another tree. “Aye, this is this one.” He dug the shovel intae the dirt at the base.
I said, “So we’re just believing her, she’s a time traveler, but time travel doesn’t exist…”
“Occam’s razor, Woodshee, the simplest explanation must be true.”
“How do you knowanythingabout Occam’s razor?”
He chuckled. “I spent a lot of time in locker rooms.”
I rolled my eyes. “That is not an explanation. But whatever, how, pray tell, is time travel the simplest explanation? It’s veryverycomplicated for time travel to exist.”
“Tis not. Ye are thinking tis because ye are still in the mindset that it daena exist. Twenty-four hours ago ye dinna believe time travel occurred. Ye were livin’ in a simple time and yet, remember, Woodshee — we couldna come up with a single good reason why we found those letters stuffed in a Harry Potter book in an old library in an ancient castle. It dinna make sense. But then...” He dug the shovel into the dirt again. “Thenwe heard there was time travel. We dinna ken it before, but now we ken it exists, and nowallthe events make sense. That is why we hae been given this castle. That is why we hae a full bank account. That is why there is a Harry Potter book on our shelf that looks three hundred years old — because tis. Tis three hundred years old, Woodshee. And time travel explains why the men we met, James and Quentin, put a letter there for someone tae find. Theyput the letter from centuries ago, inside a book that is twenty-five years old, in a library that is hundreds of years old, inside a castle that was locked up and unused for at least fifty years. Did ye remember that part?”
I sipped coffee, “Yeah, I heard that, and you’re right it doesn’t make any sense. How could a twenty-five year old book be dusty on a shelf that has been locked up for fifty years? It’s nonsensical.”
“Aye, and it’s been fifty years since the building was used, and that was just the main floor. It’s likely that the library hasn’t been used for a hundred years, easy.” He leaned on the shovel and mopped his brow.
I fanned myself. “Unless one of the workers who was fixing it up this past year, getting it ready for us, maybe if... maybe one of them put it there...”
“How would the letter get there?”
“A prank, I don’t know.”
His brow went up. “Aprank,Woodshee? I hae a bank account that daena look like a prank.”
