23 December, 2165
Craigh Na Dun, The Highlands, Scotland
RORY POV
It overlooked Culloden battlefield, and that enough was unsettling to him. The fact that these stones were responsible for Doctor Fowlis's disappearance, and now possibly Maevis's as well, made that feeling even worse. Rory and Tom Randall were both sitting in Tom's car at the base of the hill, the now grey-haired, bespectacled man glancing down at a device that flashed and beeped, indicating that Maevis's mobile phone was up on that hill and had been for two days.
"I don't really want te go up there," said Rory quietly. "It was one thing to know where Maevis's phone was, but to actually see it..."
"I know," Tom replied, equally quietly. "I combed this hill for days after Catrìona disappeared back in '38. This was where her tracker last pinged, too. It's like I'm reliving an awful nightmare."
"Suppose we should... go up there, see what's there," Rory replied. A small part of him had hoped Maevis was just camping up there or something, but he knew for a fact that that wasn't the case. If she could travel through the stones, she would have, especially after the discovery of her parents' home burning down and taking them with it. Rory was hesitant, however, to even get out of the car, as it meant that he could potentially hear the stones calling to him as well. His mother could hear them, and though Rory desperately wanted to go after her, the idea of travelling through the stones frightened him. What if it spit Maevis out in the wrong time? What if she went back two hundred years instead of four, or even six hundred years, or eight? What if she went to the future instead, or to some ancient civilisation? Going back to the eighteenth century was bad enough for a woman on her own, but compared to previous time periods, the eighteenth century was relatively tame. It was a time when witchcraft, though still feared, was less punished. Had Maevis gone to a time further into the past and she was seen appearing, she would no doubt be burned at the stake.
"Rory?" Tom asked him, evidently having been trying to get his attention, and Rory turned his head to look at him. "Are you ready?"
"Yeah," said Rory quietly. "Yeah, let's go." Together, the two men climbed up the hill, and the closer Rory got to the stones, the tighter his chest felt. Soon, he began to hear a faint buzzing sound, and he froze, Tom stopping right beside him.
"What is it?" Tom asked him.
"You don't hear that?" Rory asked, and Tom raised an eyebrow at him.
"No," Tom replied, understanding what was going on. "No, I don't hear them. Do you want me to go up there alone?"
"Yeah... if... if ye don't mind," Rory said, and he returned to wait by the car while Tom went up onto the hill alone. He returned within ten minutes carrying Maevis's bag and her pinging phone, but there was no Maevis to be had.
"I found this in the bag," Tom told him, pulling out a book and handing it to him.
"' Journey Through the Stones: How To Travel To Distant Lands Through Faery Hills' ," Rory read, running his fingers over the raised letters of the author's name, which was Geillis Ibister. "Good God..." Rory opened the book, finding the front inside cover being marked by Maevis's handwriting, and his eyes scanned over calculations and names of certain crystals that corresponded to the numbers 1, 2, and 5, then he noticed the date written above: 1 November, 1766 . "She used this... as a guide to travel to a specific time. November the first, 1766, that's when we think her mother arrived in the eighteenth century."
YOU ARE READING
Tùsaire
AdventureTùsaire (too-sah-reh) - pioneer Now in a new world, the Frasers must figure out how to navigate what is completely unknown to them - pioneering. With a child on the way, Catrìona has concerns about raising this child in a new and unknown world, but...