The Archivist (The Librarian Chronicles Book 2) Page 8

  Fumbling inside my satchel I found my glasses and put them on. At first they made me dizzy, since it’d been a while that I’ve been without them. But within a few minutes I was used to them again. Seeing things clearly would be important if I was alone. I ran my fingers through my tangled hair and felt like screaming out in frustration.

  Standing up, I looked around for him, and noticed his horse was in fact gone.

  “Coward!” I yelled to the empty forest. “Bastard, Eoin!”

  I was royally screwed now. The cold morning showed my breath as I screamed aloud, venting my frustration. Yanking the blanket off the ground I wrapped it around my body hoping for warmth. The fire was still going so I sat down and tried to warm my cold hands. What was I going to do? I could go back and stay at the castle forever. At least I’d have a home. Maybe I could settle down and have a few kids, raise them here in Scotland. I groaned at the thought.

  Or I could venture to the town by myself. The threat of the English finding me and attacking me alone on the road was all too real. They were known to be horrible to women. So I guess I’d go back to the castle. Being a maid forever wasn’t going to be my ideal life, but it sure beat death by the hands of the English.

  “What the devil do ya have on yer face?”

  I looked up startled. Eoin was there, carrying a dead rabbit carcass.

  Standing fast I put my hands on my hips. He was getting my full attitude.

  “I thought you left, you idiot! You scared the hell out of me. I thought I’d have to go back to the castle and be a maid forever.”

  He chuckled. “Is that so bad? Some say it’s an honest job.”

  Rolling my eyes, I felt my glasses and pulled them off. He’d never seen glasses like mine before.

  “These are spectacles, glasses, by the way. They help me see better.”

  He’d have to just get used to them, because I wasn’t going to take them off again.

  “Well, they are strange looking, but they look good on you. Can I see them?”

  I nodded and handed them to him. He inspected them and put them on his face. “Och. They are horrid. I cannot see a thing. You say they help you see?”

  “Yes. Now give ‘em back to me.”

  “Sorry,” he said, handing them back. “I didn’t mean to scare ye. I went hunting early this morning. I had hoped for a stag but settled for a rabbit. Did ya sleep well enough?”

  Shrugging I said, “Fine, I suppose if one doesn’t mind all the sounds of nature. You didn’t sleep at all, did you?”

  “I did. I just didn’t sleep next to you. I wanted you to be comfortable. It wasn’t right for me to sleep so close to you. So, I slept by the horses. But that was far too cold, so I got up to hunt. Tonight though, I think I will sleep near you, if that’s all right.”

  Surprised at his chivalry, I nodded. “You can. I have no problem. Actually, if we share body heat, we will stay warmer. We will sleep better if we’re not freezing our butts off all night.”

  His eyes went wide and he sat down near the fire. “If you say so.”

  He began skinning the rabbit and handed me the fur. I took it, gagging slightly not sure what to do with it. Did he expect me to make him a pair of slippers with it? I set it aside and tried not to watch him clean the rest of the poor bunny.

  “Do ye not like rabbit in your belly?”

  I rolled my eyes. “I like food in my stomach, but I don’t usually eat meat. I’m vegetarian.”

  The face he gave me was almost hilarious. I suppose Eoin was learning a lot by traveling with me.

  “What in the world does that mean?”

  “A vegetarian doesn’t eat meat. They eat grains, beans, vegetables, and fruit. I do eat cheese, but I usually don’t eat the cow that it comes from. It can be a healthier way of life, and for me, it was. I lost a lot of weight my senior… er … when I was seventeen. I was a bit heavier than I am now.”

  He closed his mouth, and then nodded. Shoving a stick through the rabbit’s mouth and out the hind end then placing it on the fire to cook.

  “Looking at you, I’d say you should eat meat again, you might blow away come the winter. Why do you think you needed to lose weight as you called it? Don’t men in your village like a woman with meat on their bones? Do they prefer women who look like bones and skin?”

  I laughed. If he’d only known what my life was like in high school. Boys, not men, would taunt me for being too fat. And after a while I got tired of not fitting into clothes the way I wanted. Shopping at plus sized clothing stores didn’t exactly help me fit into high school life. If I wanted clothes for teens I couldn’t find them there. I wore a lot of plaid and flowers. Finally, I lost the weight, the healthy way. I felt better for me, not for anyone else.

  “No, the men in my village didn’t really pay much attention to me. When you have red hair, glasses, and are big boned and heavier, they tend to ignore you. Not that I care very much for any of them.”

  He scoffed and looked away.

  “Your hair is the first thing I noticed about you. It reminds me of the first sunset I ever saw. It burned up the sky and blazed across the ocean as far as the eye could see. My ma woke me up early just to see it. When I saw you, and your hair, it reminded me of that moment. The finest memory I have of her.”

  He looked at me, and we locked eyes. That was the most beautiful compliment I’d ever had about my hair, or anything really. Eoin was surprising me a lot. Maybe I had him pegged all wrong.

  “That’s why I was so rude to ya, when we first met. I don’t like to think of my ma much. It hurts too bad. I should have been nicer to ya.”

  “It’s fine,” I said, as I picked grass to keep my hands busy. I found it hard to meet his eyes.

  “Your shape, well any man who doesn’t think you beautiful needs to borrow your spectacles.”

  I blushed and looked away to hide my smile. The only compliments I’d received lately were on my skills as a student, not my looks. At the castle men mostly grunted for more ale and then said, “That’ll do.”

  “Thanks. And, what am I supposed to do with this?” I asked holding up the rabbit fur. “Do you want me to make you a hat?”

  He laughed.

  “I’ll keep it and trade it in the town. Put it inside yer bag for safe keeping, lass. This rabbit will be done in a bit. Are you hungry enough to eat this meat, or will you need some grass?” He asked nodding to my pile of grass I’d absentmindedly made.

  “Oh, I think I’m hungry enough to eat two rabbits today.”

  After we ate, we set off once more. Eoin cleaned up the fire remnants, so the English wouldn’t know we were there, just in case.

  He said we didn’t need to have them following our trail. Just like the day I arrived, a mist formed around the forest thickly. We rode through it using it to go unseen. I prayed we wouldn’t encounter any soldiers but anything was possible now. Scotland wasn’t what it is now, in my time. In my current situation I was living in the most horrific version of Scotland so far. And it would only get worse from here on out. The danger was real; it wasn’t pretend. This was a time in which women were treated horribly by the English soldiers and the Scot’s had no say in what was done to them or their families. I prayed that nothing like that would happen to us on this trip. If we made it to the town unscathed, I would be entirely grateful.

  Eleven

  The misty mountains held a sense of danger and beauty at the same time. Eoin would stop every so often and scout ahead of us to make sure there were no traps laid out awaiting our passage. If anything, Eoin was prepared and smart when it came to tracking and traveling. He was very protective.

  This trip to Scotland had been incredibly different than the last times I had been here. I remembered the first trip here, I was terrified. I knew that the English were not going to go easy on any o
f Sir Malcolm’s followers and being with him made me a target. When I had landed safely back at home, I was more than pleased. Jessa wasn’t sure why I was kissing the ground, but once I explained to her the danger I had just been in, she was in agreement that this was one of my most dangerous missions. It wasn’t anything like the trip to Paris in 1982, to study a famous French artist in her prime. She was fantastic and so was her art. Everything about Paris was lovely. As we rode our horses, I dreamed I was there instead of the cold drizzly Scotland I was in now.

  “Are you deep in thought?” Eoin asked, breaking my illusion.

  I nodded. “I was thinking about another place and another time.” He rode a little ahead of me and held up his hand, shushing me quickly.

  His eyes darted around wildly searching the woods. My skin crawled with fear as he signaled me to stay quiet and stay put. I hated being told what to do, but in this case, being protected by Eoin was the main point. I steadied Sloane and patted her damp hair. Warrior neighed quietly and Eoin pulled back his reigns quickly to quiet him. He eased ahead and I did as he said. Once he was out of sight, I had a feeling I didn’t like very much and it wasn’t fear, it was the lack of protection.

  Twelve

  Being a Librarian prepared me for time-traveling through ancient times, searching relics, and artifacts, but it did not prepare me for self-defense in the Middle Ages. I wasn’t accustomed to having to fight for my life. I wasn’t even armed with a weapon of any sort. With Eoin gone, I was defenseless. Remaining on Sloane was my best bet since I could ride away in hopes of getting away from danger. Granted I didn’t know where the castle was now that we were so far into the woods. I had no idea where we were at all really.

  I heard shouting ahead and my arms tensed, prepared to take Sloane into the hills above me to hide out. When Eoin crashed through the woods, his face was calm and this in turn calmed me.

  “Sorry, Mollie,” he said breathlessly. “I’ve encountered a weary traveler but nothing more than that. He did give me the safest route to the village, lucky enough. Glad I found him when I did.”

  I hated that Eoin and I were now becoming friends because he didn’t really know me at all. He thought my name was Mollie from Aberdeenshire. He had told me so much about his mother already and here I was being a liar. Doing what I was best at.

  I shook off the deceit and followed him into the wild woods. His long blond hair was once again pulled back into a low ponytail and wrapped in leather. He looked amazing with long hair. I wondered why he didn’t let it flow around him all wild and free. I looked at his back and wondered what he looked like with regular clothes on instead of a leather overcoat and kilt. He’d fit in so well in 2018, much better than I even did.

  “My ma loved the woods,” he said, breaking my trance. “Did your ma like to take walks in the woods?”

  I shook my head. “My mother is complicated as a mother and a person,” I began. “She and I no longer speak.”

  He turned his head around to look at me when I said that.

  “How could ya not speak to your ma? I couldna go a day without speaking to mine. Sure, she’d make me mad as a hornet, but I eventually came round.”

  Complicated wasn’t going to cut it anymore. He’d need some more details than that now.

  “I was given a gift when I was young, and with it a big responsibility. It was handed down from my grandma, and this made my mother very envious of me. She didn’t understand why I was given the gift and not her, but that was just the way my grandma did it. The way my family did it for centuries. So, she took on the responsibility of teaching me, and as each year passed, her jealousy and rage became worse. When my father left us, that made it much harder. She took everything out on me, her anger and her pain. So I chose to leave and not look back.”

  Eoin pulled his reigns, slowing his horse down to match Sloane’s stride. He nodded and listened to me talk, never once saying a word about my choice.

  “My father and I are bullheaded and we fought more than we did anything else,” he said, looking out into the distance. “I hated when he had to leave my ma to go to his wife in marriage. I know he loved my ma, it was there in their eyes. He always told me it was a sin to love two women and that his punishment was that he had to split his heart into two pieces; one for his wife and one for my ma. But once I challenged him and asked if he could only split it into two pieces, where did his love for me go?”

  I swallowed hard, feeling the pain emanate from Eoin in the very air around us. He was damaged, like me.

  “His answer was, ‘That’s another punishment that I must bear. That I have no love left for my only son.’ It crushed me then. But now, now, it doesn’t hurt much anymore. He died after my ma did. He had caught what she had and I cared for him while he lay on his sickbed. I was the only one to do it. I did not want to. Is that a sin in God’s eyes?”

  I shook my head.

  “No, absolutely not. I think fathers should love their children, no matter what. But that’s the thing about free will. I think my father has forgotten I existed, because it’s been years since I’ve heard from him. He’s living in France with his other family. I mean, how could he even think about me after all these years? I’m forgettable.”

  Eoin’s hand reached out and touched my arm, gently. This small act sent chills up my arm and down my body. His hands were rough but soft at the same time. I didn’t want him to remove them.

  “Don’t do that.”

  “What?” I asked, my eyes welling up with damned tears again.

  “Make yerself sound like something that has no worth. I cannot bear to hear it again. You need to see yerself like I see you. You are anything but forgettable.”

  I shook my head and laughed.

  “I can only imagine what you see.” My heated cheeks burned once again. Eoin had made me do a lot of blushing on this trip and he’d also made me feel a strange sensation when he touched me.

  “Follow me,” he said, taking his horse off into a full run. I kicked Sloane and we flew through the trees and around streams. We headed up, up, up, into the woods gaining climate so fast that I was scared to look down. Finally, we came out into an open field at the top of the hill we were just screaming through.

  Eoin slowed Warrior, and Sloane followed suit. I pulled my shawl up over my shoulders as the air up here was much colder.

  “You see the sun in the sky?” Eoin asked pointing to the burning sun above our heads. “You see how it touches all that it can? Spreading all over the land.”

  I nodded, taking notice that the view from here was absolutely breathtaking.

  “Yeah, it’s so gorgeous out here. I could look at this view every day.”

  He nodded in agreement, and said, “That’s what you are like.” He turned away from the view and looked directly at me. “You look much like that sun. You touch everything you pass. You rise up and burn bright, for me, and for all the men at the castle. They do not keep quiet when a bonnie lass comes to visit. I had to get you out of their sights for a while, for fear that they’d scoop you up and take you from me.”

  My breath caught and my heart beat faster. I had never, ever, been told anything so flattering before Eoin. He was a rare human. And it was then that I realized I had been very, very wrong about the kind of person he was. He showed me that you cannot judge someone from a first impression. I had thought that Trevor was a good person, with his dashing smile and his cheery talk. That’s all he was; talk. But Eoin, he was different. He was at first, I’ll admit, a bit hard to take in, but now, he’d proven that he could be trusted and that he had my best interests at heart.

  “I am not a good person, Mollie. I am bad. In my soul, you see, it’s damaged. My father, he did something to me by not loving me, and it ruined me. But when you came, you awakened something inside of me. I can feel things, like I did when Ma was alive. I want to help
you get your bracelet back, but I do not want you to leave the castle. I need your brightness to help me be happy again.”

  It was me this time who reached out to touch him. Instinct drew me to him as I ran my fingers over his and gently pulled away, before it was too much for him.

  “I have to tell you something,” I said, quietly. It was time to get as honest with him as he had been with me. That was only fair. “My name isn’t really Mollie.”

  My accent fell away and I was being me; the real me.

  Thirteen

  Eoin’s eyes grew wide as his hands gripped the reigns. He looked upon me bewildered, but he graciously let me have my say.

  “My real name is Savannah, and I am not from Scotland, as I’m sure you’ve now guessed.” I waited a moment, giving it time to settle. He shook his head but then said, “Go on, then, explain, lass.”

  “I’m from a small town, called Brewster in a state called North Carolina. I know much of this won’t make any sense to you, but I can’t lie to you anymore. I mean, lying is part of my job, but I don’t like it one bit. You remember that gift that was given to me by my grandma?”

  He nodded but said nothing.

  “It was the gift to travel through time. So, where I come from the year is 2018. My job was to come here, to Scotland, and find Sir Malcolm Walsh. You see, in my time he’s hailed as a hero, but there is little knowledge about where he resided when he went into hiding. We know how he died, but not where he was the whole time. And my job was to get that information, to fill in the holes. I know it sounds impossible and the fact of time-travel is bewildering, but I’m being honest with you.” Telling Eoin the truth laid me bare. I stood the chance to become thrown into shackles and strung up as a witch. But I saw something in Eoin, something that said he would trust and believe me.