What. A. Dick.
I stewed in a room lit by beautiful antique brass lanterns. One I’d already spent time in when I was shoved in it along with my best friend Milly just last summer.
It was the Scottish king’s official study, with intricately carved columns, an oversized heavy pine wood desk, and a stone hearth. Gorgeous and supple leather armchairs sat in front of a well-built fireplace. They’d probably been sourced from one of the beautiful Highland cattle I’d sighted grazing in the fields during my last trip to the Highland kingdom village of Faoiltiarn.
There were also three walls of built-in bookshelves stuffed with leather-bound books—really anyone else would have considered the room quite impressive.
For me it was anything but. Especially after being shoved—albeit more gently this time—into his study for yet another forced visit. A jail cell was a jail cell no matter how many fancy museum artifacts you stuffed into it.
I had to escape this room somehow or I’d be stuck in this backward ass village forever.
I could hear soft voices outside the door whispering to each other in Scottish Gaelic, a nearly dead language few actually spoke outside of school in Scotland.
I only understood one word: banrigh. Gaelic for queen.
A shiver ran down my back. Oh God, they were already calling me their queen… as if it had officially been decided I’d be spending the rest of my life in Faoiltiarn —a village that continued on like a never-ending production of Brigadoon, forever stuck in an ancient era no matter what else happened to the world around it.
That old trapped feeling began to set in, like a shadow hand squeezing around my heart. I could sense my freedom slipping through my hands like freshly tilled soil.
No, no, I wouldn’t let them keep me here …
I carefully scanned the room.
I wasn’t interested in any of its impressive artifacts. I was searching for anything that could help me escape. But there was zero technology: no computers, no routers, not even a landline.
I could actually smell the homemade methane coming off those exquisite brass lamps. I doubted the castle was even wired for electricity.
All the curse words I had painstakingly looked up when I was a kid fell out of my mouth.
But then my nose picked up a scent it hadn’t noticed the last time I’d been held captive in this study. Could it be …?
Sniffing, I went over to the inner wall of books and squinted at one row in particular. It smelled not only of books, but of something else. Something dark and smoky.
Thinking of all the Sean Connery-era James Bond films I’d binged before moving to Scotland, I started pulling on the book spines.
Sure enough, the fifth book in the row was harder to pull than the rest. I pressed down hard, tilting the spine towards me, and heard a metallic click. Then the entire row of books shifted down, revealing yet another ancient artifact.
One that made my eyes light up.