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The blonde, curly-haired boy holds the toy bow in his left hand. The arrow hangs loosely in his right hand, dangling from the string.
“It will nae work!” His shoulders sink, and the arrow drops to the ground.
“Come here, son. Let’s have a look at what you’re doing.”
The young child comes close and leans his small body against his leg. Rory squats and puts his arm around him.
He takes the boy’s left hand in his and holds the toy bow. With his right hand, he helps the boy hold the arrow.
“Now, you rest the arrow on your finger, like this.” Rory notches the arrow into the bowstring and shows the lad how the shaft rests on the archer’s hand.
“Oh, that’s it! I was nae doing that, Daddy.”
He lets the boy release the string and the arrow darts from the bow. It skips over the ground and clatters to a halt a long way before its intended target.
The boy’s lips pout.
“Aiming is another lesson, son.” He hugs the boy and turns.
Siobhan walks toward them.
The wind blows across the moor and the loose dress she wears presses close to her form.
Her growing belly shows.
She walks straight to him and presses her body to his as their son collects his arrow.
She smiles.
“You look happy.”
“I am.” Her mouth stretches to a grin. “Christine says I am a walking miracle. Way past my prime, yet pregnant for the second time. Must be the virile man I have regular sex with.”
Rory’s mouth tugs with a smile he cannot repress.
Rory woke. The early morning sunlight streamed across the room from the window behind him and lit the paintings of Murdo MacDonald’s family.
It must be about four o’clock, sunrise this far north in the middle of summer.
Nearly time.
Rory’s arm was around Siobhan’s waist as she lay on her side in front of him, his hand cupping her flat belly. He drew in her scent.
Always flowers.
Siobhan stirred, and as she did, her bare skin shifted beneath his hand and her curly pubic hair brushed underneath his fingers, tickling.
She rolled over to face him. Her eyes were so close and their usual sapphire-blue in the daylight, the same colour as the loch outside on a sunlit day.
Rory pressed his lips to hers and she returned his kiss through sleepiness.
“Hmm. You umm...taste like...” She screwed up her mouth.
“Wonder why that is.” He raised his eyebrows. “And please dinnae be so romantic first thing in the morning, like.”
Siobhan snuggled into his side, her arm draped over his chest.
It was so good. So right.
“Rory?”
“Aye.”
“You’re a young man—”
“Dinnae start that again.”
“No, please hear me out. It’s important.” She lifted herself onto her elbows, so her deep dark-blue eyes peered into his.
Siobhan chewed her lip.
“I’m past my biological prime and we may not have any children and I know you’d make a great father and you should be one and it’s not fair if you don’t.” Her words ran together, and the tears had started.
“Now wait, wait. Ssh ssh. It’s okay, we have children. Two at least.”
She sucked in a faltering breath. “What do you mean?”
“Just what I said, woman. We have at least two children. The eldest is a boy.” Rory put his conviction into his voice.
She frowned. Then her face lit. “Oh, you’ve time travelled to the future and you know all this?” Then she frowned once more. “You knew I’d fall in love with you from the start? Like it was inevitable for you? Where’s my free will in all this?”
“Whoa, whoa, now.” Rory put his hands up to stop the barrage. “No, I did nae time travel to the future. I...ah...see things.”
May as well be totally honest from the start.
This was her chance to call him crazy. To have her suspicions he was odd confirmed and make her way out of this...whatever this was for her.
Rory held his breath and searched her eyes. What was she thinking? Forget time travel. He wished he could read her mind!
After a silence, and a lot of frowning, she opened her mouth but said nothing.
Uh, oh.
“Speak to me, Siobhan.”
“What exactly do you see?”
“Snippets from the past and the future. I can’t make it happen. It just does. Rarely, like. My aunty is a doctor, and well, she says it’s because I’ve travelled to the past and back, twice, I’m able to see time, ken?”
One eyebrow raised. Siobhan held his gaze. “You’ve done it twice?” A hint of incredulity lingered in her voice. She blinked a few times, the attempt to comprehend his explanation plain on her face, and she wasn’t winning.
“Aye, I had to retrieve my father from the past. But it did nae work out.” He bit his lower lip.
“What happened? You weren’t hurt, were you?”
“No, but that’s when my father died.” Rory sighed. “It’s a long story, but my father stole a time journey to the past to protect my mother. It was after we were born here in the future. Or the present, which is now the past, or whichever way you want to look at it.”
Siobhan blinked and shook her head at the same time.
“There is history there which you need to tell me, but later, if you’d prefer it, okay?”
He nodded, relieved he didn’t have to go into all the detail now.
“Being into physics, I’ve often pondered time travel.” Siobhan’s mouth curled up on one side as she looked into his eyes, her gaze piercing. “I’ve always wondered when a person travels through time, do they step out of it momentarily? Does it mean they are in timeless eternity? What do they experience? Whenever I’ve discussed this with my fellow scientists, and even once with a theologian, we concluded it may send someone mad. Do you think you’re mad?”
“Um...”
How did he answer that one?
“I did at first, but Aunty Bec’s explanation about being able to view time works for me. I don’t remember the ‘during’ of time travel, only the before and after.”
“Well, I know you aren’t mad, if it helps any. Viewing time.” Siobhan’s voice held a thoughtful wonder. “How did I come to fall in love with a time traveller and a sage?” She leaned onto him more, almost winding him. “So, you saw us?”
“Aye, but I did nae ken it was you.”
“Huh?” She tilted her head. “You’ll need to explain that.”
“Well, I knew I would marry a beautiful, honey-blonde woman, but I did nae ken it was you until...”
“When?” The word stretched out of her mouth.
“When I first smelled your perfume.” Rory blinked.
“But that was—.”
There was a deep, distant boom, and the cottage rattled for twenty seconds. Books fell off the shelf behind the door. A spare cooking pot tumbled off the metal rack above the solid fuel stove and clattered to the floor. Rory held Siobhan close, and she gasped as she pressed her head to his chest.
“It will all be okay if he was submerged.” She lifted her head to him.
“Unless things changed any, last time I saw him he was diving.”
They held each other in silence.
Siobhan blinked at him. “If he wasn’t, this hut will blow away and us with it. Very soon.”
“He was under,” Rory said with certainty.
There was a knock at the door. Siobhan pulled the bed-clothes over herself.
“Aye, we’ll just be a moment, Murdo.” He yelled at the door.
“Come out when ye are ready, Rory.” Murdo’s voice came muffled through the closed door.
Rory jumped out of bed and put on Murdo’s shirt. Siobhan found her clothes on the floor and dressed, then went to the sink and rinsed her mouth. He stood beside her and did the same. They smiled at each other and then he walked to the door.
“Did you see anything with that boom, Murdo?” Rory opened the door where Murdo sat on an old chair, just to the right and facing west.
“Aye, nothing. And there would hae been if...” Murdo didn’t finish.
“Aye.”
“Aye. Young Angus. God rest his soul.” Murdo bowed his head.
“A hero.” Siobhan was beside Rory, her arms slipped around his waist.
“And Dae-Jung and his helmsman; brave North Koreans.” Rory indicated with his chin to Murdo. “This man here is a hero, too.”
Murdo looked up from his chair, squinting in the morning sunlight. Siobhan faced him, waiting for more.
“He filled the sub’s tank with fuel to make sure it cleared Scotland, well and truly.”
Beside him, Siobhan gasped.
“When did you do that, Mr MacDonald?” she asked Murdo.
Murdo gave a shaky grimace and didn’t answer.
“I don’t know when it was, but he did nae have a suit,” Rory said to Siobhan. “Do you have anything for him?”
Siobhan blinked, her mouth open, eyes flicking and nostrils flaring. She shook her head silently, not looking at Murdo.
“Can you make things easier for him?” he whispered.
She shrugged, walked back into the cottage and rummaged through the medical kit.
“I’m fine, Rory. Dinnae bother.” Murdo’s gruff voice seemed even more so. “I feel fine.”
“But you may not for long. It depends on how much exposure you had.” Siobhan had the medical kit at her feet and rummaged more. “Here’s all the antiemetics I have and ... some sleeping pills. Morphine tablets too.” She held them out to him, but he didn’t take them. “I’ll put them on your table.” She stepped to the table, the bottles rattled as she placed them on the checked cloth.
“Thems over yonder dinnae ken yet that you did nae actually finish yoor ride on that there submarine, ye ken?” Murdo looked to the campsite by the shore.
“You mean you haven’t told them he’s alive?” Siobhan’s eyes were wide as she shielded them with her hand, the risen sun now hitting them with its full light. “We’d better get over there!”
They collected the depleted medical kit and walked to the motorboat. Over at the camp, people moved around and shouted, as the boom had awoken them.
Their journey over with Murdo was a quiet one. Rory held Siobhan’s hand in his. He needed the reassurance of her presence beside him. It had been a close thing.
So close.
Murdo steered the boat to the shore and the pier nearest their camp. Rory jumped out and tied the rope to the pier for Murdo.
“Make a seaman of you yet, Rory.” Murdo grinned at him as he walked back to the motorboat.
“I haven’t thanked you properly,” Rory said. “You saved my life, Murdo. And have risked your own.”
“Och weel, I did what I came for to do. And you have saved mine many a time, brother.” Murdo’s crinkled eyes seemed to glitter.
“What do you mean?” Rory frowned.
Murdo held Siobhan’s hand and continued helping her out of the moored, but still rocky, boat.
“Does she ken about your travels, Rory?” With a nod, Murdo indicated in Siobhan’s direction.
“What do you mean?” A chill collected at the back of Rory’s neck as he repeated his question.
What did this man know?
Their friends at the camp had noticed the boat and his presence. Their whoops and cries were coming closer.
“I’m your wee brother, Brendan, Rory,” Murdo whispered into Rory’s face.
“But how—?”
Murdo put a finger to his lips and slipped a small piece of paper into his hand. “Make sure your wee brother gets this, okay?”
Behind Rory, his crew were cheering, and Xian slapped him on the back.
