When had he last seen her? It could have been days ago or a week from now, for when travelers went to the other side, the time could shift. Things were off, sometimes only in small ways, but months could be lost. A man might return a day later to find his own child six months older. The stones were not exact. But he knew he had met her in winter. And when he returned to his realm, snow had dusted the ground. It was on that same day that they had locked him in here.
“Remember me, lassie.”
*
Mac awoke with a gasp on a cold Sunday morning. She could still feel Ciarán’s kiss on her lips and the touch of his hand on the back of her neck. It was a gentle touch from so rugged a hand. In the time that had passed, her connection to Ciarán had only grown stronger. She could not help but believe that, wherever he was, he was reaching for her. The memory of his face might grow dim, but the rush of pure joy that his presence evoked was too vivid to ever forget. Her memories of him came in flashes—his casual glance, his wry grin, or the glint in his eyes. It was a torment she hoped would not stop, for it made her feel closer to him when she relived those hours in her mind.
How or when love had happened, she could not say precisely. Of course, from the start she had found him wildly attractive. Who wouldn’t? The guy was a bundle of muscles and manly assurance, with a kilt to drive home the point. Many men were good-looking, but that was merely a physical aspect that, on its own, was not nearly enough to sway Mac. She had made that mistake only once, and it had taken her longer to recover than she cared to recall. But this man—this Ciarán MacRae—was unlike any man she had known. From then on, she would measure all men against him, and they would fall short, for Ciarán was the one.
The phone rang. Seeing her sister’s face on the screen, Mac set the phone down without answering it. She mumbled, “Not now. I’ll call you back later.” Cam could spoil her good mood after some coffee.
The idea that one perfect mate was fated for each person was a myth—at least, so her sister would tell her. Mac had given up arguing the point years ago. Why try to convince people like her sister of something they’ve missed when they’re happy enough as they are? Before Ciarán, even Mac might have argued that what she felt now was a moment’s hormonal reaction. But whatever it was, it was real.
Mac tugged on her jogging suit, looped her hair through a scrunchy, and strode down the road to the chamber for her daily visit.
“It’s official. I’m mad. I’m in love with a man who just dropped in from Scotland—eighteenth-century Scotland—and now he has vanished into thin air. Yeah. Nothing crazy about that.” Mac rolled her eyes at the sound of her own words. But today she had hope. If yesterday’s attacker had come through the stone chamber, then she might be able to go through it, too, and find her way back to Ciarán.
She arrived at the chamber with a fallen tree branch in hand, just in case, and leaned inside. “Hey! Whoever you are, try that again and I’ll kick your butt back to your century. So don’t mess with me!” When there was no answer or sound, Mac shone her phone’s flashlight app inside. Convinced that it was clear, she slipped her phone into her pocket and went to the back of the chamber. As she touched her palm to the stone wall, she felt the loss all over again. “Ciarán,” she whispered, “come back.” He had been in this spot. Now only stacked stones, rough and cold, stood between them.
He had traveled through time just to see her. He promised that he would return, but he had not told her when.
In the months that followed, Mac wondered if she had succumbed to some sort of hypothermia-induced hallucinations. Had she not met the love of her life? Had she not kissed him? She had relived it all so many times in her mind that she began to wonder whether she had made it all up, or at least part of it. All she knew now, for sure, was that her heart ached from his absence.
5
The Promise
Spring came with no Ciarán. Not even a wild Highlander came through the stones to threaten her lonely existence. Teaching her kindergarteners was a sort of relief. At least at school she was free from fruitless introspection. Mac busied herself with the routines of work. There was no shortage of ways for a kindergarten teacher to stay occupied. Someone drew her attention each moment. No matter what went on in her personal life, when the first student walked into her room, her mind was fully engaged in instruction, shoe-tying, dispute resolution, safe-keeping, picked scab and nosebleed care, and the myriad of other functions she provided throughout the school day until her small charges were safely aboard their school buses and on their way home.
On the way back inside from escorting her class to the buses, she fell into step beside David.
“Have you ever thought about time travel?” she asked.
He turned and gave a dry look. “You think I’m that much of a nerd?”
“No!” But the look on his face made her grin.
He seemed to take this as an affirmation. “Haven’t you got some cardboard bricks and crayons to pick up in your classroom?” He looked ahead and walked on as though she were not there.
“Wait!” Mac caught up to his brisk pace. “David, seriously, what do you know about string theory?”
He stopped in his tracks and looked squarely at her. “String theory?”
She nodded.
“Aren’t you pushing your students a bit?”
A broad smile bloomed on her face as she grabbed his arm long enough to give him a proper shove sideways. “It’s not for my students.”
With a crooked grin, he nodded. “Good. I was beginning to doubt your pedagogical judgment.”
A few other teachers were gaining on them and had come within earshot.
“Never mind,” Mac said, with a shake of her head.
Minutes later, he popped his head inside her doorway. “String theory?” he said as though twenty minutes had not elapsed since their exchange in the hallway.
Mac stared at him, rethinking her decision to discuss it. He stepped inside and waited for her to respond.
This was crazy, she decided.
David seemed to be in no hurry. He was what some might call a geek, but he was a fit geek because of his cycling hobby. His lean face and pleasant eyes had the look of someone whose thoughts were focused elsewhere. Added to this, his disheveled appearance was topped by dirty-blond hair that landed in straight multidirectional spikes wherever his hand had brushed through it.
“Well?” He stepped closer.
She held his gaze for a very long moment. “Sit down.”
He sat on a kindergarten chair across from the kidney-shaped table that served as her desk.
She avoided his gaze. “I was just wondering about time travel. What do you know?”
He peered at her as though she were deranged. Mac shrugged. “Never mind.” She then stood and started to leave.
“No, wait.”
She shook her head. “It’s not important, and I’m sure you’ve got work to do.”
“Not really—other than a small mountain of tests to grade so I can begin my spring break, but it’ll wait.”
With dismay, Mac said, “David, I’m sorry. Don’t let me keep you.”
He tilted his head and squinted. “I’m kidding.”
“No, you’re not. I’ve seen your desk.”
“Yeah, but that won’t change until the last day of school when I get to swipe my arm over my desk and shove what’s left on the last day of school into the trash.” He grabbed a student-sized chair, folded his lanky frame onto it backward and rested his forearms on the back. “So tell me. What’s wrong?”
“I didn’t say anything was wrong.”
“No, but it is. I know you. Tell me now, or I’ll spend my spring break ruminating over the enigma of Mac.”
She shook her head. “There’s no enigma, just a question.”
He gave a nod for her to continue.
“Is it possible?”
“Is what—?”
“Time travel.”
“Yes.” David paused, concentrating. “But only if you have one of those sports cars. With the doors that lift up.” David chuckled.
Mac shut her eyes to hide the eye roll. “Thank you, David. That’s all I needed to know.” She started to stand.
“In theory, yes, it is possible.” He was no longer smiling.
Mac sank back down into her chair.
He leaned forward. “Look, people laugh.” He sniffed and made a show of pushing his glasses up his nose. “I’ve got my image to think of, so I don’t talk about stuff like this usually.”
Mac looked at him frankly. “Talk to me.”
David had the stunned look of someone who had just found his kindred spirit.
Mac pumped him for information without shame. It wasn’t as though she hadn’t coached him through dozens of dates with various women. Oh, he owed her.
David got up and logged on to Mac’s computer. Thirty minutes and a few moans and grunts of interest later, David had shown Mac the prevalent theories, explaining each one with enough detail to make her head spin.
“String theory of course could apply, given the right circumstances. With the right motion and angle, different time periods could coexist. But how would an ordinary person make a journey from one to the other?” He peered at her as though she had the answer.
Mac shook her head and shrugged.
“I don’t know either,” he continued. “Wormholes make the most sense to me. They’re all around us but are too small to see. They could link two different places in two different times.”
Mac leaned closer. “So someone could travel from here to a totally different place and time?”
“In theory, but—”
“What if there were wormholes large enough to walk through?” Mac leaned in, gripping the edge of the desk.
David grinned. “What? Just chilling, ready to open like an automatic grocery store door?”
Mac looked away, frowning. “Well, no, not exactly. I just thought there might be places…”
“I doubt it. If there were, people would have done it already, don’t you think?”
She nodded. “Yeah, they would have.”
David now had the same patient and kind look she had seen him use with his students. “But there aren’t. Wormholes are smaller than atoms.”
“But they could exist. I mean, it’s not entirely impossible.” Mac shrugged nonchalantly, which was far from how she was feeling.
“Not impossible—but implausible, yes.”
Mac must have looked disappointed because David’s attitude shifted. “Look, I’m not saying they exist, because they don’t. But if there were human-sized wormholes, there would need to be some sort of energy present, enough to propel someone from one place and time to another. And, of course, they couldn’t go any faster than the speed of light.”
“Light? Like the sun?”
David’s tone became very deliberate, as if he were trying not to sound condescending. “Yeah, the sun emits light.”
“And energy? Like solar energy?”
“Yeah, solar energy is a thing.” David’s brow furrowed. His mouth twitched as though he wanted to smirk, but he kept it in check.
Mac’s face lit up. “The sun. It has something to do with the sun.”
David’s eyes narrowed. “What does?”
Mac pulled herself from her thoughts and looked at him. “Oh. Nothing. Just a book I was reading.”
“What book?”
Her eyes darted away as she searched for an answer. “Can’t remember.”
David’s whole demeanor relaxed. “If I’d known you like sci-fi, well, I’ve got some books you would love.”
Before he went on, Mac held up her hand. “No. That’s okay. I’ve got a stack of books at home waiting to be read. I don’t need any more, really. But thank you.” She shook her head slowly. “So time travel’s possible.”
“In theory. But no one has tried it—not seriously. Nor will they.”
“Why not?”
“Think about it. If you were a brilliant scientist, how crazy would you sound just asking for funding? And then, who would grant it? Time travel research? Game over. Career crash and burn.”
“I guess it would sound pretty crazy.”
David’s smiled faded as he caught something in Mac’s expression. “Hey, are you okay?”
She shrugged casually. “Yeah.”
David looked toward the door.
“But what if it had already happened?” Mac was serious. “What if someone had done it?”
He met her gaze for a moment and then grinned. “Well, that would be freaking awesome.” He laughed. “From the looks of those tests I’m grading, I’m pretty sure my students have time traveled to back before I ever taught them.” He stood up. “Well, I’d better get going. Those papers won’t grade themselves.”
David rose and turned to leave, but Mac barely reacted, still fixed on a thought.
“Well, like I said, I’ll be leaving now.” With a chuckle, David tapped his fist as though it were a mic. “Is this thing on?”
A smile bloomed on Mac’s face. “I’m sorry. I was thinking.”
“Yeah, I could tell. I’m intuitive like that. Look, Mac, what’s this all about?”
She thought for an instant about telling him, but the next moment she said, “Just curious.”
David narrowed his eyes but said nothing.
Mac let out a breath and stood up to follow him to the door. “I’d better let you get back to work.”
When he got to the closed door, he turned and extended his hand. He shook her hand and said in a falsetto voice, “I’ve had a lovely evening.”
Mac laughed and shoved his shoulder as he opened the door.
“And, no, I do not want to come up for some coffee,” he added as he walked down the hall.
Laughing, she turned back to her desk. Her smile faded as she thought about Ciarán. What if she could see him again? Would he still care? Would he even remember her? She thought of her last moments with Ciarán—the warmth of his lips and his sure touch as he held her. Could he have forgotten? She had not. Nor would she ever.
6
The Dream
Mac’s mind raced as she drove along the winding roads leading home. Just before Ciarán had vanished, the sun had shone brilliantly into the cave, but it had glowed from behind him as well. She had thought of it before but dismissed the image as her heart’s overreaction to love. The bright light had fit perfectly with the angel choir that should have been there. But as she thought of it now, it made perfect sense. It had been the sun. That was the key to it all, and Ciarán had known it. He had watched the sun rise and had stood in its path when it shone into the chamber.