Page 32 of So Close To Heaven (Far From Home #11)

Ivy sat at the bedside, watching the shallow rise and fall of the woman’s chest beneath the woolen blanket.

The last hour had been a blur. The healer had come quickly, a hard-eyed woman who wasted no time in grinding leaves and powders into a pungent slurry that she’d thinned with water.

With a firm hand, she tipped it between the stranger’s lips, muttering under her breath as the poor girl choked and swallowed by reflex.

“It will bring down the fever,” the healer had promised, before gathering her satchel and vowing to return.

The maids had descended soon after, bustling with their basins of water and linen towels and cloths.

They’d clucked and whispered as they peeled away the woman’s strange clothing, piece by piece—garments so alien that even the maids’ chatter had faltered.

When they reached the underthings, Ivy had stepped in sharply, refusing to let them strip her entirely bare.

“She wouldn’t want that,” she’d insisted, her cheeks burning but her voice firm.

“No,” she said, shaking her head at them.

Instead, they bathed the woman as best they could in cool—but not cold—water, sponging her pale skin and combing tangles from her hair. When at last they’d dressed her in a pale chemise and tucked her beneath a clean sheet, the chamber smelled faintly of herbs and damp linen.

Now Ivy remained, unwilling to leave the stranger alone. Once or twice she stirred, a faint murmur on her lips, but never fully woke.

Ivy sat forward, watchful, nervous. A dozen tangled thoughts warred inside her.

She wanted—needed—this woman to live. For her own sake, yes, but mostly for the girl herself, who couldn’t be much older than Ivy and who surely had her whole life before her.

She deserved more than this, to wither and fade in some drafty keep centuries away from the world that had raised her.

And selfishly, yes, for herself, borne of a desperation to not be the only modern woman in this century.

Questions buzzed like bees in her mind: How had she come here?

Was it by choice, or had it been done to her the way it had to Ivy?

How long had she been trapped in this century? Did she know a way back?

The longing for answers clawed at Ivy’s insides.

At last, here was proof—solid, undeniable proof—that she wasn’t alone in this.

Someone else had made the same impossible journey.

Someone who might understand what it meant to be ripped from everything familiar, forced to scrape together sanity in a time so far removed from her own.

Ivy reached out, brushing her fingers across the back of the woman’s hand, which was—she assessed hopefully—not as heated as it had been an hour ago.

“Please,” she whispered, her voice cracking, though whether she spoke to God, fate, or the woman herself, she couldn’t be sure. “Please live.”

Throughout the day, Ciaran had come and gone, never lingering long. Each time, Ivy gave what little report she had: no, the woman had not spoken and no, she hadn’t even opened her eyes. He only nodded, his expression unreadable, before striding out again.

When the door creaked open once more late in the afternoon, Ivy expected Ciaran—but it was Alaric.

He stepped inside, his presence filling the chamber, his gaze sweeping from Ivy to the bed and back again.

Something inside her lifted at the sight of him, enlivened by the fact that he sought her out.

Without thinking she rose and went to his side, whispering urgently, “Alaric, you have to see this,” before taking his large hand and dragging him toward the chest tucked near the wall where the woman’s folded jeans and blouse had been laid.

She picked them up, squeezing the garments in her excitement, and looked up at him. “Look at these.”

“Ye should be resting,” he countered firmly, though he did keep his voice low.

“No, listen.” She cast a glance over her shoulder to be certain the woman still slept, then lowered her voice even further. “She’s like me. From the future.”

His jaw flexed, a muscle jumping as he stared down at her. “Ivy,” he growled, low, dangerous, “dinna start this nonsense again.”

“I’m serious,” she hissed, shaking the clothing in her hands as evidence. “I know you think it’s all hogwash, but trust me, you guys aren’t making riveted jeans in this century. Look at this blouse. Everything she was wearing is straight out of the twenty-first century. Alaric, she’s...like me.”

Though he did glance down, considering the garments, his lips thinned.

Ivy pressed on. “And what’s more, Alaric—I think Ciaran recognized her. He was visibly shaken by the sight of her. He acted like he saw a ghost. And when I asked him if he knew her, he said aye , and then nae —like, what does that mean?”

She didn’t feel as if she were betraying Ciaran—her first allegiance would always be to Alaric, she knew.

But when she searched his face, willing him to understand, his expression only hardened further.

He looked at her strangely, as if he pitied her, as though he wished she weren’t crazy, and that hurt more than outright dismissal.

But the dismissal came as well.

He took one step backward. “It’s simply nae possible,” he growled, his tone suggesting he wished she would believe that .

Without another word, he left.

Abandoned in the silence, Ivy’s shoulders slumped. She pressed a hand to her eyes, despair creeping in. Would he ever believe her?

***

A gray mist clung tenaciously to the forest floor, curling low around the hooves of their mounts as the hunting party moved in measured silence. The chuffing and sniffing of hounds echoed faintly ahead, trying to catch the scent of either deer or boar.

Ciaran rode stiffly at Alaric’s side, nearly unmoving, his bow slung lazily across his lap as if he had no intention of using it, even if the hounds did alert them to prey nearby.

Alaric’s gaze drifted on and off his friend, recalling Ivy’s words of yesterday afternoon, in regard to Ciaran— visibly shaken . Alaric chewed on this.

He acted like he saw a ghost, Ivy had said.

Meaning to know if there was any truth to Ivy’s suspicion, Alaric maneuvered his steed a wee bit closer to Ciaran and pitched his voice low so the others would not hear. “The lass in yer hall,” he said. “The flaxen one found in the tinker’s cart. Ye ken her?”

Ciaran did not turn his head, only adjusted the reins with a careful hand. “Nae. I dinna.”

It was too smooth. Too quick. Ciaran hadn’t turned to Alaric with any hint of surprise, wondering why he might have posed the question.

Alaric studied him. “Strange, then, for a man who claimed nae knowledge to look as though he’d seen a ghost. Ivy said as much.”

Ciaran’s jaw hardened, a muscle jumping there. “I said I dinna ken her.” His tone was flat, but the silence that followed was heavy. He tempered it with, “She... she merely reminded me of someone.”

Alaric let the matter hang, though the seed of suspicion dug its roots deeper. Ciaran’s manner had been protective, as though he guarded a secret. Ivy had not imagined it, Alaric decided; he too now sensed something amiss, something carefully hidden.

The crack of brush ahead drew their attention; one of the younger men loosed an arrow, and a stag bounded through the trees, wounded but swift. Shouts rose, the chase overtook them, and for a time there was only the thundering pursuit of prey.

By the time the hunters returned to Caeravorn with the carcass across a packhorse, the day had waned into a dim, gold-dappled afternoon. Alaric strode into the hall alongside Ciaran, sweat cooling against his neck, thinking of a quick bath in the loch.

The steward appeared in the hall doorway, face drawn, his cloak dusted as if he’d come at a dead run. The man bowed hurriedly.

“Word from the south, my lairds.” His voice carried, steady but tight with strain.

“A rider has come—straight from Strathaven. He bears word of an English host pressing north. The truce keeps them from burning as they march,” the steward added, “but there has been blood—a clash near Airdrie the day before last, the entire village burned.”

Murmurs rippled among the men who’d followed them inside. Ciaran cursed, and reached for the missive, scanning the contents with a heavily furrowed brow.

“How many?” Alaric demanded of the steward. The man was normally calm, but there was a tightness to his voice that lent weight to his words; if such a rock of a soul looked grim, then every man in the hall knew the tidings were grave indeed.

The steward answered steadily. “Three thousand strong.”

“How near?” Alaric asked next.

“Two days’ march from here, mayhap less,” answered the steward while Ciaran continued to read. “Scouts say their banners stretch near a mile on the road.”

Alaric’s mind worked swiftly, weighing numbers, routes, the stretch of land between Caeravorn and where the English force might have advanced to since Airdrie. “Three thousand is nae small host,” Alaric muttered, brow furrowed.

Ciaran lifted his eyes from the parchment, handing it off to Alaric. “We canna sit idle while Edward’s dogs trample our soil.”

“Aye.” He agreed, scanning the message quickly before saying to Ciaran, and all those around, “They’ll be hampered by their own weight, dragging carts and fodder, heavy horses. We ken the hills and passes—we can strike where they are weakest, vanish afore they gather their wits.”

Ciaran nodded grimly. “A wolf cannot kill a herd entire, but it can harry the flanks, scatter the stragglers, bleed the beast till it limps.”

Alaric nodded. “We canna face them head-on,” he said, “but the land itself will be our ally.”

“Our men together—near three hundred—we can strike their flanks, harry their scouts, cut their supply lines.” Ciaran furthered. “If naught else, we’ll learn their intent.”