Read Online Veil of Time by Claire R. McDougall - Free Book Online
Authors: Claire R. McDougall
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hand suddenly around my crotch that I give up the fight. He seems to glean what he wanted to know, then stands back, almost embarrassed. I should be annoyed, but I can’t help looking at him. He avoids my gaze by running his hands through his hair.
But Sula is more persistent, and this time her curiosity takes her under my sweatshirt. I’m slapping her away when the man steps forward and tells her to stop. I notice on the middle finger of his right hand he wears a gold ring with an insignia of some kind. Underneath the ring is a tattooed Celtic band. A Celtic knot tattooed around his wrist makes me want to take my fingertip and trace the endless loop.
I’m so grateful for his intervention, I offer to show them what’s under my shirt, so all questions about my gender can be put aside. For some reason, I feel myself wanting this man to have no doubts about that.
He keeps glancing at me, and I keep digging into my brain for something to say in my rusty Gaelic. He wantsto know where I come from. All I can tell him is that my last address was Glasgow, even though I don’t know if Glasgow exists in his time. But I hear him say the city with a Gaelic inflection, Glas-chu, and I think he must have heard of it. I am able to give him my name when he asks, and again the Gaelic accent turns it into something else. Ma-khee. He steps closer to me than people do in modern times, but I feel no need to step aside. I take the liberty of touching him since he has touched me in places no stranger ever has. I can’t help but ask his name.
Fergus. He says his name is Fergus, just like any old Fergus I know in the twenty-first century. When I say his name back to him, he smiles quickly and looks away. But there is nothing sheepish in the action. I curse myself when he lifts my hand and notices the wedding ring, but he seems undeterred and brings my hand closer to his face. Maybe it’s only because I’m in a dream, but I begin to wonder what my hands would feel like in his hair.
But Sula has other designs for Fergus. She takes him by the sleeve and is leading him towards the door. I want to hang on to this man with the fleeting smile and the steady gaze. But the druidess, who has been watching the little play between us, pushes him out and shuts the door behind him.
She lifts my hands and smooths her thumbs over my palms, inspecting them, it seems. I would like toknow what she finds there. She brings my palms to her nose and sniffs the air around me, honing in on my underarms, to which I applied a layer of deodorant this morning. While Sula carries out her inspection, I keep looking over at the door and wondering if Fergus is coming back.
The old woman takes a pinch of something from a glass bowl and throws it into the flames, creating that hot woody smell I remember from the first dream. She walks around the fire three times clockwise, then takes a dagger from beside the wall and draws in the dirt one vertical line and three parallel lines crossing through. I’m studying the lines, because I know they have to hold some meaning, but I’m not sure what. She reaches into her shawl for a handful of something that cracks in her hands; she shakes them and blows onto them. I see, when they fall lightly at my feet, that they are colored stones. They go here and there across the lines she drew, and it all seems to mean something to her. I see there are twelve stones. She looks at me and laughs. I smile in response, as though I know what she means, but for all I know I’m laughing at something evil that’s to be done to me. I’m in a foreign land here, in this place I know so well.
She motions to me the universal sign language for eat . I nod yes , because oddly enough for a dream I do feel hungry all of a sudden, and I don’t think Sula intends me any evil. She is a nice old witch, probably justlike the nice old witches who were set fire to in the years to come, the ones the church decided they wouldn’t suffer to live.
When she opens
But Sula is more persistent, and this time her curiosity takes her under my sweatshirt. I’m slapping her away when the man steps forward and tells her to stop. I notice on the middle finger of his right hand he wears a gold ring with an insignia of some kind. Underneath the ring is a tattooed Celtic band. A Celtic knot tattooed around his wrist makes me want to take my fingertip and trace the endless loop.
I’m so grateful for his intervention, I offer to show them what’s under my shirt, so all questions about my gender can be put aside. For some reason, I feel myself wanting this man to have no doubts about that.
He keeps glancing at me, and I keep digging into my brain for something to say in my rusty Gaelic. He wantsto know where I come from. All I can tell him is that my last address was Glasgow, even though I don’t know if Glasgow exists in his time. But I hear him say the city with a Gaelic inflection, Glas-chu, and I think he must have heard of it. I am able to give him my name when he asks, and again the Gaelic accent turns it into something else. Ma-khee. He steps closer to me than people do in modern times, but I feel no need to step aside. I take the liberty of touching him since he has touched me in places no stranger ever has. I can’t help but ask his name.
Fergus. He says his name is Fergus, just like any old Fergus I know in the twenty-first century. When I say his name back to him, he smiles quickly and looks away. But there is nothing sheepish in the action. I curse myself when he lifts my hand and notices the wedding ring, but he seems undeterred and brings my hand closer to his face. Maybe it’s only because I’m in a dream, but I begin to wonder what my hands would feel like in his hair.
But Sula has other designs for Fergus. She takes him by the sleeve and is leading him towards the door. I want to hang on to this man with the fleeting smile and the steady gaze. But the druidess, who has been watching the little play between us, pushes him out and shuts the door behind him.
She lifts my hands and smooths her thumbs over my palms, inspecting them, it seems. I would like toknow what she finds there. She brings my palms to her nose and sniffs the air around me, honing in on my underarms, to which I applied a layer of deodorant this morning. While Sula carries out her inspection, I keep looking over at the door and wondering if Fergus is coming back.
The old woman takes a pinch of something from a glass bowl and throws it into the flames, creating that hot woody smell I remember from the first dream. She walks around the fire three times clockwise, then takes a dagger from beside the wall and draws in the dirt one vertical line and three parallel lines crossing through. I’m studying the lines, because I know they have to hold some meaning, but I’m not sure what. She reaches into her shawl for a handful of something that cracks in her hands; she shakes them and blows onto them. I see, when they fall lightly at my feet, that they are colored stones. They go here and there across the lines she drew, and it all seems to mean something to her. I see there are twelve stones. She looks at me and laughs. I smile in response, as though I know what she means, but for all I know I’m laughing at something evil that’s to be done to me. I’m in a foreign land here, in this place I know so well.
She motions to me the universal sign language for eat . I nod yes , because oddly enough for a dream I do feel hungry all of a sudden, and I don’t think Sula intends me any evil. She is a nice old witch, probably justlike the nice old witches who were set fire to in the years to come, the ones the church decided they wouldn’t suffer to live.
When she opens
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