Chapter 17

Fortunately I had planned ahead, and had brought both my own backpack and Brenda's. That was important for a number of reasons. First of all we had to change out of the Gael clothing we were currently wearing, or the Scots would think we were period actors looking for a play! Secondly, our return tickets were in the packs so we needed them to get a flight back to the US. Thirdly, my billfold was in my pack and we needed money to get from Mallaig back to Glasgow Airport.

We wasted no time changing into normal clothing, as the wind blowing up the little Scottish beach was icy cold. That meant I was only able to get a quick glimpse of my girlfriend naked, but any look at her like that is a good one, so I was grinning fit to burst.

Our next problem was how to get from Beoraidberg to Mallaig railway station, but that was solved when a friendly local stopped his car and offered us a lift. The Scots were turning out to be a friendly bunch.

There wasn't much different about our journey back to Chicago's O'Hare Airport, apart from the fact that it took much longer getting through customs in the US than it had in Glasgow on the outward flight.

The flight did pass a little quicker, as Brenda took the opportunity of telling me about what had happened to her while we had been separated.

The King hadn't treated her badly, but she had been worried about what I had been up to with Hassan.

"Of course I trust you, Sean, but that woman looked as if she wanted to eat you right up! Don't tell me she was thinking the arranged marriage was a bad idea. She couldn't get her claws into you fast enough!"

I assured her that I hadn't given Hassan any encouragement and even shared the fact that she had tried to use a spell on me.

"That's it! The next time I see that woman she's history," Brenda snarled.

The worst that Brenda had had to endure was boredom and some bad manners from the palace servitors. She even admitted that she quite enjoyed dressing up in the fancy Gael clothing, but reckoned it wouldn't do for when she was working on her engines!

The fact that a squirrel had delivered a note to her had certainly been a surprise, but she had recognised and trusted my handwriting. When Accipiter had shown up, she caught on quickly to what I had planned and screamed with delight when they had flown beyond the city's walls.

I had called Mom from Glasgow before our flight took off, and she was waiting at O'Hare to pick us up. Of course she wanted to know all the details of our visit to Gael and her relief at our return was clear.

"How could you ever have agreed to marry that man, Mom? He's arrogant, full of himself and just plain rude!

"Do you know he basically kidnapped us? When we got there, he told me that he'd arranged for me to marry some Princess and that we wouldn't be allowed to leave Gael. So much for an informal visit!

"Fortunately for us we escaped, but that man is a psycho!"

Mom seemed pleased that I didn't like my father, but also worried about the fact that we had run off.

"Oh, dear, Sean. I know Kenneth and he won't be happy that he hasn't got his own way in this. I wouldn't be surprised if he sends soldiers to take you back."

I thought Mom was worrying too much. It seemed very unlikely to me that the King would send Axonite soldiers here to the 'other-world', and I told Mom so.

We dropped Brenda off at her house, and she told me the first thing she was going to do was strip down the engine on her ATV. Five days without getting her hands covered in oil was clearly too long for my girlfriend. She was determined to put that right as quickly as possible.

Once we got home, Mom began to interrogate me the way women do. She wanted to extract every single little detail of my trip and made me repeat as many of my conversations/discussions as I could remember.

When I managed to escape Mom's questioning, I sat down to think about what I was going to do next. There was only a week until my birthday and Charles had told me what to expect when I 'emerged'. It was going to be difficult to keep that a secret in our little town, but somehow I was going to have to manage it. I was not going back to Gael! Not for any reason!

With any notion of returning to Gael now firmly behind me, my thoughts moved on to consider what kind of future Brenda and I would have. We had already discussed colleges in the past and that looked as if it was the most likely thing for us to do now.

The University of Illinois was reasonably close by in Chicago. It had a College of Engineering and a College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences. That would allow both of us to study the things that we enjoyed most and still stay together.

Lying in bed that night, I heard the voice but I chose to ignore Charles this time. Having decided that I wasn't going to return to Gael, I saw little point in 'flying the Road' to dreamtime. What use would any further lessons be now anyway?

Over the next few days I worked hard to catch up with the schoolwork that I'd missed because of my trip. There were two other things occupying my thoughts - what do about 'emerging' and what to get Brenda for her birthday which was at the end of March?

February the fourteenth happened to be a Sunday this year, so my birthday wouldn't be a school day. Time was running out on me, as it was only two more days to go and I still hadn't come up with a plan to conceal what Charles had told me was going to happen.

It was vital that no one saw anything strange, as I didn't want to become either a 'freak', or a laboratory rat for the US government. All I wanted was to get on with my life and share it with my girl.

On the Wednesday before my birthday, I had what I thought was a brilliant idea. Picking Brenda up from St Ann's, I drove her over to her house and we went upstairs to her room to talk.

"Do you think your parents would let us spend a few days alone out at the cabin?" I asked her.

Brenda knew that I was worrying about 'emerging' and she quickly realised what I was planning.

"Sean, that's a brilliant idea! The cabin is out in the middle of nowhere, so no one will see anything when you do your 'thing'. You know my Mom and Dad will do anything for you after you helped with Mom's cancer. I'm sure they'll let us stay at the cabin, but if you're worried I'll go and ask now."

That's just what she did and she was back in a few minutes to say her parents were fine with the idea. After that, we put out heads together to come up with a list of things we would need to take with us.

Some of the things that Brenda added to the list seemed a little over the top to me and I couldn't for the life of me see why we would need them.

"What are we going to do with grill? It's the middle of February, a cook-out is a little unlikely, don't you think?"

"Nonsense! My grilled chicken is one of your favorites and that's what I'm making for your birthday dinner."

"Well, what about this? Why the heck are we taking a bread making machine?" I asked.

"I want to make sure we've got fresh bread for toasting," she replied.

Now, I just couldn't see the logic in that. Why would we need fresh bread, so we could toast it? Surely toast was toast, whether you started with fresh bread or stale?

Brenda also made up a comprehensive first-aid kit on the basis that we didn't know what might happen when I went through my 'emerging'. I had told her everything that Charles had told me, but she wanted to be prepared for anything.

The list grew so long that it took me an hour on Friday night to pack my truck. We wanted to get an early start in the morning so that we would have most of the day on our own at the cabin.

I groaned when I realized that I would have to unpack the truck once we reached the cabin and not for the first time wondered why my girlfriend couldn't have kept things simple.

There was fresh snow overnight and that mean that the drive to the cabin was quite treacherous, but we made it without any mishaps. Once there, Brenda helped me unload and we managed to empty the truck in less than an hour.

The first strange thing to happen on this short 'vacation' was that I spotted something that had absolutely no right to be where it was. Brenda asked me to bring in some wood from the pile at the rear of the cabin and as I was walking round to get it, I saw our initials carved in one of the logs.

"Brenda! Brenda! Come and see this."

It took her a few minutes to bundle herself up against the cold and then she joined me, grumbling at being called outside.

"You know, Sean, I asked you to bring in the wood so that I wouldn't get all cold again," she groused.

"Look up there," I pointed to the carving.

Brenda looked puzzled when she saw what it was.

"But how is that possible? Are you playing some kind of trick on me, Sean Taggart?"

"I promise you that the only time I've ever carved our names into a log was at my Grandma's cabin in dreamtime, " I assured her.

"But that's impossible," she said, repeating herself.

"Didn't you tell me that this cabin was only built ten or eleven years ago?"

"That's right. But maybe it would have been more accurate to say that it was re-built around then. I think there has been a cabin here for a lot longer than that. Mom and Dad wanted something a bit more modern inside though, so they gutted it and had it completely re-modelled."

There was little point in standing in the snow staring at the initials, so we returned inside and I stacked the wood I'd carried beside the stove.

Try as we might, we couldn't come up with an explanation for how the initials had got there.

Once we got the stove lit, the cabin warmed up fairly quickly and we kept ourselves busy putting things away in cupboards. Brenda decided to make a start on making some bread - I'm sure only because she felt she had to justify bringing the machine in the first place - and I kicked back with a book for a while.

It turned out to be a really enjoyable Saturday alone with my girlfriend and before we knew it, it was dark outside and time to bed down. I noticed that Brenda was acting strange, kind of skittish, and I wondered what was bothering her.