Beyond the Highland Myst(240)

"Well, come on with ye, lassie! Ye willna escape by being a lie-about in bed all day," said a mischievous voice.

Lisa's eyes flew open. A boy stood beside her, peering down. "Och, aren't ye the bonniest lassie!" he exclaimed. The lad had auburn hair, a gamin grin, and unusually dark eyes and skin. His chin was pointy, his cheekbones high. Quite a fey-looking child, she thought.

"Come! Follow me!" he cried. When he darted from the room, Lisa tossed back the covers and dashed out the door behind him without a second thought. Heavens, the boy was quick! She had to stretch her long legs to keep pace as he skimmed over the stones toward a door at the end of the dim corridor. "Here, quickly!" he cried, as he ducked through the doorway.

Had it been anyone but a child she would never have blindly followed, but waking up and being granted a chance to escape by an innocent child overrode her common sense, and she found herself trailing him into a small turret. As she ducked in, he closed the door swiftly. They stood in a circular stone room, with stairs winding both up and down. When he grabbed her hand and started to pull her down the stairs, Lisa's eyes narrowed suspiciously. Who was this child and why was he intent on helping her flee? She resisted his grip so suddenly that he stumbled backward.

"Wait a minute." She held him by the shoulders. "Who are you?"

The boy shrugged innocently, dislodging her grip. "Me? Just a wee lad who has the run of the keep. Dinna fash yerself, lassie, no one notices me. I've come to help ye escape."

"Why?"

The boy shrugged again, a hasty up-and-down of thin shoulders. "Does it matter to ye? Dinna ye wish to flee?"

"But where will I go?" Lisa drew several deep breaths, trying to wake up. She needed to think this through. What would escaping the keep accomplish?

"Away from here," he said, peeved by her obtuseness.

"And where to?" Lisa repeated, as her sleepy mind finally started functioning with a semblance of intelligence. "Become one of the Bruce's camp followers? Go talk to Longshank's son?" she said dryly.

"Are ye a spy?" he exclaimed indignantly.

"No! But where am I going to go? Escaping the keep is only the beginning of my problems."

"Dinna ye have a home, lassie?" he asked, perplexed.

"Not in this century," Lisa said, as she sank to the floor with a sigh. Adrenaline had flooded her body at the prospect of escape. Vanquished by logic, it now fled her veins as swiftly as it had arrived, and its sudden absence made her feel limp. Judging by the coldness of the wall behind her back and the chilly draft circling through the tower, it was cold outside. If she left, how would she eat? Where would she go? How could she escape when there was no place for her to escape to? She eyed the boy, who appeared crestfallen.

"I dinna ken what ye mean, but I thought only to help ye. I ken what these men do to the lassies. 'Tisna pleasant."

"Thanks for the reassurance," Lisa said dryly. She studied the lad for a moment. His gaze was bright and direct, his eyes were old for such a young face.

He sank to the floor beside her. "So, what can I do for ye, lassie," he asked dejectedly, "if ye haven't a home and I canna be freeing ye?"

There was one thing he could help her with, she realized, for she certainly wouldn't ask the illustrious Circenn Brodie this question. "I need to… um… I drank too much water," she informed him carefully.

A quicksilver grin flashed across his face. "Wait here with ye." He dashed off up the stairs. When he came back he was carrying a stoneware basin that looked identical to the one she had struck Circenn in the head with last night.

She regarded it uncertainly. "And then what?"

"Why, then ye dump it out a window," he said, as if she were daft.

Lisa winced. "There is no window in this tower."

"I'll dump it for ye," he said simply, and she realized that this was the way of things. He'd probably dumped hundreds of them in his short life. "Och, but I'll be giving ye some privacy for the now," he added, and dashed off again up the stairs.

True to his word, he returned in a few moments and dashed off a third time with the basin.

Lisa sat on the stairs, waiting for the lad to return. Her options were limited: She could foolishly escape the castle and likely die out there, or go back to her room and get as close to her enemy as possible in hopes of finding that flask—which she had to believe was a two-way ticket. It was either that or accept that she was condemned to the fourteenth century forever, and with her mother dying back home, she would sooner die herself than accept that fate.

"Tell me about Circenn Brodie," she said when the boy returned. He hunkered down on the step beside her.