Beyond the Highland Myst(514)

"Aye," the man snapped right back, "so you could off and disappear again? I think not. I lost you once. I'll no' be losing you again."

With that, the elderly man turned around to face them and Chloe's eyes widened in astonishment. She'd seen him somewhere before! But where?

Oh, no. As quickly as it occurred to her, she denied it, shaking her head. Earlier in the day, in the portrait gallery at Maggie MacKeltar's castle. She'd seen several portraits of him displayed in a section where half a dozen other paintings around them had been removed, leaving great dark spots on the wall. That was part of what had drawn her eye to them. Maggie had told her that the others from that particular century—the fifteen hundreds—had been taken down and sent out to be restored.

This man's face had lingered in her mind because she'd been captivated by his uncanny resemblance to Einstein. With his snowy hair, rich brown eyes feathered by fine lines, and deep grooves bracketing his mouth, the man looked unnervingly like the great theoretical physicist. Albeit with a slightly wizardish cast. Even Gwen had agreed with a sunny smile when Chloe had remarked upon it.

"Wh-who is th-that?" Chloe stammered to Dageus.

When Dageus didn't reply, the elderly man raked both hands through tufts of white hair and scowled. "I'm his da, m'dear. Silvan. 'Tis thinking, I am, that he told you no more than Drustan told Gwen afore he brought her here.

Is that so? Or did you even tell her that much?" He shot an accusing glance at Dageus.

Dageus was as still as stone beside her. Chloe looked up at him, but he wouldn't look at her.

"You said your father was dead," she said uneasily.

"I am," Silvan agreed, "in the twenty-first century. But not in the sixteenth century, m'dear."

"Huh?" Chloe blinked.

"Rather odd when one ponders it," he allowed with a pensive expression. "As if I'm immortal in my own slice of time. Gives a thinking man the shivers."

"The s-sixteenth c-century?" She tugged on Dageus's sleeve in a plea for him to jump right in and clear things up anytime now. He didn't.

"Aye, m'dear," Silvan replied.

"As in, you mean that since I'm seeing you—which means either you're alive or I'm dreaming or I've lost my mind—that if I'm not dreaming and haven't lost my mind, I must be, er… where it is that you aren't dead?" Chloe asked gingerly, making certain she didn't spell it out too clearly because then she'd have to entertain it as a valid thought.

"A brilliant deduction, m'dear," Silvan said approvingly. "Though a bit roundabout. Still, you've the look of a clever lass about you."

"Oh, no," Chloe said firmly, shaking her head. "This isn't happening. I'm not in the sixteenth century. That's not possible." She looked up at Dageus again, but he was still refusing to look at her.

Disjointed bits of conversation flashed through her mind: talk of portals and ancient curses and mythical races.

Chloe stared at Dageus's chiseled profile, sorting through facts that were suddenly imbued with a terrible significance: He knew more languages than anyone she'd ever met, languages long dead; he had artifacts in mint condition; he was searching books that centered on the history of ancient Ireland and Scotland. He'd stood her in the center of a circle of ancient stones and asked to her to go somewhere with him that he couldn't tell her about, but had to show her, as if only seeing was believing. And in that circle of stones a powerful storm had risen and she'd felt as if she were being torn apart. There'd been a sudden climate change, the scenery currently included full-grown, century-old trees that hadn't been there before, and there was an elderly man claiming to be his father—in the sixteenth century.

And while they were on that topic—if any part of her current circumstances was actually real—what was his father doing in the sixteenth century, for heaven's sake? She latched onto that lovely little bit of blatant illogic as proof that she must be dreaming. Unless…

What if I told you, lass, that I'm a Druid from long past? "What?" she snapped, glaring up at him."'Am I supposed to believe that you're from the sixteenth century too?"

He finally looked at her then, and said stiffly, "I was born in fourteen hundred and eighty-two, Chloe."

She jerked as if he'd struck her. Then she started laughing, and even she heard the note of hysteria in her voice. "Right," she said gaily."'And I'm the Tooth Fairy."

"You know you felt something about me," he pressed ruthlessly. "I know you did. I could see it in the way you watched me sometimes."

God, she had. Repeatedly. Felt that he was strangely anachronistic, felt a bizarre sense of ancientness.