I rubbed my eyes, and thought about logging on again, to take advantage of my last couple of minutes of time online. I’d only come in because my feet were sore, anyway. But my comments had dwindled. Even the faithful HiHoKitty had been silenced by my increasingly desperate posts, so I needed to think of something optimistic to say. Maybe I should consider a post on how to run from a naked employer?
I’d just flexed my fingers to type again, when a shadow loomed over me. It was the Internet café manager.
“Oi! Wot’s that, then?” he demanded.
“It’s my sign.” I tilted it so he could see. “I’ve tucked it in out of the way.”
“No, no, no. Yeh cain’t have tha’ in here, aye?”
“I can’t …?”
“No soliciting on the premises.”
“Oh, I’m not …”
“Out wit’ yeh. And mind yeh don’t leave any of them flyers behind. I know yer kind—leavin’ that crap all ower the place. Out wit’ yeh!”
I took my flyers and fled.
Outside, I crossed the street and sat on a bench by the bus station. I stacked the flyers neatly on the seat beside me, and tilted the sign against the back wall. The gray mist of Glasgow settled onto the flyers, which began to curl at the edges almost immediately.
In front of me, a bus pulled up. Emblazoned on the side was an ad with a very large man in a kilt throwing some kind of huge stone boulder into the air. Behind him the sun shone with a warm yellow glow. Above the man’s swinging kilt was printed Gather Your Clan At The Nairn Games.
I hadn’t seen a man wearing a kilt since I’d arrived in Glasgow. My heart lurched.
The door of the bus opened, and I stood up. Didn’t even look back at the flyers or the ‘New York-style Pizza’ sign.
“Where’re ye headed, young lady?” said the bus driver, as I stepped inside.
I pushed off my hood and wiped a handful of wet hair away from my face.
“Nairn,” I said, and paid the fare.
It only took me a minute or two to sort out the controls. If I’d known driving a carriage was this easy, I’d have picked it up long ago. But even though I held on tightly to the leathers—and who knew reins would work exactly like my Xbox?—the horses still raced toward the cliff.
I looked behind me for help, but both Elisabeth Bennet and her mother were dead on the floor. The door to the carriage burst open and the entire rest of the Bennet family was there, all screaming at once. I leaned back with all my weight on the reins and the carriage slowed a little, the wheels skimming just inches away from the cliff, shooting pebbles off the precipice. Iron-gray seas thrashed in foamy fury below.
One of the reins snapped in half and Mr. Darcy screamed like a girl.
Fried Food…
10:30 am, May 1
Nairn, Scotland
I have been trying so hard to do the right thing while I am here. To follow my map. To stick to the plan. But the plan has a way of not working, somehow.
Last night, I got onto a bus and left Glasgow. And today, I’m in Nairn, a seaside village in the Highlands; a place of great beauty and deep history. I’ve had a deep-fried Mars Bar for breakfast, which has banished the terrible Jane Austen dreams that came as a result of last night’s mystery meat sandwich, and am about to embark on a research session to learn more of this place. Of its people.
Of the Nairn Highland Games.
Plan be damned. My journey is now back in the hands of fate.
Wish me luck!
- ES
Comments: 23
SophiaSheridan, Chicago, USA:
Wish you luck as you put yourself into the hands of fate? Emma, you’ve really lost it. After a month of trying, you can’t even manage to hold down a job to earn the money to get home? I just can’t read this any more. The stress is too much.
Jack Findlay, Inverness, Scotland:
Been buried in final galley corrections for the new manuscript, so I’m just catching up on your adventures today. Wonderful to see you back in the Highlands again, though I’m not sure the job prospects will be any better than Glasgow, to tell you the truth. At any rate, wanted to wish you a happy first day of summer, such as it is. May the sun shine down on your adventures while you are here.
Jack
(Read 21 more comments here…)
I shook my head and looked out the window of the library. It was May Day—how did that translate to the first day of summer? Jack had to be nuts—or making some kind of twisted Scottish joke.
That had to be it.
But he was right about one thing. The sun was shining in this wee town, and it was so good to be out of the Glasgow gray.
The dream I had awakened from on the bus had been brutal. And the inside of my mouth had tasted like a grease-slicked fry pan. But a wander through the town in the crisp, early sunlight had cured so much of what ailed me. Over my odd breakfast, I’d read through my copy of OUTLANDER yet again.