Sassenach

Chapter 3

Over the next few days, whenever we weren't walking around Inverness, I was pouring over the journal. I read every single passage, some of them twice. I learned that this woman had found herself lost in the woods where she was picked up by the highlanders and taken back to Castle Leoch. For whatever reason they didn't trust her, but they kept her around to keep an eye on her. The only people she seemed to have befriended were a woman named Geillis, and a man named Jamie. The entire journal was filled with entries about her journey through the highlands and her run-ins with the redcoats, which left much to be desired. The timeline of the journal took place over only a few months, but apparently there was enough to fill it.

"Are you still reading that thing?" Will asked as he approached me on the patio, where I was sitting eating breakfast with the journal in front of me once again.

"Yeah, I can't help it. There's just something so intriguing about it. And besides, there's something familiar about the handwriting, but I can't figure out what."

"It'll come to you, I'm sure," he leaned down and kissed my forehead.

"Maybe," I shrugged. I closed the journal and set it aside as he took a seat beside me, helping himself to some of my food.

"I think I'm going to go back out to Craigh Na Dun today, and take my camera with me," I began.

For years I'd had an on again off again passion for photography. But in a place like Scotland, I couldn't resist bringing my camera.

"Do you want me to come with?"

"No, it's alright, I'll be fine. Plus, I'd rather be alone when I take photos. Nothing to distract me," I winked at him as I stood up and grabbed my things.

I gave him a quick kiss before heading off to the car and driving once more out to Craigh Na Dun.

There was no one out on the road which made for a pleasant drive. I opened the windows and turned the radio up. Wonderful jazz music filled the car, serenading me as I drove.

I turned down the road that led to the stones, pulling up along the same spot I had previously parked. When I stepped out of the car, the first thing that struck me was the fact that there was no wind. Not even a slight breeze. Something I found slightly odd considering the climate here. But the other thing I found odd, was how silent it was. Not a single bird chirp, nor sound from a grasshopper, not even the sound of water running from the river nearby. Everything was eerily silent.

I shrugged it off, and walked up to the stones, camera in hand. The morning light was shining across the rocks, illuminating some of them from behind depending on where I stood. I stopped to take a few photos, even crouching down to get some closeups of flowers surrounding them.

Suddenly, the wind picked up, blowing the leaves and scaring many of the birds, which were no longer quiet, from their nests. Now they were squawking as though their lives depended on it. I stood up and looked around, suddenly feeling unsure, and wondering what was going to happen, what I should do.

Then, I heard it again. The humming. It reverberated in my ears, and my heart was pounding. This time it was louder, accompanied by a strange sort of buzzing sound. I circled the stones once again, and found the noise to be coming from the same stone, the one in the middle, once again. I couldn't fathom it. I thought perhaps I was going crazy, that this sound was a sign of some sort of mental illness. But if that was the case, shouldn't I be hearing in places other than this?

I approached the stone cautiously, expecting, perhaps, to find some sort of bluetooth speaker nearby, because maybe someone was just playing a practical joke, using the legend of the stones to have some fun. But there was nothing.

I slowly stretched my arms forward, towards the rock. My hands touched the cool rock.

Then everything went black.

There was a roaring in my ears, and I felt like I was on one of those carnival rides those goes around in a circle over and over, going upside down so many times you can't make heads or tails of what is up and what is down.

I felt as though I'd been shot into space, and was floating along for a moment, before I was caught back in Earth's atmosphere and was falling to the ground at such an enormous speed that I caught fire like an asteroid.

That's the only way I can describe what it was like. To travel through the stones.