Two years later, breathless, frozen, and near death, I knocked on the door of the quaintest little serial killer’s cottage I’d ever seen. A woman in her fifties answered, her face round and rosy cheeked from the bitter winds of the strange land.
“Oh, heavens,” she said – at least I think that’s what she said – as surprised to see me as I was to see her. She turned and called out. “Bernie! Got a we’an on the stoop.”
“It’s no a tea leaf, is it?” a male voice called out.
She eyed me up and down. “Don’t look like one. Closer to a drown doo.”
I hugged myself to squelch a shiver as a man around the same age as the woman walked up, his eyes bright with excitement. “Got a lassie, eh?”
The woman nodded. “What’re you doing out in the cold?”
Their accents were so thick, I couldn’t even decipher which language they were speaking. “Um, do you speak English?”
Bernie laughed and slapped his leg as the woman, to whom I’d yet to be introduced, said, “We are speaking English, love.”
“Oh.” I knew every language ever spoken on the planet, both alive and dead. But every once in a while I had a little trouble with accents. The Scottish lilt being one of them. ’Parently.
“Am I…” I could hardly say the words out loud. “Am I in Scotland?”
The woman cackled in delight. “You’re a dear we’an, aren’t ye? Come in out of the cold.”
“Thank you.” I stepped inside as the man hustled off.
He came back with a blanket and wrapped it around me. “That’s a sin about your clothes,” he said, gesturing toward my apparel.
He was probably right. As wet as my clothes were, they probably looked sinful. Showed a little too much. Maybe they were really religious.
“Aye,” the woman said, glaring at her husband. “Downright awful to see a bonnie lass nigh in the skuddy.”
He shrugged. “Tea?”
“Lassie’s American, ye wanker.”
“Oh, right. Caffee then?”
Now that I understood. I was still running on one cup. I wouldn’t last much longer.
A smile blossomed across my face. I hoped. My face was fairly numb, so I could have just drooled. “Please.”
Watching the couple as they worked making “caffee” and biscuits was like watching an American sitcom. They were hilarious, their banter both loving and demoralizing. My kind of people.
After filling my belly with biscuits that weren’t biscuits at all, Bertrice and Bernie offered me the use of their phone.
“Thank you so much,” I said, but I had no idea how to dial to America.
Bertrice showed me how to dial the operator, and eventually, after several attempts and failed connections, a phone rang on the other side of the world. On about the third ring, however, I’d completely lost my train of thought.
I stood in a dark hallway. The cottage was actually round, and right in the middle was a wooden, octagon-shaped closet.
I stepped closer. Examined the carvings. The way the door slid open.
The Brummels were using it as a pantry, but I’d seen a closet exactly like this one in the convent Reyes had sequestered me away in for eight months. The one that took us forever to figure out how to open. The one that, when I stepped inside, made my light disappear from the celestial realm. It just vanished.
Nothing – no room, no material, no bank vault – could block out my light. Even Earth itself didn’t block it. The departed saw it from anywhere in the world. It was a beacon to them. A lighthouse so they could find their way to the portal when they were ready to cross.
The only time I’d ever known it to disappear was when I’d stepped into that closet a few months ago. And this one was exactly like it. Right down to the type of wood.
“Charley?” Cookie said, fairly yelling into the phone. Thank goodness she’d accepted the collect call. I could not imagine going through all that again.
This place was completely rural, so I’d expected the bad connection. I hadn’t expected the terror in her voice.
“Hey, Cook! You’ll never guess where I am.”
“Where are you?” she asked, panicked.
“Right. That’s what I mean. You’ll never guess.”
“Charley,” she said in her mommy voice.
“Gosh, okay. I’m kind of in Scotland. This call is probably going to cost us a fortune.”
“Charley, this is no time to joke.”
“No, really, this is a landline, and since I had to call you collect, beaucoup bucks, baby.”
“You know what I mean. Scotland?”
“I know, right? I just kind of ended up here.”
Reality sank in. “But… but you remember who you are?”
“Yes, Cook. I have not lost my memories. Just my marbles. I have no money, no phone, and no passport. If the coppers get me, I’m screwed. Also, I don’t know how to get back. But whatever you do, you can’t tell —”
“Have you tried clicking your heels together three times and saying, ‘There’s no place like home’?”
“This is serious, Cook. Don’t tell Reyes. I’m begging you.”
When I was met with a thick, drawn-out moment of silence, I said, “He’s right there, isn’t he?”
“Well —”
“Oh, wait.” I closed my eyes and let a wave of both embarrassment and relief wash over me. I felt his heat at my back. His power. His concern. “Never mind.”
“Sorry, Charley. He’s been pacing around and —”