“You go on, Andy. I need to take a leak. I’ll catch up with you.”
Andy stopped and glanced at him with suspicion in his eyes. “Are you sure?”
Konnor sighed. “I’m sure the summer rain won’t melt me.”
“All right.”
Andy hurried down the track. Once he was out of sight, Konnor took in a lungful of air and breathed out. He didn’t really need to piss. The cold wind picked up, and the scent of lavender and freshly cut grass rushed by him.
Suddenly a woman’s voice broke the silence. “Help! Help!”
Instinctively, Konnor reached to where he usually kept his gun. But of course, it wasn’t there. The only weapon he had was a Swiss army knife in his backpack.
He looked around. Andy was nowhere to be seen. Trees swayed, hissing in the wind, and leaves and branches flew by. One narrowly missed his eye and scratched his cheek. Thunder rolled closer, and the granite sky flashed with lightning. The storm was almost right over him. Was the woman stuck somewhere?
Rocks crumbled from somewhere behind him. Konnor squinted back down the trail but couldn’t see anyone. The wind brought the woman’s scream again. Or was it just trees moaning as the emerging storm assailed them?
The scream came again, and his pulse accelerated. It was coming from behind him, up the trail. He sprinted in that direction as fast as he could with his backpack on.
“Help!”
Trees and bushes flashed by as he ran. Twigs cracked, and pebbles rolled under his feet. The scent of lavender and freshly cut grass grew stronger. The voice was louder now, so the woman must be somewhere nearby, but he still couldn’t see who was calling.
“Down here!”
The voice came from behind the trees and bushes. Through the gaps, he saw the edge of a cliff. He stepped through the undergrowth and looked down a ravine that was about two hundred feet wide. It was as though an ancient earthquake had cracked the ground in half here. There was a steep, rocky slope of about twenty or so feet right in front of him. A few pines grew straight out from the rocks. The ravine was shielded by a steep slope on the other side. A creek flowed along the grassy bottom below. It looked fertile and cozy, like a small, secluded piece of heaven. Something about it was magical and mysterious and unreal.
There was a woman down in the ravine. She was sitting on a small pile of rubble and holding her shoulder.
“Are you okay, ma’am?” Konnor called, trying to shout over the wind.
She looked up, and even from here, he could see a bright smile. She had long red hair and wore a medieval-looking green dress.
“Oh, lad, can ye help me?” she said. “I hurt my arm and canna go up.”
The wind picked up, and the next gush stole Konnor’s breath. He looked the slope over. It was really steep, but he could more or less see a path down. The question was whether he could bring an injured person back up.
First, he needed to get down there and see what was wrong with her arm.
“Don’t move,” he said. “I’m coming.”
“Oh, bless ye, lad!”
Thunder shook the world, and lightning split the sky in half. Thick raindrops began to hit Konnor’s face. He needed to hurry.
He lay his backpack on the ground and began making his way down the slope. Rocks and rubble crumbled under his feet. He hung on to bushes and the occasional pine that grew in between the hard rocks. Heavy raindrops fell faster now, and he had to blink rapidly.
His leg slipped, and he tumbled down. Earth and sky flashed. His military training kicked in, and he kept his arms close to his body to avoid his organs being hit. Something smacked against his ankle, and red-hot pain blinded him. He got a hard blow to his head, making the world explode.
Finally, he stopped rolling and lay still. He felt like he’d been put through a meat grinder. Willing the dizziness away, he opened his eyes. Raindrops fell from the leaden sky, and he blinked. His left ankle hurt like hell. Was it broken? With a groan, he sat up. When he moved his leg, fire shot through his veins. Goddamn it. His first aid kit was up in his backpack.
His wrist ached, too. No doubt, there’d be a bruise there tomorrow. His Swiss watch, a gift from Andy, had a hair-thin crack on the glass. Thankfully, it was still working. It was waterproof and as reliable as a German car. He’d hate to lose it.
He looked around. There was a heap of rubble and gray mortar nearby. The woman sat and stared at him with an emphatic grimace. Rain fell heavily all around them, but while Konnor’s clothes were getting soaked, the woman didn’t look wet.
Weird.
“Does it hurt?” she said.
Suppressing another wave of nausea, he swallowed. “You bet. I have bad news for you. I don’t think we’re getting out of here without help, not with me like this, and not in this storm.”
As though to confirm this, lightning flashed, and thunder cracked above them.
Konnor cursed. “I don’t suppose you have a phone?”
She bit her lip and widened her eyes. “I dinna have a phone. ‘Tis the one thing from yer time that scares me.”
He blinked. Had he heard her right, or had he whacked his head so bad he was having audible hallucinations? “What’s your name, ma’am?”
“They call me Sìneag.”
“Sìneag. I’m Konnor Mitchell. Nice to meet you. We need to find some sort of a shelter until the storm passes, and I’ll need to take a look at your shoulder.”
“Oh, aye. Mayhap here by the ruin.” The heap of rubble formed an alcove where it connected with the cliff. An ancient oak tree grew there, its thick crown forming a sort of a ceiling.
“Yeah,” Konnor said. “That’ll do.”
He tried to rise to his feet, but the pain in his ankle was excruciating. She jumped to her feet and rushed to him. She put his arm around her shoulders and lifted him up with strength that surprised him. Was she in any pain at all? As though he weighed nothing, she helped him towards the small shelter and then let him slide down the wall of the cliff by the rubble.
It was a relief to be out of the hammering rain and wind. The ground here was cold and dry. The air was thick with the scent of rain and wet ground, but the predominant smell was lavender and cut grass. It seemed to be coming from Sìneag.
She sat next to him, and now that raindrops weren’t making him blink every second, he studied her. She pushed back a strand of hair from her heart-shaped face. Her eyes were large, and she had a strawberry-shaped mouth, and freckles dotting her milky skin. Her hair was red and played in the small gushes of wind that reached her. She looked like Red Riding Hood, except her hood was green, and she had no basket.
“Your shoulder is fine, isn’t it?” he said.
A guilty expression crossed her blushing face. “Aye. But I can help ye.”
Konnor grimaced. She’d lied and put his life at risk. For what?
““I almost broke my neck trying to help you.” he said, his voice ringing with restrained anger. She must have a good reason for the ruse, and he didn’t get a dangerous serial killer vibe from her. He hoped Andy would come back to find him once the storm passed. He should see the backpack by the track easily enough.
Sìneag managed to look both sheepish and a little upset. Her green eyes darkened and became as hard as rocks. “Ye dinna have love in yer life, do ye?” she said.