Claire returned before sunset.
She found Brianna sitting at the kitchen table while Jamie stood beside the window, staring outside. Neither had spoken for several minutes.
“What happened?” Claire asked immediately.
Jamie turned.
“She heard something near the creek.”
Claire set down her medical bag.
“What sort of thing?”
“A buzzing,” Brianna answered. “Then voices.”
Her mother looked at Jamie.
He gave a nearly imperceptible nod.
Claire slowly removed her cloak.
“Tell me exactly what happened.”
Brianna described the sound, the pain and the sudden vision. She told them about the stones and the woman she had seen beyond them.
She expected Claire to suggest exhaustion, hunger or an illness.
Instead, her mother sat down opposite her.
“What did the stones look like?”
“Tall. Grey. There were several of them, arranged in a circle.”
Claire’s hands tightened in her lap.
“Was there a split stone?”
“I don’t know. It happened too quickly.”
“And the woman?”
“I couldn’t see her face.”
“Did she speak?”
“Not exactly.”
“But you heard your name?”
Brianna nodded.
Claire looked towards Jamie.
A conversation passed silently between them.
Brianna had seen them do it many times before. A glance, a movement, a slight change in expression—and somehow they exchanged entire thoughts without speaking.
Normally, it amused her.
Tonight, it made her angry.
“What aren’t you telling me?”
Claire reached across the table.
“Brianna—”
“No.”
She pulled her hand away.
“You both know something. Da has been strange since it happened, and now you are asking questions as though you already understand.”
“It is complicated,” Claire said.
“That is what adults say when they don’t intend to tell the truth.”
Jamie turned from the window.
“Mind how ye speak to your mother.”
“Then speak to me.”
His jaw tightened.
Brianna pushed back her chair and stood.
“I saw those stones. I heard them calling me. Either you believe me, or you think I have lost my mind.”
“No one thinks that,” Claire said quickly.
“Then what were they?”
Silence.
The fire cracked behind them.
Jamie lowered his gaze. Claire’s face held an expression Brianna could not identify. It was not merely fear.
It was memory.
Brianna felt suddenly cold.
“You have seen them,” she whispered.
Claire closed her eyes briefly.
“Yes.”
The single word seemed to change the room.
Brianna sat down again.
“Where?”
“Scotland.”
“Are they real?”
“Yes.”
“What do they do?”
Claire looked at Jamie once more.
This time, he nodded.
Her mother drew a long breath.
“They are a doorway.”
Brianna frowned.
“A doorway to where?”
Claire’s eyes met hers.
“Not where,” she said softly. “When.”
The fire continued to burn.
Outside, darkness settled over Fraser’s Ridge. The mountains disappeared into the night, and the forest became a single vast shadow.
Brianna stared at her mother, waiting for her to smile or explain that she had misunderstood.
Claire did neither.
“You mean time,” Brianna said.
“Yes.”
“That is impossible.”
“I once believed so.”
Jamie moved towards the table and stood beside Claire, resting one hand on her shoulder.
Brianna looked from one parent to the other.
Fragments of childhood memories began shifting into new shapes. Stories that ended too abruptly. Questions that had gone unanswered. Her mother’s unusual knowledge. The sorrow that sometimes appeared in Jamie’s eyes when Claire spoke of the future without seeming to notice.
“You went through them,” Brianna said.
Claire nodded.
“To the future?”
“I was born there.”
Brianna laughed once, but the sound held no humour.
“No.”
“It is the truth.”
“You were born in Scotland.”
“I was born in England in the year 1918.”
Brianna stared at her.
The world felt unsteady again, though the humming had not returned.
“That is more than a hundred and fifty years from now.”
“Yes.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“No,” Claire replied. “I expect it will take time.”
Brianna stood so quickly that the chair struck the floor behind her.
“You have lied to me.”
“We tried to protect ye,” Jamie said.
“From what?”
“From knowing that such a thing exists.”
“It knows I exist!”
Her voice cracked through the room.
No one answered.
Brianna pressed both hands against the table, trying to control her breathing.
All her life, she had wondered why she sometimes felt different. Why certain dreams seemed more like memories. Why places she had never visited appeared inside her mind with impossible clarity.
“Why did they call me?”
Claire’s expression filled with pain.
“I don’t know.”
“Can I travel through them?”
“We don’t know that either.”
“But you think it is possible.”
Claire hesitated.
“Yes.”
The answer frightened Brianna more than anything else had.
She stepped away from the table.
“I need air.”
Jamie moved to stop her.
“Let her go,” Claire said.
He looked at his wife.
“She will remain close,” Claire added, though her eyes stayed on Brianna. “Won’t you?”
Brianna nodded.
She grabbed her cloak and left the cabin before either of them could say more
