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“Why do ye think ye were brought here, to this time, if not to find me?” He smiled confidently as he spoke, ignoring my several attempts to stop him. “It can’t be a coincidence that ye came here, of all places.”
“I don’t know why it was this time,” I snapped, feeling heated. “It just happened, okay?”
“The ship stops at Oak Isle but once a year. Are ye suggesting that was pure chance as well?” Good grief he was stubborn! I didn’t blame him for being curious about how and why I’d come here, but he was tying it all back to himself, trying to prove that we were meant to be together.
I’d wondered the same things on many occasions, if I had been lost so he could find me. But what kind of god or creator would be so cruel as to do that to me? I’d already lost my family in my own generation. Did I really need to lose another love here? Refusing to answer, I turned away from him, lying down and rolling to my side, staring at the wall. Blessed peace filled the space and I sighed, closing my eyes.
“I know ye’ve been struggling,” he spoke softly after a few moments. “I could see it in ye that first night on the ship, when ye didn’t know yer clothes from top to bottom. I thought ye were simply scared because pirates had taken ye. I’d never have guessed ye were stolen from a different time as well.”
Snorting, I continued to look away, trying not to melt against him and let him comfort me.
“Ye want to go home, more than anything?” He asked quietly, reaching out and taking a strand of my hair between his fingers, rubbing it gently.
“I—I do.” My response was greeted with silence and I felt him lower himself next to me, sliding close. More than anything, I wanted him to hold me, but his injured arm kept him from doing so.
“Will ye not mourn me anyway, lass?” he whispered, a strange hitch to his voice. “Because I will feel the loss of ye every day in my bones. Knowing that ye aren’t in my world will destroy me.”
His words brought tears to my eyes and I rolled over, snuggling against him as I let them fall. “I don’t know what I want anymore.” The statement had been brewing in my mind for some time, but I’d never realized it until then. He had changed everything, thrown it out of place without doing anything other than existing. “It seems like I should go home, because that was the time I was born in. That’s where I belong, in the grand scheme of things. But there’s nothing there for me, not really. All I would be going back to is graves—and yours would be included with them.
“But staying here? I don’t understand this time. I don’t understand the politics, or how to do things without modern conveniences. In my time, most people carry around a little box that has the ability to tell them anything they want to know, within seconds! It can call someone on the other side of the world and you’ll be able to speak with them in real time. Water comes out of pipes, heated and falling like rain, and you bathe yourself in it. It never runs out! We don’t have to fill a tub with buckets by the fire and hope that it stays warm for more than a few minutes. Ships are powered by more than wind, crossing the Atlantic in a number of days instead of months. We know how to fly! Illnesses that exist now are virtually extinct in my time. It is literally so different that I feel like I can’t describe it well enough for you to understand.”
Looking up at his face, I could see his wide eyes trying to process the information I’d dumped on him. It must have sounded like magic, made up stories that could never be real, but he was obviously trying to imagine it all.
“A box that can tell ye anything? That can speak?” he finally asked, looking at me with a burning curiosity.
“It doesn’t really speak. Well, some of them do, but it isn’t smart like a human. All of the data is loaded onto it and it just relays it back. It’s called a smartphone.”
“Smartphone,” he said, sampling the word. “Your time must be filled with knowledge and scholars of all kinds!”
“Not really,” I replied grimacing. “People use it to mostly watch videos of cats and fling pretend birds at a bunch of digital pigs.”
“What is a video?”
I was going to have to stop telling him about the future if I didn’t want to spend the next three hundred years filling him in on everything. “It’s like a memory,” I answered, striving to find a way to tell him. “But everyone can see it. It gets recorded and the device, like a smartphone, remembers it perfectly and can play it back for other people.”
He snorted, shaking his head as he stared up at the ceiling. “No wonder ye haven’t figured out the entrance to the treasure trove yet, if yer watching cats all the time.”
“It’s not like you went easy on all the booby traps,” I shot back, suddenly annoyed. “My father dedicated his life to solving that pit and it killed him, as well as several other men.”
“Pit?” he asked sharply, sitting up and staring at me. “There is no pit on Oak Isle.”
“Uh, yeah there is,” I insisted. “I should know. I was in it when I got pulled here.”
“No, there isn’t,” he replied adamantly. “Not yet, anyway. We would never be so stupid as to dig a hole right to where we hid the treasure. What is down there is meant to stay there.”
“Then who dug it?” Rising as well, I watched him expectantly, suddenly feeling very fearful of the whole mess.
“I have no idea.” His mouth had settled into a grim line and he ran a hand through his hair. “Ye need to tell me all ye know about this pit of yers.” He studied my expression, thinking something over, and then nodded. “Yes, tell me.”
“Now?” Scrambling, I tried to remember everything Dad had told me and what I’d learned while working in it with him.
“Yes,” he confirmed. “I need to know when this pit arrived on the island.”
“Uh . . .” Closing my eyes, I attempted to dig up all the facts about when it was found. “It was discovered in seventeen ninety-five, by a couple of boys. It was filled in, but there was a depression in the ground that made them think there could be something at the bottom. A little over two hundred years later and all we know is that the pit is several hundred feet deep and booby trapped with flood tunnels. No one has ever discovered what was at the bottom. Well, no one except me, that is.”
“So, one hundred years from now, it will be there,” he mused, rubbing his jaw.
“Yes, but it was determined that it’d been there for a while before that, because the wood inside was so old. If there was no pit the last time you were there, I would say it could be there as soon as this year.”
“This year!” His eyes widened and he got to his feet, pacing around the room, muttering to himself. This was very bad news, apparently. “Who would do such a thing?”
“Well, there are several theories,” I stated, knowing that it didn’t help him much. “Originally, they thought there was pirate gold down there. The treasure of the Knights Templar is another guess. Some people think it’s gold that was hidden by the English during the Revolutionary War even.”
“The what?” he asked, only half paying attention to what I was saying.
“Never mind,” I replied, brushing the statement aside. “The point is, whoever built it did such a good job that no one has been able to figure it out.”
“No one but ye.” Stopping, he stared at me hard, a sort of realization washing over him. “Samantha, what did ye touch of the treasure?”
“Why?” I questioned, not following.
“There are things down there that could have sent ye here,” he explained. “Things that hold great power. The Templars have hidden them away for a reason, to keep the world safe from them. That treasure is cursed with blood and evil.”
A chill ran through my bones and I shrunk away, thinking of that night. It was so long ago, would I be able to remember exactly? “I broke through the top of the vault.” It came out as a whisper, things starting to play through my mind like a movie. “And dropped inside. There was a skeleton—I don’t recall if there were any clothes on it or n
ot—and I think I accidentally broke the skull. There was no light, but there was a box sitting on the ground. I wasn’t supposed to be down there, so I was hurrying, trying to find something before getting caught. The chest had been there so long that it crumbled when I pulled on it. The lock came away in my hand—or maybe I saw the lock before I pulled on it?—and it was a puzzle lock. It had the letter “o” on one side and the Templar cross on the other.”
“That’s not part of the treasure,” he interrupted me. “That’s mine. What else did ye touch?”
“Nothing,” I replied. “Just the vase that was inside the box.”
Tristan’s face paled at this and he frowned. “What did the vase look like?”
“I don’t know,” I answered, exasperated. “It was old and had some symbols on it. Maybe Greek? I can’t remember. I was more interested in opening it and finding out if anything was inside.”
“Ye opened the vase?” He choked on the words, his eyes bulging out of his head as he looked at me.
“Yes.” I was afraid to even ask what it was, seeing the reaction he was having. “Was that bad?”
“What happened after that?” he urged, waving for me to continue.
“Uh, there was nothing inside. I put the lid back on and was going to carry it out with me, but the pit started flooding. The last thing I recall is cutting my leg on a rock and thinking I was going to drown.”
Moving to his small chest of things that had been brought ashore and then placed in the tent after his win, he opened it up, retrieving a cloth wrapped case. As he removed the fabric, I gasped, recognizing the box from the pit. Making quick work of the puzzle lock, Tristan carefully lifted the lid, holding it out as he turned to me. “Is this the vase?”
“Yes,” I whispered, wanting to investigate it but shirking away from it at the same time. The lid was screwed on, every inch of it looking as it had that night, just not as old. It was obvious that it was an ancient artifact in this time as well, and he handled it with care, looking down in mingled curiosity and fear. “What is it?” I whispered.
“I have absolutely no idea.” Closing the case, he wrapped it back up and stowed it among his things, making sure it was locked before turning away. “Brian gave it to me when we left his house. All he said was that it was a piece of the treasure and I was to hide it with the others. Generally speaking, I don’t really prod into the items given me.”
“Brian is a Templar as well?” My own brain was beginning to spin with all of the knowledge being loaded into it and I suddenly felt like I could lay right down and sleep for several years.
“Aye. All of my family were members of the Order.”
“How are we going to get to him so we can ask what it is? The crew won’t want to sail back when they’ve been told we’re going to the Caribbean next. And, thanks to your announcement, I might not be able to go with you.” The last part came out as a growl and I glared at him, furious with his stupid new code.
“I don’t think he knows what it is either,” he snapped. “And I gave ye a perfectly fine way to come aboard, whether ye win the vote or not!”
“How can you still want to marry me after everything I just told you?” I yelled, not really caring if anyone heard me.
“Because I love ye, damn it!” he roared back, slamming his hand against one of the wooden support poles of the tent. “It makes no difference to me where ye came from! It makes no difference if ye were sent to me by fate or by chance! All that matters is that yer here! And I’ll be damned if I let ye go simply because ye think we can’t do it!”
“What are you going to do when I go home?” I shouted in return, fists clenched at my sides. “Come with me?”
“Yes!” Tristan stood motionless, huffing and puffing, glaring at me in pain. His shoulder was twitching some, jostled by his intense reaction. Silently, I stared at him, shocked beyond words. Watching him slowly rein his emotions in, Tristan let out a shaky breath before quietly speaking. “Yes. If ye must go back, then I aim to go with ye. My soul has bonded itself with yers, Samantha. Either ye will stay here with me, or I will follow ye into the future. It does not matter to me, so long as I am with ye.”
My own chest heaving, I watched him, tears streaming down my face. “I love you,” I said with conviction, crossing the space and wrapping my arms around him, wishing I could hold him tighter than his wound would allow.
Bending down, he kissed me fiercely, breaking away from my lips to murmur against my forehead. “If ye love me, lass, then say ye’ll marry me. Stop wounding my heart by arguing about it further.” Caressing me again, his free arm held me strongly to him, his mouth bruising my own.
“What if something goes wrong and we get separated?” There was still so much I didn’t know, so much I was unsure of. It terrified me to think I could surrender myself so completely to him and then lose him in the end.
“It won’t,” he answered simply. “Please, Samantha, say ye’ll do it. Make me the happiest man in this time or any other.”
Resting my head softly against his chest, I took a deep breath and closed my eyes. “Yes, I’ll marry you.”