“Sorry, I’m it.” She passed him her travel pack. “Could you two take this to the New Zealand Embassy and explain I’m in hospital. See if they’ll seek the information we need regarding my parents’ current whereabouts now we know they’re alive.”
He flicked through her documents. “This’ll help open some doors. Hold on. If your parents are alive, I wonder if your childhood home still burnt to the ground?”
Shoot. She could kick herself for not thinking of that.
“If your parents live,” Donald continued, “maybe that’s where they are. What’s your old address and phone number?”
“We lived on 484 Ocean Beach Road in Mount Maunganui.”
William nabbed a pen from his shirt pocket “Right, what was the phone number?”
Her sight dimmed and William’s words were lost to her. She swayed and crumpled to the ground.
Her head pounded as if horses stampeded within.
Oh, so not good. William. He’d wanted her phone number. She had to give that to him.
She scrubbed her head, and the drip attached at her wrist caught around her fingers. “Ow. Ow. Ow. Stupid—”
“Stay still, Annie. I dinnae know what this contraption attached to you is, but ’tis embedded in with a needle. What have you done to yourself?”
“What?” She flung her eyes open. Great, now she truly was hallucinating. “Margaret?”
“You’ve been missing for nigh on ten hours. The whole clan searches for you, but I cannae let them know I’ve found you like this. You appeared out of nowhere, right afore my eyes. You’re truly no’ Annie are you?”
She pushed herself upright, taking care not to bump the drip again. “I haven’t been gone ten days?”
“Nay. Wait a moment.” She grabbed her burgundy skirts and rushed to the door, closed it and slid the bolt into place. “What is this metal box, the rod and bag of...well, how did you get it here? Where did you go?” Margaret plucked at her fleecy pajama bottoms. “You’re even wearing men’s trews, pink ones. I’ve never seen such a sight.”
Oh, she really had returned to the past. And drat, she’d left her parents behind before she’d had a chance to find them. Nothing was going her way. Except Alex was here. Her heartbeat raced. Alex was here. “Ignore the pants. My parents are alive.”
“Then you traveled back to the future? Where’s Annie?”
“You finally believe me?”
“Aye, it’s hard no’ to since you disappeared for so long and without one guard seeing you leave, and now you return out of nowhere, dressed like this, with that thing attached to you.” She grasped her hands with shaky fingers. “Who would try to harm you like this? And why with such a strange contraption?”
“It doesn’t hurt, or at least it didn’t until I knocked it. I was sick and—” She eyed the near empty bag. “I’m going to have to take this needle out. I can’t have anyone seeing it, other than Alex of course. He so needs to see this.”
“We’ll hide it all under your bed for now. You said ten days? Where’s my cousin?”
“I have no idea where Annie is, but my parents are no longer dead. The letter you kept for me made it to them, only I couldn’t find them. They’re alive, but I have no idea where in my time.”
“And Annie is still living there?” Margaret fluttered her hand in front of her pale face.
“Sit.” She tugged Margaret onto the bed beside her. “When you’re ready, press down on this needle while I pull the tape off. You may not faint until after you’ve aided me.”
Tears trailed down Margaret’s cheeks as she pressed where she’d asked. “My cousin is living in the future. I cannae believe it. I might never see her again.”
“Or you might. I have no idea how this time travel thing works. I can only say she traveled back here once, that first night I arrived at Dunscaith, and now I’ve traveled back and forth too. If it happened once, it could happen again.”
She peeled the tape from the needle then slowly withdrew it. She wiped away the dot of blood. “Margaret, I’m pregnant. This device gave me nutrients. I’ve been terribly sick for the past ten days.”
“Pregnant?” Margaret’s face washed completely out. “You’re having Alex MacDonald’s bairn? But Rory willnae—oh, this is all a terrible mess.”
“I need your help, but first”—she bundled up the tubing and jammed it under the bed with the stand—“I need to get dressed.”
“Aye, dressed, before a guardsman returns to check this floor. I willnae fail you now.” Margaret dashed to the trunk and foraged through it. “You cannae tell Rory about the bairn you carry. He’ll question how it could have happened so soon and you cannae speak of those ten days.”
“No problem.” She dug the pills out of her pocket then stripped off her pajamas. “Having lost my family, I know exactly how important our closest are. I never thought I’d see Alex again, and now I’m back.”