“What of Scotland? Have they made these movies about my nation?” Connor asked curiously.
“Dozens, at least,” she told him. “Braveheart was about William Wallace, there was Rob Roy…hmm, let me think. Brigadoon. Was that Irish or Scottish? Hmm…I think Mary, Queen of Scots was in…oh! I know! Highlander! Now there’s a classic. You might like that one. And there are a lot of Scottish actors, too. Sean Connery is a Scot and probably one of the biggest names ever,” she added shooting him a seductive look from beneath her lashes. “You talk just like him. It’s so sexy.”
Connor took her drawled statement and cheeky grin with smile, but returned his attention to the tiny images again as the Austen story unfolded. How wondrous, he thought. Stories that one could watch, already he could see the appeal and scope of such entertainment. He would have paid any sum in that moment to see one in person at a theater. He felt he could not exclaim his awe and wonder enough to truly express what he felt about this device that allowed him to see what would be.
“Will such an event be available in my lifetime?” he hesitantly asked in a low voice. “Will I have the opportunity to watch one in person?”
“Of course,” she assured him. “They are really not that far away. In fact, I think that maybe the beginnings are already in the works. But, a little FYI, the first ones will have no sound and be in black and white like your photographs are still, but they will get better as the science grows just like anything else.”
As the science grows. As time goes on.
He sighed. He could not refute the truth of her claim. A logical man weighed evidence and made conclusions based on those facts. As much as his emotions wanted to deny it, Connor knew logically if not yet in his heart that Emmy spoke true.
He needed to find old Donell. To determine his part in this whole thing. The man had been prying to everyone’s business for more years than Connor could remember. Some remarkable things had occurred over the years that had been contributed to him but nothing of this magnitude. He needed to be found, but the question remained. “How could Donell have performed such sorcery? It is beyond understanding.”
Emmy sighed in relief and slumped back in the chair. Connor had been staring blankly at the screen for so long that she had begun to fear where his ruminations had meandered to. He was starting to allow the truth of her claim if he was questioning the hows of the whole thing. From there it was a small step to total acceptance. She didn’t realize how tense she had become until her muscles were free to relax and the blood freed to flow back into her fingers from where they had been clenched so tightly together.
Still, Emmy didn’t have a real explanation to offer. “I don’t know how it happened or how he did it, Connor. If he did indeed do it and isn’t just some crazy old man spouting nonsense when I saw him at the inn. But he was there with me now he is here and so am I. He is the constant.” She shrugged, a pitiful response she was aware. “He said at the inn that it was about second chances and something about a simple life but other than that I’ve got nothing. I just don’t know.”
He raised his head and met her gaze for the first time since her revelation. “Ye said that before. Second chances?”
“He said there had been tragedy in your family and that everyone deserved a second chance.” Emmy thought again of the conclusion she had drawn. “I think he meant Dory. I think in my future that she might not have made it through her delivery. I looked at my guidebook after that and it said your title had passed to a cousin after your death. Not Ian and not a nephew. That either means that Ian and Dory had only girls or Ian….” She faltered.
“Died before me childless.” Connor’s voice was low and distraught.
“Yes.”
“And I had no heirs.”
“Yes,” she repeated softly.
Still he could not help but shake his head. He felt as if his mind were about to explode from the excess of information rolling through him this past hour. His future lay out before him. Unchangeable? Connor thought again about her passport and the birth date it had shown. Emmy wasn’t even of his lifetime. This device, this iPhone, was beyond his lifetime. He would never live so long to see its invention. He would be dead long before she was ever born.
He tapped the edge of the music player and stared unfocused at it, beyond it. A larger issue raised its head. If Emmy were of the future, was it against God’s plan that he love her? She could not have been meant for him to be born beyond his years. Connor pondered the natural order of God’s will but could not decide whether her arrival was a gift from God to complete his life or a bit of sorcery that could just as easily be taken away. One thought prompted another question.
“Ye said ye’re ignorant of the force that brought ye to this time? Ye were unaware?” There was an intensity to his expression that was not typically present. His dark eyes were turbulent, troubled.
