Chapter 1.

People disappear all the time. Most are found... and Most have a logical explanation, usually... but even after everything that's happened, I wouldn't change a single day.

I had wanted to visit Scotland most of my life, due to my red hair and firm belief when I was little that everyone in Scotland had red hair I'd often dreamed of living there as a child.

My mother had only recently confirmed on that my ancestors were actually Scottish and had lived in Inverness and Edinburgh up until the 1700s, after 1745 they moved to Ireland, which led to me assume they had been Jacobites.

I had travelled to the ancient castle of Clan Hay, Castle Delgatie With My Mum. My mother's great grandmother had the last name of Hay. So we assumed that our clan had to be Hay.

The tour guide stood In front of the large crowd, " it's a pity we can't just explore it without anyone else" I whispered to mum, she nodded but I could see something was bothering her, in fact, now I thought about it during our entire journey here she'd looked constantly on edge, at first I'd assumed it was the train journey we'd taken from Huddersfield, as her first born son and at 25 i thought i could usually tell what mood she was in. Before I could inquire further the tour guide decided to move the group on.

We arrived in a grand hall full of paintings.

The tour guide stopped and held out up her hands... " now ladies and gentlemen, for fans of the tv show Outlander we have a very dance of the druids performed in this very room!"

I immediately smiled, I loved outlander and was more than a little obsessed with it, I'd gotten every book and watched every series so far. Inside my backpack I was carrying the second book "Dragonfly In Amber" as well as the novel "Jacobites A New History Of The 45"

The room then darkened as a group of women dressed in the costumes the druids wore in outlander appeared, I noticed behind them that one of the pictures had been covered by a large piece of cloth.

The music of Dance Of The Druids began to fill the room. The women started dancing, however instead of the show where they dances around the stones, these danced around the painting with the cloth over it.

The Tour Guide, a fairly short woman with dark brown hair moved away from the dancing and stood next to me.

" do you believe in magic?" She asked rather bluntly, I was momentarily taken aback, I gathered myself before replying,

" I believe there are things in this world we can't explain, and I'd like to believe in it" I said.

Behind me I saw mum, she looked absolutely furious at the Guide, who smiled and said, " excuse me, I must borrow your mother for a while, enjoy the show" she said and walked away with mum.

I thought that was immensely strange, why would my mother know a tour guide from the highlands?...

The dancing continued, and seemed to grow louder with each passing note, one by one, and in a strangely odd fashion each of the guests started walking out, upon looking at one of them I saw their eyes were looking straight forward and everyone kept bumping into eachother as if hypnotised.

The druid dance ended with each of them surrounding the covered painting, a beam of sunlight shining down on it.

The tour guide reappeared as the last guest left, then the druids started to leave to.

" you know why I played that particular piece?" She asked stepping forward.

" I don't, do you know where my mother is?"

" oh she'll join you in a minute, in any case I played that music because it holds power, Mystical Power, the writers of that show were lucky it didn't actually work for real"

" what do you mean?" I asked, I was immensely confused by now and just wanted to leave.

Just then, the cloth covering the picture fell of revealing the image it held. Odly, the man in the picture looked nearly identical to me.

" oh thank god, I thought I'd gotten it wrong again" she said and looked very relieved about something, I was going to inquire further, but I couldn't, I realised that I'd actually started to walk towards the painting.

" Good...that's it, closer, don't you want to see what lies beyond the painting?" She asked slowly edging me forward,

" what does lie beyond the painting?" I asked as my hand involuntarily began to reach out.

" Power... power beyond your comprehension"

I tried to pull my arm back but couldn't, I struggled as she gently kept edging me towards the painting, "what's happening...get off me!" I said growing ever more fearful of the painting which now seemed to hum with supernatural life.

" finally, I have found you, the amount of first borns I had to go through to find you!" She said happily.

" Now... your going to fund things that you can't explain, things that will scare you, things that will haunt you... but don't worry... just look into your backpack, and I've got someone on the other side who'll help you"

" the other side of what?!"

" Time"

My hand touched the painting, and everything went black.