"You sure about this?" asked Cutter dubiously, staring at the anomaly as Dìonadair washed her paws with her rough tongue, affecting an air of aloofness, but she kept eyeing up Amara when the lioness dæmon wasn't looking.
"Don't worry. Connor says the anomaly isn't dated that far into the past, so I doubt there'll be any dinosaurs. I'll just take a quick look and be right back in two shakes," Stephen replied. He loaded his tranquiliser gun and tucked it in his waistband, knowing Cutter wouldn't let him through the anomaly otherwise. Last week, their anomaly exploration rover, which Connor had dubbed K-9 with geeky affection, had broken down, and until it was fixed, members of the team took turns making brief surveys on the other side. Today was Stephen's turn. Resting one hand on Amara's powerful shoulders, he walked through the anomaly into another time.
He stepped out into a thick copse of trees, sunlight shining through the branches, ruffled by the wind. It all looked fairly familiar insofar as landscapes went, and the flora looked recent, so it had to be within the past 10,000 years. Stephen couldn't see any sign of a creature anywhere, but then Amara butted her head against his hip. "Look over there," she murmured, very quietly, and he turned, cautiously peering out from behind the trees that hid him – and the anomaly – from sight.
They had to be in a more modern era, because a few metres away, running along the treeline was a stone wall, probably about waist-high on a man, like one of the old border walls that people built before there were real fences. Walking on top of the wall with ease was a young man, hardly more than a boy, probably sixteen or seventeen. And he was the first person that Stephen had ever seen with a fashion sense (or lack thereof) to rival Connor's. He wore scuffed trainers, loose trousers that were dark red in colour with some sort of dark pattern on them Stephen couldn't make heads or tails of from here and held up by suspenders, a pale shirt with either a floral or paisley pattern, hard to tell, a long maroon jacket that flapped to his knees, made of a fabric so light it was more for decoration than warmth, and a broad-brimmed fedora of a similar wine colour with a broad purple band that had a spray of feathers jauntily tucked in it. There was a rosary wrapped around one wrist, and a silver necklace winked brightly whenever it caught the sun, numerous small charms producing a merry jingling as they rattled together in time with his step. The boy wasn't so much as walking on the top of the wall as he was dancing on it, the kind of dancing a person only does when they know there's nobody looking, sometimes humming random snatches of whatever music he was listening to inside his mind. Still, he never missed a step or lost his balance, even though the walltop was probably no wider than a man's hand.
There was something vaguely familiar about him, though Stephen couldn't possibly imagine what, until they saw the boy's dæmon padding daintily along behind him. Stephen had to press a hand over his mouth and clamp the other hand around Amara's muzzle to keep them from laughing aloud, because there was no mistaking that peculiar cat dæmon with her half-tail and curled ears, even if she was smaller, slimmer, and sprightlier than he was used to seeing.
"Ya look like a stork havin' an epileptic fit, do ya know that?" Dìonadair laughed.
16-year-old Nick Cutter only laughed right back, tipping his hat back on his shag of riotously curly hair. "And Ah dinnae care," he replied, his Scottish burr much thicker, not softened by years of living in London. "Tis a bright an' bonny day, my lass, an' Ah fully intend to enjoy it!" They passed beneath the branches of a tree, and he jumped a little to grab hold of one, his toes dangling just above the walltop, swinging back and forth a little; Dìonadair began batting at his shoelaces playfully.
Stephen could feel Amara shaking with repressed laughter beneath his hand, and mutely he made a gesture towards the anomaly. As amusing as it was, watching a younger version of the so-stoic professor act a fool, they had to get back. As they stepped back, a twig snapped underfoot, and Stephen cursed in his head.
"Did ye hear tha'?" asked Dìonadair.
"Hear wha'? Oh, bugger it!" Nick swore as Stephen and Amara hastily bolted through the anomaly before being spotted. Just in time, too, because no sooner had they returned than it began to sputter and fade before closing.
"That was close," Amara muttered.
"But worth it," Stephen chortled, and she laughed, nodding. Glancing down, he gave another bark of laughter, bent, and picked up a wine-coloured fedora with a spray of feathers in its broad purple band. No doubt that was what younger Nick had cursed about, the wind snatching his hat and blowing it away. He glanced to where the anomaly had just been and shook his head. Oh, this was just too good.
Walking back to the Hilux where the rest of the team waited, Stephen hid the fedora behind his back with one hand and approached Cutter, leaning against the truck with Dìonadair stretched out in a sunny patch of the tailgate. "See anything interesting?" the professor asked.
"Definitely," he replied. "I learned that you no longer have any right to say anything about Connor's wardrobe, Nick. And I mean, ever." He held out the fedora.
The professor stared at it in shock for a moment, then his eyes darted to where the anomaly had been, and he grinned broadly, covering his face with one hand as he began shaking with laughter, a flush spreading up his neck into his ears. "Oh, God...I always wondered where this thing got to," he laughed, still red in the face. Taking the fedora in hand, he brushed some of the dirt off and laughed again. Dìonadair shook her head, laying her head down and placing her paws over her muzzle. "Wow."
"Hey, Stephen, was there anything cool on the other side or was it just – ooh, cool hat," said Connor as he bounded over, Natalya on one shoulder. "Where'd that come from?"
"Just found it on the ground. Breeze must've brought it from somewhere," Stephen replied casually, hands in his pockets; Cutter smirked.
Connor glanced between professor and assistant, as if somehow sensing that there was some subtext that he was missing here. "Ri-ight. So...can I have it? I'll never say no to a free hat," he said.
Cutter chortled softly, turning the hat over in hand, and then, with a smooth, practiced flip of the wrist, he flipped the fedora neatly onto his head, tilting it back at a jaunty angle. "Maybe some other time," he replied with a sly wink; Connor's mouth fell open in surprise. "C'mon, let's go for a round, shall we? Tis a bright an' bonny day, let's not waste it."
Nick huffed out a curse, hands on his hips as he surveyed the leaf-littered ground for any sight of his hat. "Well, now, where the bloody hell did it go? Surely it dinnae vanish into thin air!" he snapped in exasperation.
Dìonadair weaved between his ankles, purring. "There now, my lad, doona fash. I'm sure it'll come back to us. Now c'mon, we've got ta get home. If we're late for supper again, Mam an' Taran shall have both our hides!"
Frowning unhappily, Nick began making his way back towards home, Dìonadair springing up to perch on his shoulder. A strong gust of wind blew his unruly hair across his eyes, and he swiped it back impatiently. "Ah miss me hat already," he sighed.
"We'll find it another day."
"Aye, s'pose we shall."