Another Traveler
The bottles at the glassblower's stall caught my eye, probably due to their uncanny resemblance to the bottles that whiskey had been sold in, in my time. "How much would you charge for a dozen of these bottles?" I asked the craftsman, thinking that they were extremely well-suited for Jamie's whiskey business.
The glassblower appraised my face and cast a glance at my hands. Undoubtedly, trying to establish the highest price that he might ask for his wares without driving me away to another stall. "I don't often sell them by the dozen," he said. "That's an unusual request."
"And," I began, "most businessmen would consider it a profitable request, I'm sure." He had a way of speaking that reminded me of Bree's Bostonian accent, not one I often heard in 1770's North Carolina. Staring at one another, waiting for the next move, I felt that there was something wrong about this man. Not necessarily bad, not necessarily good. Just . . . wrong.
He narrowed his eyes at me, and I felt a sensation of shock, as if a small bolt of electricity had shot from one side of my brain to the other. It was his glasses! Upon casual glance, they looked like the spectacles of any of the other vision-impaired fellows of the day, albeit, most such fellows didn't bother to get glasses. The glassblower's glasses were not wire-framed, but they were of a material that might have been tortoiseshell- -but also, might have been plastic. Good, old, twentieth century plastic.
"On second thought," I said, feeling the sudden need to sit down, "Maybe I should shop around." I started to walk away, and I could see Jamie across the way. For a man who can mask his thoughts and feelings, he had a terrible look of concern, now.
At the same time my vision narrowed to a dark tunnel and things started spinning, I heard him call, "Sassenach!"
And I also heard the glassblower's female assistant cry, "John Fitzgerald Kennedy, what have you done, now?"
I woke surrounded by staring faces. Jamie, first and foremost, who was looking at me sideways because he had my head cradled in his lap. The glassblower, his woman, and various other people from the marketplace.
"Sassenach, ye gave me quite a scare! John Kennedy, here tells me that ye dinna have words wi' him, but his missus canna confirm it. Shall I let the wee artisan go, or shall I clonk him over the head wi' one of his own bottles?"
I realized that the glassblower wasn't there of his own free will, but that Jamie had a death grip on his upper arm, apparently having come to the conclusion that the man had done me wrong in some way. I knew that with a word from me, he would see to his immediate and painful punishment. "No, Jamie, let go of the glassblower. Mr. Kennedy," I said, concentrating on the man with the plastic frames. "My husband tends to be a bit overprotective."
Jamie let go; Kennedy sat back on his heels, and his woman put her hands on his shoulders. "And my husband has a habit of neglectin' our stall. If you please, I'd like to take him away." Nothing about her gave me the strange feeling that I was still getting from Kennedy.
"Mr. Kennedy." He turned to look at me. "You make these bottles and bowls?"
"Yes, I do," he said. I decided on a way to test my hypothesis.
"They're absolutely groovy," I said, staring through his suspicious glasses into his brown eyes. They lit up like a Christmas tree.
"Who are you?" he said. Jamie, sensing a problem, put a strong arm between us, but I pushed it down.
"I'm Claire Fraser, lately of Fraser's Ridge, west of here. However," I went on, "a couple of hundred years from now, I lived in Boston!" Jamie's mouth fell open. The glassblower's wife, who had stood and started to walk away, stopped in her tracks.
"I'm not really JFK," the man said, unnecessarily, to me, and he shot a glance at Jamie, who was more confused than ever. "But, like, when presented with the chance to start over, I figured, why not start over with a name that's kind of special?"
"We have to go somewhere to talk," I said. Jamie helped me to my feet, and the four of us moved out of the path of market browsers. "Is there a pub, nearby? I could use a drink."
The glassblower instructed his woman to oversee the stall while he went with us; it took a lot of persuasion, as she seemed to regard the two of us, Jamie especially, as some kind of threat to her man's health. For good reason. The glassblower was of medium height and rather spindly, and Jamie was nothing if not intimidating. He could have taken the craftsman out without breaking a sweat. I assured her that he was safe with us and that he'd return in a matter of minutes, but there were things I had to know-- and probably things that he would like to know, about me.
We entered a dim, smoke-filled and stale smelling establishment and Jamie motioned for the barmaid to bring us refreshment. I couldn't wipe the smile off my face!
"You're from Boston, I can tell," I said. "How do you come to be here? Now?"
We accepted tankards of ale and the glassblower began his story. "It was nineteen sixty-eight," he said. I nodded. That year had been a big one for time traveling. "Twelve or thirteen of us were living together in Vermont at the time--"
"From what Claire tells me, that sounds a very great number to have in a family, in your time," interrupted Jamie. I put my hand on his arm to silence him.
"We weren't exactly a family, man, in the sense that you might be thinking," said Kennedy, or whatever his name was. "It was an artists' commune."
"Your wife?" I asked.
"Oh, Sally's not really my wife," he said with a smile. "She's from here." Jamie obviously didn't know what one thing had to do with the other, yet.
"Go on, please."
"A bunch of us, and my old lady at the time, a jeweler, decided to take the plunge and hike the Appalachian Trail," he said. "Thought it might be a good thing to do, a good place to get lost and stand on top of a mountain and burn our draft cards, you know?"
Jamie started at that. "Ye'd take yer own mother out and burn yer draft horses and carts?" he said, scratching the two-day growth of red and white whiskers on his chin. Again, I implored him to be quiet so the man could tell me his story.
"Not so, man," he said. "She was hardly my mother, and we were burning--"
This time, I interrupted him, lest we get involved in a conversation about a behavior that Jamie definitely wouldn't condone. "So it happened while you were hiking?" I asked.
"My lady and I, we both got hit with this wicked headache at the same time, like we were having spikes rammed into our eyeballs. And there was this buzzing," he said, rubbing his temples at the memory. An apt description, I thought. "We sat down to have a--" he raised an eyebrow and looked from Jamie to me. "--a smoke, and it was the strangest smoke I ever had."
I knew exactly what he meant. "Were you in a stone circle?" I asked. Suddenly, I had hopes that Brianna and Roger and Jemmy and their unborn child could have a local portal back to their own time; that they could go back home before the baby was born, as I had done so many years ago.
"We were in a strange sort of clearing," he said.
"Near here?" I was excited. This time, Jamie laid a hand on my arm.
"Very near here," the man said.
"Your lady, the jeweler. Where is she, now?" I knew that jewels helped one to travel through time, and I suspected that he and she had made it because of them. "Can you show me the place?"
He paled. "I don't know where she is. I was alone when I came to, and, well.it turned out to be . . ._now_. All I had with me was what I had on me, and I had been carrying her pack at the time--it was heavy, like, and I never saw her nor the potter nor the weaver, nor any of them again. I don't know if they just stayed in nineteen sixty-eight, or if . . . something else happened."
"Didn't you try to go back?"
"No way," he said, adamantly. "It was bad enough the one time. I wandered around and got right back to my craft. Which, I must say, was good preparation for life here, glassblowing. And living in a commune. To think, my mother wanted me to be an accountant."
Jamie snorted.
The bottles at the glassblower's stall caught my eye, probably due to their uncanny resemblance to the bottles that whiskey had been sold in, in my time. "How much would you charge for a dozen of these bottles?" I asked the craftsman, thinking that they were extremely well-suited for Jamie's whiskey business.
The glassblower appraised my face and cast a glance at my hands. Undoubtedly, trying to establish the highest price that he might ask for his wares without driving me away to another stall. "I don't often sell them by the dozen," he said. "That's an unusual request."
"And," I began, "most businessmen would consider it a profitable request, I'm sure." He had a way of speaking that reminded me of Bree's Bostonian accent, not one I often heard in 1770's North Carolina. Staring at one another, waiting for the next move, I felt that there was something wrong about this man. Not necessarily bad, not necessarily good. Just . . . wrong.
He narrowed his eyes at me, and I felt a sensation of shock, as if a small bolt of electricity had shot from one side of my brain to the other. It was his glasses! Upon casual glance, they looked like the spectacles of any of the other vision-impaired fellows of the day, albeit, most such fellows didn't bother to get glasses. The glassblower's glasses were not wire-framed, but they were of a material that might have been tortoiseshell- -but also, might have been plastic. Good, old, twentieth century plastic.
"On second thought," I said, feeling the sudden need to sit down, "Maybe I should shop around." I started to walk away, and I could see Jamie across the way. For a man who can mask his thoughts and feelings, he had a terrible look of concern, now.
At the same time my vision narrowed to a dark tunnel and things started spinning, I heard him call, "Sassenach!"
And I also heard the glassblower's female assistant cry, "John Fitzgerald Kennedy, what have you done, now?"
I woke surrounded by staring faces. Jamie, first and foremost, who was looking at me sideways because he had my head cradled in his lap. The glassblower, his woman, and various other people from the marketplace.
"Sassenach, ye gave me quite a scare! John Kennedy, here tells me that ye dinna have words wi' him, but his missus canna confirm it. Shall I let the wee artisan go, or shall I clonk him over the head wi' one of his own bottles?"
I realized that the glassblower wasn't there of his own free will, but that Jamie had a death grip on his upper arm, apparently having come to the conclusion that the man had done me wrong in some way. I knew that with a word from me, he would see to his immediate and painful punishment. "No, Jamie, let go of the glassblower. Mr. Kennedy," I said, concentrating on the man with the plastic frames. "My husband tends to be a bit overprotective."
Jamie let go; Kennedy sat back on his heels, and his woman put her hands on his shoulders. "And my husband has a habit of neglectin' our stall. If you please, I'd like to take him away." Nothing about her gave me the strange feeling that I was still getting from Kennedy.
"Mr. Kennedy." He turned to look at me. "You make these bottles and bowls?"
"Yes, I do," he said. I decided on a way to test my hypothesis.
"They're absolutely groovy," I said, staring through his suspicious glasses into his brown eyes. They lit up like a Christmas tree.
"Who are you?" he said. Jamie, sensing a problem, put a strong arm between us, but I pushed it down.
"I'm Claire Fraser, lately of Fraser's Ridge, west of here. However," I went on, "a couple of hundred years from now, I lived in Boston!" Jamie's mouth fell open. The glassblower's wife, who had stood and started to walk away, stopped in her tracks.
"I'm not really JFK," the man said, unnecessarily, to me, and he shot a glance at Jamie, who was more confused than ever. "But, like, when presented with the chance to start over, I figured, why not start over with a name that's kind of special?"
"We have to go somewhere to talk," I said. Jamie helped me to my feet, and the four of us moved out of the path of market browsers. "Is there a pub, nearby? I could use a drink."
The glassblower instructed his woman to oversee the stall while he went with us; it took a lot of persuasion, as she seemed to regard the two of us, Jamie especially, as some kind of threat to her man's health. For good reason. The glassblower was of medium height and rather spindly, and Jamie was nothing if not intimidating. He could have taken the craftsman out without breaking a sweat. I assured her that he was safe with us and that he'd return in a matter of minutes, but there were things I had to know-- and probably things that he would like to know, about me.
We entered a dim, smoke-filled and stale smelling establishment and Jamie motioned for the barmaid to bring us refreshment. I couldn't wipe the smile off my face!
"You're from Boston, I can tell," I said. "How do you come to be here? Now?"
We accepted tankards of ale and the glassblower began his story. "It was nineteen sixty-eight," he said. I nodded. That year had been a big one for time traveling. "Twelve or thirteen of us were living together in Vermont at the time--"
"From what Claire tells me, that sounds a very great number to have in a family, in your time," interrupted Jamie. I put my hand on his arm to silence him.
"We weren't exactly a family, man, in the sense that you might be thinking," said Kennedy, or whatever his name was. "It was an artists' commune."
"Your wife?" I asked.
"Oh, Sally's not really my wife," he said with a smile. "She's from here." Jamie obviously didn't know what one thing had to do with the other, yet.
"Go on, please."
"A bunch of us, and my old lady at the time, a jeweler, decided to take the plunge and hike the Appalachian Trail," he said. "Thought it might be a good thing to do, a good place to get lost and stand on top of a mountain and burn our draft cards, you know?"
Jamie started at that. "Ye'd take yer own mother out and burn yer draft horses and carts?" he said, scratching the two-day growth of red and white whiskers on his chin. Again, I implored him to be quiet so the man could tell me his story.
"Not so, man," he said. "She was hardly my mother, and we were burning--"
This time, I interrupted him, lest we get involved in a conversation about a behavior that Jamie definitely wouldn't condone. "So it happened while you were hiking?" I asked.
"My lady and I, we both got hit with this wicked headache at the same time, like we were having spikes rammed into our eyeballs. And there was this buzzing," he said, rubbing his temples at the memory. An apt description, I thought. "We sat down to have a--" he raised an eyebrow and looked from Jamie to me. "--a smoke, and it was the strangest smoke I ever had."
I knew exactly what he meant. "Were you in a stone circle?" I asked. Suddenly, I had hopes that Brianna and Roger and Jemmy and their unborn child could have a local portal back to their own time; that they could go back home before the baby was born, as I had done so many years ago.
"We were in a strange sort of clearing," he said.
"Near here?" I was excited. This time, Jamie laid a hand on my arm.
"Very near here," the man said.
"Your lady, the jeweler. Where is she, now?" I knew that jewels helped one to travel through time, and I suspected that he and she had made it because of them. "Can you show me the place?"
He paled. "I don't know where she is. I was alone when I came to, and, well.it turned out to be . . ._now_. All I had with me was what I had on me, and I had been carrying her pack at the time--it was heavy, like, and I never saw her nor the potter nor the weaver, nor any of them again. I don't know if they just stayed in nineteen sixty-eight, or if . . . something else happened."
"Didn't you try to go back?"
"No way," he said, adamantly. "It was bad enough the one time. I wandered around and got right back to my craft. Which, I must say, was good preparation for life here, glassblowing. And living in a commune. To think, my mother wanted me to be an accountant."
Jamie snorted.