A Small Injustice

I blink, too stunned to speak for a few seconds, "Refugees? In Scotland? During the British Cold War? Wh. . . what were they thinking?"

Geillis only shrugs noncommittally, still staring out the window at them. I can hear several padding, scurrying footsteps, but nothing else.

"Where are these refugees even from?" I ask, still gasping with shock, "There aren't that many conflicts bad enough to need evacuations during this time, are there?" I absentmindedly spoon up some applesauce, "After Culloden, yes, but not before, right?"

Geillis turns back to the kitchen table, "Yer forgettin' Poland, pet. And the Balkans. And the South African States," she shrugs, pragmatically, "Dinnae feel bad – everyone forgets them."

"Oh. Right. . ."

I manage not to blush, and draw myself up, casting my mind back rapidly to my primary school history lessons, "I guess they were called the Silent Wars for a reason."

"Mm. For several reasons." Geillis nods, takes a large bite of cream cake, and shrugs, "T'isn't the only set of events of worldwide significance tae be found hiding behind Culloden and the British Cold War. There's Spain, and Egypt too. Yugoslavia, of course. And Sicily, if you want tae stretch the point."

"I suppose so. . ."

"It was just such statement, y'see. Everyone wanted tae run that story, an that story only. A workers union revolution in Egypt or a student uprising in Lesotho has'nae got anything on an actual bloody battle in Scotland. A real turning point in history, that was."

I smirk a little, "Will be, you mean?"

She laughs a short, mirthless laugh, "Oh. Aye." She tilts her head, indicating the small crowd of refugee children still milling about the churchyard outside, "This little lot are over from France, since the resources there are stretched sae thin at the moment. Next year will be the immigration lockdown here, and they won't be able tae go back – which wouldnae be a problem, except that Culloden happens in a couple years, sae they'll be stuck heer then - an' the Peace Agents arenae very peaceful about their Withdrawal."

"They aren't very peaceful about anything, Geillis." I shiver, remembering Black Jack.

Again, she huffs a dry laugh, "Aye, true enough."

There is a long pause. My mind is humming with possibilities, questions and wonderings.

"Isn't there. . . anything we could do?" I ask.

She shrugs again, wiping crumbs from around her mouth, "Mebbe. Sure, there's lots we could doo, pet. But tae what purpose?"

I give an exasperated sigh, "To the purpose of saving refugee orphans from being burned horribly?"

She shakes her head, ruefully, "That sort of thing sounds nice, pet – an' ye can even spend all yer time and effort tryin'. Many a Traveler does – an' has – all throughout history. But none has evar stopped the tide of injustice, nor evan stemmed it. Not on purpose, annyway. All annyone has evar mannaged tae doo is divert history in little ways, and even then, only sometimes." Geillis sighs deeply, "In the end it's always the same. The big events are Written. Like the mountains. Like the stars. Like the sea itself."

"But we don't live in the sea – or under the mountains, or out among the stars. We live in the boundaries between them all." Frustrated, I slap my hand on the table, "Just because we can't move mountains doesn't mean we can't find a way around them, surely?"

Geillis snorts, apparently even more exasperated with me than I am with her, "Ye dinnae think evary time traveler since ancient times has tried that, pet? Nae nae – only insignificant things can be changed, and then only sometimes."

That strange haunted, hunted, almost frightened look has come into her eyes again. Almost as though. . . as though whatever insignificant things she has changed about the future, she's scared to go back there. Scared of what she would find. Or wouldn't find. Or. . .

My flailing mind grasps onto one very important, still unanswered point, "So. . . how does that explain Iona MacTavish?"

Geillis throws up her hands in a very Scottish gesture, "I'll no' be denying that Iona was verry good at changing the little things – t'was her Gift, I think."

The way she says it, I can hear the capital letter.

"Gift?"

The look in Geillis's eyes grows even stranger, this time in ways I don't even try to interpret, "Oh, aye. Evary Traveler has a Gift, ye ken."

"No. I didn't"

"Och, weel. Nae doot yers will show itself in time."

She smiles thinly at me, somehow neatly cutting off all further questioning on this subject.

"Iona was from the past – how far I dinnae exactly ken – but she said shee'd been back and forth ovar this part of history several times – research she called it."

"Research? Into small Scottish villages and the shopkeepers who live in them?"

"Aye. She said it was a great help in her chosen profession."

"Really? I can't imagine what that profession could possibly be. . ."

"Weel, she said she was an historical novelist."

"A. . ." I put my teacup down with a clatter, "Geillis, how can knowledge of the future help someone be an historical novelist?"

She shrugs, but lightly, and in a way that clearly tell me she's not saying everything she could, "Mebbe she just finds the time period inspirin' – whoo c'n say?"

I'm about to call bullshit, and try to maybe push past whatever this weird barrier is that is still standing between me and Geillis, when another, more important question occurs to me.

"Wait – you said she was good at changing the little things?"

"Aye."

"So that means she did try to change bigger things?"

"A'course she did. Nearly all of us doo, like I said. She never got annywhere though. Oor so she told me," she shrugs, "We only got to be friends a couple of months ago. She may no' have trusted me wi' any o' her big secrets yet. . ."

"But you don't think she managed it?"

She waves a hand dismissively, "Nah."

"But why not – how do you know it's impossible, Geillis?"

She drinks the last sip of her tea before answering.

"'Tis a mattar of momentum moor than annything, I think." She jumps up then, and replenishes the teapot with fresh leaves and hot water. "There are only evar one oor two Travelers in any one time, y'see. Perhaps a few moor on occasion, but nevar a lot of us."

She pours me a fresh cup of tea, and I take it, delicately.

"What has that to do with anything?"

"Weel, momentum, like I said. One person can only doo sae much, pet." She shrugs and refills her own cup, "Big events have hundreds, thousands, perhaps even millions of people behind them – pushing the event along, like. An' even famous, historically important people cannae divert forces like that very far – sae what chance do we normal folk have?"

I half smirk, "Leverage is very powerful force, Geillis."

She puts her teacup down, shaking her head, "Have ye no' been listening, pet? Leverage needs a target. One small and comprehensible enough tae be managed on a Human scale. History only rarely gets doon tae such events, an' when it does, there's such a weight tae things that the details themselves scarcely mattar. It's the story everyone tells themselves afterwards that makes the difference. Gutenberg's Bible – the Declaration of Independence – Pearl Harbor – ye could change thousands of things about the actual events and no' make any impact on the historical record." She gestures expansively, "Ye'ed have tae go back further beyond – tae change the story as people were telling it. Change how movable print was seen by the Church tae begin wi', oor the entire concept of colonialism, oor the whole culture of Imperial Japan. An verry quickly ye'el find ye'er oot of the Human scale and scope again, no' having any impact." She scratches the back of her neck, thoughtfully, "If there were hundreds or thousands of us Traveling all together, to specific places and times. . ." she shakes her head "But evan then I dinnae think it would work – no' as intended, annyway. Shoot an arrow inta a flock of geese and they scatter in directions ye cannae always predict. An' some of them come at you. Which is nae small problem wi' geese."

I wave her metaphor away. I know nothing about geese.

"I still think I'm here for a reason," I say, stubbornly, "A reason not intended by Lamb, or myself, or Mrs. Graham, or anyone else. And yet still. . . intended."

I say these things with conviction, even though the very idea hasn't really been clear to me until just now. Saying it aloud has somehow made it real. I'm not just here for any old reason – I'm here at the behest of a higher power.

I'm here to do something. And somehow I don't think that something will be all that small.

Whatever Geillis's rejoinder would have been, it's cut off by a commotion outside in the churchyard. It sounds unusually violent, and we both jump up to look out the window.

I see a flailing, protesting boy – no doubt one of the newly arrived orphans – being forcibly dragged by one ear by a man dressed as a priest. For all the boy's frantic screeching, the man is dangerously silent.

Geillis and I watch in horror as the priest continues to drag the child across the churchyard, to the antique display of stocks in one corner, and proceeds to clamp the boy into one of them. He growls something menacing that is almost entirely drowned out by the boy's wailing.

I'm about to stammer out something when the priest brings out a stout looking bamboo cane and lashes it heavily across the boy's back.

Both I and the boy go silent out of sheer shock.

He very quickly raises up his voice again – this time in very obvious pain.

It takes me a few more seconds to find my tongue.

"We. . . we have to do something, Geillis – we have to – just listen to that!"

The third blow has fallen, and the fourth, with the boy's response growing louder and more desperate each time

"You're telling me that if that boy survives this beating, he's only going to go on to die in a fire? No! I won't let it!" I stomp my foot, and wring my hands, not knowing exactly what I intend to do just yet. . .

The fifth blow falls. . .

"It's nae use I tell you," says Geillis, her voice pained, "It'll still happen – it's already happened. Tryin' tae change things will only mek trouble, Claire."

I look over at her, incredulously, "You? Are afraid to make trouble?"

She looks so startled at this that I have to look at her again. But it's true. I've unintentionally hit upon the exact word. Afraid. She's desperately, piteously afraid. I don't know why, or of what, and at this point, I very nearly don't care.

The sixth blow sounds even harder than the previous five.

"Maybe you're right," I say, gruffly, "Maybe I never will make a difference. Maybe none of us can ever change the future for the better, or do anything that matters for the world as a whole." Dramatically, I point down to the churchyard, jerking my arm in time with my rapped out words, "But, I can do something that matters to that. one. boy."

With this, I whirl down the stairs, and across the street, completely ignoring the look of stunned terror still burning in Geillis's eyes.