[2015] Into the Highlander's World Read online

  Into the Highlander’s World

  Samantha Leal

  Copyright ©2015 by Samantha Leal. All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic of mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Thank you so much for your interest in my work!

  Table of Contents

  1.

  2.

  3.

  4.

  5.

  6.

  7.

  8.

  1.

  Gwen lifted the last box with a sigh and made her way out of the front door. She was glad that Chris wasn’t there to see her leave. He had done enough damage already. She made her way down the steps of their building and to the car parked out front. She had borrowed it from her colleague just to make sure she could get all of her things out in time before Chris came home with his new girlfriend. She never thought he would do this to her, but how wrong she had been.

  The only reason she had moved to Washington was for him, and now after almost two years of living together, and no warning whatsoever, Chris had come home one evening and laid all of his cards on the table. He told her everything out of guilt, and if she had in any way saw it coming, maybe she would have been able to forgive him. But the facts were plain and simple: Chris had gotten bored, and instead of trying to work through his problems with her, he had gone and cheated.

  Gwen had never been cheated on before. She was the girl that men would kill to be with. Not only was she completely stunning with long, ruby red hair, pale skin and enchanting green eyes, she was also intelligent, self-sufficient and confident. What had made Chris treat her so badly? And why had she been so clueless to the fact he wasn’t just screwing someone else, he was actually falling in love with them, too?

  She heaved the box into the trunk and slammed it shut. She looked back up to the building she had called home for two years. The place she had molded into just for him because he didn’t see the point of them starting again in a new house when she came to town. After all she had done for him, after all she had given up, he had gone and thrown it all away.

  As she climbed behind the wheel and closed the driver’s side door, she felt the tears welling up behind her eyes and she knew she wasn’t going to be able to keep them in any longer. She had been so strong. Even as she had to sit in front of Chris and listen to him recount the sordid details of exactly how and when he had lied to her over the previous six months, she had managed to hold it together. Even when he told her that he was in love with the other woman and that they were going to be together, she managed not to break under the strain of her emotions. And when she heard that Chris intended to move this woman into their apartment as soon as possible, she hadn’t lost control and called him every name under the sun as she should have. She had simply arranged for a moving company to come and help her with the very few bits of large furniture she owned and she moved out. She wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of being upset. She wasn’t going to break.

  But after all of her strength, she knew there was no turning back now and it was beginning to overwhelm her. She gripped onto the steering wheel with both hands and rested her head on the warm leather. Her eyes stung as she blinked the tears away and breathed deeply.

  “Don’t do this,” she coached herself. “You’re so much better than him.”

  And even though she knew she was right, the tears came anyway. Her shoulders shook under the weight of her grief and after she finally managed to bite back the pain, she started the engine and got the hell out of there.

  “Fuck you, Chris!” she shouted as she pulled out of the street. “That’s the last bit of sadness you’ll get from me!”

  And she meant it. Even though she hadn’t planned for any of this to happen, and deep down she really didn’t want it, she was determined to make the best out of a bad situation. She was going to move on, she was going to thrive, and most importantly, she was never going to look back.

  2.

  Pulling up outside the crumbling old building in Georgetown, she parked behind the moving van and got out. They couldn’t have been waiting for her for more than ten minutes, but they already looked irritated and one of them sucked a pen cap and eyeballed her as she fumbled in her purse for the keys.

  She knew what they were thinking. They thought she was a spoiled little rich girl, driving around in a nice car and moving into a good neighborhood. Little did they know it was only temporary--the car wasn’t hers and the only reason she had managed to get a room in the building was because her colleague’s friend Frank had helped her out. He knew of someone who was looking to sublet and apparently it wasn’t exactly in the best condition.

  “It’s in need of a little TLC,” Frank had told her over the phone, “but don’t let that scare you. It’s the neighborhood more than anything, right?”

  Gwen had rolled her eyes but knew she didn’t have a choice. She had nowhere else to go. Unless she wanted to quit her job and move back West, she was going to have to take whatever she could. The thought of going home after two years to live with her parents whom she barely had a relationship with anyway was more painful than the idea of living in a crumbling old building. She could surely bring out its rustic charm; she was an interior designer, after all.

  “Sorry,” she said shyly to the movers as she walked past them and made her way up the steps to the front door of the building. It was in a terraced row, with deep staircases leading up to the entrance. She looked up and took in the grandeur of the place. From the outside it looked like something out of a horror film, but it was beautiful and all she could hope was the inside was just as impressive. As she jimmied open the door with her shoulder and stepped inside, she knew she wasn’t going to be quite that lucky. The men were already behind her on the steps, holding a mattress between them, and Gwen ducked out of their way as they rushed past her.

  “Which floor?” one of them barked.

  Gwen dove into her purse and searched for the piece of paper she had scribbled the details on.

  “It’s Apartment One,” she said hopefully as she looked up to the staircase that led up to a light and airy space.

  The entryway was bleak and rotten, and there was mold in the corners of the walls that had a distinct smell she hoped wouldn’t drift through the entire building. The stairs literally looked like they were leading up to heaven, and all she could hope was that she had the top floor.

  “Looks like we’re going down,” one of the men said.

  “Down?” Gwen stepped forward to meet them and followed their eye line. They were looking down a staircase she hadn’t even noticed, a thin, dark hallway that seemed to lead right down into the earth.

  “Great,” she whispered as she followed them.

  ***

  Apartment One was everything she hadn’t dared to fear. When Frank had told her about it needing a little TLC, she hadn’t bargained on quite so much. For starters, there were no real windows; the only access to air and light came in the form of thin sliding panels that ran along the top edges of the main living room. She was literally in the bowels of the building, hidden away below deck and entombed underneath the city. The building itself must have been built back in the late 1700s, and for all she knew the place could have been untouched since then. It was that bad. It was the basement, the forgotten rooms… No wonder the person who had initially leased it was so eager to get the hell out. He’d even knocked the price down, another reason she had jumped at it. But now, as she stood there looking around, all she wanted to do was burst into tears aga
in.

  “So where d’ya want it?” one of the movers said.

  “Who cares?” Gwen sunk down onto a dusty old couch with a rusty spring curling free and put her head in her hands.

  “Alright,” he said and they both dropped the mattress with a thud in the middle of the room.

  “Dicks,” she whispered as they made their way back out to the van to get the rest of her things. But she knew she shouldn’t take it out on them. Not tipping them would be punishment enough for their rudeness.

  After the men had gone and she was all alone in her new home, she became determined not to crumble as much as the building. She looked around at the stacks of boxes and the mattress in the center of the living room. She was going to have to drag it through into the crappy bedroom just to get a good night’s sleep. It was so dark in there, she didn’t know how she was going to find anything. She reached for her cell phone and turned on the flashlight and shone it around the place. She found the switches for the main lights on the wall and flicked them all on. The one in the living room burst with a loud pop, and she kicked her side table and winced.

  “So much for thriving!” she said aloud to herself and then began opening the boxes. She had some spare bulbs somewhere and she was going to have to find and unpack her lamps. There was no way she could cope with the harsh ceiling lights, and she needed to get it feeling as homey as possible.

  A few hours later, she had worked miracles. She’d dragged the mattress out of the living room and across the hall to the bedroom and it was now lying in the middle of the room, covered in a mattress pad, comfy blankets and cushions and looked thoroughly inviting. She had set up her dressing table and mirrors and hung some framed art that she had collected over the years. She set up her bookcase and dragged her coffee table into the center of the living room, placing some of her interior design and architecture books on it, along with a big scented candle. She was already beginning to feel better. The more of her belongings that made it into the space, the more it started to feel like home. She pulled the window panel open and let the air circulate through. It wasn’t what she hoped for, but if she worked and saved hard, she could be out of there in the next few months.

  In the kitchen, she unpacked her dishes and cutlery. She opened the refrigerator and put in the jug of milk she had brought with her. It was there, as she was settling into domesticity in an alien environment, that it suddenly hit her that at that very same moment, Chris was probably at home with his new girlfriend. In the kitchen Gwen at cooked in every night for the past two years. She felt the tears coming again, but she wouldn’t give in. Instead she made her way to one of the boxes and slit it open with a pair of scissors.

  She’d given Chris one big “fuck you” before she left by taking a number of his prized bottles of wines from the wine rack. She pulled one from the box along with the corkscrew and opened it up. She didn’t even feel the need for a glass--she just began swigging it straight from the bottle. Before long, she was woozy and not at all bothered by her surroundings. She crashed on the mattress on the floor of her room and fell soundly asleep.

  3.

  When she woke up, it took her a few moments to collect her thoughts and remember where she was. Her mouth was dry and her back and arms ached from lifting all of her heavy possessions. She rubbed her eyes and reached for her cell phone. It was 4:00am. She had no idea how long she had been asleep. All she knew was that her head was pounding and when she turned towards the door, she saw the empty bottle of wine lying lamely on the floor.

  “Welcome home,” she laughed to herself, which also made her realize she was probably still drunk.

  She got to her feet and staggered towards the hallway. All of the lights were on throughout the apartment and she had left the small window panel open in the front room. She could hear the noise of the streets outside. The odd car went past and what sounded like the sidewalk washers were out already. It was dark still and she went into the kitchen and ran the tap. The noises from the pipes rumbled around the room, and she sighed before holding out a glass underneath it and taking some hurried sips.

  As she walked back to her bedroom, she noticed something on the floor of the hallway that caught her eye. She hadn’t noticed it earlier, maybe because of the mess around the place and all she had to do, but it stood out to her then and she couldn’t take her eyes off it.

  “What is that?” she said aloud as she stepped closer and squinted, trying to make out the shape in the dim light.

  She bent down and her fingertips grazed the edge of the wall and the adjoining floor. The wooden floor panels were battered and old, and it looked like they had been broken and replaced. She pressed down, and she could tell this one was different from the others. There was a small hook sticking out of it as if it were a handle to a door. Gwen looked behind her, suddenly unsure of whether she should explore it any further, but she knew her curiosity wouldn’t let her leave it alone. She slipped her finger into the hook and pulled. It was stiff and heavy, but there was definitely some movement so she tried again, harder this time, and as she tugged on the hook, the floor panel began to move and open like a trap door.

  No way, she thought as she looked down at it. The panel couldn’t have been more than two feet long and half a foot wide, but it was peeled back and open like a door to the underworld. She stared into it before running back into her room and grabbing her cell phone. She turned on the flashlight, got back on her knees and shone it inside.

  It was dusty down there, and it wasn’t very deep. From what she could tell, it was just a small underground vault full of gray, chipped stones and piles of brick dust. She was about to close it back up again when she turned the flashlight slightly and something shone out of the darkness at her. She bent forward for a closer look, not really wanting to reach inside for fear of insects and spiders, but she could definitely see something.

  She pulled a coat hanger out of a box next to her and started to scrape around in the thick dust. She could feel it dragging against something along the bottom and there was definitely something there. An object of some kind. She lay down flat on her stomach and held the cell phone in her teeth as she probed with one hand and moved the dust with the hanger. As she slowly dug and searched, she began to uncover a long glinting object and to her utter shock and amazement, the more of the dirt she moved, the more she realized what it was. She pulled herself up and sat back on her heels, looking down into the pit below.

  She couldn’t believe her eyes.

  It was a sword.

  ***

  Gwen reached down and pulled the sword free. It was heavy and ancient from the looks of it, and she shook as she held it in both hands and carried it into her bedroom. She lay it down on the floor next to the mattress and sat and stared at it. It was like nothing she had ever seen. It was well over three feet in length, and the steel was still intact and shone brightly as she wiped it down with the edge of her sleeve.

  “Wow,” she whispered. “This could be worth a fortune.”

  She knew as she looked at it that the sword was special. It wasn’t of this time, and it had been hidden for a reason, and now she was determined to find out why. As she studied the handle, she could see that it had a specific pattern stitched into the leather and what appeared to be the image of a flower.

  Gwen smiled. It was incredible. She could tell she held in her hands a huge piece of history.

  “Tomorrow,” she said aloud, “I’m going to take you to an antiques dealer and get you valued.”

  As she climbed back into bed, she couldn’t help but smile. Maybe her luck was finally changing after all.

  4.

  There was screaming all around her and the clashing of steel. Gwen rolled onto her side and tried to pull the pillow over her head, only to realize it wasn’t there. She grasped out above her, her eyes still clenched tight, but she could feel that it was bright where she was and more than anything, that she was outside.

  She rolled onto her back and opened her eyes
. The bright sunlight hit her and she shielded herself from the sun’s glare.

  “What the hell,” she said as she got to her feet and looked around.

  She was in the middle of a forest, and the trees were high in the sky and skeletal, as if it were winter. She was cold. She wrapped her arms around herself and tried to keep warm.

  What is happening? she thought. Where am I?

  The sounds of screams and rough calls of men were filtering through the trees, and when she squinted she could see a group fighting out on an open plain. She stepped backwards quickly and ducked behind a trunk. She had no clue where she was but knew she must be dreaming. She rubbed her eyes and tried to wake herself up.

  Come on Gwen! Snap out of it, wake up!

  But when she reopened them, the men were still there, wearing armor and clashing swords and she was still in the forest.

  Her heart began to pound with terror, and it only intensified when she looked down and saw that she wasn’t in her pajamas, but a long, grubby smock. Her hair tumbled down her shoulders in thick waves and her feet were bare… and right there ahead of her on the ground, about the meter away, was the sword she had found in the apartment.

  She slid her back down the trunk of the tree and crawled forward, trying to stay out of sight. She picked up the sword and held it heavy in her hands. She was shaking, with no idea what she should do, and then she began to cry.

  As she sat there shivering in the forest, with the sounds of death and fighting behind her, she was about to give up and run when she suddenly heard the crunching of twigs ahead of her.

  She looked up to see a man standing there. A handsome man with armor and long brown hair, a bearded chin and a sash across his shoulder. He walked slowly towards her with wide eyes and stopped when he almost reached her toes.