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“And have you kill me for witchcraft? How could I tell you upfront I’d traveled back in time? As though it’s such a normal thing to say. I didn’t believe it myself back then, and you would have never believed me. You’d have called me a lunatic and kicked me out of the castle, or just killed me.”

“I wouldna have killed ye,” he mumbled.

“But you wouldn’t have believed me, would you?”

“Nae, probably not. I still dinna.”

“Exactly. Because it’s crazy.”

He sighed. “How can it be true?”

“Didn’t you ask me where my accent came from?”

“Aye. Ye were dressed like no one I’d ever seen and talking strangely. Yer accent—never heard it before…”

“That’s because I’m American. My name is really Amy MacDougall, but I was born in 1989, in the country that doesn’t even exist yet, on a continent you’ve never heard of because it won’t be discovered for a couple of centuries.”

Craig continued staring at her. “Aye, ’tis hard to believe.”

“I know. Wait. Let me show you something.”

She got out of the blankets and furs, shivering from the chill in the air. She took her backpack and the clothes she’d come in out of the bottom of one of the chests standing by the wall, then came back to Craig, snuggling into the warmth of the blankets and his body.

She showed him her jacket. “See?” She pulled the tab of the zipper up and down. “Have you ever seen anything like this before?”

He frowned, studying the zipper. Then took it in his hands and tried zipping up and down. “’Tis a practical thing,” he admitted. He took the jacket in his hands and looked closely at the material, then brushed his fingers against it. “’Tis smooth and light, yet must be warm, judging by the thickness.”

“Exactly.”

She demonstrated the backpack and opened the zipper as well. She revealed the flashlight, which she’d retrieved, and switched it on. Craig jerked back a little.

“This is just light, Craig,” she said. “There’s no fire.”

He slowly stretched his hand out and took it. He looked into the light, then carefully touched it with one finger. “Aye, just a little warm. And doesna look like fire.”

“No. It’s electricity, something that will be invented at the end of the nineteenth century, if I remember correctly. It gives power to different objects and mechanisms, like this one. They can be used to produce light, to create heat for cooking, and to do mechanical jobs for people, like mixing or sewing or removing dirt.”

He directed the flashlight into a dark corner of the room. “Oh, aye, ’tis very convenient.”

He turned the flashlight to other sides of the room, the ceiling, the door. Then he switched it off.

“What else?” he said, looking at the backpack, curiosity ringing in his voice.

She chuckled and presented the first aid kit. She felt like Santa.

She undid the zipper of the synthetic red bag and showed the contents to him. With wonder in his eyes, he took out and studied the packs with dressings for burns and trauma, a vented chest seal, gauze, an eye pad, the scissors, packs with ibuprofen and aspirin, and other stuff. She quickly explained what those were and why they were there. Then she showed him her pack of tampons, the pack of tissues she always had with her, the dead cell phone, her passport.

When he’d looked through every single thing, he shook his head and stared into space.

“Well?” she said. “Do you believe me now?”

He looked at her. “Aye, lass. I do.”

But he said it as though by proving the truth, she’d somehow made it worse.

“I still dinna ken who ye truly are. Why are ye here? What was true about ye, and what did ye contrive?”

Amy nodded, the heat of embarrassment burning her cheeks.