Page 86 of A Sanctuary from Shadow
“Did your da do all the hunting in your family?” He took a mammoth bite of the hunk he’d offered me. “Or your fella traveling with you?”
“Neither.” I scratched my cheek. I’d washed my face hours ago when we’d happened upon a stream, but I couldn’t shake the feeling of blood on my skin. “Hunting’s more a sport than a necessity where I grew up. I knew some boys in college who hunted, but in my family, we’d just go to Wegmart and buy whatever meat we needed.”
Deadpan, he said, “What’s Wegmart?”
“A popular superstore chain.” What person from Earth had never heard of Wegmart? “Did you grow up here?”
His mouth tautened. “No.” He didn’t elaborate, but I needed more.
“Are you from Ireland?”
Gnawing his meat, he cut me a sharp look. “I was born there, aye—in Ulster. I spent much of my childhood in a town outside Philadelphia, however. My family emigrated when I was five or six.”
I stared at him, stupefied. “You’re from Pennsylvania too?”
“Aye.”
I sat straighter in my patch of grass, thinking,Small worlds.“And you don’t know what a Wegmart is?”
“Don’t believe they existed when I lived there.”
“Huh? Of course, they did.”
“I assure you, they didn’t. We didn’t have chains of anything in 1778.”
My mouth opened, but no words came out.
“That’s the year I wound up here. If you were going to ask.”
“But—but shouldn’t you be dead?” I goggled at him, doing mental math. “Or really, really,reallyold?”
Pete examined his food, debating what to tell me. “I spent most of my days here in time pockets. I was nearly 25 when I was—when I came here. Now, I think I’ve aged to about 28.” He shrugged and took another bite. “Hard to say. Do you truly ken nothing of this place?”
I sidestepped the subject. “You’re Irish, but you keep using the wordken. I thought that was a Scottish thing.”
His mouth took a terse cant. “The Scots dialect was quite prevalent in Ulster when I was a lad. Ulster Scots, they’re called. What’s more, I’ve spent a goodly portion of my time here in a place where Scots is the vernacular. The word slipped into my vocabulary. You’re the only one who’s ever cared enough to comment on it. Evading my question?”
I sniffed, admitting, “I don’t know much about this world, no. I was told about the time pockets. Guess I just assumed they wouldn’t work the same for humans.”
Pete fed his last bite to Sionna. She wolfed it down, then sniffed his empty hand for more. “They work for anyone with magic.”
“And you were given magic,” I stated for myself.By Gentian, was what I couldn’t say.
“I was given some extra gifts when I became a harbinger, aye.” Pete soured at my assumption. “But I’vealwayshad magic.”
When this bombshell sank, I nearly went with it. “Humanscan develop magic?”
Laughter rarely sounded so barbed. “Christ, you Dananns—doesn’t matter where you were reared, hauteur must taint your blood.” He ripped another morsel off the spit. “Might you consider that Danu loved us pathetic humans as much as she loved you? She was our creator, just as she was yours. She bestowed her gifts on some of us, just as she did you.”
Sparks from the fire spiraled skyward—along with my hackles. I snapped my cloak tighter about me. “That’s not what I was implying by my question.”
“Oh, no, of course not. And you can’t be held accountable for unintended prejudices, can you?”
That’s it!I thought, baring my teeth. Danann canines and all. “You can stop that at any time,” I snapped, blood roiling. “I know exactly what you’re trying to do.”
“You do, do you?”
“Yeah, I do.” I stared him down, refusing to blink. “You’re painting me in your mind as some heartless Danann snob to justify this awful thing you’re doing to me.”
