Page 38 of Down and Dirty

After a tour of the downstairs, they went up to Madrene’s bathing chamber, where she showed Britta a vast array of woman products… flesh-colored face creams, cheek rouges, lip paints, eye kohl. Laughing, the three ladies sat Britta down on the closed porcelain privy and showed her how to use the various items. Soon they had her hair unbraided and spread out in spiral curls. The faint imperfections in her face — she’d had no idea she even had imperfections — were smoothed out with liquid “makeup.” Her eyelashes were curled and colored a dark brown, making them appear extremely long and full. And on her lips they applied red lip gloss.

While they worked on her, they talked.

“I do not understand,” Britta said. “Oh, I know, I keep saying that, but how did this come about? I fell off a cliff. One moment I was staring up at that lackbrain Sister Margaret, and the next I was staring at that lackbrain chieftain Uxley.”

“Yea, Uxley is a lackbrain,” Madrene agreed. “As for me, I was in a harem in the Arab lands — do not ask, it is a long and not very interesting story — when a fierce lightning storm erupted. Somehow, when the storm ended, I was in a cave, still in the Arab lands, but a thousand years into the future. Ian rescued me.” She disclosed that last on a sigh.

“You already know I was caught in a mudslide,” Hilda said, squeezing Britta’s hand in empathy for her confusion. “When I emerged from the mudslide, I was also in another place and time: Malibu. Except Torolf was there with me. The sweet lout rescued me.” Another sigh.

“My family was on board a longship, caught in a strange fog,” Kirstin revealed. “We landed on a Hollywood movie set.”

“Huh?”

“Never mind.” Kirstin grinned. “My uncle Jorund arrived on a killer whale, naked, and ended up in a mental hospital. That is the most bizarre of our means of transportation.”

“So, you are saying that I must learn to accept that I have time-traveled.”

They all nodded.

“It’s important that you don’t discuss any of this time-travel business with anyone,” Hilda warned. “I barely escaped some madmen two years past. They wanted to cut me open and study my innards.”

Britta’s eyes nigh popped with horror. “Why?”

“Because they suspected I was not of this world, and they wanted to know how I was different,” Hilda explained. “Those particular men are not a danger to us, but there will always be others if word gets out.”

“Are we different?” Britta asked.

“A little bit. At first.” Every so often, while Hilda was talking, she would go to the window and scan the beach and deck area to make sure her husband had their son in tow. He did; they, like all the other males, were watching the meat cook.

Madrene’s babe slept soundly in his own cradle in the next room.

“’Tis something about the blood,” Hilda went on. “But after we are here several months it seems to become the same. Strange, I know, but then this whole time-travel business is strange, is it not?”

Strange is too small a word to describe this happenstance. “How many people have… um, time-traveled?”

“We do not know precisely. From the Ericsson family… Jorund, Geirolf, Magnus,” Kirstin said, “plus all of my father’s children. You are the only person outside the family that we know of, except of course when Torolf’s SEAL teammates went back with him, then forward again.”

More than a dozen! Good gods!

“Since we do not make our presence known, mayhap there are others out there who do not talk of it as well,” Hilda speculated.

Britta’s head spun with all the bizarre details. “Why? I mean, why us?”

“Since they could not come up with an explanation, my father and his brothers decided that it must be a miracle, ordained by the Christian One-God.”

“I suppose,” Britta said dubiously. “Like many of my country, I accept both Christian and Norse religions. I assumed I was here because Zachary wish-prayed me here.”

“Really?” Kirstin clapped her hands together with delight. “My father says he was wish-prayed here, too, by Angela’s grandmother.”

“You know what this means?” Hilda took both of Britta’s hands in her own.

“What?” She did not like the sly looks in all three women’s eyes.

“You and Pretty Boy are destined to be together,” Hilda announced.

“Soul mates,” Madrene concurred. “Best be careful; my father will have you wedded and bedded in a trice if he hears of the wish-praying.”

Britta laughed. “Zachary would turn green and run like the wind if he heard you say that. Oh, he wants to… you know, ‘rock my world,’ but just for a bit. Then he will swagger off to wave his dangly part elsewhere.”