3. Where Time Thins
1004 Words
Vicki — 2025
The cottage was charming in the way brochures always promised — stone walls, slate roof, climbing ivy brushing the windows. It sat alone against the wide stretch of Highland moor, as though it had grown from the earth rather than been built upon it.
But Vicki barely noticed.
Her eyes were fixed beyond it.
Out past the fence line.
Out where the land rose gently toward a small ridge crowned with something ancient.
Standing stones.
They pierced the skyline — tall, weathered monoliths arranged in a rough circle. Crooked. Silent. Watching.
The driver followed her gaze. “Older than anyone rightly knows,” he said. “Some say they mark graves. Others say they mark doors.”
“Doors?” she repeated lightly.
“Aye.” He shrugged. “Scotland’s full of them. Just depends on who’s knockin’.”
He left her with her luggage and a polite nod.
The wind moved differently here.
It didn’t whip or shove.
It circled.
Scotty wriggled from her arms and immediately began trotting toward the open field, nose low, tail stiff with curiosity.
“Scotty!” she called — but he was already halfway up the slope.
She exhaled and followed.
The grass brushed against her jeans, damp from the day’s earlier mist. The air smelled like rain that hadn’t fallen yet.
The closer she got to the stones, the quieter everything became.
No birds.
No distant cars.
Just wind.
The stones were taller than she expected — each one uneven, rough, finely carved with markings worn nearly smooth by centuries. Lichen clung to their sides like pale scars.
She stepped inside the circle.
The air shifted.
It wasn’t visible.
But it thickened.
Her skin prickled.
Scotty stopped barking.
The wind rose abruptly — sharp, sudden — tugging at her hair, her jacket, her breath.
And then—
Thunder.
Not far.
Not soft.
The sky, moments ago pale, darkened as clouds rolled in unnaturally fast.
Vicki’s heart began to pound.
The ground beneath her boots felt… wrong.
Not unstable.
Alive.
A low vibration pulsed through the stones, so faint she might have imagined it.
But she hadn’t.
The air felt charged — like the second before lightning struck.
She reached out instinctively, her palm pressing against one of the stones.
It was cold.
And then it wasn’t.
Warmth surged beneath her hand — not heat exactly, but energy. A current racing through rock and into bone.
Her vision blurred.
The wind roared.
And somewhere beyond the thunder —
A man’s voice.
Not words.
Just breathe.
Close.
Too close.
She gasped and staggered back, heart slamming against her ribs.
The world tilted.
For one suspended second, the surrounding landscape flickered —
The cottage in the distance was no longer the one she’d seen.
The fence line was different.
The sky felt heavier.
Older.
Then—
Silence.
The wind cut off as if severed.
The storm paused mid-breath.
And Vicki was no longer alone inside the circle.
Alec — 1947
The storm came without warning.
Alec had been mending a section of stone wall when the wind shifted violently, slicing across the moor with unnatural force.
He straightened slowly.
The sheep scattered.
The sky darkened too quickly.
Too suddenly.
He’d grown up on this land. He knew its moods.
This was not one of them.
A low hum began to pulse through the earth beneath his boots.
His jaw tightened.
The standing stones.
He didn’t know how he knew.
But he did.
He moved without hesitation, long strides carrying him up the ridge toward the ancient circle his father had warned him never to disturb.
“They’re not for us,” his father used to say. “They’re older than us.”
The closer he got, the stronger the air felt — thick, electric, pressing against his lungs.
The stones were vibrating.
Not visibly.
But undeniably.
And then—
He saw her.
Inside the circle.
Where no one had been a moment before.
A woman.
Dark hair whipping wildly in the storm wind. Strange clothing — trousers cut differently than any he’d seen. Fabric finer. Boots unfamiliar.
She looked as startled as he felt.
For one suspended second, neither of them moved.
The air between them shimmered — faint, like heat over desert sand.
She turned toward him fully.
Their eyes met.
Grey met brown.
Recognition crashed between them with terrifying force.
Not familiarity.
Not memory.
Something deeper.
As if time itself had inhaled sharply.
Alec took a single step forward.
The hum intensified.
The wind spiraled violently around the circle.
The world flickered —
And for a split second he saw—
The cottage behind him was altered. The fencing was gone. Something modern standing in its place.
Impossible.
The woman reached toward him instinctively.
So did he.
Their fingertips brushed—
And lightning struck the center stone.
The sound split the sky.
The world went white.
Vicki looked up at the man before her. Tall, muscular, observant. Like he had a story dying to come out.
Alec stared down at the tiny woman. Clothes different from his own. Her beauty captivated his senses, his heart skipped a beat momentarily. How did she suddenly appear, and why now? The sheep could be heard screaming from a distance, the sound of an unfamiliar dog barking behind the woman. Why did she look so familiar and yet who was she?
The standing stones are not random. They sit upon a natural fault line where electromagnetic energy runs unusually strong—intensified by storm activity. The stones were positioned centuries ago by people who understood the land's thinning places.
When lightning strikes within the circle during specific atmospheric pressure conditions, the barrier between two identical geographic points in different time periods weakens.
Not permanently.
Briefly.
Enough to let something—or someone—through.
When the storm collapses and the light fades, time decides what it will allow.
Only one of them will remain inside the circle. The other will believe the imagined it... Until the next storm.
- Writer
