Free All The Time You Need by Melissa Mayhue

along with a few other things. Secrets of my trade, you ken,” she said with a wink.
    Annie sat patiently as Agneys smeared the concoction over her cheek, trying not to let her imagination run wild thinking about what other things might be included in the smelly goo. She even managed to stay quiet until the older woman sat back, clearly pleased with her handiwork.
    “Thank you,” she said, realizing that Agneys was doing her best to be helpful. “I honestly do appreciate your trying to help me. But if you really want to help me, you can tell me where I am and who all of you people are.”
    Lissa neared the bed, her head tilted to one side as if she studied a strange creature such as she’d never seen before.
    “A barter, then,” Lissa said, her lips curling in a beautiful smile. “An answer for an answer. Let’s see… To answer where you are, yer in my bedchamber at Castle Dunellen. Now it’s yer turn. Why have you come here now?”
    Annie waited for a moment, trying to grasp the answer she’d been given. Though Lissa had told her where she was, she actually knew no more now than she had before she’d gotten her answer. But if a deal was the only way to get answers to her questions, a deal was a deal, and she owed Lissa an answer. Problem was, Lissa had asked a question to which she had no answer.
    “I’ve come here because, I guess…because you brought me here. Last thing I remember, I’d gone into my grandmother’s arbor. And then, after the earthquake, you were there.”
    Lissa tapped a finger to her lips, her eyes narrowing. “Aye, you mentioned the earth moving before, did you no’? But let’s stick to the practical for now. The arbor I found you in is no' yer grandmother’s. It belongs to the MacKillican clan, built by my own grandfather when he became laird. What’s yer full name, Annie? Who’s yer clan?”
    Sorting her thoughts, Annie tried to decide on her best course of action. It would appear these squatters were the family members of someone who had done the construction work on her grandmother’s property. Though that theory didn’t explain how they’d managed to hide this apparently massive structure when she’d walked for as far and as long as she had without having seen any sign of it. Still, that theory did give her something to go on, and though she suspected quibbling over facts with people like these wasn’t the smartest thing to do, there was right and there was wrong.
    And what Lissa claimed as fact was just plain wrong.
    “My name is Analise Shaw. Does the name Shaw sound familiar? It certainly should. As far as that arbor goes, your grandfather might have been the workman who constructed it, but this property has belonged to my grandmother for the last forty years. She left it to me when she died last month.”
    All neat and legal, with a stack of paperwork signed by a ton of lawyers and witnesses.
    “Forty years?” Lissa snorted, leaning over a large chest and pulling out a variety of garments, which she held up to study, one piece at a time. “I beg to differ. My grandfather was granted this land by Alexander II himself, for payment of services rendered in defense of the king. There’s even a scroll attesting to it kept in a place of honor in the laird’s solar. Ah, here we go. This one should work just fine for you. It belonged to my mother, so it’s no' so new, but she was closer to you in height.”
    “Wait a second,” Annie said, trying to fit her mind around all the impossible things Lissa had just claimed.
    King Alexander II?
    Annie’s mind rummaged through what little history she knew about Scotland while Lissa held up a costume similar to the one she wore. There had to be something she was missing in this conversation. Either that or she’d hit her head a lot harder than she’d thought. Had these squatters moved in here because of some ancient land grant they’d stumbled upon? Surely they had to know those things held no legal power. They were little