Realignment
Today’s the day!
I can barely tamp down my excitement as I stroll through the Betty Ford Alpine Gardens and try to recreate the events of the timeline I’ve remembered since I was a three-year-old. Today’s the day I’ve waited my whole life—thus far—for. In a few hours, I’ll meet my sweet Shelby for the first time.
My destiny will reassert itself. I’m already seeing evidence of a return to normal, and I’m both grateful and relieved. The stars are returning to their norm, and so is my memory. Nothing’s foggy or disjointed anymore.
Out of habit, I run my fingertips over the starscape medallion that hangs between the ropes of Daeganean pearls on my chest. I pull close the long, brown, fringed vest I bought last night at a thrift store, along with the burgundy velvet bell bottom pants and white peasant blouse.
“Whimsy-goth,” Shelby had called my style.
Will call my style.
I went shopping for the same clothes I remember wearing that afternoon with Shelby, and I’d found them quickly—just as in the original timeline. The stars aren’t quite aligned yet as they are on my medallion, but they do seem to be entwining once again with the timeline I remember.
I’ve cast and recast my astrological charts at least a dozen times since Nike kept watch back in Huntsville night before last. With each cast, the timelines move closer, and my heart is ever hopeful of my rendezvous with the love of my life today and with my destiny to wrench the priesthood away from Aoife in a few years.
I know these alpine gardens well. I’ve retraced these paths and this day in my memory millions of times. Me, just killing time in the gardens a few miles from my rented cabin in Vail, wandering down to the creek near a covered bridge. Skipping stones across the creek with the man who’ll spend the next forty-five years by my side.
Listening to the call of a crow.
Laughing together over creamy hot chocolate and later red wine by an outdoor fireplace.
And the softness in his eyes as his laugh faded, and he kissed me for the first time, whispering to me, “I think you’re fantastic!” and then kissing me into oblivion.
I shiver. I’ve recreated everything from memory, from the cabin I rented to the clothes I wear to the paths I follow. I can’t wait to relive those first moments in the flesh with Shelby.
The morning sun sends shards of golden light through the leaves of the aspens, casting a dappled glow over the tranquil gardens and warming the chill in the autumn air. The sky is clear and the same deep, vibrant blue I recall. Bursts of color pop through the berms and raised beds—chrysanthemums, asters, ornamental grasses, stubbornly defying the cold snap that moved through the mountains last night. The persistence of those delicate blooms reminds me that change is inevitable, and that time will move on without a second thought for their fast beauty.
Closing my eyes, I breathe in their scent while they are still here, still in bloom, still in this moment. This is where our souls touched for the first time in over a thousand years. It’s sacred ground, and every corner of this land is a memory.
But unlike that night in Huntsville in Nike’s father’s home, today I can let the sunlight pour in without worry. I’m done with dark rooms and the shadows hiding there to end my incarnation early. I’ve done my scrying, and the timeline is now forgiving. It gives me not ninety years, but neither does it call for my immediate demise.
Six months.
And a fireball.
Still, I don’t know what that means—a fireball could be anything—but at least I don’t have to live every second in fear of my life getting snuffed out. It’s a reprieve, a break I badly needed, and I’ll have time to figure out how to escape it if I can’t marry up the timelines right away.
I check my watch. Three hours to go until I meet Shelby. Maybe I should’ve brought a book to read. Last night, I couldn’t sleep, and I found a small library of old Dean Koontz novels that the rental’s owner had left for guests. I’d distracted my frazzled mind by reading Lightning, a story of destiny trying to reassert itself.
It’s a sign, I’d told myself. My destiny is slowly reasserting itself as well.
I check my watch again and again, thinking with each glance that an hour has passed, and I’ve let time get away from me, but each time, only five minutes have elapsed.
By the time I’ve crossed a little bridge next to a waterfall for the twenty-seventh time, my phone buzzes. Only Nike has the number for this new disposable phone—or whomever she’s shared it with—and it’s too early in the day to hear from Virgil about his mom’s surgery outcome.
“Hey,” a smooth male voice says warmly, “how are things?”
Raven.
I don’t know if it’s a sleeping God in his seventh chakra waiting for ascension or if Raven simply exudes protective magic, but just hearing his voice calms my nerves.
“Um, good? I’m still alive.”
“Breathe, okay? I can feel your jagged edges all the way to Florida. Stop worrying. The timeline is trying to reset. Let it. What’s meant to be in your timeline will be.”
Shelby and me. We’re meant to be.
Instead, I say, “We picked up our travel packets at the Huntsville library. Drusilla had the airline ticket waiting for me at the Nashville airport. Nike—”
“She told me. She or Virgil will call you later. She asked me to wish you luck. Not that you’ll need it. We have lots to talk about when you return, assuming you’ll choose to come back to Florida for a while. I hope you don’t think it’s unethical of me, but I was worried and, right before I called you, I took a single peek into your future. Veronica, I see you sitting across the table from Shelby at a romantic dinner this winter.”
My pulse quickens. “And?”
Raven laughs. “And I don’t pry. I saw enough to assure myself that you would meet your special person and that you won’t face death again before you do.”
I sigh, loudly, dreamily. “Thanks for that, Raven. I’m nervous and excited at the same time. I’ve waited a long time for this.”
He clears his throat. “Have you heard anything from Aoife?”
“Not a word. I’m not sure if I’m on the run from her or if she’s just shunning me. I have no idea if I should be worried.”
Raven grunts. “With Aoife, you should always be worried. She always gets even, and she doesn’t rush things. That’s Aoife, believing that time is on her side.”
Is it, though? I wonder. If she’d believed time was on her side, Aoife wouldn’t have had to manipulate it, would she?
“But remember,” Raven continues, “there are worse things Aoife can do than kill you. But if she does, we now know that there are ways to bring you back.”
Worse things? Like she’ll do to Illyria to punish Nike? They may be sisters, but Nike will live the rest of her sane days fearing for her lover’s safety like the sword of Damocles dangling over her head by an unraveling string.
Me, I’m a contender for the leader of the order. Aoife’s as wary of me as I am of her. Nike doesn’t have my power or ambition to lead. She also doesn’t remember the future that both Aoife and I do.
“I don’t care what happens to me, Raven. I’ve lived a good life with ninety years of memories. But I’d never live it down if Aoife hurt the people I love while she’s playing around with timelines.”
“She hasn’t succeeded though. Not permanently. I know you’re worried about not having the source material she used to change the timeline, but you’ve been able to change the course of events without magic.”
My fingers tighten around the phone. “What if Fick comes back?”
“He can’t use the portal again to trace your energy. Like Nike told me, you sealed it. I’m no expert on portals, but I know a little from Terre, and I read the journal you left with Drusilla.”
“But what if Fick doesn’t use the portal? What if he travels across the country to find me? He won’t be as weak as a kitten this time.”
“Shush. Stop worrying so much about Fick. You’ll sense him before he arrives. You’re a recruiter. You still have that skill, don’t you? I mean, I have the feeling you have a lot of skills you’ve never had to use because you relied on temporal omnipresence to warn you of danger.”
Raven can’t see me through the phone, but I nod anyway. This particular skill is one I use to sense potential priests and priestesses who’ve reincarnated unnoticed, but that doesn’t mean I can’t use it to sense an assassin within the priesthood. Or does it?
“Thanks, Raven. I feel better talking to you.”
I can almost hear him smiling through the phone. “Allies, always,” he murmurs.
“I’m just not sure what to do next,” I confess. “I’m not sure how much Aoife knows about what we did in Huntsville or how long she’s been messing with portal technology.”
“I don’t either, but look at it this way: if she had memories of the changed timeline, she would have known you were at the lab and been able to stop you. I suspect that you both share your old memories of the future and that, as long as you’re shielding from her and she can’t read you, she’s as lost about what comes next as you are. You are both in uncharted territory.”
“Hmmm. Is it wrong that the thought of Aoife being equally unaware of the future is comforting?”
Raven clucks at me. “Not wrong at all.”
“And what about you? Still in Florida?” I ask, though I already know he is.
“Yeah, some priesthood matters to wrap up at the St. Augustine library related to Terre, plus Jakin’s doing stupid shit to advance his own agenda and putting innocent people in harm’s way. You know, the usual with him.”
Once again, I glance at my watch and feel the zing of anxiety. “I need to go. It’s almost time.”
Twenty more minutes until the moment the stars once aligned to bring me face to face with Shelby for the first time, right here in these gardens.
“Oh, and tell Emry thanks for passing along the journal. Her timing was impeccable.”
If not Emry’s timing, then the timing of the old man who told her to show me the journal about portals in Drusilla’s library.
Terre. It had to be Terre. Who else could it be?
“Call me tomorrow then. And keep the faith. You and Shelby are meant to be, much like you’re meant to lead the Order of Daegan and salvage what’s left of the human race.”
We say our goodbyes, and I pocket my phone as I position myself near a stone fence so I can watch the path for signs of Shelby arriving by the creek and covered bridge to skip pebbles in the exact spot I remember walking up to him from behind. His broad shoulders and military haircut. The flash of his bright eyes over his shoulder at me, followed by a smile and a drawling first hello.
A strange emptiness creeps in as I sit, staring at my watch. The sun casts long shadows that stretch lazily across the gardens.
Maybe he’s followed the creek from downstream and avoided the path? Maybe he’s climbed down the bank from the path at some other point in the gardens, and I’ve missed him? Still, this is the most likely route for him to take, and I can’t miss him from here.
I wait.
And wait.
My watch ticks off the minutes until I’m down to seconds. My heart pounds in my chest, so hard that I feel it in my stomach. It’s so loud that I can barely hear the call of a crow on a branch above me. My throat tightens. I’ve invested everything I am into this one beautiful moment of finding my partner, and I’ve waited forty-five years for these next few minutes.
It’s here, the most pivotal event of my life, second only to taking over the priesthood and just ahead of the pole shift.
It’s here.
It’s time.
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