Out of Time
I’m not sure how much time passes. Minutes? Hours? Years? A millennium?
Panic sets in as I realize Veronica is no longer holding me and I’m alone in a seemingly endless void. My body feels heavy and unresponsive, trapped in this limbo of existence. I try to move, but my muscles refuse to cooperate. I’m stranded in a dark void, just existing. Not moving.
Maybe I sleep. Maybe years pass.
Slowly, sensation returns. My cheek presses against a hard surface. A crick in my neck from an odd angle. Fabric covering my body, something cushioning half my head.
With effort, I peel open my eyes. An unfamiliar room comes into focus. I lie sprawled on a kitchen floor, two throw pillows haphazardly propped under my head and a soft blanket over me. The curtains over the windows are open, and the sky outside is pink. I must have slept a whole afternoon and night from sheer exhaustion.
Where am I? How did we escape?
Ignoring the pounding in my skull, I sit up too quickly, blanket falling away. The room spins. I clench my eyes shut, taking deep breaths until the dizziness passes.
Veronica.
My eyes snap open. I have to find her.
Shakily, I get to my feet, leaning on a nearby chair for support. My bare feet are scratched and bleeding from the wild chase through the woods, but the blood has dried. My ankle is still swollen but maybe not quite as much as earlier. The scratches haven’t healed, so it’s more than likely that I’ve been out for only hours, not days. Or centuries. Yet the sunrise through the windows leaves me disoriented.
“Veronica?” I call hoarsely. Her name echoes through the large kitchen. It smells of tomato sauce and herbs, but every surface is clean.
No response.
Terror grips me, pushing me forward in a frenzy. I dart through the sunny rooms of the house as I scan every corner, searching for any sign of my daughter. The silence that surrounds me is deafening, adding to my mounting panic. I fling open doors and peer behind furniture. My mind races with worst-case scenarios.
At last, I come to a closed door covered in flower stickers. Holding my breath, I turn the handle. Inside is a little girl’s bedroom, all pink and white eyelet lace.
And there, curled up asleep in the white canopy princess bed, is my sweet Veronica. Relief floods through me at the sight of her familiar white-blonde curls splayed over the pillow.
I hurry to her side. She’s still wearing the pearl necklace, its beads rising and falling with each sleepy breath. Gently, I shake her shoulder.
“Veronica, honey, wake up.”
She stirs, blinking up at me in confusion. “Mommy?”
Hearing that word, I have to choke back a sob. I sweep her into a fierce hug.
“Oh, Peanut, you’re okay. You’re safe.”
She must’ve covered me with the blanket and left me where I collapsed, far too heavy for a toddler to move. Maybe she’d still been Jaryx then, but the energy that powered the portal had come from my body, not hers, and I’d borne the brunt of our transport.
I set her back against the pillows and smooth her rumpled hair. We have to get out of here, before the High Council rediscovers our trail.
Taking her hand, I urge her to slide out of the cozy bed. “Come on. We need to go. Before they find us again.”
But Veronica just looks at me, brow furrowed. “Go where?”
My stomach twists.
No. Please, no.
“Away from the High Council,” I say carefully. “Remember, your grandmother was chasing us?”
But her expression remains blank. She gives a little yawn, snuggling back into the pillow.
“I don’t have a grandma,” she mumbles drowsily.
My heart plummets. She doesn’t remember! Not her past life, not the chase, not the wolves, not being buried alive when the ground opened over a busted pipe. None of it. Or if she does, it’s blurry and more dream than reality. No wonder she had trouble remembering details these past two days. It didn’t take much time at all for Jaryx’s soul to be buried deep within her.
Veronica is just an ordinary three-year-old. While part of me is relieved she won’t suffer and grieve the losses of a millennium ago, it also leaves us defenseless against those who would harm her.
It’s only a matter of time before Moira and the priesthood find us. Their seers can sense energy anywhere in the world, though maybe not Veronica’s as long as Moira lives. Mine, though, will be easy to find.
Or worse—enemies from a thousand years ago that Veronica won’t recall may have the same abilities. I don’t know how set the future is that Veronica remembered. I can only hope that she does remember this lifetime so she can defend herself with what memories exist of a time when she’ll rule the priesthood again.
I am alone now in bearing the knowledge of who she is, who she will become. Protecting this extraordinary child rests fully upon my shoulders.
Stroking her hair, I force a smile. “Never mind, Peanut. If you want, you can go back to sleep while I explore and figure out where we are.”
She nods agreeably and snuggles back into her covers. No cares, no worries. Just the innocence of childhood. Before I can leave the room, she murmurs in her sleep, “I know where we are. We’re home, Mommy. This is home.”
At last, I exhale. She remembers her future!
I slide the pearls from around my neck, letting the delicate beads and knotted thread pool in my palms. This unassuming piece of jewelry somehow activated the portal that brought us here. As much a weapon as the strange hair sticks Spencer used.
Both draw their power from the wearer and leave the user drained. That’s a disadvantage. One I hope our enemies share if they possess similar magic.
If Spencer and his friend Terre had access to tools like this, the High Council likely does, too. We may have escaped them for now, but they’ll keep hunting us. These mysterious pearls won’t be enough to stop them forever.
Clutching the necklace, I wander the house aimlessly. The décor has an odd European flair, with ornate moldings and antique furnishings. Strange for a home in coastal Alabama.
I’ve seen similar styles in the architectural magazines Siobhan and I used to flip through, dreaming of travels we’d never take and her swearing that one day she’d use her magic to become the Secretary of State and visit exotic lands around the world to explore their treasures—and confiscate the ones that increased her powers. Just more of Siobhan’s fantasies.
I, on the other hand, had wanted the occasional trip around the world with a devoted lover and a lifetime of research in the T.Y.M. Casey Archive. Before it burned down in 1972, of course. That dream was over before it ever began. Still, I’ve seen homes like this one in photos and slide shows brought back by priestesses who manage Daeganean libraries abroad.
Could the portal have taken us clear across the ocean? To some Daeganean safe house in Europe?
No, that’s absurd. We barely escaped with our lives back in the park. There’s no way mere beads could teleport us halfway around the world. I wish Spencer were here to tell us.
Spencer.
It hurts my heart to think of him now. Why did Moira have to kill him? Or was it one of Veronica’s enemies from a thousand years ago? He’d been wiped from the face of the earth, according to Aetheryx, the woman who’d succumbed to the wolf pack.
With a deep breath, I continue to survey the room. The color television is paper-thin and silently playing some kind of science fiction “news” show that looks almost real. I’ve never seen anything like it, either the television or the show. It’s almost as if the screen has been lifted from the front of a large wooden console and the rest of the television left behind. I pause to look behind it to make sure it isn’t an optical illusion, but there’s nothing behind the screen other than cables. A console would take two grown men to move it across the room, but even I could pick up this television. Under one arm!
Almost as unusual, the computer in the study resembles a thin notebook instead of one of the room-sized boxes with flashing lights like you see on those television shows and movies that take place in outer space. Everything here is surprisingly advanced. The electronics look more foreign than I’m used to, but maybe that’s how they’re made in. . .wherever we are.
I shake my head, laughing softly at my sci-fi musings. I’ve clearly been reading too many of Mr. Casey’s space adventure novels and watching too much television. Once Veronica wakes, we’ll figure out where we are. For now, we’re safe. No immediate threats.
“No immediate threats. None.”
I repeat that to myself, rubbing my thumb over the smooth pearls and looping them around my neck again. We’re safe. Hidden. If I say it often enough, maybe I can believe it. As long as I have these beads, I can protect my daughter. Her ancient enemies will never find us again.
She believes this is home. And if this place keeps her safe, then home it shall be. My only purpose now is to shield her light from the darkness that hunts her.
I will find a way for us to belong here. To build a quiet life, one more time, away from dangers only I remember. I hope the neighbors will be less nosy here than in Wiregrass, Alabama, but just as nice as Mr. Casey.
Oh, he’ll be worried about me!
Even if I never see him again, I can at least call him a few times a month to catch up. I owe him that. And it’s not like the priesthood can track my telephone calls. There’s no such technology yet. That’s pure science fiction!
I expect to find the phone on the kitchen wall, but there isn’t one. Nor is there a phone on the desk in a small but generously filled study that might qualify as a Daeganean library itself. Of all the safe houses we could portal into, how could there not be a phone anywhere in the house?
Maybe it’s shaped like a novelty item. I’ve seen a few newfangled phones you can actually buy instead of renting from the telephone company, ones that are shaped like cartoon characters and ladybugs, and even one that looks like a hamburger. Although any of those ideas would look garish in this home.
Studying the room, I train my eyes to look for anything with a long, curlicue cord. Nothing. It’s devoid of anything personal. It might as well be a home that functions as a hotel room. There’s not even that much on the countertops and tables, as if no one lives here. Just the thin television, the notebook-like computer, and a small gadget that—
That’s a phone! I’ve never seen anything like it back in Alabama. Not even our European priestesses have brought back any kind of electronics like these, and our scientists have the best technology in the world.
It takes several tries, but at last, I manage to make the phone show me numbers. It looks nothing at all like a rotary phone and the buttons aren’t even buttons but numbers that light up under the glass cover and beep when I touch them. Although I have no idea how it works, I peck out Mr. Casey’s phone number and wait for a series of puzzling beeps. I touch something—I’m not sure what—and the dull sound blares like it’s coming through a stereo speaker. So much noise for such a tiny rectangle of glass and metal.
“Hello?” A man’s voice comes through, loud and clear, but he’s too young to be Mr. Casey. Sleepy. Groggy, even. I’m not sure how early it is here, or what time it is back in Alabama.
“Anybody there? Hello?” The man yawns through this question.
“Oh, I’m so sorry to bother you,” I stammer. “I must have the wrong number.” I frown at the tiny screen with the buttons that aren’t buttons. I’m sure I pressed the right numbers for Mr. Casey’s telephone, but I must have made a mistake.
“Angie?” Another yawn. “Sorry, bae. It’s almost three in the morning.”
“Uh, no, not Angie.” Whoever Angie is. “I’m sorry. I mis-dialed.”
I hit the red rectangle on the screen repeatedly until the call disconnects, then redial. Or is it actually dialing without a rotary? I peck at the numbers again, certain they’re correct. If it’s three in the morning, will Mr. Casey even answer? He’s usually up at sunrise to head into the office for a day’s work.
Before I cancel the call a second time, a voice answers. The same voice.
“Angie?”
“Oh, I’m so sorry. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I was sure I was dialing Mr. Casey’s number.”
Another yawn. “Hoyt Casey?”
“Yes. Yes! That’s him. Is he available?”
The man moans sleepily but, thankfully, he’s good-natured about the interruption. “Don’t know him. He used to have this number before it was mine.”
“I. . .I don’t understand. Where is Mr. Casey? This was Hoyt Casey’s telephone number, and now you’ve got his telephone?”
A chuckle. “His number, not his phone.”
I pull the tiny screen away from my face and put it back to my ear. I don’t understand. You can’t just change phone numbers unless you move. Or die. “You have his telephone number now?”
“Yep. I’ve had it for years. Since—I don’t know—maybe 1990? Old guy must’ve had a lot of friends. I had people calling for him for years, but you’re the first in at least a decade. Kinda makes me wish I’d known him.”
“Me, too,” I whisper after the line goes dead.
Did he say 1990? That can’t be right. I just saw him yesterday. It’s not like I’d slept all the way through the 1980s and then some. Unless—
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