Rest and Peace
I wake with a start, my heart hammering. For a moment, I’m disoriented, the vivid memories of the rainy cemetery still fresh in my mind. But as my eyes adjust to the dim light, I realize I’m back in our bedroom in the carriage house. Spencer is beside me, his breathing slow and steady.
Ignoring the dizziness that threatens to overwhelm me, I try to sit up. We need to go back. I need to retrieve Cora’s book from where I dropped it and deliver it to Veronica. But before I can swing my legs over the side of the bed, Spencer’s hand gently squeezes my shoulder.
“Easy there, love,” he murmurs, his voice thick with sleep. “You need to rest. So do I.”
“But the book—” I protest weakly, even though I’ve not told him about Cora’s gift or how I’d planned to run after Veronica with one last binder of contraband.
Spencer shakes his head, helping me lie back down. He must think I’m dreaming. “You gave me quite a scare, Maeve. Your face went gray in that cemetery. I thought I’d lost you right there, even if I remembered our ending here in this bed. But we’re done now. We’ve done everything we were destined to do. We’ve earned our rest.”
As the fog in my mind clears, I realize I’m no longer in my rain-soaked clothes. Spencer must have changed me while I was unconscious. I push away the heavy bedding and stick one foot out the side. I’m wearing the blue dress I love, though the warm socks on my feet are the fuzzy ones I hate. I grab at my throat and find my Daeganean necklace of pearls still around my neck.
Good, I think to myself. I can still portal back to Veronica.
“How long was I out?” I ask, still feeling chilled to the bone despite the heavy blanket covering me.
“Several hours,” Spencer replies, stifling a yawn. “We both needed the rest after those back-to-back time jumps.”
I try to throw off the blankets, suddenly feeling stifled, but they’re too heavy for my weakened arms. Spencer sees my struggle and removes them, then wraps his arms around me instead. His warmth is comforting, familiar. This is where he’s always told me our journey would end. The last thing he remembers, somewhere in this night, falling asleep with my name on his lips and me in his arms. But is it still true?
“Spencer,” I whisper, “we didn’t change anything, did we? By going there?” I snuggle against him, realizing he’s in crisp, clean pajamas.
He’s quiet for a long moment, and I can almost hear the gears turning in his mind. “I don’t know, Maeve,” he finally admits. “I can’t get it out of my mind, and that means I’d remember it if we’d gone before. We defied the timeline set for us.”
“The stars,” I murmur. “They weren’t where they should have been. But I guess only an astrologer would understand.”
Spencer nods against my hair. “No, I’m not an astrologer, and I felt it, too. I’ve been thinking about that. About everything. All the choices we’ve made to follow what we were told was our destiny, the secrets we’ve kept.” His voice catches. “I never got to tell Veronica how much I love her. If I’d known I had a choice, I would have gone back one last time.”
My heart aches at the pain in his voice. “You should go,” I tell him softly. “Go see her. Tell her everything.”
But Spencer just holds me tighter. “No, my love. My place is here, with you.”
We lie there in silence, the weight of our time together settling around us. I need to force myself out of bed and back to the archive, back to the tote and Cora’s book, back to that cemetery where Veronica walked away under a black umbrella, back to the moment after Spencer somehow managed to portal me home with him.
I squeeze my eyes shut and try to reach across time to Veronica, try to send my essence in the form of a watchful crow with a message, but my energy fades and I fail. All these years of following the priesthood’s rules, and for what? Big rules, like not changing the future. Small rules, like changing the pronunciation of the priesthood so no troublemakers can lock in on the name and surprise an unsuspecting or weakened member. Were any of the rules real? Did we have the power all along to change the future or were the rules more to keep us in line than to protect both us and humanity?
If I can change this one last thing, I have to go back. Now.
I can’t. I’m too tired. Where’s that rally that’s supposed to come at the end of my life? All I need is five minutes, maybe ten, to walk to the archive and then to chase after Veronica.
I drift in and out of sleep, comforted by Spencer’s steady presence, but I can tell he’s still awake, still contemplating. I’m vaguely aware that my aura has faded, and at the same time, too aware that my energy has faded with it. The soft green light on my skin is barely visible in the nightlight on the dresser.
When I wake again, Spencer is wearing the suit he wore home from a recent trip to the future. “Is everything okay?” I ask, my voice barely above a whisper.
He smiles against my cheek, and for a moment, I see the young man I fell in love with all those years ago. “Everything is wonderful,” he assures me. But I can tell how weary he is. His aura, too, is fading. “I’ve set things right. Or as right as I can.”
As Spencer drifts off to sleep beside me, a nagging thought tugs at my mind. “Spencer?” I whisper, rousing him. “Has our future changed, too? Is this. . .is this still our last night together?”
His eyes flutter open. “I don’t know, Maeve. But we both know the archive burns down tonight. At least, that’s how the story goes.”
I nod, remembering all the things I’d heard as a teen and later about the exquisite T.Y.M. Casey Archive that burned down in 1972, the same night the two mysterious caretakers passed away. Some had said it was arson. Others had said it was a careless candle, forgotten before bedtime. I inhale deeply, the breaths coming easier suddenly.
“All the books inside, Spencer, lost to the flames. That’s what the newspapers said about the archive.”
“But that’s not true anymore, is it?” Spencer muses, closing his eyes. “Maybe it never was, and no one knew we removed all the important ones. They’re safe, waiting across time for Veronica.”
A thought strikes me. “When do you plan to burn it down?”
Spencer frowns at me in the dimness but doesn’t open his eyes. “I didn’t burn it, Maeve. I don’t remember setting the fire, and even if my other memories aren’t reliable, I’m sure I would remember. . .that.”
As Spencer drifts back to sleep, the pieces fall into place in my mind. Of course, he doesn’t remember burning down the archive. Because it wasn’t him. It was me.
Quietly, I slip out of his arms and out of bed and make my way through the carriage house and into the courtyard. I’m still shivering, but somehow I can breathe better out here in the spring air. I can see enough by the lights inside the archive to know exactly where I am without having to watch where I walk through the red rose bushes or where I place my sock feet on the path.
The second I step inside the main room, I hear the steady but annoying beeping of the house phone on the desk. We must have knocked it off the receiver on our failed trip to the sunny cemetery. I ease the phone back into its cradle, and it rings immediately. Someone must have been trying to get through for hours and getting only a busy signal.
I miss twenty-first century technology and caller ID. It could be a wrong number. Or it could be Mr. Casey returning my earlier call or letting me know he’ll be here on time tomorrow.
I lift the receiver but say nothing.
“Maeve?” Lady Moira’s voice comes through, sounding surprised but certain. She’s recognized my energy. “Maeve Winzler? But how? You’re just a weakling. How can you be there and upstairs asleep at the same time?”
She doesn’t know the woman I am. She thinks I’m still a child because my energy is much the same as then. She doesn’t know I came across time with the love of my life to prepare for Veronica’s future.
Lady Moira’s voice changes from soft and confused to angry, loud. “Answer me! Maeve! If you’re a threat to my daughter, I’ll make sure you’re banished to where you’ll never be heard from again!”
I hang up without a word. Banish me is exactly what she did, though she never knew if I was the threat she feared. She probably never believed I had it in me. And never will, if I have the strength to make sure of it. Lady Moira must never know what books were kept here, or that they’re now safely out of her reach. Only fire will cleanse the energy, erasing all traces of which volumes once graced these shelves. The only books left are worthless second copies of family histories we’ve collected as a cover story for our secret library. Those and Cora’s book.
With a growing tightness in my chest and nausea in my stomach, I choose a small box from the nearest table and begin to fill it. The framed photograph of me that Spencer loved so much, the one with a note written inside the frame, hidden away. Cora’s book, from the tote where I’d dropped it earlier. My necklace of Daeganean pearls. There’ll be no more trips to the future for me, no chasing Veronica through a cemetery, not slipping it into Drusilla’s library with a note to give it to Veronica. I just don’t have the strength for time travel.
But I do have the strength for another way to get these precious treasures to her. Or weapons. No difference, really.
I package them up with a note for Mr. Casey, tape the lid closed, then write Mr. Casey’s name and address on the outside of the box with a black marker. I cram a twenty-dollar bill into an envelope and scrawl a note for the mailman for when he comes by in the morning, so he’ll have enough postage to get the box to Mr. Casey’s office a few hours’ drive away. Mr. Casey won’t get the box for a few days yet, and he’ll be on his way here and the box is on its way there, but maybe it’s safest this way so Lady Moira and the High Council don’t find it when they come looking.
It takes me nearly ten minutes to walk all the way to the mailbox near the corner of the property and back, and I’m wheezing again when I step back inside the main room.
From a nearby table, I take a small candle—the kind I use for a three-hour spell—and light it. I pause, my hand trembling as I hold the flame. The immensity of what I’m about to do washes over me. This isn’t just about destroying evidence; it’s about altering the course of history, protecting Veronica, and ensuring that the knowledge we’ve safeguarded remains out of the wrong hands. The potential ripple effects of this action are staggering, and for a moment, doubt creeps in. But then I think of Lady Moira’s threats, of the High Council’s manipulations, and I know this is the only way.
I place the candle in the genealogy section, arranging papers and empty boxes around it, and pulling one of the velvet curtains closed. It will take hours before the flames truly take hold, but by then, it will be too late to stop.
My task complete, I remove the warm socks—they were never really my style—and place them on the pile of papers and fabric, and then walk barefoot across the cool wood floor. I let my fingers skim the tabletops and the backs of chairs as I cross the room one last time, breathing in its dust and luxurious scent of old books, even though most of the old books have been whisked away. It’s been a good life, better than I ever imagined when I’d been that shy girl who’d announced her purpose in life to a High Priestess who had no interest in my soul or its value. I’ve lived a good life, an interesting life, a life of service—and I’ve loved and been loved, and those are the things that count when it comes to how I measure my success.
Outside, barefoot, I pause in the center of the hedge labyrinth, savoring one last moment in this place that has been our sanctuary for so long. My breaths come harder, and fatigue overtakes me. But with every heavy breath, I inhale the scent of the roses here. I lift my head to the night skies and all the constellations, clearer than ever above me, even to weakening eyes. Dizziness pulls me sideways, and I hurry back into the carriage house.
The nightlight catches the glint of energy on my skin as I slip into bed beside Spencer. His aura, like mine, is fainter, like two smart phones from the future’s technology where the batteries have dwindled to one percent. He stirs, kissing my cheek as I meld my body against his. His hand rests over my heart, its beat growing fainter, my chest heaving under his touch.
“I love—you—Spencer,” I manage to say between breaths. “I’m not—afraid.” Not as long as I’m with him.
“I love you,” he whispers back, then speaks the word that has always been my favorite on his lips: “Maeve.”
As we lie there, wrapped in each other’s arms, the world around us begins to shift. Colors swirl, more vibrant than any I’ve ever seen. A melody rises, resonating with the very hum of the earth. In this moment, suspended between what was and what will be, within a single turn of Earth, I feel a profound sense of peace. The weight of our choices, the sacrifices we’ve made, and the love we’ve shared all coalesce into this single point of existence.
Our breaths synchronize, growing shallower with each passing moment. I can feel the warmth of Spencer’s love enveloping me, even as our physical forms begin to fade. In these final moments, I’m struck by the beautiful complexity of our journey—the pain, the joy, the purpose that has driven us. As consciousness slips away, I’m filled with a certainty that our actions, however small they may seem, have set in motion changes that will ripple through time, shaping a future we’ll never see but have always fought for.
The last thing I’m aware of is Spencer’s heartbeat, slower and slower against my ear, a rhythm that has been the constant in my life since I was just a rosy-cheeked girl.
And then, together, we slip into the infinite, our legacy burning bright in the archive beyond our door below, a beacon of hope and change for generations to come.
A last act of love for our little girl.
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