Ascension

by C J M Naylor

  "Something doesn't feel right," I said, shaking my head.

  "What do you mean?" he asked, putting down his bag and pulling out a change of clothes.

  "She seems off—Elisabeth. I feel like there's something she's keeping from me."

  Thomas began to remove his clothes, and it actually felt comfortable, so I didn't turn around for once.

  "I think you are overthinking this," he said, pulling off his shirt. I'd only seen him without his shirt on a couple occasions, so it always gave me a few goosebumps. "You've just met your mother, the woman you've been searching for all this time. You are just feeling a bit overwhelmed."

  "I hope," I said.

  "Are you sure we can trust this Perrine?" I asked him. "And why is she still here? I thought she had a place here in Paris."

  "Her life is in danger now that she's communicated with us and helped us get to Mathias," Thomas said. "I can't risk her being in danger. And I do trust her. She helped me through a lot when I studied here."

  He walked over to me and pulled me into him. "I'm not detecting a hint of jealousy, am I?"

  Thomas didn't seem angry. On the contrary, he seemed to be enjoying it. I placed my head against his chest, listening to the thump, thump, thump of his heartbeat. "Maybe a little."

  "You're mine," he said. "And I am yours. Got it?"

  I nodded against him, letting his body warm mine. Heat radiated off him and onto me. It was like a fire was brewing between us when we touched. I looked up at him and our eyes met, and then we kissed.

  And then before I knew it, he had picked me up, carrying me, continuing to kiss me. He carefully placed me on top of the bed and crawled over me, kissing my neck, my exposed neckline. My hand was over his heart and I could feel it pounding, pounding, pounding against my skin. I closed my eyes and for the briefest moment wanted him to go to that place. That place I'd never been. But I couldn't. Not yet. Not like this.

  "We can't go too far," I said, finally allowing myself to let out the breath I didn't realize I was holding.

  "Only with what you're comfortable with," he said, continuing to kiss me on my neck, down my arms.

  We continued to kiss like that for a bit, until finally he fell to the side of me, pulling me close to him, and we both fell asleep, letting the problems of today be put on hold. They were the problems of tomorrow now. And for now, it was just us.

  The sounds of cars and pedestrians on the streets outside the bedroom window awakened me from my deep sleep the following morning. When I opened my eyes, I was surprised to find that Thomas' arm was no longer wrapped around me. I rolled over to find that he wasn't in the bed.

  Sitting up and stretching, I looked around the room. He wasn't there. I sat there for a few minutes, contemplating going back to sleep for a bit longer, and then finally sighed, pushed back the covers, and got out of bed. It had been the best sleep I'd gotten since everything had happened, but there was no more time to rest right. We needed to figure things out.

  When I opened the door to the bedroom and stepped out into the hallway, I could hear voices coming from the living room.

  "Did you see them?" Thomas was saying.

  "No," Oliver said.

  "I don't understand," Alma said. "Why would they leave?"

  Why would they leave?

  My heart pounding, I walked down the hallway and into the living room.

  Alma, Oliver, and Thomas were standing in the middle of the room talking. Oliver held an envelope in his hand. Thomas looked pale, as if he had seen a ghost.

  "What's going on?" I said aloud.

  They all looked over at me and then back at each other. But there was no response. I gestured toward the envelope in Oliver's hand.

  "What's that?"

  Oliver looked at the envelope as if unsure whether or not to say anything, and then finally held it out to me. I took it.

  "Henry, Mathias, and your mother left during the night, Abigail," he said. "They left that. I haven't opened it."

  "What do you mean they left?" I asked.

  "We checked all the rooms," Alma said. "They aren't here. Oliver got up first and found the envelope."

  I looked at it and then back up at Oliver. "And you didn't see them?"

  He shook his head. "No, I didn't."

  I looked back at the envelope. For Abigail was written across the center of it in my mother's handwriting. Sighing, worried about the contents inside, I opened it.

  A single letter from my mother was inside. I unfolded it and began to read:

  Abigail,

  Words cannot describe how thrilled I was to finally meet you again yesterday. I'm glad that you were able to have a happy life with your adoptive parents, and it's clear they were excellent parents.

  It saddens me to be writing this now, but I cannot stay here with you. Your connection with your sister grows stronger each day and before long, she will know your location. My location.

  Part of my abilities include being able to send you visions in the form of dreams. Before your parents died, I sent you visions, not to warn of their death, but to stay away from the Timekeeping world. Unfortunately, that didn't happen. I again sent you a vision in San Francisco, hoping you would be able to avoid crossing paths with my mother. And while you did everything you could to avoid that, she knew just how to manipulate you, as she did with Ian when he came to lure you into the Timekeeping world.

  This is my mistake and I have to fix it. I need you, Abby, to do everything in your power to stay away from Lucinda until your birthday. And I need you to do everything in your power to keep your sister out of your head. Your powers are growing stronger and I've found that the best way to keep a sister out of your head, from experience, is to never think down on yourself and to never need them. When you need them, you open a connection, allowing them into your head. Likewise, when you begin doubting yourself, that leaves you vulnerable and also lets them in. The reason you aren't able to see into Melanie's mind is because she has nothing to feel down about. She has nothing to need you for. Lucinda would have trained her well on not needing those things by stripping her of her humanity. It's part of the prophecy.

  The last thing I want to happen is for your sister to die. I know her humanity will return to her if we stop this prophecy from coming true. That means the only way to end it is to end Lucinda. I will do this by meeting her at the original Headquarters. She'll go there sooner or later in hopes you'll end up there too. And that is where I will have the advantage. She doesn't know I'm alive. It's the only card we have to play. And I need to use it, but also keep both you and your sister out of harm's way.

  Please tell Thomas Henry is with me. He's agreed to help me in this. Together, we will be there when Lucinda opens the Headquarters, we will end her, and then we will reverse Time.

  I know you want to know everything Abigail. Which is why I wrote it all down. I've been writing it all down for years. On my bookshelf, you'll find a leather-bound book with no writing on the spine. Find it and read it. For everything that comes after your birth, read the letters Henry gave you.

  I wanted so much to be able to tell you everything, but at least you'll have this.

  Please, keep yourself in my apartment until you figure out a way to get out of Paris. They already know you are in the city. I've used my ability to send visions to you to keep myself out of your mind whenever your sister looked in. You are stronger now that we've met, and I know you'll be able to keep her out now without my help, but your best chance of ending this prophecy is to get as far away from them as you can get.

  I love you, Mathias loves you, and please tell Thomas his father loves him as well.

  Love,

  E.

  My hands were shaking as I folded up the letter and looked back at the three of them, standing there, watching me. I felt like everything was falling apart.

  "She's gone," I said. "They're all gone."

  I handed them the letter to let them read it on their own and then went to exactly where my
mother told me to go. I couldn't let myself feel down about this, as she had said. She was doing this to protect me. She wasn't running away from me. But even though the world was falling apart around us, I had looked forward to getting to know her, even if it was amongst all of these terrible things happening. But now that was out of the question. She was there, briefly, and then she was gone.

  I found the diary exactly where she said it would be. I carefully pulled it off the shelf, worried that I would somehow damage it, and skimmed through the pages. My mother's familiar writing, from the various letters I had read from her, appeared on the pages. Her script was more elegant than the letters I had read, as if she had taken the time to carefully write each and every letter on the page. This was the story. All of it. All of the answers I needed to know were finally here.

  A hand touched my shoulder and I turned around quickly. Thomas stood behind me.

  "Are you alright?" he asked.

  I nodded and looked back at the diary.

  "I just need to be alone for a bit," I said.

  "Okay, but just know I'm here for you."

  I nodded, and then noticed how pale he still was. I had assumed it had been from the knowledge from earlier, but maybe there was something else bothering him. I made a mental note to ask him about it later.

  He kissed the top of my forehead and left me alone. With the diary clutched carefully at my side, I walked back to the room Elisabeth had let Thomas and I use and shut the door behind me. The room had a little nook underneath the window which I went over to and curled up in. Then, I opened the diary to the first page. I took several deep breaths to prepare myself and looked down at the first words along the top of the page.

  A a tap, tap, tap made me look up from the diary. And there it was again. That same gray-brown bird, tapping away at the window. What did it want from me? Why did I feel I had seen it before?

  I shrugged it off and looked back down at the first words written on the page.

  October 1904.

  And then I began to read.

  Part Two

  Truth

  October 1904 to December 1925

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  October 1904

  A piercing scream filled the halls as Abigail Halstead made her way back to the birthing room where Lucinda Callaghan was giving birth to her twins. Lucinda knew it would be twins and had told Abigail so. She had had a premonition. She had seen the two girls being born. And they would have brown hair, just like their father. Abigail didn't have the gift of the sight that Lucinda had. Her family had simply been serving the Callaghan family for as long as she could remember. And Abigail knew Lucinda was evil. She had never aged in the time since Abigail had been born. She had never gotten a wrinkle or even the hint of a grey hair. The woman was unnatural.

  Now, as Abigail carried the boiling hot water and several rags, she feared for the lives of the twins Lucinda would be birthing. She knew the woman had no room in her heart for children. She had always been obsessed with power. And she knew there was a reason as to why Lucinda was so obsessed with having twins, but Lucinda had never shared why.

  Abigail pushed open the double doors to Lucinda's room with her shoulder and stepped in. The room was dimly lit by candlelight and Lucinda lay in the middle of it on the birthing table. On either side of her were her husband, Richard, and the doctor. Lucinda couldn't remember his last name, but she was almost certain it started with an A.

  "Where have you been?" Lucinda spat.

  "I was simply getting everything you asked, ma'am," Abigail replied.

  "Just set everything down there," said Richard.

  "That will be all, Miss," the doctor said curtly.

  Abigail gave a quick curtsy, a requirement of Lucinda's, and exited the room. Then she sat outside, as she had been instructed to, and waited. There were more piercing screams from Lucinda. It seemed to go on forever, until, finally, she heard the cry of a baby. Abigail loved children, and so for the first time in a very long time, her heart felt warm and happy. And then she heard the second cry. Twins, just as Lucinda had told her it would be.

  Abigail smiled to herself and happily conjured the thoughts of spending time with the children. She knew there would be lots of memories, as there was no way Lucinda would even consider changing a child's diaper. But then something happened that dissolved her thoughts. A third cry. And then, utter, horrid screaming. She stood up and entered the room.

  "NO!"

  "Honey," Richard was saying, "sweetheart, it's okay."

  Lucinda pushed herself up, grabbed a scalpel, and stuck it into her husband's neck. A sane, rational person would have been utterly horrified at the sight. That is, the sight of Lucinda ramming the scalpel into Richard, the sight of him being utterly caught by surprise, and the sight of blood spewing forth from his neck until, finally, he fell to the floor dead in a pool of his own blood.

  Abigail Halstead was a sane, rational person. But she had been around Lucinda Callaghan for a long time. And this was nothing new. Richard had actually not been Lucinda's first husband. Knowing how old she was, Abigail had no idea how many husbands she had had. Her previous husband had suffered an injury not long after they were married, leaving him unable to produce a child. Lucinda had ended the marriage not long after that by slicing his throat during the night. She was evil. Pure evil. And Abigail feared daily that the children might also be.

  "What is the problem, Miss?" Abigail asked.

  Lucinda turned her attention from her dead husband to Abigail.

  "The problem," she spat, "is that there are three of them. There were only supposed to be two. And to top it off, they all have blonde hair."

  Abigail turned her attention to the crib where children had been placed, and sure enough there were three, two girls, one boy, and each of them had blonde hair; not the brown Lucinda had foreseen.

  "Lucy," the doctor said, "you need to lie back. You're going to overdo it."

  Lucinda did as she was instructed. For some reason, this doctor seemed to be the only man she would listen to.

  "What are we going to do, Aldridge?" Lucinda asked. "Do you think drowning the boy would do it?"

  Abigail's heart almost stopped. She had become almost immune to watching Lucinda kill her parents and her husbands. But watching her kill children? Abigail didn't know if she could bear it.

  "I don't think that would work," Aldridge responded. "Considering the twins you saw had brown hair, I think it means these aren't the children we've been waiting for. Besides, the boy could be put to good use later on."

  "Then kill them all," Lucinda said. "What's the point? We will try again."

  "Perhaps," Aldridge said, but then he stopped. He looked as if an idea was coming to him.

  "What is it?" Lucinda asked.

  "Perhaps," he continued, "the children you saw were the children of one of these babies. Your grandchildren."

  Lucinda sat up again. "You're a genius."

  The babies started crying and Lucinda turned an icy stare to Abigail. "Why are you just standing there? Take care of them and take them away for a while. I need rest."

  Abigail did as she was told, doing her best to scoop up the three babies and take them away from the evil they had been born into.

  Elisabeth Callaghan first realized her mother was unlike most mothers in the small village of Dingle, Ireland when she was seven years old. It was around that time that young Elisabeth first came to the realization that not everyone was the same; everyone was different. Her mother was no exception.

  Lucinda Callaghan had always been cool, calculated, and somewhat on guard. She was ready to strike whenever necessary, about what though, Elisabeth didn't know. The one thing Elisabeth was positive about, however, was she was her mother's favorite. There was simply no question about it. Her sister, Eleanor, had always been disobedient, and their mother seemed to hate Elijah no matter what he did. But Elisabeth did everything her mother asked of her, and as soon as she was able to comprehend things, he
r mother began training her to be a Timekeeper, something she also attempted with Eleanor, who never cared for the ancestral gift she had inherited.

  Instead, Eleanor found solace in attending St. Mary's Church in the little village of Dingle near their family's Headquarters, where they had grown up. Eleanor would spend her days praying in the church, as well as spend time with those that attended there and tell them stories about why her family wasn’t good and why she didn’t want to be a part of it. Of course, she knew never to mention what it was her family did, for she didn't want to come off as insane. And it was at St. Mary's that the clergy and parishioners comforted her and welcomed her into their family.

  Lucinda was infuriated when she found out about Eleanor's attending church. Even though she had long ago given up on the idea of her daughter following in her footsteps, she still adamantly disagreed with the idea of spending time at the church. Lucinda believed Timekeepers were above all, including religions.

  A fight broke out between mother and daughter worse than anything that had occurred in the Callaghan Headquarters. Lucinda destroyed all of her daughters blessed crucifixes, leaving them in shambles on the floor. When Elisabeth found Eleanor, face down in her bed in tears, she didn't feel the least bit sorry for her.

  "You deserved it," Elisabeth said, leaning against the wall of Eleanor's room. "Mother has always given you the opportunity to follow in the family's footsteps. And at every turn, you've refused her offering."

  Eleanor looked up at Elisabeth, her eyes filled to the brim with tears. "Do you really think what she is trying to turn you into is good? It isn't. She's trying to fulfill some evil prophecy. I heard her telling Aldridge about it. And to top it off, she's never even loved Elijah. She's never offered him anything. Do you really think she loves us? Truly?"

  "Of course she loves us," Elisabeth spat back, rolling her eyes. "You're pathetic."

  "Back off, Elisabeth," Elijah spat, walking through the door and pushing against Elisabeth as he did. He walked over to the edge of Eleanor's bed and knelt down, putting a hand on her back to comfort her.