Into the Hourglass

by King, Emily R.

  She floats over to us in her blue linen dress, her feet wrapped in sandals. A long pearl necklace adorns her slim neck, and tied around her waist is a white apron with a silver hand mirror tucked into the front pocket.

  “Dearest Laverick, I have a gift for you.” Muriel presents her with a bundle of cannon fuses. “I thought they would bring you comfort.”

  Laverick accepts the fuses, goose quills filled with turpentine and fine powder, and clutches them to her chest. Her father, a cannon maker, kept geese on their farm and made his own. Though Laverick’s upbringing was harsher than any child’s should be, she often carries a bundle of fuses on her.

  The sea hag moves on to Jamison. “Dearest Earl of Walsh, what an honor to have you in my company.”

  He bends at the waist, bowing gracefully. “Thank you for allowing us to intrude upon your day, Lady Muriel.”

  “Lady? Oh, I like that. You’ll do well as a marquess.”

  Jamison nods in thanks and partly in puzzlement. She knows his title but not that he’s been disinherited. It would be discourteous for him to correct her, nor would it be appropriate to bring that up upon first meeting, so he smiles.

  Muriel’s gaze flickers to me. “Everley Donovan, this is a union I’ve long awaited.” She cups my gloved hand in hers. “Imagine my delight when I learned you were coming.”

  I paste on a smile. “How did you hear of our visit?”

  “My good friend the boggart told me. He chats with the king’s soldiers who guard the water portal, and they mentioned your imminent arrival.” Muriel plucks at her pearl necklace and glances around. “Where is Radella? She must have found the jar of fruit flies in the kitchen. Radella? Radella, where did you go?”

  The pixie flies in from what I assume is the kitchen, her cheeks stuffed with food. She lands on the sea hag’s shoulder and finishes chewing. I have never seen Radella warm up this quickly to anyone, not even Jamison.

  “Pardon my directness, Muriel, but are you human?” Jamison asks.

  “As human as you are. People from the Land of the Living often think they’re the only humans in all the worlds, but we can live anywhere.” Muriel shoos the cats off a floral chair with crocheted armrests and sits down. A cat immediately jumps up into her lap.

  Laverick dangles her cannon fuses so the cats can bat at them. More of them rub against us and meow for attention.

  “Please forgive my feline friends,” says the sea hag. “Five years ago, we had a terrible mice infestation. The traders brought in cats to eliminate the vermin, and the village became overrun. The villagers started trapping the cats to use as fish bait, so I took them in. I’m a soft touch for strays.” She waves at the feline-covered sofa. “Please rest your feet. You’ve come a long way.”

  The furniture is what would be found in a cottage, sturdy traditional pieces upholstered with floral cloth in dusky-rose hues. Osric growls and the cats on the sofa beside him scatter. He plops down and then lifts the throw pillow behind him and pulls out a pistol.

  “I forgot to warn you about the stashed firearms,” says Muriel. “A woman living on her own can’t be too careful.”

  “Is it loaded?” Osric asks.

  “It wouldn’t be much use to me if it weren’t.”

  He passes her the loaded pistol, and she sets it beside her.

  Laverick props herself against the armrest. Jamison stays standing, a white fluffy cat rubbing against his legs. I will not compete with the cats for a seat on the sofa, so I remain on my feet as well. My eye is drawn to the vase of daisies on a side table. The flowers are an unusual sight in a world where very little plant life grows. Radella perches on the footstool in front of the sea hag. The pixie leaves the cats alone, and they ignore her as well.

  Muriel beams brightly at us. Her beauty is almost too radiant, like staring at the sun. “Radella, how are you enjoying your first assignment as ambassador of the Everwoods?”

  Radella makes hand motions and little chirps.

  The sea hag listens and watches intently until the pixie finishes, and then Muriel grins. “I can understand why that would try your patience.”

  “Do you know what Radella is saying?” asks Jamison.

  “Of course. Everyone should be fluent in pixie. Radella and I are old friends.”

  Radella nods emphatically.

  “She said that none of you listen to her. You really should consider her opinion more. You’re hurting her feelings.” Muriel scratches under Radella’s chin with her pointer finger. The pixie leans into her touch and preens. “Pixies are the most delightful creatures, always trilling and spreading their magical dust, and they are unerringly loyal to the Everwoods and Father Time.”

  I gesture at the vase of daisies. “Was Father Time here?”

  “I commune with him daily. He’s here with us now.”

  I glance around, but all I see are cats, cats, and more cats.

  “Not here. He’s here.” Muriel opens her arms wide. “Don’t use your eyes. Listen.”

  All the cats quiet and still upon her command, no purring, yowling, or meowing. Their silence unnerves me too much to hear anything.

  “I don’t hear anything,” says Laverick.

  “Most creatures hear something like the soft patter of rain, while a select few hear music.” Muriel sends Jamison a knowing smile. “You hear the Creator’s everafter melody, don’t you, Lord Callahan? I can tell you have a gift for song.”

  He stammers out a reply. “I play the violin—”

  “You’re too modest.” Her gleaming eyes take him in, as though she’s measuring him against her first impressions. “You recently lost your instrument, but it will be waiting for you when you return home. You will need the music for what’s to come.”

  He turns speechless, and I, too, am taken aback. How could she know Jamison’s violin was left behind on the Cadeyrn of the Seas? None of us told her, and Osric doesn’t even know that Jamison plays.

  Muriel expands her attention to the entirety of the group again. “Everyone can hear the sands of time, but they sound different in each world. In the Land of the Living, the clocks mask the sound, and here, the tides set the hour.” Muriel presses a solemn hand over her heart. “It’s a comfort to know Father Time watches over us.”

  Jamison and I swap looks that say, Is she aware how peculiar she sounds?

  Osric smiles weakly. “Muriel and Father Time are friends.”

  Muriel waves a strict finger at him. “Father Time and Princess Amadara were friends. We will be more. From the minute I was born, I felt—”

  “Pardon the interruption,” I say, though I’m not sorry in the least. “You knew Princess Amadara, the princess from the legend? But she lived centuries ago.”

  “I feel as though we’re sliding off course,” says Jamison. He picks up the white cat rubbing at his feet, and it snuggles against him. “We’ve come for your help.”

  Muriel removes the silver hand mirror from her pocket and evaluates her reflection. “You seek the sword of Avelyn and your friend Claret.”

  “You know about Claret?” Laverick whispers.

  Muriel tugs dissatisfiedly at the smile lines around her mouth. “You’re in luck. Your friend and the sword are in the same place. She was taken by the merrows to serve as a maid in the king’s castle. Humans make marvelous laborers—quiet, docile, obedient—especially when they’re enchanted.”

  Laverick’s eyes gape wider. “Claret has been in the undersea city, under the merrows’ enchantment all this time?”

  “Oh, stars yes. Otherwise she would have drowned.”

  “We need you to help us get to Everblue,” Osric says. “Killian traded for a bubble tonic with an apple seed from the Land of Promise. He may be on his way to the castle now.”

  Harlow had an enchanted apple seed in her vial? That must have been what was so valuable about her necklace.

  Muriel lowers the hand mirror. “I don’t have any bubble tonic, nor do I have the ingredients to concoct it. The active
element is grown only in the Silver-Clouded Plain, which, of course, is inaccessible to outsiders. I would request that the king come here to meet you, but Dorian and I aren’t on speaking terms.” The sea hag covers the ears of the feline in her lap. “His eldest daughter ate one of my cats.”

  His eldest daughter is the princess who has the sword. Nothing about this world should surprise me anymore, but a cat-eating merrow princess who has a fascination with blades sounds utterly dreadful.

  “Didn’t you steal a bag of the king’s pearls?” Osric asks, his lips quirked into a smile.

  The sea hag puts her nose in the air. “Dorian doesn’t care about a handful of pearls. He’s been on a rampage since his queen died last year.” Muriel sets down the cat from her lap and rises. “Before we discuss any more matters, Everley Donovan and I must speak in private.”

  “Why?” I ask at the same time as Jamison.

  “I have a message for her from Father Time.”

  I am reticent to be alone with someone so unpredictable, but a message from Father Time is reason enough to take that risk. Jamison sets down the fluffy white cat to come with us. The sea hag waves him back.

  “The message is for Everley alone.” Muriel sweeps her dress behind her and strides away, intending for me to follow.

  Jamison steps beside me, slightly blocking my way. “Will you be all right?” he asks in a low voice.

  I assumed he was going to try to talk me out of going off with Muriel alone, so his question takes me aback. “I think so.”

  “Call out if you need anything. I’ll keep an ear out for you.”

  As he steps away, I wonder if I’ve known anyone who’s trusted me to be myself more than he does. He doesn’t just trust in what I say, but in what I do, my competency and capability to act of my own accord.

  With Jamison watching, I square my shoulders and go to meet the sea hag.

  Chapter Seventeen

  On my way to the balcony, I pass the open doorway of a room full of junk. Piles rise to the ceiling, made up of random furnishings, dishes, artwork, linens, draperies, ropes, candles, boxes of ammunition, black powder, pistols, swords, and other odds and ends. The sea hag has an assortment of random things that she couldn’t possibly use on her own. How many weapons does one woman need?

  Continuing to the end of the passageway, I step out onto the sunny balcony high up the side of the sea stack. The sudden brightness blinds me, and when my vision clears, Muriel is in my way.

  She taps my clock heart. “I sensed your ticker’s presence immediately. Time is my favorite treasure.” Her crimson lips curve downward. “But the time animating your clock heart is weakening. Do you know how much you have left?”

  “No, can you tell me?”

  She closes her eyes and brandishes her fingers over my ticker. Her eyes snap open again. “Do you fear death?”

  A spike of dread drives into my gut. “No.”

  “Lucky lass.” She waves a hand over her face, and her glamour falls away, revealing a much-older woman with shriveled lips, thin skin, and dull gray hair weaved with muddy browns. The sudden shift from vibrant young lady to wizened crone startles me speechless. Beneath her sultry facade is the real sea hag, a woman who has seen more years than I can fathom. Her wrinkles and gray tresses speak to a wisdom that shows in her silver eyes, the only feature that remains unchanged.

  Her fingers flutter past my face, and then she lifts her hand mirror to show me my reflection. I feel no trace of her magic, but I hardly recognize myself. My blue eyes are unnaturally vivid, my cheeks have a fetching blush, and my raven hair shines like wet stone.

  “Glamour can change beauty, but the best charms emphasize what is already there.” Muriel throws up her own glamour again and, at the same time, removes mine. She puts away her hand mirror in her apron pocket. “I’m sorry I cannot repair your ticker. My glamour charms create a convincing illusion, but it’s an illusion all the same. Even if beauty was what you seek, you couldn’t afford to compensate me.”

  “What did you ask for in exchange for the glamour charm you gave Markham?”

  Muriel removes a spyglass from her pocket and peers at the watery horizon. “My customers give me something much more precious than gold or silver. They give me time.”

  I grip the sides of my trousers with my clammy hands. “How?”

  “I harness the creation power that exists inside us all.”

  Her explanation only complicates my understanding. “So if the names on your wall represent people who traded years off their life in exchange for your powers, what did you do for Osric?”

  “Something much costlier than a glamour charm.” Muriel snaps the spyglass closed and puts it away. “Any sorceress can do glamour. My real power, my gift and my curse, allows me to see through time. For a price, I can show my customers any moment of their choosing from the past, present, or future.”

  I think I understand now. “Muriel, you’re a seer.”

  “A seer is a spinster with crooked teeth. My teeth are straight.” She smiles wide to show me, but I am unsure if her teeth are real or another illusion. “I grew up in the Land of the Living, in a cottage near the woods. My father was a woodcutter, my mother a sorceress. They were poor but happy. One morning, when I was stacking firewood, I saw Princess Amadara sneak through a burrow under a tree. I waited there until she crawled back out that evening. She refused to tell me where she had gone, and I was too afraid to go myself. When she returned the next day, I waited by that tree for hours until I built the courage to follow her.”

  Muriel sweeps away to the balcony, and her gaze rises to the cloudless sky. “I only went once, but the Everwoods changed me forever. I inherited my mother’s ability to see creation power in plants, and animals, and people, but after I returned home from the Everwoods, I began to envision things that once were or would be. When I foresaw the destruction of the Land of Youth, I was so afraid I fled my world and began to offer readings. At first, I asked for payments of gold and silver in exchange for my services. I soon realized my customers had a more precious commodity that I could take if they were willing.”

  “When did you meet Markham?”

  Muriel twists her pearl necklace around her fingers, her silver eyes glassy. “Killian came to visit me a century later. He offered to sign away more years of his life to me than most humans ever see. Glamour charms are the illusion of beauty; they don’t prevent aging. I was short on time, so I took his bargain. It wasn’t until he left that I foresaw the tragic fate of Amadara and their unborn child.”

  “A child?” I ask. “There was no child in The Legend of Princess Amadara.”

  “You only know Killian’s rendition of the tale. He didn’t know Amadara was with child.”

  I grip the banister harder. “What really happened between him and Amadara?”

  “Amadara was a Time Bearer, like you. You’ll learn what that responsibility means soon, but for her, she was assigned to guard an ancient artifact so powerful that Father Time gave her the sword of Avelyn to protect it. Amadara always knew Killian was a monster. She couldn’t see through his glamour, but she knew straightaway that he was evil. She married him to keep a closer eye on him, and he truly fell in love with her, but she, like many others, underestimated the prince.”

  Muriel’s eyes go hard and flinty, tears gathering. “Soon after Amadara became with child, Killian discovered she was guarding the artifact and was furious with her for lying to him. She called upon the pixies of the Everwoods to take the artifact to safety, so Killian locked Amadara in a tower, took the sword of Avelyn, and gathered his army to storm the Everwoods. He intended to chop down elderwood trees to force Father Time to hand over the artifact. Amadara did the only thing she could to stop him—she tore a piece of time that Father Time had given her. Unfortunately, Killian had gone ahead of his army and was in the Everwoods when time was stopped in the Land of Youth. He escaped, but Amadara and her unborn child did not.”

  I’m flabbergasted by the disc
repancies in Markham’s story. I read the journals he kept during the decades after Father Time cast him out of the Everwoods. He loved Amadara, that part was true. He used that truth to distract from his other lies. “What was the artifact?”

  “That’s something Father Time should tell you.”

  I don’t know if I want to speak with him about the matter. Father Time should have done more for Amadara, and he should do more to help me. “Why would he let Amadara tear time? Why didn’t he stop her?”

  “Because some sacrifices are so immense they change the course of the future. Father Time understood that, in order to defeat Killian, he had to let him prevail for a time.”

  “Have you seen any other visions, perhaps of giants going to battle?” I ask, recalling my dream.

  Muriel’s pupils narrow to pinpoints. “Have you seen something yet to come, Everley?”

  “No,” I answer quickly. “I mean, I don’t think so. How could I? I’m not a seer.”

  “Time Bearers are able to navigate Evermore—the timeline of Avelyn.” The sea hag drags her fingertip across my forehead, her attention turning inward. As she traces a line across my skin, my dream from last night flashes back in a series of pictures. “The seven worlds were cut from the cloth of the eternities. The Evermore timeline is the thread that stitches them together. Time Bearers can visit points in history bound to their own timeline, particularly moments appointed by fate.”

  Muriel withdraws her hand, leaving a wake of gooseflesh on my skin. These notions about the Evermore timeline and predestined moments are too massive to digest, so I set them aside. “You said Father Time sent me a message?”

  “He wishes to tell you himself.” Muriel extends a finger and taps my clock heart.

  My spirit jumps from my body and hovers above us. The sea hag puts her hand in front of her lips and exhales, as if blowing a kiss. Her deep breath sends my spirit spinning into the sky, up into the clouds, into the heavens.