“I believe you’re right.”
“Tessa mentioned Mystik’s history stemmed from colonial times when Twilight stood as a one-story cabin.” She glances toward the portfolio. “There’s a sketch of Mercy and Mystik in Tessa’s drawings.” Mouth agape, Twyla sucks in a sharp breath. “It just struck me that Tessa took Mystik through the portal, back to Mercy. The crazy cat time-traveled,” she says, jerking her head around to Jayson with a wide smile.
“Mystik’s ancestry’s as intriguing as his owners’. He comes from a long line of time-traveling cats,” Jayson says with a chortle. “I bet he senses the ruins’ energy.”
“She,” Twyla corrects him. “Mystik’s female. And without a doubt, her ever-twitching ears perceive everything,” Twyla says with a snicker. “The original Mystik went through the portal. I don’t believe her progeny had and not my Mystik,” she explains, narrowing her eyes and studying the sketch of Mercy and Mystik.
“Well, Tessa sketched everyone of importance, even the cat. Her last entry answered our queries and more. The separation and travel of a soul while the body stays in suspended animation inside the portal sounds alien, beyond my limited imagination. Now that’s amazing.”
“When the soul separates from the body, isn’t that astral projection?” Twyla asks.
“That’s what I thought, but it’s not simple astral travel or astral projection because Tessa alludes to the soul finding its past-life body. So, for a moment, it’s astral projection until soul and prior body reunite. From my understanding, there are five astral planes. The Realm of Time. The Realm of Souls. Uh… yes, Realm of Cosmos, and Realm of Intellect,” he says, scratching his temple. “The fifth fails me. Well, three gates exist for each plane, The Gate of Time, Gate of Spirituality, and the Gate of Cosmos. Our portal is the gateway to time. In astral projection, there’s no physical place, such as our portal, to separate the soul from the body. It’s a conscious effort achieved with much practice or through dreams. A level most people never reach. Just as with astral projection, the time portal returns the soul to the place of origin, the present realm. With the possibility of reincarnation, astral projection makes sense.”
“Why?” Twyla asks, riveted with the topic and his incredible mind.
“A soul can’t exist in two bodies at once. Now a wandering soul has many capabilities, many planes to travel, infinite possibilities.”
“Sounds frightening. A soulless body. What if the soul never returns? Does the body stay frozen an eternity, never aging, or die inside the portal?” Twyla asks, gnawing on her thumbnail.
“Well, now, that is a horrifying scenario. But Tessa’s entry said her soul returns to her body in death. If she’d traveled interminable periods, her spirit would return to the point of entry, back to the same form she separated from in the portal.”
“In death…” she murmurs, narrowing her eyes. “If Tessa was aware of this, it means she died on the other side.”
With that painful insight, Jayson drops his chin on her shoulder and holds her tight. “Well, at least there’s a guarantee of return, no matter what happens.”
“What a frightening idea, leaving the body, not knowing where you will arrive,” she says, imagining the weightlessness of an untethered soul, the lack of control, guided by another energy. “Thank heavens, the mind’s unconscious when it happens.”
“From what Tessa wrote, I assume you arrive where there’s a wrong. I bet timeless George could enlighten us. He’s immortal. Fan-fucking-tastic,” Jayson whispers in her ear, chuckling. “I’m surprised he’d share his secret with teenagers.”
“Immortal, do you believe it?”
“Why create such a fantastic story unless Tessa was writing a fictional book…”
“Or insane,” Twyla interjects.
“And I’m positive that’s not the case. I’m skeptical of George’s immortality, but how else can you explain his age?”
“I can’t… the two Georges are the same individual. But given what you said a moment ago, a person’s past and present bodies can’t exist at the same time. How is it possible for a younger and older George to be present together here at Twilight?”
Jayson’s brow spires with a vertical dip of his birthmark. “He’s immortal,” he retorts.
“Two bodies, one soul,” she intones, twirling a strand of hair around her index finger. “It’s too metaphysical to comprehend. Well,” she says with a sigh, “as Grams promised, she kept his secret. Ian’s persistent shushing makes sense now.”
“You sure they made no mention of this to Skylar?”
“Yes, otherwise she’d understand the hum she hears is from the ruins and not waste energy and money seeking doctors’ opinions. They should have told her.”
“Will you tell her?”
“I won’t keep it a secret any longer. Both Charlie and Skylar need to know,” she replies, imagining Charlie’s disbelief. “My atheist father is in for the shock of his life,” she says with a snicker. “Reincarnation…” she mumbles and turns her head, fixing Jayson with an unblinking gaze. “You realize Grams’ secret isn’t just about the Iroquois or war, but our past lives. When Grams referred to our ancestors, I thought she meant great-great-great uncles, aunts, grandparents, and cousins. She meant us. I am the grandchild she mentioned, the incarnation of Tekakwitha.”
“So I assume I’m Pilan’s reincarnation, given the name Tessa wrote beneath the sketch of me.”
They catch each other’s skewed expressions and laugh out loud.
Jayson tapers the spontaneous chortle and leans his head back. “This is mind-blowing. How many people know the events of their past lives? We found each other again. We’re soulmates, Twinkles, destined to be together for eternity.”
“Amazing, if it’s true,” she utters. A sharp wrench squeezes her heart, coiling her throat and mind with a dreadful thought. She lost Jayson once as Pilan. Can it happen again in this life? The Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice rises, an unwelcome omen, from her memory. Orpheus traveled to the underworld, charmed Goddess Hecate and claimed his dead love. If she lost Jayson, she’d travel to another world through the portal to see him again. Orpheus made a mistake and lost his love for ever. Could she?
“Twyla?”
“Oh, sorry.”
“Where did you go?”
“To the tragic tale of Orpheus and Eurydice.”
“One of my favorite Greek myths. Uh-oh, I see the wheels turning in that practical mind, comparing our destiny to dark mythology, weighing good and evil.”
“It just popped into my head. Given the tragic ending of Tekakwitha and Pilan, our destiny may be as doomed as that of Orpheus and Eurydice.”
“I’m not surprised by your reaction. If your response had been different, I’d suspect your watery ghost possessed you,” he says with a lip twitch.
“Ha! hilarious, but I’m not laughing,” she says, gripping his hands and pulling his arms around her waist. “Don’t you see the similarities. Hecate was the goddess of boundaries, the goddess of the underworld. She guarded doorways and crossroads with torches to protect those crossing liminal spaces between worlds. Our portal is the doorway, the threshold between past and present’s liminal space.”
“She was the guardian of frontiers between life and death. It’s a good mythical analogy. Other versions of the myth consider Hecate a witch, guardian of the journey to the afterlife?”
“Interesting…” Twyla murmurs.
“Past life, time travel, and the afterlife are synonymous. The other similarity is the dogwood trees. Tree bark and branches wound with serpents covered Hecate’s body. Our dogwood trees might be a necromancer in disguise.”
“A beautiful witch,” Twyla smirks.
“A vicious three-headed dog named Cerberus guarded Hecate’s gates, preventing humans from entering or leaving, unlike our two Indian warrior effigies. Our portal has a built-in watchdog. It only allows those of Iroquois descent to pass through time…”
“No,” Twyla inter
jects. The portal has exceptions. It allowed Mystik to enter. And like Cerberus, Old and Young George guard the doorway.”
“You’re right. Humpf… Anyway, we have our key to the underworld right here on Twilight’s property,” Jayson says with a low snicker. “See what you’ve started. I could go on for hours interpreting Orpheus and Eurydice.”
Fascinated, Twyla curls her lips and bats her long dark lashes over amorous brown eyes. “That mind’s a big turn-on, Professor Sundown.”
Jayson lifts an eyebrow. “You shouldn’t do that.”
“What?”
“You know what.” He leans over, gently teases her bottom lip with his finger, his lips, a soft bite with his teeth, and pulls away. “Hmm, should I continue?” He asks with a wicked gleam in his eyes.
With warmth trickling through her core, she replies, closed-eyed, “Later,” rolling her head into his neck with a soft kiss. “How tragic.”
He’d perceived her worries before her eyes distracted his thought. “Past tragedies are just that and can’t happen again.”
She sighs and rubs his arms. “I hope you’re right. Ian once said souls are reborn to set a past wrong right and keep coming back until they rectify the injustice. I suppose Grams left me the key to alert us to the past, to set things right this time. If Grams could see us now,” she says, rubbing Jayson’s arm, “she’d weep tears of joy,” Twyla says with a heartfelt sigh.
“Tessa wanted to see us together again. I wish she’d gotten the chance,” Jayson whispers in her ear.
“I wonder why she buried the choker and tomahawk beneath the maple.”
“It’s the spot they died,” Jayson replies.
“Ah, that’s right. They belonged to Tekakwitha and Pilan, to us.” Twyla studies his remarkable brown eyes, recognizing the instant attraction the first time they met in Plymouth. The agony she felt in the Grand Hall grips her heart again, recalling the bullet Harrison fired. Is it pain from another life? The grief suffered from Pilan’s death. She shakes the image from her head and takes a deep breath. “Grams said we died too soon near the maple tree. I wonder if it happened during the war?”
“Harrison was wearing a uniform in your vision, right?”
“Uh-huh, the blue jacket Patriots wore.”
“Then that’s your answer and, given Tessa’s diary, I suspect we perished during Sullivan’s Expedition. It’s why she was desperate to return to a period before the devastation, to prevent our deaths, and conceivably the reason Ian struggled with her time travel. That answers our other question about changing history. To save loved ones, she’d alter history if the opportunity arose. But the portal never gave her a chance.”
“Can you imagine the ramifications if she had? Is there a link between Brant’s ambush and Teka and Pilan’s death? Maybe she wanted to stop Brant’s attack,” Twyla says, drumming her fingers on her lips. “Or Grams discovered the date Sullivan’s men invaded the village, the exact hour of our demise. She planned to inform our ancestors before Sullivan’s arrival. Did she plot the maps, attempting to alter history?”
Gripping Twyla’s waist, Jayson scoots lower in the seat and adjusts her on his lap. “I suspect the torn-out pages held the answer to your question. But if she changed history, everyone’s lives might have altered. Pilan and Tekakwitha, Garrentha and Jonathan, Mercy and Mingin…”
“But we will never find out whether Grams altered history. She could have, and we could never tell we’re living an alternate life,” Twyla interjects. “Who’d know?”
“I suspect whoever ripped out the pages.”
“You might be right,” Twyla says, staring into space. She imagines Grams plotting Brant’s attack, striving to travel back before the ambush only to arrive at postwar Geneva… “Mercy and Mingin,” she murmurs.
“Tessa’s entry shows she was concerned about their affair.”
“With reason, given her marriage to Mingin’s uncle,” Twyla replies, still drumming her bottom lip. “Grams said they’d meet again. I think they’ve already met. Mercy’s journal might contain more details,” she says, lifting the diary from the settee.
Twyla sweeps her hand across the diary’s worn leather corners, rubs the gold-embossed initials with her thumb, imagining Grams’ and Mercy’s fingers doing the same. She opens the cover to an elegant script faded into aged paper, frowns at missing pages and squints at the print. “Mercy’s words will be difficult to read,” she says, flicking hair behind her ear and resting on Jayson’s chest, as curious as teenage Tessa to uncover Mercy’s tale.
26
Mercy Dox
19, March 1793
In my husband, William’s absence, my only companion in this grizzled, chilly place is Mystik. She’s not much company as I cannot talk to a cat, yet she’s a comfort. It’s a lengthy journey to Virginia from the village of Geneva by horse, and I don’t expect William back for a while till he settles a pressing financial matter with his kin. He’s left me in the company of his long-lost nephew, Mingin, a name he prefers, yet his issue name is Kane Dox. And his adopted Indian family, Jawanda, Garrentha and Billy.
Without their presence in this frightful wilderness and bawbling cabin, I’d go mad. I know little of running a farm and, though grateful for their help, I worry after learning this is where their village once stood. I am the intruder. I hope my husband William’s kindness in granting them work and board on the property appeases their hearts, especially Jawanda. I’ve caught her many morns kneeling and praying for her lost loved ones at the maple tree down the hillock. Her pain, which I cannot fathom, must be great.
For several months, they’ve helped Jonathan and Keith, freed slaves we brought with us from Virginia, manage the farming and building of our home. Jawanda, Garrentha, Billy, and Mingin live in the small cottage a stone’s throw away on the property. Jonathan and Keith stay in the cabin attached to the incomplete stables.
I’m fortunate to have them nearby, granted my fears of the woods where I’ve sensed inexplicable stirrings at night. Mystik senses it too, and most of the evening mewed and pawed at the door. I cannot let her out for fear she won’t return. I’d told William, and he explained it’s just natural underground disturbances. Yet townspeople say this land is beshrewed, accursed, the reason the prior owner sold the property in haste. Tonight, I could not bear Mystik’s agitation and opened the door. She did not go far yet sat towards the porch staring at the woods. She would not come back inside. I closed the door and watched her from the window, just staring off into the dark beyond.
20, March 1793
This crisp, desolate place chills me to the marrow. I turned to nestle with my husband, forgetting he’d not yet returned from his trip. Though tempted to visit Jawanda and Garrentha’s cottage, I fear black night beyond the house. Trying to ignore strange disturbances, I draped the blanket over me, rose from the bed, and hastened across icy planks to the hearth.
What a fright, this dim room and dark night in wild woods. I threw two logs on the ebbing fire, listened to the silent night swirl around the house, and hummed a soothing tune my mother often sang around the fire. When a noise sounded without the cabin, I lifted the rifle from the wall, petrified of prowling bears and wolves.
It is pitch-black without the window. I daren’t open the door, heedful of William’s warning. Lest you’re sure there’s no threat, never open the door at night. Though wild animals frighten me, the persistent vibration, like a waking animal beneath the home, scares me more. I tiptoed across the floorboards to the safety of bed, afraid of disturbing the purring animal beneath the house. Gun at my side, I stayed awake reading till sleep took me at morn.
2, April 1793
Winter’s snow melted and blossoms color the farmstead with spring’s arrival. A dogwood tree stands magnificent and colorful beside a handsome maple, which I find odd since they’ve taken root in the same proximity, beside each other. I’m lured to the tree, often fixing my gaze on its comforting color as I work.
Mingin and the men haul
ed, chopped, and sawed the logs needed to expand our one-story cabin to a two-story home. Jawanda, Garrentha, and I toiled in the field, setting the jöhéhgöh gayë:thöh (three-sister garden) with techniques their people, the Haudenosaunee, used to cultivate crops. With a hoe, we dug rows and padded mounds of corn seeds. Jawanda explained when the stalks stand four inches high, we will sow the beans beneath to climb, support, and protect the stems from mighty winds. When the legumes grow, we will dig several inches on the side for squash, preventing their full leaves from crowding rows.
Earlier, I could not watch them work from the window as I grew bored with simple house chores, so I volunteered my help. But as the morn grew long, my hands and back ached from digging, bending, and standing for long periods on my feet. I did not complain as Garrentha and Jawanda worked with diligence without a grumble. Jawanda, who's twice my age, continued without exhaustion. I strove to do the same.
As I watched them dig and sow, I marveled at their bare heads, despising the traditional bonnet of my women. Without hesitation, I removed the white cloth, letting it hang from my collar. I loosened my bun and plaited my hair in one braid as does Jawanda. She explained that married women of her culture wear a single plait, unmarried girls two, in the way Garrentha does. Without the coif and wind unraveling locks around my face, I felt like the carefree girl of my youth.
Unlike any woman I know, Jawanda is brazen enough to wear her husband, Billy’s, breeches, though too large for her petite frame. She’d said women need to be free of cumbersome skirts to work as comfortably as men. I yearn to follow her example, but don’t dare don my husband’s breeches.
Keepers Of The Gate Page 20
