Gwenllian and Arthur both looked stricken rather than overjoyed at this news, which wasn’t the reaction he was hoping for.
“David’s the King of England, right?” Christopher tried again. “You’ve come here from the Middle Ages. He isn’t with you?”
Gwenllian nodded and shook her head at the same time. “Dafydd isn’t here.”
“Then how did you get here?”
“Arthur and I jumped out of a window at Westminster Castle.”
“Why?”
“Because Gilbert de Clare says that Dafydd is dead!” At her own words, Gwenllian burst into tears.
A giant lump formed in Christopher’s throat, and tears pricked at the corners of his eyes, but he fought them back. It couldn’t be true. David couldn’t be dead.
Gwenllian hiccupped. “Lili says he isn’t though. She had a vision of one of Clare’s men trying to kill him, but he fell from the battlement into a river.”
“What river?” Christopher said.
“It’s in Aquitaine.”
“Why was David in Aquitaine?”
“He was meeting with the French king.”
Christopher pressed his lips together, uncertain what to make of the vision thing, but he desperately wanted to believe in it. “Why didn’t David come here?”
“I don’t know. He always travels to Avalon when he’s in a lot of danger. Maybe it wasn’t enough danger.”
David had talked to Christopher about dying when they were at Aber together. He’d explained that the time traveling only worked when he was in danger and in motion. If someone shot him or chopped off his head, he’d be just as dead as everyone else, and that meant Clare could be right. Still, David wore armor all the time and, last Christopher had heard, MI-5 was getting him more Kevlar too.
Christopher eyed Arthur, who was listening with rapt attention but not crying anymore. This was his father they were talking about, but Christopher didn’t see any way around asking more questions. “I’m sorry to ask you this, but have any of you seen the body?”
“No.” Gwenllian gave a little shake of her head. “Clare hasn’t seen him either.”
“Okay.” Christopher straightened up. Crouching for so long made his thighs hurt, and he made a mental note to add deep knee bends to his exercise regime. “We’ll put that aside for now.” He knew he sounded like David, and part of him felt that if David really was dead, then it was up to him to help Gwenllian and Arthur—just like David would. David had been only fourteen when he’d gone to Wales for the first time. Christopher was essentially eighteen. It was time to be a man. “You left Westminster by jumping out a window and then you traveled here. Did this just happen?”
“Yes. We landed over there.” Gwenllian pointed to a spot of grass on the other side of the train tracks.
Christopher thought she was lucky to have survived crossing the tracks to reach this bench, but he was a believer in David and always had been. The coincidence of Christopher meeting Gwenllian and Arthur here within a few minutes of their arrival felt like it was exactly how things were supposed to go.
Except for David being dead, of course. Tears formed in the corners of his eyes again, and Christopher gave a little shake of his head. He didn’t have time for them.
“Where’s mama?” Arthur stuck his forefinger into his mouth.
Gwenllian hugged him. “We’ll get back to her soon.”
“Is Lili still at Westminster Castle?” Christopher said.
Gwenllian nodded. “With Alexander, the new baby.”
Christopher had forgotten about the baby, another cousin. That meant, if David really was dead, Christopher had even more people to protect and worry about. “Do you know anything more about Clare’s plan?” He was trying to think like David would, and that meant figuring out what the opposition was doing.
“He says he doesn’t want to be king, but we don’t believe him.” Gwenllian shot a swift look at Arthur before leaning towards Christopher. “I jumped because I was thinking that if I could keep Arthur safe in Avalon, and Clare knew that he was here, he would be less likely to hurt Lili and Alexander.”
What Gwenllian meant but didn’t say was that Clare might kill Lili and Alexander, but there was no way either of them was going to say that in front of Arthur.
“That was good thinking, especially since the time traveling put you where you were supposed to be, which is with me,” Christopher said. “We have to trust that you’ll end up where you’re supposed to be when you go back too. Until then, I’ll keep you safe.”
Gwenllian nodded and seemed reassured, but Christopher’s stomach clenched. He’d just made a promise he had no idea how he was going to keep.
Chapter Twenty
16 June 2021
Christopher
“Talk to me,” Christopher said, once he’d settled Gwenllian and Arthur in the car and started driving. He knew things had to be really unfamiliar to them but, if he remembered correctly, his car was a lot like Bronwen’s, even if it was lower to the ground and a little louder. It was even a Honda.
“You’re going really fast.”
Though he hadn’t been going over the speed limit, immediately Christopher eased off the gas pedal. He glanced in the rearview mirror at Arthur, who sat strapped into the back seat. He was too short to see out the side windows, so he just stared through the front with wide eyes and sucked on his forefinger in a way that told Christopher he was nervous. At least he wasn’t crying anymore. Legally, he should have been in a car seat.
“All right, I slowed down. What else?”
“Nothing looks like I expected. It looks kind of like Gwynedd, and the roads and the cars look exactly like David said they would.” She paused, and then said in a softer voice, “Except everything is completely different too.”
“Sorry,” Christopher said, which sounded lame, but he couldn’t think of anything else to say or how to make Gwenllian feel better. She’d just learned that David might be dead and had herself jumped out of a castle to time travel to the modern world, though she called it Avalon. He didn’t think there was any way to make that better.
They drove for a little while longer, Christopher concentrating on the road, before she said, “Where are we going?”
“To my friend Jon’s house. His dad’s a surgeon. He’s good in a crisis.”
Christopher took his eyes off the road for a second to look at her. “At least that’s what my dad says.”
“Where are your parents?”
“My dad left this morning on a business trip to L.A.—that’s Los Angeles. It’s a city three thousand miles from here and three hours behind us in time. I tried calling, but he might still be in the air. I left a message.”
“What-what do you mean it’s three hours behind in time? He time traveled there like I did?”
“Oh, no, no—” Christopher took his hand off the stick shift for a second to reach out to her. “Um—I don’t know how to explain this exactly, but the earth is really big.”
“It’s a ball hanging in space that rotates around the sun,” Gwenllian said. “The sun looks like it rises in the east, but that’s because the earth is really turning on its axis.”
“Right,” Christopher said, a little nonplussed that she should have that information on the tip of her tongue and state it so matter-of-factly. He soldiered on, “And in order to keep track of the time and have the morning by the clock be a time when the sun is up everywhere, the earth is divided longways into twenty-four sections.”
He knew he wasn’t explaining this right. His dad would have done better. David probably had done better, but since Gwenllian had never left Wales before, she wouldn’t have seen for herself how it worked.
“Anyway, Los Angeles is three thousand miles to the west, so when the sun is coming up here it’s still dark there, so if it’s nine in morning here, it’s only six in the morning there. They’re called time zones. Do you see?”
“I guess,” Gwenllian said in a way that Christopher was pret
ty sure meant she had no clue what he was talking about.
He cleared his throat and was saved from having to explain further by their arrival at Jon’s driveway. “This is it.” He turned onto it. They were kind of out in the country here, and the road was dirt. The bumpy ride made Gwenllian sit straighter in her seat and look out the window with interest. When he put on the brake, she opened the door as if she’d done it a million times before and stood up.
“Chickens!” She left the door open and ran forward.
Christopher laughed and pressed the button that moved his seat forward so he could get Arthur out of the back. It was hard to believe that this little boy was David’s son, that he was a prince of England, and that he would one day be king. It wasn’t because there was anything odd or unusual about Arthur. That was just it—he was a normal looking kid.
If David is dead, then it’s my job to keep Arthur safe from Gilbert de Clare until he can grow up and return to overthrow him—just like in the stories!
Then Christopher mentally shook himself and returned to reality. He didn’t think his mom and dad were going to want to raise Gwenllian and Arthur for the next fifteen years. They didn’t even have birth certificates. Besides, if David was dead, they needed their real mother. Sooner or later, Anna or Meg was bound to show up and retrieve them.
Unless Gilbert de Clare had gotten to them too.
It was hard to think about his Aunt Meg time traveling to the modern world because David was dead. On top of which, were she to come, she might appear in Wales, not Pennsylvania. She’d have no idea where to start looking for Arthur and Gwenllian and could be picked up by MI-5 and put in prison before she had a chance to find out. David hadn’t even been allowed a phone call after he’d been arrested.
Then an even worse thought struck Christopher: the authorities would have noticed the flash as Arthur and Gwenllian arrived and even now they could be racing towards Radnor. That meant he couldn’t return to his house. That meant he shouldn’t have left that message on his dad’s phone or the texts on his mom’s. He thought back to what he’d told them. He hadn’t actually said Arthur’s or Gwenllian’s name, only that something important had happened and that they should call him. His mom was still mad at him, so maybe she wouldn’t, but his dad was always good about getting back to him quickly.
He closed the car door and walked Arthur over to where Gwenllian was crouched in front of a chicken, perhaps inspecting it for similarities with medieval chickens. Radnor wasn’t exactly cowboy country, but Jon’s family had horses and a dairy cow too. It was more like an estate—or better yet, a hobby farm.
Jon’s father, Paul, came out of the barn, which was adjacent to the mill. “Hey, Christopher, I expected you a half-hour ago.”
“I know, Paul.” Christopher straightened. “I ran into my cousins. This is Arthur and Gwenllian.”
Paul scratched his head, frowning. “Uh-what—”
Christopher decided he was better off not shouting across the yard. In a weak moment, he’d told Paul and Jon about his cousins and aunt who’d disappeared. After last Christmas, he’d been dying to talk about meeting David again, but ended up passing off the whole thing as an elaborate dream. He jerked his head towards the barn, and with a puzzled expression, Paul followed him into it.
“I thought your cousins disappeared when you were seven and that your dad was an only child.”
Arthur followed them to the barn too, but Christopher shooed him back towards Gwenllian, not wanting him to hear another conversation about his dead father. So far, Arthur had said almost nothing, which Christopher thought was worrisome in a four-year-old boy. The chicken had run off and been replaced by the family’s golden retriever and two cats, so when Gwenllian saw Arthur coming, she gestured him closer. She seemed used to caring for him, and he trusted her, so Christopher wasn’t worried about either of them getting into trouble among the pets.
He turned back to Paul. “You know that dream I had about David being the King of England in an alternate universe?”
“Yes.”
“It wasn’t a dream. He really is the King of England in an alternate universe. Arthur is his son, and Gwenllian is his half-sister.”
The ‘v’ of concern between Paul’s brows deepened as he looked at Christopher.
“You don’t have to believe me. Just ask them. It’s all real, including the times they’ve been chased across the planet by MI-5 or the CIA.” Christopher bit his lip.
Paul barked a laugh. “Just ask them, huh?”
“I really shouldn’t have brought them here at all, but my parents aren’t answering their phones, and I didn’t have anyone else I could trust. My dad says you’re good in a crisis.”
Paul didn’t respond to that. Though in a way Christopher couldn’t blame him for being skeptical, he found himself growing impatient. Before Paul could answer, Christopher put up both hands. “You know what? It’s okay. I should have known that coming here was a bad idea.” He turned on his heel and strode back outside, bending to scoop up Arthur on his way towards the car.
“Wait! Christopher, wait.” Paul took a few steps after him. “It’s just a lot to take in at once.”
With Arthur clutched awkwardly in his arms, Christopher turned around to face Paul, though he kept walking backwards to his car. “I know it’s too much, but I don’t have time for you to process it. I need help now, and not the kind that ends me up in a mental institution.”
“You have to admit it sounds crazy.”
Christopher shrugged. “I’ll figure it out. Come on, Gwenllian.”
“We’re going?” Gwenllian had looked up when he’d picked up Arthur, and now she hustled after him.
He motioned that she should go around to her side of the car. “Yeah.”
He plopped Arthur into the backseat again before sitting himself and starting the car. Before he could back down the driveway, however, his friend Jon ran out of the barn, past his dad, and skidded to a stop by the passenger door of the car. He pulled it open and made a shooing motion to Gwenllian that she should scoot over.
“What are you doing?” Christopher said.
“I heard what you said to my dad. I’m coming with you.” Jon managed to squash himself into the bucket seat to the point that he could pull the door closed, even though he was pressed up hard against it.
Christopher gave his friend a long look, and then he motioned with his head to Gwenllian. “Get in the back with Arthur. I can’t drive with you sitting on the gearshift.”
“Okay.” Gwenllian scrunched up her dress to her knees, revealing skin-covering green leggings, and scrambled between the seats in order to sit beside Arthur. She buckled the seatbelt as if she’d been doing it her whole life.
“You’re sure?” Christopher said to Jon. “This isn’t a game. Time travel is real.”
“I know. I heard you the first time.”
Shaking his head but happy for the company and glad to know he could count on someone, Christopher shifted into reverse and backed his car down the driveway. At the mailbox, he glanced once more to where Paul stood, watching them. During Christopher’s conversation with Jon, Paul hadn’t tried to talk to them, stop them, or interfere with what they were doing in any way. He just stood there, and the way he was standing made Christopher think he was feeling as helpless as Christopher himself.
Paul lifted a hand, which Christopher took as a good sign. But as the car backed onto the main road, Paul pulled his phone from his pocket and put it to his ear.
Christopher felt sick to his stomach. He wasn’t as smart as David and was totally unprepared to have two medieval kids depending on him. He needed a plan—and he needed it now.
Chapter Twenty-one
16 June 1293
Carew
“Gwenllian!”
Carew threw himself the last few feet to the windowsill. He then immediately cursed himself for his stupidity. If he’d kept quiet, she and Arthur might have been given more than a few moments before they wer
e missed—and maybe they would have had a chance to escape detection long enough to float downstream or reach the opposite shore. That is, if either could swim, which Carew didn’t know.
At first, when Gwenllian had hidden herself and Arthur behind the window curtain, he’d made sure to avert his eyes. But while Clare had been talking to Lili, Carew had edged his way across the room so he was within a few feet of the window and was even blocking it from general view.
He’d thought initially that the girl meant merely to hide, as she’d been hiding two days ago under Lili’s throne in the audience room. When she’d crouched on the sill, Arthur clutched to her chest, however, there was a moment in which time had stood still and both she and he had been suspended—Gwenllian in the act of pushing off from the stones and Carew about to shout and make a grab for her arm. Even as he’d done so, he’d known that he would be too late to stop her fall.
When he flung himself onto the window seat and looked down, he still expected to see the pair fall into the water, but they hadn’t. He blinked and then blinked again, staring hard and willing them to come up for air. The Thames was hardly a torrent this time of year, and he couldn’t understand how he could have missed their entry.
He continued to stare down at the river below the window, his mind refusing to process what he was seeing—or rather, not seeing. Gwenllian and Arthur weren’t struggling in the water. They hadn’t swum to the opposite shore nor instantly been picked up by a fishing boat. They had vanished.
Carew pulled out of the window. “They’re gone.” He breathed deeply in and out lest the magnitude of their loss render him incapable of thought.
“Don’t be absurd.” For a single moment, Clare’s façade was shaken, and he spoke as if Carew, with whom he’d worked closely for five years and even conspired with at times, had suddenly become the village idiot. It indicated what he’d thought of Carew all along.
Clare brushed past Lili, who was staring at Carew rather than Clare, and thrust his head out the window. After a moment, he straightened, spinning on his heel in order to point at the two men who guarded their room, who’d been standing in the doorway behind Geoffrey. “Don’t just stand there! Roust the river watch! If you hurry, you might be able to grab them from the dock. They could drown!”
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