“Tis a different plan now I ken he has an injury.” His stomach growled. “I will tell ye over breakfast.”
“Sounds good. Plus I need to go see my grandmother. I haven’t seen her since Thanksgiving.” I climbed off him to get dressed. I looked down into my underwear drawer full of my assortment of toys, my panties, the next drawer down, t-shirts, the bottom, yoga pants and more. It had been a long time of wearing weird shit that other people picked out for me: queenly clothes and ‘I only barely escaped’ outfits.
I picked out a thong, one in a sky-blue color, Magnus’s favorite so I owned about five, and pulled it up my legs slowly because I realized Magnus was watching.
I ran my finger under the lace and wiggled for him.
He groaned.
He was sitting on the edge of the bed, stalled in mid-rise to watch me.
“Do you like my thong, Master Magnus?”
“Ye ken I do, verra much.”
“You missed it while you were on your voyage?”
“Tae say I missed it is nae the truth of it. I dreamed of your arse, cried for it, longed for the weight of it in my hands. Why daena ye bring your cheeks closer so I can kiss them hello properly?”
I grinned and walked backwards toward him.
“Och aye.” His eyes were big with desire. He reached out for my hips, drew me close, and kissed the triangle of fabric at the top of my cheeks. “Good morn, Kaitlyn’s undergarment, tis me, Magnus. Have ye missed me as much as I have missed ye?”
I looked down my shoulder at him, talking to my thong, and giggled.
He said, “Have ye been lookin’ after Queen Kaitlyn’s little arse?”
I said, “I actually haven’t seen these since we left.”
“Wheesht,” he joked. “Daena ruin the story of it, your undergarment is tellin’ me of yer exploits while I was away.”
I laughed and rolled my eyes.
He ran a hand up and down my thighs and around my cheek and kissed the triangle of cloth again. He pressed his forehead to the small of my back. “Och, now I have been reacquainted proper, I will allow ye tae dress for yer day, mo ghradh.”
“You have a lot of self-control.”
He chuckled. “Tis nae self-control so much as ye have the wee string comin’ from inside yer pleasure garden, a reminder that takin’ a stroll there today wouldna be as much fun.”
Forty-nine - Kaitlyn
Everyone was up and bustling. Zach made scrambled eggs, bacon, and toast, but was cleaning off the shelves in earnest, wearing rubber gloves, washing the counters, and making a list for a proper grocery trip. Emma had already left to take Ben to Zach’s mother’s house so she could go to the hospital to see Quentin and Beaty. Hayley was on the phone, hiring two young men and a truck to move the few things from the octagonal house back to this house.
The safe would need to be moved too, that was the big one. And we had to return the rental cars. We had to get back to a normal life.
We all drove together to the hospital, wishing for a normal life, but in the hospital life was standing still.
Quentin stood distraught at Beaty’s bedside. The doctor had just passed through, checked the charts, and declared she ‘still needed the ventilator.’ Quentin told us they were keeping her sedated because whenever she woke up she acted crazy-scared ripping at the tubes. He said to me, “It’s just like my...”
“I know, it’s just — but it’s different Quentin. Your mama was really sick and things were wrong with her, things she couldn’t heal. Beaty is young, she can heal herself from this. The doctors will help her.” I glanced at Magnus, gazing into the window of Beaty’s room, intense worry on his face. My warrior husband could ride into battle with barely a thought, but hospitals and illness totally freaked him out.
We took Quentin for a walk outside. He made it in a distracted circle around the front sidewalk of the hospital and then wanted to return.
While he used the bathroom, I spoke to the sleeping Beaty. “Hey sweetie, you need to start breathing again, normal-like, because Quenny really needs you. There is a lot of great stuff we want to show you. You just got here. You just made it to the cool stuff. You should stick around to see it.”
I stepped away from her side and Magnus patted her arm and then we left to the warm beautiful Florida day.
“I hate to say it but now we need to visit my grandmother.”
“Aye, tis a complicated day. We should do it though, I am learnin’ we should see the people we love when we have a chance tae tell them.”
“Perfect, I’ll drive.”
Fifty - Kaitlyn
I wish I could have had one of those moments of incongruity where my grandmother would have been unchanged in the month that had passed. I had watched my friends get married and been to the 18th century and the 16th century and had all kinds of life and death shit happen as well as welcomed a stepson into my life and then lost him somewhere in the 24th century.
But this was...
Grandma was dealing with life and death too.
She was bedridden.
So frail.
Withered from when I saw her last.
I said, “Hi Grandma, how are you doing? You good?”
She glanced at me, then said, her voice not much more than a croak, “Where’s Christina?”
I patted her arm. “Who’s Christina, Grandma, maybe I can call for her?”
She looked frightened. “She should have been here by now, we have plans to go…" her voice trailed off and she looked confused. “…ice skating.”
“I’m sorry she’s not here yet, I’ll look for her. I know how much you love ice skating.” I busied myself with adjusting the covers on her bed.
“Hey Barb,” said Magnus. “Tis me.”
She looked up in his face and there was a glimmer of recognition there.
Tears welled up in my eyes.
She asked, “How are you, dear?”
Magnus sat down beside her bed and took her hand. “I have been better, Barb, I am terrible worried on ye.”
She raised a frail hand with paper thin skin to his cheek and held it there. They locked eyes for a moment. She drew her eyes away from his and smoothed her palms across the thick covers spread over her now diminutive body and grew calm, focused, and lucid. “You are a good boy. You shouldn’t worry so. You carry too big a burden, dear. The world is not yours to save.”
Magnus hung his head. “Aye, some days it feels like it is though.”
She patted the back of his hand. “When you have shoulders like that you want to pick things up and carry them, but you aren’t a god dear, you’re celestial dust just like the rest of us.”
He chuckled sadly. “Tis sad tae think of myself as dust.”
“Well, that’s just household dust. I’m not talking about that kind. I’m talking about celestial dust, the universe bursting open from a tiny speck of nothing and exploding into particles throughout everywhere, in every time, and becoming every thing. Those tiny specks find each other and glom on to each other within that explosion — they come together and form chains and finally people, you, and your...” Her voice faded. She turned to me and her brow drew down.
“I’m his wife, Katie.”
“That’s right. You’re Katie, the love of his life. The celestial dust that combined with his celestial dust and here you are. Spinning around each other...”
I sat on the edge of the bed. “You once said it was like we are entangled.”
“True. That does sound like me in my more sensible days.” She sighed. “I remember what it was like to be sensible. Most days now I just stare at things forgetting how to make sense of them.”
I had a lump in my throat that wouldn’t swallow down.
Magnus said, “So I am celestial dust? What is it?”
She waved a hand. “Stars and other shiny rocks. Some people might say the stars are the amazing part of this story, but think about it this way: those stars are the same things that make up you, a living breath
ing man, strong-shouldered, cryin’ at my bedside. Who is the amazing part of this story, the star?”
Magnus said, “The man.”
She laughed, then coughed, and it took a moment for her to recover, then she smiled a withered smile. “No, the amazing part of this story is the little old lady being cried over by that handsome man.” She tapped his cheek again. “I kid you, dear, your heart and soul are the amazing part. Katie’s. That you found each other and entangled up your heart and family.”
“I have changed the natural order of time. I brought sadnesses tae people I love. I think they might have been better if…”
“Bullshit, dear. I have just been telling you that the world came from an explosion and that we are all celestial dust hurling through space and that there is magic in the particles of dust finding each other. Does that sound like a natural order you should be worrying over, or does that sound like magic and destiny and mind-expanding craziness? As Jack used to say to anything we didn’t know yet: ‘It’s a mystery today, tomorrow it will be a fact.’ You are a fact, my dear. Your dust has affected all the other dust pushing it away and pulling it near.” She sighed, “Imagine if I had never met you, what sadness would my celestial dust have felt that your celestial dust wasn’t there?”
Magnus folded down over her hand and cried. I put my hand on his shoulder, my grandmother put her hand on the back of his head, and we held on.
“You cry it all out dear. The worry, the fear, you let it go.”
And so he did.
* * *
When he recovered, he was sheepish. He straightened his shirt and excused himself to the bathroom leaving me and my grandmother alone.
I said, “Thank you Grandma for that, he really needed it. He was on a long journey and he’s worried about...” I didn’t need to say it because it was everything. He was worried about everything.
“Everyone needs their grandma sometimes.”
“That is so true. Thank you for being mine. You may not remember me sometimes, but thank you for taking him into your heart.”
“He loves my little Katie so much. It’s easy to take him into my heart. How could I not when he wants to take care of you and make your life so much better?” Then it was my turn to burst into tears.
She said, “Now honey, you have to get stronger. You can’t be crying like this. You need to buck up. He needs you. He needs you to be strong and to help him.”
I laughed through my tears. “I thought we were both just celestial dust?”
“I wish it was easier for you. You’ve gone and fallen for a god. I’m telling him he’s dust to keep him calm, but you know he’s got more to do than that. He can’t do it alone.”
“I keep telling him. I’m trying to help him.”
“I know you are dear. I see it.”
“You do?”
“I do, you have grown into an amazing woman. I am so proud of you. I see how you talk to him, you have wielded your power in the gentlest of ways. He loves you for it. I see it.”
“It’s really nice to be seen.”
“Well, yes, yes it is.” She extended her arm, groping for the water at her bedside. I held the cup for her and directed the straw to her mouth. She sipped and then lay back.
“It’s easy for us women to become invisible, but I see you.”
Magnus returned to the room and sat down.
She asked me, “You haven’t been here for a time, where were you?”
“I went to the 24th century and met my stepson.”
She said to Magnus, “You have a son? Now that explains some of your worry.” She returned her glance to me. “What is my step-grandson’s name?”
I said, “Archie.”
“Like the comics.” Her eyes shifted nervously around the room. It was as if now that she had stopped talking in big philosophical statements she couldn’t stay focused on what was in front of her.
Magnus took my hand.
My grandmother said, “Do you know what time it is?”
I said, “It looks like it’s 11:30, Grandma.”
Her eyes drew downward. “Do you—” She stopped mid-sentence, then said, “I’m very tired. I think I need to go to sleep now.”
And just like that, as if she was turning us off, she turned on her side and pulled the covers up to her chin.
We waited for a moment and then left to go home.
Driving home I said, “Grandma was a lot like her old self, huh?”
“Aye, she was verra helpful tae me.”
“Good, me too. She said some things, that she loved me and was proud of me, it was pretty great. I’m going to miss her so much when she’s gone, but I’m really so glad to have had that moment with her.”
He kissed the back of my hand.
Fifty-one - Kaitlyn
When we got home there was a tree in the living room. Undecorated, but still a tree. Zach was full-blown manic. It was December 23rd after all. We took one look at him and realized we needed to get busy.
Magnus and I wrestled his shopping list away and went to the grocery store. Magnus was amazed by stuff still but we tried to remain focused — there was work to do. The cool thing was that the grocery store had a Christmas section, marked down, half-off. We bought a dancing Santa who sang Jingle Bell Rock and made Magnus’s face light up with joy. Then I made a late lunch for all of us of sandwiches and chips on paper plates.
I jotted down lists. I made sure people were taken care of, and I listened to Magnus. He wanted to be here. He also needed to handle Reyes. Reyes had lived here for a time, he knew our behaviors. If he wanted Magnus he just had to come and get him.
Magnus held meetings with Hayley about what she might have told Nick and what Nick Reyes told her and they hired two more security men for the outside of the house. Magnus met the new guards on the deck and gave them long and detailed instructions. I watched through the sliding doors while I helped hold the space so that Zach and Emma could get our house to the level of Christmas they wanted for Ben — a little guilty that they had traumatized him with the time jump. They had a Christmas style that was too much, excessive, awesome, overblown. I did laundry.
Magnus was always armed and watchful, walking the decks of the house. He was certain in his plan. A basic plan really: Go back in time to St Augustine and kill Reyes there. The only reason why he hadn’t done it yet was because he needed Quentin and Quentin was on family leave.
So my list of complicated things that Magnus needed to do was very long. It involved so much that was necessary but hard to accomplish. The list went like this:
Wait for Quentin.
Keep us safe.
Have a Merry Christmas.
Make everyone’s life as normal as possible.
Go at first possible dawn to the past to fight Reyes before he came here.
Find Magnus’s friend in the past and help him.
My own list included:
Help Magnus do everything, plus research cures for scurvy.
Under that, be grateful to be home.
Under that, ‘buy Midol!’ because I kept forgetting it at the store and my cramps were awful, not the worst, but pretty bad.
Fifty-two - Kaitlyn
Just before dinner we went back to the hospital. Beaty was groggy but awake and the best part — the tube was out of her mouth. The doctor had hopes that she had turned the corner.
We all came into her hospital room to say hello. She was weak. I asked, “Beaty can you smile for me? I never know if someone is okay until they smile and I need to know you’re okay.”
She smiled. “Aye, Queen Kaitlyn.”
I said, “See, Magnus, she’s going to be okay.”
He nodded. “How are ye, Beaty?”
She said, “You told me, King Magnus, that cars were frightenin’ but they are nothin’ compared tae these ropes tyin’ me down and inside my body.”
“Aye, I have been in a hospital afore. Tis verra noisy and nae one bothers tae tell ye if ye will ever feel good ag
ain.”
I said, “Well, at least you did feel good again, and it sounds like Beaty is going to feel good again. We’ll have her home in no time. Right Beaty?”
“Where is my home?” She sweetly looked up at Quentin.
“I have an apartment nearby. It’s got—”
Magnus said, “I think twould be best if you and Beaty lived at our house, Quentin. Emma and Kaitlyn and Chef Zach can take care of Beaty while ye help me with something I need tae do.”
“Alright, that makes sense, boss.”
Magnus squeezed my hand. The look of relief on his face was palpable. I said, “When does she get to come home?”
“Maybe tomorrow. If we can keep her comfortable and have oxygen for her.”
I grinned wide. “Oh I have oxygen for her. I have an oxygen treatment machine that I’ve been carrying around for three hundred years. So yes, bring her home tomorrow. We’ll be ready.”
Fifty-three - Kaitlyn
When we made it home that night we ordered pizza, because Zach and Emma were still decorating. It was beautiful though. Candles on the mantle. Pine garland across the tops of the sliding doors and really just about every surface. The tv on, shifting images of the weather channel once more. Though we knew now that Reyes could arrive in any place and just drive here, Uber or something, so yeah, that was why Magnus was planning to go, fast, like Christmas day.
The Santa we had bought stood on the coffee table. We pushed the button every now and then to see his whack-a-doodle dance and to see little toddler Ben’s excitement or Magnus’s astonishment.
After dinner Magnus took a shift on the decks so the security guards could eat and rest and then he came to bed much later —his sword sliding across the floor under our bed, kept within reach, his sporran unbuckling and being placed on the end table. The room was dark with just a little moonlight coming from the upper windows over the sliding glass doors with the shades drawn across them.
Under the Same Sky Page 17
