Gracefully, Elise sat in her writing chair, staring broodingly at the soaring peaks of Parker Mountain to the south. An uneasiness gnawed at her but she tried to ignore its insidious creep, centering her thoughts on her daughter. Isabeau was settled, happy in her new life with her husband Pierce, a man she had traveled to another time to find. How was this time travel even possible? Despite her own experience, Elise did not know.
Settling deeper in her chair, Elise no longer fought against the scenes which played across her memory. Lips curved tenderly, she recalled her Darien.
It was only when she closed her eyes or dreamed at night that Elise saw him. Otherwise, his face was elusive. In the beginning, she had spent much of her time sleeping in the hope of being reunited with him in her dreams, but it had never happened.
He'd been so gallant, her love, so caring -- a man who would have surely cherished their daughter Isabeau.
Elise sat up with a jerk as rain began to pelt the window. Dismayed, she looked out at blackish purple skies which had vanquished the sun.
As the rain blurred across the glass, she absently fingered the delicate chain on her neck. A gift from Darien.
Melodic words played suddenly across her ears, words she hadn't thought of in many years:
When the air is heavy and spring bursts upon the mountain,
destiny calls to those who will listen.
Heed the voice or forever be lost,
for once the circle is closed
two souls must be joined, or separated evermore.
Mandine had made her memorize those words . . . but to no avail. Elise didn't know their meaning now any more than she had that night twenty-four years ago. She hadn't known then that the woman she had trusted with her life, Mandine, was intent on sending her away to a time in the future.
#
The rain stopped as abruptly as it had begun. The grayness cleared and a fierce wind from the north sent fluffy white clouds scuttling across the sky. Elise looked to the east, seeing the sun pouring like liquid gold over a small section of the mountain, a rainbow fading even as it appeared. The filmy ribbon of color seemed to begin in a thick stand of pines.
Elise gripped the window sill.
It was the Spruce Woods. . . she knew it -- the place she entered this time.
Her heart began to pound fiercely. Pain tore through her body with sudden unexpectedness. It was crushing -- shooting like darts along her back and up her spine.
Elise was reminded of a time not too long ago when she'd been rushed to the hospital. Was she to die this time? Pressing her lips together, she squashed the thought.
"It can't end like this," she muttered angrily, "I won't be cheated a second time!" With dark, tortured eyes, Elise lifted her gaze upwards. "Do you hear me, Mandine -- I won't be cheated again!" A jagged bolt of lightning lit the sky, its electrical charge seeming to split the heavens wide open.
Elise clenched her teeth against the pain, pressing her forehead to the cool glass, fingers tightly clenched on the wooden sill. She leaned all her weight on her hands, unmoving, trying to catch her breath, each beat of her heart an agony. Gradually, the pounding eased.
Jerkily, she walked into her bedroom, pulling open drawers, rummaging through clothing, papers, unmindful of the trail of clothes she scattered across the rug. She managed to pull a heavy sweatshirt over her head, smoothing it over slim hips, then bent and picked up her sneakers, wincing as she rubbed the persistent ache between her shoulder blades and the base of her skull.
She dropped to the cushioning softness of her mattress, resisting the impulse which nagged at her to lay her head down. It would be so easy to go to sleep.
Reaching over, she opened the bed table drawer and pulled out two small bottles. She put one of the minuscule white pills into her mouth, then placed the bottles in her fanny pack and snapped it around her waist.
Her steps slow and measured, she walked up the stairs to the attic. Locating her sleeping bag, she went back downstairs, stopping several times as the stairs wavered before her eyes. She sat down on the narrow steps, willing the trembling to subside. Gaining her feet once more, she gripped the narrow rail and again descended the stairs.
In the hallway mirror she caught sight of her reflection. Her face, white and pinched, was like that of a stranger. Violet shadows underscored her eyes.
With grave intensity, Elise studied the frown drawing brows with a hint of red together. She adjusted her disheveled hair, half out of the casual knot she'd tied it in that morning. She should have cut it, but it was the only thing from her past she'd clung to. Her long hair. How he'd loved it. . ..
The mirror reflected her youthful slimness, long legs, and a conversation came back that she'd had with her daughter not too long ago.
"Mom, you should be modeling in front of my camera. You'd look great in those clothes."
"Isabeau! You are the one who complains I am too old-fashioned. Think how you would feel if I began to wear the same clothes as your friends." Elise had laughed.
"You're the youngest mother I know -- and what a body! No one would ever guess you have an adult daughter --"
Elise remembered thanking her dryly.
Gritting her teeth now as a new wave of discomfort shot through her, Elise forced herself to sit down at her desk. She had to focus her scattered thoughts, make plans, take care of loose ends. After a moment she pulled a paper pad toward her and began to write a note to her daughter.
If something happened to her, Isabeau had a right to know the whole truth.
#
Elise sat in a rocking chair all night, thoughts chasing around in her head.
How could she contemplate leaving her daughter, if indeed she did find the doorway back?
During the long hours, Elise had relived her daughter's arrival into the world. Isabeau's birth.
It was a time she, Elise, had been deeply depressed, selfishly allowing herself to lose the will to live. When the labor pains had intensified, she'd simply given up. The doctors had performed an emergency caesarian, saving her child.
Hers and Darien's.
Isabeau had been beautiful from the first moment. When the nurse placed her in Elise's arms, she'd looked down at the baby with disinterest, but then something magical had occurred. The baby, so small and helpless, resembled Darien with her blond tufts of hair. A fierce protectiveness had risen in Elise. She'd been ashamed of herself for letting her misery take precedence over the life of her child.
Memories, fears, worries had run rampant through the quiet of the night. Elise wondered if she was crazy to think of trying to go back. She didn't know how she'd come here in the first place, except that Mandine had had a hand in it. How could she expect to find the way back now?
How would her daughter feel if she left? Although Isabeau lived in Virginia now, they kept in touch and tried to see each other as often as possible. They were very close, but now Isabeau was married.
Elise bit her lips, something whispering in her ear that the time was right and to cast away any lingering doubts.
She watched the sun come up, the pain a dull, warning ache wedged between her shoulders.
By eight, she stopped arguing with herself. Her choice had already been made. She knew Isabeau would understand her decision. Elise just hoped she was doing the right thing.
#
Elise closed the door, checking to make sure the key was under the front mat. The frightening pain had eased considerably, but it served as a reminder of the frailty of human life.
As she left the house, the uncertainty of the future dogged every step. She had two choices, each one as difficult as the other. If she found the way back, she would be leaving her daughter behind. If she stayed, she knew with certainty that she would die. Yet despite the dreariness of her thoughts, her step was almost light. Elise walked across the springing grass of her back lawn to the edge of the woods.
She couldn't explain it, but something was pulling her toward the Spruce Woods, where t
he rainbow had begun.
It took an hour for her to reach her destination, then another fifteen minutes before she located the ramshackle old sapping house. Elise stared at it, comparing it to the last time she had been here. It was leaning to one side as if the slightest breeze would knock it to the ground. The door had been pulled off, but otherwise she supposed it looked the same.
The same as it had sixteen years ago. The same as it was twenty-four years ago.
She had stayed away for all that time . . . until now.
The pain accelerated, lodging in her right arm, just below her armpit. It was a reminder there was not much time.
Morbidly, she considered that perhaps this was to be her fate . . . destined to die in this lonely place where it had all begun. Her thoughts in a past time, her physical body in the present.
She shivered at the heavy dampness of the air which clung to her like a second skin. Dropping her sleeping bag to the ground, Elise quickly gathered kindling and leaves, kicking them into a small pile just inside the door.
Anticipation curled around her. Could this be it -- was the timing right? But how could it be? Her coming here today was just a coincidence born of melancholy thoughts -- wasn't it?
Cautiously, Elise peered into the darkened interior of the shack, grateful there were no animals to contend with. The dirt floor was strewn with leaves and broken twigs. Moving her sleeping bag against the back wall, Elise sat down amidst a small billowing of dust, pulling her knees up. Her eyes felt incredibly heavy, and it was a struggle to keep them open. She'd walked several miles as the crow flew and now she yawned, stretching her legs out before her.
She sat unmoving for some time, watching the sun creep down the wall as she fought to stay alert.
It seemed too long ago, more than a normal lifetime. Sometimes she even wondered if she had not dreamed of her life before . . . Darien making love to her.
She smiled sadly. They'd been so young. She was fifteen, he'd been only seventeen. Oh, but how they'd loved each other! He'd been so sweet and caring, so gentle with her. If only Mandine had not come that night! Her life would have turned out so very differently.
Elise chided herself. The one saving grace was her daughter...
She wiped impatiently at a lone tear as it crept down her cheekbone, staring into the deepening darkness. Despite her aloneness, Elise had no fear of the night.
She had waited for Darien on many a night . . . they'd had many a secret tryst, each one more daring and dangerous than the last.
Secret, because her father hated Darien.
Dangerous, because if he'd caught them together, he'd have found a way to send away the boy she loved. Elise had known of her father's hatred, dreaded it, and foolishly had not thought to be more careful.
Through the time that had passed, she knew Darien still had to be alive. Her heart would know if he had died. But he was far away from her.
She sat up with a start, her contemplation of the past interrupted by rising winds and then rain as it pelted the tin roof. Elise moved closer to the wall, pulling the sleeping bag's downy warmth over her shoulders as the roof began to leak. All she needed now was for the walls to collapse on her. She gave a nervous laugh, imagining coming through the last twenty-four years and then dying under the rubble of an old sap house. No one ever came up here, except perhaps the stray hiker or two. They'd never find her body.
Shivering, she looked up, moving again as water trickled on her. Even though it was spring, the temperature had dropped dramatically with the absence of the sun.
Pulling out a lighter, Elise lit the kindling and leaves she had thought to collect earlier, watching the mesmerizing curl of orange and red flames as they licked greedily at the dry tinder.
The smoke, at first choking and thick, cleared as it found an outlet in a gaping hole in the roof. Kicking the remainder of the sleeping bag out flat, Elise lay down, eyes intent on the fire as the breeze from the open doorway danced through it.
Perhaps the notion urging her to this lonely place had been just that . . . a notion. How could she expect to return to the past the way she had come? She'd had no hand in it. It had been Mandine's doing, sending her here.
Dispirited, her lids drooped. At first light she would go home. She was too exhausted to walk back tonight and doubted she would find her way back in the dark.
She stared out into the darkness with hot, dry eyes, wearily admitting it had been foolish to come here.
She didn't know how to get back home. She had been exiled from her own time in 1822, twenty-four years ago. Today it would be 1846 in that other life.
#
A confusion of dream images chased through her brain all night, permitting a restless, churning sleep. She found Darien in the dream, but he was married with six green-eyed, blond children.
Elise came fully awake with a start, hearing the dry rustle of leaves. Lying still a moment, she looked out the open door, glad at least that the sun was shining. She hugged her arms to ward off the chill.
Her fire had long ago extinguished itself from lack of fuel or a leaking roof, she wasn't sure, but all it was doing at the moment was smoldering, allowing a small trickle of smoke to wend its way upwards. Searching in her pocket she pulled out her lighter, then stared at the remnants of the smoldering wood. She didn't recall gathering such large pieces.
She stood and stretched, grateful to realize the pain was gone. With a frown, she looked around and realized her sleeping bag was gone. Moving to the opening of the shack, she scanned the area outside the door, absentmindedly putting her lighter in her back pocket, but then heard it fall to the ground. Elise kicked the leaves around where she thought the lighter had fallen, but to no avail.
She stood still, her eyes following along the edge of the shack, then lifting with surprise to scan the walls. There was a door on the shack, swinging idly back and forth against the outside wall. She reached forward to touch it. A door...
Elise heard a deep rumbling and wondered if she would get caught in a thunderstorm on her way home. However, the reverberations came from beneath her feet, the sound growing louder. She paused, head cocked to one side. The noise echoed eerily off the stone ledges rising around her.
Elise pushed the door wide and the wind slammed it against the outside wall. She stepped outside, frowning as she looked over the building, thinking it looked bigger, newer. In fact --
Her breathing became erratic, rising in excitement as she ran around the shack, finding the old oak tree with the deep split up the middle. They used to leave notes in the tree.
She and Darien.
"Mother of God," she whispered, backing up, spinning on her heel to look at the shack.
Suddenly, men and horses appeared as if conjured by magic. Elise emitted a muffled shriek at finding herself surrounded by a half-dozen mounted riders, all wearing buckskins and headbands with feathers. Some of their features were obscured by smeared paint, others wore large, misshapen masks on their faces. Their rearing, plunging horses left her virtually nowhere to go.
Metal jangled in the otherwise deathly still morning air. A pale colored horse reared up before Elise, its huge hooves looking ready to knock her to the ground. She ducked back inside the shack, looking desperately about for a stick, anything that she could use as a weapon. Finding none, she saw the space between the boards in the back wall, pushed the boards askew and squeezed through to the outside. She got hung up as the pack about her waist lodged against something. She heard a tearing sound and she twisted free, something pulling in her shoulder. She blocked out the throbbing pain as she took off at a run.
She heard them giving chase, some on foot it sounded like, others crashing through the brush on horseback. Breathing harshly, Elise ran as fast as she could, but knew she was out of shape as she slid back several feet along a shale ledge.
Panting hard from her uphill run, Elise stopped, swaying, staring at the man and horse blocking her path. She spun around, but another horse and rider moved in
behind her, cutting off escape.
The first rider dismounted and swaggered toward her. She backed up, but her back hit the shoulder of the horse behind her, making the animal shy and jump sideways. With a muffled cry, she darted away, but she had not gone three feet when she was jerked from behind and pulled backwards.
The man on foot had her by the tail of her hair, the length of which had come free of its pins. She was jerked again. "Stop!"
"Here, Lassie, not so fast." The voice was guttural, surely not someone from the area. She twisted around, clawing fingers sliding across the greasiness of face paint. He pulled her fingers away from his face and cruelly twisted them. It brought Elise to her knees. She looked at cold blue eyes devoid of emotion.
"There now, I think we should get acquainted," the man drawled, a ring on his finger biting into her flesh.
The bones in her fingers felt ready to snap, but she dared to make no sound.
"Do not run." He released her fingers. "Do we understand each other?"
The blood rushed back to her fingers, the pain excruciating.
"Who are you?" She hated the quaver in her voice. "What right have you to come here and --"
"Now Lassie," chided her tormentor, his voice deep, "I was about to ask the same of you. And," he added smugly, smiling through brilliantly white teeth, "I believe I have more right to expect an answer from you. This is our territory and you are in it." Turning his head, he spat a stream of tobacco past her, just missing her shoulder.
Elise wasn't sure of anything as confusion overwhelmed her. "I don't know what you're talking about. How can you claim territory when everyone knows we're on state conservation land?"
"What's this?" his roar shook her. He towered over her, an unholy gleam in his eyes. Elise shrank back, only to come up against the horse behind her. "This territory belongs to the ones with might." He waved his hand, as if to encompass the other riders. "As you can see, we have the might. That makes you," he turned a fiendish smile on her, "ours to keep. We ride fast and far -- the Hellhound shall have no share in this day's adventure." He laughed, as did the half-dozen or so other men gathered around them, but their laughter seemed to carry a hint of uneasiness.
Time Travel Romance Collection Page 29
