Dark Matter (Interchron Book 3)

by Liesel K. Hill

  “Marcus?” Maggie peered over her shoulder, wondering why he sounded so far away. The room stood empty save for her and the old man.

  “Ah yes,” the man said, his voice mocking. “Just as you love your Healer?”

  Maggie’s head snapped back around to look at him. Marcus must be looking for her. She needed to buy herself some time. “Yes, I love Marcus. I’d do anything for him. I’d die for him. You’ve never felt that way about anyone?”

  The old man turned his head to one side so she could see him in profile. “…No.” The hesitation was minuscule, but Maggie caught it.

  “I don’t believe you,” she hissed.

  The man turned fully to face her, a dangerous glint in his eye. “What you believe is irrelevant—”

  “Belief is always relevant,” Maggie growled through gritted teeth.

  “—and we are done with these words. Time for action.” He crossed the room so quickly she couldn’t take a full breath before he reached her. His fingertips touched her forehead and in desperation, she reached out for constructive energy, using it the only way she knew how: to engineer a shield around her mind.

  The instant his energy touched her shield, she knew it would be hopeless. Like trying to protect herself against a title wave with an umbrella. He could have overwhelmed her instantly.

  He didn’t. Instead he pushed slowly, a sadistic grin on his face. He was playing with her, watching her struggle. She put more effort into the shield. He countered, pushing her shield back and back, his energy getting closer and closer to the gray matter of her brain. When he reached it, she would be at his mercy. He would have the names, location, and every detail and secret of Interchron. Everyone would die. No! Worse. Everyone would be enslaved.

  She had only seconds until she met her own destruction, which would also mean the destruction of the rebellion. Marcus, Doc, Joan, Clay, Karl, and all their families and friends at Interchron. No, she must stop it, but how to ward off the man’s attack?

  Something Clay once told her entered her mind. “Being on the offense is always more powerful than being on the defense. The hope and empowerment of action is on your side, and the universe will rise to find you a solution.”

  Maggie knew she couldn’t do two things at once, so she’d have to move with lightning speed. Letting go of her shield, she lashed out and, the instant before the old man’s energy touched her brain, she touched his…

  Maggie stood in a meadow. The grass looked green and lush, the sky a blinding shade of blue. Weeping willows ringed the perimeter. The sound of a babbling brook came from somewhere beyond the tree line.The perfect, paradise-like day for a picnic. Sure enough, right in front of Maggie lay a large, checkered blanket, atop which sat an open picnic basket, various foods that obviously came out of it, and a young couple.

  Somewhere in the distance, behind the weeping willows in a spot she couldn’t quite pinpoint, a man screamed. The sound was soft, distant. A deep, grainy, guttural sound. Like the old man’s voice had been.

  On the picnic blanket, a young man and woman sat facing one another. The man had dark hair with large eyes and a high, protruding brow. The woman’s raven-colored hair fell to her waist. Lean and lithe, her eyes sparkled with energy. The two of them sat cross-legged on the blanket, completely ignoring the mostly-uneaten food. Their knees touched and their foreheads hovered close together. The young woman giggled at something her beau said.

  Oddly, they didn’t seem to be solid. They appeared transparent, like ghosts. Maggie gazed around, wondering what was going on. Everything outside the couple’s blanket seemed hazy, indistinct. Not transparent as they were, but fuzzy. Solid, yet blurry, where they were transparent yet distinct.

  “My brother does not have a point,” the young man said sharply. Maggie jumped. Their voices were loud and clear. Much clearer than the distant sound of a man screaming, which she could barely hear now.

  “Well,” the young woman hesitated. “He might. It’s only a difference of opinion, Bart. Nothing to get upset over.”

  The young man’s face softened. “I’d rather not talk about that right now. I’d rather be right here, in this moment. With you.”

  The woman giggled again. Their specters faded away.

  A blinding flash of light filled Maggie’s vision, overwhelming the scene in front of her.

  “You cannot be serious!” A man’s voice yelled from behind Maggie. She whirled to find the same couple standing behind her, on their feet and yelling at one another. The picnic had disappeared, and the couple wore different clothing. The woman’s hair looked shorter.

  The meadow itself hadn’t changed, but the sky had. It was now dark and overcast. A cool wind made the weeping willows sway. The couple didn’t seem to notice.

  “All right,” Doc said. “I’m going to cut the energy as we did before. It’s the only way I know to stop this, and we don’t know what he’s doing to them.”

  Maggie could still hear not only the team’s voices, but also the man screaming behind the willows. The sound of it rose and fell on the tide of the wind.

  “I am serious,” the woman yelled back. “It’s my choice.”

  “You promised me,” the man’s voice held agony.

  “I did no such thing and you know it. We flirted. We got to know one another. That’s not tantamount to a marriage proposal, Bart. I care about you. I always will. But I’m not in love with you. I’ve been telling you so for weeks, now.”

  The young man glared at the woman from inches away, and something about the iron in his gaze sent chills down Maggie’s spine.

  “You’re going to regret this, Adaiah,” the man said, then turned on his heel and stalked away across the meadow.

  The scene in front of her faded, becoming grainier and less distinct to Maggie’s eyes. The screaming man didn’t scream any longer. It had changed to growling now, a low, guttural sound, and Maggie felt a pull. Something pulled her away from these people. This time. Pulled painfully.

  No, she must stay here. She didn’t know why or how it would help, but if she let herself be pulled back to the round room with the old man, she’d die. She felt sure of it. This memory looked solid, so Maggie reached out and grabbed at the closest person to her: the woman Adaiah.

  Her hand closed around the woman’s wrist. The scene still faded. The world began to spin, and Maggie spun with it, hanging on for dear life to the woman’s wrist. The rest of the scene melted into a blur of indistinct shapes and colors, but Maggie still felt Adaiah’s wrist in her hand. Faster and faster the world spun, a human gyre, and the voices around her intensified.

  “Everybody ready? Joan you’ve got Lila? Marcus, hold onto Maggie. Make sure they don’t hurt themselves when they spring apart. Last time the backlash threw Maggie six feet…”

  Then the pain came. Deep inside her head. Maybe it came from the old man back in the round room. Maybe it came from the other voices floating around her. Somehow, though, she thought it came from the spinning. She had to let go of the woman’s wrist or the spinning would tear her apart. Where would she land? It didn’t matter. If the old man in the circular room would kill her, then she could only hope for the best.

  She let go.

  She had the sensation of being spun out of the gyre, like salad escaping from a spinner. Space and distance lost all meaning. It wasn’t a matter of flying feet or yards or even miles from her starting point. Rather it felt like light years, across barriers, perhaps even across time.

  She landed with a thud.

  She lay outside, and the brightness of sun and sky momentarily blinded her. The world around her spun slowly for a few more rotations before lurching to a halt. Maggie waited a full minute before pushing herself into a sitting position with her arms, just to be sure she wouldn’t vomit.

  “One!”

  She lay on the ground in a puff of dust. This wasn’t a hazy memory like those she’d somehow entered in the old man’s head. No, this was real. As real as being in the round room with the
old man had been. How did she get here? How did she escape him? She’d left the ship somehow and landed somewhere on the earth’s surface. So why could she still hear those voices?

  At least the man screaming—it had been the old man in the circular room, she felt sure—had stopped entirely.

  She got carefully to her feet and scanned her surroundings, wondering how she would find Marcus and the team again. Old, rusty car parts covered the grass around her, as though she’d entered a junk yard that just happened to sit atop lush grass. The sound of water filled her ears. Not the babbling of the brook she’d heard in the meadow. This sounded bigger, heavier, the crashing of waves against the shore. The ocean ebbed and flowed on three sides of her. Perhaps four. She had to be on a peninsula at least, but she couldn’t tell if it was a full island because in the fourth direction, a shabby, broken-down lighthouse obscured her view.

  Maggie turned another slow circle, trying to take in more details and decide what to do next. Because of that, she heard the footsteps before she saw them.

  Whirling toward the light house, she found herself face to face with a woman.

  A woman standing in front of a broken lighthouse.

  The woman had waist-length, raven-black hair. She moved in a lithe manner, like a cat. Unmistakably the woman from the meadow, the one Doc and the dark haired young man called Adaiah, she looked older than in the memories Maggie observed, though not by much. Only a few more lines on her face than in those flashes. Her eyes held a resigned wisdom that made her look mature.

  “Who are you?” Maggie whispered.

  The woman shook herself. “Forgive me. It has been long since I’ve had any visitors to my little island. You need have no fear of me.” She held out a hand. Maggie staggered backward. “What is your name?”

  “Two!”

  The woman’s smile looked genuine, but Maggie felt instinctively mistrustful. Tell me yours first.”

  The woman’s hand dropped. “I am the Remembrancer.”

  “Three!”

  With a snap like the rebound of a rubber band, Maggie was thrown backward. Someone caught her and she fell against someone’s chest. Strong arms wrapped around her and a face pressed into her shoulder.

  “Maggie, are you okay?”

  Marcus’s voice in her ear. Marcus’s breath on her neck.

  Her head throbbed, and her body felt weak and achy, as though she’d just run a marathon. She didn’t feel a great deal of pain, though. She didn’t think she would pass out or anything.

  She pulled back far enough to look up into Marcus’s concerned, hazel eyes.

  “Maggie? Talk to me.” Worry creased his face while desperation laced his voice.

  She nodded, resting her forehead against his. He’d lowered her to the ground when she staggered back into him, and now they sat in a jumble on the stone floor, his arms around her. Jonah!

  She pulled back. “Jonah, is he…”

  “He’s…Doc’s tending to him,” Marcus said.

  “You tend to him, Marcus. You’re the Healer. Please,” she whispered when he didn’t move. “I’m fine. I’m weak, but I’m fine. B hurt him.”

  “All right. Lie still here, okay?” He gently laid her down all the way on the floor. It felt cold and hard, and Maggie didn’t care. Resting was the most luxurious thing she could think of doing right now. Marcus moved out of her field of vision and Karl moved into it. He knelt beside her head and rested a warm hand on her shoulder.

  “You okay, Maggs?”

  Nodding took effort. The worry lines creasing his brow lessened, if only by a hair. “Yes.”

  She wasn’t sure if she felt okay. She wasn’t sure of anything at all.

  Chapter 15: Digging

  3 Days to Eclipse

  The group stood around Maggie’s bed, staring at her with wide, worried eyes. The night had turned to morning while Maggie explained everything she’d witnessed.

  “Isn’t anyone going to say anything?” she burst out. Despite still feeling weak from the experience, she hadn’t felt this enthused since returning from the Canyon. “These are the answers we’ve been looking for. Well, some of them.”

  “By answers,” Doc said, “You mean to what happened in the round room? And on the ship?” He looked haggard with worry, and had hung on every word she’d said about her experience after touching Jonah. Everyone in the group had.

  Marcus stood beside her, holding her hand. Karl, Nat, and Joan had all stared in wonder as her explanation proceeded. Even Tristan stood in the doorway, listening, though he still seemed to be looking down his nose.

  “I’m not sure I understand what happened, Maggie,” Karl said. “Do you?”

  Now that Maggie looked around, she realized their expressions also held confusion. She’d related every detail as she’d seen and experienced it, but she supposed it had sounded confusing to them.

  “Okay,” she said, sitting up straighter. “B was in Lila’s head. When I touched her—and by extension, B—it brought the full memory of what happened in that round room back to me. The weird thing is, I experienced the memory again, rather than seeing it as a dream. Like I was riding around in my own head, but I still heard all of you talking and had thoughts about that as well.” The group’s confusion didn’t lesson, so she tried again. “The memory of me and him meeting in the round room is from before. Things I said to him were things I said before. I’m sure of it. But he called himself B, and some part of me knew he was Bartholomew. I could hear you all talking around me, and knew that was the present.” Maggie rubbed the bridge of her nose. “It was so strange, because it was both things at once. I was in the past and the present. They merged, and yet didn’t.”

  Silence fell as they all gaped at her. “Sorry,” Maggie said, dropping her hands into her lap. “I guess that doesn’t make much sense.”

  “No need to apologize Maggie,” Doc said softly.

  “So,” Marcus said, “how did you…?”

  Maggie didn’t need him to finish the question. “I don’t know, exactly, but I think I understand better than I did. When B tried to dig through my brain, I lashed out and touched his brain first. I’m not even sure what I did, but I was pulled into his memories of Adaiah.” She looked at Doc, who dropped his eyes, looking thoughtful. “He first remembered the two of them courting, but then she obviously decided she wasn’t interested anymore. He wasn’t happy about that. The man I heard screaming behind the tree line was B. I’m sure of it. I only heard it when I was inside his memories.”

  “Why was he screaming?” Joan asked.

  Maggie shrugged. “I’m not sure. Because I was in his head, and he didn’t like it?” She swallowed, chills running down her spine at the memory of it. “I’m not even sure he was actually, physically screaming. Maybe it was more like his subconscious throwing a fit because he didn’t like me seeing his memories. I don’t know.” She shook herself and moved on.

  “Then I felt pain. It wasn’t caused by all of you trying to pull me out of his head in the present. That was him, in the round room, trying to pull me out of his memories. I grabbed onto his memory of Adaiah, and when I let go, it spun me out. Not just out of his memories, but out of the room, out of the ship. I landed on the grass in front of the lighthouse.” She looked at Doc again. “Adaiah was there. That’s when I first met her.”

  Silence reigned as that sunk in.

  “Well, that just sounds ridiculous,” an acidic voice muttered.

  All eyes turned to take in Tristan’s surly expression.

  “Excuse me?” Maggie asked, feeling somewhat affronted.

  Tristan straightened, his annoyed expression making her feel like a spoiled child. “A memory can’t physically spin you out of a ship, or throw you thousands of miles and down onto a planet without physical repercussions.”

  Maggie swallowed. “I know that. I can’t explain it. I’m just telling you what I experi—”

  “How do we know these ‘dreams,’” he made air quotes with his fingers, and M
arcus stiffened at Maggie’s side, “are even reliable? That you aren’t making them up?”

  Marcus leaned menacingly in Tristan’s direction and Maggie put a hand on his arm to keep him from lunging toward the man. She couldn’t reach Karl, who looked equally ready to attack.

  “Who the hell’s this guy?” Jonah muttered, his brows knitting down.

  The entire room glared at Tristan now. The haughty set of his jaw said he either didn’t notice or didn’t care.

  “We already know she left that ship,” Joan said firmly, glowering disapprovingly at Tristan. “She left and met the woman she described at that lighthouse. That much is fact. We’ve just never known how it all happened.”

  Tristan took a step into the room and threw a hand out toward Maggie, eyeing her skeptically. “And this explains it?”

  Joan eyes darkened further. She turned to Doc, dropping her voice. “Does he really need to be here, Doc?”

  Doc sighed and raised both hands. “Please everyone. Let’s be civil. Tristan, I know this makes no sense to you, and I’d be happy to explain it in detail later. For now, just know that it’s an immensely important and personal issue, both to Maggie and to the team at large.” He swept his gaze over the room. “Tristan is right that a memory alone could not have had such a physical effect.” He then put a gentle hand on Maggie’s arm. “Not that I don’t believe you, Maggie. We simply don’t completely understand what you experienced yet.”

  Maggie nodded. That, she could get behind. Tristan being an ass, not so much.

  Doc looked at Tristan again. “Joan is also right that what Maggie saw does fit into the time line we have, even if we don’t completely understand the science behind.”

  Tristan inclined his head and moved back to lean against the door frame again. It was a little too patronizing for Maggie. As though Tristan believed he made some magnanimous concession to lesser people.