Chrysoprase (The Chalcedony Chronicles)

by B. Kristin McMichael

  “You really should just say yes to the boy,” Sim told me one afternoon as we took a very late lunch. Logan, of course, was sitting across the room reading a book.

  “No,” I replied. There was no way I was saying yes to anything with Logan.

  “And why not?” she asked, eyeing him over. “He’s hot. He’s nice. And he wants you bad.”

  I glanced at Logan. He caught my glance and smiled. My attention was going to be on my salad for the remainder of the meal. I couldn’t exactly tell if he wanted me, or the favor he refused to name from me.

  “I’d do anything to be pursued like that,” Sim mused with dreamy eyes. I knew who she was talking about, but I knew he was nowhere near asking her out. When it came to girls, Ty was the shyest of the three guys from the past. He preferred to stay quietly in the shadow and observe everything.

  “Then you can have Logan,” I told Sim. “Because I’m not interested.”

  I stood up and threw my empty salad container away. I wasn’t going to continue to sit around while Logan watched me from over his book. It was creepy, and it made me uncomfortable. He knew me too well. He was just one more distraction in my life. I had other things to worry about instead of Logan Jones.

  The time traveling was getting easier, at least for traveling within a few days to the places I or Ty knew. I still had no clue about times further back or places I had never been. I was also hesitant to go too far into the past. We already knew that if I went back minutes, it would take hours to get enough power to come back. I was unsure how long I’d need to stay in the past before I’d be able to come back, and I was too afraid to try. And new places weren’t working at all. We tried looking in books, looking online, anything visual, yet I still couldn’t travel to them. The goddess said it would be easy, and it was for some and not for others. I didn’t need the ability to go back days. I needed to go back centuries.

  With break coming soon, we could work more on everything, but I felt like time was passing by too quickly. School took most of my time, and I needed to do well in my classes, but my mind was elsewhere. I had to keep reminding myself that I could go back at any time to get my mother. Just because a day passed here, it didn’t mean it was a day in the past.

  When the winter break finally arrived I was more than happy to pack my car and make the long drive back to Chicago. While it would be more isolated to work at the Sangre home over break, I needed to be back with my grandfather. He was all alone now. Luckily, Ty didn’t have any winter commitments with the team, so he was able to come back with me. I didn’t ask what Logan was doing, but had the feeling if I was going to Chicago, so was he.

  Ty and I got comfortable in my grandfather’s house and soon began the same schedule we’d been doing at school between studying for finals: practice time travel in the morning, scour history books in the afternoon. We needed to know as much as we could before we went back. Ty couldn’t remember where my mother was from since he wasn’t as familiar with the area, but we had it narrowed down to three Middle Eastern cultures associated with the Egyptians: Hittite, Nahrin, and Assyrians. We studied each as we didn’t know what to expect. After weeks of studying and travel practice, we were getting closer to our goal, but still not close enough. Now we were back in Chicago, and we were able to practice full-time.

  “I think we should try with both of us tomorrow,” Ty suggested as he paged through a book, sitting in my bedroom. He looked mainly at pictures.

  “I don’t know,” I replied, not bothering to look up. I was actually reading my book.

  “You said that yesterday, and the day before,” Ty complained. He didn’t like the study session part of our day.

  “And I still don’t know,” I replied, unsure of everything. It was one thing to get myself stuck in some unknown time or place, but completely different to get Ty stuck there with me.

  “You’re just scared. It shouldn’t be much different,” Ty answered, shutting his book. Yes, it was break time for him.

  He was right. I was scared. I was still scared each time I did it. I wasn’t sure where I’d end up, or if I would have to spend minutes or hours milling around wherever I went. I didn’t want to be responsible for Ty, too. I didn’t have control over traveling like I wanted, and I couldn’t imagine throwing Ty in and then messing it up.

  “Mari, I have faith in you. Now it’s time that you do, too,” Ty answered before standing up and leaving for dinner.

  I smiled at Ty. He was what I needed right then; someone to believe in me. Seth had been the one to believe in us before, and now it was Ty. He truly was my best friend, and I was glad that hadn’t changed with the past.

  I mulled over what he said for the rest of the day. He was so sure we could do it. By the next morning I was as confident as Ty was that I could bring him back safely. He had no doubts, and therefore I had no doubts.

  “If we just go back to yesterday, right after we left to drive here, it shouldn’t be a problem,” Ty said, turning his brown stone over in his hand as he talked. The stone flipped between his fingers. I was amazed by all the different colors of the chalcedony.

  “Yes, yesterday,” I replied. I reached out and took his hand. I pictured yesterday and felt the tingles begin. I used Ty’s confidence and hurled us into the past day.

  When the tingles stopped, I was in the living room of the Sangre beach home, alone. Nope, that didn’t work. So much for the confidence boost doing the job. I shook my head and walked over to the couch, my new spot to sit and wait in defeat. It had been easy the past few days, and I thought it would be easy still. I didn’t know what went wrong. We didn’t try to go back too far. I looked at my arm. It wouldn’t be more than thirty minutes before I could go back. We didn’t go somewhere new. I had no idea what went wrong.

  “Another visit from the future Mari?” Logan asked from behind. I was getting used to his instant appearance. I looked up at him and was stopped by a thought. Was that it? Was he using his time travel to suddenly show up?

  “What do you want, Logan?” I asked, though I really wanted to ask him if he was stalking me by traveling through time. Sim had bugged me since we got back from break about giving Logan the cold shoulder. She thought we made a perfect couple.

  “I just want to help you,” Logan replied. He sounded honest enough, but I still didn’t buy it.

  “Why?” I asked.

  “Because you need it,” Logan answered, smiling brightly at me. I couldn’t refute that. We were getting nowhere, and this just proved it. “Just let me help you. I promise I won’t ask that the favor to be something like asking you to leave Seth in the past.”

  I looked up at him and now analyzed him more. I hadn’t thought that would be a favor request, but now I was even surer that I had to say no to him. If that was the first request he could think of that I wouldn’t like, I hated to see what his other requests would be.

  “Logan, I don’t ever want to be anything with you other than friends, and even that’s a stretch now. I get that you saved my past as much as you could.” It really was nice that he did that, but it didn’t change my gut feeling. “I have another goal beyond Seth at this point, but even so, I don’t want a replacement.”

  “I never wanted to be a replacement,” Logan replied, he tussled his dark blond hair, making me remember the boy I dated. “You and I once loved each other. That was built on a friendship. Why can’t we just be friends now? Why can’t I help you as a friend?”

  “Friends don’t ask for anything in return,” I replied.

  Logan grinned. “Touché.”

  I rolled my eyes. He was being so Logan. I was having a serious conversation, and I wasn’t sure he was as serious. He grinned more at my response. It was just what he was going for.

  “Give me a chance. I can teach you how to do this in a matter of days, and then you can do as you please,” Logan replied, holding out a hand to shake as a deal.

  “No strings attached?” I asked. Logan paused and put a finger on his lips as he tho
ught. He tapped his lips before smiling.

  “How about I teach you for a kiss?” Logan suggested. “See, then there will be no leaving the boyfriend behind, or making you work off your debt doing devious deeds. Once I teach you everything you want to know about time travel, you just give me a little kiss.” I was looking for the hidden intent. All he was asking was for a kiss.

  “Really?” I asked. It wasn’t like I hadn’t kissed him hundreds of time in the past, but that seemed like a small payment compared to what I was imagining he’d ask for.

  “Really,” Logan replied, his violet eyes serious. “I’m not the evil, scheming monster you seem to think I am. I’m the guy you once loved and should remember quite well.”

  “Why?” I asked, still suspicious. With all the extra kisses Seth got from Melissa last fall, I wasn’t going to feel bad kissing another guy at this point, but I was still missing something.

  “I miss you,” Logan replied. “The two years we were together were the best years of my life. I simply miss you. If teaching you how to time travel, even if it means you go back to your boyfriend, means I get to spend time with you, then I’ll do that. I want our friendship back. You were the one I let get away. I know everything that happened was my fault. I’m sorry about it all. I want to make it up to you. Let me teach you,” he pleaded. His eyes were filled with sincerity.

  “Fine,” I replied and stuck out my hand. Logan flashed his boyish grin and shook my hand.

  “Deal then!”

  “Now take me back home,” I said to him, waving my hand around like an order. Ty already told me gatekeepers didn’t work on the same goddess magic, and could travel as they pleased. If Logan was going to help me, he could start by making me stay less in the past.

  Logan smiled more and offered me his arm. I looped mine in his like we were going for a walk. Instantly we were back in my room, and Ty was beside me. Ty took a step back at my sudden appearance with Logan.

  “Logan is going to teach us how to time travel,” I told Ty before he could even ask. “Obviously traveling with someone isn’t as easy as we thought it would be.”

  “First lesson starts tomorrow,” Logan said, nodding to me and then Ty. With a wink he was gone.

  “Is that such a good idea?” Ty asked.

  I shrugged. The Logan I knew was hidden somewhere inside the man that was now my new teacher. A good idea? No. It was possible that he still had other motives for teaching me. I’d know soon enough. He could either be helping me out of the goodness of his heart, or I had a made a deal with the devil. I hoped it wasn’t the latter or I was screwed.

  Logan came over the next day bright and early, and when I say early, I mean it was even early for me. I had just woken up and made it downstairs to grab some breakfast, and he was sitting in the living room, waiting. He was chatting away with my grandfather when I finally came in the room.

  “Good morning, Mari,” my grandfather said as I gave him a kiss on the cheek. He was still frailer than I ever remembered, but he had gained most of the bounce back in his voice after my mother left us. He was recovering from the shock of her loss better than I was.

  “Good morning, Grandfather,” I replied.

  “Do I get one, too?” Logan asked, tapping his own cheek. My grandfather chuckled. Logan had been winning over my grandfather again. I’d say my grandfather was probably the most devastated of everyone when I dumped Logan. He tried, for weeks, to get me to talk to Logan again.

  “Regretting letting her go now?” my grandfather asked Logan in a teasing manner. Grandfather always thought Logan was to blame for not trying harder to win me back.

  “Every single day,” Logan replied in all seriousness.

  “I’ll go wake up Ty,” I told both of them. I didn’t invite Logan to come with me. His seriousness still made me worry about our agreement. He wasn’t going to win me back. I had moved on.

  As I approached Ty’s door, it opened. He was an early riser, too. I wasn’t used to that after a semester with Sim. I could never figure out how one person could sleep as late as she could, but she was just as baffled by me.

  “Our teacher is here,” I said, pointing down the hallway.

  Ty nodded. “Are you sure we can trust him?”

  “The Logan I knew two years ago, I’d say yes to trusting,” I replied. “This Logan?” I shrugged. I wasn’t sure, but I didn’t have many more options.

  “But didn’t you break up with him because he was never around, and running off all the time?” Ty asked. “Will he really make a good teacher?”

  “Which now makes more sense since he was doing a job the whole time. I have a feeling he wasn’t cheating on me like I thought, just cheating on me with his time traveling side-job. Do I trust him now? Not completely. But what else can we do? We’ve been working at this for weeks and still can’t go back far enough into the past, and after yesterday I learned that I can’t take you. In order for us to go back and get my mother, we need to be able to do both,” I explained. Ty nodded. We both had some distrust of Logan, but we didn’t have a choice now. We needed his help. At least we were going into the situation with our eyes open.

  We returned to the living room, and Logan was waiting alone. He stood as we entered.

  “We probably want to go someplace quieter. A bedroom or somewhere,” Logan suggested, “where we won’t be interrupted.” I got the hint at what he was suggesting. I wasn’t inviting him to my room. That was too weird.

  “We can go back to my room,” Ty recommended, like the over-protective brother he was becoming to me.

  “Sounds good,” Logan replied, not missing a beat.

  We followed Ty back to his surprisingly clean room. I sat down in the desk chair to avoid sitting anywhere near Logan. His choices were chairs across the room or the bed. Ty caught my move and stood over near me to further discourage Logan from coming close.

  “I’ve seen you’ve worked out the beginnings of travel, but what more do you want to learn how to do?” Logan asked as he chose a chair.

  “I need to learn how to travel further into the past. My best is three days, right?” I asked Ty for confirmation. He nodded in agreement. “I need to learn how to go somewhere I haven’t been before. I’ve only gone to locations I have been to, and most of them were places I’ve been recently.”

  “That’s not a problem,” Logan replied.

  “And I need to learn how to take people with me,” I added. That was the most important part. I wouldn’t be rescuing anyone if I couldn’t take them with me.

  “That might be more work,” Logan replied. “Your carnelian is only for your travel, not another person.”

  “We have stones,” I answered back. “Ty has his that he uses to travel.” I didn’t know why I didn’t tell him about the chrysoprase stone, but that much needed to stay a secret.

  “You do?” Logan asked, sitting up a bit. I guess we had surprised him.

  “How else do you think Ty got here?” I replied.

  “Yeah, that makes sense,” Logan replied, hiding his surprise a bit. “Well, in that case, all three problems are really not a problem.”

  “You can teach me how to do all that?” I asked suspiciously. He had agreed easily.

  “Yeah, maybe by the time break is done we can have you able to travel anywhere,” Logan replied.

  “By the time break is done?” I asked, disappointed. Break was going to be five more weeks.

  “Yes. Taking someone with you or going somewhere new aren’t very hard to do. But the travel into the past will take time. You’ll need days between trips to recover the goddess stone’s power,” Logan explained.

  That actually made sense, but I just didn’t like how long it would take. At least he wasn’t trying to drag out the learning. Logan didn’t seem to mind the length of training in the least, but I did. I hated that I already had to go too long without my mom and Seth.

  “Then what do we start with?” I asked, ready to begin.

  “How about going somewh
ere new?” Logan replied. Of course he’d pick the one not including Ty.

  “Like where?” I asked.

  “I know this place in Tahiti. It’s a little beach place. They serve the best drinks,” Logan replied. Yes, exactly what I wanted to do: go drinking with my ex-boyfriend.

  “Umm, isn’t it best to go somewhere without a lot of people?” I answered to avoid saying no outright.

  “I suppose,” Logan replied, pressing his fingers together in thought. “You are quite new at this.” Logan thought for a moment. “We should go to Molokini. It’s a bird sanctuary in Hawaii. I’m sure we won’t find anyone there. It’s illegal for people to go onto the island, even though they snorkel around it.”

  “Okay,” I replied. That didn’t help me much. He still hadn’t explained how to do it to me. I waited patiently as Logan stared at me.

  “Are you not even going to try?” Logan asked.

  “I already know I can’t go anywhere new. I’ve tried many times,” I replied and heard Ty chuckle. There was nothing to try. I didn’t even know what Molokini looked like.

  “Really?” Logan asked, like I wasn’t telling the truth. I rolled my eyes at him and Ty laughed more.

  “Really,” I responded. I remembered the many tries and the laughs Ty gave me each time. The last time he thought I was going to burst a vein in my head from staring so hard at the picture of where I was trying to go.

  “Okay, fine,” Logan added. “Close your eyes,” he directed. I stole a glance at Ty, and he smiled back. My trust in Logan was going to have to start now. I just hoped I wasn’t wrong, and that the old Logan was somewhere still inside him.

  “Closed,” I replied, when I had finally closed them. “Now what?”

  “Impatient?” Logan asked.

  “Um, yes, you said this would take weeks to learn, so I have to get going on it.” I peeked at him through my eyelashes. He put his hand over my eyes when he caught my peek and my eyes automatically closed again.