A Rip in the Veil (The Graham Saga)

by Belfrage, Anna

  “It’s 1658,” he said, spitting to the side. “Three years since I was thrown in gaol due to the betrayal of my brother and wife, three years spent in chains.”

  She closed her eyes; 1658? Panic shrivelled her windpipe to the size of a drinking straw.

  “Are you sure?” It came out squeaky.

  He gave her an odd look. “Aye, I am. What year do you think it is?”

  “Err…” Alex cleared her throat. What on earth did she tell him? The truth? “I’m not sure. It must be the blow to my head, right?” She fisted her hands to stop them from trembling, but it didn’t help, the tremors shivered up her underarms instead. 1658! She had to get back! She had to —

  “Oh, God,” she said, “Isaac!”

  “Isaac?”

  “My son, and…” Just like that she was crying again, this time with loud sobs that tore at her throat. Matthew pulled her close, shushing her as she cried her heart out into his shirt.

  “Is he dead?” he said a bit later. He was still holding her, one large hand stroking her over her back.

  “No,” she whispered, “he’s just gone.” All of them were gone; none of her people existed here, and the thought of never seeing them again tied her guts into a bundle of painful knots.

  “How?”

  “Not now, some other time, okay?” She sat up to see his face. “Do you want to tell me? You know, about your brother and wife and all that?” Not that she cared, but at present any distraction was welcome.

  “No. I prefer not to think of it at all.” There was a raw edge to his voice that made her suspect he did think about it – more or less constantly.

  “Oh.” She threw him a cautious look. He was rubbing at his wrists. “And now? Are you going home?”

  “Aye; at last. Not that there’s much to come home to.” He leaned his head against the wall, a harsh sound escaping from his compressed lips.

  “You okay?” Well, no, she could hear he wasn’t.

  “Okay?”

  “Are you alright?”

  “Aye.” He turned his face away.

  Alex snorted. “Men.”

  She rose to her knees and gave him an awkward hug – much more for her own sake than for his. He reared back, all of him stiffening. She insisted, drawing him close. A few moments and he made as if to sit up. She didn’t want him to, she needed someone close, a breathing human warmth to dull the gnawing fear in her belly. So she patted at her thighs, and after a long moment of hesitation Matthew allowed her to settle his head on her lap. Maybe he needed it too.

  Alex knew the moment he fell asleep, the large body suddenly so much heavier. Through the small opening she could see the summer dawn begin to lighten the skies, and she studied him in silence, running a finger over his head. What was she to do? And how would she ever get back? Hang around and wait for another thunderstorm?

  Chapter 3

  She shoved Matthew hard, giving him an apologetic smile when he threw himself backwards, his hands clenching into fists.

  “Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you. It’s just I have to…” Her bladder was about to burst and it was either wake him or drench him – and that last alternative didn’t seem a good one. It was quite enough to have thrown up all over his feet.

  “Oh.” He looked disoriented, staring at her as if she were a mirage. That makes two of us, she thought as she crawled out into the morning air, her head jangling with pain.

  No car. She’d been hoping there would be, that all this stuff about this being 1658 was him being delusional. Insane. He didn’t seem insane, but heck, you never knew – not these days. Still; no car. She blinked. She was having a nightmare. Or she might be in some sort of coma, maybe she’d had a car accident, and now she was drugged to her eyeballs with morphine. Not that it was working very well, because if anything her foot hurt more today than yesterday. Swollen and bright red, it was a bundle of shrieking nerves. She blinked again. And again. No car. Impossible. This was all impossible. Think again, Alex Lind, her brain jeered, look around you. Looks very possible. In fact, it doesn’t look too much like a dream either.

  “Nightmare, not dream,” she corrected herself. Her head hurt. Her ribs hurt. Her foot hurt. An accident. A coma. Please let this be a coma.

  When she managed to limp back from her secluded outdoor toilet behind a largish boulder, he was standing some feet from the opening, relieving himself in a steaming, hissing stream. Matthew threw her a look, shook himself, ordered his breeches, and gave her a small smile.

  “Hungry?”

  She nodded eagerly. For the last half-hour she’d been thinking fried eggs with tomatoes, sausages and crispy bacon – or toast, just heaps of toast with butter and jam. She swallowed back on the rushing saliva flow in her mouth. He grinned and used his bare toe to indicate what looked like a heap of feathers.

  “Fledglings. I’ll roast them.”

  Not exactly bacon. She stared when he proceeded to cake the dead birds in mud before putting them into the low burning fire.

  “Mud?”

  He gave her a surprised look. “Otherwise they burn to cinders before they’re cooked.”

  Oh, she nodded, looking at the little dirtballs with certain wariness. What about the feathers? And all the lice and stuff that lived on them?

  “They burn off,” Matthew said.

  Great; sounded fantastic.

  By the time the birds were done, Alex was so hungry she no longer cared. Bones, innards and meat, it all went down.

  “You want the last one?” Matthew held it out to her. Alex eyed it longingly, but after a quick assessment of their relative sizes, shook her head.

  “No, you go ahead.”

  She stretched out on the ground, pillowing her head on her arms. If she closed her eyes, she could pretend everything was as it always was – for like five seconds. She heard him move, and turned her head in his direction. He flushed and looked away when she intercepted his stare.

  Alex took the opportunity to do some inspecting of her own; long legs, dark brows and a nose that looked very nice in half profile. And the eyes…she had a thing about eyes, and this man had hazel eyes fringed with thick dark lashes most women would kill for. He was close to six feet two, she reckoned, which must make him a very big man in the here and now, half a foot or so taller than she herself was. She closed her eyes, nostrils flaring as she tried to catch his scent. He did smell ripe, but more of sweat than of actual grime. She sniffed at her own shirt and made a face; not only sweat, but blood and dirt and…ugh, she needed to wash.

  “There’s water there, right?” She pointed at the copse of trees that stood down by the crossroads.

  Matthew inclined his head in affirmation. “It’s a small spring, and the water is considered very good.”

  “It is? Why?”

  “I’m not sure, mayhap because it’s Scottish?” He said it lightly, almost disparagingly, but she could hear he meant it. Alex smiled at his archaic patriotism. But then, she wasn’t Scottish. She was nothing, a mongrel of Swedish and Spanish ancestry raised respectively in Seville, Milwaukee, Stockholm and Edinburgh, their polyglot home full of strays from all over, the occasional Spanish visitor, and a substantially higher amount of Swedish cousins.

  “I’ll just go down and wash, okay?”

  He nodded and Alex turned to him, inundated by a wave of gut clawing panic.

  “You won’t go, will you? I mean, you won’t just leave me here.”

  Matthew studied her for a moment before giving his head a slight shake. “Nay, lass, I’ll not leave you behind.”

  He ended up having to help Alex down the hill, supporting her as she limped towards the burbling sound. She shivered in her jacket – the wind had a cooler edge today than yesterday. Yesterday? It couldn’t be yesterday, could it? Shit, she didn’t even exist yet, but a quick run of hands down her body assured her that she did.

  It was good water; Alex drank, washed hands and face and was doing a rudimentary tooth brushing when a hand closed over her
nape, squeezed hard into her flesh. She reared back, ignoring the way her ribs squealed in protest.

  “Agh! Let go!” It came out rather muted, given the pressure on her neck. Psychopath! No goat farmer, no monk, this Matthew guy was a raving beast, and now…

  “Alexandra Lind, right?” the man holding her said. What? So she had her name tattooed on her nape? And it was definitely not Matthew, because this was a Yank – a horribly strong one at that.

  “Do I know you?” She tried to twist loose.

  “Indirectly, and now, you little bitch, you’re going to…”

  Who was this maniac? She flapped an arm at her unseen attacker, heaved and twisted. Jesus! His fingers dug into the tendons of her neck, and the pain was paralyzing. The water…closer and closer came the surface, and Alex realised he intended to duck her. Drown her? She cried out when he increased the pressure, and then she was underwater. Nightmare. Definitely a nightmare. Nice pebbles. Bubbles, many bubbles. Air. Lovely, lovely air. Alex gulped and gulped, raising a dripping head to stare at Matthew, who was fighting with an unknown man. A grunt, a heave and the man was thrown to land a few feet away. The man screeched at the impact.

  “Are you alright?” Matthew asked Alex.

  “Yes,” she said shakily.

  “Do you know him?” He cocked his head at the groaning shape.

  “No.”

  “Yes you do!” Two penetrating eyes fixed on her.

  Alex shook her head, taking in a battered face, a dirty flannel shirt and jeans that seemed to have burnt off at calf length. He looked awful. The skin on what she could see of his legs was blistered and raw, made even worse by a large flesh wound. But he was here, an undoubtedly modern man – however big an arsehole – and the sight of him had her heart twisting in hope. One person dropping through a time hole she could, with a gigantic stretch of mind, contemplate. Two doing it at the same time was so improbable as to be risible, so obviously this Matthew character was the odd one out, not she. Yes! Not a coma, not a nightmare, just a freak thunderstorm, and poor Matthew needed psychiatric care.

  “Who are you?” she asked.

  “Don’t give me that! You’ve seen my picture often enough on my homepage.”

  “I don’t think you resemble any likeness of yours,” Matthew put in. “You’re somewhat the worse for wear.”

  Alex peered at the man. “Sanderson? Oh my God, you’re Diego Sanderson! What on earth are you doing here?”

  Sanderson sat up and his hand strayed to his neck, rubbing it. “I could ask you the same, right? What have you been doing? Some spontaneous camping?”

  “What do you mean?” she said.

  He gave her a piercing look. “Well, you didn’t make it to the meeting, did you?”

  “Nor did you, from the looks of it.” And why had he almost killed her just now?

  “Yeah I did; but then I went looking for you. No point to the meeting without you, hey? After all, Hector couldn’t care less about this new security setup, no, what Hector wants is you.”

  “Hector?”

  “He dislikes untidy ends, my dear Hector. And he hates it when his plans backfire – like they did in Italy some years ago. But you know all about that, right?”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  Her brain was trying to make some sense of what he was saying. He knew about Italy? And who was Hector? The name tugged at her brain cells, an insistent niggling that yes, she did know this name. Oh my God; that Hector!

  “No me mientas! Don’t lie! Ángel disappeared down there, and Hector wants to know how.” He lunged at her, was blocked by Matthew

  “Who?” She half closed her eyes at the memory of Ángel. No, she wasn’t going to think about him. She ducked her head to avoid the pale blue eyes fixed on her with apparent dislike. Without a word, Matthew hunched down beside her, placing himself between her and Sanderson. Alex exhaled.

  Sanderson’s eyes stuck on Matthew, travelling up and down the worn linen shirt, the woollen breeches and the heavy leather belt. His eyes widened, his mouth fell open, he cleared his throat and gawked some more, his Adam’s apple bobbing like a cork.

  “Where the hell am I?” he said. “Where have I ended up?”

  Matthew regarded him, mouth pursed. “Am I to assume you don’t know what year it is?”

  “As per Matthew here, it’s 1658,” Alex said. She very much wanted Sanderson to break out in contemptuous laughter, but instead he groaned, a long string of dejected ‘no’s’ bursting from him.

  “He must be wrong,” Alex hissed in an undertone, throwing a look at Matthew, who was presently studying the southern road.

  “You think?” Sanderson gave her a despairing look and shook his head, effectively killing the flaring hope she’d felt at the sight of him.

  Matthew came over to her, brows pulled into a worried frown. “We’re in danger here.”

  Alex got to her feet and scanned the surrounding landscape; heather, more heather, even more heather. Nothing that looked in anyway sinister. Insects buzzed, leaves rustled, the water trickled across its pebbled beds – all in all quite peaceful. Matthew put a hand on her arm, pointing in the direction of flashing reflections and an accompanying cloud of dust. Still a mile or so off, she calculated, squinting as she tried to count the reflections.

  “Soldiers.” His fingers sank into her flesh. “I have to go. Will you be coming with me?”

  “What about him?” Alex inclined her head at Sanderson. Not that she wanted him anywhere close – not after those comments about Italy and Ángel – but she still had to ask.

  “Can you walk?” Matthew asked him.

  “No, not with this.” Sanderson waved a hand at his leg.

  “Best you hide then.” Matthew pointed at a huge stand of brambles. Sanderson gave him an incredulous look.

  “In there? And what do you think I am? A knight in armour?”

  Matthew’s mouth twitched. “I see no other alternative. Here, I’ll hold up the lower branches for you as you crawl in.” Sanderson scooted into the hiding place, cursing when he pricked himself on the thorns.

  “Do you know how to get back?” Alex hissed just as they turned away.

  “Get back where?” Sanderson hissed back, a dark shape barely discernible against the undergrowth.

  “To our time – you know, cars, TVs, appliances…”

  “No. I have no idea. I don’t think you can. You’re stuck here, forever, just like I am.” He exhaled unsteadily, and Alex felt her heart do yet another acrobatic manoeuvre in her chest – this time out of fear, not hope.

  “There must be a way back!”

  “Yeah, right. People leap back and forth through time on a regular basis.” He eyed her with dislike. “This is your fault. I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for you.”

  *

  Matthew dragged a limping Alex back up the hill. Her head throbbed, and round and round echoed Ángel, a small knot forming in the pit of her stomach. On purpose she hadn’t thought about him for nearly three years, and she wasn’t going to think about him now. Ha! Liar, liar, pants on fire. The damned man popped up in her head far too often – like every time she saw her son. Isaac. Alex blinked, gasped. Isaac. Her knees buckled, her feet stumbled to the point that it was difficult to move, let alone keep up with Matthew’s punishing pace.

  “The cave, let’s just hide in there.” Her ribs were killing her, every breath an agony.

  “Won’t help if they have dogs.” He heaved her in front of him up the hillside, darted into the cave to retrieve his bundle, and then he pushed on upwards, half carrying Alex across the uneven ground.

  At the top they stopped to look down. Below them stretched the road, the crossroads, and the small copse of trees in which Sanderson lay hidden. They dropped flat on their stomachs, and she felt as you do when you play hide and seek, wanting to giggle with nerves.

  “You’re a runaway, aren’t you?” Very unnecessary question, it didn’t exactly take an Einstein to work
that one out. He nodded but didn’t elucidate further, his right fist clenched round the handle of his knife. Dirk or dagger would be a more correct term, she thought, eyeing the twelve inch length of steel with respect. Alex dug into her jeans, searching for her pocketknife, but instead her hand closed on her phone and she pulled it out. The display blinked into life, and three bars appeared on the left hand side, indicating connectivity. It made the hairs on Alex’s arm stand up straight.

  “What?” She sat up. Matthew pushed her back down with an angry frown. Alex looked at the display, and yes, the three bars were still there. But how? Ignoring Matthew’s glaring eyes she dialled John’s number, jerking back at the static that coursed into her ear. Of course not, she snorted to herself, how could that possibly work? Matthew studied the mobile, his brows raised in an inverted ‘v’.

  “What’s this?” He extended a finger to poke at it.

  “It’s a phone, you use it to talk to people that are far away.”

  He stared at her, flickers of fear and incomprehension darting through his eyes. Light hazel, she noted, much more green than brown, with small golden flecks in them. He widened them under her open inspection and covered her hand, giving it a little squeeze.

  “You have to tell me the truth, lass, because there’s more to this than meets the eye.”

  “I don’t think I know the truth, but I’ll tell you what I know. And you’ll tell me.”

  “About what?” he hedged, and his eyes went an even lighter shade of green.

  “About why you’re a runaway.”

  “Aye.” His hand tightened on hers in warning and they watched as a swarm of men appeared on the road below.

  They did have dogs, a whole pack of dogs that bayed loudly, all of them scrabbling in the direction of the little grove of alders.

  “Sanderson!” she raised herself on her arms, only to be brutally pushed back down. “They’ll find him.” They already had, and she watched him being pulled from his hiding place, his voice loud as he protested at their rough handling.

  “Let me go.” She twisted under Matthew’s hard grasp. “I have to help him. Look! They’re hitting him.” Alex filled her lungs with air to call out, surprised into gasping by the pain in her side. Matthew clamped his hand over her mouth and pushed her flat against the ground.