Time Walker

by Meghan Ciana Doidge

  “No, darling!” Theo suddenly cried out.

  Beth twisted to see Bethany fall to the ground behind her for the last time. The Time Walker had slit her own throat. She killed herself in utter grief, but Beth couldn’t feel sorry for her … she had knowingly made every choice that had led her to this moment. Her life and death was made of these choices.

  Theo began to sob and rock Bryan.

  “What are you waiting for?” Beth cried. “Bring him back! Please Spirit Binder, won’t you bring him back?” That, after all, was the kind of power her adoptive mother wielded.

  “I cannot,” Theo whispered.

  “Why not?” Beth sobbed. “He doesn’t deserve to die.”

  “No one does, darling, but I cannot. Maybe if Hugh were here, but I won’t risk you all.”

  Beth glanced around at the others. She didn’t understand Theo’s concerns. No one else was screaming, of course. They were all gagged, but still …

  “Why did you come alone, then?” Beth turned back to rage at Theo. “He’s dead because of you! He died for you. Everyone always dies because of you!” She began to convulse and shake with her grief. She fell to the side and flung out her left hand to catch herself. Her hand landed in a pool of blood, but it wasn’t Bryan’s. It was hers … Bethany’s.

  She felt Theo touch her hair, so lightly that if it hadn’t come with a jolt of magic, Theo’s Spirit, she probably wouldn’t have noticed.

  She turned her hand over and watched the dark blood of the Time Walker drip off her open palm.

  Blood.

  Bryan.

  Time Walker.

  Blood.

  Bryan.

  She was a time walker.

  She snapped her head up to meet Theo’s gaze. Theo had been watching her, waiting for her to make the connection, though Beth didn’t know how she knew that … something about that little push of Spirit when her mother touched her…

  “I can’t do it,” she whispered.

  “You don’t have to,” Theo replied, and despite the tears still on her cheeks, the Spirit Binder’s voice was soft and steady.

  “I can’t do it,” Beth cried.

  “You don’t have to,” Theo repeated. She reached over, and picking up Beth’s injured arm very carefully, she kissed the mark on her wrist. The power of her blessing flowed through Beth.

  So … with the blood of the Time Walker smeared across one hand, and Bryan’s blood transferred from Theo across the other wrist, Beth stood up and walked backward through time.

  Each step hurt. Pain lanced upward through her body every time she moved her foot backward.

  She stepped over Bethany’s body, and the Time Walker rose up and back to the moment she held the knife to her own throat.

  She stepped by Finn, who was straining against his chains and yelling though his gag in Bethany’s direction … or, rather, in her own direction, where she had stood before this moment, Beth guessed. She noticed that he’d already broken through one of the chains that held him.

  The inhibitors weren’t strong enough to hold the Spirit Bound for long … first Rose with the rock, then Bryan’s weak compulsion, and now Finn …

  Her brain felt like it was being squeezed in a vise, but she kept walking backward.

  She stepped back even as Bryan stood up and walked back to his chains. She stepped away from Bryan, from where she’d unlocked his shackles, until she was once more huddled at Finn’s feet.

  Bethany was now standing with her knife held up over her head, ready to stab it into Theo’s throat.

  Pain wracked Beth’s body, she couldn’t force her limbs to move any further. She let go of time, hoping it was enough.

  “Beth!” Bryan yelled. “Unlock me!”

  But she ignored Bryan’s demand even as his compulsion washed over her. Then she reached up to unlock Finn from his one remaining chain.

  ∞

  Finn was a warrior, not a shield. The second his wrist was freed, he lunged forward. Beth ripped the inhibitor from his forehead as he brushed by her, and knocked Bethany to the ground. They tumbled over Theo, which woke her from the slumber of her magical exertion.

  Finn managed to pin Bethany to the cave floor as Beth half-crawled, half-walked over to Theo. Blood streaked Bethany’s forehead, and he reached down and ran his fingers through it, growling. “Now you’ll never be able to hide from me again.” And indeed, when Bethany tried to time walk — Beth saw the older woman’s Spirit shimmer around her — she remained in Finn’s grasp.

  “Thank you, Finley,” Theo murmured. She allowed Beth to help her to sit up, but seemed too unsteady to fully rise. “But please, loose her now.”

  Finn, disgruntled by this request, stood up and crossed to stand by Beth.

  “Do you remember what just happened here?” Theo asked. When Bethany didn’t answer, Theo reached down to Beth’s hand. It was still covered in Bryan’s blood, even though no blood marred Theo’s clothing or the surrounding area. “How many times have you caused his death now?” Theo asked, as she reassuringly rubbed her thumb across Beth’s bond mark.

  Bethany sobbed just once and squeezed her eyes shut, as if trying to deny the blood on Beth’s hand and Theo’s questions. Beth wondered if Theo was somehow holding Bethany in place, or if she had no will to go onward or forward or wherever the Time Walker went when she disappeared.

  “Beth, darling, will you free Calla so she can heal you?”

  Theo leaned closer to Bethany. Perhaps she was talking to her mind to mind, but maybe she was just observing her. Suddenly, and completely annoyingly, Beth felt sorry for her older self.

  Beth unlocked Calla’s chains and removed the girl’s circlet. As if she’d been longing to do so, the healer brushed her fingers over Beth’s face and shoulder. Her wounds instantly healed … though the ache took longer to ease.

  Finn freed the others. Then they all returned to Theo’s side. Theo straightened from Bethany, turning her back on the Time Walker to run her fingers through Bryan’s hair. She brushed a kiss across the mark he bore on his left cheek — Theo’s bond mark. It must have been agony to have it severed when Bryan had died.

  “You came,” Bryan whispered.

  “Beth sent the carpet for me,” Theo answered, and she turned to gather Beth into her arms.

  “I didn’t think of that,” Bryan said.

  Neither did I, Beth thought, but she chose to enjoy her mother’s embrace a moment longer instead of debating the actions of the crazy carpet.

  “How did you know we were in the tunnel?” Beth whispered into her mother’s shoulder.

  “I felt you, as I got close. I also heard the frantic thoughts of the guards on the road. They will alert Hugh, though he is already on his way. But Beth, our connection is still fragile.”

  “I called for you in the woods. You didn’t come.”

  “I see.”

  “Tyson tried to torch me.”

  Tyson jerked as if she’d slapped him, and yelled, “I did not!” He was standing with his fingers interlaced with Ari’s. Her head rested against his shoulder.

  Beth turned to look at her older self. In fact, they were all staring down at Bethany. Beth reflected on the terrible moment when Bryan had died and she’d blamed Theo because she couldn’t handle feeling responsible herself. Now she understood Bethany’s motivation. If not her actions.

  “She was trying to save the people she loves,” she whispered to Theo. “No matter that she made the wrong choices.”

  “I know, darling.” Theo loosed her hold on Beth but kept one hand on her newly healed shoulder.

  “Bethany Rudan, rise,” Theo commanded. The Time Walker, somewhat reluctantly, stood before the Spirit Binder, though she did not raise her eyes to Theo’s.

  “Why do you not run?” Theo asked.

  “I have nowhere to go,” Bethany mumbled.

  “We are all gone? In your future?” Theo asked. Her tone was not kind, but not overly harsh either.

  Beth thought that if h
er grandmother, Rhea, or even Hugh, had been here, there would be no conversation. Her grandmother would have ripped the answers she sought from Bethany’s mind and left her severely disabled, if not dead. And Hugh? Well, Bryan and Hugh had a special connection … probably because Hugh often walked as a beast, and Bryan had a way with animals. Hugh would have let the beast make the decisions if he’d lost Bryan. The Time Walker was lucky that Theo’s heart was as large as her power.

  Bethany glanced at them all, though her eyes lingered on Bryan, before returning to the ground before Theo’s feet. “Not all of you.”

  “And you blame me, my counterpart, for the deaths of Hugh and Bryan.”

  “Yes. And, no matter what I do, I end up killing them again and again … and sometimes others,” Bethany said, with a guilty glance at Rose. Rose, who was still rather aggressively hovering the rock over her right hand, didn’t seem as forgiving as her adoptive mother.

  “Their deaths are fate, then,” Theo murmured, more than a little pained by her conclusion.

  “Fate!” Bethany spat. “There is no fate. Beth just proved it once again by killing the tunnel demon!”

  “And that wasn’t supposed to happen?”

  “Not now.”

  “When?”

  Bethany’s chin jutted out stubbornly, making her seem suddenly younger. But, oddly enough, as she began to know her better, Beth felt that she looked less and less like her older twin, which made little sense.

  “The demon once snacked on a few pints of my blood,” Theo said.

  This was news to Bethany, who looked surprised and then resigned. “And the sword?”

  “Also made with my blood.”

  “I never had … you always … you and your secrets … I …” Bethany clenched her fists and turned away from Theo.

  “I’m supposed to kill the demon, about ten years from now,” Rose piped up helpfully. “Supposedly it sparks a war, a war she calls the Demon Rising. The war that claims the lives of Hugh and Bryan.” Rose concisely recounted Bethany’s rantings.

  “Protecting you!” Bethany spat. She chanced a look at Theo, but once she’d locked eyes with the Spirit Binder, she seemed unable to look away.

  Theo wrapped her arm around Beth’s shoulders and pulled her closer, but she spoke to Bethany. “I love you so, Bethany. Surely you could have come to me?”

  “You were never the same.” Bethany’s voice cracked. “Never the same after they were gone. You blame me. You blame me for Bryan.”

  “Have I said so?”

  “You don’t have to. I know. I know! You always loved him best … above us all.”

  “That cannot be true, for it is not true now.”

  Bethany didn’t answer. Tears formed in the corners of her eyes and rolled down her cheeks. She didn’t wipe them away.

  “I must miss you terribly, Bethany. More so for the loss of Hugh and Bryan.” Theo’s voice was husky with emotion. “We share a unique connection, you and I.” Bethany shook her head sharply in denial.

  Theo squeezed Beth’s shoulder, and then ran her hand down her arm until she exposed the mark on her wrist without touching it. “You chose me,” Theo said softly. “You don’t remember, and I’ve often wondered if it is detrimental that you do not. I see now that perhaps it is.”

  Bethany wrapped her opposite hand across her wrist as if to hide the mark that bonded her to Theo, the mark that must be hidden by her long sleeve.

  “I chose you,” Beth whispered, the memory of the bonding tugging at the edge of her mind. She swiveled her head to look up at her mother.

  “None of that matters,” Bethany snapped. “The Rising created us, brought us together. I wouldn’t change that, and for that we needed you. But everything else, none of that had to happen.” Her voice cracked as she turned to gaze at Bryan once again.

  “It matters to us,” Beth interjected, and then prompted Theo. “Bryan didn’t choose you?”

  “Bryan came to me when I wasn’t myself,” Theo continued, ignoring Bethany. “He nourished my Spirit, and I wanted to protect him as best I could. Rose was part of the package, and the only babe I’ve ever held in my arms and called my own. That is something I have often wished I could have shared with you all.” Theo touched Rose lightly on the head, and as the girl grinned up at her, the rock dropped harmlessly to the ground.

  “And us?” Ari asked, even though her smile indicated she knew and just enjoyed hearing her story.

  “Ari and Tyson came to Hugh, hand in hand, though they were not blood-related. They chose each other first, and the rest of us second … but you, Bethany, you nearly …” Theo trailed off, momentarily overcome with memories. Beth held her breath, as if breathing alone would break the spell Theo was weaving. Theo had tried to tell her this story many times before, but she hadn’t been ready to hear it. Standing here, wrapped in her mother’s arms and surrounded by the family she’d almost lost, she was ready to unlock the memories she knew she’d been denying.

  Bethany was just as enraptured.

  “Please, Mom,” Beth whispered. “I want to know.”

  “I knew something was terribly wrong,” Theo said. Her voice was distant, as if she was looking deep within herself to relate the tale. “The feeling woke me that morning, actually. Someone was trapped and hurt and so, so scared. I nearly went out of my mind trying to find whoever was calling to me. My mother couldn’t help, couldn’t hear the cries, and they kept fading in and out. No … that’s incorrect. They would cut off, and then come again. I followed the feeling to the city. Hugh came with me, but he couldn’t help. Then the cries stopped. I felt … I felt bereft, as if I had failed horribly. Hugh convinced me to return to the castle. The cries, the voiceless cries started again and led me in the opposite direction. We found a farm, though I believe now it might have been a brewery of sorts. The home was destroyed, completely collapsed in on itself.”

  Bethany interjected. “I was hiding from my parents, trying not to watch them kill each other —”

  “Yes, we pieced that together afterward.”

  “If it weren’t for you, and the Aerie Rising —”

  “Continue the story,” Beth said, before Bethany’s anger could rise to overwhelm them all again.

  “I was sure the cries were coming from within,” Theo continued as if Bethany hadn’t interrupted. “And though Hugh believed that nothing could be alive beneath the rubble, he helped me dig. All my powers deserted me. I moved each piece of rubble by hand. I feared I would never find you. I feared I was too late. And, even though it had been hours since you’d last called me, I kept digging, though I had little hope.”

  Theo pressed a kiss to the top of Beth’s head, as if reassuring herself that she was still there, that she had found her that day …

  “Spirit chose to bless me. You reached out for me and wrapped your hand around mine. And in that instant, you chose me. You bonded yourself to me, though that magic shouldn’t have been yours to command.”

  Theo raised Beth’s hand to her lips and pressed a kiss to the mark on her wrist. Magic, Spirit, bloomed at the contact, and Beth shuddered as it ran up her arm and diffused through her body.

  “I pulled you from the rubble, and Hugh helped me carry you home. It had taken us three days to find you. We had no idea until your Rite of Passage how you’d survived.”

  “I time walked,” Beth said. The memory of it, now freed, replayed in her mind, but she tried to focus on Theo’s voice instead of the now remembered panic.

  “Yes, I believe so, though the power seemed dormant afterward. We chose to not burden you with the knowledge of this ability. The Chancellor counseled and we listened. Perhaps that, too, was a mistake.”

  “You had no one to mentor me.”

  “No. But honestly, we were just afraid we’d lose you. Lose you again, and you’d never find your way home.”

  “But, if I learned to control the power in small ways … with door locks and such.”

  “Yes, we thought that would be be
st.” Theo combed her fingers through Beth’s hair. It still felt short and ugly to Beth, but she found she didn’t care. It was a gesture Theo often made with Bryan, and she loved it. She caught Bethany watching her with Theo, the cruel lines of her face completely overwhelmed with pain and longing.

  “We share that history.” Beth spoke to her older self, even as her mother’s story tumbled around in her own head.

  “Yes,” Bethany answered, but didn’t meet her gaze.

  “You’ve lost your way, like Theo was worried about. You’re stuck out of time.”

  Stuck out of time. Beth suddenly understood the terrible truth about her time walking abilities. Not only could she go mad trying to change things that happened, but she could forever lose her place in the world. The thought scared her so much that she wrapped her arms around Rose just to hold on to someone she loved as Theo was still holding her.

  Thus anchored, she allowed herself to breathe the fear of her own power away …

  “You could have left me dead,” Bethany said, but there was no fight or malice left in her. “It would have been better that way.”

  Beth wasn’t so sure of that. Even if she could have figured out how to skip over Bethany and just bring Bryan back, she didn’t think she would have made that choice.

  “You’re wrong.”

  “I usually am.”

  “Then maybe you’re wrong about Mom, maybe she needs you. Maybe she’s lost without you as well.”

  Bethany’s face crumpled. Beth didn’t reach out to her older self, she wasn’t that forgiving, but she did look up at Theo. “Mom?” she projected the question toward Theo.

  Theo smiled at her in the way Beth had seen her smile at Bryan. She suddenly realized that her mother always looked at her that way and somehow she had missed it. She had denied it, like she had denied her past. “I think you are right, Beth,” Theo spoke in her mind. “I have to believe that my counterpart feels the same way about Bethany as I do about you.”

  “You can always come back,” Beth offered her older self. “If I’m wrong about Mom, and we’ll try to find a place for you here, but I think you should go to her, don’t you? I think you have to give the Spirit Binder a chance to love you.”