“It hasn’t…changed,” I gasped, gulping huge breaths. “Nothing… changed.”
“You were returned to your home?” Malcolm held me secure, his blood pulsing at a pace to rival mine.
“It’s not my home, not like that…” I thought of what I’d been allowed to glimpse on my journey here – stars and lives and souls and brilliant colors – but was unable to articulate the awe, still reeling from my passage through time.
“Camille, you are hurt.” Patricia knelt to examine my face. “Come, Malcolm, bring her to the bed.”
Malcolm trailed gentle fingertips over the skin beneath my eyes; I allowed myself a moment’s respite to lie flat, observing the agony he was trying hard to submerge. I’d vanished and I might never have returned, and we both knew it. I held fast to his free hand, linking our fingers.
Patricia, sitting near my hip on the opposite side of the unmade bed, smoothed hair from my forehead. “Rest for a spell, if you’re able. You appear to have been beaten about the eyes, poor thing.”
“Do you think Yancy returned to the future, as well?” Cole asked, standing near the foot of the bed, Monty in the crook of his left arm. “Derrick, I mean, not Fallon.”
I wagged my head slowly side to side. “I don’t know what to think. I suppose if Derrick showed up in the twenty-first century, he may have decided to stay.” The more I considered the possibility, the more it struck me as plausible. And a part of me understood his reasoning; would I return to a dangerous, unpredictable century if not forced? Derrick had no vested interest in returning; the offshoot timeline was all he had ever known, at least in this life.
“All we know for sure is that Fallon is not dead yet,” Malcolm said, casting a quick glance toward his abandoned rifle. “He’s still out there and I believe that’s why your future hasn’t changed back to what you remember, Camille.” My name sounded so sweet on his lips, his soft drawl elongating the vowels.
“You’re right,” I whispered. “We saved Blythe, we warned Ruthie and Marshall. We have to assume the Rawleys’ house didn’t burn. But the future timeline hasn’t changed. It can only mean Fallon will keep striking at us as long as he’s capable. It means nothing changes until he’s gone, for good.”
“Let that bastard show up here again tonight,” Cole muttered, gazing toward the open door at the silent hallway. “I’ll fill his rotten hide with lead. Thank the Lord we’re the only ones in this place tonight. We’ll have to do some fast-talking to explain them bullet holes in the floor.”
Thunder rumbled, prompting Monty’s crying to escalate. Cole shifted him inexpertly, still cradling his rifle over his other arm, and Patricia rose to retrieve the baby. I thought of what she’d confided about her love for Axton Douglas, recognizing the depth of sacrifice in her courageous, sensitive soul. Cole would never know what she gave up to stay with him and their son, the ultimate surrender of one kind of love for another.
Axton really is Case, I thought, with a shiver of understanding. Patricia told me she would forget Axton to be with Cole. That guilt must have stuck with her, never fading. That’s why Case recognized her right away in the twenty-first century, the night he saw her picture at The Spoke, but why she resisted him for so long. And all along he was all she ever wanted.
“Here, you should be lying down, too,” I told Patricia, indicating the space beside me on the bed; I wanted in that moment to hold her close, maternal and comforting, acknowledging the forfeiture she had made for her child’s sake.
She sank to the mattress, feathering her baby’s soft hair.
Malcolm leaned close and kissed my lips. Lingering near for a moment, he whispered, “Cole and me will keep watch, don’t you worry.”
“Fallon changed the entire timeline?” I asked for about the fifth time.
“Yes, like I said, but only your sisters remembered what was right, at least at first. You arrived in 2014 to warn us and the plan was for you to come back with me, to 1882 – this was two days ago now – but you weren’t allowed to return. Your sister showed up, instead.”
It was too much to comprehend in my current state of mind, too overwhelming to grapple with in light of everything else. I couldn’t bear to imagine another version of myself existing in the world Derrick had just described and I studied his solemn face without responding; we sat facing each other in our fog-infested prison, two ants in Fallon’s glass jar. And then something else occurred to me. “Is this place something that Fallon controls, do you think? It feels like we’re almost…outside of time. Can he keep us here, indefinitely?” I struggled to remember his words. “He said…he said no one had ever followed him here except me. And now you.”
“That’s a good question. I don’t know. He vanishes when his life is threatened.” Derrick reconsidered. “Maybe he vanishes here.”
“But where is here? It’s horrifying,” I whispered, casting my gaze in a loose circle. Derrick and I had attempted twice to ‘jump’ away, to no avail. There was a distinct feeling of stalling in a holding pattern, like an airplane circling the runway without the ability to land. Nor was there a place to seek shelter or conceal ourselves, no solid walls or foundations to guard our backs. We sat in rigid tension, me in a baggy sweatshirt and nothing else, Derrick in dirty jeans and a sweat-stained t-shirt, awaiting Fallon’s reappearance armed with nothing more than Derrick’s sturdy boots. And our combined resolve.
Derrick nodded agreement. “This place is even worse than the nineteenth century. And I thought that was unendurable. Everything stinks there, literally. I’ve never been exposed to so many terrible smells.”
I ignored his slightly pompous tone, concentrating instead on his admirable qualities, of which there were many, no matter what any of us once believed. I persisted, “You were just with my sister and Malcolm? And Patricia? They were all right when you left?”
“They were.” He paused for a second. “I know it’s none of my business, but isn’t your sister married? I only ask because she and Malcolm Carter were all over each other. I mean all over.”
“Malcolm is her husband in that life,” I explained, a small part of me overjoyed by this news. “I know it’s probably hard for you to understand…”
“So Malcolm is Mathias Carter in the nineteenth century?”
“Yes, exactly.”
“Just like I’m supposedly Dredd Yancy?” Derrick’s dark eyebrows knitted so tightly a ridge formed between them. “A man whose brother browbeats him to pitiful submission, whose wife left him and had another man’s baby, and who eventually acted on all that bottled-up rage and shot his own father? And then blamed another man because he was too much a coward to take the fall? That Dredd Yancy?”
“You aren’t him anymore,” I said, with as much conviction as I could muster. “It’s not too late to move beyond all of that. Leave the past behind, forever.” The urge to weep pushed again at my chest. “The past needs to stay in the past, from now on. We don’t belong there.”
“It’s all right,” Derrick murmured, patting my arm; inept at offering comfort, he attempted nonetheless. “I know you’re worried about your husband. I’m so sorry.”
I thumbed tears from my eyes. “I have to believe he survived. I can’t lose him now. Not after everything we’ve been through.”
“If we make it out of this place, back to the right timeline, I mean, what if I don’t remember any of what happened here?”
Before I could answer, a low-pitched, resonating rumble vibrated through the floor. Startled, we sprang to our feet; Derrick gathered me close in a gesture of protective masculine instinct. But in the next second we were forced to brace against each other in order to remain upright. The rumbling shuddered through our bodies. If there had been plates or glasses on nearby shelves, they would be shattering around our ankles.
“An earthquake?” I shouted.
The fog swirled, an indifferent mass offering no answers. Nothing in sight suggested alarm but the vibrations increased in intensity.
“Come on,
” Derrick decided, leaning close to be heard. “We can’t just stand here!”
Holding tightly to one another, we stumbled forward.
We extinguished the candle lanterns and tried to sleep; in the darkness, our backs lightly touching, Patricia and I lay alongside each other while she nursed Monty and I curled on my right side, facing Malcolm. He sat on the floor near my side of the bed, angled toward the door and with his rifle braced over his lap; we couldn’t bear to stop touching. The late hour and the rain canceled the need for words but our caresses spoke volumes. I stroked his hair, his face, committing its contours to memory; from time to time he gathered my questing hand and kissed my fingers, one by one, or simply placed my palm against his cheek.
Maybe an hour passed – my eyelids drifted closed at last, weighted with near-delirious exhaustion. The thunder eventually rolled east of Windham but the rain continued unabated, weeping over the boardinghouse and muffling the sound of someone’s passage along the hallway. The furtive steps infiltrated my half-dozing mind, shaping into a blurry gray nightmare. A man crept along only yards from us, rabid eyes fixed on the bedroom door. He wanted us dead with a desire hinging on insanity. He was losing touch with reality, with everything but the need to consume our lives. A small pack of strike-on-the-box matches curled in one hand, a bottle of whiskey in the other. In the dream I hovered along behind him, ghost-like, watching mutely.
My legs jerked beneath the covers.
Wake up…
Camille! Wake up!
My eyelids parted in time to observe our closed door flare with radiant light, sudden and shocking, like a firecracker exploding in an empty black sky. Time skidded to a painful halt, each subsequent moment stumbling forward, one to the next, like an injured runner. Backlit by orange heat, Malcolm and Cole fired their rifles repeatedly at the door – now ablaze – and the adjacent wall, a hail of destruction, the rifle rounds splitting the drywall as though it was tissue paper. Patricia and I huddled together on the bed, Monty wailing between us, unable to blink, unable to process what was happening. Thick smoke swelled inward and long arms of flame encompassed the ceiling beams – and sense suddenly overpowered immobility.
“Get up!” I shouted, grabbing Patricia’s elbow, half-dragging her and Monty from the bed. Rain poured over the exterior of the boardinghouse but this interior space would be engulfed in less than a minute. The rain wouldn’t save us from burning alive if we remained stationary.
But we’re on the second floor!
We can’t jump to the ground from up here! What about the baby?!
Of course Fallon had realized all of these things.
“Malcolm!” I screamed. “Cole!”
Smoke billowed, stinging my eyes, closing off my lungs. Heat blistered my skin – a fleeting image of us splayed on a charcoal grill bounced through my mind. Malcolm’s pupils reflected the flames, his face bathed in searing red. He threw aside his rifle and clenched hold of my elbow, understanding the necessity of jumping to safety. We couldn’t chance a dash through the fire. The entire wall was now overwhelmed – in seconds the floor and ceiling would follow suit. Cole used his rifle to break the window, scraping the stock along the remaining triangle-shaped shards, clearing the way as best he could; cool air rushed inside as he leaned out, sparing precious seconds to scan the ground below.
“The bed!” I cried, pulling free from Malcolm’s hold, scrabbling to tear the quilts from its surface before they became ash; their bulk could pad the landing. The floor torched my feet, clad in nothing but dirty socks, as I bunched the blankets against my chest; we could hardly see through the smoke.
“Hurry!” Cole bellowed.
I leaned as far as I dared over the windowsill, letting the blankets tumble directly below. The ground appeared impossibly far away – like the speckled, chlorinated water miles beneath the high dive at the city pool of my youth. There was exactly no time to decide in which order we should exit the room, only that Patricia and the baby could not go first.
Malcolm shouted, “I’ll go, then Camille, and we’ll catch you, Patricia! Cole, you help her down!” And without another word he shimmied out the window, legs leading the way, letting his body hang down the side of the building while he gripped the sill, therefore minimizing the distance; he let go and I bit through my tongue.
He landed on the blankets, dropped to an inadvertent crouch and fell sideways. But he sprang at once to his feet and hollered, “Come on! I’ve got you!”
I mimicked his movements, refusing to look down; gripping the sill I beat aside a deep, primal fear of heights and let my body slide downward until I hung like a pair of jeans on a clothesline.
“I’ve got you!” Malcolm repeated and I trusted him enough to let myself fall.
Patricia was next, Monty enfolded in her arms. Cole helped them out the window and fear clamped my chest in a stranglehold.
“Oh God,” I moaned, staring up at them. “The baby…”
“We’ll catch them,” Malcolm said. And to Patricia, “Come on!”
Patricia dropped like a stone but we were there to cushion her fall. The rain whitewashed the sound of my wrist bones breaking; so hopped up on adrenaline at that point, and relief that she and the baby were unharmed, the pain took its time surfacing.
Before he jumped, Cole bellowed, “Look out!” and tossed down the rifles. By the time he hit the ground his clothes were on fire – he landed hard and immediately sprawled flat, rolling on the wet ground to beat out the flames. Not a second to spare; the window above shone orange with deadly light, coils of acrid smoke rolling forth into the storming night. And no respite in sight; Malcolm and Cole were quick to gather up their weapons and hustle us to the safety of the adjacent barn, where they checked on Aces High and Cole’s horse, Charger.
“You think we got him?” Cole demanded, the four of us, plus Monty, clustered together near the wide double doors, out of the rain but in view of the burning boardinghouse. “We must have dumped a dozen rounds each.”
“I don’t know,” Malcolm admitted, slightly out of breath. “I pray at least one or two pierced his filthy hide.” His observant gaze darted across the street. “We best wake the Lunds, yonder. They ain’t gonna be any too happy about all this.” He looked down at me, tucked close to his side, and his sweet smile lifted his lips. I would, forever after, remember him exactly that way – suspended in that moment, both of us wet, wounded, dirty and disheveled, but safe in each other’s arms; his beautiful dark eyes full of tenderness and love.
Had I sensed the finality rushing toward us?
I must have, at some deep level, because I had the foresight to say, “I love you, Malcolm,” before I disappeared.
We could not flee the vibrations and were forced to crouch, huddling together to remain upright. Our jaws clacked, our bones jounced. Talking became impossible. I tipped my chin to my chest, gripping Derrick’s forearm in one hand, cupping my belly with the other. I held a picture of Marshall in my mind, imagined him whole and hale and safe, looking my way with his wide, knowing grin. I envisioned him holding our son in his strong arms, nuzzling the baby’s cheeks and kissing his downy hair. I added my family, and Marshall’s, to the picture; let’s say it was December, snowy and bright, and we were all gathered at Clark’s to celebrate. Marshall would present me with the little Conestoga wagon carved by his ancestor, the most honorary ornament on the Rawley family Christmas tree.
It’s your turn this year, angel.
A hand latched around my bare ankle and I shrieked, recoiling so violently the momentum knocked Derrick and me sideways.
Flat on his belly, Fallon sprawled no more than arms’ length away from us.
Derrick lurched to his feet, stumbling to put me behind him. We had neglected to haul along Derrick’s boots in our concern over the sudden insubstantiality of our surroundings and so we faced Fallon unarmed.
“He’s been shot!” Derrick shouted.
I saw it for myself in the next second; wherever Fallon had mat
erialized after vanishing from our strangling grip had not been a welcoming environment. His clothing was dark with blood. His lips parted, exposing teeth rimmed in red. His pale eyes held mine, flat and unremorseful to the end; he braced with one hand against the vibrating floor while the other clutched a large hole in his side.
“Who shot you?!” I cried, suddenly fearful of the damage Fallon may have inflicted before this incapacitation. “Where did you come from?!”
Derrick knelt, with difficulty, and demanded, “How do we get out of here, Fallon? Tell us!”
“You don’t.” Fallon’s lips twitched in a smile; he was almost inaudible. “You don’t. There’s no way out.”
“Tell us!” I screamed. A rippling swell, like surf crashing upon dry land, knocked me to all fours. “You fucking son of a bitch, tell us!”
“This place is self-destructing!” Derrick hollered, unable to find his footing.
Fallon rolled sideways, head lolling.
“It’s because he’s dying!” I yelled. Something else occurred to me – what if Fallon vanished yet again? Though it seemed impossible, what if he escaped somewhere and was subsequently patched up?
We couldn’t chance it.
Derrick realized the same thing and crawled forward, reaching to grasp Fallon’s head in both hands. And with a deft movement, before he could reconsider, he snapped Fallon’s neck.
Chapter Thirty-Four
MY EYES WERE CLOSED BUT I HEARD MY SISTERS CRYING. Both of them nearby, sobbing and talking fast.
No…
Oh, please no…
I was freezing and ached from head to toes, as if I’d spent a long day waterskiing or jogging, pushing the boundaries of my physical limits.
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