After what Kian had told me about never having been with Seth, the faces in my memories had begun to blur. I couldn’t keep them straight anymore, but I knew what I had first felt. It was Seth in my past. Why was I getting them confused?
The morning dawned with bright sunlight, which I immediately noticed since it was so rare. Moira had already opened the window and the cool air in the room did a lot to bring me back to my senses. I wasn’t sure when I had fallen asleep the previous night, but I knew I was tired.
As soon as I moved to sit, I examined the faded blue bruises on my neck. Each day I looked to see that they were going away. After a week, I had stopped shuddering when I imagined the hands at my throat.
There was a knock on the door. Garrison stood outside with a resigned look.
“Kian has us sword fighting again in the courtyard,” he said. Garrison also looked as if he had gotten little to no sleep. Before I could ask about why he looked so tired, he proceeded down the hall and out of view.
I got dressed quickly and went outside, where Kian and Garrison were standing next to some sticks with strings attached to them. Moira followed me but again stopped at the benches surrounding the hotel courtyard. I recognized the long pieces of wood right away. Six summers at archery camp weren’t for naught. Though I had never tried one, I had seen the antiquated longbows hanging as decoration.
“What’s this for?” I asked.
Seeing Kian still brought back uncomfortable memories of my dreams last night. He had become quiet and removed from the group since Seth was shot. I longed for a moment alone with him, but it never came.
I tried to focus on the stick he held. It was a few inches shorter than me. Kian extended the stick to me and took another, which was leaning on the wall.
“Here, watch,” he said.
My mood eased as I saw he had a spark in his eyes like when he lectured us on swords. I could tell it was something he truly enjoyed. I realized his eyes very rarely held that spark. My logic led me to feel a little hurt that he must not at all enjoy his mission to guide us.
Kian took his wooden stick and turned his left foot out. He pressed it against the middle part of his foot and pushed on the top, causing it to bend. He took the string that had been attached to it and looped it around the top. The string pulled tight and the wood remained curved.
“It’s a bow,” he said, holding the stick up proudly. “But an old version of one. It might be a little difficult to shoot, but you should try.”
I enjoyed his smile so much that I didn’t mention I knew how to string a bow. I was sure he had known at some point about my archery.
“Where did you get this?” I asked.
“I made it,” Kian said as if it was obvious. “There was lots of wood thrown out after you destroyed the canopy over the walkway.”
Right. That.
When I looked carefully, I saw the bow had details and ridges for the string, arrows, and gripping. It was well made. I picked mine up and tried to string it. The wood was new and rigid, unwilling to bend. After some struggle, I managed to loop the string against the top. I felt a small sense of achievement when Garrison couldn’t string his.
When all the bows were ready, Kian gave us his arrows to shoot. I couldn’t help but notice that the feathers on the ends were real and debated on whether or not to ask him where he got them. They were fletched well, too. I wondered how much I didn’t know about him. What other esoteric skills did he possess?
Kian drew a line in the courtyard gravel and pointed at the opposing wooden wall of the gardener’s shed, telling us to shoot. He had drawn rings on it. I somehow felt like the hotel hadn’t agreed to this. Either way, I put an arrow to the string.
The familiar resistance against my fingers on the string and the firm grip of my hand on the bow gave me confidence. I had missed camp last year because of the move. It was over a year since I practiced. I pulled the string tight and brought up the bow, pulling back all the way to my chin. My time was limited since I had no glove or wrist guard. I inhaled, levelled up, brought the bow down, and released on the exhalation. My body had naturally turned to the side as I aimed.
Garrison’s shot wasn’t bad, but I was relieved to see my arrow close to the target. A year out of practice hadn’t done too much harm. Though my arrow sailed through the air and landed close to Kian’s target, he came over and positioned himself behind me. He forced his boot between my feet and kicked me a bit to get me to move my feet into a wider stance. His hands on my waist, he told me to level my body and be balanced.
“Now draw,” he said.
Assuming this meant ‘shoot the arrow,’ I obediently did. This time the arrow hit the target straight on. Garrison huffed near me.
“Imagine a moving target,” Kian told me. “Track it, slowly.”
I did as I was told, though my muscles protested and my fingers on the string ached. The draw weight of the bow was too much without gloves. I imagined being a hunter, finding the target with my bow. I pulled back and let go. Again, my arrow emerged from the target’s eye.
Being told to do it over and over again eclipsed the victory. Kian drilled us for hours until my fingers pulsed red. When he let us take a break, I realized Moira was gone. When Kian left to place our orders for lunch at the pub, I turned to Garrison.
“No sleep last night?” I asked him.
Since Seth had been in hospital Garrison hadn’t spoken as much or been nearly as animated as he used to be. I felt like the person I had known was only that way around Seth, and I wondered what Garrison would be like on his own with no companion in sight.
“Dreams kept me up,” he said solemnly. “Dreams about black.”
His depressing statement made me remember what Seth had once said about Garrison’s memories. We sat on the fence near the courtyard, nursing aching fingers from Kian’s bows. When I didn’t say anything, Garrison continued.
“Have I told you what stands out most to me from my memories?”
I shook my head. I had never wanted to press.
“I assume we have whole lives to unlock, but obviously some memories stick out more than others. Though I don’t know why those in particular. A part of me thinks we don’t want to unlock the whole truth. We haven’t completely surrendered to the past, and so we only get snippets.”
His statement made sense, though I still had no idea where he was heading with this. The conversation had taken a serious turn and I wasn’t sure how to steer it back to a normal, complaining-about-Kian kind of day.
“My family was killed in a village raid,” Garrison said blankly. “Then when I grew, I was a soldier and had my own family. The Romans killed them. I’ll spare you the details, but I feel that knowledge keeping me back. Like it’s a fence I keep turning away from. I feel like if I finally get the courage to jump that fence, I’ll have all my power back.”
I didn’t know what to say. A pat on the back seemed inappropriate.
“After all, the magicians are determined to get us, right? We don’t even know who they are, but if they’re responsible for what Kian says they are, then I need all the magic I can get,” Garrison said.
“Surely you’ve seen the worst there is,” I said, fully knowing that I could not imagine what Garrison had seen. “There must be some parts of your life that were good. You should be able to get those back.”
“I didn’t say it was rational,” Garrison replied. He squinted up at the sun. “Lunch yet?”
As if on cue, Kian came out with piles of bags from the pub in his arms. He handed them out and we ate silently. As soon as we finished, I heard the word I had been dreading.
“Again,” Kian said, standing.
We groaned and took up our bows, while Kian handed out gloves.
“I found these in the small shop in the pub,” he explained. “Not ideal, but it’ll help protect your fingers for now.”
The gloves did help and soon I found a rhythm to shooting the bows and retrieving the arrows. Pulling the shafts
out from the wood still brought back memories of the war scene I had remembered when Seth was shot, but I felt I had more control now. We were just about to beg Kian for another break when Moira finally came back. She was soaking wet and stumbled into the yard.
“Oh!” Garrison dropped his bow and jogged over.
Soaked and shivering, Moira looked like a wet cat. Her hair hung limply and dripped onto her bare feet, while her coat looked like it weighed her shoulders down. They drooped and made her look rather sad. Had there not been magicians trying to kill us and steal our magic, I would have thought the sight was quite funny.
“I —” she stuttered, shivering, “I … went for a walk … see about magic …” Her eyes were still wide from the shock of whatever happened. Her teeth chattered uncontrollably and we agreed it would be better to continue the conversation inside.
Up in our hotel room, Kian and Garrison waited outside while Moira changed into dry clothes and wrapped her long dark hair in a towel. When they came in, she sat on the bed and took a deep breath.
“I tried going for a walk to see if I had any magic yet,” Moira said. Her tone was very matter-of-fact. I wondered if this was a coping strategy. “I stumbled and fell into a creek.”
Normally, the story would end here. But not this one.
“Then,” Moira became animated and accentuated her words with large gestures, “I found I could stand on the water! It was incredible! Took no effort at all! I decided to see how far I could go. A few steps later I was in the water. I don’t know what happened.”
I felt bad for not being more excited, but to us this was old news. While being drawn in by her gestures, I didn’t see Kian’s face change. He pulsed with disapproval.
“You have a magician trying to steal your magic and a friend in hospital, and you go off on your own to test your magic?” He stood and paced while Moira’s eyes widened with fright. “Did you not think before you wandered away? You choose not to train, you risk not recovering your full strength, and do you realize that the fate of everything relies on what you choose to do now, in these days?”
She hung her head.
“But Gwen —” she began. I was startled to have my name drawn into this. While I agreed with Kian, he was being slightly dramatic. I wondered the true cause of his ire.
“It doesn’t matter what Gwen does!” He was nearly yelling. Suddenly, he looked around to see Garrison and me in the room as if for the first time, and stormed out. Moira had tears in her eyes.
“Don’t worry,” I told her. “He’s just worried about you.”
She nodded but didn’t seem convinced. I realized I knew Kian better than I had previously supposed. His mood swings and challenges all stemmed from a good place. I had to go remind him of that.
Leaving Moira to be awkwardly comforted by Garrison, I crossed the hall and knocked on the door. Kian answered and silently let me in.
“You’re being unfair,” I told him. When he opened his mouth to protest, I held up a hand. “You’re right, but you’re being unfair. Moira doesn’t realize the danger or the consequences of her actions, but how can she? You haven’t told her, and she hasn’t seen what these magicians can do.”
Kian seemed to deflate. He sat down on the bed and I came to sit with him. Slowly, he covered my hand with his. The affection between us was still uncertain, but we had grown so comfortable with each other that I didn’t mind. We sat for a few minutes until he broke the silence.
“Should I go apologize?” he asked.
I nodded.
Kian got up to go, reluctantly dropping my hand. He had just closed the door to the hotel room when his phone began to vibrate on the night table. I realized I hadn’t seen him pick it up since Seth was hurt. I sat, waiting for it to stop ringing. Once it did, though, it began again a few seconds later. The buzzing was getting on my nerves.
I crossed the room without thinking and flipped it open, pressing the silence button. Kian had over forty missed calls from the same number. I was curious, but I didn’t want to snoop. I examined the buttons on the main screen of his phone, content with the fact that I wasn’t snooping if I didn’t open any of them. I noticed one of his short cuts was a camera. I had never seen him take a single photo, so I clicked on it, still trying to convince myself I was doing nothing wrong.
To my surprise, there were hundreds of photos. I had never seen him take any. I started to click through them without thinking. Sometimes, I was in the foreground. Other times, I was in the background and some pictures didn’t have anyone I had ever seen before. Seth was in some and Garrison in others. Moira was in one.
Strange.
I heard Kian’s footsteps coming down the hall and hastily put down his phone.
“I told her you would take her for a walk, to show her the magic you have collected,” Kian said to me as he walked through the door. “I trust you to sense something not normal more than her. You should be safe. Stick to main trails.”
I tried to act casual, though I felt the guilt burn on my face. I was convinced that if I stayed any longer, Kian would know that I had gone through his phone. So I hastily agreed and skipped from the room, thankful he didn’t follow me.
“Be careful!” Kian called.
The task of spending time with Moira was not ideal, but it was better than feeling guilty in front of Kian. Soon I began to worry about what I would talk about with this girl who claimed to hate me upon meeting me, and all thoughts of photos vanished from my mind.
An hour later, Moira dangled her legs over a bridge we had stumbled upon. The murky water beneath reflected our forms.
We had walked along a path the hotel manager guaranteed us was an old railroad. The metal had apparently been collected during wartime, and now a gravel path ran from near the hotel along various fields and over a stream.
She didn’t think going for a walk was a good idea, seeing as she had just managed to dry off, but I had convinced her that fresh air would be good for her. Plus, I didn’t want Kian to rope me into archery or sword fighting again. We had a few hours of daylight left, and I was determined to spend them neither shooting something nor hacking away at something — usually Garrison.
“How have your memories been treating you?” I asked her as we sat. The unseasonably hot sun had warmed the wood and I dangled my own legs over the bridge, enjoying the break.
“Fine,” Moira said. Then, “But I am never sure what is a true memory and what is a dream.”
I nodded. “You have to use your judgment. If you are used to having strangely vivid dreams where you’re an ancient magician, then they’re probably just dreams. If not, memories.”
My comment got a small laugh from her and I finally felt as if she was warming to me. I dared asking the question that he been on my mind for a while.
“Why did you say you hate me?” I asked. The mood seemed to darken in an instant, but Moira kept swinging her feet over the water.
“I don’t know,” she said. “Honestly, I don’t. But it’s hard to be around you. You cause heaviness in my heart. I just want to be rid of you.”
We sat in silence for a moment while I contemplated being such a burden for her. Surely I hadn’t done anything wrong since we had met.
“But thank you for talking to Kian,” she said in a small voice.
“No problem,” I said. “He’s like a strong wind. Blows cold for a short time, but then settles.” I thought about that for a moment. “It’s strange how well we have gotten to know each other. The memories even allow me to know people I have never met. Like my…” I paused as I forced myself to say it, “… husband. I feel like I know him well, too. Though I can only remember being very unhappy while married to him.”
“It’s still a shock to me that we were real adults in a past life,” Moira countered, “and married! I know I have memories of that, and it creates a whole range of emotions I’m still figuring out.”
If Moira was dealing with heavy emotions, she was being very stoic about it.
> “Oh yeah?” I couldn’t keep the skepticism from my voice. “And who were you lucky enough to be married to?”
She looked at me seriously. “He is in the hospital.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
I turned away to keep Moira from seeing the shock on my face. Wide-eyed, I gazed at the water running lazily below our feet. My mind was racing.
If past-Moira had been married to past-Seth, then I had a pretty good idea why she hated me. However, if she did in fact hate me, then somewhere deep inside she knew everything. I contemplated how long it would be before Moira found out and told everyone. Seth had defected to the Romans. I cheated on my husband. He had left Moira. My face burned as I fought to keep my stare on the water. How long did I have before everyone knew the truth? Kian had contented himself with believing I was misled, but Moira could confirm everything.
Understanding struck me. I remembered his smug face when he found Moira. Kian thought she would prove me wrong. He knew she had been with Seth. He thought Seth would recognize her and my erroneous feelings would disappear. He was wrong. I wondered how Kian knew some of our story but not all of it. The silence stretched between us as the sun began to set.
“We better go,” I told her, standing and leading the way before she could reply. If Moira sensed my reluctance to speak, she was very accommodating. We walked back in silence or deep thought, I couldn’t tell. Dozens of paranoid scenarios were running through my mind of what she would recall.
We walked up the stairs to our room just as Kian and Garrison emerged carrying plastic bags with dinner. I could smell the familiar fish-and-chips combo from the pub. Since I had hallucinated my husband and been attacked by the magic, I hadn’t wanted to go back.
As per our dinner routine, Moira and I pulled out a packet of paper plates and plastic forks we had bought and sat on one bed, while Kian and Garrison sat on the other. It wasn’t glamorous, but it was comfortable. Most nights. Tonight I couldn’t help but keep my eyes from sliding to Moira and thinking of what she had told me. When would she remember? Silently, I willed her never to get her full memory back. And then I instantly felt guilty. If she didn’t regain her full memory, the magicians would be that much closer to winning.
Lives of Magic (Seven Wanderers Trilogy) Page 20
