Lives of Magic (Seven Wanderers Trilogy)

by Lucy Leiderman

  “I called the hospital today,” Kian said as he sat down to eat. There was a smile on his face and lightness in his posture that I hadn’t seen for days. “Seth is awake and has enough energy to see us now. They said the day after tomorrow we will be able to get him back.”

  Kian’s description made Seth sound as if he was kidnapped, but I was sure that if Kian had his way, he would have healed the wound with avocado pulp as he had once done to me. Thinking of his strange tea concoctions made my stomach queasy.

  “Do you think being closer to … you know … where we’re from is making us stronger?” Garrison asked.

  I tuned back in to the conversation with a start. I hadn’t realized I was completely absorbed in my own guilty thoughts.

  Kian shrugged. “In some ways,” he replied. “Probably.” Then he turned to me. “Gwen, what was your husband’s name?”

  “Augren,” I answered without thinking. I clapped a hand to my mouth in surprise. “I didn’t know that!”

  Kian nodded, chewing on a piece of fish. “On some level,” he said between bites, “facts that have been ingrained in memory are beginning to surface. I think it is helping to be here.”

  I tried to not bring attention to myself as I pouted at my feet. I liked my new friends. I liked Kian. And I liked the adventure. What I didn’t like was my former self and how she might ruin things for me in this life.

  I knelt in straw. The stone floor was cold and hard against my knees and I was uncomfortable. There was a chill that seemed to echo off the thick stone. My eyes glanced up to a hole in the wall, which served as a window. Beyond that, a grey mass told me I was looking out at an ocean.

  “Stand,” a rough voice instructed, and I stood. Before me, and older man with a long beard and a golden circlet around his neck held a long staff. His hair was grey peppered with black. He sat in the only chair in the room, which was also made of stone. Around me, other people stood, looking bored or preoccupied.

  I searched my former self for emotions. This was routine. My mind was on other things I could be doing right now. When the man, our king I assumed, turned around to consult someone, I understood my dismissal. I turned on my heel to leave but something caught the sleeve of my tunic.

  I looked down at a young boy with a mop of black hair. He had been standing next to the king. He smiled, showing me his missing two front teeth. He held out a thistle and I took it, mock-smelling it. I thanked him and he ran away. I felt eyes on me and looked up to see Seth regarding me from the entrance, smiling.

  I awoke to Moira opening the door. Garrison had been knocking. Within twenty minutes, we piled into the small car Kian had rented and drove to the hospital. I didn’t know why my heart hammered in my chest.

  It had been nearly two weeks since I last saw Seth fully alive and not hooked up to a dozen tubes and machines. A small part of me worried that he would be mad at me for perhaps distracting him that day. My ankle had healed rapidly and Kian even commented about my having some kind of restorative abilities. He also took credit with one of his disgusting teas. But could Seth have moved faster were it not for me?

  This morning, Garrison sat quietly in the front while Moira concentrated on the landscape as we drove past. She had to duck in the small car to fully see out the window, and her long dark hair fell past her knees. I tried to imagine her as she once would have been and drew a blank. I obviously remembered some things, but not everything.

  Our footsteps echoed in the clean, barren halls of the hospital. At the reception desk, however, a nurse I recognized from upstairs intercepted us.

  “I thought you’d be along today,” she told the four of us with a stern look. Her bright red lipstick went against her older age and the deep lines that covered her face. Her coloured brown hair was pulled back into a bun, revealing grey. “He’s in with the doctor now, being given some medication and then he’s due for a rest. You’re going to have to come back in the afternoon.”

  Both Kian and Garrison opened their mouths to argue but the nurse silenced them with another stern look.

  “Do you want him fit for battle or not?” she asked us.

  Properly chastised, we sulked back to the car while I thought over her choice of words. I did not want to go back to the hotel and be given either a sword or a bow to practice with. Before we reached the sliding doors of the hospital, I heard a voice behind us.

  “Hang on!” The same nurse puffed as she sped towards us with a flyer in her hand. She handed it to Kian and turned it over in his hand.

  “There’s a fair,” she explained, pointing to the crude map on the back. “Just five minutes down the road. It’ll keep you close and you can entertain yourselves for a few hours before returning. Distract yourselves.”

  She gave me a motherly pat on the back and returned to her duties. Kian looked up at me from the flyer. I shrugged.

  “Why not?”

  Exactly five minutes later, we pulled onto a dirt road on the side of the motorway. I forgot it was the weekend until I saw how many cars, children, and dogs filled the ad hoc dirt parking lot. A Ferris wheel could be seen in the distance. A few rides had been set up, but mostly booths and tents filled the farmer’s field in which the fair was held.

  I had to yell at Kian a few times as he got dangerously close to driving over someone’s pet while searching for a parking spot. When we finally got out of the car I felt the full force of popcorn machines, candied apples, screaming children, and yelling vendors hit me. There was so much going on, all I could do was grab Garrison’s sleeve with one hand and Kian’s coat with the other and drag them towards the entrance, assuming Moira was following.

  The day was proving to be much nicer than I thought November would be in Northern England. The sun shone and it warmed my face, though I was still glad for my jacket and hat. For the first time since knowing her, I saw Moira’s eyes light up with pure joy as she saw a ride which spun so fast that people were glued to their seats. Garrison shared her sentiment, exclaiming and pointing, though even looking at it made my head spin.

  “You go ahead,” I said to them, turning around before it made me dizzy enough to be sick. Kian caught my elbow.

  “How about we meet by the entrance in an hour?” he asked.

  Garrison and Moira nodded and were soon off, handing money to a man selling tickets for the ride. Kian used his grip to steer me away from the rides.

  “I don’t like them much either,” he said as I leaned against a fence.

  When I felt like I had recovered my footing, I wanted to explore the fair. We wandered along the booths and got roasted corn to eat. Every time I saw a spinning ride, I had to turn my head away.

  The crowd was becoming loud and thick. I wanted to escape and used Kian’s grip on my hand to pull him into the first tent I could find. Its closed curtain and small size must have been unappealing to visitors since only one family was inside. I looked around as a grin spread across my face at the irony.

  Around us, dozens of chain mail suits, a few suits of armour, and lots of old-style dresses were scattered chaotically. A table of ladies’ accessories stood against a tent wall next to a table of weapons. The only clear area was a throne in front of a coloured background of what I assumed was a throne room. A camera was aimed at the display.

  As I watched a mother struggle to get her two children out of their tunics, a printer spat out photographs of the family in different formats.

  “Care to have your photograph taken in Renaissance attire?” the man behind the camera asked. He was wearing a white-buttoned shirt with a black vest and a purple beret.

  Before Kian could react, I nodded enthusiastically. He looked at me with a raised eyebrow, but I let go of his hand and went to a rack of dresses to choose one. A part of me wanted to have a picture to remember our time together. Another part thought that maybe if I saw Kian in remotely time-appropriate attire, I would remember him. I searched my brain for what period the Renaissance actually covered. Pretty far removed from our own, but
I supposed the clothing was closer to our time than jeans.

  My dreams of Seth fading into Kian and vice versa were now mixing with my memories. The two had become one, but I felt like it was my own mind making the confusion. If Kian claimed to have known me, why did I know not him?

  I found a blue dress covered in velvet, with white silk and long white laces. I highly doubted anything like this would have existed in the time we were from, but it was a really nice dress. Checking to make sure Kian was playing along, I went behind a curtain to change.

  Getting into a dress had never taken me so long. There were layers that surprised me, buttons that had no use, and too many holes for me to accidentally stick my arms and head through. Finally, when I had settled into it, I realized I needed someone to lace up the back. My choices were the man in the beret or Kian. I called for Kian.

  Hesitantly, he peered behind the curtain as I turned my back. Though he cleared his throat uncomfortably, he tied up the laces with deft hands, pulling the fabric together. I couldn’t help but smile like an idiot into the back of the makeshift changing room.

  This is nice, I thought. Then, immediately, Shut up.

  When he finished, I turned and my mouth dropped open. He looked like royalty in a silk blue tunic with a wide silver belt. While he had kept his jeans, a chain mail shirt shone from underneath the tunic and the image was complete. A tinge of disappointment washed over me as I realized no matter how good he looked, I still did not feel a single bit of remembrance. His outfit was made whole by the completely uncomfortable look on his face.

  “Almost complete!” the man behind the camera exclaimed.

  He motioned for us to come over to the accessories tables, where he stuck a plastic sword in Kian’s hand. I nearly laughed out loud when I remembered what Kian had in his hotel room and saw his incredulous look. For me, he chose some type of fan to hold up.

  While our photographer walked over to the camera to prepare it, I peered up at Kian. The outfit he wore matched him perfectly but something was missing. I looked over the table of accessories and chose a silver crown to put on top of his head. It settled on his black hair.

  Kian looked at me with a question in his eyes, but I shrugged and led him over to the fake throne room screen. It was a challenge to get him to look remotely comfortable with posing and having his picture taken, but ten minutes later we walked out of the tent with a dozen wallet-sized photos.

  It was a short walk back to the entrance where Garrison and Moira waited for us. We spent another while walking around together and had lunch at a booth selling turkey legs far bigger than would fit in my mouth.

  I showed Garrison the pictures, and he also raised his eyebrows at me.

  “What?” I asked defensively. “My idea of fun isn’t being thrown around from one place to another by a machine.”

  “It was pretty awesome,” he said.

  When the crowd began to grow even larger and the lazy people who liked to sleep in on weekends got around to getting to the fair, we left.

  Again, I found my heart hammering in my chest. The anticipation of seeing Seth was making me nervous, and I couldn’t figure out why.

  It was like déjà vu when we walked into the hospital for the second time that day. It was early afternoon and the nurses who knew us did not say anything but just watched our procession move along the hall.

  We made our way to the fourth floor where I suddenly found my legs heavier than they were a moment ago. My pace slowed and I felt my hesitance slow me down like I was walking in syrup.

  While the others seemed eager and sped up as we saw Seth awake and sitting up in his bed, I walked slower until I stopped outside his room. When a nurse approached me, I was thankful for the distraction.

  “Only three at a time,” she told me.

  Her mouth was set in a straight line and I could tell she was preparing for an argument. Surprising her, I moved to sit in one of the plastic chairs and wait.

  Kian turned around at the door.

  “Go on,” I told him. “I don’t mind waiting.” He smiled and moved inside, closing the door.

  Satisfied I wasn’t going to run in at the last second, the nurse left me in my seat and went to sort files. I let my eyes drift to the various little monitors and TV screens, the magazines arranged in a neat fan on the coffee table, and the humming vending machines. I didn’t want to think about what I would say to Seth in case he was angry and I would have to think of a whole new strategy.

  I didn’t know how long had passed when the other three filed out, and I walked in. My pulse was thundering until I saw Seth’s face.

  Though still wary, I relaxed upon seeing his broad smile. There was colour to his skin again and he sat up, gesturing animatedly for me to sit. His black hair was neat and his cheeks were flushed. Most importantly, his hazel eyes had come alive once more. I realized I had been worried about seeing him as he was before we brought him to the hospital. My fears lay in him not returning to his former self, but those looked to be unfounded.

  I picked my way through some kind of peel which surrounded his bed.

  “Keeping busy?” I asked.

  “Bored. To. Death.” Seth emphasized this by mock keeling over onto his pillows. He was up again in an instant. It was nice to see him with so much energy.

  “Kian said you’ve been practicing all kinds of fighting techniques,” Seth said with a skeptical look. He had hated the training as much as I did. Only Garrison seemed to revel in it.

  I laughed, telling him about what had been going on. I guessed he was hearing it all for the second time, but he listened patiently.

  “What’s this about you being attacked?” Seth asked, concern lacing his voice. The conversation had moved to something I didn’t want to relive, so I changed the subject.

  “What’s that?” I asked, pointing to the mess on the floor. “Have they got you peeling potatoes?”

  Seth gave me a stern look for changing the subject but let it go. He smiled and opened a drawer in the little table next to his bed. “I got so bored in here that I begged for someone to bring me something to do!” he said, taking out a small shape. “A doctor here brought me some wood and a carver.”

  I froze in place.

  The figurine of a lion he produced was not identical to the one I had seen in my former husband’s neck, but it was similar. I knew now where it came from. The image of the man from two thousand years ago with his throat sliced open by the wooden figurine filled my mind.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Seth was still talking. “He uses logs to heat his house so he had lots of wood lying around. I tried to make a horse but I messed up the mane so now it’s a lion. Whittling is kind of cool. Maybe I’ll be a whittler.”

  The colour must have drained from my face because he stopped and hastily lowered the figurine.

  “It’s not that bad, Gwen. You’re supposed to laugh at me and tell me that it’s not a profitable endeavour.”

  I tried searching for words, any words that would make him not worry, but it was too late.

  “What’s the matter?” His tone had lost its joviality.

  “Nothing,” I lied.

  He fixed me with a stare and I melted under the pressure.

  “I think I’ve seen those wooden figurines in my memories,” I told him slowly.

  Seth looked down at the lion, frowning. It wasn’t a masterpiece, but it was certainly better than a first attempt. I could see his brow crease and felt a slight tingle of magic pulsing off of him. He was trying to remember. Finally, he looked up at me, sweat shining on his forehead.

  “Nope,” he said, and then shrugged. “I can’t sense particularly doing this ever before. But I kind of like it.”

  “Keep at it,” I suggested, not wanting to be totally unsupportive. “Make me a …” I thought about it for a moment.

  “Seahorse?” Seth suggested.

  “Sure.”

  We talked for another ten minutes, and all the while I tried to s
teady my nerves. I didn’t want to let the shock of realization show on my face. But it was clear that Seth had made the wooden figurine, and somehow it had ended up in my husband’s throat.

  Augren, I thought. That was his name, and it brought back no pleasant memories.

  The nurse, who claimed Seth needed to rest if we could pick him up tomorrow afternoon, eventually shooed me out. We piled back into the little car and returned to the hotel. It felt disappointing to be returning without Seth, but at least he was better.

  We still had some hours of sunlight left, and I dreaded how Kian would make us fill the time. Sure enough, when we climbed out and headed towards the hotel, Kian announced he expected us to meet him in the courtyard in ten minutes.

  The wind had a bite to it and the sun from earlier in the day had disappeared behind clouds. I watched the sky move from comforting to gloomy. In my room, I put on two pairs of pants, two t-shirts, and one sweater. Feeling a little larger than normal, I at least had warmth. Moira watched me, amused.

  “I hate the cold,” I told her, settling my red knit hat over my head.

  “You know, maybe if you suggested something else Kian and you could do together, he wouldn’t torture you with all this fighting.”

  I gaped at her, opening and closing my mouth, wanting to rebuke. Her remarks caught me completely by surprise. Though we had been sharing a room for weeks, I still felt like Moira was a stranger, keeping herself closed off and remote. I hadn’t considered that she might observe me like I was observing her.

  “Exactly,” Moira stated, satisfied with herself.

  Slowly, my cheeks grew red and I wasn’t sure if it was due to heat or embarrassment. I wondered if Seth knew about her and bit my tongue when I opened my mouth to ask. She would become suspicious if I carried on about it, and her suspicion might cause her to remember sooner.

  Deciding silence was the best course of action, I put on my boots and went outside, with Moira following me. As per usual, she stopped at the gate to watch while I joined Garrison and Kian in the gravel courtyard.