Falconer's Heart

by Janice Bennett

  The storm continued throughout the morning, with the occasional rumbles and flashes fading farther into the distance. Still they sailed on, seeking the land they couldn’t find. Riki, hunching over the tiller, steered as straight a course as she could toward what she hoped would be southeast. She had no idea how wide the Channel ought to be at this point, how much longer they’d have to endure the cold and wet. But at least she could do something about the gnawing hunger that assailed her.

  “David, did our food get ruined?”

  “Food?” He turned from the bow where he peered into the charcoal clouds.

  Marie rose from where she’d been curled against him on the bench and hurried to the cabin. She emerged a moment later with the loaf of bread, chunk of ham and knife Riki had obtained. She took it to David and he cut their meager supplies into slabs to create something that could approximate sandwiches. He swallowed his in six bites then brought one to Riki. She released the tiller into his charge and tried to enjoy her meal.

  An hour passed and nothing changed. Fretful, unsure in which era they now existed, Riki paced forward. Where was Gil now? Still lying in that dreadful cell aboard the boat? Or had he lived out his life long ago with his dearest lady at his side, assuaging the pain that for Riki would remain raw?

  She blinked back the moisture from her eyes, knowing it was neither rain nor salt spray, and returned to relieve David at the tiller. At least steering the ketch through the rough swells gave her something to do. She settled once more in the stern, staring ahead. There seemed to be a pale outline in the distance, one that grew steadily, one that lay too low to be clouds. She oriented on it and followed as straight a course as she could.

  “Land!” she cried, as soon as she was sure.

  “Where?” David lurched forward against the boat’s tossing and peered through the unnatural darkness of the storm. “Land!” he breathed in confirmation.

  Minute by minute, the solid mass grew clearer. Another hour passed, and the hazy outline of a fishing village began to take shape. No boats ventured forth in the remnants of the electrical storm, but Riki could make out shapes moving about on the docks. She couldn’t quite determine what they wore. She tacked against the wind, bringing their ketch nearer the harbor entrance, but staying well out in the safe, open Channel.

  “What do you think?” Riki called to her cousin.

  David stood in intent silence, studying the details of the small anchored crafts as they neared the sheltered cove with its rickety wooden docks. The vessels looked old—not just from constant use and lack of care, but in design as well. Not one modern sailboat or motorboat could be glimpsed.

  “Can you bring us closer?” He sounded dubious. None of them had any desire for contact with people until they knew where—or when—they were.

  Riki complied, barely entering the wide harbor mouth. A figure kneeling beside a pile of nets rose slowly, staring at them, and her heart sank. She shoved the tiller hard, bringing them about, and threw the boom until the sail caught the wind.

  “We’re still in the past,” David exclaimed. “Damn it! Why didn’t it work?” He swung around to face Riki, as if accusing her of creating this disaster. “We should be home!”

  Riki shook her head. As much as she might wish to doubt the evidence of her own eyes, it was irrefutable. Unless they had just wandered into an antique boat show, where the participants all dressed the part, they were still in the past.

  “What are we to do, now?” Marie looked from one to the other, beseeching.

  “Get out of here before anyone decides to chase us. If we’re captured by the French…” Riki bit back that thought. Marie was French—an agent. A spy. It would be so easy for her to turn them over to her side, and be welcomed as a heroine.

  David stared blankly at the clearing blue of the early-morning sky. “I was so sure we could get back to our own time! What went wrong?”

  “What will become of us? We cannot return to England.” Marie shifted her gaze, turning so she could regard the ramshackle fishing village that vanished behind them. There was longing—and a certain amount of speculation—in that glance.

  “I cannot let you go to France!” Riki glared them down, refusing to show any fear. They could take control of the boat easily, go wherever, they chose, and she knew it.

  “Our only choice is to keep trying. We must get back to the future.”

  “What do you want us to do, sit in the middle of the Channel until the next electrical storm brews up?” David sounded frantic—as frantic as Riki. “That could be months—and there’s absolutely no guarantee we’d make it next time either!”

  She shook her head. “I owe Gil that much, not to turn you two loose in this time, where your knowledge could do damage. You said yourself you wanted nothing more to do with the war. What do you think the French would force you to do if they caught you again?”

  David’s hand closed over Marie’s and the bleak look they exchanged sent a quavering sigh of relief through Riki. They were done with war, both of them, just as they had said.

  “America?” David suggested, but without much conviction.

  “You’re forgetting the War of 1812. You’d only be pitchforked into another conflict.”

  “Canada?” Marie regarded them hopefully. “I have cousins in Quebec who would welcome us.”

  Riki shook her head. “I promised Gil I wouldn’t leave David in this time. That goes for you too. Nothing will make me break that promise.”

  “Except circumstances beyond our control,” David pointed out.

  “Not even that. Damn it, David, I promised I’d take you back to our own time and that’s what I’m going to do!”

  David drew an unsteady breath. “Well, we’d better follow the storm then.”

  Riki’s fingers clenched white on the tiller as they headed once more into open water. They had to make it home.

  There was nothing for her here. Without Gil, life would be unbearably empty. At least at home, in her own time, she might be able to throw herself heart and soul into her worthy causes to keep from thinking about him every moment.

  “Perhaps next time it will work,” she said softly, mostly to herself.

  “What was different?” David demanded. “Think, Riki. What did you do differently?”

  She shook her head. “It should have worked.”

  “What is the key to traveling through time?” David sank down before her, his weight on the balls of his feet. Marie hovered at his elbow, anxious.

  “I assumed it would be easy.” Riki gazed ahead, unseeing, lost in thought. “You and I have each done it once before and Gil managed it twice. The chain is on the mast, there is an electrical storm, we’ve even been hit by lightning.”

  “There’s got to be something else!”

  Riki closed her eyes, racking her brain. Memories flooded back, fear-filled, terrifying—and vivid. The rumbling thunder, the waves that crashed over the sides of the boat, swamping them, dragging them down…into a whirlpool!

  She grabbed one of David’s hands. “We were pulled into a whirlpool and I lost consciousness as we went underwater. That’s the missing element!”

  David nodded, his eyes blazing with his own remembered horrors. “The whirlpool,” he breathed. “Lord, I remember it. But how do we find it?”

  “It is somewhere near my island, where few ships ever stray amid the rocks.”

  “Why didn’t we know about it before?” David objected. “I spent a lot of time exploring in the boats.”

  “Maybe it only appears during a violent storm. Rather like having a Bermuda Triangle in our own backyard.” And as she spoke the words, she knew it wasn’t a joke. “That was why it seemed so easy for you, then Gil and me, to go back through time. The whirlpool was practically on our doorstep. The real miracle was Gil, coming from England, being swept into it to come forward.”

  A deep rumble in the distance caught her attention. Riki gripped the tiller with new determination. “Let’s go. We’ve got t
o get there before the storm vanishes completely.”

  David nodded, excitement filling his face. He strode to the prow and gripped the forward mast as they hazarded a guess on the direction of Jersey.

  “To shift through time, all the elements must be present,” she shouted over the remnants of the storm. “We must reach the whirlpool while there is still a chance of being hit by lightning.”

  The ill-fitting sail caught the whipping wind and Riki found her hands full as it strained against its unorthodox fastenings. If they lost it… She held the tiller with all her strength, steering toward the crackling lightning that was their goal. They would find Jersey, all right. She only hoped the storm wouldn’t be driven on before them, just beyond their reach.

  Morning faded to noon and the black clouds gathered more thickly above them. Rain pelted down with renewed fury, making it impossible to see more than a few feet to any side. The wind buffeted the small craft, tearing at the canvas until it flapped free of its fastenings.

  Forward motion halted and the raging waves pummeled their hull. Marie clung to the cabin, pale and ill. David struggled to reattach the sail to the metal chain but the pitching of the boat made maneuvering unsafe. Riki gripped the tiller, knowing it no longer did any good but unwilling to abandon her last illusion of control.

  David collapsed at last on the bench beside Riki, exhausted. “I can’t get it.”

  “I’ll try.” Before he could stop her, Riki stood unsteadily, lurched against the cabin wall and grabbed the whipping canvas. It had torn loose, ripping the material so the line could no longer be threaded through. Nor was there enough spare canvas to tie it into place, as the sail was already too small for this mast. If she only had a knife, she might be able to make a new hole.

  A knife. She stumbled into the cabin, half fell down the few stairs, and landed in the middle of the remnants of waterlogged food. She steadied herself and sought the knife she had shoved in the basket, that David had used to cut the ham. Holding it carefully, she clambered back on deck and went to work.

  It took the combined strength and determination of Riki and David to hoist the sail once more into place. The wind snatched at it, threatening to destroy their efforts, but at last they fastened it tight. Riki once more grabbed the tiller and wondered where, in the vast expanse of Channel, they’d been driven by the wildly tossing waves. Amazingly they had not sunk.

  The storm’s fury increased and the rumbling of thunder reached her once more. She hadn’t heard it for some time, she realized. She braced herself and steered toward a distant flash of lightning.

  The next jagged streak flashed closer and the accompanying timpani roll of thunder sounded only moments later. She shivered, her old fear rising through her exhaustion. She gripped the tiller for support.

  Never before had steering been so hard. Again they neared the center of the electrical storm, but they had absolutely no idea where they were. They had to find the right place before their metal chain drew another bolt of lightning—one that might well finish them if the whirlpool was too far away to be reached in time.

  If only they could hold out until they neared the rocky outcroppings that surrounded Falconer’s Folly, where that swirling vortex must be concealed… If only their mast were struck at the moment it drew them in… If only this time they might return to their own time and not drown!

  If they succeeded she would never see Gil again. Torn between her longing for him and the knowledge that she was pursuing the only possible course, she headed the ketch directly into the high winds.

  Only the intensifying darkness about them revealed the coming of night. She shivered, drenched with spraying waves and the rain that washed the caking salt from her face.

  “Riki!” David’s excited shout reached her over the tumult of sea and storm. “There!”

  She peered into the growing blackness. Ahead but still in the distance lay the jagged outlines of tiny islands. Her heart filled her throat, choking her, pounding so hard she could barely breathe.

  Lightning flashed with an accompanying thunderous roar, right on top of them. Marie’s high-pitched scream sounded over the protesting groan of the mast as the wind drove them toward the rocky outcroppings that could rip their hull to shreds. About them, foam-capped waves reared high, crashing against their shuddering hull.

  The wild pitching of the ship threw Riki to the swamped deck. Toward the bow, Marie clung to David while he gripped the rail, struggling to keep from being swept overboard.

  And nowhere could she see the whirling vortex of water. Riki struggled back to the tiller, panic rising within her. They couldn’t last much longer. If they didn’t locate the right place they would be torn apart, dragged beneath the freezing waves, vanish from the face of the earth.

  Another jagged flash lighted the sky, and thunder reverberated overhead, rising in intensity until it rumbled within her and found an answering voice in her scream. Hands trembling, she pushed the rain from her eyes and saw the dim outline of an­other small boat.

  She stared in disbelief. No, she hadn’t been mistaken. Dear God, had they been followed from France? No sane person would venture forth in this storm, though. Nor was this a ghost ship, floating at the mercy of the waves. The sail bowed out with wind as it came steadily, purposefully closer.

  A brief streak illuminated the single occupant. Riki’s heart stopped then beat faster, her reaction for once having nothing to do with the thunder.

  “Gil,” she breathed. “Gil!” The wind swept his name from her throat.

  She saw him wave and thought he shouted also. There was no hope of hearing. Riki waved back. He was here, she could make out the outline of his beloved face—and he was in as much danger as they.

  “Riki!”

  This time, she heard him—and the fear for her rampant in his voice.

  She blinked back sudden tears. He’d risked his life, setting out in such a storm, to find her. “Gil!” she cried, her heart tearing.

  “Don’t care…Warwick…Marley!” Only a few of his words reached them, thin but distinct. “Can’t lose you, Riki! I—”

  A shimmer of lightning and clap of thunder ravaged the rest of what he said. Riki shook her head, trying not to cry, knowing only that she loved Gil more than life itself—and she had to leave him. “I must go back where I belong,” she shouted.

  “Why? Are you—” The wind carried off the rest of his words then the last reached her. “Afraid? Don’t…nerve…just to be yourself—with me?”

  She wasn’t afraid anymore of losing the protection of her family name and fortune! The shock of the realization jolted through her but her surging elation evaporated at once. It didn’t matter. She couldn’t stay.

  “Riki—!” He broke off as a wave rose high and crashed over the side of his boat.

  Horrified, Riki saw it suck back, away from the small vessel. The deck was bare. Then she breathed again as Belmont struggled up from where he had been thrown. He grabbed a bucket and began to bail.

  Another wave slammed across the low prow, swamping the hull. Belmont struggled forward, still heaving bucketful after bucketful of water overboard as he went. But even faster than he could empty it, the waves brought back more.

  Suddenly the wind caught his slack sail and the vessel teetered. He gripped the cabin as for a long moment it heeled dangerously. Then the sail seemed to dive toward the seething swells. The hull sank low, a black mass dragged ever downward.

  “Gil!” Riki screamed again, shouting his name over and over.

  But there came no answer from the capsized boat.

  The next moment, their own ketch began to spin, slowly at first, then faster and faster. Water swirled about them, luminescent, sparkling. Riki looked about in horror as they were drawn inexorably into a spiraling funnel that opened up about them.

  A blinding light flashed directly above and a shimmering, eerie flame danced down the mast, outlining the vessel in iridescent electric blue. The mast had been struck.

&nbs
p; For one lifelong second, her world spun wildly. Belmont struggled in the water, beyond her reach, beyond her ability to help. Her own boat spun crazily, sucked downward toward the heart of the whirlpool. David and Marie clung to each other and the mast. And just beyond them, Riki glimpsed the flickering outline of her shortwave radio antennae on the island of Falconer’s Folly.

  She couldn’t leave Gil. In that split-second, before time converged and she was drawn into the future, she dove overboard.

  Cold blackness engulfed her. She couldn’t breathe, then her head broke water and she gasped, only to be drawn down by the outer rim of the whirlpool. She flailed, frantic, fighting for air.

  Something solid grasped her and she broke the surface. Somehow, miraculously, it was Belmont’s voice that shouted in her ear. She turned in his arms, clinging to him, crying and laughing. The sea no longer dragged at her.

  Steadying herself, she pulled away and struck out for the nearest solid mass. Belmont’s long, even strokes kept him at her side.

  It was farther than she’d thought. As they neared the island, she could see no place to approach without being dashed against the craggy boulders. Belmont pulled ahead, fighting the current and waves that lashed against the jagged outcroppings, leading the way. She followed, and with relief sighted a less dangerous stretch of shore that sloped toward the crashing waves.

  Belmont caught her hand, drawing her toward it, toward safety. Gasping for breath, she pulled herself onto the rocks, then remained where she lay, too drained to move. Belmont stood slowly and reached down to help her.

  Her fingers closed about his hand and she felt his warmth and strength. They were together, the impossible had come true. She rose to be enfolded in his strong arms, and for several very long minutes nothing else mattered.

  “Where—or when—are we?” she gasped at last.

  “Look.” Belmont’s voice held a shaky laugh.

  She did. Rain beat steadily down on an island that would have seemed more familiar had the rookery already been built. She shook her head in disbelief. Over there, only minutes before, she had seen her shortwave radio antennae. Now there was nothing.