“Yes, m’lord,” I said, smiling up at him. “I didn’t leave Luca’s side,” I said defensively. “He’s here someplace.”
He shook his head in exasperation at me, then turned and lifted an arm. Out of the woods crept a wave of Sienese loyalists, hundreds of them. My heart surged with hope. They were all dressed in brown and black, their faces smudged with dirt to help them blend in. A good hundred advanced with bows in their hands, an arrow drawn on each string.
Lia broke through a patch of vine maples then, pausing and blinking slowly when she saw the men approaching. Then she rolled and came to her knees and drew her last arrow across her bow. A man tossed her a new quiver as he passed her, still waiting for more to come through.
Luca was there then, running through the thick brush as if he was tearing through waist-deep water. His face froze and then lit up as he recognized comrades around us.
At last Mom burst through the trees, but two knights were right behind her, gaining on her. Luca dived onto the closest, pounding him with his fist when they rolled to a stop. But the other grabbed her and wrenched her around.
Slowly, three Sienese archers within six feet of them stood erect, all arrows pointing at the enemy’s head, neck, and heart. He stilled, blinked with wide eyes, then raised his arms in surrender. Mom picked up a tree branch and whirled, whacking him in the face.
I laughed under my breath.
But then the rest were through the trees, reaching us. The men waited until a good number appeared, then let the arrows fly, taking nearly all of them down. Only five were missed. Men with swords were next to rise, among the archers. They made short work of those who had survived as the next wave arrived, and again the archers took most of them out.
Shouts were heard. Paratore bellowed an order to attack. But I could hear from my position that the men were scattering, afraid, confused. Horse hooves clattered away. A few brave troops dared to wade into the forest, only to meet their death. “Welcome to guerilla warfare, boys,” I muttered.
I saw Marcello’s back as he and half of his men ran to cut off those who sought escape to the south. Luca ran with the other half in the opposite direction.
They would never get home to Firenze nor live to attack another of Siena’s loyal people, nor even home to Castello Paratore. Not if our guys had anything to say about it.
I smiled as Mom and Lia drew near. Then I limped over to them to wrap them both in my arms. “We must go,” I forced myself to whisper, hearing the groans of the injured among the brush and shoving down a shiver of fear. Marcello had wanted us to stay here, knowing that we were relatively safe. But we had to go now. It would be our only opportunity to slip away, to reach the tomb portal, now just a mile distant. For once, no one was thinking about the Ladies Betarrini.
I ran ahead of them, finding a deer path and following it as the sun set, sending neon rays of orange through the trees as if they were pointing our way home. I wanted to stand and argue, convince Mom and Lia that we belonged here, in Toscana, now. But ever since Mom had suggested we might be able to go back and try to save Dad…as much as I wanted to remain, I knew we had no choice.
We had to try.
I took one last look back to the forest, hoping I might see Marcello again. Wave. Give him some hint at least. “Come on,” Lia said. “I’ve got you covered.”
I followed behind her. “What do you mean?”
“I’ll show you at the tomb,” she said, bending beneath a branch.
We trudged onward, tense with suspicion at every turn. We could hear the roar of battle on the wind, but it was difficult to discern whether it was coming from our north or our south. Perhaps it was both.
At last, we reached the creek, little more than a trickle during the drought of autumn, and began our ascent of the hill that led to the tombs. With each step I took I became more aware of the war that raged inside of me. One side of me longed to fall among the rocks and cling there, to stay here, with Marcello, never to be pulled away. The other side of me could do nothing but push forward. Dad. Dad! Was it possible? Were we fools to even think it possible?
Marcello will feel horrible when he discovers I am gone…will he believe I’m gone forever? Unable to convince my mother and sister to stay in this century? And what would transpire in our absence? Weeks, months. Battles for the castellos, Siena.
“It’s bigger than you are, Gabriella,” Mom said, laying a hand on my shoulder. “Do not try to think it all out right now. Only the next step.”
“But Marcello,” I said, stepping up onto the next boulder. “What if something happens to him…”
“Something will happen to him, whether you are here or not. Something is forever happening to all of us.”
I nodded and looked down at the rock, then over to Castello Forelli, wanting one last look.
A guard stared back at me. He wore the emblem of Firenze across his chest. Lia stepped beside me and followed my gaze. “Way to go, sis. Had to raise one more alarm, didn’t you?”
“I know, right?” I said, shaking my head. We turned and scurried up the rest of the path as shouts reverberated across the valley and an alarm bell began to clang behind us.
We reached the top of the hill and turned. Now Castello Paratore was in view, and with all the noise the boys were making at Castello Forelli, I knew they were on full alert, her parapets loaded with knights peering through the fading light to figure out what was going on. They spotted us, pointing, yelling.
“C’mon,” Lia said, dragging me forward. Mom was ignoring it all, already a hundred paces ahead of us, her own mind clearly on one thing. Dad.
We edged out of view from Castello Paratore and entered the small meadow with the tombs, domes sticking out of the heavy grass and twining vines of the forest. Mom ran to Tomb Two and turned to face us. We could hear the creak of Castello Paratore’s gates opening, then the distinct noise of knights in battle.
I frowned. “I have to look,” I said to them. “I have to know what’s going on! Get ready, I’ll be there in a sec.” I ignored their cries of complaint and hobbled up the path and around the corner that would give me the clearest view of our enemy’s castle.
They’d opened the gates to come after us. But they had failed to recognize Sienese forces in the woods, waiting for just such an opportunity. They battled at the wall, between the gates. “Go, boys, go,” I whispered. If they could capture Castello Paratore again, it would only be a matter of time before Castello Forelli was back in Sienese hands.
But some men were climbing the path below me, heading up to our meadow. “Time to go,” I muttered, turning and rushing back to the tomb as fast as I could.
Mom waited for me at the mouth of the tomb and followed me in.
“I have it all set,” Lia said. She was barely visible in the tomb. “I’ve left a note for Marcello and Luca.”
“You have? What does it say?”
She hesitated. “It says, ‘Wait for us. We are coming back.’”
“We are? You really want to do that? Both of you? To come back here?”
“If we get your dad,” Mom said, slipping her hand over my shoulder. “And even if we don’t. If this is where your heart is, both your hearts, then I want to be here too.”
I turned back toward Lia. “And you? I thought you wanted your life back. Your real life.”
“This…” She paused to take a breath. “Somehow, it’s become my real life. I’ve caught your medieval bug. I want to be here.”
“Medieval bug or a medieval hottie.”
She shrugged. “Maybe I’ll come back and figure it out.” She poked me in the chest. “But next time, let’s go for a few less near-death experiences, all right?”
“All right,” I agreed, willing to say anything in that moment in exchange for what she was promising. “If only I could say good-bye…”
“It’ll be minutes for us. Weeks or months for them,” she chastised me. But her use of us and them was not lost on me. Oh yeah, she was finally falling for Luca. As hard as I’d fallen for Marcello.
We could hear voices outside the tomb. They were upon us. We had to leave.
“Trust me, Gabs,” she said in a hushed voice, pulling me closer to the wall. “Marcello Forelli will be waiting for you.”
We moved toward the handprints and reached up.
“All the way home,” Lia whispered. “Then we’ll figure out our next step.”
Mom grabbed hold of our shoulders.
And then we were gone, cascading back to the future.
CHAPTER 34
We hit the end of the time tunnel, and this time, it felt like we’d hit a brick wall, running at full speed. We rammed forward and then fell back on the floor, on top of Mom, all three of us gasping and groaning.
“Shh, shh,” Mom tried, remembering before we did the new danger at hand.
Dr. Manero.
How long had we been gone? Five, six minutes?
She crawled forward, peered around for a moment and then backed into the tomb again and stood.
“All right, so now we touch our handprints—just for a few seconds—and we’ll be back a year, maybe two, and we can find Dad,” Lia said.
“A few seconds? Wouldn’t that take us back to, like, before we’re born?”
“Let’s think about it. How long do you think the whole journey takes?” Mom said.
I shook my head. “It’s hard to tell. We get into that warpy-stretchy place and it feels like I’m not breathing, like time is standing still, not whipping by a century-a-second.”
“I think it’s about twenty seconds,” Mom said, eyes narrowed. She had her Science Voice on. All analytical, all of a sudden.
It comforted me. Because I couldn’t figure it out. It was like a nightmare of a story problem. With life-and-death, love-or-loss kind of stakes.
“If it takes twenty seconds to cascade through six centuries…”
“Six hundred and seventy years, give or take,” Lia corrected.
“Then ten seconds to go through three hundred and thirty-five…five seconds to go through a hundred and sixteen…two seconds to go through fifty-odd years.” She looked up at me and Lia. “We’re a hair’s breath away from your dad,” she whispered.
I shivered. Could we really be that close?
“It’ll take but a touch to send us back five years.”
“Can we even match the prints and get back off that fast?” I asked.
“We have to try,” Lia said.
“Where were you five years ago, Mom?”
Her face fell. “Capua.”
I frowned too. That far south…the other side of Rome. It’d take us a day to get there, find him—if we could find him—and return. I shook my head. “I can’t. Mom, I can’t! That would take too long. Marcello will have waited years before I get back. Maybe he’ll have given up on me, married someone else.”
“You’ll get back before that happens,” Lia cut in.
“Maybe not, Lia.” I covered my aching eyes and leaned my head against the wall. It was too much to figure out, too hard…
Mom paced, chin in hand, thinking. She looked over at us. “Two years ago, we were in the next valley. Remember? We thought this place might be there.”
“We won’t have a car to get there,” Lia said slowly.
Mom looked at me with an expression that said Don’t Lose Hope.
“Mom,” I said. “We’ll have to climb out of this valley—without that old guy who brought us here guiding us—and hitchhike over there. We’ll have to find Dad, if he’s there at all, explain it to him and bring him back…”
“Your dad will have the Jeep, Gabi.”
“But it’ll take hours. Do you know what that means for Marcello? For Luca?”
“Years,” Lia whispered.
I put my hand on my head. “And it was 1342 when we left. Do you know where years puts us?”
“In the middle of the Black Plague when we return.”
“We just have to pull off before then. He’ll leave us a sign. You asked him to do so, right?” I said to Lia. “In the note?”
“Yes,” she said with a nod. “It’ll be there, Gabi. We’ll know. Even easier than before.”
“You think.”
“No, Gabs, I know. He’ll be ten times more anxious than you to get back together. Because he’s living without you, right now. Days going by for him while it’s just minutes for us. It’ll be there.”
“Remember why we came back at all, Gabi? For your dad.” Mom moved toward me, touched my arm, and then ran her hand down to mine. “Gabriella, please. Please.”
It was a horrible decision. Was I taking a course that would save one man I loved but cost me the other?
But we were here, now. And Dad’s death impacted all three of us. Marcello could figure out why we’d left. Would he think that the portal had somehow ceased to work? Or worse, that I had simply decided not to return to him?
I gasped around the lump in my throat. The decision weighed upon my chest like an anchor in deep seas, dragging me backward, down. Each word, each step was an agony of effort. I put my fist to my mouth and looked at Mom. “Okay. But we have to move fast, Mom. Really fast.”
Lia pulled a scroll from a pocket in her gown. “I’ve written it out. So we remember. We might forget everything when we go. Two years ago, we didn’t know about this place. We didn’t know what would happen to Dad.”
“We didn’t know Marcello. Or Luca.” I swallowed hard. Would I forget all that had happened? Forget what I felt for the man? This everything-in-me pull back to him? If I forgot him, would I go at all?
“You won’t forget,” Mom said, resting her hand on my shoulder. She shook her head. “This,” she said, gesturing toward the handprints, “is some sort of time-space continuum. If we remember Marcello and Luca and all now, we’ll remember it when we stop two years back.”
“You’re sure.”
“I’m sure. Trust me, Gabriella.”
Trust her. Trust Marcello. Trust God. Everyone demanded I trust them! I kinda liked it better when I just had to trust myself.
We heard voices outside. “All right,” I whispered. “Let’s do this.” I looked at Lia. “The fastest touch possible.”
We practiced a few times, counting, on and off, a tap that had to be perfectly timed.
“One, two, three.”
We staggered backward, and Mom steadied us. The only light came in from above, through the tomb raider’s hole.
We’d done it. Gone back. But how far?
“Quick,” I said, bending to give a foothold to Mom. She reached the top and, with her legs swinging wildly, curved up and over. It was then that I thought about us all in medieval gear and groaned. How much harder would it be to snag a ride in these getups? “Come on, Lia,” I snapped, reaching down for her foot.
She ignored my irritation and held on to my shoulders before reaching for Mom’s hands. Soon, she was turned around and reaching down for me, with Mom holding on to her. I backed up, ran and jumped, just barely connecting to her hands.
As I swung, Lia grinned down at me and began to giggle. “We’re like a circus act,” she said, laughing so hard her grip began to loosen.
“Don’t laugh!” I said. “You’ll drop me! Pull, Mom, pull!”
Lia edged upward, pulling me with her. At the top, ten feet from the ground, I struggled to get over the edge, but then Lia and Mom both grabbed my belt and dragged me up and over.
Outside the curve of the tomb, we looked around. There was nothing but the sounds of nature. No people in sight.
“It’s summer,” Mom said with a smil
e of satisfaction.
“The question is, which summer?” Lia asked.
“Last year. Maybe the one before. You girls were on and off those handprints lightning fast. It was perfect.”
“You remember the way,” I said to her, ignoring her praise.
“I remember everything. Don’t you?”
I thought about it a sec. She was right, I decided with relief. It was all still with me. Every memory from past and future.
“Come on,” she said, offering me a hand. “I’ll lead the way.”
We pushed through the forest and picked our way down the face of those boulders as fast as we could. “See?” she said, showing me the ancient paving stones that our guide had once pointed out to us. “This is the right way.”
“Got it. Go,” I said, not wanting to waste a second.
We pressed on and eventually hit the old gravel road where we’d originally met the landowner. It was a good two miles back to the highway, but we set off, jogging as fast as we could. It was then that I realized that neither my thigh nor ribs hurt any longer.
“It heals for sure, that tunnel,” I said to Mom in a pant. “My injuries…they’re gone. Just like last time with the poison.”
“It’s good to know,” she said, eyeing me. “If we’re going back to the era of the Black Plague.”
She did not need to say more. But as we ran, I wondered what we’d do if one or more of us contracted the awful disease. I thought of bringing Marcello back here, to the present, and how there was something timeless about him.
Yeah, he was pretty much a stud in any year. Wait for me, Marcello, I thought, hoping that somehow, some way, he might know my thoughts. Tell him, God. Tell him to wait for me.
When we spotted Castello Forelli we came to a dead stop, hands on knees, panting. Because it was no longer in ruins. A good number of the walls were intact. All five towers still stood.
Which was good, of course. But the first two words in my head were oh no.
Because we’d changed history. Castello Forelli, no longer in ruins as we’d seen it in at the very beginning. Someone—Marcello? Paratore?—had rebuilt the tumbled wall. It had been inhabited for centuries, judging from the good condition.
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