Persistence of Vision

  Chapter 35: “The Roses Are in Bloom”

  An hour before Maggie was set to leave, the team met once more in the conference room. As before, Clay was glaringly absent.

  “Maggie,” Doc said from the head of the table. “I want you to know that we have our Seekers and our networks looking for three different people. One is Colin, one is another Concealer to fill the spot on the team, and we are still looking for a Deceiver to take Colin’s spot. Should we find any one of these people, it should be enough to bring you back.”

  “How will finding any one of those people help?” Maggie asked.

  “If we find Colin, we can find some way to capture or kill him or otherwise neutralize him as a threat.”

  Maggie gave him her best suspicious look. “How?”

  Doc opened his mouth then hesitated, looking wary. “I don’t think we ought to go into details about that. You won’t be here, and I don’t want to worry you.”

  “Which is code for it’s really dangerous and I’m not allowed to be part of it because I have to go to my own time where I’ll be safe?”

  Doc gave her a sad smile.

  “That’s pretty much the gist,” Karl said.

  Maggie opened her mouth, but Doc hurried on.

  “If we find a Concealer with Clay’s abilities, he will be able to hide you from Colin. And I have a hunch that if we can find a Deceiver to fill Colin’s spot, he or she may be able to posit a solution to the Colin problem as well.”

  “How?”

  “I think he or she may be able to Deceive Colin about your whereabouts, or something along those lines.”

  “But Colin’s a Deceiver too, Doc,” Joan said from across the table. “How do you know that will work?”

  “As I said, it’s only a theory. Not being a Deceiver myself, I’ve no idea how one can stack up against another, but I’ve been thinking about it ever since we came back from the mission, and it makes sense to me. My point”—he directed his words to Maggie again—“is that I don’t think it will be long before we see you again.”

  Maggie cleared her throat. “About that, won’t it be a short time for me one way or the other?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Karl’s a Traveler.” She turned to look at him. “You can travel to any point in time you want. Can’t you just come to pick me up a week after you drop me off, regardless of how long it’s been for you guys?”

  Karl snorted. “So we have to age ten years, but you’ll still look exactly the same when we see you again? How is that fair?”

  The others chuckled, but Maggie’s mouth fell open. “You’re going to wait ten years to come get me?”

  Marcus’s hand closed over hers. “Of course not.” She turned to look at him. “He’s exaggerating.” The corners of Marcus’s mouth had turned up, but the look in his eyes was warm and reassuring.

  “I’ll leave the exact timing to Karl, as he’s the expert, and from what I understand, time travel is an inexact art. I don’t mind giving you some time, though. You’ve had a lot to deal with these past weeks. For the rest of us, this war is a way of life, and with the exception of Clay’s loss”—his voice cracked when he said Clay’s name—“the drama has built up slowly over time. This has been thrown at you all at once, and I think it would be prudent to give you some time to absorb it. You need time to rest and recuperate.”

  Maggie tried not to sigh. “I just don’t want it to take too long. What am I supposed to do with myself? I can’t build up relationships or my business when I know I’ll be severing all my ties again soon. How can I go back to living a normal life, knowing what I know?”

  “You have my word, Maggie, that we’ll come for you as soon as possible,” Doc said.

  It wasn’t the promise she’d been hoping for, but Maggie felt somewhat reassured.

  “Now,” Doc continued, “we have plans for what to do next. We have plenty of work to do, but does anyone want to say anything before Maggie leaves?”

  “I do,” Maggie said. “I have two things to say.”

  Doc nodded at her.

  “Actually, one is a question. The other is something I remembered that I need to tell you, Doc.”

  Doc’s eyebrows jumped. “A memory you’ve recovered?”

  Maggie smiled. “Not one of the original lost ones, no. Just something else I was supposed to tell you.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “First the question. Colin said I was the key to the prophecy. I’ve heard a few people say that. What does it mean? Aren’t we all necessary to bring down the collectives?”

  “All the roles in the prophecy are essential,” Doc said. “You are right about that, so perhaps your status is something like first among equals.”

  “But I am first?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  Doc sighed. “It’s difficult to explain. It has to do with the structure of the prophecy.”

  “I’ve been here for almost two months, and I haven’t actually read that, you know,” Maggie said quietly.

  “I’ll translate it for you.” David had so far been silent at the rear of the table sitting across from Nat.

  All eyes turned to him now, but his face remained passive. “It will take some time,” he said, “but I’ll translate it into English for you. I’ll have it for you when you get back.”

  An awkward silence descended, which Doc broke after only a moment. “In calling you the key, I believe it means two things. The first is the function you play as opposed to the others. Each of us has a part in the prophecy, but it’s a part we perform individually that contributes to the whole. Your role, Maggie, integrates all the other roles. You bind them and bring them all together. In short, you’re the key that makes the entire thing work.”

  “But what does that mean? What will I do?”

  “I can only tell you what the prophecy says.”

  “What’s the second thing it means?”

  Doc nodded. “The second is something I have personally come to believe after years of studying the prophecy. I’ve come to believe that you are unique, Maggie. For each of the roles the prophecy names, there are a number of people that could fulfill the role. The prophecy calls for certain characteristics, certain abilities inherent in the brain chemistry. If a person meets these criteria, they can fulfill the role. I don’t think that’s true of you, Maggie.

  “I think your brain chemistry is so unique that only you can do this. That is why we must keep you protected. As insensitive a thing as this is to say, even without Clay we can prevail over the collectives. We can find another to fill his spot and move forward. That’s not true of you, Maggie. If anything happens to you, all is lost.”

  Silence followed Doc’s words, but Maggie noticed that no one else around the table seemed as stunned as she felt by Doc’s explanation. David had been right then about them keeping things from her. Yet when she’d asked, Doc had been completely forthcoming. She wasn’t sure she believed, as David implied, that they were lying maliciously.

  “Does that answer your question?” Doc asked.

  Maggie shrugged. “For now, I suppose. I could think of a whole lot more questions though.”

  Doc smiled. “I’m sure you could. Perhaps David’s idea is a good one. Perhaps we should have translated the prophecy for you earlier so you could study it for yourself. I should warn you, though, that there are people, including myself, that have studied it for years. The prophecy is vague, and its interpretation is ambiguous at best.”

  Maggie nodded. She suddenly had a keen interest to read the prophecy. She wished it was already translated so she could take it with her when she left.

  “So,” Doc said, sounding cheerful to move onto another subject, “what did you remember that you needed to tell me?”

  Maggie was still pondering the prophecy, and it took a minute to realize what he’d said.

  “Oh. Remember when we were on the beach and I told you the Remembrancer told me to tell you something? I just re
membered what it was.”

  One of Doc’s eyebrows went up. “What was it?”

  Maggie shrugged. “Didn’t make any sense to me, but she said to tell you that the roses are in bloom.”

  All the color drained from Doc’s face. His eyes widened to the size of saucers, and his mouth fell open. He slumped back in his seat as if his life force were draining out. Meanwhile, from the other side of the table, Nat jumped to his feet so suddenly that his chair crashed to the floor behind him.

  Maggie’s head swiveled back and forth between the two, fear boiling in her stomach. Her expression was mirrored in the faces of the others.

  “What?” Marcus yelled, looking alarmed.

  “Doc, what is it?” Karl had gotten to his feet. “What does that mean?”

  Doc was staring at the table in front of him, lost in his own horror.

  “Doc!” Joan yelled, and Doc’s head snapped up.

  He looked surprised to see them all standing there.

  “Forgive me,” he whispered, sitting forward in his seat again. “I…was not expecting to hear that.”

  Maggie thought Doc had a gift for stating the obvious. “What does it mean, Doc? Do you know that woman, the one that called herself the Remembrancer?”

  Doc looked at Maggie. It took him a moment to focus on what she was saying. When he did, he leaned forward, becoming intense.

  “Yes, the woman. What did she look like, Maggie? Tell me exactly what she said.”

  A bit taken aback, Maggie recounted what the woman looked like and the conversation they’d had. The others put in details as she went. Doc and Nat kept exchanging confused glances as she spoke.

  When she finished, Doc still said nothing.

  “Doc!” Joan was more exasperated than Maggie had ever heard her. When Doc didn’t respond right away, her gaze swiveled to Nat, who had righted his chair and was sitting again.

  “I think,” Doc finally said, “that she is a woman I knew a long time ago.”

  “You think?” Marcus asked.

  Doc smiled without humor. “I was sure she was dead.”

  An awkward silence descended. Maggie couldn’t think of any way to break it except to ask the obvious question. “Why?”

  “I saw her die. Sometime after that, a Prophesier told me she would come back into my life again. I always assumed it was figurative or something dealing with my own death, perhaps. Now it seems I was wrong.”

  “Who is she?” Karl asked.

  “She was a Prophesier herself, a great studier of the prophecy and an advocate against the collectives.”

  “Did you know she had abilities with memories?” Marcus asked.

  Doc shook his head. “No. I never heard anything like that from or about her. She never called herself a Remembrancer when I knew her.”

  “What does…the thing about the roses mean?” Karl asked.

  Doc waved his hand dismissively. “Nothing to anyone else. It was what you might call an inside joke, though it wasn’t really a joke, just something we often said to one another. It was a metaphor meaning that things were looking up. I don’t think she meant anything by it, except to use it to identify herself to me.”

  “And to Nat, it seems,” David said quietly.

  “Yes,” Doc said. “Nat knew her too.”

  Everyone’s eyes went back and forth between the two older men. Maggie could tell that everyone was drawing the same conclusions she was. Nat and Doc had obviously known each other longer than anyone realized. Suddenly there were so many questions and no time to answer them.

  “Well.” Doc regained his composure. “I’m glad you told me this, Maggie. I’ll have to think on it some more. I would also like to know more about where this woman was staying—the lighthouse. I wish I could have studied it.”

  “Clay did,” Joan said quietly. “He said it was a Concealment, and he studied it at length. Now there’s no way to know what conclusions he drew.”

  There was a minute of silence while they all thought about what they’d heard.

  “Does anyone want to say anything else?” Doc asked.

  No one answered.

  “Then everyone say their good-byes to Maggie.” He turned a solemn look on her. “It’s time for you to go.”