My aunts disembarked from the wagon.
“And why have ye summoned us so, Cams?” Aunty Cinth asked without preamble, looking as put out as ever. “I was just about to teach Mortimor to fly, and ye ken verra weel how difficult it is to train the bluedy Translyvanian Ruby Throats.”
Aunt Prim shivered. “That blasted dragon burned down our last hut. Can ye believe Cinthy still refuses to kick the ruddy bastard to the curb yet? I say, we keep him for parts. I’m rather low on scale of dragon.”
Aunt Cinth hissed, twirling on Aunty Prim and looking rather like a dragon herself, heaving with breath and her eyes burning with fire.
I wondered if they teased her, or if this was yet another example of just how much my aunts had changed from their past selves into their present ones. Because the Aunt Prim I knew shunned nearly all beasts, even most familiars. The only exception was her one-eyed bat, Snuffles. She certainly hadn’t been a dragon tamer, or at least not that they’d ever told me.
It was Aunt Vi and Camillia—my mother—who came between them. My mother took hold of Aunt Cinth’s hand and led her toward the rose garden.
“Baby sister, it is good to see ye. How I’ve missed ye so,” Mother said with a voice as soft and lovely as I’d always imagined it must have been.
Her voice was a dulcet, lovely whisper that had tears trekking down my cheeks, flaying my skin like acid. I shook so hard that even Zane noticed.
He wrapped his arms around me and pulled me in for a hug, just as my mother did the same for Aunt Cinth.
Aunty, always a prickly hedgehog and rarely prone to smiling or even looking much as though she cared for anything at all... ever, did the most astonishing thing. She smiled. And this smile lit her up from within. “Pulchra soror mea, quam Ego cupierunt videre.”
My mother smiled so broadly, and with tears glistening in her eyes, said, “O flos solitarium meam.”
Zane looked at me, and I sniffed as I knuckled tears out of my eyes. Speaking low and for his ears only, I said, “Aunty Cinth greeted Mother in the old tongue. She said, ‘My beautiful sister, how I longed for you.’ And Mother replied, ‘oh, my sweet darling flower.’”
Then they kissed enthusiastically upon both cheeks, and the scowl—that ever-present scowl on my dear aunt’s face—was completely absent. She radiated with joy as she wrapped an arm around my mother’s waist.
They lowered their heads, speaking in hushed but obviously delighted tones to one another.
I swallowed hard, barely feeling Zane’s lips pressing against the crown of my head.
“Are you okay?” he whispered.
I stared at my mother, completely hypnotized by the sight of her, remembering all the times as a child when at bedtime, I’d hugged tight to the only portrait of her I’d had—a hand painting of her on her wedding day, with flowers in her hair and the bloom of youth in her cheeks. She’d been distant in that portrait, looking straight ahead with a soft, secretive smile lacing her lips, but not once, not once looking back at me.
She was older in this time, more mature with large laugh lines crinkling the corners of her mouth, but no less beautiful for it. She was not some distant, treasured keepsake, but a real flesh-and-blood woman that I could touch and hug, if only I was allowed to.
“I don’t know,” I said, feeling the tears lodging in my throat and constricting my airway, making it hard for me to take a proper breath.
Zane kissed my head again.
Suddenly, the squeal of child-like laughter snared my attention, and I turned to look at the door, just as a pair of children in stockings and shapeless tan clothes came barreling out.
“Xavier! Telulah! Stop it this instant, ye bunch of rascally imps!” Aunty Cinth snapped, back to her taciturn self in next to no time as she rounded up the excited pair of towheaded and dirt-smeared children.
Xavier wore breeches to his knees, a thick pair of woolen socks, sturdy leather shoes, and an ill-fitting, billowing shirt with his laces undone at the neck. His hair was a shade of dirty blond that glinted almost like the purest gold whenever the sun would touch it just so. Average of face and scrawny of body, he couldn’t have been older than five, maybe six. The only thing of any true note on him was his eyes, a shade of deep, almost pure, emerald green.
I frowned. His eye color wasn’t normal, and I could almost swear I’d seen that exact shade before, but the memories refused to budge within me, leaving me frustrated and at a loss as to why I felt as though I knew him somehow.
Trembling in Mother’s arms was the little girl, Telulah. She had her scrawny arms wrapped around my mother’s lush frame as she sniffed back the tears staining her cheeks.
“Now what is this, dear?” Mother asked gently. She set the little girl on her feet and knelt so they were eye to eye.
The girl’s nose was a bright shade of cherry red, and her eyes were bloodshot and swollen. She pointed an accusing finger at Xavier. “He chased me with Herbert and said he would turn me into an imp.”
Xavier frowned, toeing the soft dirt in front of him. “I didn’t neither.”
The two children were the exact same height and appeared to be about the same age, which would make them twins. But who in the devil were they? I was an only child, and my aunts had never had children.
Mother rounded her eyes on Xavier. “What have I told ye about playing with Herbert, Xavier? Ye must be so verra careful with the familiars, Xav. Ye ken that they’ve powers themselves. Ye canna be so disrespectful. I’ve taught ye better. More than that, ye should be sore ashamed ye spooked yer sister that way.”
“Yes, Mother,” he said softly.
I gasped and mouthed, “Mother?”
I must have stiffened, because Zane noticed immediately and tightened his grip on me. “Zinny, what’s wrong?”
I shook my head, watching as Mother swatted him gently on the rear. “Yer step-da will no be pleased. Go inside, young man, and take your punishment like ye should.”
He hung his little head, and what I could only assume was Herbert popped his head out of the inside of the boy’s tunic. The frog had lime-green skin and large, bulging eyes. He gave one loud ribbit of affront.
Mother reached in and slipped Herbert out of the boy’s pocket then hugged him gently to her breast. “’Tis okay, Herby. Yer a’right.”
Herbert gave another ribbit, this one sounding suspiciously like disgust, before wiggling out of Mother’s hold and hopping off into the tall grass with his froggy head held high.
Pointing to the door, my mother again told Xavier to go find his father. Then she hugged the girl one final time before patting her bottom and sending her inside for a bite of meat pie and goat’s milk.
Once they were finally alone, Mother glanced at Aunty Cinth, who still stood behind her, scowling at the door with her arms crossed. But this was a scowl I’d rarely seen from my aunt, though I knew it well. It was fear so cloying, so choking that it appeared to the unwary as wrath.
“Ye can sense it, no? The devil in him?” my mother asked in a low, hushed tone. Though I didn’t know her at all, I sensed the fear in her words.
I had siblings, and I’d not even known it. I blinked, feeling sick and hurt and so many other emotions, but the predominant one was shock.
Aunt Cinth nodded slowly. “Aye. He’s got his father in him, no doubt. He’ll grow stronger, Camillia. It is time we call Tinker back home though, I sense our time could be coming to an end.”
Bring him back? What were they saying?
Mother shook her head, closing her eyes as she rubbed at the bridge of her nose with her long fingers. “Nay. We mustn’t. We canna. I promised him we’d find a way to end the curse. The sins of the mother should not fall upon the child. Ye ken that he is searching for her.”
“What?” I muttered, so confused I couldn’t make heads or tails of what she could possibly mean.
Aunty Cinth marched up to Mother and grasped her hands, bearing down tight. The aloof, disinterested mask she usually wore was gone, repla
ced by panic and anxious wrinkles. “Please, Camillia, please. I beg of ye, sister, dinna be so stubborn in this. We tried. We all tried, but ’tis an impossible task, and Tinker knew it same as we all did. Now we tried, but, we’ve come to the end of this.”
I gasped again, feeling cold all over and unprepared for what I was hearing. I couldn’t make heads or tails of it. Was Tinker my father? I had a sister and a brother?
I shook my head. “This is impossible,” I whispered.
“What’s going on, Zinnia? Tell me.” Zane’s voice sounded full of barely checked curiosity.
I wasn’t sure what to say or where to even start. My mind simply went blank on me. “I-I...” I blinked and fought to make sense of the nonsensical.
He framed my face in his hands, forcing me to meet his gaze. “Breathe, Zinnia. Just breathe.”
I nodded frantically, clenching my fingers into the fabric of his billowy shirt as I took short, choppy breaths, one after the other. The tight knot of nerves devouring me slowly and minutely began to loosen.
“Now, let’s try this again,” he said. “What’s happening here? I thought we came back to fix what’d happened to the four?”
I swallowed hard, feeling as if there were a bottomless pit of terrible pain and anxiety leeching through my body and sapping me of all energy and reserves.
I flexed my nostrils, grinding down on my back teeth, and forced myself to focus on the here and now.
“I don’t know what’s happened.” I pointed at her. “But that’s my mother.”
“I know. You told me. But you look like you’re about to crawl out of your skin right now, and I’d like to know why.” His blue eyes gleamed with worry as he stared down at me, and a soft frown laced his lips.
I looked back at the hill, but Mother and Aunt Cinth had gone inside the hut. I wasn’t sure whether I should follow or stay put. If I got much closer, it was very possible that they would sense our presence, disrupting our timeline, perhaps catastrophically so. But if I didn’t, I might never learn what I’d come there to know.
I blew out a heavy breath. “She told the children to go find their father. My father.”
“So you have siblings. This is a good thing, right?”
“No.” I sighed. “No, it’s not. Because I’m their only child. It’s what my aunts always told me. That my parents longed for children all their lives but could never have them until me. And I killed them both because of it.”
He winced, fingers gripping me tighter. “Newt, don’t say that.”
“Why?” I shrugged. “It’s true. Mother died giving birth to me, and Father’s lifeline was tethered to hers. He was only human, just like you. When she went, so did he. That’s what they said. That’s what they always told me.”
“You’re angry?”
I tossed my hands up in the air and paced back and forth, staring at the ground but seeing none of it. “Truth is, Zane, I don’t know what I am right now. All I know is nothing is adding up. Nothing is making any kind of sense. Why did she say they had to bring Tinker back for the boy? Did she have an affair? Am I really Tinker’s child?”
“Stop.” He squeezed my fingers. “You have to stop, Zinnia. You’ll drive yourself nuts with all these what-ifs.”
I blinked, feeling hurt and defensive, even though deep down, I knew he was right. I wrapped my arms tightly around myself and closed my eyes, trying to still the chaos in my mind.
“What do you want to do?” he asked softly.
I waited two breaths before looking at him. “I don’t know.”
He pointed to the hut. “If we go in there, maybe we’ll find out the truth.”
I shook my head. “We can’t, Zane. We can’t disrupt the timeline, not even a little. They can never know we’re here. If they did, the results could be catastrophic.”
“Time sent us here for a reason.”
Just then, we heard a branch snap and immediately stopped talking. My heart began to palpitate, and I felt hot and fluttery inside.
“Oh goddess,” I groaned, clutching my throat.
“Did someone find us?” Zane mouthed. The whites of his eyes were large in his face.
I stared straight ahead, watching and waiting for the boogeyman to jump out and give chase. We shouldn’t have been spotted. We were wearing our cloaks. We shouldn’t have been spotted, but I knew someone was watching us. I felt their eyes focusing on my face like a heated brand. I rocked back on my heels, the urge to run almost overpowering me.
Then I saw a flutter of movement by the tree line. But before I even had a chance to process what color it had been—scarlet red—Zane and I were sucked into a vacuum of time, tossed feet over head as we whirled and cried out to one another, desperately trying to grab hold of each other’s hands so as not to get lost.
Chapter 9
Zinnia Rose
“GRAB ON, ZINNY,” ZANE roared over the cacophony of noise. There was an incredibly loud whirring sound as air whipped and churned, tearing at our bodies with cruel airy fingers. And there was also the sound of blood racing through my ears, drowning out his voice. All I could hear, all I could feel, was the terror.
And just as I opened my mouth to start screaming at him that I didn’t know where he was, I felt the strength of his fingers wrap around mine and drag me into him. His arms pulled me in tight, and I trembled in his hold even as the winds continued to scourge and batter us both.
It was so dark in the tunnel, and I couldn’t tell up from down or right from left. But we were together. And just like magick, I could hear what he was saying as clear as a ringing bell in my ear.
“I’ve got you. You’re safe. You’re safe,” he repeated over and over, rubbing my lower back. His voice lulled me into a steadying calm, and my uncontrollable trembles started to slowly fade away.
I nodded and breathed him in, hoping to the gods that we would get through whatever dark ride we were on unscathed. My heart was hurting, and I wasn’t sure how to process any of what I’d seen.
In fact, I wasn’t even sure what I’d seen or what any of it had really meant. All I knew was that I was cold and numb.
Then from one blink to the next, we were there, tossed out of the vacuum to the hard, cold ground below. Except this ground was breathing. And wherever we were was so stinking dark that I would have thought we’d been dropped into a cave somewhere if it weren’t for the fact that I saw the dark silhouettes of massive trees around us and felt the gentle roll of a summer’s wind against my back.
“Uff,” Zane grunted. “Elbow in sternum. Not fun.” He chuckled, sounding pained but also amused.
“Oh, I’m sorry.” I wiggled off him as best I could without further injuring him. That resulted in a lot more grunts and groans before I was through.
“S’okay.” He smiled crookedly once I was clear of him and sat up, rubbing at his chest. “So when are we this time?”
I shrugged, not quite ready to turn around and study our surroundings, or even stand for that matter. My knees still felt like jelly. I needed a moment’s peace before I was ready to face whatever else might be in store for us.
So I picked at the dirt and twigs in my hair, cleaning myself off as best I could before replacing my hood and making sure no stray bits of hair escaped my covering. Zane did the same, and once he was done, he turned his attentions to me, making sure I was well covered.
“You know,” he said deeply, “these capes work wonders. I was really sure our goose was cooked earlier. But I don’t think we were seen, whatever that red thing was.”
I grinned even as I shivered when recalling that flash of red. If he’d seen it too, then we most certainly had been spotted by something. Whether it was friend or foe remained to be seen. Nothing good could come from worrying about it now, though.
“Gwenny would probably give you a good goosing for using that analogy.” I chuckled, deciding not to worry too much about things I couldn’t change. But then I sighed because my familiar was a frozen statue right now, and absolut
ely nothing was as it should be.
“She’ll be okay, Zinnia,” Zane said softly, brushing his knuckles down my cheek.
I bit my bottom lip hard and nodded, even as I choked back the heavy knot of tears clogging my throat.
“I know she will be,” I squeezed out.
He rubbed my arms, and though I knew we’d both just lied to each other—neither one of us could be certain of the outcome—I was grateful to cling to the hope with him. It was all we had left right now. Realizing I’d stalled as long as I possibly should, I finally scanned our surroundings. My knees were still jelly. Thank goodness I didn’t need to run and hide like last time. I might have fallen flat on my face if I’d tried to move yet.
It was strange that it was so silent and still. In the last place we’d been, the arrival of my aunts had come not too long after, making me wonder if maybe Time had goofed and dropped us in the wrong place in time.
If he had, how in the devil were we supposed to leave? It seemed silly in hindsight that I’d never thought to ask him such questions. He was the master of time, though, so I hoped that just calling his name would do the trick.
Looking around, I tried to gather my bearings, wondering where we were. It was night, and the moon was lambent white and waxy, casting long, dark shadows along the dirt path we sat on. I looked around at the trees, shrubs, and boulders, trying to catch my bearings, but it was dark. I’d only ever seen this type of darkness when lost deep in the woods of Blue Moon, far enough away from light pollution that I could experience the dark as it had once been before the rise of technology had lit up the night as surely as the sun in the day.
The only other thing I noted was that we were in the valley of what appeared to be massive, rolling hillsides rising up on either side of us. I couldn’t seem to recall a place that looked quite like this in Blue Moon Bay.
Still feeling slightly dizzy and queasy, I rubbed the back of my head and forced myself to breathe. I was hoping it was more from nerves than sickness, but I was sure that rolling through time portals was certainly not helping matters. Dark spots swirled in my eyes. I’d lost my breath when I’d fallen, but I had not broken any bones. Small blessings, I supposed.