“See, didn’t I tell you? Are you sure you want to risk ending up with that for the rest of your life?” He winked at her and went back inside, followed by the girls. Sylvus stared at her. Finally he spoke.
“Hurry up, Emily, I’m waiting.” He went back inside, with a backward glare at Gwydion.
He heard her mutter under her breath. “Yes, and you’re insufferable, too.”
Gwydion leaned his head down near her ear. “Good for you,” he said encouragingly. “Want to take a walk?”
Emily gave his question no thought at all. “I’d love to. Come, I’ll show you my favorite place in all the world.”
The moon was just beginning to rise as they ran down the road and cut across the field, heading up the slope of a rolling hill and leaving the noise and light of the party behind them.
Gwydion had always been happier outdoors than inside, and as a result spent much time running and walking out in the world. Despite that training it was difficult to keep up with Emily, who, her dress and sensibly laced shoes notwithstanding, climbed the hill without even breathing hard, running most of the way.
Gwydion had still not completely adjusted to the thin, warm air, and found himself struggling up hills and steep grades, trying to stay beside her, but more often lagging behind. Occasionally she would remember he was there, and slow her steps, or turn and offer him her hand. Finally he decided not to release it when her excitement spurred her to hurry again, and she got the message. They climbed the rest of the way together, hand in hand, at a speedy but reasonable pace.
Just before the summit she stopped in a shaft of moonlight that made her hair look silver. “We’re almost there,” she said, and he could see her eyes sparkle again in the dark. “Close your eyes.”
Gwydion complied, and followed her blindly up to the top of the grade. She turned a little to the right, and gently led him behind her.
“Watch your foot, there’s a hole here.”
He stepped around it, and felt her come to a stop. He could hear the intake of her breath as she released his hand.
“All right, you can open your eyes now.”
His vision adjusted automatically, but his breath was taken even further away by the sight. The valley stretched out below at his feet, bathed in moonlight, as far as he could see. A variety of fields made it up, some tilled, some fallow, with a great willow tree in the middle bending down over a stream that bisected the land. Even in the dark Gwydion could feel the beauty of the place, made somehow more intense by Emily’s love of it.
“Where are we?”
Emily sank to the ground and he followed her lead gratefully. “This is one of the hills that overlook our farm,” she said. “My dowry lands are the fields in the middle by the stream, where the willow stands. I call this place the Patchworks, because in the light it looks like the quilt on my bed, with the different textures and colors of the fields.”
Gwydion looked at her face shining in the moonlight, and heard a door in his heart open. There was something much more than the alien chemical excitement that had been coursing through him from the moment he laid eyes on her, leaving him feeling giddy and stupid. Deep inside him he felt a need more intense than he had ever felt before.
It was as if he had known her his whole life, or perhaps merely that his life had really started when he met her. Either way, and for whatever reason he was here, he knew he couldn’t bear to be away from her for even a moment now. And there was something in her eyes that told him she was examining these same strange and wonderful feelings within her own heart.
She turned and looked into the valley again. “Well, do you like it?” she asked, a little anxiously.
He knew her meaning, and added his own to it. “It’s the most beautiful sight I have ever beheld.”
Awkwardly he leaned toward her, hoping that his lips would find her willing. He had never kissed anyone except in gestures of respect, and so moved with agonizing slowness, his extremities going cold in the expectation that she might dart out of the way in horror.
Instead, when his intentions became clear to her she smiled, closed her eyes, and leaned into his kiss quickly and with eagerness. He had not anticipated the softness of her mouth, or its warmth, and the sensation sent cold shivers through him, even on this hot night. She touched his face before their lips parted, and the gesture went straight to his heart.
Then, as the happiness he was discovering began to envelop him, an icier feeling rose up to meet it. He looked over the valley and the picture in front of his eyes began to shift, the luminescence turned from moonlit silver to the flat gray of caustic smoke.
In his mind’s eye he could see the valley in the aftermath of a devastating fire, the pastureland smoldering, the farmhouses and outbuildings in ashes. The ground was razed, and the fields swam in rivers of blood that seeped through the whole of the pastureland. Gwydion started to tremble violently as the red tide began to surge up the side of the valley below them, coming their way with an unstoppable insistence.
“Sam?” Emily’s voice was filled with alarm. “Are you all right? What’s the matter?”
Gwydion snapped out of his reverie, and as he did the vision vanished, returning the valley to peaceful silver again. A look of consternation had taken up residence on Emily’s face. Her fingers still rested on his cheek, and he took her hand. His own was shaking uncontrollably.
“Sam?” Emily’s eyes grew darker, and worry flooded her face.
“Emily, where are we? I mean, what is the name of this village?”
“Merryfield.”
His stomach began to cramp. Merryfield was a common enough name; it could be anywhere. But on the ancient maps he remembered there was a village by that name, somewhere in the midst of the Wide Meadows, the great expanse of open plains that made up a large part of mideastern Serendair. The Meadows had been devastated in the war; none of the human villages had survived. And even when peace was restored, the villages were only beginning to be rebuilt when the Island was destroyed.
“What are the nearest towns? Cities?”
Emily’s concern was growing as each moment passed. “There are no towns or cities around here, Sam, not for more than a hundred leagues. My father only goes into the city once a year, and he’s gone for more than a month when he does.”
“What’s the name of the city, Emily? Do you know?”
She squeezed his hand in an effort to calm him, though he could see she had no understanding of his panic. “We’re in the middle of two. To the west, on the other side of the great river, is Hope’s Landing, and to the southeast is Easton. That’s the biggest city in the land, I think.”
Gwydion’s eyes began to sting. It can’t be, he thought desperately, it can’t be. Both of the names she had mentioned were cities in Serendair.
“Sam?” His panic was beginning to take Emily over, too. Gwydion looked into her face. His eyes cleared suddenly, his vision became intensely acute again, and from the depths of his despair his pragmatic nature reemerged.
Of course, he thought, his fear subsiding instantaneously. He was here to save her from the destruction of the Island. He knew how, and to whom to go, and when they would need to leave. Some beneficent Fate must have sent him back in Time, given him this chance, though he had no idea why.
He looked at her again, and smiled, and that realization came to him as well. This must be his soulmate; he knew it more certainly than he knew his own name. He could see it. With the clarity of the knowledge came a sense of calm assurance and growing joy. Emily was his soulmate. It was easy to believe, given how much he knew he loved her already.
Gwydion took her face in his hands, and pulled her into another kiss. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you,” he said when he released her. “I need to tell you something.”
She moved back from him a little. “What?”
He tried to keep his voice from cracking, as it occasionally did when he was excited or anxious. “We have to leave as soon as we can, and go
east to the Meadows. If anything happens to me, or if we get separated for any reason, you must promise me you will find someone named MacQuieth, or Farrest, or Garael. Please, promise me.”
Emily stared at him in amazement. “What are you talking about?”
Gwydion thought about how to explain, and then realized he couldn’t. How could she possibly understand now? No one knew this was coming; the war had not even reached here, and the death of the Island was centuries after the war. Then a sadder thought occurred to him. Perhaps he wasn’t destined to go back, either. Perhaps instead he was to live, and die, here, in the Past.
He took her face in his hands again and studied it carefully. Despite his irrational behavior, she seemed to understand his distress, and she wanted to soothe it. Her eyes sought answers in his face. They were dark with concern; their sympathy had no visible bottom to its depth. It was a face he could look at forever and still not tire of, or even fully know everything about. Tenderness welled up inside him, choking him, and he decided, without a second thought, that dying here with her was infinitely better than going back to living without her.
The moonlight shifted and filled her eyes, and she smiled. When she did, his fear of the situation evaporated, and he kissed her once more, lingering longer this time. The wonderful, queasy feeling returned to his stomach as he felt her lips part slightly and her breath filled his mouth. The intimacy was more than he could handle without losing control completely.
He drew back, and found a look of wonder on her face. “I can’t believe you really came,” she whispered. “Where are you from?”
Gwydion was astonished. “What do you mean?”
Emily took his hands, her excitement spilling over from her eyes to her body, which began to quiver happily. “You were my wish, weren’t you? Have you come to save me from the lottery, to take me away?”
Gwydion swallowed. “You could say that. Why do you think I’m your wish?”
Her face held no shyness, no awkwardness. “I wished for you to come last night on my star, right after midnight, and here you are. You don’t know where you are, do you? Did I bring you from a long way off?”
Gwydion’s eyes grew larger, and he gave her a silly smile. “Yes, definitely.”
She sighed. “I can’t believe it. I waited for almost a year for the right night, and it worked. You’ve finally come. You’re finally here.” A single tear formed in her eye and rolled rapidly down her face, making the intensity of her smile even brighter. There was magic in her, he decided. Maybe magic strong enough to really have brought him here over the waves of Time.
She stood and offered him a hand. “Come on,” she said. “Let me show you the fairy fort.”
They walked down the face of the valley, slowly this time, toward the stream that wound through the pasturelands. As they descended the hillside Gwydion watched the unfamiliar stars move farther away, and the black sky stretch out above them, filled with endless promise.
When they reached the stream Emily stopped, then looked around in dismay. The water was moving more rapidly than she had expected, and the banks were marshy; one of her shoes sank in and stuck tight. Gwydion helped her pull it free, but when it emerged it was covered with mud. She looked helplessly over to the willow tree where she hoped to take him, and then down at the intricately laced shoes.
“I’m sorry, Sam,” she said, disappointment clotting her voice. “I don’t think I can make it, and I can’t really take my shoes off—they take hours to put on as it is. You should still go, though. The view from under the willow tree is amazing.”
“There really wouldn’t be any point in going without you,” Gwydion said. He looked around for an easier place to ford the stream, but found none. A thought occurred to him, but he didn’t know if he could bring himself to suggest it.
“Well, you could carry me,” she said, as though reading his mind. “That is, if you don’t mind.”
“No, not at all,” he said in relief. His voice cracked at the first word, and he hid his embarrassment by tying up the ends of his cloak to keep them from dangling in the river. When the heat in his face had subsided he put his arms out. He had never carried anyone before, and he swore to himself that if he dropped her he would find the nearest poisonous plant and put himself out of his humiliation.
Emily came to him without a hint of caution. She wrapped one arm around his neck, and then, as if guiding him, took his arm and placed it behind her knees. He lifted her with little difficulty and carried her carefully to the stream, and then across it. He kept walking once out of the water, wending his way through the soggy grass to the willow tree, where he put her down gently.
It was a magnificent one, with many trunks surrounding a main shaft wider than he could have reached his arms around three times. The tree had grown enormously tall with its ready supply of water, and the delicate leaves cast lacy moonshadows on the ground, like summer snowflakes.
Emily patted the willow lovingly. “Farmers believe that a solitary tree in the middle of pasturelands is the home of all the fairies that live in the fields,” she said, looking up at the tallest branches and smiling. “That means this tree is very magical. It’s terrible luck to lose a fairy fort to lightning or fire, and no farmer would ever cut one down.”
Gwydion thought back to his vision, the pasturelands burned and desolate. He had seen the willow then, blackened and dead, and he shuddered involuntarily at the memory. He turned back to Emily. She was walking around the tree, her hand resting on the branches above her, speaking to it softly in a language he didn’t understand.
When she came back around to him she smiled. “So, now that you’ve seen it, what would you like to do next? Do you want to go back?”
“Not yet,” he said, returning her smile. “Do you know anything about the stars?”
“Yes; why?”
“Will you teach me?”
“If you’d like.” She started to sit on the ground under the tree, but he stopped her. He loosed the drawstring of his cloak from around his neck and spread it out on the ground for her.
Her grin of approval made him shiver. “Sam?”
“Yes?”
“Would it bother you if I took off my dress?”
Gwydion felt all the blood drain from his face. A moment later, he was painfully aware of the place to which it had decided to run. Before he could speak she interrupted him, embarrassment in her voice.
“I’m sorry; I should have been more specific. I mean this part.” She touched the blue velvet overdress awkwardly. “I assure you, I am quite modestly attired beneath it. It’s just that this is my only fancy dress, and if I spoil it, it will break my mother’s heart. Would you mind?”
Many answers ran through Gwydion’s head, and the corresponding expressions all passed over his face in an instant.
“No,” he said.
Emily turned her back and walked over to the tree again. He watched her unlace the bodice of the velvet overdress and slide it over her shoulders; it was off before he had a chance to realize that his blatant stare was rude. She stepped out of it and hung it carefully over a tree branch, then turned to face him once more. She now wore a sleeveless gown of white lace. The modesty piece he had seen before was part of the bodice, and the crinoline was long and full, like the skirt of a summer dress.
She sat down on his cloak, and he took his place beside her. “What do you want to know about the stars?” she asked, looking up into the night sky. Her hair hung down over her shoulders, and it was all Gwydion could do to keep his hands off it.
“Anything. Everything. I don’t recognize any of them, so whatever you can tell me would be a help. The stars are different where I come from.” It seemed a simple, factual statement to him, but Emily’s face shone with wonder at the thought. She settled back on the ground, stretching out with her head resting against the green moss that slanted up against the base of the willow tree.
“Well, first and foremost, that’s Seren, the star that the Island is na
med for. Most nights in the spring and summer it is directly overhead at midnight.”
Gwydion settled down beside her. He stretched out his arm behind her, trying to avoid touching her too soon. As she had several other times that night, she read his mind and took hold of his arm, pulling it around behind her shoulders. The movement didn’t even stop the astronomy lesson she was imparting.
She continued to point out stars and constellations, telling him a little of the lore and whatever history she knew. She seemed to have an impressive background in it, some of which was navigational. Gwydion made note of that odd fact, but after a moment he was no longer watching the heavens, as she was, but had relocated his gaze to her face. It was glowing with its own celestial light, and he felt he was learning far more by watching the stars in her eyes than by looking into the sky. He rolled onto his side and bent his arm behind his head, grinning like an idiot.
After a long time Emily looked up, as if awakening, and saw the silly look on his face. She blushed in embarrassment and sat up quickly.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to blather on.”
“You weren’t,” he said hastily. “I was listening very carefully.” He held his arm out straight. “Tell me some more.”
She lay back down again, staring straight up at the sky. This time her face was solemn, and she said nothing for a moment. When she finally spoke her voice contained a note of sadness.
“You know, ever since I can remember I have dreamed about this place,” she said softly. “Until recently I had the same dream almost every night—I was out here in the dark, under the stars, holding out my hands to them. And in my dream the stars would fall from the sky and into my hands, and I could hold them fast; I would make a fist, and see them glimmer in between my fingers. Then I would wake up, and when I did, I always had an extraordinary feeling of happiness that would last through the morning at least.
“And then my dream changed. I think it was when I was officially entered in the marriage lottery. I was eligible for it last year, but my father said it was too soon. This year it was unavoidable, and, despite my wishes, and theirs, my parents gave in to tradition and town practice and put me in like a horse on the auction block. My whole life is changing now, and my dream changed with it. Now, it comes much less frequently, and when it does it’s not the same.”