Adam's Journey (The Aliomenti Saga - Book 8) Page 16

  “I know you want him to change,” Genevieve said, her voice soft and sad. Arthur stopped outside the cottage when he heard the low murmurs, preferring to listen in before walking past. “But until that happens, you must understand that he is a very dangerous man. You have seen how he controls the people here. With true magic, with the real ability to control minds… there’s no telling what he might do, what evil he might inflict. Promise me, Lizzie… no matter what happens, never, ever, let Arthur Lowell discover the secrets of unlocking magic. Never tell him anything you ever learn, and hide any power you develop until you are well away from his zone of control and power.”

  Arthur’s face twisted into snarl and he moved toward the door of the cottage, but his hand hesitated as he heard Genevieve speak once more. “There’s something you need to know, Lizzie, something I’ve never told anyone. There’s something very important you need to know about Arthur, something you’re old enough to understand now, something that might change the course of your life. You see…”

  Inside the cocoon, the real Genevieve sucked in her breath.

  Inside the cottage, the Genevieve clone never finished her sentence.

  Arthur exploded into the dwelling, and though they couldn’t see him, his tone conveyed a rage one might associate with a purpling face, bulging eyes, and veins pulsing in his neck. His voice was so shrill that Adam couldn’t make out the word. Before Adam could adjust anything about the nanos, Arthur emerged from the cottage, shouting, his voice loud and shrill, and carrying throughout the village, cursing as he dragged a stunned Genevieve out into the common area near the well.

  Elizabeth followed, eyes wide and fearful, mouth rounded and hanging open.

  Adam understood. The teenager had read Arthur’s intent with the magical powers she’d promised to conceal, and what she’d read terrified her.

  “Lizzie?” the real Genevieve whispered, even though she knew her daughter couldn’t hear her. “Don’t worry, baby. Everything will be fine.”

  Adam felt a tear escape his eye.

  He watched the real Genevieve, having heard enough of what was to come below to know he couldn’t stomach watching. The real Genevieve heard enough—from Arthur’s accusations of conspiracy, to the hateful shouts of anger, to the thud as clone Genevieve hit the side of the stone and brick well—to know with absolute certainty that the stranger who’d claimed to know of her murder hadn’t been lying.

  Her only concern was for Elizabeth, watching as the thirteen-year-old girl’s face turned pale, as she screamed at all of them to stop, as her shouts turned to plaintive cries as realization came that all was lost, that she’d never hear her mother’s voice again.

  “I have to go to her,” the real Genevieve whispered. She turned to Adam. “She needs me. She’s just a little girl. She needs me to comfort her, to hold her, to tell her she’s loved, that everything will be okay, that—”

  “I can’t let you do that.” He couldn’t speak the words in a way that wouldn’t sound harsh.

  “Let me go to her!” Genevieve’s whisper turned to a scream in an instant. “You have to let me go to her!”

  Adam said nothing. He turned away, holding his breath, trying to choke back the tears, wishing he’d just made them leave instead of giving Genevieve a choice.

  Instead, they both listened to the mournful sobs of a teenage girl who’d lost her only friend, her only hope, her only reason for living… even as her mother watched from above, cursing the man who held her back.

  “Please,” Genevieve whispered, her voice choking, her face awash in tears as she fought against the invisible bonds of the nanos, trying to break free of the grip of a man who might not mean her harm, but who’d stand by as her daughter suffered alone. “How can you let her suffer like that?”

  Adam turned to face her, his mouth unable to form words. He let his own tears flow, watching through his glistening eyes as his mother stood, rising from the mob, staring down at the literal blood on her hands, watched as those ancient eyes fell upon the small heap of the child they’d just effectively orphaned, saw her lying on the ground, her body wracked by massive heaves of near silent anguish.

  He saw the guilt on her face. She’d helped drive the girl’s true father away, had helped kill the child’s mother in front of her. She couldn’t bring Genevieve back. But she could protect and nurture the child left behind, a penance for her crimes, a chance to redeem a soul now scarred with the guilt of murder.

  Adam wiped away the tears in his eyes, glaring at the woman who’d one day give him life. He felt disgust at her actions. And he felt disgust at the bizarre sense of pride he felt at her resolve to make things right, as if one could make things right to a child when you killed her mother.

  He looked at Genevieve, the real, still-living Genevieve, and realized that she, too, had seen enough, that she, too, desperately needed to leave this time.

  He flew them away from the carnage wrought by human emotion, uncertain if the tears echoing inside the cocoon were his own… or those of the woman he’d just saved from a fate worse than death.

  ~~~34~~~

  1015 A.D.

  The flight back to the time machine seemed an eternity, with Adam and Genevieve seeking emotional stability following the devastating sounds and images of the events they’d just witnessed. Genevieve had further exacerbated the emotional trauma by risking a glance at her clone’s mutilated corpse as he’d flown them away. She’d needed to know for sure, but the image wouldn’t soon leave her.

  Nor would the sights and sounds of Elizabeth’s collapse.

  She settled into the back seat, curled into a fetal position as the dry sobs continued wracking her body. Adam, who’d caught the same glimpse of the dead clone, worked to control his own emotions. One couldn’t watch the parallel displays of Elizabeth watching her mother’s murder, and Genevieve’s futile desperation to reach out to the daughter who needed her, without suffering for it.

  He closed the lid and closed his eyes, searching for a happy memory. He settled on a recent one, the moment he’d first seen his father as a mere boy, and used that to pump positive Energy throughout the cabin. He felt it, and even though he knew what was happening, it worked to reduce the negativity otherwise coursing through him.

  He busied himself for the next hop, finding and flipping open his journal to the proper page, locking in the coordinates, sliding his hand inside the scutarium gel-line charging status, throttling the batteries to full capacity.

  Genevieve’s sobs slowed and stopped. She eventually took several stabilizing breaths before she sat up. With little else to do, she climbed into the front seat, apparently wanting something alive near her, even if it was him. Her voice remained weak, and she had to choke her words out. “You weren’t lying about me… about what happened.”

  “I’m sorry you had to see that. I wish I’d taken both of us away before that.”

  She ignored his apology, her emotion signaling that she didn’t think it necessary. “When I woke up in this… whatever this is… I thought the worst thoughts I could think about why I was there. I thought you had… that you might…”

  He turned away from the journal and looked her in the eye as he rubbed his jaw. “I know what you thought. I’m still feeling the effects.” He offered her a faint smile.

  She didn’t return the smile, instead pulling her knees to her chest and wrapping her arms around her legs. She looked at him, eyes still red. “We have to go back to her. How will she survive without me? The other people there… they won’t treat her well.”

  Adam grimaced. “Children are astonishingly resilient creatures. She will mourn your loss for the rest of her life… but she will learn how to live without you because that is the reality she now faces. I assure you that she will thrive in the future, all without our interference.” He’d not meant it to sound so harsh, but couldn’t think of any way he could have delivered the message without the sting.

  Genevieve flinched. “You know that she will thrive
because… you’re from… the future.”

  He could hear the skepticism in her tone without the need to read her thoughts. “You may choose to explain what you’ve experienced today in whatever manner makes the most sense to you. But yes, I am from the future. And yes, Elizabeth is still alive in my future. And she is doing phenomenally well.”

  “And she doesn’t need me.”

  Adam hesitated. There was a danger in her question, and he knew he needed to answer carefully. “She has survived and thrived in her own way, if that’s what you’re asking. She has made her own life and happiness. But there is a part of her that remains empty because her mother hasn’t been there to share those happy experiences.”

  “Is her father… is Arthur… still alive then?”

  He’d let his eyes move back to the journal, but turned once again to face her. “Which of those people are you asking about?”

  She sat up straighter, a look of shock on her face. “I don’t under—”

  “Her father and Arthur are two different people.”

  She reached forward, eyes flashing anger, and he tensed slightly before the anticipated slap. But she stopped herself. Studied him. Perceived his intent and understood why he’d said what he’d said. And she knew. Her posture relaxed slightly. “You know.” She paused. “Does Elizabeth know?”

  “The secret you’ve hidden from the world remains a secret to all but three people in my time. Elizabeth is not one of those three.”

  Her face clouded in confusion. “How do you know and Elizabeth does not? Who are you, and how is it that you would know… that?”

  He sighed. He’d known he’d need to reveal more about himself to her in time. It appeared he’d reached the correct point in time to reveal one of those secrets. “Why do I know that the man most believe to be Elizabeth’s father really isn’t? It’s simple, really.” He turned away, smacked the time circuit activation button, and watched as the lid surrounding them turned opaque. As the sense of displacement started, as the machine hurtled them forward in time, he turned to face her once more.

  “Elizabeth is more than my friend. She is my half-sister. And I know that because my father, and hers, are the same man.”

  He turned and faced forward, letting his head rest against the seat. “And we’re going to go take care of him next.”

  ~~~35~~~

  1017 A.D.

  The cabin top cleared, revealing a dark sky lit by a scant number of twinkling stars. Clouds passed in front of a full moon, dragging ghostly gray tendrils across the orange-yellow sphere. Dark undulations before them suggested a large body of water, much larger than the pair of rivers bordering the forest Genevieve had called home for many years. Adam knew the body of water as the Irish Sea, but didn’t know what the people of this era—like Genevieve—might call it. To Genevieve’s eyes, it would serve as a stark contrast to the view she’d seen outside the clear top only a moment before, offering proof that they’d traveled to a new spot in an instant.

  She wasn’t concerned about the rapidly changing scenery, though.

  “He’s… he’s your father, too?” Her voice was soft, less a controlled whisper than the tone of one unable to gather enough breath to speak at a desired volume level. “But… how… how can that be?” Her eyes went wide. “You said… you said you’re from the future, and he’s your father. Does that mean I’m…?”

  Adam shook his head. “To the world of my time, you died in the events we just witnessed. Elizabeth was and is your only child.”

  “Then who—?”

  “My mother’s identity is of no relevance or concern to our mission.”

  He watched her, listened as her thoughts shouted out her thinking process. If he was truly from the future it was likely that his mother wasn’t someone she knew, and thus it would hardly matter to her. But she couldn’t help but think from his tone that he’d not answered her because his mother’s identity wasn’t important… but because it was. She’d stop arguing, at least for now, but would try to tease the information out from him. Her eyes flicked for an instant to the book on the seat next to him.

  Adam made a mental note as well. He’d need to secure the journal when he wasn’t using it. And Genevieve’s intuition and intelligence were off the charts.

  She masked her thoughts of conspiracy by taking a slightly different angle about his father’s identity. “That’s why you helped me, isn’t it? You did it because she’s family.”

  It wasn’t exactly true, but it was close enough. He nodded.

  Genevieve glanced around, only then realizing that the scenery outdoors was quite different. She let her breath out audibly. “What happened outside?”

  He offered a wry smile. “It’s a bit different now, isn’t it? You get used to the rapid changes of scenery after a while. This room?” He motioned around the interior of the cabin. “This is a… specialized carriage. I tell it where and when I want to go, and it goes there in an instant. Or something close enough.”

  Genevieve gave him an odd look. “You don’t lie, but your words make no sense.”

  He considered how best to explain. “Many years ago, people who wanted to travel from one place to another had no option but walking. It worked well enough, but it wasn’t very fast, and you could only walk until you had to sleep, stop for food, or recover from an injury.”

  She nodded. “Okay.”

  “At some point two different discoveries were made. Some people saw large, strong animals that could move much more quickly and for longer distances before requiring rest than they did. Once people learned to tame horses, they could either ride the horse itself, or attach a wheeled vehicle and let the horse pull them along behind. That increased travel speed on the land. People also noticed that creatures could float atop rivers and lakes, saw that logs from trees floated as well, and realized they could use wood to make boats and speed up travel along the water.” He raised a questioning eyebrow. “Make sense?”

  “Yes, but why are you talking about horses and boats?”

  “Those were just examples. In the future, people have continued to look for ways to travel faster. It meant they had to look at approaches that didn’t involve horses or oars, because a horse can only run so fast. Those new methods can propel our carriages at speeds you’d find incredible, so that we can easily travel in an hour a distance that would take a horse weeks.”

  She glanced down at the craft and peered over the window, reminding herself that she was floating high above the ground, that his stories were likely true, even if they sounded impossible. “OK. But it’s nighttime. An instant ago it was still mid-afternoon. I don’t see my village. There’s a huge lake or sea outside. There aren’t any huge lakes or seas within five days’ journey from my village, which we just left a few minutes ago. You say you can move this room quickly… but this seems impossible.”

  “Magic.” She rolled her eyes, and he smiled. “I don’t understand how it all works either. I just know that I can tell the room where and when I’d like to go, and I get there within a few minutes, maybe just a few seconds, depending on how far I’m moving through space or time.”

  She eyed him curiously. “That doesn’t make any sense to me. But…” She inhaled and exhaled deeply. “I still cannot detect any hint that you’re lying.” Her mouth twitched. “Where are we?”

  “We are near the spot where you, Arthur, Eva, and my father were captured so many years ago, back when you were all quite young.”

  He felt her shock that he knew about that day. They’d not talked about it much, and unless he’d been living among them for quite some time, it was unlikely he’d heard the tale from someone there.

  Or he might have heard about it from his father in some future time, listening as he told the tale of his humble beginnings.

  “I told you that I cannot change history, but I can make sure it happens as my future recalls. History tells me that my father traveled south along the seaside road, eventually meeting up with my mother, suffering throu
gh their capture, and joining up with you and Arthur. Yet my father told me he’d been heading north along the road, and only turned back to the south when he encountered a stranger who told him of a nearby town to the south where he might find work, and perhaps shelter against an approaching storm. I’d always wondered how that strange man appeared at just the right time and said just the right thing to turn him around so that he met up with all of you. And then my friend invented this machine. It can travel to any time in the past, the present, or the future. When I heard that, I knew that man was me. I knew I’d travel to that road on that day, disguise myself to look just as my father described, and that I’d be the one who recommended he turn around and head south. And I did.” He sighed. “I stayed and watched the capture take place. It was a critical moment in my family history.”

  They sat in silence for several moments before she spoke again. “You said…we would help him next. Does that mean we will see him? Will we see Adam?”

  “We will.”

  “Why would he come back here?”

  It was a fair question; for her, this spot was a reminder of the beginning of a horrid period of her life, dehumanizing slavery followed by years of hard work building their new lives in a land so far away. She’d not be one who’d return here of her own accord. Ever.

  “This spot is near the land of his birth. He left that area after a serious rebuke by his people, in immense pain and humiliated. He vowed he’d return one day when he was ready to enact his revenge, to take what he believed rightfully his and wrongly denied him.”

  Her eyes held a fiery curiosity. “There was something they denied him, something that made them send him away, humiliated? But why? What was it that they denied him?”

  He let his eyes drift out to the sea. “A name.”

  “A name?” Bafflement. “What name?”