Camelot & Vine (34 page)

The guards at the north gate ignored me as
though I were invisible. A wall torch struggled against the rising
wind, spitting sparks at the very power that threatened to snuff
it. From the stone archway, the road led out to infinite, lumpen
darkness. No light broke the eastern horizon. There was time—time
to save Guinevere, at least, if not the Britons. I had time, too.
Forever laid itself before me, a tempestuous ocean empty of
boats.

The dirt track led north. I made it about a
hundred yards before the rain came. At first it was only a sprinkle
and I pulled up my hood. Lightning ahead showed soot-black clouds
packing for a rumble in the sky, with the full moon cowering behind
them.

My shoulder was past throbbing. Throbbing
connotes ebb and flow, up and down, a coming and going of pain.
There was no ebb, no going of hurt, only flowing, increasing pain
until the only place it could go was numbness.

Heedless of my tiny progress beneath them,
the skies at last poured forth. The plains afforded no protection
from the abuses the storm chose to throw. At first those were only
rain upon rain, cold and repetitive as icy fingernails tap-tapping
the Formica counter in a Midwestern winter kitchen. Like the pain
in my shoulder there was only build, until wind drove the rain at
my face and chest and I walked against a freezing wall of wet.

I considered no choices. I had made my
choice and all others were closed to me. I watched the ground and
plodded on. The dirt track soon became mud. It filled my boots with
extra weight, sucking obscenely at every step. But a step or a slog
made no difference to me. I was going nowhere and I was in no hurry
to get there.

In minutes, or hours, the track ended at a
road. I hadn’t looked up in a long while so when the orderly stones
appeared at my feet I stopped, not knowing what to do about them.
The choice of left or right was of no matter. I had infinite time
to decide so I did not decide.

My father would have been ecstatic to see a
real Roman road in such pristine form. As he would have done and as
I had not yet had an opportunity to do, I knelt to examine the
stones. Wild rain splashed on rock, then, turning tame, let itself
be guided into gullies along the road’s edges to drain from the
surface. It was Roman engineering, at work long after the engineers
had gone. Yet the road would be buried under civilization in a few
hundred years. Nothing lasts forever, not even stone.

I picked up a gray-white rock. Arthur had an
“extra muscle,” he called it, to reach back and touch his
ancestors. My father existed neither back in time nor forward.
There I held him in the Roman stone, across unbridgeable time. I
knew in my heart that I could not have saved my father. My mother
couldn’t have saved him, either. Only he could have saved
himself.

Nor could I have saved Arthur. He had won
wars and led armies long before I showed up. I had made too much of
myself, taken too much on. I had done Arthur wrong but I had not
ruined him; the larger world around him bore that burden regardless
of me, even regardless of Arthur. He had asked honesty of me, and
there I had failed him. That responsibility I accepted.

I don’t know how long I sat hugging the rock
to my chest. The rain did not let up but I felt no need to shelter
from it. Gradually, dawn glistened on the splashing gullies. Clouds
and rain could not disguise day, however sunless. In the west the
light would soon break over Cadebir. Even slowed by the storm,
Lancelot and his men would be there by now, fighting to save
Guinevere. I pushed myself up to stand, watching rain splash into
the channels and drain away like memory. The stone in my hand was
as heavy as a heart. No road could take me back to repair my
mistakes. Some mistakes were not mine to fix. “Bless them,” I
whispered to the stone. With my good arm, I threw it as far as I
could out onto the plain.

The Giant’s Ring loomed there in the
downpour, across a bleak meadow. I hadn’t seen it in the dark,
standing staunch against the storm. My first impression of the
stones had been of hulking, downtrodden animals. But in the storm,
with no fence to cage them, the stones appeared like great wizards
who chose to congregate there, standing strong together and waiting
to welcome me.

I sought the land bridge and found it not
far up the road. When our war party had loitered there, King Arthur
and his friends had taken their time crossing it, their heads bent
in contemplation. Had Arthur reached across the centuries and
touched his ancestors then? Had he considered time as he walked
among the stones rubbing his square, stubbled chin? If there were a
place in the world where reaching back was possible, it was
Stonehenge. Could it be a place for reaching forward?

Soaked past cold, my sodden boots sank in
the puddles. Water splashed in the ditch below the land bridge. I
had no need for hurry. At the end of the bridge I came to a single,
giant stone. It was rough to the touch. Drawing my fingers along
its length, I crossed over to hallowed ground.

The standing stones faced each other in
pairs, some with a third slab across their tops for a roof, making
rocky gazebos in an ethereal park. Like any animal would, I
scrambled through the weeds to take shelter beneath the nearest one
and sank to the ground, closing my eyes against the shivers that
rattled me. Now I could go home.

I had once feared death in the Dark Ages
because it meant I would never be born, never be known. Ha!
Ridiculous. What others knew of me didn’t make me important. It was
what I knew of myself that mattered. I had done something
worthwhile at last. I had loved my friends. I had given everything
for them. They wouldn’t know and neither would history. But I knew,
and I could rest.

FORTY-SEVEN

Something soft nibbled my ear. My ears
pounded and a tingling static shook my body. The thing nibbled
again and the shaking stopped. I opened my eyes. Rain filled the
puddle where I lay, fetal and numb. Lucy’s big face hovered over
me. She nickered sweet and low.

“Lucy.” My lips formed her name but my lungs
gave no breath to sound.

Lucy nickered again and nudged my thigh.

“I can’t get up.” I didn’t want to try.

Lucy insisted, nibbling at my legs and
snorting. With her saddle still strapped on her back, she was
missing half a rein. The other one dragged on the ground,
threatening to trip her. She was soaked and muddy but otherwise
unscathed.

“You’re so beautiful.”

Lucy nudged my foot and tossed her head, as
if she had something to say.

I still had one good arm. I used it to push
myself up to sit, and leaned against the stone. The rain would not
stop. My last meal had been the night before. The constant pain
exhausted me. I had completed my mission with nowhere to go.

Lucy didn’t seem to mind the rain. Together
we watched as the wind rose. It threw its weight around and beat
down the grass. When thunder shook with the seismic volume of an
earthquake, the lightning that followed came so close it blinded
me. In its split-second after-light I saw what Lucy was trying to
tell me.

Myrddin had been at the Giant’s Ring.

Across the circle, atop the stone formations
where the tops were as flat as tables, stood a legion of clumsy,
clay jars—a little army poised at attention.

Rain at the full moon. Myrddin must have
waited for me and finally given up. But he had come.

The stone’s surface felt smoother than I
expected but rough enough for gripping. I pulled myself up, stiff
with unfolding surrender. Lucy snorted and tossed her head, glad to
see me obey her. I led her into the open by her single rein,
seeking a boost, stumbling in the weeds to find a stone from which
to mount. But even the fallen stones were giants too huge to climb.
With thunder and lightning crackling around us, at last I found a
smaller stone I could crawl onto. From there I managed to throw
myself across the wet saddle and pull until I was home on Lucy’s
back.

I had not wanted to leave Cadebir. I still
didn’t. But I had to go. One more deep breath filled me with the
sorrow of a last look. I drew Myrddin’s knife from my belt. I would
be ready when lightning struck.

The sky emitted a growl from its thunderous
throat. The growl became a rumble, then a roar. Lucy reared and
neighed. When the lightning came it shattered sight into a thousand
pieces, like a mirror smashed against a wall. I threw Myrddin’s
knife at the batteries, thinking not of my bad aim in junior high
sports but of my success with a fireball at the promontory. For a
second I regretted throwing; if I missed I might yet need Myrddin’s
knife to protect myself. But if I missed, no weapon would help
me.

The little knife flew through the wild air
and hit the batteries at the moment the thunder exploded. Lucy
reared again, and because I wasn’t holding on I fell. I scrambled
for her single rein, unable to find it in my chaotic tumble. I
couldn’t lose Lucy again. I couldn’t get home without her and I
couldn’t be without her in the Dark Ages. She and I were refugees
from the same paved roads, the same streetlights, the same
comforts, the same smells, the same familiar, inexplicably lost
century.

I tripped and fell backward in the high
grass. Lucy’s big, gray nose loomed above me. A flash of lightning
revealed her dangling rein. I reached for it.

FORTY-EIGHT

“...shoulder’s dislocated rather badly.
How’re the scans?”

“Normal.”

“Lucky.”

English. The British kind. One male, one
female. Strong smell of antiseptic.

A finger lifted my eyelid. A light beamed
directly into my eye. I jerked back.

“Oh, hello!” A white-haired man hovered
behind the bright orb, his face mere inches from mine. He clicked
off the light and sat back, revealing a dour nurse behind him.

“I’m Dr. Rattish,” said the man. “Do you
know who you are?”

“Mmm. Yeah.”

“Tell me your name.” He tucked the
flashlight into the pocket of his lab coat.

“Cassandra.” My throat was dry, my head hurt
and my ears would not stop ringing.

“Do you know where you are?”

“Uh...hospital?”

“Right you are. In hospital at Salisbury.
How many fingers?” His dry, wrinkly hand snapped out of the end of
his lab coat sleeve like the head of a tortoise.

The fluorescents forced me to squint.
“Two.”

“Excellent. Now count backwards for me, from
ten.”

I did, mumbling.

“That’s fine. You must not move your left
arm and shoulder for now. When the painkiller wears off, ring for
the nurse.”

The nurse frowned.

“You’ve a concussion which we shall
monitor,” said Dr. Rattish, “but your signs are good. We’ll keep
you tonight for observation and if you’re well enough tomorrow, you
may go home.”

Wherever that was. “What happened?”

“The police are hoping you can tell them.
You’ve gone missing for a month. Do you know where you’ve
been?”

I knew. “No.”

“Well. You haven’t been unconscious for
thirty days. That’s not possible. If the memory doesn’t return, you
may want to speak to a psychologist. Oh!” He jabbed his hand into
his pocket and pulled out a white business card, which he laid on
the tray table beside the bed. “There’s a lawyer wants you to ring
him. But rest before litigation, if you please.”

“Lucy?”

“I’m sure I don’t know her. You may
telephone her tomorrow. Rest now.” The last bit he said as the door
swung closed behind him, the nurse at his heels.

Next to the business card stood a plastic
sippy cup with a straw. Glad I hadn’t blurted out some insanity to
the doctor (“I went to Camelot!”), I was more thirsty than curious.
Water, in its controlled form, was a relief.

Missing a month.

My memory had the purity of reality, but
although Arthur had spoken of reaching back through time one
doesn’t really do that, one only wishes one could. I’d had a
concussion, not an experience. An injury, not a memory.

I tried to roll onto my side and became
twisted in the sheets, frustrated by the pillow. I ended up on my
back as before, with tears draining into my ears.

None of it had happened.

I pushed myself to sitting, a
one-armed-struggle, and plucked up the business card. Its embossed,
gray lettering said “A. D. Bellorham, Esq.” Ambulance-chaser. I
flipped the card to the table and missed. The card fell to the
floor. In the flipping motion I caught sight of Guinevere’s
tarnished ring on my little finger, with the shape of Stonehenge
etched on its surface.

FORTY-NINE

Constable Norman Davies stank of cigarettes.
His mud-brown hair was parted in the middle, as was the thick
mustache that sheltered most of his mouth like the thatched eaves
of an English cottage. I wondered how he smoked under there without
igniting himself. Davies ushered me through the hospital door into
a morning so bright I had to shield my eyes.

“Lovely after all that rain, innit? It was
really chuckin’ it down.”

The constable’s petite, brightly-checkered
police car waited conveniently in the circular driveway. I was
thankful we didn’t have to walk far. Wherever I’d been, not
everything had survived the ordeal and I didn’t much relish being
seen. My fanny pack was no longer black but a faded charcoal color;
I carried it bundled in my hand because the threads were gone where
Lynet had sewn the belt—if indeed she had sewn it. The pockets of
my cargo pants hung open like astonished mouths where I remembered,
or imagined, Lynet had repaired them. My bandaged feet would not
fit my ravaged, silly boots, so the constable carried the boots and
I wore sillier hospital booties. The only thing on me that wasn’t
ruined was my nice, new sling.