Carnelian (30 page)

“Are you guys crazy? Why would we wait for
him? He took me and god knows what they planned to do with me. Yes,
I escaped because it wasn’t safe staying with those guys,” I
complained, looking between the two men.

Seth didn’t let go of my hand, and used that
to pull me closer. He laughed a little, with relief and at my
ranting.

“Ty heard the slaves talking about how to
keep the army from heading home. The longer we’re at war here, the
longer we don’t fight against other enemies. That’s what he was
telling me about. Dee joined them on my request to keep track of
them, and I’m grateful he did,” Seth replied, looking me over for
any marks now also.

“Dee isn’t working with them?” I asked. I
felt bad that I even doubted him. Seth, Ty, and Dee had gone to the
future and back to save their country. Why did I think Dee would
try to undo what they did?

“No,” Seth pulled me close again. “We will
wait one day for him and then we will go back to my father where
it’s best to be. I promised you that I’d keep you safe. It’s here
with my father now that we’ve flushed out the dissenters.”

Seth pulled me down near the fire, and we
sat near the warmth. Seth pulled my head down to his lap to be a
pillow. I was really tired, and he could see that much. He stroked
my head as he played with my hair.

“We will go back to my home as soon as this
war is done and be married. I plan to spend my life with you and
show you my world. I’ve seen yours, now I can’t wait to show you
mine.” Seth leaned down and kissed my temple.

He sat for a little bit longer, just holding
me before he began to talk with Ty. Seth and Ty talked softly, but
I ignored them. I stared at the flames of the fire. I had no clue
what I had gotten into, but Seth was right. He was always there to
save me.

Before I knew it, dawn came. I don’t know if
I dozed off or just vegged out, but the sun on the horizon was
noticeable from our spot. We waited in the cave while the sun rose
and then turned to noon and afternoon. Dee didn’t come. Ty and Seth
anxiously waited for our friend. I didn’t think before I left
whether he would be punished, but now I realized he might have been
in trouble for letting me get away. I should not have doubted Dee.
He was Seth’s best friend. As we ate the meager supper Seth and Ty
had brought, Ty stood outside the cave and looked for Dee.

“He’s here,” Ty called from the mouth of the
cave.

Dee stumbled into the small space behind Ty.
He was wheezing for breath as he tried to talk. He apparently had
been running for quite some time to get to us. I didn’t even know
how far away this cave was after the circled run around the
hillsides last night in the dark.

“We can’t leave,” Dee finally said. “There
are at least fifty slaves out in the canyon looking for Mari. She
was our bargaining ticket. We can’t make it out of here without
them giving chase.”

Ty shrugged. “We stay here until they leave
or the general sends men to find Seti. You know he completely
trusts Seti, but he’s a bit overbearing and always doesn’t let him
get too far away for too long.”

“
And then what will you do
if they find us in the mean time?” Dee asked. “They are running
around this hill right now as we talk.” Outside the cave we heard
voices. Dee looked at us as he moved back outside the cave. “They
want Mari. They won’t hesitate to kill you or Seti if they can have
her. We need to go further into the cave.”

Seth took my hand, and we followed Ty into
the darkness of the cave. Dee took the rear and kept a look out for
our pursuers. I didn’t think it was exactly safe to wander around a
cave, but the chance of Ty, Dee, and Seth fighting over fifty men
and surviving didn’t sound good either. We had to make a choice
between two bad choices. Seth’s time was turning out to be harder
than I thought it would be.

My hand pulsed, and I stopped walking. It
was a message from the goddess. I knew it.

“Mari, what?” Seth asked, stopping alongside
me.

“Didn’t you go to some cave to pray to the
goddess?” I asked. Ty stopped and turned around, our faces only lit
by the fire.

“Yes, why?” Seth asked.

“My hand is pulsing. Maybe it’s our way out
of here, or there might be a stone to the goddess that way,” I
pointed in a direction away from where Ty was leading us. Ty looked
to Seth. Seth nodded, and off we went through the cave. I didn’t
know why we needed to go that way, but we did.

I heard voices behind us. Men had entered
and were following us in the caves. I didn’t know if they were
following us deeper into the cave, but we couldn’t be sure where
they were because the sound echoed. We had to keep going to stay
safe. I directed the guys, and we turned a few more times. When we
reached a dead end, all of the guys stopped first. It looked like
an ordinary cavern to me, just like the last one we passed through,
but to them it wasn’t. The voices were still behind us and we
couldn’t afford to stop. I had no idea what the guys were all
doing. Seth moved over to a spot on the floor and bent down. He
picked up a stone at the same time as Ty and Dee did as well. Each
guy held a stone in their own hands.

“How’d you know to lead us here?” Ty
asked.

“I don’t know,” I replied. The voices behind
us echoed as they got closer. The three guys all looked around the
cave in awe. They had absolutely been there before. Déjà vu was
written all over their faces.

“I don’t doubt the goddess on this one,”
Seth answered. “I think we’re supposed to go back to your time. I
don’t know why she would want us there again, but I think that’s
exactly what she wants.”

“I agree,” Ty and Dee each replied.

“You really want to go back now that your
father has said we can stay together?” I asked, turning to Seth. We
couldn’t be sure the people were actually following us since the
caves echoed voices in general, and jumping to the future seemed
like a rash decision.

“Mari, it doesn’t matter where I go or what
time I’m in, as long as I’m with you. All I want is to spend my
life with you, here, there, wherever we find ourselves,” Seth
wrapped his arm around me as he spoke. Tipping my head back, he
kissed me and then smiled as he pulled back that he had convinced
me easily. I didn’t want to admit it, but his words did convince
me. “I’ll keep you safe forever, just let me stay by your
side.”

“Fine,” I replied, pretending that it wasn’t
that easy to get me to do something with just a kiss. If we needed
to go back to my time, then we would. The guys were probably right.
The goddess wouldn’t have led us to this spot unless we were to do
something.

Ty and Dee exchanged glances, and finally
Dee came up to me. Maybe he had a second thought about going to the
future with someone who didn’t believe him.

“Dee,” I said quietly. “Sorry I called you a
traitor.”

“That doesn’t matter now. What matters is
that you need to get out of here,” Dee replied. “They are
specifically looking for you, and I know I can’t protect you once
they have you. It would be fifty against one.”

“We all need to get out of here,” I
corrected, trying to be sure he knew that I wanted him there with
us.

“And there’s only one way for us all to get
out,” Dee replied. He took my hand and placed a cool, round object
in it before closing my hand around it. I went to look at it, but
he was already talking. “Guys, I’m going to leave and try to stall
them. We don’t know how long it will take for you to go back
through time, and you might need the extra time stalling if they
decided to come this way.”

“You can’t,” I replied. We were all meant to
go together. If they found out he was betraying them… I doubt it
would end well for him.

Ty and Seth didn’t seem to see the danger in
it, or they weighed their options and decided it was best that Dee
protect us. Seth nodded and grasped Dee’s arm. They didn’t say
anything, just nodded. Ty did the same to Dee. Dee smiled at me and
grabbed the makeshift torch.

“Stay safe, Mari. I don’t think we even know
the beginning of why we were sent to find you,” Dee told me before
he turned to go. If Ty and Seth wouldn’t stop him, I doubted I
could. I reached forward and grabbed his arm before he could
go.

I pulled him down to me that I could kiss
his cheek. “Stay safe.”

Dee smiled and disappeared back the way we
came. He must have made it to the other men as the talking seemed
to stop progressing after a few minutes. Their voices faded, and I
hoped they were off going another direction. I felt like we were
left alone in the cave now.

“What do we do then?” I asked the guys.

I was not going to take time to debate if we
should go now that Dee sacrificed himself to let us leave. If we
could go to the future and that would keep Ty and Seth alive, then
that’s where we belonged. It wasn’t like they would have to start
over either. Seth and Ty had a life in the future. Maybe the plan
was all along to get me to know the truth. Maybe all the goddess
wanted me to do in the past was learn who my mother was. I knew
now, and it was time to go to the future. I didn’t know what the
future would hold for us, or how long we could all be there
together, but I was sure we didn’t want to stick around to find out
what would happen in the past.

“We pray,” Ty said. He knelt before the
wall, and I finally saw the outline as faint as the lines on my
arm.

“Guess our future is in the future,” Seth
answered. He leaned over and kissed me briefly before kneeling by
Ty. I knelt beside the two boys. The voices were growing louder
again. It was now or never.

“Please take us home to when we left,” I
said to the wall in front of us. I could almost faintly make out
the face of the goddess in the painting on the wall. Beneath the
wall were small statues, at least twenty of them. I felt the urge
to stand and touch the drawing before it came to me. The only thing
I needed to travel was to picture where I wanted to be.

I pictured my room at home and waited. I
thought of my bed, the exact moment I had left. I wanted to be back
there. I wanted to go home and save us from the men who were
hunting me, of all people. I had been to the past for only two
days, and yet I was an object the general wanted to use for his
family’s gain, and an object the slaves wanted to use to prolong
the war. I never knew my life could be complicated. I needed to go
home. The world faded into darkness, and the voices that had almost
arrived were gone.

My eyes opened
to look around the space I was in, my room. I let
out the deep breath I had been holding. I was glad to be home. My
heart was still pounding from our escape. I looked around my room,
disappointed that I didn’t see Seth beside me, before I remembered
that I had asked the goddess to return us to the exact moment when
we left. That meant that Seth was seven hours away in Minneapolis
while I was at home outside Chicago. I picked up my phone and
flipped it open to be sure. It was one in the morning on November
twenty-third. That meant it was Thanksgiving Day. I had been
missing a total of maybe four hours since I left to find
Seth.

I finally opened my hand to see what Dee had
given me. I didn’t think much of the color of the smooth object in
my hand as we were leaving the past. I would not have guessed it
was a goddess stone by the coolness that went with it. The
carnelian stone had always been warm. This turquoise green stone
was more like a cold day than anything, not even room temperature.
I turned the stone around in my hand and found the illegible
markings on the back side. I rubbed it a bit, but nothing came into
focus. It was just like when I had first seen Seth’s stone. Then it
hit me. This must have been Dee’s stone. Ty and Dee didn’t know
that I already had the carnelian in my arm, I didn’t need a stone
to travel. Dee must have stayed behind not to slow the other men
down, but to give me his stone. Dee really was a great guy. I
couldn’t believe he would do that for Seth or for me. Somehow, I’d
have to go back some day to thank him.

Rubbing the red lines that now appeared only
faintly on my arm, I contemplated what to do next. I really wanted
to call Seth and make sure he was fine, but my ancient boyfriend,
who was now my fiancée, never had a cell phone before we traveled
back in time. He was too old to learn new tricks, and now I
resented him for not being easier to talk to. I really wanted to
hear his voice. Heck, I really wanted to jump into his arms and
kiss him. We made it back. We could continue our life in the
present. He kept me safe, just like he promised.

There was a pang of regret that we had left
Dee behind. I didn’t like him much when I first met him, but since
he would stay behind just to ensure my safety was beyond words. We
would never know how much time will pass between going into the
future or past. I hope that for his sake nothing happens to him for
siding with us. He turned out to not be too bad after all.

I turned off the light by my bed and picked
my phone back up. I scrolled through the numbers, but knew that one
in the morning was not the time to call anyone, and the real person
I wanted to call didn’t leave me a number to call him. Instead, I
would have to wait until break was done in a few days. Then I could
drive back north and find the love of my life. I didn’t have any
doubts he would be waiting for me. We were meant to be together. If
I could make it three weeks without him, waiting the weekend would
be a cinch.

Closing my phone, I sat in the complete
darkness of my bedroom. What I’d give to be able to hug Seth right
now. We made it. After all our trying, we stayed safe and made it
back to a time when no one could keep us apart. Too bad hugs would
have to wait. If I was lucky, my grandfather would have a number to
the Sangre home, and I’d at least get a chance to talk to Seth
before driving back.