The Isis Knot (10 page)

My daughter, I am so sorry for everything. I know this doesn’t make up for a lifetime of absence, but I’d like you to know how often I’ve thought of you over the years and regretted my choices.

Mitchell Oliver

A stranger’s name.

A loud bang jolted Sera out of the memory. Gasping, the knife fell from her fingers. Her head whipped toward the barn, where a sheep was making an awful squealing sound. Something made of wood crashed and splintered, and an old man let out a hoarse, fearful cry of alarm.

She jumped to her feet as the sickening sounds increased. More crashing and bleating. Dust filtered out of the cracks in the barn. She had no idea what was going on inside, but it sounded like a chase or a battle. She’d stayed far away from the animals since her arrival here, knowing instinctually that beasts were not her thing. She’d been a city girl, through and through. But Viv could be hurt, or in danger. Another ragged cry from the old man, followed by a cringe-worthy, almost liquid bleat, and then silence.

She’d already taken three steps across the yard when the barn door flew open and Viv stumbled out, rivers of red running down his hands and forearms. The kangaroos nearby jolted and took off in a speedy bound.

“Jesus Christ!” she shouted. “Viv!”

As she hurried toward him, another sliver of memory was fed to her. She’d been taught not to care about bad things that happened to others. She’d been taught to try to find ways to use others’ misfortune for her own good. But that was the old Sera, and now she rushed to Viv’s side.

He staggered forward, overcompensating for the imbalance of each step. A sickly white pallor muted his ever-present tan. The hand that held the large, bloody shears shook violently. As she reached him, he collapsed to his knees, then fell sideways into the dirt.

“Are you hurt?” She dropped beside him.

“No.” He could barely keep his head up, and his eyes danced back and forth in their sockets. “I…I accidentally cut one. Cut one of me sheep. Had to kill it, I did. Can’t afford to buy another. At least we’ll eat well tonight.”

She took the shears from his trembling hand and set them on the ground. “I’ll get some water for you to wash up,” she said, because she didn’t know how else to react. “How did that happen? Did the sheep fight you?”

He looked down at himself and embarrassment turned his sweating face beet red. He struggled to come up on one elbow. “The bottles are empty.” He looked at the dirt, not her. “I thought I wouldn’t need it today.”

She sighed, sitting back on her heels. He’d drunk rum while shearing the past few days, but last night as they’d sipped their soup, his bottle had gone dry. She hadn’t known it was his last. He’d complained of a headache that morning and had gone into the barn without offering her his usual empty-toothed smile.

She recognized the withdrawal shakes now. Because she’d seen them on someone else. Someone else she’d taken care of. A woman with hair as dark as her own. Her mother maybe?

The wisp of memory drifted away as Viv fought to stand up. “I want to lie down. Inside. Just a quick rest.” He’d probably sleep the rest of the day, his withdrawal was so bad. His wobbly knees just barely supported his body.

“Let me help you,” Sera said.

“No, wife. Don’t you worry about me now.”

He wove his way toward the shack and she followed. Inside, he flopped onto the rickety cot she’d been sleeping on for the past seven nights. Blood rubbed off on the already stinking blanket, and she knew she wouldn’t sleep on that thing again.

She dragged over the water bucket. “Here. Have some water.”

He looked at her doubtfully, but then his cracked lips opened and closed like that of a dying fish. Sera bent and dipped the cup into the water.

“You’re so good to me, Mary.”

His eyes were closed and a look of wistful, heart-breaking love tugged at the corners of his thin lips. It cracked her own heart to see it.

She gently pressed the cup to his mouth. “Drink.”

After only a slight hesitation, he did. He gulped once, twice, then cringed and turned his face away like she’d made him drink unsweetened lemonade. She let him take a break. Then he lifted his eyes to hers. “I need more.”

“All right.” She extended the water.

“No.” A shaking finger pushed the cup away and his gaze drifted over to the leaning cupboard where his bottles were normally stashed. “I don’t want that.”

Her shoulders sagged, the remaining water dripping to the dirty floor. “Oh, Viv. You don’t need more rum. You need water. And probably a doctor.”

Dropping the cup back into the bucket with a splash, she stretched out a hand and pressed her left palm to his waxen, wrinkled forehead.

The skin beneath the gold cuff warmed and buzzed. And then she
saw
.

Viv’s shriveled, prone body disappeared. A blast of staccato images swept in to consume her vision:

A pudgy, naked boy baby suckling at the breast of a woman dressed in a simple robe, colorful beading at the neck. Her black hair, woven in tiny braids, swung over the baby’s olive skin.

A hunter, his adult body clad in a cloak made of stars, bow and arrow on his back. A dog sat obediently at his heels, and the canine’s eye was a single star that blotted out all the others in the sky.

The looped and knotted rope.

A name came to her, whispering through her mind—Isis.

Isis. Isis. Isis.

And then Sera
knew.

With a great surge that barreled down on her as hot as a furnace and swift as an eagle, she knew she could help Viv. Knew she could
heal
him. With this simple touch of her fingers and a prayer, she could erase his addiction and the sicknesses surrounding it.

Gasping, she snatched back her hand.

Viv peered at her, his body still shaking. “What is it, wife? What’s wrong?”

She backed away, half expecting blue lightning or some such nonsense to crackle out from her fingertips. She stared at her left hand, the cuff now inert and covered by her sleeve.

Ridiculous. Impossible. Magic didn’t exist.

Neither did time travel.

“I’m all right,” she murmured.

“Then go to town for me.” His hand waved at the pegs near the door, where his coat and hat hung. Some of the concern had left his voice, replaced with the edge of a frustrated drunk—something else she knew well. “Buy me more rum.”

The urge to touch his outstretched hand, to release the healing magic of Isis into his body, burned powerful and persistent. She stared at the blood drying on his nails and knuckles, the magic beneath the cuff pushing her forward. She saw nothing but a sickly man in need of her help.

“Sera? Sera?”

It was the sound of her true name that broke the trance. She shook her head, deleting the whispering call from her mind.

“Will you go to town for me?”

“But—” Oh, his hand. If she could just—

He glared. “I don’t need anything but the drink.”

Viv did need her, he just didn’t know it. But he also clearly didn’t want her anywhere near him if she wasn’t holding a bottle.

With a pang, she realized that much of what she’d done in her life had been against other people’s will. It wasn’t a specific memory that chose to come back at that moment, but a roll of emotions. Heavy, regretful emotions.

She’d taken advantage of people once. She’d stolen from them, disobeyed their pleas, hurt them. She’d disrespected their free will.

And she’d hated doing it.

If Viv didn’t want her to touch him or be near him, she wouldn’t go against that wish. If she did touch and heal him—even with a good outcome—would she be any better than the selfish woman she used to be, two centuries and half a world away?

She swallowed hard and stepped back to look at the coat and hat hanging on the peg. The loose door caught a breeze and opened wide enough for her to see outside. The afternoon sky was beginning to darken with the onset of rain.

If she left to do as Viv—the man who’d saved her life—wanted, she might also find the chance to ask about the blond man.

“Yes,” she said to the strange country, her mind churning. “Yes, I’ll go to town for you. I’ll get your rum.”

He sank heavily into the cot and the wood groaned. “Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you. Money’s in the pocket of my coat.”

He couldn’t afford to buy another sheep after the one he’d accidentally killed, but he could afford to drink himself to death.

As she took down the coat and swung it over her shoulders, her hands shook almost as badly as his. The coat smelled of wet animal and the coins with the holes jingled in the pocket.

“Follow the wagon tracks away from the farm until they fork. Then bear left. You should be there in a few hours. In Parramatta, go to Amherst’s.”

She slid the wide-brimmed hat onto her head and tucked her shortened hair underneath. A bag made of thick fabric also hung on the peg and she draped it across her body. Taking one last look back at the old man she’d come to care for, she said, “I’ll be back as soon as I can. Please eat something while I’m gone.”

He grinned. “I’ll try, wife.”

She left. Outside she could breathe better. She stepped to the edge of the porch and let the gum tree vapor soothe her soul and quiet what swirled inside her.

Magic. She had magic now.

The first few raindrops began to fall. She looked down to where they plopped in the yard and saw where she’d written her name in the dirt. Saw how she’d called forth the memory of her father’s letter and the history of the cuff.

Below her name, scratched in her own handwriting—though she had no memory of doing so—was another word.

William
.

CHAPTER 8

Sera popped the collar of Viv’s oiled coat and pulled his hat as far down on her head as it would go, but cool rain still found its way past the brim and collar, and ran in sheets down her back. She was beginning to think she’d never be dry again. The rain had steadily increased over the past few hours. Lightning continued to flash in the west, the echo of thunder coming at quicker and quicker responses. If she didn’t find cover soon, she’d be caught out in the middle of nowhere in a lightning storm.

The wagon ruts she’d been following for miles and the whole afternoon and evening had long since filled in with water, but she didn’t panic because in the distance flickered squares of light. Parramatta.

An image of twenty-first century Las Vegas threw itself against her mind. Las Vegas. Yes. Mitchell Oliver’s letter had mentioned that city. And
yes
, she’d been born there. She knew it now the way she knew her own name. She’d been a true child of that place, “born from its sins,” a woman’s cigarette-scratchy voice had told her time and time again. And Sera had believed her for a very, very long while.

But those lights in the distance didn’t come from neon or TVs or car headlights. The stillness of the world here was beyond unsettling.

The lightning and thunder had pretty much matched up by the time she reached the edge of Parramatta. Her shins and ankles burned from walking so long in Viv’s flat, too-big boots, and her body fought a bone-deep exhaustion. The town wasn’t much more than a cluster of plain, squat buildings that hugged a burbling river running as black as oil under the storm. More water carved its own streams between shops and homes. The place was simple and tame, but Sera couldn’t help but feel terrified.

Fear wouldn’t help Viv. And fear would only keep her from finding out where Brown and the blond man lived.

Head lowered, hands stuffed in the front coat pockets, she trudged down the widest mud avenue. No streetlights or glowing storefront signs guided her way. No vehicles either, just dripping-wet horses tied to wagons or posts. They watched her pass with little interest. She could only hope the rest of Parramatta’s inhabitants would do the same.

Straight ahead rose a ghostly white chapel steeple, the tallest structure for miles around, perhaps in all of New South Wales. Across from its main doors was a line of one-story wooden buildings all bearing the same low porch and deep eaves as Viv’s shack. A candle danced in the window of one, throwing light on the sign hanging on the wall near the door:
Simon Amherst, Chemist.

A loud, bright crack of lightning sent her scuttling toward the candle and door. She took a few deep breaths and stepped inside.

A long counter assembled from split logs lined the left side of the narrow shop. Wood shelves cradled rows of glass bottles and jars labeled with things like
Headache
and
Cough.
A layer of ruddy dust coated everything, making the room feel even darker. Water streamed off her coat and hat and made a wet circle at her feet.

A man stepped through a doorway in the back, but she only saw him from the shoulders down because her hat was still pulled low. He wasn’t overly tall, the pale striped shirt stretching tightly around his thick middle.

“Yes?” Suspicion trickled through his deep voice.

Viv wanted rum, but by the looks of this place, it provided medicine, too. What he wanted and needed were two different things.

“My husband is ill.” She lowered her voice, hoping the rain drumming on the roof would muffle her accent. Trying to imitate English speech would only make her more obvious. “I came for medicine.”