The Isis Knot (6 page)

“Take one step outside this wagon and your brains will be on the dirt,” Brown growled. “Don’t think I won’t. You’re just another worthless body to me.”

“Will. No.” Jem’s plaintive voice.

Go after her. Go. Go
. The demand inside William was a drumbeat. Loud. Incessant. Rousing.

Too many things telling him what to do. Too, too many. He’d been his own man once, and in this new land he’d become whole again. But death was not the way.

A chunk of dry, rotting wood splintered in his tightening fist. He let the remnants feather on the wind.

“Sit. Down,” Brown commanded.

Though it nearly destroyed him, William obeyed.

She’d managed to sit up in her wagon now, her legs splayed to one side. And she was still moving away. Twenty yards now. Thirty. She stared at him. Stared as though she knew him. As though she might know something about what lived inside him. As though she knew how to rid him of it forever.

Quickly he memorized everything about her and her situation, everything the visions hadn’t already given him. The slender, almost boyish lines of her body. The shape of her mouth as it dropped open. The direction of her wagon and the appearance of the old man who drove her away. Every nick and nail mark on the wagon that cradled her body.

He found her once. He’d find her again.

CHAPTER 4

A gun. There was a gun to the blond man’s head.

Sera shivered. Frozen because of the way the man stared at her, his bare chest heaving, one leg propped up on the side of his wagon, ready to jump over. Ready to come after
her
.

Frozen because something inside told her she knew him.

And because she knew what a gun to the head felt like. The press of cold metal seeping into your hair. The threat. The paralyzing fear. Your willingness to do anything to make it go away.

A scene flashed before her eyes, erasing the wagon and the three men, and replacing it with a memory. A man with thick, shining black hair and equally black eyes stood before her. He held a gun in his deeply tanned hand, the barrel pointed right at her. An onyx night sky stretched above, the wind whipped his clothes around his body, and behind him rose a sand-colored hill with a jagged door cut in one side. It was hot, and she could feel the sweat seeping from her pores. The man—Malik, yes, that was his name—walked toward her, glittering eyes on the gold cuff around her arm, his lips pulled back to show expensive white teeth. He pressed the gun to her forehead. A wave of terror passed through her. Then physical pain and the sickly sense of death. Then the searing white light.

Gasping, Sera fell out of the memory.

It was daylight again, and the other wagon had pulled even farther away. The driver faced his horse again. The blond man knelt in the wagon bed now, hands curled over the sides, still staring at her. She stared back—at the swing of wavy hair around his chin, at the hard lines between the muscles in his arms—until he disappeared.

She
knew
him.

Or did she really? The sense of recognition, of familiarity, was undeniable, but neither his face, body, or actions triggered any kind of actual memory. Just emotions. And when she tried to focus on those emotions, to draw answers out of them, something about them didn’t feel right. They were detached, removed. Like they belonged to someone else.

Now Malik…Malik and his gun were one of her true memories. She’d lived that horrific scene with him, and it had happened right before the white light had stolen her away. He’d threatened her. There’d been death—someone’s, but not her own—and then she’d found herself here.

Viv had called this place New South Wales. The name seemed oddly familiar, too, but not in the same way as a memory. She racked her brain, but the harder she concentrated, the more elusive the connection became.

“Viv.” A bit of her strength was returning, but her voice sounded thin and it felt like someone had clawed her throat raw using needles doused in chili peppers and lemon juice. She managed to turn herself over and considered it a victory. She cleared her throat and tried again. “Viv.”

“Eh?” He pivoted on his bench. “You all right?” At least that’s what Sera thought he said.

“Who were they?” She gestured at the vanished wagon.

He frowned at the spot on the horizon the blond man had once occupied. “Brown. Colonist. Owns a ranch not too far from here.”

She didn’t much care about the man with the gun. “And the other two?”

Viv removed his hat, swiped at his damp forehead and put the hat back on. “Another ship just arrived, I heard. Looks like Brown’s been given two more convicts for labor. Maybe they’ll live longer than his last.” He blinked at her, that worry again turning down the far corners of his watery eyes. “Brown didn’t look at you twice, and that’s a good thing. But if word of you gets out, he’ll be the first to claim he saw you with me. I don’t know how much longer you’ll be safe.”

One word stood out like a blaring siren and she couldn’t get past it.
Convicts
. As in, sentenced criminals. And the blond man, apparently, was one of them.

Why, if gentle old Viv was offering her safety and she sensed no threat from him, did she feel this urge to roll off his wagon and stumble toward the man who’d disappeared from sight? To disregard the generosity and protection of Viv to run into the unproven arms of a strange
criminal
?

Another slew of memories stabbed into her mind.
Stabbed
was a good word, because they kept coming, swift and painful, one after the other. Memories of thefts, of stealing. Of her own hands slipping into strangers’ pockets and purses, pulling out wallets and poker chips. Distracting people while she slid jewelry directly off their skin. The sickening emotions that came with it. The instant regret afterward but the inability to change anything. The ravaging guilt keeping her awake at night.

Oh God, no. She was a criminal, too. A convict.

So why did that still not feel quite right?

The gold around her forearm pressed hard and cool against her skin. Viv’s back was to her, so she chanced a quick peek underneath her shirt sleeve. Had she stolen this piece? Was that why she’d been running? Had she taken it from Malik and that was why he’d pointed the gun at her? Because he wanted it back?

Squeezing her eyes shut, she tried desperately to remember. To call out the defining memory. But the harder she tried, the blacker her past—and present—felt. Frustrated and anxious, she opened her eyes and decided on a new strategy. Maybe if she was patient and smart, if she was careful and observational, answers and opportunity would come to her.

She’d learned that from her mother, and it hadn’t been a good lesson.

But as quickly as that realization came to her, the specific memories surrounding it skated away, out of reach.

The gold shimmered beneath her blue shirt as though it were under direct sunlight. A distinct pang strummed at her heart.

It called to the blond man. Wanted him to come back. Wanted Sera to go to him.

Weakness still dominated her bones, Viv still drove his wagon in the opposite direction of Brown’s, and too many questions pinged inside her mind.

She stretched out on one side, cradling her head on her arm. She was not hiding, not giving up, but now was not the time to go charging into the unknown.

She kept watch on the spot where the blond man was last seen until her eyes closed on their own.

#

“Sera. Sera.”

Someone called to her from the dark. An uneven, wheezing voice that vibrated on the
R
. She knew that voice. Sort of.

“Sera. I’ve brought you home.”

Home.
She did not know the meaning of that word. Or, at least, how it applied to her.

She opened her eyes, but the scenery provided no definition. Rutted patches of dirt sat between a tilting wooden shack on the left and an only slightly less tilting barn on the right. The wall slats of both were roughly hewn and gray, and none of them matched up correctly. In the near distance, a fence enclosed a few sheep. In the far distance…nothing. Miles and miles of nothing. Bushes of all shapes and shades of green. Trees with drooping boughs and trunks of peeling white bark. Far beyond that loomed layered hills that shimmered with a faint blue haze.

Silence permeated everything.

“It’s not much,” Viv said with a cough. When he smiled, it seemed like his brown skin might crack and crumble like an autumn leaf. “But it’s mine. Mary would’ve been so proud.”

Proud
came out sounding like
prood
.

She realized, in a moment that felt like a punch to the gut, that he sounded different to her because he was British, or possibly Scottish.

And she was American.

Yes. She was. Mentally she grabbed for more facts, more memories, desperate for the tiniest hint about her life. But as quickly as they yawned open, the doors to her past slammed closed and sealed up tight, not allowing anything else through.

She tried to sit up, the rest having done her mind good, even though her blood still felt like old wine, thick and vinegary. But when she lifted her head from her arm, a sharp pain yanked at her scalp.

Viv waved a gnarled finger at her head. “Your hair is caught.” He swallowed and glanced away. “On that.”

While she’d slept and been jostled around, her sleeve had inched up again. The long tangle of her hair had gotten caught on the gold—on some sort of symbol that rose in bas-relief from the shiny surface. Her face was too close to the design to make it out.

Sera awkwardly pushed to sit up, then unsuccessfully tried to unwind her hair from the trap. Finally she just gave it a good rip, and a chunk of hair broke off around her shoulder. She picked the snapped-off strands of black from the gold and stared at the symbol.

It looked like a segment of rope with three loops—one standing up, the other two drooping to the sides—knotted and tied around the middle, with the cut rope ends dangling out the bottom.

So frighteningly, achingly familiar. And yet still utterly foreign.

The moment she touched it, the stroke nothing more than the skim of a feather, a voice filled her head. A woman’s voice. Melodious and strong, saying nonsensical words.

“Remember what I said.” Viv broke Sera out of the trance.

Her head snapped up, her finger dropping from the symbol. The voice instantly went silent.

The old man’s face had gone dark again. “About keeping that out of sight. Come. I’ll get you some water. I may have some tea. Somewhere.” Then he turned and limped toward the shack.

Sera just sat there, the looped symbol sparkling in the sun. She nudged the edge of the cuff and it slid down to her wrist. The gold had left a mark on her skin, an indentation caused by the weight of her head on it as she’d slept. Only this picture was far more detailed, and apparently it had been carved into the underside of the cuff.

She tried to slide the gold off her hand to look at the design directly, but could not get it past her wrist. It seemed—if that were possible, and given all the shit that seemed to be happening to her, maybe it was—that it actually changed size, tightening and narrowing as she pushed it toward her fingertips. No matter where she positioned it on her arm, it seemed to mold to her skin perfectly. There was no clasp or hinge.

The lines on her skin were fading, but they made the shapes of two people with boxy, awkwardly positioned bodies in profile. One of the figures wore some kind of helmet or something, with horns curling upward. The other had an animal’s head. Their stance indicated they might be fighting.

Viv’s voice called across the yard. “Are you coming? Do you need help down?”

Rolling her sleeve over the gold, she scooted to the edge of the wagon, then set her feet on the ground. Her flat shoes had straps across her feet, and she remembered Viv commenting about them as he’d driven the wagon through a completely empty land. Her mind insisted they were not strange, but looking at them now, in this dusty place, all she felt was different. Out of place.

She slowly crossed the farmyard. Viv waited for her by a set of small, slanted steps leading up to the wide boardwalk surrounding the shack. Calling the boardwalk a porch and the shack a house would have been too kind on both accounts.

He limped up the steps—thump
thump
thump
thump
—and went inside, leaving the door open. With a long glance around the farm’s surrounding emptiness, she followed.

Inside was even more depressing—dark and cramped and primitive. Late-day sunlight entered in dusty streams through mismatched cracks in the walls. A cot with a smelly blanket was pushed in the corner to the right, and a rounded stove and a faded green cupboard sat against the opposite wall.

“I’ll sleep in the barn,” he said as he tottered toward the cupboard.

Sera guessed that meant the cot was hers, and she wondered how long she could stomach sleeping in this place. The gesture was generous, but there was a spot under a nearby tree that looked cleaner and more comfortable than what was inside. And this didn’t seem
right
, staying here.

When she considered what
did
seem right, a man’s face, framed by matted blond curls, came to mind.