Toil and Trouble (27 page)

“They kill you?” I whispered. Mercedes just nodded. “So, how are you here now if they’ve already killed you in the past?”

“I simply repeatedly relive the time before my death.”

“You mean, like reliving the same day over and over?”

Mercedes shrugged. “Something similar, yes. Though not just one day. I can relive any of my nine hundred years.”

“Nine hundred?!” I gasped. Damn, she gave Sinjin a run for his money. He was just a baby at six hundred. I calmed myself down and tried to grasp the facts, tried to understand how what Mercedes was telling me was possible. “So, how do you really know you’ll die if you haven’t lived to that point yet?”

“A vision,” Mercedes answered succinctly. “And I do not care to test it.” She smiled broadly and I smiled back. Touche.

As if the proverbial lightbulb went off over my head, it suddenly dawned on me as to why Mercedes had first seemed so familiar. Her voice pulled at some latent recollection deep inside me. “Your voice,” I started, still in awe. “I knew I’d heard it before but couldn’t put my finger on how. Now I know. It was when I was battling Odran’s fairy, Dougal, and I was dying. I heard your voice, you saved me.”

She faced me and shook her head, dropping her attention to her small hands. “I did not save you, Jolie, I merely gave you the positive reinforcement you needed to find your own magic.”

I didn’t know what to make of that. All this time, I’d thought it was someone else’s magic that had saved me. But, it had been my own all along. Maybe I was more powerful than I’d ever imagined. The thought pleased me, made me proud to be who I was, not to mention what I was.

I glanced at Mercedes, and noticed she was just watching me patiently, allowing me time to come to terms with everything she’d said. And, man, was there a lot of it. But, somehow I couldn’t get past Mercedes and her powers. This was the first I’d ever seen a rainbow aura and I’d never heard of anyone being able to time travel. Suddenly, something occurred to me. “Are you the prophetess?”

She laughed and her voice carried through the room like an echo. She walked back towards me and I sat down on my bed again, feeling like I needed to sit in order to let everything sink in.

“I have been called many things throughout the ages. Prophetess seems to be the most recent.”

“Oh my God,” I started, dumbfounded. “The prophetess is real.”

“Quite so.”

I shook my head, as if to clear any residual delirium. There
was
a prophetess and she just happened to be standing in front of me. Wow, Mercedes was the real deal. “So, all that time that Bella had me searching for you to bring you back to life again, I couldn’t find you because you were never really dead.”

“Yes.”

“How did Bella know about you?”

Mercedes’ eyes narrowed. “I do not know. Perhaps lore that had been passed down through the centuries.”

I nodded, I guess it made sense. I mean, Bella really had no clue who she was searching for and had me trying to bring back some old bag twice who had nothing to do with the prophetess. It was sort of funny, actually. But, I didn’t have time to focus on Bella.

“Okay, getting back to business, how are we going to send me, er, us back?”

Mercedes’ lips formed a straight line. “Unfortunately it is not quite as easy as you make it sound. Sending us back will require the magic of more than just you and me.”

“But, how were you able to bring me here?” I demanded, refusing to accept the fact that getting back to my own time was going to be difficult. Mercedes was the prophetess; how could her magic be limited?

“As I said before, your magic guard was down, otherwise I would not have been able to reach you at all.” She shrugged. “Incidentally, even with your magic defenses down, it took an inordinate amount of my own magic. It took me all night and well into the next day to recuperate. I simply cannot break through your barriers alone.”

“Then, who can?” I asked immediately, half guessing what her response would be as my stomach started to sink.

“We need Rand, Jolie. We require his assistance.”

I shook my head. Yep, I figured Rand would enter into the equation. Dammit! “He hates me.”

She smiled but the smile didn’t quite reach her eyes. “He distrusts you which is natural to his disposition. You must win him over, Jolie.”

I sighed, thinking how futile her suggestion was. Rand had already demonstrated that he wanted nothing to do with me and worse, was probably devising ways to get rid of me. “I’ve tried and failed. I don’t know what else to do.”

Mercedes sat next to me again and patted my knee, as if realizing I needed reassurance. But, what I really needed wasn’t reassurance, it was a time machine.

“We require the assistance of two people who know you in this year and who knew you in your own time.”

Great, I was going to be stuck here forever. It was hard enough to woo Rand to my side but now I needed one other person? Looked like it would be the loony ward for me. I felt tears welling up in my eyes and I dropped my head, trying to subdue them. “Rand is the only one who knows me from both times,” I whispered.

“Are you certain?”

Then it dawned on me. Rand wasn’t the only one who knew me. I glanced up at Mercedes, my eyes wide. “Pelham?”

Mercedes shook her head, dashing my hopes into tiny shards of frustration. “I’m afraid both parties must be of the magical persuasion.”

My shoulders slumped forward as the tears returned. This time I didn’t hold them back, letting them fall freely down my cheeks. “Then I’m going to be stuck here forever. There is no one else.”

Mercedes stood up, giving me an expression I couldn’t read. “We must return to your own time, Jolie, and we must do so quickly.”

“Look, I want to go back just as much as you do,” I snapped, wiping the tears from my face.

“Then find the two people who knew you in your time and know you in this one.”

I nodded dumbly, still feeling sorry for myself. Mercedes offered me a raised brow expression and I couldn’t help but find amusement in the fact that she was like the chief of all witches and dressed in the outfit of a scullery maid. “So, why are you a maid?”

She laughed. “I am not truly a maid. I had to ensconce myself in Pelham Manor, Jolie, to ensure that I would be here to save you when you came through. This was the easiest persona to assume.” Mercedes approached me and squeezed my shoulder reassuringly. “Tonight Rand will venture into the woods, it would behoove you to follow him.” Her tone let on to the fact that she wasn’t going to reveal any more than that. What was it with the magical that they felt the need to riddle like the sphinx?

“Okay,” I didn’t know what else to say before thoughts of the forest led to thoughts of the fairies which, in turn, brought me to thoughts of Mathilda. I faced Mercedes in shock. “Mathilda! She’s the second person who knew me in my own time and could know me in this one.”

Mercedes just smiled and I stood up, staring out my window and feeling as if the weight of the world was on my shoulders. And, really, it was.

Eighteen

It was pitch black outside, the moon eclipsed by thick and unyielding clouds until its glow was no more than a haze. I’d have to use my magic to enable night vision. I closed my eyes, and concentrated on my pupils dilating, allowing my magic to penetrate them. I blinked and everything was tinted an eerie green. Now I had to turn to more important matters, such as finding out where the hell Rand was.

I’d followed him outside into the freezing darkness after playing lookout from my window for forty five minutes. I finally caught sight of him stealing away from Pelham Manor and checking behind him more than once to ensure no one had followed. Then he disappeared into the forest. In my rush not to lose him, I’d nearly tripped over myself to get down the stairs and out the back door. Now here I was, with no Rand in sight, just the outline of a myriad of trees, their skeletal branches swaying in an icy breeze.

I hurried past the tree line, looking left and right, hoping to catch a glimpse of Rand. I faintly made out the image of a man in an overcoat as he disappeared behind a tree to my right. It was Rand, less than a hundred feet away. I paused behind a giant willow to allow him more of a lead and when it looked as if I might lose him again, I started forward. Why was he venturing so deep into the forest? Didn’t he know he could access Mathilda’s from any nearby tree?

My footsteps made a sloshing sound as I moved through the snow. A twig snapped underneath me and two crows scattered from the tree overhead, squawking their displeasure. I dove behind a maple tree, holding my breath. Silence settled around me. After another few seconds, I dared to peek out from my hiding place. Rand was gone. Dammit! I surged forward, leaping over a fallen log, my heart pounding. I couldn’t lose him! Too much depended on me reaching him, convincing him that I was as much a witch as he was. I ran for maybe a minute or so, glancing frantically from left to right but found nothing. It was as if he’d disappeared into thin air. Then it occurred to me that he’d probably already found whatever tree he was searching for and was now inside Mathilda’s village. Dammit Dammit!

Before I could further ponder that idea, I was suddenly crushed by an incredible weight that pushed into me and knocked me over. I landed on my ass and before I could get up to defend myself, someone thrust himself on me, pinning me to the ground.

“Let me go!” I yelled.

“What the bloody hell?” Rand demanded, once he recognized me. “I mistook you for a man.”

It made sense considering I’d magicked myself into a pair of comfy jeans, a turtleneck and a sheepskin jacket. I probably looked like a lumberjack.

I didn’t answer because I was trying to wiggle out from underneath him which proved impossible. Straddling me, he held my arms to the ground and appeared as though he wasn’t going to release me anytime soon.

“Why are you following me?” he demanded.

“I’ll explain if you get off me.”

He narrowed his eyes. Then, apparently realizing I posed no threat, he let go of me and stood up, dusting the forest debris from his waistcoat and vest. He didn’t offer to help me up but I wasn’t expecting it. I stood and took a deep breath.

“I’m following you because I need your help.”

“This again?” he grunted, running his fingers through his hair and freeing a few dead leaves in the process.

“Yes, and since you still don’t believe I’m a witch, I’m going to prove it to you.”

Boredom etched his features. “Amaze me.”

Okay, he’d asked for it. I braced myself, placing my feet a shoulder’s width apart and raised my hands up, palms facing skyward. Then I closed my eyes and envisioned a series of energy orbs of all colors emanating from my hands. When I opened my eyes, the orbs sailed up into the sky, in green, blue, red, pink and purple. They morphed into various ovoid shapes and circled Rand’s head, whose eyes narrowed.

“You could be a master of guile,” he said with tight lips.

Hmm, maybe he meant a magician. “You’ve got to be kidding.” But, his expression said he wasn’t. Not by a long shot. Crap and a half, he was stubborn.

I frowned and the energy orbs dissipated into nothing, exploding with tiny pops. I placed my hands on my hips. “Okay, then what about this? You seek the council of Mathilda, one of the oldest fairies and you are on your way to her village right now.”

He moved a few steps closer to me and grabbed the lapels of my jacket, pulling me to him until we were nose to nose. My breath caught in my throat as I inhaled the spicy scent that was uniquely his. He just glared down his nose at me, close enough to kiss me. “How do you know this?”

My lust collapsed into irritation as I realized I’d already explained the whole witch deal to him more than twice. At what point would he believe me? I pushed him away and smoothed my lapels back into place. “How many times do I have to tell you? I’m a witch.”

“And your connection to Mathilda?”

“Mathilda was one of my fairy teachers along with Gor.”

His eyebrows arched at the mention of Gor but he didn’t say anything. Maybe he hadn’t completely bought my story but at this point, I didn’t care. I was more interested in testing whether or not my open invitation to Mathilda’s village was still in effect. I approached the nearest tree, an oak, the trunk of which was easily the width of a car and placed my hand on it, closing my eyes as I envisioned Mathilda’s village.

“What are you doing?” Rand demanded.

I didn’t open my eyes. “If you won’t believe me, maybe Mathilda will.”

I opened my eyes when I felt a switch in energy, as if a breeze had just blown right through the trees and into another dimension. The snow-covered dirt path to Mathilda’s village lay before me and I glanced back at Rand who regarded me with even more suspicion than he had before.

“How did you know…” he started.

“Really? This is getting old, Rand.”

He grabbed my hand. “How can I be certain you aren’t here to hurt Mathilda?”

New, er, old Rand was really starting to annoy me. “I guess you’ll have to take my word for it.”

I pulled away from him and took two steps forward but he easily caught up with me. I didn’t say anything and, instead, focused on the cottages that lined the snowy path. Mathilda’s village hadn’t changed at all in over one hundred years, the whitewashed cottages still occupying their same places along the dirt path. Enormous flowers of every persuasion lined the road, dusted with white flecks. The smell was just as sweet as it always had been—something between lilies and roses, refreshing in the arctic air.

When we reached Mathilda’s door, Rand grabbed my arm and pushed me behind him, cautiously knocking. So, he still didn’t trust me and wanted to protect Mathilda. Okay, that was understandable. She opened the door and upon seeing me, her smile vanished. She faced Rand angrily.

“Why have you brought a stranger?”

I took a few steps forward, still blocked from Mathilda’s doorway by Rand. “I’m not a stranger. I’m Jolie Wilkins and I’m a student of yours…from the future.”

It suddenly struck me as odd that both the Mathilda and Pelham of my own time acted as though they hadn’t previously known me upon our introductions. But, they had to have known me, right? I mean, they’d met me in 1878. It was a question for Mercedes.

Mathilda backed away and there was extreme ire in her features. “A fairy village is a secret place, Rand.”

“She located it herself, using her palm to open the passage,” he answered in a flustered tone.

Mathilda’s body suddenly glowed with blue light and I realized she was protecting herself. “I’m not here to hurt you or anyone else. I’m here because I need your help and Rand’s,” I said, attempting to get around Rand but he side-stepped me and grabbed hold of my arm.

“She should not be here,” Mathilda said in a scolding tone.

And that was enough for Rand to turn around and push me away from the door, his anger billowing out of him as his aura raged purple.

“Wait, Mathilda!” I screamed, desperate to get them to understand.

Mathilda said nothing but her lips were drawn tight. She didn’t trust me either—son of a… As Rand grabbed me, set on getting rid of me, an intense heat broke out on the V of my neck, a sting like an insect bite. I grasped the amber amulet Mathilda had given me. Of course! Now it made total sense as to why the Mathilda of my time had entrusted it to me.

“Wait!” I screamed again and yanked the pendant from my neck, breaking the chain as I held it up in the air. “I have your amber amulet.”

Mathilda’s gaze fell on the object in my hand and her eyes widened, her mouth dropping open. “Rand,” she said in a constricted voice and he released me. I glared back at him and edged closer to her, holding the amulet out as if to remind her not to turn on me again. When I was right in front of her, she opened her palm and I dropped the amber into it.

“How did you get this?” she demanded.

“You gave it to me when I was in my own time because you had seen me with it in a vision. You told me to carry it with me into battle.”

“Battle?” she repeated.

Rand shoved his way between us, still playing protector. “Mathilda, what is it?”

She faced him. “It is my amber pendant given to me centuries ago by the only….man I ever loved. It is the only object I possess which means anything to me.”

Wow, the modern Mathilda had loved a man? Hmm, sounded like a chapter for another day, not a stressed out, I-need-to-get-back-to-my-own-time day. Mathilda continued staring at the pendant until something made her withdraw into her house. Hurrying into her kitchen to open a drawer, she searched for the amulet and when she came up empty-handed, she had to face the fact that I was who I said I was.

“Come in,” she said with a gentle, apologetic smile and held the door wide.

Rand’s perturbation was evident as he ran his hand through his hair and stood in the doorway, watching me settle myself at Mathilda’s tree stump table. “How do we know she is who she says she is? Amber is plentiful.”

“No,” Mathilda shook her head. “Not this one.” She glanced down at the pendant in her palm and closed her fingers over it. “This belongs to me.”

Rand shut the door behind him and though Mathilda took a seat at the table next to me, he remained standing. Mathilda smiled and reached her hand out to grasp mine. “You said you are called Jolie?”

“Yes,” I nodded.

“Tell me about this battle,” she began.

And I told her about the battle, about Bella, about nearly being impaled by Gwynn’s blade and ending up freezing in the snow, in 1878. Pretty soon that recollection necessitated others and after two hours, I’d told Mathilda and Rand my entire life story, starting from the moment Rand had walked into my tarot-reading shop and changed my life forever.

As I explained, Rand’s face didn’t change. He maintained a placid, poker faced expression that prevented me from reading his emotions. And I still couldn’t tell whether or not he believed me. But, at least one thing was clear and that was Mathilda did believe me which was a huge relief. If I could win over Mathilda, I could win over Rand. Of that I was convinced.

“So, that brings me to where we are today,” I finished. “Mercedes told me I must find two people who knew me in my own time and who know me in this one and those two are you and Rand.”

“Ms. Berg is a witch?” Rand scoffed as Mathilda stood up and entered her kitchen, reaching into a cupboard and taking out three clay cups. Her hand hovered over each cup and in response steam rose up from each one. She brought them to the table, offering one to Rand and me. I inhaled what smelled like chamomile tea and took a sip, relishing the heat of the liquid as it warmed me from the inside out. Then I turned to respond to Rand regarding Mercedes. I was really getting sick of him and his inability to believe anything I said.

“Yes, she is,” I said simply.

“Not only is the prophetess real but she lives in Pelham Manor, as an unassuming housekeeper,” Rand asked with a great show of sarcasm.

Tears welled in my eyes as I faced Mathilda. “Why won’t he believe me?”

Rand pounded his fists on the table, anger burning in his eyes. “Because nothing you have said can be proven. Yes, you know about Mathilda and yes, I believe you to be a witch but that is not to say you do not have evil intentions, that you are not here for reasons you have failed to reveal.”

“But, my amulet,” Mathilda started.

“She could have stolen it from you, Mathilda,” Rand said while I swallowed hard. “Nothing she has said can be tested, none of it can be proven. Are we to endow her with our blind faith?”

“It’s true,” I demanded and stood up, approaching him. “It’s all true but you are so freaking stubborn, you refuse to see it.”

He took the two steps between us until we were only an inch’s width away. “I do not trust so blindly.”

“Children,” Mathilda said, rising as she pulled Rand’s arm, forcing him away from me. “This situation is easily resolved.”

“How so?” Rand demanded, never taking his eyes from mine.

“By way of magic,” Mathilda answered.

“Can you perform a Liar’s Circle on me?” I asked. Why hadn’t I thought of this before? Rand tended to make my sense of logic and reason dissolve into heated anger or intense lust.