Threads in time, p.22
Threads in Time, page 22
“I saw you, you know… A couple of nights ago. I saw you and Jack.” It didn’t come as a shock. His awareness had been implicit in the frosty treatment before.
“Sean, I don’t know what to say. I’m sorry,” I said quietly, inwardly cringing at the lameness of such an overused cliché.
“I’m assuming that wasn’t the only time?”
There was no point lying. “No, it wasn’t…”
The only sound to fill the responding hush was the rustle of the wind in the leaves. Sean frowned, eyes still fixed on the view. Perhaps because he couldn’t stand to look at my face: the girl who’d lured him thousands of years away only to stamp on his heart. Again.
“At first I was angry. Fuming. But then you… well, you know, everything happened. And now I just feel tired. I want you to be happy.”
“I am happy – with you.”
“You can tell yourself that, Sparkle,” Sean murmured, finally looking at me. “But I don’t want you to feel it’s an obligation. Just because I came after you, that doesn’t mean you have to be with me. You know that, don’t you?” He tucked a stray piece of damp hair behind my ear. “You think I don’t know we can’t go back? That it’s not the same? I know. So if you don’t want to be with me, then I’ll let you go. More than that, I’ll understand. And I’d never blame you for my being here. That was nobody’s choice but mine.”
Standing with his burningly earnest expression, he was still the same Sean who’d followed me onto the balcony one Halloween. His dark hair was free from his usual ponytail, and fell to just below his chin. He had the typical close-shaved beard framing his face – exactly like he had on the night of the party. And he was peering appealingly at me from kind hazel eyes in exactly the same way. It had practically been love at first sight that night. But this first-sight love had ignited into something much more powerful. And, even though it could be threatened, it could never be fully extinguished. There was no escaping the fact that this was the man who’d swept me off my feet; who’d made me very happy for years; and who’d followed me to the ends of the earth, almost literally.
But after such a journey, it was only natural that he should change. After everything we’d been through, I’d changed too. It was difficult to know where all the doubt was coming from, but simultaneously understandable. Sean was one of the largest pieces in the jigsaw that constructed my old life. But here and now in this new one, the shapes had changed so that his piece didn’t slot in as perfectly as it had before.
“I love you, Sean. I really do. And I’m not just saying that; they’re not empty words. But I need to figure things out, that’s all. A lot has happened. You have to understand that I thought I’d lost you – forever. I made peace with that, as painful as it was. But I had to, or I never would’ve survived. And even though I was – am – unbelievably happy that you’re here, I had to reshuffle all of my feelings and emotions all over again.”
“And then there’s Jack,”
And then there’s Jack, I agreed internally. But I didn’t respond out loud. I’d never been good at confrontations, and this felt like a confrontation – albeit a calm one. So many potential words hovered in my mind: a buzzing swarm of potential explanations that I couldn’t break up and string into one coherent sentence. So I remained silent. All I could do was maintain eye contact. When I reached a hand up to his face, Sean caught it in his; and ever so gently pushed it away.
“Take all the time you need. But you’ll have to choose eventually, Lyndall.”
He left me standing there, facing a beautiful view that was lost on me in the moment. Sean had called me Lyndall. Maybe I was no longer Sparkle; no longer that weird girl he’d met, and fallen in love with, on a London Bridge balcony over three millennia earlier.
29. A HASCA CALLED
Isory wished us the best and sent us on our way. It was good she could read minds because then she could quantify our gratitude. I embraced her. We’d only officially met a day earlier, but I already cared deeply about Isory. Not only had she saved my life, but she also seemed the kindest Duine I had met. She radiated the same calming aura as Aya, but even more strongly. There was something magical about Isory; something that, if asked to describe, I wouldn’t have been able. Possibly because I’d never encountered such a quality before.
The three of us were hopefully on the last leg of what had been a long and difficult journey. All of us were tired. We just wanted to be home – or at least in the place that had been closest to a home. Over a week had passed since we snuck away in the night. It had been a much longer absence than we’d intended. The others would demand an explanation. Yet we didn’t need to explain why we’d left the town, but rather confront Rob about why we’d come to another world.
I was self-contained for the remaining journey. I stayed out of the way of both Jack and Sean. Sean still needed to apply Isory’s ointment on my shoulder a few times but he refused to make eye contact while doing so. He would probably act like this until a choice was made. At first Jack was bewildered by my aloof treatment. But, after seeing that I was treating both him and Sean this way, he respectfully kept his distance.
By the time we could see Broena, my heart was heavy. We’d left hopeful; we were returning confused and deflated. Confused over so many things: over the history of our world; and me over history of a more personal nature – the history with my two companions.
We’d agreed on a plan: we were going to gather our STEP group together and confront Rob openly. We would demand answers from him. But this plan was thwarted the moment we stepped foot inside the city.
As soon as we entered the gates, havoc descended. The Broeni guards fell on us; swooped in like crows flocking to a corpse. We were so stunned that we didn’t resist as they tied our hands behind our backs.
Sean spoke heatedly with the guards as they led us away. I couldn’t understand their argument so I allowed myself to be swept along, flinching from the hands that kept putting pressure on my still-tender shoulder. There was no sign of Rob or Lisa; nor of Shoku or Chinwe. Sean was marched briskly in front of me, Jack behind. They were taking us up the hill. I could guess where. Moments later Sean confirmed it over his shoulder.
“They’re taking us to the Kadereis council.”
I hadn’t returned to the hall since that first day in Broena. I hadn’t seen any of the Kadereis since then, either. Save the one who was from our district.
Dazed by the winding twists and turns of the town, it was unclear how worried we should be. Before my encounter with Isory, I would’ve been secure in the believe that we’d come to no harm from anyone in Broena. But after hearing Isory’s story, perhaps there was something to fear.
We arrived at the impressive great hall once again. The beautiful craftmanship, with its fusion of the natural and the manmade, had a magical effect which still managed to elicit wonder, despite my panicked state. The hall commanded the same beautiful views over the great lake before us. The sky was luminous with pink and orange hues. It was the palette of a spectacular sunset, made twice as impressive by its watery echo bouncing off the lake’s surface. In an odd way it comforted me. With a view as beautiful as this, how bad could any punishment be? But this comforting thought made no sense; one was in no way whatsoever contingent on the other.
The guards deposited the three of us in the hall, and we were roughly pushed to our knees before the high table of the council members. Slightly raised above the other eight were the three head council members, the Asoi. We tried to look up at them but it was more difficult to balance standing on our knees since our hands remained fastened behind our backs. We’d just been shoved to the floor when Sean addressed them. Judging by his tone, he had elected fury over diplomacy which could very well worsen our situation. But Sean was speaking directly to Izanet, and I remembered that he’d apparently rescued the Asoi’s son from drowning. Izanet’s expression remained severe. Before long he held up his hand to silence Sean.
Izanet started speaking but the lady Asoi next to him – Osma – cut across. I tried to read Sean’s expression as the Duine spoke but he’d adopted his sublimely inscrutable poker face. When Osma finished, Sean wouldn’t respond before explaining what was going on to me and Jack: “They say Izanet should be excluded from this decision because he has a personal interest that might cloud his judgement.”
“Judgement for what?” asked Jack. “What are we supposed to have done?”
“Because we left for so long without telling them, they think we deserted. Now we’ve returned they suspect we might be spies. Khorenni spies.”
“Seriously? Do they not remember what they did to you in Khorenn?”
“Well that’s when they think I was turned. In captivity. And since then recruited you two. They’re paranoid now they’ve gone back to war with Khorenn.”
“We should just tell them the truth,” I suggested.
“It wouldn’t make a difference,” Sean replied. “They wouldn’t understand our need to go to the library. They would think we deserted anyway.”
Osma raised her voice again, asking Sean something which received an angry response. Although far from funny, the whole situation was ridiculous. Both the accusation that we’d deserted and the absurd notion that we were spies. “Deserting” was similar to what Isory had done, although hers had been forced banishment. If a Duine left a tribe, he or she was considered a “deserter”. If the deserter ever returned, he or she would be killed. In that instant, the significance of the accusation smarted: the sentence for desertion was often death. But it was difficult to see how they could accuse us of being deserters if we had never really belonged to the tribe in the first place. It was a point Sean vehemently made.
“I told them they couldn’t call us deserters,” he told us as the Kaders began to discuss amongst themselves. “We were never born or initiated into the tribe. I told them we hadn’t intended to be gone for long, but the yoffa attack left us no choice. Your shoulder wound proves it. As for being Khorenn spies, I told them it wasn’t true but they said of course I’d say that. So I told them to make Epsina put me in a trance and force me to speak the truth. That might convince them.”
“Sean.” He looked at me; it was the first time we’d made prolonged eye contact since our chat near Isory’s hut. “Should we be worried?”
“I don’t know. I think so.”
I wished he’d lied. The old Sean probably would’ve faked confidence just to keep me from being afraid. But this wasn’t the old Sean. And now I was afraid.
“What are they talking about now?” asked Jack.
“They’re deliberating. Whether they believe me, and what our punishment should be. A few of them are convinced we’re spies. They claim that I could’ve been trained to resist the trance and there’s no way of knowing if I’m faking. Eejits… That one just said it’s better to kill us and be sure than risk us doing damage. Even if we’re innocent.”
The sun had set. The dreamy purple glow of twilight fell. One of the Hall’s guards entered and lit various different torches so that the flickering flames cast a different fiery light, lengthening all of the shadows across the hall. The flaps of agnali material, which had been open to sunlight, were now drawn down for moonlight.
“They’re getting agitated because they’re hungry. They’ll want to wrap it up soon.”
Sean was right. Only moments later, the council hushed and Osma addressed us once more. She and the two male Asoi rose to their feet. I glared at Izanet. He’d been no help at all. I assumed his debt to Sean no longer applied.
The Kadereis milled out. Three guards – one for each of us – escorted us into the outside evening too. The guards led us from the Hall of Kadereis, and we descended the hill on the other side, going away from the main body of the town. Darkness was rapidly setting in so I couldn’t see much further than the light cast from the torch that the first guard held. Eventually they brought us to an enclosure. There were more guards, and the enclosure was full of pits in the ground. Their grated covers were made of wooden sticks tied together. Out of the darkness, from the depths of these pits, the odd set of eyes twinkled at us. This must be a prison of sorts.
A guard pulled up one of the grates, and they unceremoniously shoved Sean into the pit, and me after. Thankfully, they untied our hands first. I fell on top of Sean and, with another thud, Jack landed on me. I couldn’t contain the cry of pain from my shoulder. After much uncomfortable squirming, we managed to untangle ourselves.
“Sorry, Lyndall. I didn’t mean to land on you. Didn’t really have a choice. Is your shoulder ok?”
“Don’t worry. It will survive.”
Sean started yelling Duine angrily at the guards. The grate swung shut in response. The guards’ voices retreated. It took a few seconds for my eyes to adjust in the darkness. The moon wasn’t yet full, but it wasn’t far off and luckily for us it shone brightly that night. I could just make out the other two.
“OK Mac, can you tell us what’s going on?”
“In the end, the council couldn’t decide. They couldn’t agree on anything, the stupid gits – not about the crime or the punishment. And they were hungry. So they’ve chucked us in here for the night. Tomorrow there’ll be a hasca.”
“What’s that?” asked Jack.
“It’s basically a trial.”
“Well, shit. How did we not think of this as a possibility?”
“I suppose we were a wee bit distracted: what with the mental, giant birds, Lyndall’s near death… and let’s not forget learning that everything we know happened in history didn’t occur in this world,” Sean replied, mildly.
“How can you be so calm about this?” came Jack’s reply. “Do you not remember what the punishment is for deserting? Let alone, for being a spy!”
“I know, bud.” Sean sighed. “But how would panicking help?”
Sean had always been gifted at remaining calm in the face of disaster. He reminded me of the Rudyard Kipling poem: If you can keep your head when all about you | Are losing theirs and blaming it on you… In fact, Sean reminded me of many of the poem’s lines. He was one of the rare people who could live up to Kipling’s stipulations. The familiar self-doubt surfaced: it always felt like such a good man was wasted on me.
We were in big trouble. Here, the punishment for desertion was death. More worryingly, the punishment for espionage was a torturous death. And yet, unlike Jack, I didn’t feel panicked either. Once again, I felt numb. Not to mention bone-tired. So much had happened in the last months, it suddenly seemed too insurmountable to reach inside myself for a reaction. I let the others’ talking drift over me and slid to the floor, rubbing my shoulder.
I didn’t want to call it giving up, but that’s what it felt like. Although I thought it wasn’t so much giving up as giving myself over to the reigns of chance. It felt like finally letting go after clinging fiercely onto a branch in a ferocious river; letting yourself be drawn into the rapids, accepting whatever fate befalls – dejected that you’ve let go but also somewhat relieved.
“Are you ok, Sparkle?” When I didn’t immediately respond, there came a slightly more urgent, “Lyndall?”
“Yes, sorry. I was just thinking... I’m fine.”
“How’s the shoulder?”
“Better than before. Thanks.” My voice sounded flat – utterly drained of energy. I started to shiver as the night air grew chillier. I felt Sean sink to the ground beside me, his arm reaching over to draw me to him. His body heat helped.
“It’ll be alright, Sparkle,” he murmured. No voice was ever more reassuring to me than the cadence of Sean’s Irish one. I could always find comfort in the warmth of his voice.
“That reminds me: I meant to ask both of you something. Where does Sparkle come from? Sounds a bit twee for the likes of you two.”
Sean gave a short laugh. “You’re probably right, Jack. It is a bit twee but it has an origin. It actually comes from the first night we met.”
“What happened?”
“It was back in London. We were at this party… A pretty rubbish party, if I remember correctly. I was about to head home because I was bored. And then I saw this girl. It always embarrasses her when I say this – ”
“Then don’t.”
“– but she was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. It was a Halloween party and she was covered in sparkles. She looked like an angel. I saw her slip out and so I followed her onto the balcony. It didn’t seem stalkerish at the time, I might add. First thing I called her was Sparkle. Then it just sort of stuck.”
“I said I preferred it to Lyndall.” The memory made me smile. Then my eyes swam with tears. They were tears for an irretrievable past – a snapshot of happiness so close in memory yet so far away in time.
“Well, thanks for telling me. It’s a nice story to hear. I think the others would like it too. Speaking of which, we never managed to confront Rob. Do you think they know we’re here? The others?”
“I doubt it. The Kaders have probably done their best to keep it from them. Or they would’ve come to try and save us by now.”
“Are you sure? Even after we left them here?”
“I’m sure,” Sean replied firmly. “I know Rob. He’d never leave us.”
“It sounds like you still trust him?” There was nothing malicious in Jack’s voice; only curiosity.
“It’s hard to explain… I would trust Rob with my life. I just don’t trust that he’s telling us the truth. Does that make sense?”
“Not really, no…” Jack paused. “Actually there was something else I wanted to ask you.”
“You might as well ask now. Might never get another chance.”
“You and Rob always seemed so close. But neither of you ever told me the story of when you were both here – just the two of you.”
“Is that your question? What happened?”
“If you don’t mind.”
I had remained silent throughout their exchange but my curiosity was peaked too. I had no idea about the events surrounding Rob and Sean’s first encounter either.
