Across Time Part 12

Upon return, though, her soul is still housed in this body at this time, with memories from both the present and the future. Just as this Jessie should be able to recall bits and pieces of her past, so, too, do you recall bits and pieces of Jessie's future."

"Then she is not with me."

Lachlan shook his head. "No. Though it may feel that way at times, there is only one soul in one time. She and your soul exist outside of our time."

Maeve turned to Lachlan and asked the question she had wanted to ask many times before, but only now had the courage to hear the answer. "What happens to Cate's body while her soul slips through the portal?"

Lachlan averted his eyes from Maeve's. "It is stagnate. It remains alive but without a conscience guiding it."

Maeve rose on her toes like a mother bear rises in defending her young. "You told me there would be no danger to her! d.a.m.n, you, Lachlan, you promised me!"

"And there is not."

Cate touched Maeve's shoulder. "He is right, Maeve. I am not in any danger."

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Maeve silenced them both with her glare. "Catie is alone in the forest, unable to protect herself, and you are telling me she is not in any danger? Do I look like a fool, Lachlan?"

Lachlan laid his hand on Maeve's other shoulder. "Cate was well- aware of the risks she made when she volunteered."

Maeve turned on Cate. "You knew?"

Cate looked away and nodded.

"Then why? How could you?"

Cate stole a look to Lachlan, who forced himself to look away. This was between Cate and Maeve; he had no place in this discussion.

"To save the people I love, the land we need, and the deities we speak with," Cate declared. " It is my gift to see, Maeve, and with that gift comes duties. You, of all people know as much. It was you who taught me!"

Maeve waved her off. "I did not mean for your duty to be a sacrificial one, Catie. I . . . need you here with me. I did not come all the way from Gaul to find you, only to lose you in what could very well be a pitiful attempt at preserving lives destined to be lost."

"No!" Lachlan's voice was harsh and cutting. "I will not stand here and listen to you talk her out of what may be the most important act of her life."

"To die? Is that what you'd call an important act, Lachlan? Have you so easily forgotten that it is our job to preserve and revere life?"

"I have not."

"Then how could you send her to-"

"Maeve," Cate's voice was barely above a whisper, but its stillness got Maeve's attention. "It is my choice. It is something I want to do.

It-it is my destiny." Cate looked up into Maeve's gray eyes. How could she tell her that it was to save her from the ugliness both Lachlan and Cate had foreseen? Maeve was brave to a fault, and would demand they stop this at once, but that was something neither Cate nor Lachlan intended to do.

Maeve stepped far enough away from them both that their hands fell off her shoulders. "If anything happens to her, Lachlan, you and I will enter a dark place the likes of which you have never experienced."

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Maeve's voice was cold and exact.

"We shall not lose her, Maeve."

"Do I have your word on that?"

Lachlan glanced over at Cate before shaking his head. "The G.o.ddesses shall do what they see fit. I believe Cate is in good hands."

"I would prefer it if she were in mine, but since it is apparent the two of you have planned this from the start, I have no other choice but to let her continue. Just mark my words, Lachlan. If Catie ever goes in there and does not return, both you and I will go after her. Am I understood?"

Nodding, Lachlan sighed loudly. "Understood."

"Good." Then to Cate, "I have always known when you are keeping something from me, little one. It is not in your best interest to hide yourself from me." Maeve reached out and softly stroked Cate's cheek.

"I have found you in many of our lives, Catie, but in this life, I would prefer not losing you once more."

Cate's stomach growled loudly. "Do you think it even possible that I could hide anything from you?"

Maeve stared into Cate's eyes and nodded. "It is not im possible. You have grown into a very fine priestess. There is much you can do now.

Keeping secrets from me, however, is not one of them."

Cate's stomach growled again. "I do understand, and you must rest a.s.sured that I would never risk being away from you; not in this life or any other."

Pulling Cate to her, Maeve kissed the top of her head and inhaled her essence. "First, food, then sleep, but after that, Catie, you and I are going to have an understanding."

Nodding, Cate felt Lachlan tighten up next to her, and she knew why. There was only one thing to understand: the Roman governor was coming, and few of the Silurians would live to tell about it.

Lachlan dropped them off at Maeve's cottage just as the village of Fennel was beginning to come to life. These people, the ones the Druids had sworn to protect, were unaware their fate hung in the *

84 *85.

balance. Like most Britons, they believed they could cohabitate with the Romans who were appearing in alarming numbers; but the Druids knew better. Their Druid brothers and sisters had been nearly wiped out in Gaul by the might of Julius Caesar a hundred years ago on his quest for world domination. The Romans had plundered and pillaged so much of the continent that it had taken them over a hundred years to discover the riches of the island across the channel. Already, their ancient forests had been decimated to build Roman s.h.i.+ps, and the Druids knew what this omen portended: a people who would destroy the very earth would not hesitate to destroy the creatures living on that land. It had been the pattern of countless leaders before and after Julius Caesar, and there did not appear to be an end in sight. The Romans would conquer, leave their soldiers to plunder, and take as wives the women of the vanquished, so that soon their progeny would be of Roman birth. The Roman leaders would then leave a proxy to head a village, town, or Londinium, as the Romans called it, who would then collect taxes, pilfer goods and s.h.i.+p precious resources back to the Roman Empire. They were an insidious warrior culture preying on the rest of the world.

Their only real hope was knowing that an animal that eats its own kind was bound to fall prey to the same. Julius Caesar killed his own men, and, in turn, his own Senate stabbed him to death on the Senate's steps. These were the men who were threatening to destroy the Druids in an effort to gain power over the Celts. These were the people who believed themselves superior to other peoples in every known part of the world. These were the people against whom Lachlan, Maeve and Cate had vowed to protect Fennel.

Handing Cate half a loaf of bread, Maeve sat across from her at the table, her plate empty, and poured a bowl of stew from a tureen.

Pus.h.i.+ng it toward Cate, she said softly, "There'll be no talking you out of this, is there?"

Cate shook her head. "You need to trust that you taught me well.

Jessie is becoming aware, and she'll be coming back for answers to her questions."

Maeve watched Cate eat her stew. "Tell me about her."

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Cate bit into more bread. It was hard and dry. "She has a little brother, whom she cares deeply for, but other than that, she has no clan or any ties to one."

"No family?"

Cate shook her head. "She has family, but they seem to wound her daily. They remind me of Sean's family. I am unsure if they even like her very much."

Maeve pondered this a moment. "Do you?"

Cate had never even considered the notion. While in this time and place, she thought of Jessie as another person in a faraway place, and when she was there, she was Jessie, and saw the world through the eyes of a lost young girl. "Like her? I have never thought of it."

Maeve dipped a piece of bread in Cate's stew and tasted it, but said nothing.

"I suppose, if I think of her from here," Cate pointed to her head, "then, yes, I do like her. She is very different, I think, and she perceives herself as not quite-how would she say it? She does not know herself or what she is capable of. She does not feel wanted, I think. She is-out of sorts with herself, her surroundings and her family, and she does not know how to remedy any of them."

"How sad."

"Oh, but I do not think she is sad. I think she is brave. She carries on in spite of it."

Maeve c.o.c.ked her head and studied Cate. "Then you do like her."

Cate blushed. "I do. Hers is not an easy life, nor is it one I would ever want to exchange with my own, but she truly wants to help. She's just so-young."

"And you are so very old?"

Cate giggled. "Not old. Wise. Well, not wise, really, but surely wiser than she."

Maeve smiled. "Of course. Now, what about this sage? Where did she come from?"

"That, I do not know. It feels, at times, as if she knows exactly what is happening to Jessie, but she does not say. Hers is a very old soul with a great deal of wisdom. She has much knowledge to teach Jessie.

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I think that is why I do like Jessie: she has allied herself with one who can a.s.sist."

Maeve reached across the table and touched Cate's hand. "Are you ever scared?"

Cate swallowed her stew and frowned. "Of what?"

"Of not being able to return?"

Cate stirred the remnants of her stew and sighed. "I am not sure I would even know if that were to happen. To Jessie, my life and I are just fragmented and dim memories, just as she and hers are to me now. She could be in my soul right now, but I do not know, nor do I feel it. She is listening to me, though, and that is a good sign. She knows that I have reached out to touch her from far away, and she knows there is a history of her soul that she can learn to listen to. I believe that once I can actually tell her what we need from her, she will help us." Yawning and stretching, Cate patted her belly. "That was delicious. Thank you."

"Why don't you get some rest for now? Lachlan and I are reconvening the others in order to discuss our options when Suetonius Paulinus begins gathering his forces." Taking Cate's hand, Maeve led her to the lumpy straw mattress on the floor and bade her to lay down.

Then, taking her own robe, she draped it across Cate's body. "This time, you dream sweet dreams, all right?"

Nodding drowsily, Cate sighed and closed her eyes. She was so tired that already her head felt floaty. "I won't let anything happen to you, Maeve. I promise." With that, Cate fell fast asleep.

When Jessie returned to her body, she was surprised to find herself leaning against the door of the numberless room. Every joint in her body ached, and the cobwebs in the room felt as if they had managed to somehow creep into her head.

Slowly rising, she looked at her faux Rolex watch. She'd been in the room less than an hour, but things were different this time. She remembered walking through the misty forest as the leaves crackled beneath her feet. A mist lingered like the remnants of a dream high atop the farthest reaches of the oaks. It was so clear in her mind, she *

86 *87.

was sure it was a memory and not the vague residues of a dream. This time, Jessie knew she hadn't been alone. Gray eyes and that tall guy had met up with her on the outskirts of the Sacred Place.

"Sacred Place?" Jessie muttered, shaking her head.

Returning to her room, she listened for the sounds of her parents'

return. She wanted to avoid them for as long as she could. They felt like emotional vampires to her, sucking the very essence of her life force with their distrust and suspicious glances.

"Yeah, that's what they are," Jessie said, grabbing her bathrobe off the four-poster bed and heading for the shower. "Emotional vampires.

I like that."

After her shower, as she slid her arms through her robe, Jessie stood motionless, staring down at her arm in the sleeve. Her robe was no longer a bathrobe, and she was no longer standing in her bathroom.

For a split second, perhaps even a nanosecond, Jessie felt Cate within her.

"A Druid," Jessie uttered, still staring at the robe sleeve. "She was a priestess . . . a Druid priestess." Sitting down hard on the toilet seat, Jessie was jolted back to the here and now. "Oh . . . my . . . G.o.d," she said, laying her hand on her heaving chest. It was just as Ceara had said; only this time, Jessie was experiencing someone else's memories.

Gray eyes had a name . . . and it was Maeve. And this Maeve was in some sort of danger-a real and present danger which was the impetus that had pushed Cate through the seam.

Cate.

Her name was Cate. And she was doing this time travel thing right now, as Jessie stood there naked, except for the robe that had somehow managed to jar her soul's memory of a life lived so very long ago. Cate was with her; in her, like a spirit eavesdropping on Jessie's life. But instead of being scary, it was somehow comforting.

"Ceara, help me." Slowly rising, Jessie padded back to her bedroom and grabbed the dusty and cobwebby clothes she had just stepped out of. She needed to get to Ceara, needed her to help make some sense out of what had just happened. Was it the robe that set off the memory, or had Cate just slipped into the future and tugged at Jessie's mind?

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Yanking her jacket off the chair, Jessie started for the door, and ran right into her father.

"Going somewhere?"

Jessie's breath caught. "I need to see a friend, that's all."

"Were you not listening to me and your mother, Jess?"

Jessie felt two overriding emotions; one was the now familiar adrenaline surge she had been experiencing lately, and the other was a terrible sense of foreboding. "Dad, I have to go."