“Delaney, it’s time.” Brian stayed an arm’s length from William. “If he doesn’t go soon, even the most skilled doctor won’t be able to save him.”
She placed William’s hand on his chest, stood up, and stepped back. Grady put his arm around her again while they both watched Brian and William. Brian’s face began to glow, lighting the darkness around them. He touched William’s arm, causing his body to glow in rhythm with the Gate Keeper’s. One last flash of brilliant light radiated from Brian’s body, and then William was gone.
All Laney wanted in that moment was to follow him wherever he went. “I’m going, too.” She rushed towards Brian and the empty cot. “Weavers are allowed to go into their book. That’s why you never touch me.”
“Do you really want to do that?” He backed away from her against the bars of the cell. Brian looked at Grady and then back to Laney, and concern filled his eyes.
Bravery crumbled like the villain on the floor in front of her. She wanted nothing more than to reach out and touch Brian and follow William into the world she created. Her heart shouted the word before her lips whispered, “Yes.”
“An unfinished story is a dangerous thing.” Grady put his hand on her back. “Control of William’s destiny is out of your hands. He could die without the help of your words.”
The truth he spoke cut her deeply. Though she knew that she would see William again, the thought of being apart hurt worse than any wound. Staring at the spot on the cot where William had been minutes before, she pulled the chain of the necklace he had given her out of her shirt and kissed it.
“I love you,” she whispered.
Chapter 24
The pain made Laney useless, but she knew she had an important task ahead of her. Brian and Grady laid Richard’s body on the vacant cot and then left the room to look for a way out of the vast caverns. Laney picked up her notebook and sat down on a stone step next to a bright cluster of candles and took out her pen. William said that when she wrote, they were together in the book. She had loved him before, but now that took on a new meaning. She needed him. Needing him meant not only the mind and the heart, but the physical — the touch of his hand, the smell of his hair, and feeling of his lips on hers. The book couldn’t give her that.
William stumbled toward me in the wood, injured in battle. A stray bullet shot a chunk of bark off a nearby tree, causing Jonas to run out of fear of being hit. I ran to William lifting his arm around my shoulder. Mustering every bit of strength I could manage, I helped him through the woods.
When we reached the town, William’s sister spotted us and ran for help. Dr. Clarke had set up an emergency medical center outside his house for injured soldiers. Two volunteers at his clinic ran over to assist me, carrying William to an empty cot.
Dr. Clarke rushed to William’s side, lines of concern creasing his face. This man who had lost his wife now feared for his son’s life. He set to work, but not before looking at me. He placed his hand on mine. “Thank you.”
I never left William’s side. I held his hand while his father cleaned and stitched the wound, though William’s responses were weak. Sitting in the grass the entire night, listening to the agonized screams of the injured, I still held tightly to his hand. He needed to know that everything was fine, though nobody was there to reassure me.
At daybreak, Dr. Clarke came by to check on William, his clothing ravaged with bloodstains, his face downtrodden.
“Go home, Anne. There’s nothing you can do to help him. He needs to come around on his own.” He looked me straight in the eye. “I know he has everything to live for.”
“My apologies, Dr. Clarke, but I cannot do that.” I held fast to William’s hand. “He knows I am here when I am touching him. I do not want him to lose that hope.”
Dr. Clarke smiled. “He is a blessed young man. There is no greater healer than the assurance of love.”
William’s father walked away, already tending to his other patients. I could tell through his diligence, they were all his sons — young men with life-threatening injuries too early in life. I watched him walk from cot to cot for several minutes before I turned back to William. His eyes were open.
“How are you feeling?” I did not want to startle him by being overenthusiastic.
“Perfect.” He sighed and lifted his hand to touch my face. I closed my eyes, taking in every moment of his touch. “I am the only soldier in here with his own personal nurse.”
“That is what happens when you have personal connections with the head doctor.” I brushed a strand of his hair off his forehead.
Laying down her pen, Laney knew William would heal. In her mind, she could see the color already returning to his face. The candles flickered around her, and as she began to close her notebook, she froze.
“And with the author.” William smiled.
William’s words formed themselves on the page. Laney knew he was speaking to her; not Anne, but Laney. His Laney. Somewhere beyond time and space, he existed, his life spared because of the words she wrote. Although the words and pages separated them, their love continued. Grady’s footsteps interrupted her thoughts. She put her notebook down on the ground, deciding to keep William’s words a secret.
“I’m assuming that means William is alright.” He crossed the room to join her.
“He’s with his father, who I’m proud to say is an excellent doctor.” The words in Laney’s book paled to the people her characters had become.
Grady sat down on the stone stair next to her, holding her head against his chest. “Maybe William will find a way to come back to you. You’re the reason he exists.” He picked up Laney’s book from the ground. “Rebecca showed me that true love is possible and can last a lifetime.”
The pain of losing William suddenly thrust itself into the forefront of Laney’s mind. Before it had been all about saving him, now it was about losing him.
“But what if I never see him again? He only came here because I needed him. Maybe that’s the only time he’s allowed to pass through the Gate.” Tears dropped onto Grady’s shirt and formed damp circles on the fabric. The silence echoed in the massive cavern.
Grady spoke, his voice reflective. “To say that I’ve been through the same experience . . . well, I’d be lying.” He rubbed her arm. “Yes, I know what it’s like to be a Weaver on the run from an Ender. And I know what it’s like to love with such passion that it aches inside. But when Rebecca left me it wasn’t a choice, but a natural part of life.”
Laney ran her sleeves under her eyes to wipe the tears. Grady pulled a few tissues out of his pocket, putting them in her shaking hand.
“The one thing I do know, Laney, is that you made the right choice. If you truly love that boy, you actually never had a choice.” He brushed her hair off her forehead, leaning over to kiss it.
“I know, but it still hurts.”
The remainder of the school year passed without consequence. Although Laney wrote through many sleepless nights, trying to find a way to draw William back out of the book, the path eluded her. She made a conscious effort to keep Jonas alive, knowing now that her words could really kill him. The temptation was there after what he had done to Jason, but she knew she wasn’t a murderer.
Brian avoided her like a lethal plague, which meant breaking up with Missy and putting Laney through everything associated with that. The college hired a new professor for their local history class after finding Professor Rice dead in his office. The coroner confirmed that he suffered a massive heart attack while working on report cards at his desk over the weekend. The new professor, Dr. Simms, caught on quickly that Laney was a freshman in a senior-level class and made her drop out to take United States History.
The college must have assumed that William dropped out when the registrar’s office was unable to reach him at home. When he disappeared, he left behind his motorcycle, which Laney quickly claimed. To prevent World War III, she asked Brian to keep it during the summer, away from her father. He agreed to it
as long as they didn’t come in close contact.
The bike gave Laney a way to get to the Golden Recluse meetings. They moved their headquarters to Rockport after another incident with an Ender in Saugus. One of David’s drug lords wanted his poem to end with him as President of the United States, providing low cost illegal drugs to all Americans. It seemed like a better alternative to the original ending where the drug lord ended up face down in a gutter on a stormy night. Laney didn’t blame the guy. Apart from Brian and Grady, the Recluse was Laney’s only connection to William’s world, and she hoped they would help her reach him because Brian had no intentions of sending her there.
“Why won’t Brian help me?” Laney picked up a rock and threw it into the waves below. Natalie and Laney sat outside an old fishing shack, now the Recluse headquarters. The harbor glimmered as the sun sank below the horizon, fishermen driving their boats in after a long day of work.
“He can’t.” She tossed her own rock. “If a Gate intentionally sends a Weaver into their story . . .” She looked across the low cliffs that ran along the water. A man and a little girl searched the rocks for tiny sea creatures. She sighed and glanced back at Laney. “If he willingly sends you into the story, you’ll have a lot more to deal with than your Ender.”
“What could be worse than an Ender?” She knew about the war in her book, and of course, Jonas. Being with William meant more than dealing with Red Coats and a madman.
She set her eyes on the shack and lowered her voice. “The Wanderer.”
Neither Richard nor William had ever mentioned someone named the Wanderer.
“The Wanderer travels from book to book looking for Weavers, trying to keep the book world clean.”
“Clean?” Laney picked up a small handful of pebbles and tossed them into the water.
“Trying to keep the book world pure, free of intruders. Brian is trying to protect you, Delaney.” Natalie stood up, brushed the dirt off her bellbottoms, and inhaled the sea air.
“How do you know this?” The members of the Recluse had never before mentioned entering their books.
“My mother.” She stopped and swallowed before continuing. “My mother was a Weaver. No one helped her because she was alone, except for me. My father left us; he went back into her book. It was a fantasy and my father was a king. He entered this world, loving my mother, but it wasn’t enough to hold him here. She found the Gate on her own and tricked him. All she had to do was touch his shirt.”
“What happened?” Laney’s head spun with the new knowledge of an actual Weaver going through the Gate.
“She entered the book, and I was left with my aunt and uncle as guardians. I held on to her unfinished manuscript. One day I read it again, but a new part took shape on the page. The words followed my mother as she searched for my father through the lands of Myrth.”
“Did she find him?” Laney placed a hand on the Natalie’s arm.
“The Wanderer found her first.” A single tear trailed down Natalie’s cheek.
Laney stood up and hugged her friend. “How do you know it was the Wanderer?”
“Harriet told me.” She rested her head on Laney’s shoulder. “She knew more about Weavers than anyone else I’ve ever met. As soon as she knew she was a Weaver, she started researching. She knew about the Wanderer.”
“I’m sorry, Natalie.”
Natalie picked up her sweater and walked toward the shack, leaving Laney with her thoughts.
Despite Natalie’s warnings, she had to reach William, even if it meant tricking Brian like Natalie’s mother did. It was possible. The Wanderer might keep her from staying in her book world, but she had to avoid her long enough to help William get back. Thunder boomed overhead, alerting her to an incoming storm that had begun to churn the water below. She wondered if it foreshadowed the road ahead.
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About the Author
Heather Kindt grew up in New Hampshire where her love for the past grew by being immersed in the history of New England. She incorporated this colonial time period into her Weaver trilogy. Every piece of history from Nathaniel Hawthorne to clockcase necklaces was researched for the books.
With her free time, Heather enjoys taking long hikes to clear her head. One of her favorite hikes is by the small town of Victor past abandoned gold mines. Like Laney, she imagines the people of the past living and working as if they were there today. Heather also likes reading and beating her kids at Uno.
Today, she lives in the mountains of present-day Colorado with her husband, Tom, and two teenagers. Heather is an elementary school teacher, which gives her plenty of ideas for her writing. In 2008, she decided to not only teach writing, but to start writing herself when she wrote her first book. As life got in the way, it sat on her computer for seven years—pretty sad.
In 2017, Heather won first place in the Dan Alatorre’s Word Weaver Contest with her book Ruby Slips and Poker Chips: The Modern Tale of Dorothy Gale. She enjoys writing humorous fiction and young adult paranormal romance. Check out what is going on in Heather’s writing world at www.heatherkindt.com or follow her on Facebook or Twitter.
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