Whispers of Time

by Gwendolyn Ilimaris

  “Yes,” she stammered as she struggled to catch her breath from the exertion of standing. She clung to the branch as the world spun again. When it finally stopped, she took a few leaden steps forward so that she was visible in the lights from the cabin. As soon as Jake saw her all the color drained from his face. He closed the distance between them in an instant.

  “I’m fine,” she whispered when he reached her side. “Just very cold.” She tried to keep walking. Jake watched her struggle for half a second before he scooped her into his arms. She cried out in pain at the sudden movement causing Jake to flinch. He could feel her shaking as he strode back inside the cabin.

  “I’m fine,” she repeated.

  “Wha--?”

  “Please just a shower so I can warm up,” she said. “I’ll explain everything after, I promise.”

  Jake gave her a long look. He could tell just by looking at her that she was burning with fever, and the sickly pale pallor could only mean all that blood was hers. He clenched his jaw in frustration. As much as he wanted her to tell him what was going on, he could not force her to tell him.

  “Can you even stand up?” He asked, sharper than he intended when he stopped inside the bathroom.

  “Yes.” Her response was almost inaudible. He frowned before he set her back on her feet. Once he was sure she was not going to fall, he stepped out of the room. He started to walk away when he stopped and looked back, “Please tell me the truth.”

  Sara looked up at him and felt guilt wash over her when she saw the defeated look on his face. “I always do,” she whispered.

  He just stared at her for a moment before he closed the door. Once it was closed. he stood in the hallway at a loss before he glanced down at his clothes. The front of his shirt was wet with blood. He took a deep breath and disappeared down the hallway.

  A little while later, Sara was back in her room. She was staring at the half dollar sized scar she now had to the left of the belly button and a matching one on her back. It was the first time she realized the branch had gone all the way through her. There is no way she should have been able to survive that wound. She should be dead.

  Shaking her head to chase those thoughts away, she finished getting dressed. She threw away the blood-soaked clothes and was just sitting down on the edge of the bed when the door flew open. Paige rushed into the room.

  “What happened this time?” She asked, her voice filled with worry.

  Sara winced while she tried to wrap a thick blanket around her shoulders. Paige hurried over and helped her before sitting down beside her.

  “Well?” she demanded. Sara glanced at her before she told her everything that happened. When she was finished Paige was staring at her with wide eyes.

  “I think it’s time that we tell Jake everything,” Paige said after a couple moments. “I mean he was beside himself when you were missing, and I don’t think we can handle this on our own.”

  “I was planning to tell him,” Sara said, her voice shaking. “Do you think he’ll actually believe me and not think I’m making it up?” She started fidgeting with the blanket.

  “I don’t know but I think you have to try. I’ll go get him.” Paige got up and left, and a few minutes later she returned with Jake. He did not say anything as he stood waiting for one of them to talk to him. His gaze shifted to Sara and she looked down at the floor, took a deep breath, and then told him everything. Starting with the events of the festival all the way through what happened that night. When she was finished, she peeked up at him. An incredulous look was frozen on his face.

  “Show him,” Paige said breaking the silence.

  Sara glanced at her before she pulled up the bottom of her shirt just enough that the large scars could be seen. Jake’s brows furrowed as he walked closer. His eyes flew back to Sara’s face before he knelt to look at the scar on her back. You could almost see his brain working when the doctor in him realized the amount of blood he had seen could have come from these scars, and knowing if it did, she should not be alive. He brushed a finger across the one on her back as if checking it was real. She gasped and winced in pain.

  “Sorry,” he mumbled before he stood and walked over to the window, where he rested his hand on the sill as he looked outside. He was deep in thought as he remained by the window for a while. Paige took the opportunity to slip from the room.

  “You don’t believe me, do you?” Sara asked in a shaking voice while she continued to fidget with the blanket. She did not glance up when she heard him leave the window and walk over to her. He sat down beside her and took one of her hands in both of his. His were so much larger than hers they completely enveloped it. They sat for a while in the silence and he started spinning the charm bracelet around her wrist with his thumb before he sighed.

  “Yes, I believe you.”

  Sara could not keep the shock off her face when she looked up at him. She started to relax when she could see that he was serious.

  “I do need some time to process all of this,” he continued. “It’s a lot to take in all at once.” She nodded. “For now, I need to focus on getting you well.” When Sara did not reply, the two fell silent again. After a few minutes she shifted, she was beginning to get over the shock of him not thinking she was crazy and was becoming hyper-aware that he was holding her hand. He glanced down at her when she moved, and she flushed a light pink.

  “I’m not sick,” she muttered trying not to look up at him. Jake tilted his head when he noticed her coloration. She normally would have been bright red.

  “You are,” he said. “I can feel your temperature is up, and you are pale as a ghost, so you need to rest.” A half smile crossed his face when she started shaking her head. He was beginning to return to his normal self. “I’ll get you some juice and then you need to try and sleep. It has been a long night.” He let go of her hand and crossed the room.

  “I have never lied to you,” Sara whispered so quiet to his back that it could barely be heard.

  He paused and looked back at her. “I know, that’s why I believe you, even if it doesn’t make sense.”

  Relief flooded through her when she realized he did not think she was crazy. After she watched him leave, she got up carefully and climbed into bed. Moments later she was asleep, the events of the last several days caught up with her.

  Jake returned a couple minutes later carrying a glass of orange juice, “Her--.” He stopped talking when he saw she was already asleep. After setting the juice on the bedside table, he reached down and covered her with the blankets before he turned to leave. He paused in the doorway and glanced back.

  “Please be more careful,” he whispered to her sleeping form. “I need you to be more careful.” He slipped out of the room and headed toward the kitchen.

  Sara woke just before noon the next day. She found, to her delight, that she could almost move without pain. Even her head and the burn on her hand no longer bothered her. The scar from the burn was still there but the pain was gone.

  “I wonder if that healing did this?” She thought aloud. It was the only thing she could come up with that made sense. After sitting up, she looked around and noticed the juice on the bedside table. She picked it up and drained the glass. Her throat was so dry. Once she was finished, she set the glass back down and attempted to stand. The room tilted sharply causing her to half fall back on the bed. She winced when she landed, and a frown appeared on her face.

  “You aren’t ready to get up yet.”

  She glanced up to see Jake standing in the doorway. When he noticed her look at him a crooked smile crossed his face. “Well, at least not without help.” He walked over to stand beside her and offered her his arm.

  She flushed and hesitated.

  “I won’t bite,” he said with a chuckle. “Plus, Paige is driving me crazy. You need to come and talk to her. She’s been up for hours.”

  Sara could not help but smile at the mock drama he used in his voice when he talked about his sister. She reached out wit
h a trembling hand and set it on his arm with a feather-light touch. He raised an eyebrow as he looked down at her.

  “You are going to need to hold on tighter than that,” he said with a smile. She tightened her grip a little bit. Jake shook his head and chuckled again before he put his hand over hers and squeezed it tighter. “You aren’t going to hurt me. Just hold onto me.”

  The shade of red on her face grew brighter when she nodded and tightened her grip without looking at him. Once she did, she tried to stand. This time when the room started spinning, she could stay standing. She closed her eyes until the spinning stopped.

  “Ready?”

  “Yeah.”

  Jake readjusted so that her arm was hooked through his before he rested her hand back on his forearm, “Here we go. If you need to, you can lean on me.”

  She nodded, and they started to make their way to the kitchen. The going was slow, and by the time she made the short walk down the hall, she was already feeling winded.

  “You really did lose a lot of blood,” he observed.

  “Why do you say that?” She asked in confusion as she sat down in one of the kitchen chairs.

  “That’s what’s causing you to be dizzy and winded. You don’t have enough red blood cells in your system to carry oxygen, so you need food, liquids, and lots of sleep.” He glanced over when Paige came bounding into the room.

  “Sara!!” She yelled. “I’ve been soooo bored without you this morning.”

  Sara smiled at her friend’s enthusiasm, “Sorry.”

  “It’s all good,” Paige said with a shrug. “So, what are we going to do today? Are we going to go and find that cave?” She asked with a mischievous grin.

  “Paige, I…,” Sara trailed off. She could not believe Paige wanted to go there after everything that just happened.

  “Absolutely not.” Jake’s firm voice cut into their conversation. “I can’t believe you’d even think about going somewhere so dangerous.”

  Paige rolled her eyes at her brother, “Oh, come on Jake! Don’t we need to get some information?” She glanced over at Sara, who shivered when she remembered the cave.

  “No, you can’t go there. I will not have one of you almost die again.”

  Paige gave her brother a long, hard calculating look before she shrugged, “Okay, we won’t go.” She turned back to Sara and started chatting about the school tour they had soon like she had not even mentioned the cave. Jake narrowed his eyes before turning back to the food he was preparing.

  Over the next several days, Jake kept an annoyingly close eye on the girls. By the third day, Paige was getting so annoyed with him that she started locking the door to whatever room she was in. Sara was feeling almost back to normal and was ready not to be under house arrest anymore.

  On the morning of the fourth day, the girls finally got their much needed reprieve. Jake walked into the kitchen that morning with his duffle bag and was dressed in his full-dress uniform. His dress blues were a very dark navy-blue jacket with a lighter blue pant. The pants had a yellow strip down the sides and under his jacket he had a crisp white shirt with black tie. He had multiple ribbons and various other awards on his jacket, plus his captain’s bars on the shoulder. His hat was sitting on top of his duffle bag. It was time for him to report to the new base and begin his next year of surgical residency.

  Sara was eating breakfast with Paige when he entered the room and she did a double take. She watched him for a minute while he was getting his coffee.

  “You should probably stop staring,” Paige whispered with a giggle. “I mean I know he looks--.”

  “Shhh,” Sara hissed at her as her face flushed bright red. Paige giggled again and rolled her eyes. They needed to get together already.

  “It’s time for me to go,” Jake said as he walked over to the table. Paige jumped up and gave her brother a hug.

  “Knock’em dead,” she said with a grin.

  “Making people dead in my line of work would be bad, Paige,” he replied with an amused smile causing her to roll her eyes.

  “You know what I mean.”

  He laughed at her before he turned to look at Sara. It seemed like he was at a loss for what to do. After a few awkward seconds, he reached over and gave her a quick one-armed hug, “See you later.”

  “Bye Jake,” she said while he walked over to grab his things.

  “Please stay out of trouble you two,” he said, looking at his sister. “And stay away from that cave.”

  “We know,” Paige said with another roll of her eyes. She waved bye when he turned and left.

  Paige and Sara returned to their breakfast. Once they were finished, they started clearing the dishes when Paige glanced at the clock for the hundredth time.

  “What are you doing?” Sara asked when she could not stand it anymore. Paige grinned at her.

  “Just waiting until I think Jake is far enough away that we can go exploring.”

  The cup Sara was holding slipped from her fingers, “You can’t be serious?” She gasped as her face clouded with fear.

  “Heck, yes, I am,” Paige replied. “I’ve just been waiting for our chance when Jake wasn’t being a mother hen. We have to get more information about all this and that’s the only lead we have.”

  A little while later Paige was half dragging Sara through the woods with her toward the cave. The closer they got the more Sara slowed down.

  “Come on,” Paige said for the twentieth time. “We don’t have all day. Uncle Steve will be back from work in a few hours.”

  “This is a really bad idea,” Sara stammered when the cave came into view. Fear flashed across her face as they approached the entrance. Sara kept waiting for the voice in her head to talk to her, but she did not hear anything.

  The two stopped right at the entrance and exchanged glances. Paige even looked apprehensive when she pulled a flashlight out of her pocket. She hooked her arm through Sara’s, and they stepped into the cave. They looked around the entrance for a few minutes and when they did not find anything they went deeper inside. The cave only had one passage to follow and it ended in a small room. Sara could not shake the feeling she had seen this before when they stopped in the room.

  “Are those letters?” Paige asked as she shined the light on the wall and illuminated some strange carvings."

  Sara shrugged and turned to look at the rest of the room. Her attention was drawn to a glowing arch on the far back wall and as she approached it with cautious steps, it started to glow brighter. When she got closer, she noticed that there were six individual stones around the outside of the arch. Five out of the six were glowing and she wondered why the last one was not. She stared at it before she could not help herself and lifted her hand.

  “Do not touch that! It is a portal.”

  Sara jerked her hand back, “How do you know that?”

  “Know what?” Paige asked from the other side of the room. Sara did not answer and walked over to where she was standing. A sudden look of realization crossed Paige’s face. “Was that voice talking to you?”

  “Yeah,” Sara admitted. “She told me not to touch that glowing arch. It’s a portal.”

  Paige’s eyes burned with curiosity, but she remembered the object she was holding, “Look what I found.” She held out a small ornately carved silver dagger. Sara looked at it and, remembering the tiara, did not touch it. “Aren’t you going to take it?”

  “Don’t you remember what happened with the tiara?” Sara asked holding up her hand so Paige could see the scar again.

  “I’m holding it, and nothing happened,” Paige said as she held it out to her again.

  Sara sighed, but took it from her this time and the moment she touched it, she gasped as images began flooding her mind.

  A tall elven man with golden hair and blue eyes was forging the small dagger. He had a smile on his face as he pulled the little weapon out of the water…. The same elven man was giving the dagger to a little girl with silver curls. She was jumping up a
nd down with excitement as she took it…. The little girl was practicing attacks with a silver-haired boy. He was very careful and gentle when he blocked her attacks…. The images stop changing and stayed on one. The young woman was crouched by the wall of a cave as a man entered. Sara could not see his face but the young woman….

  The memory suddenly cut off and Sara came back to her senses with a gasp. She was laying flat on her back on the cave floor. Paige stood next to her with a terrified look and the dagger was back in her hand.

  “Are you okay?” Paige asked.

  “We have to get out of here, now,” Sara gasped, she was shivering as she stood up. “Something very bad happened in a cave that looked

  just like this. I’ve seen that portal before.”

  Paige grabbed her hand and the two started to head toward the cave entrance. They only made it a couple of steps before a loud growling sound caused them to pause and look back. There was something trying to force its way through the arch on the wall. All they could see of the creature was blood red eyes and a black gnarled arm with a large claw.

  “Run!”

  Both girls bolted for the front of the cave. They managed to make it outside before they heard a loud roar from behind them. Sara glanced back over her shoulder as they ran and saw the creature leap out into the forest. The creature was like nothing she had ever seen. It was the size of a large grizzly bear and walked on all four legs. Its skin looked like gnarled black leather with two large wings sticking out of its back. The wings were rimmed with fire, and so were the two curled horns that came out of the top of its head. It appeared confused when it first exited the cave while it looked around, but it quickly zeroed in on the girls.

  Sara glanced beside her and realized Paige was not running anymore. She appeared to be frozen in place after the creature burst out of the cave. Sara sprinted back and shoved Paige out of the way when the creature moved to leap at her. She closed her eyes and raised both arms to cover her face as she braced from the impact from the creature. Instead, she heard the sudden ear-splitting sound of a shotgun going off right above her. Peeking up between her fingers, she found herself looking at Jake’s back. He had somehow managed to get between the creature and her just in time.