Beyond the Fortuneteller's Tent

by Kristy Tate

  The storm had blown itself out, leaving only gray clouds and a cold morning drizzle. The horse flicked its tail at the flies that swarmed along the marshy banks.

  Maybe the guy who didn’t die belonged with the girl who time traveled, because a more unusual pair couldn’t exist. They were meant to be together. Obviously.

  “Tell me your secret,” she said, wishing she could see his face.

  He shook his head. “I want to see you when I tell you. I…want to watch you hear what I’m going to say.”

  She considered this. “Fair enough, but—”

  “Yes?”

  “What if after I learn your secrets, I don’t want to go away with you?”

  He laughed softly.

  “Tell me now.” A realization made her voice hard, and she pulled away from him, which wasn’t easy while riding a horse bareback. To keep from falling, Petra had to hold onto Emory and hug the horse with her thighs. Her legs bumped and rubbed against Emory’s. “Stop this horse. I need to know right now.”

  Emory chuckled and clicked the horse into a gallop. Petra’s frustration rose with every clip-clop as sweat formed on the horse’s bridle and the animal’s heat radiated through her. The faster Emory rode, the tighter Petra held on. She told herself she didn’t want to cling to him, but as they flew across the meadow, destination unknown, she decided holding on was the smartest thing to do.

  When the late afternoon sun glinted off the distant hills, Emory pulled the horse alongside the river. Boulders lined the bank, stacked like a giant game of Jenga. Emory reined the horse to a walk before sliding off.

  “My lady.” He held out a hand. Again she had the chance—she could take the reins and ride far, far away, but where would she go?

  “My lady?”

  “Where are we?” Petra looked at the wild and craggy landscape.

  “Half a day’s journey from London.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “We have arrived. Further decisions can be made in the morning.”

  “We’re going to stay here?” Her voice broke. “Like camping? But we don’t have…”

  “We are safe.” He continued to hold out his hand. “What more do we need?”

  Petra hadn’t spent a lot of time camping, but she remembered going with her cousins and a truck full of stuff. “How about sleeping bags, a propane stove, freeze-dried food, insect repellent, a tent, a flashlight for starters.”

  “I’m sure those items, whatever they may be, would be nice to have, but they are not necessary.”

  Necessary? She looked around. Of course, there wasn’t a restroom or even a port-a-potty. Necessary suddenly seemed relative.

  Emory dropped his hand and turned away.

  “Where are you going?” she called after his back.

  Slowly he pulled his shirt over his head and continued toward the river. Petra slid off the horse, following. Emory sat on a rock and tugged off his boots. Standing a few feet away, Petra’s heart began to hammer as Emory stood and undid his belt buckle. She let out a small sigh when she saw he left his pants on. He dove into the river, and the water swirled red and brown around him. Seconds later he surfaced. His chest that been torn and bloody, looked clean and new.

  Petra closed her mouth and turned away so that Emory wouldn’t catch her staring.

  “Join me?”

  Dying sun sparkled on the current pulling the water to the sea. Petra hung back. In 2014 her bra and panties would be considered modest on most beaches, but what did women wear swimming in 1614? Bloomers? Or maybe Elizabethan women didn’t swim. Undressing in front of Emory was nothing like undressing in front of Mary. Turning her back to him, she unbuttoned the blood crusted shirt and hung it on a low branch. Sitting on a rock, she pulled off her boots. Then she slipped off the pants that reeked of horse sweat and worse.

  Emory had his back turned as she waded into the water. The rocks were slippery and she had to catch herself a number of times as the river’s current pushed at her legs. She waded out to where the water covered her shoulders, pulled out what remained of her hairpins, lowered her head into the water and let her hair fan out around her. The river washed away the stench of horse, sweat, smoke and ash, and the knot between her shoulders loosened a bit. She rose from the water and saw Emory watching.

  “In truth, who are you?” His voice carried over the water.

  She’d been waiting for this. What if he didn’t believe her? Yet his own story had to be so incredible; hers would probably seem boring in comparison—what’s time travel compared to the ability to miraculously heal from lethal bullet and sword wounds? She trusted him enough to know he wouldn’t abandon her in the middle of nowhere, even if he didn’t believe her.

  “I’m Petra Baron from Royal Oaks, California,” she began. “About five days ago I went into a fortuneteller’s tent at a Renaissance fair. The year was 2014.” She took a deep breath, watching his impassive face for a reaction. “When I left the tent, I found myself in Dorrington, England year 1610.”

  He stood three feet away, not close enough to touch. She thought about wading over to him and taking his hand. Instead, she added quietly, “I don’t blame you for not believing me, but it’s the truth.”

  The sun dimmed quickly, slipping behind a cloud in a pink haze. Trees overhanging the creek cast short shadows on Emory. Standing in the sun and water, Petra didn’t feel cold, but she wondered if Emory was cold in the shade. She wondered if he felt cold, if he ever felt tired or hungry. She wondered what he felt about her.

  Emory gave a small nod, as if he understood the illogical and impossible. How could anyone buy her story? She didn’t understand and it had happened to her. “Who are you?” Petra asked. “Or, maybe I should ask, what are you?”

  “I’m Emory Ravenswood. In the fourteenth century, when I entered my eighteenth year, my life…changed. Forever.”

  Petra let out a small gasp and a wave of relief washed over her. “You’re like me. We’re both time travelers!”

  Emory went forward and she went backwards. How amazing that they met in the middle, that they shared this rare and phenomenal experience together, that she didn’t have to be alone, that she’d been given someone to share her life with.

  “I’m not like you.” Emory interrupted her thoughts. “I did not travel through time like you. I am like most men.”

  “Like most men?” Petra slipped on the rocks. She treaded water until her feet hit sand which shifted as she wrestled with what Emory had told her. “Most men don’t live for hundreds of years. Are you saying you’re two hundred years old?”

  A cold wind picked up, shaking the trees. Leaves danced from the branches and landed in the water. Petra shivered.

  Emory, taking note, waded toward her and took her hand. “I’ve been on this earth since the fourteen hundreds, but my body is eighteen years old. In that, we are the same.”

  Petra’s arms and legs were growing stiff in the cold water. She wanted to drown in disappointment. “We’re not the same.”

  He pulled her to him and held her. She felt lulled by his warmth; she wanted to lean into him, let him take her, but she felt wooden and hollow.

  “I’ve been alone a very long time. It’s very difficult to watch the people I love grow old and die.” He brushed the wet strands of hair off her face. “Until you, I’ve managed to keep my distance.”

  “But Anne? Rohan?”

  “I’ve known Anne since she was a babe. She’s the last of my family, the daughter of my brother’s grandchild. I could not stay away.”

  “And Rohan?”

  Emory laughed. “Rohan is different. I’m afraid he will always be a part of my existence.”

  “Why would you say that? Eventually--”

  Emory reached one finger out to tilt her chin so that their eyes met. “For Rohan and for myself, there is no eventually.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He stepped away. “It’s a very long story best told over a camp fire.”

&n
bsp; “I’ve had enough of fires.” She didn’t want to be led away or distracted from his story. “I want to hear about you and Rohan.”

  “Come, Petra. It’s getting cold.” He pulled her toward the riverbank and she followed relunctantly while the river’s gentle current pulsed around her legs. He retrieved her shirt and wrapped it over her shoulders. She shrugged into it, despite its smell and filth. It hung past her thighs.

  “I’ll make a fire and then I’ll tell you all you want to know,” he said, buttoning a few of her buttons. “And much more that you probably do not.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  The thin place:

  Where the veil between this world and the Otherworld is thin.

  To some it is heaven, the kingdom, or paradise.

  To others it may be hell or an abyss.

  Maybe the hell is not knowing which.

  —Petra’s note

  Emory disappeared behind an outcrop of rocks and returned moments later with a blanket and a small box. He smiled at her surprise. “I have been here many times before.” He cleared his throat. “It is a second residence to me.”

  She looked around at the small clearing in the grove. “It’s nice,” she said, sarcasm touching her voice. “It’s a wonder you ever leave.”

  He smiled as he shook out the blanket and wrapped it around her. “I’ll have the fire going soon.”

  She grabbed at his hand. “No, don’t do that now. I want to hear—”

  He shook his head. “You had a long, sleepless night. You must be hungry and tired.”

  “But not you, right? You won’t be hungry and tired, because you don’t need to eat or sleep?”

  He tucked the edges of the blanket around her and then pushed her onto a log. She sat with a disgruntled huff.

  “Mere moments,” he promised.

  She called after his back, “In a lifetime of moments that, for you, never end?”

  He shook his head as he disappeared into a thicket of aspens. “Wrong,” he said, when he reappeared carrying an armful of gathered wood and a leather flask. “My life ended more than two hundred years ago.”

  Despite the warmth of the blanket, a chill passed up Petra’s back. “You’re dead?”

  “Not exactly.” Emory set aside the flask and used a log to clear a circle where he piled his logs and then broke twigs into kindling.

  “You’re either alive or your dead. There’s not an in-between.”

  “And you know this how?” He arranged the fallen wood into a teepee and placed twigs beneath. Petra wondered how it would start after the drenching rain, but then he uncorked the flask and poured ale on the wood. “There is an in between. The old people call it the thin place.”

  “The old people? Being two hundred years isn’t old?” Petra shivered in the blanket. She’d thought it creepy when Auntie Dee had dated a man twenty years older, even creepier when her forty-something neighbor Mrs. Duncan married her twenty-something gardener. Compared to two hundred, twenty was nothing.

  “I’m not so old.” He cleared his throat. “Look at me, Petra. I am the same age as you, stuck in the thin place, between the living and the dead.”

  “Not a ghost?” Even in front of the fire, wrapped in a blanket, she shivered with cold and something else. Not dread, not disappointment, more than disbelief—she couldn’t categorize her feelings.

  “I cannot die because I have already done so.” Using flint and tinder, Emory lit the wood.

  Petra watched the pile of wood burst into flames.

  Emory leaned back on his heels, studying the smoke that curled into the sky. “It’s something that can only be done once.”

  “How? What was it like?” She wrapped the blanket around her a smidge tighter, her shivering increased. “Maybe I’ve died, too. Maybe that’s why I’m here. This is my in-between.”

  Emory sat beside Petra. Wrapping his arm around her, he pulled her against his chest. “No, you are very much alive. There is no mistaking death.”

  Pressed against Emory, Petra’s shivering eased slightly. “Are there others like you, trapped in the thin place?”

  “Not many.” He held her tight, resting his chin on the top of her head.

  She breathed out a sigh. He didn’t feel dead. He felt warm and alive. “Why are you here? Why am I here with you?”

  “Those are two different questions.”

  “Then I want two answers.”

  “Do you know what happens when we die?”

  Of course not. No one living did. She wanted to believe that her mother lived on, somewhere, somehow, and that she’d see her again. In her imagination she’d pictured a reunion with her mother and her father in a heaven of sorts, a place without cancer or accidents. She looked at Emory, confused, fearful and hopeful.

  “It is one of life’s grand secrets, one all who pass are instructed to keep.”

  She smiled. “And you’re going to tell me?”

  He nodded. “Heaven is already angry with me.” He turned his lips toward hers and gently kissed her. “Are you willing to be with someone who’s on the wrong side of heaven?”

  Petra shivered again. The fire and blanket didn’t help. If she’d been home and someone had told her he was caught in a thin place, on the wrong side of heaven, it wouldn’t matter how hot he was, or how attracted to him she felt, she would have said goodbye and gone on with the rest of her life. But she didn’t have a life here. She had no one, nowhere to go and nothing to do. Turning her back on the one person she knew wasn’t an option.

  “Do not worry. I’m not in league with hell, although they have done their best to recruit me.” He kissed her deeply and the earth shook beneath her.

  No, really, the earth is shaking. A dark cloud billowed overhead and a mean wind whipped through the trees.

  Lifting his lips from hers, he said, “See, they are angry already. Both of them.”

  “Them who?”

  Lightning crackled, thunder rumbled and Emory laughed. “Heaven and hell. I must keep their secrets although they promise me nothing in return.”

  Scattered rain drops, heavy and stinging, fell. The fire quivered and sizzled. “Will they put out your fire?” Petra didn’t know what she believed of heaven or hell, but making either of them angry seemed stupid. She readjusted the blanket. “You shouldn’t tell me, then.”

  “Is that what you want?” he asked, his face inches from hers. He pulled the blanket so that it protected her head from the rain. “Moments ago you were willing to stand in the river until your legs turned to ice if I did not tell you my truth.”

  Thunder boomed and the rain turned from a few desolate drops to a driving deluge. The fire lost its roar and flames and began to smoke.

  “I don’t think you should make heaven or hell angry!” Petra said, raising her voice above the escalating storm’s noise.

  “I thought you didn’t believe?”

  “Do my beliefs matter?”

  He laughed. “Absolutely.” He leaned his forehead against hers. “Your belief is the only thing that matters.” Standing, he drew her up and led her to an outcropping of rocks.

  She trailed after him, tripping over sticks and fallen branches. “I don’t even know what that means.”

  Emory stopped to grab his clothes off the branches where they’d been hung, and then he led her into a cave so deep and dark that she couldn’t see the end. She blinked in the gloom. Emory lit torches that hung from the wall and the cave sprung to light. An animal fur rug sat on a dirt packed floor. A stack of wooden crates held a variety of supplies including a jug, a bucket, and a knife.

  The ultimate man cave.

  As if he could read her thoughts, Emory looked sheepish. “I wasn’t expecting company.” He sat down on the bear skin and pulled her beside him.

  “In the year 1414, I was…foolish.”

  Outside the cave, the wind howled. The tree branches whipped against each other and moaned in their movement. Looking at the raging storm, Petra said, “I think may
be having this conversation is foolish. I really don’t want to make heaven or hell mad.” She paused. “Would it help to whisper? Can they hear us?”

  He smiled and shook his head. “Heaven and hell aren’t easily thwarted.”

  “And yet, you did it when you were…foolish.”

  “I was more foolish than most at seventeen. My friends and I were setting a fire. My family died in the fire. And the entire village.”

  Petra gasped and reached out to touch his arm. “I’m sure it was an accident.”

  “I’m still responsible. Everyone I knew died, except for my brother who happened to be away. I watched him return,” Emory’s voice choked. “I saw him realize that he had no one and nothing left.”

  “But you?”

  Emory shook his head and leaned against the stone wall. He pulled her so that she lay against his chest. “Not even me. You see, I had also died.” He took a deep breath. “When you die, you’re gathered up to your people. Do you know what that means?”

  A chill shook her and her body turned cold everywhere except for where she and Emory touched.

  “When we die we’re gathered to our people,” he repeated. Lifting his face toward the roof of the cave, he addressed it. “I’ve shared nothing that she can’t read in the Bible for herself.” He smiled. “If you can find the King James version, there’ll be no need to learn Latin.”

  The storm raging beyond the cave’s opening seemed to subside. The wind stopped howling and the rain slacked off.

  He turned back to her. “There are numerous references on the subject. Genesis gives an account of Jacob dying and being gathered to his people, for example. Should you like more, there are many. I’ll admit that at one time I became something of an expert on the subject.”

  Petra shrugged. She wanted to say I believe you but she wasn’t sure if that was true.

  Emory’s voice turned fierce. “I don’t want to be gathered to my people. And as for the judgment bar of God—”

  A laugh rang through the cave, echoing off the walls. Emory bolted upright and Petra struggled to her feet. She imagined the arrival of a host of winged avenging angels, carrying bows, swords and righteous indignation.