The Time Corps Chronicles (Complete Series)

by Heather Blackwood

  “I don’t want to die. I simply said it was difficult without my brother. I think if I had him, I would feel whole.”

  “Now I am the one who does not understand,” said the ship.

  He attempted to explain it to her, but the ship was a different sort of being. She did not feel incomplete or sorrowful. Even the thoughts of losing her various captains and crews did not bother her too much.

  “We are both relics of a dead age,” said Skidbladnir. “But I still hunger for the sea. I am not ready to travel to the hall where the mead flows just yet.”

  “And neither am I,” Huginn admitted. Broken as he was, he did indeed have his eye to the future and the endless possibilities that waited for those who survived.

  Chapter 25

  Astrid finished sending an old Polish woman through her Door into death and turned to Graciela who stood to one side of the hospital room, her arms crossed as she observed.

  “Not bad,” Graciela said. “Now let’s get out of here. I hate the smell of hospitals.”

  She made a door and Astrid followed her to a rocky hillside somewhere windy and mountainous.

  “From what I understand from Jeff, you’re an artist,” Graciela said.

  “Yeah. I’ll be starting at Columbia for art school in the fall.”

  “Then this should be easy for you. Making Doors is all in the visualization. Jeff asked me to help you make Doors to all different places, even ones you haven’t been.”

  For the next hour, they practiced opening doors to the Australian outback, a Miami pizzeria, a dreary Russian apartment complex and the deck of a cruise ship.

  “This will do for a while,” said Graciela. “Come on.”

  Astrid studied the people on the cruise ship, and noted that yes, they could see the two of them. Graciela found the buffet and grabbed a mimosa for herself and an orange juice for Astrid, telling her that she was underage. Graciela found a seat and dug around in her purse.

  “I got you a little something.”

  She handed Astrid a small velvet box which Astrid opened. Inside lay a gold heart pendant on a chain.

  “As the only other woman on the team, I thought I’d get you something as a welcome gift,” said Graciela. Astrid thanked her and Graciela motioned for her to turn around so she could fasten the clasp. “It’s to remind you of two things. First, is don’t listen to your heart. It lies.”

  Astrid started to mention the contradiction, but Graciela shushed her.

  “Let me finish. The heart lies, but it tells the truth too. See, in this job, it’s hard to keep from feeling terrible sometimes. You send children through the Doors, babies too. Some people are afraid or angry, some will call you names.”

  “One man called me a demon,” said Astrid.

  “See what I mean? So you can’t get too emotionally affected or it’ll make you crazy. You do your job, you herd those people through, and you move on. Got it?”

  Astrid turned around and Graciela nodded approval at the look of the pendant. She herself wore a necklace of bright green and gold beads with matching earrings, high heels and a bulky but fashionable sweater over tight black slacks. As always, she looked like a fashion model.

  “My aspect is a sheepdog,” said Graciela. “A Belgian sheepdog, specifically. Longish hair, all black. I’d show you, but getting dressed again is a pain. I know what I do, and it’s a job. I get the souls where they need to go, and that’s enough for me. Now, Robin is all cuddly with his souls and Gopan cares about their emotional well-being, but they don’t get attached. For us women, it’s harder.”

  Astrid thought the idea was a little old fashioned, but didn’t say so.

  “As women, we bring life. But you and I also bring death. We love the babies we bring into the world, but we also can become too emotional about the souls we send out of the world. Just remember to let your head rule.”

  “I suppose you should have gotten me a gold brain on a chain.”

  “That wouldn’t look fashionable at all,” said Graciela. “This looks much better.”

  “Are you the best at making Doors?” Astrid asked. “Is that why Jeff wanted you to train me?”

  “Yes, I am. But the others are competent enough. They’ll get you into the house of the dying. I’ll get you to the bedside. It hardly matters, as they get the souls through just as well as I do. Don’t worry about it. You’re doing very well for a beginner.”

  Astrid hadn’t been concerned about how well she was doing. Her Doors were accurate enough.

  “I have a question. A friend of mine has a brother who might have died. Is there any way to check on who is alive or dead? Is there a list?”

  “No. No list. No record. We don’t attend most deaths, so keeping records wouldn’t help much anyway.”

  Astrid took a sip of her orange juice and asked, as casually as she could, “Have you ever heard of opening Doors outside of time?”

  Graciela gave her a knowing look. “I heard about you making Doors into the void before you met any of us. And yes, we can go to the void if we wish. But outside of time? No. We are beings grounded in the here and now, in the very solid things of life and death. What could be more immediate and time-bound than death?”

  “What about into other times? Like into the past?”

  “Look,” said Graciela, setting her hand on top of Astrid’s. “We’re family, in a sense. And family looks out for one another. Those Time Corps people are dangerous. They’re this collection of crazy people doing crazy things. I know your cousin was involved with them, and I’d hate to see anything bad happen to you because of them. Just be careful.”

  “I will,” she said, but she had no intention of abandoning hope for Elliot. Just because Graciela said they couldn’t make Doors to other times didn’t mean it wasn’t possible, just that she hadn’t personally done it, or didn’t know how. After all, the Professor had made doors through time. And what was the difference, when one got down to it, between a person making a Door on their own or using a machine to make one?

  Chapter 26

  There weren’t many mirrors in the Library, but Elliot was now on a mission to locate them all. He found them on walls, on remote tables, there were even a few in the rooms of the Library that housed statues and pieces of art. He remembered that Astrid found making Doors out of mirrors was easier than making Doors out of thin air. He also knew that she had once used two sides of a clamshell mirror as a pair of related Doors.

  If he couldn’t do anything to help the Professor to find him using science, then he would see what he could do for Astrid. One way or another, he needed to let them get a lock on his place and time, even if it was ever-changing.

  He now knew why the forbidden area of the Library was off-limits. It wasn’t because it held secret knowledge. Rather, it was the living quarters of the Librarian. Learning this had been a disappointment, but thinking of all the junk in those rooms had led him to the epiphany about the mirrors. His trip had not been a complete loss.

  Bennu was still requesting his assistance after dinner each night, and he gladly obliged her. They discovered that her future husband lived in Norway, and focused their reading on that area. Sometimes they researched, sometimes they took walks through areas of the Library where nobody cared to go. Other times they found secluded places for extended time alone.

  “If only I could find a pair of mirrors,” he said to Bennu one evening as they walked. “A connected pair. Then you could take one and somehow get it to Astrid while I kept the other. Then she could use it to get a lock on me.”

  “Why a pair?”

  “Maybe it’s a stupid idea, but if they’re connected, then that connection might just be enough of a thread for her to use one to find the other. She’s done something like that before.”

  “A mirror would not survive a thousand years
,” said Bennu. “Not even if we took good care of it. Glass breaks. Metal tarnishes. And there is no way to make sure it gets to her. Aside from surviving, it would have to travel halfway around the world.”

  He led her down another corridor, opening a few doors to see what was within, hoping to discover mirrors or anything else of use. He found only rooms of reading materials or occasional storage areas.

  “I have an idea,” said Bennu. “You said your friends were time travelers. Did any of them come to my time?”

  “No. The machines only work a few hundred years before and after the 1800s.”

  “That is unfortunate.”

  “No, wait. Two of them were alive at that time. They didn’t time travel there, they lived through those years in the ordinary way. Pangur Ban was in Ireland and Huginn was hanging around Norway and Sweden, though I know both of them traveled extensively.”

  “So they will be alive when I return home.”

  “Yes, but it’s not like I can send them a letter. Besides, if they had talked to you, then they’d already know where I was and would be able to find me.” He thought about it for a minute. “Perhaps one of them could pose as a scholar. Pangur Ban studied with monks. She could do it.”

  “But she hasn’t, which means she won’t. Correct?”

  “Yeah,” Elliot sighed. “There has to be something else.”

  Late that night, as he washed dishes and scrubbed down the kitchen counters, the idea came to him.

  “I thought of something,” he said to Bennu the moment she came into the Library the next day. He pulled her aside, ignoring the looks from the other scholars who were horrified at the bold conduct of a kitchen servant.

  “Huginn’s memory is a wreck,” he said. “But Pangur Ban’s has always been sharp. We could make something that would draw her attention. Something she’d remember and be able to put somewhere and then be able to retrieve in the twenty-first century.”

  “Something indestructible,” said Bennu, considering. “Metal or stone.”

  “That’s what I was thinking. You have stone-workers in your city, right?”

  “Yes, but it would be difficult—”

  “So we only need to think of what would draw Pangur Ban’s attention,” Elliot said.

  “It would have to be something simple—”

  “And something that would last a long time.”

  “Elliot, listen.” She had stopped in her tracks. “You don’t understand. I don’t have time for anything elaborate. I can only return here once more. Next week, I can come again. Then, they are sending me to the North.”

  Her voice broke, and Elliot pulled her close, kissing her.

  “I’ll find a way,” he said, his cheek pressed against the top of her head.

  He felt her shake her head. “They’re making a statue for me to bring North,” she said. “A version of the goddess Bast. We could not obtain black marble, but we did have white. And the Northerners will not know the difference. It will be a gift for my husband.”

  He hated the word, and as unreasonable as he knew it was, he hated the man. Some hairy barbarian would have his Bennu, and short of kidnapping her, he could do nothing about it. Even if he got out of the Library, the time machines couldn’t go back far enough for him to find her.

  “I wonder if we could use the white Bast,” he said. “Pangur Ban is white too, but I doubt a cat statue would draw her attention. We’d have to carve some words on it. Words she could read.”

  “In your language?”

  “Maybe. But she won’t speak modern English in your time. I’m not really sure what language she’d speak. Ancient Irish?”

  “We only have a week. Is that enough time for you to learn to write in this ancient language?”

  “I don’t know. I wish there was a way I could do something to the statue so the Time Corps had a way to find me. I wish I could attach a mirror, one of a set, to help Astrid.”

  “Would any reflective thing do?”

  “I suppose so, but it has to be indestructible. Like you said, metal will tarnish.”

  “What about water? A bowl of water serves as a mirror. And a stone or metal bowl could last a thousand years. It could tarnish or be chipped and not affect the reflective surface.”

  “That could work,” he said.

  “But how to connect the two bowls so they act like two connected mirrors?”

  He thought about it, and the moment he remembered something, his stomach lurched and his heart beat harder.

  “I know what I need,” he said. “But it’s back in the Librarian’s quarters.”

  Chapter 27

  “You could swoop down on their heads, screaming,” said Gopan to Astrid. “That would scare them through the Door.”

  “I don’t think Jeff would approve of that method,” said Astrid, taking a bite of her egg salad sandwich. They were downstairs in a hospital cafeteria, and Astrid was treating Gopan to lunch after an emotionally grueling training session involving twin baby boys. One twin had died and refused to leave the other. The living one had simply screamed.

  “And I thought you cared about the emotional well-being of the souls,” said Astrid. “Scaring them with a screaming owl is hardly good for them.”

  “I do care. But I’m trying to think of how your aspect could be useful to you.”

  Astrid didn’t think her owl aspect was helpful at all, not the way Robin’s was, or even Gopan’s. Both of them could comfort the dead, while Graciela could too, if she chose. Once again, she wondered about Jeff’s aspect.

  “I think aside from flying around and seeing in the dark, it’s useless,” she said. “Just a nice perk of being part of death. I guess it’s compensation for stuff like today with the babies.”

  Gopan, she had learned, always appeared in his aspect of an eight-year-old boy. He became serious. “I know we’re joking around, but this job can take a toll on you.”

  “I know. Graciela said not to let it get to me.”

  “She’s right. But honestly, if it didn’t get to you, I think that would be worse. Can you imagine doing what we just did and feeling perfectly good afterward?”

  She thought of the twins, the way the dead twin had reached his ghostly little arms toward his brother and how she had been forced to carry him to the Door and push him through. The other one had screamed, the body of his dead brother still warm in the incubator beside him.

  “See, here’s how it is,” said Gopan, taking a sip of his soda. “One day, you’ll turn seventy and you’ll retire. Then hopefully many years later, you’ll die and you will walk through that Door and you will see exactly what waits on the other side. How you prepare for that time is what you’re doing here. What you are now, owl aspect and all, is important. But not as important as that person that you will become. That’s why I’m so interested in your aspect.”

  “I don’t even know why I ended up with it. The only thing I can think of is a little metal owl bell I’ve had since I was a baby. It’s been on my nightstand all my life.”

  “Tell me about the owl,” said Gopan. “What does it mean to you?”

  “You sound like a psychologist.”

  He shrugged one shoulder and Astrid took a deep breath.

  “It’s just a metal bell in the shape of an owl.”

  She didn’t tell him that it had traveled through time with Elliot, was made of cold iron which caused pain to the sidhe, or that she was immune to it because it had been on her nightstand from her infancy onward, causing her pain but forcing her to develop immunity. It had also been instrumental in saving the world once.

  “Is it the same species of owl you are?” Gopan asked.

  “A great horned owl. That’s the kind I am and I suppose that’s what the bell is. It’s stylized.”

  “An
d how do you think of this owl bell? Is it friendly?”

  “My God, you are a psychologist. Is that your day job?”

  “Nope. But I’m old enough to know a few things about human nature.”

  “Well, it has round eyes and it seems to always be watching everything, taking everything in. It’s a little sentinel, standing guard.”

  Gopan spread his hands. “And there you are!”

  “A guard?”

  “And an observer. You’re an artist, looking at everything, taking it in. Noticing details that others might not. You are a thing of seeing, a pair of round eyes, taking in the world and processing it into art. You stand watch, like a guardian.”

  Astrid wasn’t sure what she thought of that. Yes, she observed things, and as a naturally shy person, she tended toward the edges of gatherings while her cousin Elliot liked to be in the thick of things. Quiet observation came naturally to her.

  “See, knowing that about yourself might make you a better psychopomp,” said Gopan.

  “I don’t know how helpful that is on a practical level. How does it make me do a better job?”

  He took another sip of his soda. “I’m not sure. The souls go through the Doors either way, but maybe it affects you differently than the rest of us. Graciela sees this as a duty. Do it and don’t get sentimental. Robin genuinely loves his souls, which helps him to cope with the emotional damage from jobs like today’s twins. Jeff sees things in a more complex way, all interweaving pieces making up a whole.”

  “And you?”

  “Me? I just want to know the meaning behind it all.”

  “Oh, is that all?” she said jokingly. “I thought with a child for an aspect, you’d be carefree and happy.”

  “Oh, I suppose I am. I do like a good laugh.”

  “How come you always show up in your aspect?” Astrid asked. “Everyone else stays in their ordinary form.”