The Spirit Rose

by Renee Duke

  He winced as she cried out, knowing from experience how much it hurt. He then rammed the used pen back into the fanny pack before jerking the medallion off her neck and transferring it to his own.

  “I have to say the rhyme,” he told Jack, placing a supportive arm around Paige, whose breathing seemed only marginally improved. “She has to get to hospital.”

  Jack nodded and gripped Paige’s hand reassuringly.

  While saying the rhyme, Dane looked around for the native boy, dimly wondering how he would react to the mist. Fortunately, he seemed to have gone, presumably back to the fishing party to get help. Dane didn’t think it was the same boy he’d seen before, and supposed this one had been out gathering berries or some other type of food.

  They materialized back in the Brothers’ House. After dragging a weak, dizzy, Paige to her feet, Dane and Jack stumbled through its door holding her up between them. Mr. and Mrs. Marchand were still in the Christien house, but came flying out in response to Dane’s frantic cries.

  “Wasps,” he yelled before they even got to them. “I used her pen, but—”

  Mr. Marchand scooped up his daughter and ran for the car, cursing the turnstile for slowing him down. Behind him, unencumbered by Paige, the others found it less of an obstacle, and pushed through easily.

  While Mr. Marchand was getting Paige into the front seat, Mrs. Marchand took his cell phone from the glove compartment in which it resided when they were in church. She disliked cell phones, but could use one if she had to.

  “Give me your pen, Dane,” Mr. Marchand ordered as his wife called the hospital. “Hers hasn’t worked well enough.”

  Dane whipped his own pen out from his fanny pack and watched his father deliver another shot of adrenaline, noting that Paige’s response cry was feebler than before. He and Jack then scrambled into the back seat. Mrs. Marchand switched off the phone and got in beside Paige, taking over support of her from her husband, who raced to the driver’s side of the car and got behind the wheel.

  Mr. Marchand paid no attention whatsoever to speed limits en route to the hospital, but, fortunately, the Sunday traffic was light. Staff members met them at the Emergency entrance and whisked a now semi-conscious Paige into the building on a gurney. Mrs. Marchand followed, leaving Mr. Marchand to find a parking spot for the car and return to Emergency with the boys.

  Having been in panic mode over Paige, Dane and Jack had forgotten their own stings, but with help for her now at hand, awareness returned. Dane had two, and Jack one which, even combined, totalled less than Paige’s seven, but they still hurt, so they were both thankful when a nurse’s ministrations relieved some of the itching and burning.

  Chapter Nineteen

  The medical staff worked quickly and efficiently. Upon receiving oxygen, more adrenaline, and some other medications delivered through an IV, Paige recovered quickly. She spent the afternoon hooked up to a machine monitoring her vital signs, but when a doctor came in to see her, he said she could go home as long as she took it easy and someone kept a close watch on her for the next twenty-four hours—an unnecessary stipulation, as her mother had no intention of doing anything else.

  “You’re sleeping in here tonight, aren’t you, Mum?” Paige said as soon as they were home and she had been settled into bed.

  “Yes,” Mrs. Marchand replied.

  Paige sighed. “Thought so.”

  “I prefer to err on the side of caution, dear. Would you like something to eat?”

  “No, thanks. I’m not hungry. Just a bit sleepy.”

  “That’s to be expected. Dad told Mémé and Pépé to wait until tomorrow to come and see you.”

  Paige and Dane’s paternal grandparents lived across town. Having learned of the wasp incident from Mr. Marchand, they had only been restrained from racing to the hospital by the promise of ongoing reports on their youngest granddaughter’s condition.

  Paige went to bed early. So did her brother, cousin, and parents. It had been a long day for everyone.

  The next day, Mémé and Pépé came by around eleven o’clock so as to allow the invalid sleeping-in time. Rain had been falling steadily and the senior Marchands expressed considerable concern about the creek, which had now gone over the sandbags and was well into the back yard.

  “I can see why there are rumours of evacuations for this part of town,” Mémé told Mr. and Mrs. Marchand. “If you get evacuated, you can come to us.”

  After fussing over Paige, they stayed for lunch and were still there when a phone call came in from the Hollingsworth grandparents. They had also been receiving bulletins on Paige and she spoke to them personally to assure them she was on the mend.

  “Hearing me wasn’t good enough,” she said upon hanging up the phone. “Granddad’s going to Skype in about an hour so he can see I’m okay. He’s going to pick up Grantie first and go over to Uncle Edmond’s to make the call.”

  “Isn’t she the one whose hundred and fifth birthday you just went to?” Pépé asked his son. “She keeps late hours for someone that age. I’d have thought she’d be tucked up in bed by…” He glanced at his watch and calculated the time difference. “Well, around now.”

  Mrs. Marchand laughed. “Not our Grantie. She’s always liked to burn the midnight oil. A minor inconvenience like old age hasn’t changed that.”

  After Mémé and Pépé left, Paige and the boys went down to the family room to await the Skype call. Up until then, they had avoided talking about their latest medallion-related brush with death, uncertain if it had happened by chance or been caused to happen.

  Dane thought the latter. “That raven was trying to warn you, Paige. It just didn’t work out.”

  When the call came, Granddad, Uncle Edmond, and Grantie Etta appeared on screen in much the same positions as before.

  “Right,” said Granddad, getting straight to business. “Do those wasps of which we have heard so much happen to be current inhabitants of the area, or were they ones that buzzed around there a few thousand years ago?”

  “We had to go back, Granddad,” Dane said defensively. “We wanted to fix things. And we probably could have if the wasp thing hadn’t happened.”

  “But it did, so let’s have the details.”

  The children supplied them, each talking in turn.

  “There! You see?” Granddad looked accusingly at the other two adults. “They can’t keep on with this. Once again, they met with danger.”

  “And once again, they got through it,” said Uncle Edmond. “They aren’t the final seekers.”

  “I think we are,” Paige said quietly. The boys stared at her in as much astonishment as the adults as she went on to say, “Ever since we got home, something about our last day in England’s been bothering me—and when I was in the hospital with nothing else to do but go over it, it came to me. You didn’t think Great-Gran used the medallion, Grantie, but you were wrong. And you and Granddad didn’t think your kids used it, either, Uncle Edmond, but maybe you guys were wrong, too. What if one of them did, and like Great-Gran, he just didn’t say?”

  “He?” Uncle Edmond said sharply.

  “Well, it couldn’t have been our mums. The distorted reality is as real to them as it is to Dad, and Uncle Gareth, and anyone else who wasn’t once a medallion user. But just as we were leaving, Uncle Trevor commented on the flood warnings. He seemed surprised by them because he thought we’d left Canada in a heat wave. Which we did, but the only people who know that are—”

  She blinked, startled, as Uncle Edmond spun his office chair around and hurried from the room.

  “Where are you off?” Granddad called after him.

  “To have a chat with my one and only.”

  “He’s going to York right now?” Dane inquired incredulously.

  “No, just upstairs,” Granddad replied. “Trevor’s here. He came back to see if he could be of any help when your uncle took a turn for the worse. He’s probably sitting up reading, but if he happens to be asleep, I doubt Uncle Edmond wil
l care.”

  Uncle Edmond returned with a dressing-gown-clad Uncle Trevor. The latter must have been reading, because as he bent down to peer at the screen, he didn’t look like someone who’d just been woken up. But he did look bewildered as Uncle Edmond pulled back his vacated office chair and placed an ordinary chair beside it so that the children could see both of them through the gap between Granddad and Grantie Etta.

  “Sit,” Uncle Edmond commanded, taking back his own chair and waving imperiously at the other.

  As Uncle Trevor did so, Granddad and Grantie Etta turned their chairs around, thus enabling everyone to have him in view. Under such intense scrutiny, his bewilderment turned to annoyance.

  “What is this?” he demanded. “The Spanish Inquisition? I feel like I’m on trial.”

  “You are. For deception. Or possibly just failure to share,” said Uncle Edmond. “The medallion, Trevor. We want to know about your medallion experience. We’ll explain why later.”

  A guarded look came over Uncle Trevor’s face. “What medallion?” he hedged.

  “You know what medallion. You were among those who dashed outside when sweet little Penelope took it off Jack at the party. You’ve used it. It worked for you. We know it did. So why did you and Gus and Tania pretend it didn’t?”

  Uncle Trevor sighed. “It didn’t work for them. It didn’t work for me, either, when you gave it to us. I didn’t try to make it work. Not then.”

  “But you did later?”

  “No.”

  “No,” Grantie Etta concurred, when he did not elaborate. “He tried before. I thought it was Aurelia, but it was him. He was the one who ‘journeyed too soon’. How old were you, Trevor?”

  “Four or five.”

  “Four or five? Oh, dear lord,” groaned Uncle Edmond. “How did you even come to have the medallion at that age?”

  “Grantie gave it to me.”

  “I did not.”

  “You did. Just to look at. You had it out of its box one day when Mum and I came by for a visit. You told Mum it was a very old family heirloom. You told me it was very special, something I’d really like when I was older. Then you both went off somewhere and left me looking at it.”

  “And?” Granddad prompted.

  “And I said a rhyme of some sort. Next thing I knew, sparks were flying, fog was billowing, and seconds later,” he threw his hands out dramatically, “I wasn’t in Kansas anymore.”

  “You read out the rhyme hidden under the rose? How?” demanded Uncle Edmond. “It was in Ancient Greek. Like Jack here, you were a precociously early reader, but you couldn’t have read that at that age. I doubt you could read it now. You’ve always been indifferent to the study of ancient languages. And ancient cultures in general.”

  “Yes, well, there’s a reason for that. I didn’t have a very good time in the Iron Age, which is where I think I went. Or some period not long after it. But I didn’t read the rhyme off the medallion. I just said a rhyme I’d had in my head for days and suddenly got the urge to say aloud. A rhyme in English that I’d found on a piece of paper. I think it was tucked in an old book I’d been looking at in Grantie’s library the week before. Book was boring, but I quite liked the rhyme, so I memorized it.”

  “The translation,” said Grantie Etta. “Written down, and tucked into a book.” She shook her head. “Sounds like someone besides Rosalina became careless. Unless that was her, too. What happened on your time trip, Trevor?”

  “I fetched up in the middle of some all-out attack against the Ancient Briton precursor of your little village. I hadn’t been there ten seconds before some unwashed thug tried to spear me with something—and would have if another unwashed thug hadn’t bashed him over the head, thus giving me time to dive under an overturned cart. From that point on, all I wanted was my mother, whom I seem to recall racing through the house to find after I reclaimed enough sense to repeat the wretched rhyme and get back where I belonged. Sobbing uncontrollably, I threw myself into her arms, and allowed her to persuade me I’d fallen asleep in the sitting room and had a daytime nightmare. I then did my best to forget the whole ghastly experience. Succeeded, too, until Dad and Uncle Avery produced the medallion and told me and the girls we could visit the past with it. That brought back memories I still wasn’t ready to deal with, and I was heartily pleased when it didn’t work for them.”

  “I should have realized what had happened when you came running to us all upset,” said Grantie Etta, looking annoyed with herself. “You were so small, it never occurred to me that the medallion might be responsible for your distress. Like your mother, I thought you’d just imagined that adventure. Read something that subconsciously scared you, or…oh, well, there’s nothing to be gained from raking that up now. Did you interact with anyone while you were in the past?”

  “Aside from the thug trying to spear me, you mean? No. Oh, wait, yes, there was a kid about my age that I grabbed in passing and dragged under the cart with me. A girl, I think, but I’m not sure. It wasn’t like I was taking notes.”

  Grantie Etta nodded. “So, someone was helped. The pattern of help was not disrupted, and the pledge has been renewed by each generation.”

  “Making theirs the one at risk,” said Granddad, indicating the children onscreen.

  “At risk?” Uncle Trevor repeated. “At risk, how? Like I was, you mean, or something different?”

  Uncle Edmond summed things up for him as briefly as he could.

  “But that’s awful!” Uncle Trevor exclaimed. “That wretched medallion is as dangerous as I thought it was. The children mustn’t use it again. Not ever.”

  “My sentiments exactly,” said Granddad.

  “No! We have to, Granddad,” Paige implored. “We can’t be the ones responsible for Varteni never getting rescued. That’s what countless generations of our ancestors have been working towards.”

  “Yes, but they weren’t up against a, quote, ‘wicked sorcerer’, whose powers have now most definitely been confirmed, and unleashed.”

  “But that’s the other reason we’ve got to do it,” Jack wailed. “Right now, I don’t even care about Varteni. I just want to make everything all right in our time. If we don’t, I’ll wind up living with those…those people. And Daddy might… well, he might…” Fighting back tears, he stopped.

  “You won’t be living with ‘those people’, old chap,” said Uncle Trevor. “It won’t come to that. As for your father, he’s had a heart condition for a couple of years now. Except for his doctor, I was the only one who knew about it. He didn’t tell anyone else. Not even your mother. Even if things change back to how they were, that won’t change.”

  “Maybe not, but he wouldn’t have to deal with all the stress he’s dealing with now because of the things that have changed,” Paige argued. “The youth in the story thought the sorcerer might find a way to get at us. That’s why he threw the Arcanus Piece back from his own time—so it could help us sort things out and get back to doing what we’re supposed to be doing, which is work our way to Varteni and free her from slavery.”

  “Something her enemy—who has now become our enemy—does not want to happen,” put in Grantie Etta, “He’s causing trouble for us to make sure it doesn’t. The way I interpret the story, the sorcerer was—is—after some kind of power intended for Varteni once she was of an age to take control of it. But getting it is probably contingent on being able to get to it, and slaves don’t have freedom of movement. Having her remain one increases the sorcerer’s chances of getting it for himself. And I don’t imagine he plans to do anything good with it.”

  “Neither do I,” Paige declared. “That’s why we have to get to Varteni and make sure things work out for her, Granddad. Remember what Aurea-Rose’s rhyme said about stout hearts? We have to keep on with this, even if it’s dangerous.”

  “She’s right, Avery,” said Grantie Etta. “Once our ancestor made his pledge—”

  “Pledges be damned! I am not willing to sacrifice my grandchildren on
the altar of family honour.”

  “Neither am I,” said Uncle Edmond. “Not now I know how close my own child came to becoming a martyr for the cause. I’m quite certain his urge to say the rhyme came from the same dark force that suggested we tell Gus and Tania about the medallion and thus botch their chances with it. This fellow they’re up against is—”

  “Someone who cannot be allowed to win,” Grantie Etta persisted. “Don’t underestimate these three, Edmond. He wouldn’t be doing any of this if they weren’t a threat to him. If he believes in their abilities, so should you. And you as well,” she added, looking at Granddad and Uncle Trevor. “I know I do.”

  Dane wished he did. It had been different when he’d thought the three of them were just carrying on a family tradition by journeying into the past. Mostly, it had been fun. Oh, sure, he’d been scared back in the fifteenth century, when the men who were after the princes tried to dispose of them as well. And when he’d tumbled into the sea while fending off the man who might have been Jack the Ripper in Victorian times, but those altercations had just been part of what was happening, something they had to deal with and had dealt with. Like when he’d skidded on some gravel on his bike and almost gone in front of a car a couple of years earlier. A close call, and upsetting, but not so upsetting that he didn’t want to ride his bike again.

  That wasn’t how he saw it now. Without the bear-thing’s intervention, the wolverine-thing would have torn them to shreds. And if Paige had been stung more times, or if they hadn’t been able to get her to hospital, she would have died. The comfort of knowing they weren’t the final seekers, and therefore had little to fear, was gone. They were the final seekers, and there was much to fear.

  He looked at his cousin and sister, wondering if they felt the same. He doubted they did. Jack was too burdened with family concerns to think about consequences. And Paige was Paige. The mere fact someone was opposing her was enough to make her dig in her heels and refuse to back down.