“William, my boy. You do have exquisite taste in friends,” Damien said slyly, though something in his voice told her it wasn’t malicious. He was teasing Will, and Sofie couldn’t help but smile.
Damien lowered his hand and let Sofie’s slip carefully, never turning from Will. He gave one last bow to Sofie, then straightened and took a step forward.
“William, I sense that this young lady is not the only company that you have with you today.”
As if given a cue in a play, the air turned cold and a fog began to roll in, swallowing the trees around it. Sofie was the first to hear Elizabeth’s voice in her head.
Foolish! Elizabeth growled. Do you actually believe that there is anywhere that you can run that I will not find you?
By the look on his face, Will had just heard her, too. To Sofie’s surprise, it seemed as though Damien did as well.
“Will!” Sofie screamed over the deafening wind that had risen as Elizabeth got closer. “Will, we have to go!”
“No,” Damien said calmly, his voice just barely heard over the sound of Elizabeth’s approach. “William, no. You must stop this. You know what you have to do. You were given the solution long ago.”
Will stared at Damien for what seemed like an eternity. A flash of something brightened his eyes and his jaw clenched.
“Will!” Sofie yelled again.
Will looked at her as though he had forgotten she was there for a moment. She held out her hand and he ran toward her, but just as she turned, he grabbed her hand and stopped her, pulling her into his arms. He held her tightly, protecting her, saying goodbye.
“I cannot run anymore,” he said into her ear, his breath warm on her skin. “She will never leave us alone; never leave you alone. She will hurt you, and I will not allow that to happen.”
Sofie pulled herself out of Will’s embrace and stared up at him, her face drawn in confusion.
“Just please, remember,” he said louder, grabbing her face in both his hands. “I love you.” He covered her mouth with his, their kiss desperate and tender at once.
“I love you,” he said again.
Will looked into her eyes as he stepped backward, and he mouthed the words again. He then turned and faced Elizabeth straight on, his arms straight as his sides, his hands balled into fists.
“You can take me, but you will leave her,” Will said into the approaching cloud. It stopped in front of him, and Sofie heard it cackle.
“Don’t be so sad, dear William,” Elizabeth said, but only to him. “You will find another.”
Will said nothing. Sofie could see his body stiffen slightly as waited for Elizabeth to descend. She wanted him to look back at her, to be able to see his face one last time, but he never turned.
Sofie watched from where she was frozen, unable to believe what was happening in front of her own eyes. Elizabeth fell on William, enveloping him, but he did nothing to move out of her way.
A scream burst out of Sofie’s throat from a place deep within her soul, a primal sound that scared even her. She began running toward them, not sure what she was going to do but knowing she had to do something. Suddenly an arm around her stomach held her in place. Sofie struggled against the sudden restraint, but Damien was strong. Soon she collapsed against him.
Sofie fell to the ground, Damien’s arm still around her. The tears came in force and she didn’t try to stop them, and she screamed again.
“Why did you stop me?”
“Because there is nothing that you could have done,” Damien answered, his voice hushed as if he was comforting a child awakened from a nightmare.
The air had warmed again, and the sun was peeking through what openings it could find in the trees. The wind calmed and there was barely a breeze. There was no wind, Sofie reminded herself, because there was no Will. Another wave of tears came over her, and she sank again against Damien.
After she had no more tears left in her, she pushed herself off of Damien and knelt. Carefully she pushed herself up until she stood on weak legs, her hand going to her middle to stop the shaking.
“Thank you, Damien,” she said quietly but sincerely. “I, uh. I think I have to go now.”
The idea of driving home right then was not appealing, and she thought would be next to impossible, but Sofie knew she couldn’t stay there. She had nowhere else to go, and for a moment she thought of just falling where she stood.
Her feet propelled forward under their own power, with no input from her. Trees blurred together and the birds hushed. She laughed at herself as she thought back to last night, and how she had convinced herself there was no way she could be feeling anything for a guy she’d known less than five minutes. Even that afternoon, she had been positive he was a rapist or a serial killer that had a change of heart and decided not to make her his latest victim. But then they walked, and they talked, and he kissed her the way he did. She had fallen in love with him in the blink of an eye, and in the next blink he was gone.
Sofie stepped out of the tree line and blinked at the setting sun. Her car was only steps away, and she reached it quickly. Sliding into the driver’s seat, she put the keys in the ignition but couldn’t bring herself to start the engine and leave. Glancing in the rearview mirror, she expected to see Will standing there at the edge of the woods, waiting for her to come to him, his lips tipped in a lopsided smile. She saw a movement and turned quickly, but it was only a deer venturing out to nibble at some brush now that Sofie was not there to interrupt her dinner.
She turned back, her heart just as hollow as it was before. Sofie’s hands gripped the steering wheel until her knuckles turned white and she let her head drop back on the seat.
“Oh, Will,” she said in a loud whisper. Tears threatened to spill down her face again, so she squeezed her eyes tight to keep them back.
A tap at the window made Sofie jump.
“Will?”
There was another tap and Sofie turned to see the cause. A woman stood at her window, large brown sunglasses hiding half of her face and small white dog in her arms. She tried saying something, but all Sofie heard was mumbling. She turned the key in the ignition enough to turn on the battery and rolled down the window.
“Are you okay, dear?” the woman with the dog asked. “Do you need me to call someone for you?”
Sofie blinked a couple of times to bring this stranger into focus and she wiped at her eyes. She looked around as her mind raced to bring back the events of the last twenty-four hours.
“Oh, no,” Sofie spoke quickly as she started remembering everything and the tears threatened again. “No, thank you. Um, that’s kind but I’m okay. I, um, I was driving through town on my way to my sister’s and got tired.”
“Okay, as long as you’re all right.” The woman stared at Sofie for a moment longer, trying to determine the amount of truth in what Sofie said. Apparently deciding that Sofie wasn’t a vagrant, she turned on her heel to continue exercising her dog.
Sofie wiped away the sleep that she could feel was gluing her lower eyelashes together and ran a hand through her hair. Her fingers snagged on the tangles and knots that were the direct result of the intense winds brought on by the war with Elizabeth.
Elizabeth.
Sofie had never loathed another living being before, though technically Elizabeth was not among the living. She disliked many and hated a couple more. But hate was too gentle a word for what Sofie felt toward the woman who ruined forever any chance at happiness Sofie had. She was sure that she would eventually move on, and hopefully meet someone else. But Will would always be that secret between her and whomever had the strength to take her on.
Air was what Sofie needed now. More air than what she was getting through the opened window, so she rolled it up again, pulled the key out of the ignition, and opened the door and stepped out. She grabbed the elastic off of the seat where it must have fallen when she was making the vain attempt to tame the curls that were now running rampant at their own whim, and she threw her hair back in
to the messiest bun she’d ever created. Right then, that was the last thing she cared about.
The only person around that Sofie could see was the woman with her little dog, but unwilling to submit to further review, Sofie walked quickly in the opposite direction. She had no heading but instead just propelled forward, letting her feet take her where they wanted. Of course, where her feet wanted to be was at the small family plot that was separated from the main cemetery. She recognized the last name and stood frozen to the spot, her hand resting on the rusted metal gate that seemed to have replaced a wooden one that still stood leaning against the inside of the fence. She saw a medium sized stone made of marble that was larger than the one next to it but smaller than the one that lay half broken across from it. The names had been all but worn away, but Sofie could just make out the name Charlotte in the indentations that were left. The smaller one that lay next to it might have been taller but it was sunk into the ground. There might have been a name at one point, but Sofie didn’t need to see it to know who was buried there. Will’s son, Conor.
Sofie’s eyes glanced to the stone that stood to other side of Charlotte’s. It was covered in ivy and lichen, and stood as tall as the one across the way. Sofie’s hands shook slightly as she pushed open the gate and walked into the small plot, straight to the ivy covered stone. She reached up carefully and pulled the leaves away, scraping the lichen off with her fingers. And there was the name she was afraid to see.
WILLIAM MCKAY
Sofie exhaled the breath she didn’t know she was holding, goosebumps rising on her forearms, the hairs on the back of her neck standing on end. She knew who he was and where he had come from, but he had told her he wasn’t actually dead. Her knees wouldn’t hold her up any longer and she fell to the ground.
“You do know that he is not buried there,” a familiar voice said from behind where Sofie sat.
Sofie turned to see Damian standing just inside the gate, his hat in a hand crossed over his chest, his other hand hidden behind his back.
“What do you mean he’s not buried here?” she asked, motioning to the stone in front of her as proof that he probably was. Perhaps, she thought, Elizabeth had brought him back to his time to finally let him die. That seemed improbable, given that Elizabeth’s whole reason for existing was to make Will suffer, but Sofie’s head hurt too much to come up with another explanation.
“After Elizabeth had cursed William, his father had a tough time explaining what had happened. To say that William had run away or left in the middle of the night would have shamed Elias and disgraced the family name,” Damian explained as he walked further in and stood next to Sofie.
“So, Elias determined that lying would be his better option. Quite an elaborate lie, too. He told neighbors and townspeople that William was travelling, but that he had been beset by those wishing to kidnap him and ransom him to his father. But William being the valiant, loyal son that he was fought with his would be captors and was ultimately killed. So, Elias left town for a few days under the guise of going to pick up his deceased son, discreetly bought an empty coffin to be filled with stones, and then brought it home and buried it.”
Sofie listened to Damian but couldn’t wrap her head around what he was saying. That sort of thing only happened on television. But then again, almost all of what Sofie had seen in the last day or two had been something straight out of fiction.
“This Elias sounds like a truly upstanding, loving father,” Sofie said with a touch more than a little sarcasm. “I hope he wasn’t missing Will too much.”
Sofie stood, grasping Damian’s outstretched hand for assistance. She wiped the dirt and leaves off of the back of her pants, her eyes never leaving Will’s name, somehow comforted by the fact that he wasn’t really lying six feet beneath where she was standing, but still aching at the sight of his name.
“Damian, how is it you know all of this about Will?” she asked, genuinely curious. “You had said you two met only a few years ago.”
Damian seemed to think a moment before he opened his mouth to answer. “Well, the term may have been misleading. When I said I had met him a few years ago, it was more like a couple of hundred years ago.”
Sofie turned that answer over in her mind.”
“I met William,” Damian continued. “At his first stop, shall we say. This was directly after Elizabeth had cursed him. He told me the truth about her, and I told him the truth about myself.”
“What truth?”
“That I am as Elizabeth is. I am a witch.”
Sofie’s eyes went wide and she took a step away from Damian.
“Oh, no, no, my dear. I am not dark and cruel as she is. I don’t practice her dark arts. I practice magic as it ought to be done.”
Sofie stopped but made no attempt to approach Damian again. She’d never actually met a witch before, and now she had met two of them and on two totally different ends of the practice. She held up a hand.
“Whoa. Just hold on a second. My ears are starting to buzz.” She took a deep breath, exhaling it slowly. “So, you’re a witch?”
“That I am.”
“And Elizabeth is a witch?”
“She is.”
“So why couldn’t you just do your magic to undo Elizabeth’s magic and let Will go?”
It was a simple enough question, but Damian seemed to have to think about his answer.
“Sofie, it was not that—I would have loved to have saved him, removed Elizabeth’s spell and sent him back. But her dark magic is powerful, and she had a specific purpose. Without knowing what exactly she cast on him, had I not used the precise spell to reverse it, I could have done more harm than good. I could have sent him back too far, forward even further, or even sent him into nowhere.”
The buzzing in her ears began vibrating behind Sofie’s eyes. She rubbed at her temples and took some deep breaths.
“But that is why I have stayed with him. After I realized I could not help, I became determined to at least protect. My magic is why Elizabeth has not been able to do anything more to him. He is…”
Sofie laughed, a deep laugh that surprised even her.
“Not been able to do anything more to him? What do you call what happened this afternoon?”
“Sofie, understand. My magic protected him, but it was your magic that helped him.”
Sofie opened her mouth to respond, but she couldn’t get any words to come out. She coughed, trying to break them loose, but still nothing. Finally, a nervous laugh cleared the way.
“My magic? What magic?”
Damian just smiled and bowed, sweeping the hand holding his hat in front of him. He stood straight, replacing the bowler on his head and turning to the side. Sofie saw movement in the woods behind the tiny cemetery within a cemetery, and she squinted her eyes to see the shape moving toward them. Her eyes flew wide, her mouth dropping open, and all air suddenly became thick.
Will pushed aside a low hanging branch, stepping tentatively, as if not sure if his sudden presence would scare Sofie away. As he got closer his steps got a little quicker and when he reached the fence, he hopped it in one fluid movement.
Sofie stepped forward slowly, her eyes never leaving the ones that stared back at her. Will was actually standing there, his face cautiously breaking into the crooked smile she loved so much. He held out his arms, and she ran to them. He caught her up quickly as she crashed into him, her arms wrapping around his neck. His arms came around her, crushing her to him.
“Okay, not that I’m complaining,” she said into his chest. “But how are you here? I saw you get swallowed up and disappear.”
Will kissed Sofie’s head and pushed her off of him, keeping his hands on her shoulders. “Like Damian told you, your magic released me from Elizabeth’s curse.”
Sofie took a step back, grabbing a hold of Will’s hands to keep him from disappearing again.
“Yeah, see. That’s the part I don’t understand. What do you two mean my magic. I’m not a witch, I don’t
cast spells. And I certainly didn’t do anything extraordinary. Unless you call going catatonic extraordinary.”
“Sofie. Each time Elizabeth took me, I was running. I wasn’t trying to protect; I was trying to escape. But this time, I stopped running. I let her take me, to protect you. It broke her curse, and her hold on me.”
“And for that, you are rewarded, my dear Sofie,” Damian interjected. Sofie had forgotten he was there.
“Rewarded?” Sofie asked. “Who is—you know what? I don’t even care. I’ll take it and stop asking questions.”
Will cupped her face in both of his hands, his eyes sinking deeply into hers. His lips met hers, tender and warm, and her mouth parted to his. He stood back, his hands still on her face. She opened her eyes slowly. His kiss still took her breath away.
“Well, my love,” he whispered into her ear. “Shall we go start our forever?”
“Oh, yes. Let’s!”
Destined
387 BC, Ireland
Holding Rome off for seven months, the Celts were losing battleground. They were losing their advantage over the enemy and it was costing them everything. Julius Caesar mounted a war campaign against the Celts and everything they worshipped. No village stood the test of time; women, children and the elderly were slaughtered or left for dead. Hills and forests were littered with dead bodies and the stench of decaying flesh was everywhere. It seemed the land was mourning the death of her children. The grass and rivers were a bright red, the blood of the countless that died protecting themselves and others.
The druids and the last remaining tribes fled in hopes of survival. The Romans came after them like preying vultures extending their deadly claws. The final battle between the last two tribes and the Roman army was about to occur. The Celts were hoping they would win and drive away the savages who slaughtered their women and children. Both sides looked up to the all-knowing heavens for just a moment, expelling their wishes and hopes. Soon the echoing of horns awoke them to their destiny. The battle had begun.
Swords clashed and bodies began to litter the ground quickly. Neither side would give in easily. Among the Celtic warriors were women, some alongside their partners. This was truly the last battle Branwyn and Eavan wanted to be ever a part of. They were two of the strongest and youngest warriors left in their tribe. Both tried to be near the other, but soon it became impossible. The head of this Roman army was General Crasius, who was fighting Eavan. They were well matched, but one was bound to let their guard down. Branwyn, with her brown hair flying in the wind, tried to keep an eye on her lover, but with the onslaught of soldiers she couldn't look back.
Destined ~ A Time Travel Anthology Page 9