10 Timeless Heroes; A Time Travel Romance Boxed Set

by P. L. Parker, Beth Trissel, L. L. Muir, Skhye Moncrief, Sky Purington, Nancy Lee Badger, Caroline Clemmons, Bess McBride, Donna Michaels

  ****

  The man startled awake, sweating profusely, his stomach knotted in anguish. The dreams were coming more frequently and more intense than ever before. He sat on the edge of the bed, his face in his hands, desperately praying for the dreams to end.

  Fifty

  After her discharge from the hospital, Mom and Dad had brought her home with them, moving her things from her apartment and doing their best to draw her out of the wall she had built up. Each day was like the last, colorless and without interest. She was listless, depressed and emotionally torn. Nothing could persuade her that everything she had experienced was only a dream, and she grew tired of trying to convince everyone otherwise. Her arms ached for Con, her heart cried out for Kellach. She was a wife and mother, without husband or child. A grieving widow of a man long dead, though to her it was only yesterday.

  The comfort of her parents’ home was a blessing. Though physically able to care for herself, Fiona nonetheless needed their emotional support. She passed much of the time sitting on the front porch and staring out into space, reliving each precious moment of her time with Kellach, Con and the others, and mourning what once was. It was hard to let go, she could still feel the softness of Con’s baby hair and skin, feel Kellach’s heart beating as she lay against him after making love. She could still hear Machar’s laughter and see Tanith’s smile. For her, it was only yesterday, for the world, it was a page in ancient history.

  Sykes rubbed affectionately against her leg. He had been at her parents’ home since the accident, growing even fatter if at all possible and ecstatic with all the extra attention, happy to be here. She reached down and picked him up, burying her face in his fur. He purred in contentment, until he heard Mom clattering in the kitchen and struggled to get loose. He jumped down, heading off to see what the commotion was and hoping for a tasty tidbit.

  “Traitor,” Fiona called after him. She doubted he would be willing to leave next time. He wanted this to be his home and she couldn’t blame him.

  Mom peeked out. “Did you say something, dear?”

  “Nothing important. Just talking to Sykes.”

  Mom’s forehead creased. “Maybe you could try talking to Dad and me. We at least would answer.”

  Fiona studied Maeve’s face. Her eyes expressed her sympathy and worry. “One of these days, soon, we’ll have a long talk, all of us. Right now I don’t think I could get through it without falling apart.”

  Maeve smoothed her hand down Fiona’s hair. “I don’t know what you’re going through,” she murmured. “But it would help to talk about it. I know it would.”

  Tears washed her eyes. “Someday, Mom, just give me some time. I just can’t talk about it yet.”

  “Well, just don’t clam up for too long. You need to get some of those feelings out. Get mad, throw things, scream, whatever, just don’t let whatever it is keeping eating at you.” Mom turned to go back into the house.

  “Soon, Mom, soon. Don’t worry too much about me. I’ll be okay.” She stood up and stepped down off the porch, “Mom,” she called. “I’m going for a short walk.”

  Mom hurried back out. “Do you want me to go with you?”

  “No, don’t worry about it. I’m just going around the block. I need the exercise.”

  “Well, don’t be too long. Dinner’s almost ready.”

  With a small wave of her hand, Fiona headed down the sidewalk. The noises of modern day living assaulted her senses—cars driving down the street, doors banging, airplanes overhead. Everyone here was in such a big hurry, a hurry to leave and a hurry to get wherever they were going. She had never noticed that before. It had been such a normal part of life. At the settlement, she had been busy, but never in a hurry. Things were done when they were done. There were no clocks to watch, no deadlines to meet. Life was slower, harder, but slower.

  She walked for a long time, down busy streets, along quiet avenues and even sat for a time in the park, watching the children play. Taking a deep breath, she let it out slowly. A small bloom of acceptance started to grow inside. It had been almost five months since the accident and it was time to start letting go.

  Kellach and Con would live on in her heart and she would never forget one moment of their time together, but the rest of her life was here and there would be no going back. Time to start living again—one day at a time. She whispered a prayer for them, a wish that their lives had been blessed with health and prosperity. A lump formed in her throat, it would have been so wonderful to grow old with Kellach, watching Con turn into the man she hoped he would be.

  She slowly made her way home, more at peace than she had been for some time.

  Mom rushed out the minute she started up the walk. “Where have you been? Dad and I have been looking everywhere. I’ve been so worried.” The words came out in a rush.

  Fiona started, surprised. It was almost dusk! She hadn’t noticed the passing of time, she was so caught up in the memories.

  “I’m so sorry, Mom,” she apologized. “I just started walking and thinking and I didn’t even notice how much time had passed. I’m really sorry!”

  Maeve hugged her. “Just don’t do that again. I was sure something terrible had happened. Dad’s out driving around looking for you.” She grabbed her cell phone and dialed him. “Jim, she’s home…yeah, she’s okay. Come on home.”

  “Mom,” Fiona said hesitantly. “After dinner, let’s have that talk. I think it’s time. It’s going to be hard for me, but it’s time.”

  They sat around the kitchen table, their hands linked, as Fiona told the story. Told them about waking up alone, being found, falling in love, having a baby and, lastly, the moment of her death. Tears flowed freely, hers as well as Maeve’s and on more than one occasion, she witnessed moisture in Dad’s eyes as well. They waited patiently when, at times, she was too overcome to speak and murmured words of encouragement, love, and anger as she spoke. When she was finished, they all sat quietly for awhile, lost in their own thoughts.

  “Well, I can tell you,” Maeve growled. “If that Voadicia person was alive today, I would just have to kill her myself.”

  “Maeve!” Dad scolded her. “I can’t believe you said that!”

  “Well, I would,” she said unrepentantly. “She was a terrible person and she deserved to die. This Kellach, was he a good man?”

  “He was a wonderful man!” Fiona exclaimed. “He was everything I ever wanted!”

  Maeve whispered sadly. “And I had a grandbaby I’ll never see or know. It’s so heartbreaking, I can hardly stand it.”

  Neither of her parents made any comment about disbelieving her, and she appreciated their willingness to listen and, if not believe, at least not disbelieve.

  Sighing, Maeve spoke again. “Honey, I don’t know how to comfort you. I can’t even imagine what happened or why.”

  Dad, quiet Dad who hardly ever had an opinion about anything other than his work, spoke softly. “Do you suppose this could be a genetic memory? I’ve never studied it myself, but there are those in science who do believe memories can be genetic transmissions of knowledge. I think there’s been some research into that theory at the University of Wisconsin and I believe I read something somewhere about that also at MIT. I believe Carl Jung said something about all of us having an unconscious legacy or collective consciousness from the past. I didn’t read the whole article, but it did catch my eye once.”

  Surprised, Fiona could only stare at Dad—first, because he actually offered an opinion and, secondly, because it truly sounded plausible.

  Mom jumped in. “You know, I’ve been talking to some of my friends who know people who have had hypnosis done into past life regressions. Maybe you were this person in another lifetime. And what about all those religions that believe in reincarnation? Maybe you’re the reincarnation of a woman who lived back then.”

  “Do you think so? Do you think maybe we had an ancestor a long time ago who lived that life and for some reason, her memories cropped up in me?”<
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  “I don’t know what I believe, Honey,” Maeve said and Dad nodded, “but for some reason you have all these memories and there has to be a reason.”

  “Perhaps the trauma of the accident forced those memories to the surface.” Once again, Dad made an observation totally out of his professional acumen.

  “But what about all the times in the past when I was thinking about you guys or my life here? If I was experiencing someone else’s memories, why did that happen?”

  Dad shrugged but added, “Perhaps some of your own memories or desires surfaced and were intertwined with those of the other woman’s. Who knows?”

  Fiona stood up and rounded the table, standing between them and hugging them as if her life depended on it. “Thank you! Thank you for not saying it’s crazy or I’m dreaming or acting like I’m crazy or something, although I could be.” She smiled, the first smile she’d felt like giving since she woke up.

  Dad stood up and hugged her back, hard enough that Fiona’s breath escaped in a small gasp. “Mom and I just love you so much and we’ve been hurting along with you. We hate it when our baby is so unhappy.” Embarrassed by all the feminine show of emotion, he turned away, wiping a tear away. “I have some work to do.”

  “What’s that, Dad?” They had shown interest in her, it was time to show some back.

  He turned, surprised. Fiona had never asked about his work before. “We’re sending a team to China. There are some newly discovered archeological sites that have divulged a wealth of stunning information. We think they’ve barely touched the surface and we’re trying to get permission to help in the excavations.”

  “Sounds interesting! If you don’t mind, maybe I can look over some of the information?”

  “Anytime,” he grinned, “maybe I’ll make an archeologist out of you yet!”

  Maeve huffed. “She’s going to be a nurse, you know that.”

  “Actually, Mom, I kind of had a change of heart. Maybe it’s because of all that has happened. I think I want to try something else for a change.”

  “You’ve wanted to be a nurse your entire life!”

  “I know, and I’m not saying that I won’t eventually end up a nurse. I just want to try something else for a change. I’m not sure what that is, but I have plenty of time to decide. The semester is already over and I probably flunked all my classes anyway. There goes my scholarship.”

  Maeve frowned. “Don’t they usually make some sort of special dispensation for car wrecks or other hardships? I thought if there were some mitigating circumstances, or whatever that word was, they would review it.”

  “I’ll check into it, but anyway, I think I’ll check out some other things. Who knows, I might decide to become a dream psychologist!”

  “If you’re really interested,” Dad said, “I have some files on my desk and you’re welcome to go through them anytime.”

  “I’ll check my appointment book,” she pretended to leaf through a book. “Tomorrow looks good, how about tomorrow?”

  Fifty-One

  It was several days after their family meeting before Fiona actually felt motivated enough mentally to review Dad’s files. He was sitting at his desk, drinking coffee and thumbing through piles of documents when Fiona entered his study. He glanced up, a wide smile splitting his mouth. “So you did decide to invade my private domain after all?”

  “If it’s so private, why doesn’t it have a door?” she quipped, an answering smile on her face.

  “Never needed one before. I think this is the first time you’ve actually ventured in here.”

  She laughed. “I think I might have been in here one or two times, at least to sneak some change out of your drawer.”

  “That’s where all my coffee money went!” He laughed “I kind of figured that out after about the millionth time looking for my change.” He handed her a stack of documents. “Have at ‘em! I haven’t had a chance to sort them out yet.”

  “And I’m surprised because…?”

  Paper organization was not one of Dad’s talents, he was a fieldwork man. “I’ll see if I can arrange these in some sort of order.”

  She began a cursory sorting and arranging of documents and photographs, planning a more in-depth review after they had been categorized. Most of the pictures depicted mummies, not mummies in the Egyptian-mummy sense, but mummies unlike any she had seen before.

  “Where are these from?” She flipped through the pictures. “They don’t look like any mummies I know of.”

  “They’re from China!”

  “China? These are from China? But they look like they have light colored hair.”

  “They do,” he said. “All shades of red, blonde and brown.”

  Her stomach began to flutter. “How old are they?”

  He waved an airy hand. “Oh, between two thousand and four thousand years old.”

  “That old!” she exclaimed. “Where were they found?”

  “They were excavated from the Xianjang Province of China, right in the middle of the Taklamakan Desert.”

  She studied the pictures closer, murmuring. “Place of no return.”

  “What did you say?” Dad leaned closer, his eyes widening.

  “I said, place of no return. Why?”

  “How did you know what that meant? Have you read about these before?” He seemed confused.

  “No,” she said. “I’ve never read anything about them.” Without realizing it, her hands began to shake, the papers vibrating in response to her tremors. Her eyes were focused on the picture of a young blond woman, partially dismembered. “Who is this one,” she croaked.

  “Don’t know. Possibly a sacrificial victim.” He tapped the picture. “Notice how her lower torso is missing and her arms have been torn out below the elbows. Appears to have had her eyes gouged out as well. She was found in Tomb Two, along with a mummified baby boy and an older woman. Other than that, we don’t know.”

  Fiona staggered slightly, gripping the edge of the desk for support. Dad looked up and froze, his eyes taking in her shaking hands and the paleness blanching her face.

  “What’s the matter? Are you okay?” Concerned, he rounded the desk, taking the documents from her. “Maybe you’d better sit down for a few minutes.”

  The room tilted! Fiona felt as though she were suffocating. Her breath came in pants, a band of pressure constricting her chest. “I…think I’m… having an…anxiety attack!” she gasped out as black spots danced through her vision.

  Dad did what Dad always did in any emergency. “Maeve!” he yelled. “Get in here! Maeve!”

  Mom rushed in. “What’s the matter? What’s going on?” She took one look at Fiona’s face and rushed for the kitchen. In two seconds she was back, waving a brown paper bag and forcing it over Fiona’s nose and mouth. “Breath in,” she coaxed. “Come on, Honey, breath in, slow down your breathing. That’s it,” she crooned. “You’re doing fine.”

  The bag collapsed and filled as she breathed. Slowly, she relaxed, her breathing eased and the dark spots blacking her vision vanished. Reaching up, she pushed the bag off her face, and took a number of cleansing breaths. “I thought I was going to faint!”

  Dad collapsed with a thump. “So did I! You almost gave me a heart attack!”

  “What’d you do to her?” Maeve yelled at him. “You know she isn’t feeling completely well yet!”

  “I didn’t do anything,” Dad exclaimed. “She was looking at those pictures and the next thing I know, she almost fainted on me.” His hands were shaking as well. “I didn’t know what was happening!”

  “Mom,” Fiona interjected. “Dad didn’t do anything! It was the pictures.”

  “Pictures! What pictures? What kind of pictures would make you faint?”

  Fiona handed her the pictures of the mummies. “These, Mom, these upset me.”

  Maeve took a quick look at the photos. “Well, yeah, I can see why. They’re pretty gruesome.” Turning to Dad, she shook the pictures at him. “Why’d you let
her see these?”

  “No, Mom, stop!” Fiona threw up her hands. “It wasn’t the pictures, well, it was the pictures, but specifically, it’s this picture.” She handed Mom the one of the young female sacrificial victim. “Look at what she’s wearing?”

  Mom took the picture, turning it clockwise, perusing it carefully. “She’s wearing some sort of shawl or wrap. It kinda looks like…it looks like the one I made for you!” Surprised, Maeve’s face paled. “All messed up and old looking, but it could be a twin of the one I made!”

  Fiona nodded, her eyes glued to the photo. “It’s kind of hard to tell, but if you imagined the colors brighter and all cleaned up, it would be so close.”

  “Are you sure you haven’t seen these pictures before?” Dad reached for the pictures.

  “No, Dad, this is the very first time. I’m sure of it.” Fiona turned on a desk lamp to get a closer look. “Are these mummies part of the reason you are going to China? Where did you say?”

  “The Xinjiang Province in China. Northern China to be exact. It’s a huge archeological find and several universities have been pressing the Chinese Government for permission to visit the sites where the excavation is taking place, and also view the mummies at Urumchi.”

  “Urumchi?”

  “It’s a city and there’s a museum. A lot of the mummies are housed there. That young blonde woman is one of them.”

  “When did you say you were leaving?” Her heart pounding, Fiona waited for his answer.

  “Possibly next week, if I can get all the travel arrangements made.”

  “I need to go with you,” Fiona begged. “Please, take me with you!”

  His brow furrowed in a frown. “I don’t know…I don’t know if I can work it out at this late date. The Chinese will only allow so many in and my team has been picked for months.”

  “Dad, I need to go! Please, do whatever. I’ll do anything to go with you. Please, please!”

  “It isn’t a pleasure trip. We’ll be out in the field and busy all the time. There won’t be time for anything but work.”