A Midsummer's Day

by Montford, Heather

  Vaughn didn’t want to think about what she was waiting for. But… In his heart… he knew.

  He boosted himself up so he stood on the wooden ledge between the wooden bottom of the cage and the iron bars on the top. He stuck his head out of open cage top. “Bring her back up. You have to bring her back up!”

  Nobody moved.

  He turned to look down the Dead Road. T stared straight at him. She nodded.

  He knew what he had to do.

  He jumped onto the stage. Jameson’s two constables and three of their own brutes rushed onto the stage. Vaughn ignored them. He stared at the bubbles coming to the surface.

  They were slowing down.

  Anger filled Vaughn from head to toe. “You said you weren’t going to kill her, you bitch!” he shouted at the false queen.

  The constables charged.

  The air bubbles stopped.

  Vaughn dove.

  Chapter 24

  Every molecule of her body fought the pressure squeezing her from all angles.

  Her lungs burned to the rhythm of a hidden clock, ticking down the seconds until they failed.

  A tear fell from her eye.

  She was going to die. She knew it. Jameson wasn’t going to let her up. He was going to keep her down here until she drowned or her lungs collapsed. He was going to kill her, in spite of what the Queen had said on the hill.

  Or was the Queen up on the stage, sitting on her perch, waiting for her to die?

  If only drowning were easier… If only it could go more quickly.

  Maybe she shouldn’t fight it. She wouldn’t suffer so…

  She relaxed her lungs, ceasing to hold her breath. She closed her eyes. The world went dark. This was it.

  I love you, Vaughn, she thought as the pressure of the water overtook her.

  If only she wasn’t strapped into this horrible chair… She would let herself go, and slowly sink to the bottom of the pond. Forever she would be Tudor legend… Forever would she be the poor, tragic noble Lady who gave up her life for the one she loved.

  When Vaughn got back to the future without her, he could spread the tale. He would be the inventor of a new Renaissance Festival myth. And only he would know the truth behind it.

  She flew through the water. Painfully bright light flooded her eyes, and she slammed them shut. She coughed up water. And there it was...

  The dear, dear sweet air she never thought she’d breathe again. She gasped, taking in as much of it as she could.

  Her lungs burned with the effort of trying to slow her breathing. She had to stop gasping. She had to keep herself from hyperventilating. She was fine. Things were okay. She was no worse off than she would be after an asthma attack. She relaxed.

  She realized… She wasn’t moving. She was still in the air, high above the water. She wasn’t moving closer to the water, closer to another chance of death and drowning. She brushed her soaking wet hair from her eyes so she could see.

  Wait a minute… Her hands were free. How were her hands free? Jameson had strapped them down himself.

  Where… where were the straps? They hadn’t broken. There was no sign of the leather being nailed to the wood at all.

  She still stared at her hands as the dunkers swung her over the water. She still stared at her hands as she landed on the stage with a thud.

  A hand came into view. A black cuff, with gold embroidery… Had the punishment been enough? Was he satisfied? Had his homicidal tendencies towards her ebbed? She didn’t want to take his hand. But there was no getting out of the chair without help. So she accepted Jameson Kent’s help.

  His hands pulled her to her feet. His hands, which had caused her so much pain, steadied her as she got her land legs back.

  What had changed? Jameson Kent proved he couldn’t be this gentle. This caring. Yet he showed no signs of the evilness she’s grown to know over the past two days. There was no sign of the pure, unadulterated hatred he had shown for her. She finally looked at his face.

  He looked at her with kindness mixed with false sternness. His act was as bad as Johnny’s was.

  What in the blazing hell was happening?

  “My Lady Halloway,” Jameson said in the most proper of tones, though he still held her hand. “I pray thy time in the pond hath washed clean thy virtue.”

  It was the same line. It was what Johnny said every time he dunked Sammie.

  It wasn’t what she expected to hear after almost being killed in the pond for witchcraft, heresy, and treason.

  Sammie looked into the holding cell. Vaughn wasn’t there. The cage was completely empty.

  Tears flooded her eyes. Had they taken him while she was in the water? Had they killed him in secret?

  Had she survived only to have Vaughn die?

  How could she live without him?

  Maybe she could make it back into the pond. She’d let herself sink. She’d hold onto something until she slipped away. They would be together again.

  Death didn’t seem so horrible.

  Then she heard it...

  A ringtone.

  Sammie looked into the audience. The entire population of Sherwood was gone. In their place were people in denim and sneakers. In their place were people wearing sunglasses. People videotaped the dunke with cell phones and mini cameras.

  They were back. The tourists were back.

  She was back.

  The blond tourist she flirted with at the tomato throw sat in the exact same place he’d been in. He wore the exact same outfit.

  Was it possible…? Was this… the very same dunke?

  Had it been less than five minutes since the first time she’d gone into the water… yesterday?

  Johnny, the person she thought was Johnny, stared at her with worried eyes. He waited for her line.

  “My virtue doth remain as white as snow, my Lord High Sheriff,” she said so quietly she hardly heard herself.

  He breathed a sigh of relief and smiled. With another squeeze of her hand, he moved to one side to let her pass.

  Last time she left the stage, the entire world had converted to 1586. This time… It was 2012 again.

  Had two days really happened in the span of one dunke? Thirty seconds was the longest she was allowed to be kept under water. Had everything that happened… the beatings, the running, sleeping behind the mud stage, falling in love… Had it all happened in the span of thirty brief seconds?

  And where was Vaughn? Had he somehow been transported back to the Pits? Was he safe?

  Would he remember…?

  She grabbed her skirt and ran up the Dead Road. She didn’t stop until she had found her usual quiet spot behind the Tavern Aragon.

  She needed time to think.

  <>

  He watched her take off near the end of the Dead Road.

  Her asthma had seemed so bad when she’d come out of the water. It was as if she’d spent five minutes below, instead of her maximum thirty seconds. But now…

  Johnny didn’t know.

  Sammie wasn’t herself coming out of the water. She was scared. Lost. Like she didn’t know where she was. It took her forever to say her line and, when she did, she said with no emotion. It was as if Anne had broken beneath the waves. There was none of the sarcasm, none of the overbearing pride, Anne was supposed to possess.

  It was like part of Sammie had died beneath the water.

  Johnny hoped that she would stop behind the tavern, like she always did after a dunke. He could find out what bothered her so badly. It was painful to see her so… dead inside. As soon as he figured out what was wrong, the sooner he could fix it for her.

  But first… He cleared his throat. There was still an audience to deal with. “My good Lords and Ladies,” he said as properly as he could. “We have run us out of vile criminals to send to the depths of this briny drink. But full of knaves and criminals be the Midsummer Festival. We shalt see us more to dunke at the trial this afternoon. Join us anon as I, Lord High Sheriff of the great shire of Notting
ham, do dispense most righteous punishment upon the mildly wicked, and wherest thou, the people of Nottingham, shalt become my judge, jury, and executioners.”

  The audience applauded. The hundred plus people melded together as they filed down the Dead Road.

  Johnny joined the exodus flowing away from the pond, breaking with the pack to slip behind the tavern. Let her be there.

  Let her be there.

  Thank God. She was here, waiting for him just like she always did. But… Something was wrong. Tears filled her silver eyes. She shook and muttered to herself. She was trying to figure something out.

  She looked up and saw him. He took a step towards her. She backed away.

  “What’s wrong, baby?” he asked, approaching her slowly. Was she scared of him? It was a thought he couldn’t bear. “Did something happen in the water? Sam?”

  The change that came over her was miraculous. In one split second, life filled her eyes. Color came back into her blanched cheeks. “You called me Sam?”

  “I didn’t think you minded Sam over Sammie sometimes.”

  She threw her arms around his neck.

  He didn’t question it. Something had freaked Sammie out. Maybe tonight, after the faire was closed down for the day and they were snuggled together in the coziness of their hotel bed, he’d convince her to tell him what happened.

  But for now, she was back to life… Nothing else mattered.

  He ran his hands up her arms and down her sleeves. Her skin was cool, damp and soft. There was nothing better than the feel of her bare skin, the shuddering vibrations that went through her entire body when she was happy or excited.

  There was something around her wrist. He broke away from the hug, as painful as it was, and pulled up her sleeve.

  It took a minute to realize that the green mesh was supposed to be a bandage.

  “Jesus, Sam. What happened to your wrist?”

  <>

  The green bandage was as bright a beacon of hope as the shockingly white moth had been. She knew that it hadn’t been on her wrist when she’d dressed for her last, modern, dunking.

  There was only one way it could have gotten there. Vaughn tied it himself, when they were down in the dungeons.

  It wasn’t a dream. It wasn’t. Everything really happened.

  But… She pulled her sleeve up. Her arms had been black and blue. Jameson had well seen to that. But her bruises were gone. She realized that nothing hurt anymore.

  Was her wrist better as well? She undid the knot. The mask fluttered to the ground.

  “Jesus, Sammie. What in the hell happened?”

  The sight of her wrist stole all possible words from her mind. It was completely chewed up. The water had swelled the edges of every single cut and slice and deep gash. Vaughn had been right. She was lucky that her wrist hadn’t gotten slit.

  Wasn’t it strange that it didn’t hurt at all?

  Until Johnny grabbed her hand. “Oh no. It looks like you lost your claddaugh ring in the pond. I know how much that thing meant to you.”

  Her ring was gone. The finger next to her engagement ring looked glaringly empty. “I didn’t lose it in the pond,” she whispered, her heart fluttering wildly. The first smile she’d felt in four hundred years spread across her lips. She knew exactly where the ring was.

  “Sammie?”

  His voice brought her back to reality. She looked at him, taking in every detail of his face. She took in every centimeter, every crevice and line and blemish in his skin. She studied the worried wrinkles growing around his icy green eyes.

  Every cell in his face screamed Johnny Williams. And every cell in his face screamed Jameson Kent. The worry masked the same anger that Jameson had. It masked the same hatred. The hands that held hers were the same hands that caused her so much pain. His arms, clothed in black, had held another in lust.

  The worst thing about that was that he’d held another in lust, both in the past and in this time.

  The only thing that she could see in his face, a face she loved that morning, was cheating and anger. All she could remember while looking at him was the beatings that he gave her. All she knew was the startling lack of love that he showed so openly.

  She turned around. She didn’t want him to see what she was doing.

  And how little pain it caused her.

  She turned and clasped hands with him.

  “What I’m about to do…” She didn’t know what to say. No matter what she did, she was going to crush him. At least she was still human enough to feel bad about that. “I have no choice. You left me no choice.”

  <>

  She walked away from him. He was confused.

  What was going on with her? What was she talking about? What choice had he denied her?

  He opened his hand.

  Inside was the engagement ring he’d given to her on the best day of his life. He understood.

  How long had she planned on leaving him?

  “Sam?” He left his hiding spot behind the tavern. She ran down the path.

  “Sam? Sammie? Samantha!”

  Chapter 25

  He landed face down.

  But not in water.

  He sank. Slowly. Through something that felt like molasses. It was warmer than the water in the pond.

  He knew where he was. He was back.

  Back at his own stage. Back in his own gritty pit of mud. He was on the exact opposite end of the grounds from where he was not two seconds ago.

  He was on the complete opposite end of the grounds from Sammie.

  The sound of applause brought him to the surface of his tinier, dirtier pond. Tourists in jeans and denim shorts, in tank tops and tee shirts with colorful sayings or brand logos, now liberally splattered with mud, were standing and clapping. The ones at the backs of the seats started to flow out of the audience area.

  What in the bloody hell happened? How had he gotten all the way back here? What magic had transported him all the way across the festiva…

  Water. It was the water. Water was the reason. It was their answer. Both he and Sammie had been in their own versions of water when the time change had happened. And when he dove into the pond after her…

  They were both in the water again. And now… Now they were back.

  Or… At least he was.

  Was she back, too? Had she come back with him, or was she still trapped in 1586, fighting for her life against the bastard Sheriff who thought to call himself her betrothed?

  If he’d survived the horror of everything only to come back alone, only to learn that Lady Anne Halloway had died in 1586…

  If that was the case… If he was forced to live the rest of his existence without his best friend… The love of his life…

  He’d throw himself into the pond and find something on the bottom to hang onto. And he wouldn’t let go.

  He’d have to find out. But first… There was no getting out of the show without the proper procedures. He stood and bowed with his fellow beggars. Forarin pushed him back into the mud. It was the same movement from yesterday’s show.

  Or had it really been yesterday? A tourist walked the path between the two sets of bleachers. He had been there yesterday. Vaughn remembered giving him special attention because of his sparkling white tee shirt. Now he looked every bit as muddy as any of the beggars.

  It was the same day. It was the same show. Everything that had happened over the last two days… Could it have really happened in a matter of ten seconds?

  He wiped the mud from his eyes and opened the compartment beneath the stage. The burlap rag had been replaced with a terry towel. The fabric had long forgotten that it was white, and it was hard and incrusted with mud in some spots. But still, it was better than burlap.

  He wiped the mud from his hands. A silver band was screwed tightly around his pinky. He turned it. Rimmed in mud was a crowned heart, still shining green, cupped in loving hands.

  He smiled. Weight fell from his shoulders. Things were okay.

&
nbsp; But still… He had to find her...

  He threw the towel back into the compartment. Before he closed the door, he saw something he hadn’t noticed before. A haphazard stack of wooden and metal dishes. They were covered in a thick blanket of dust. It looked like no one had touched them in years.

  Five hundred years, maybe?

  He smiled at the thought.

  He closed the cabinet door and started to walk down the path. Forarin ran to his side. “Dude, where are you going?” he whispered. “The three of us are supposed to go up on Hill Street soon.”

  He was speaking English. American English, from the twenty first century. Vaughn wanted to turn and kiss him on the mouth. It had been too long since he’d heard anyone other than Sammie speak like a normal, modern person.

  “I have something to do real quick,” Vaughn whispered back, so no tourist could hear them break character.

  Fo... no… Scott stopped and pointed down the path. “Is that… Is that Sammie? What in the hell is she doing?”

  Sammie, in her dunking gown, with her beautiful red hair and sparkling silver eyes, ran at him with so much speed that even Kaiser, across the path scaring children near the mud throwing game, stopped to look at her.

  <>

  She never knew she could run so fast, so far, so hard… without her asthma making an appearance.

  She ran from the Tavern Aragon and down the King’s Road. She ran past the woodcarver and the Woodland Stage. She ran past the jousting field and the Court Pavilion.

  She ran and ran. She didn’t care who stopped to watch her, a soaking wet, mad noblewoman who ran full speed through their Renaissance Festival. She didn’t care how she looked, or how much trouble she would get in with the director for breaking character so thoroughly.

  She was on a mission. And nothing short of dropping dead on the path would keep her from her final destination.

  She sped through the Lover’s Bridge and past the bench where she’d sat with Vaughn. The bench that said, right on its surface, that those who sat together upon it would be bound in love eternal.

  God, let Vaughn still be alive. Let him be alive and well at the Pits. Let him remember what happened. Let him remember…