The Talisman
Crisscross
Shaunna Gonzales
Copyright 2016 Shaunna Gonzales
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Names, characters and incidents depicted in this book are products of the author’s imagination, or are used in a fictitious situation. Any resemblances to actual events, locations, organizations, incidents or persons – living or dead – are coincidental and beyond the intent of the author.
And always, thank you to my husband, Herman, my beautiful children, for the love and support, strength and encouragement.
Chapter 1
Present Day
"That's it then." Trish patted Yedi, her prized Arabian stallion, on the neck. She sat erect and yet relaxed.
The sun inched higher above the eastern mountains. May was always a beautiful month, one she looked forward to for more than the new greenery. It was the month of her birthday--May seventeenth, and the date she used to mark visits from Grammy, and her stories. Stories of travel and wild adventures, "…criss-cross my heart and hope never to die." Stories Grammy Patricia had promised were true.
The valley lay below Trish. Tractors crawled like ants in the fields. A vehicle sped down a country road spewing a trail of dust in the early morning light. Despite the tranquility around her, Trish's heart still weighed heavy at her latest failure.
That's the third time I tried to pass the bar. I guess I'll never prosecute a case in a court of law. It's a pity, really. All I've ever wanted to do was be a successful attorney. I sat right here on my twentieth birthday and vowed I'd get there. Ten years later, I'm still not there. She sighed feeling her shoulders sag. Maybe Grammy was right about what I should be.
Trish withdrew her grandmother's gaudy yet delicately beautiful trinket from under her shirt. It dangled on the long chain Trish wore around her neck. Sunlight shimmered on the intricate scrollwork delicately woven around the inner crystal. The design of the outer casing allowed the inner scrolls to turn one way while the outer scrolls turned the other. She fondled the talisman lovingly, keeping it from spinning.
Yedi shifted his feet. Trish clasped her hand tightly about the talisman and leaned forward slightly. Yedi responded to her cue by moving forward at a gentle walk. Trish reined him in near the stand of cottonwoods at the edge of the gulley. Again she fondled the trinket.
"I promised, you know."
Yedi listened, his ears turned, indicating his full attention. "I always kept my promises to Grammy, even if she seemed a bit loony at times. I know she's dead, but today's my birthday and I promised her that if on my thirtieth birthday I wasn't married or an attorney, I'd do it. So that's it. No more discussion." She let the reins sag, and took the chain in her left hand, the talisman dancing in the bright sunlight.
"Clockwise forward, counter clockwise back, I just wish--" She flicked the inner scrolls with her fingernail, sending it spinning. A gust of wind at her back caught her cowboy hat and sent it flying over Yedi's head. Yedi spooked, crow-hopped, and spun. Trish grabbed at the reins and brought him up short.
"Easy, easy boy. It was just my hat. Look, there it is." Her hat balanced on its brim near the edge of the gulley, poised to continue its runaway flight.
Frustrated with yet another thing going amiss in her life, she found her favorite curse formed on her lips. She bit it back and dismounted, leading Yedi toward her hat. As she reached for it, another gust of wind carried it out and over the gulley. She watched as the hat flirted with the air currents before dropping to settle below her. Things didn't seem all that different. Maybe the talisman and its magical ability to transport her through time and space was all a fantastical and continual fantasy of Grammy's. Trish turned to remount.
"Well, I'm not walking down in there alone. You're coming with me. We'll have to find a way down, and I don't want to go to the bottom--"
Trish stopped. Her stomach bucked. Paralyzed, her hand rested on the saddle horn, her foot in the stirrup, her weight balanced across Yedi's back. The view from his back had changed with open and groomed fields of crops no longer gracing the valley floor as they had moments ago. Stands of trees filled most of the valley, dotted with the occasional brown of small buildings. There were no tractors, no cars or pick-ups traversing country roads. In fact, there weren't any roads.
Had Grammy Patricia been sane all along? Trish settled in the saddle and stared at the scene before her, the hat momentarily forgotten. Her mind raced through Grammy's stories with stories of time travel, romance, and adventure. Wonderful stories of times long forgotten or romanticized by paperback novels and old movies. Stories of unbelievable characters in futuristic settings that put the biggest blockbusters to shame. But all of Grammy's stories had two things in common--Grammy and romance.
Trish grasped the chain about her neck, lifting it into the sunlight. The talisman remained as beautiful, but somehow not quite as alive. The reflected sunlight didn't dance, it merely reflected off the metallic surfaces. The crystal no longer glowed. What had Grammy Patricia said?
"My adventures were not always glamorous but they were always very real. Sometimes full of romance, other times deception and danger. I wasn't ever afraid at those dangerous times. I knew the talisman worked in a seven-day cycle. I just had to survive for seven days until the cycle began again. Of course there were times I didn't use the talisman, letting it lay dormant for sixty-three days and, once, even a year. But that year cost me. You must not abuse the talisman. If you do, it will have its revenge. And that, my dear, is why I must have your promise…"
Trish smiled, remembering how Grammy ended every story with the same promise.
Tell of my heart 'cross fallow lost places
Bitter sweet secrets to heart of my tale,
Wind without wine to far times and places
Alter time's misstep in wide-open spaces
Protect the talisman, keep her from harm
Criss-cross my heart and hope never to die.
It wasn't until Trish had promised, word for word, that Grammy Patricia gave her the talisman.
Was she, Patricia Anne Larsen, ready for her first adventure in time? The "criss-cross her heart and hope never to die" was the easy part. No one she knew wanted to die. It was the rest of the pledge that caused her a moment of pause. It didn't matter. She was here, but where exactly was here? "Fallow lost places, …far times and places, and …wide-open spaces" covered a lot of area in cosmic space. She scanned the valley searching for the straight clearing that would mark the railroad tracks, and wished she could fly. She didn't think she saw anything. Okay girl, stay calm and think.
The valley was the same. She double-checked for Borah Peak. Yes, it still stood as sentry to the north--place located. No vehicles. No roads. Some settlers, if those were actually cabins. It had to be the late 1800s to have this many settlers. She tried to find the railroad right-of-way she had crossed earlier. The right-of-way wasn't cleared. The railroad tracks were laid in this valley in the early 1900s and torn out in the early 1980s for some reason that she never understood.
No railroad tracks. More trees, as in a lot more.
What would a stagecoach stop look like? She wasn't sure but a smattering of buildings in one area might be where the stage stopped. Her mind retraced the old stories. Yes, Mom had mentioned a community
proposal recently, something about an Eagle Scout petitioning for support to erect a stagecoach monument at the baseball field. Time narrowed somewhat.
Mom! Trish's throat went dry. She had left home this morning without saying goodbye to Rhea, her at-times-over-protective mother. A slip-up she had regretted while telling Vance, her cousin, she was off for a very long ride. Worry seized her, cutting off her air supply. Mom would worry. Mom would worry, which might be good for her for a day, but a week…not so much And if she and Vance compared notes… Trish tried in vain to recollect the tone she had used this morning. Yedi had been difficult to catch and she'd been in a sour mood. Would Vance think her flippant tone a reason to disappear for a week? What conclusion would Mom then draw?
No. I refuse to worry about that right now. I have my adventure to think about.
Now where was I? The baseball field, a field that wasn't cleared of trees yet, or was it? A stage station would need corrals and water for horses as well as a reasonable place to ford the river. She closed her eyes, trying to retrace the country road running north and south where the baseball field would one day be. Yedi danced nervously under her as if responding to her own anxiety level. Unwilling to label whether she felt excitement or fear, she took a deep breath, pushing the niggling guilt aside. Careful to be as accurate as she could imagine, she pointed at the spot where the field would be and opened her eyes. It was no use.
She'd have to ride down the valley if she wanted to be sure of the stage or not and knowing would help her adjust to whatever year she now found herself in. It would take a good part of the day to get there but she needed to start somewhere. It had to be the late 1800s. If it got dangerous, she only had to survive seven days until the talisman could work its magic again. One could do that on just water. Not a bad place to start an adventure.
First, she needed to locate her hat.
The Talisman - Crisscross Page 1