The Talisman - Crisscross

by Shaunna Gonzales

  *

  Flowing water trickled and danced at the edge of Trish's consciousness. She fought past her nausea to listen intently. Birds chirped nearby but what held her attention was the soft rhythm of human breath. Warmth. She scooted closer to it, craving its comfort. She repositioned her head on the unusual pillow. A familiar scent filled her nostrils, tickling her memory with pleasure with its musky aroma. In the background of scents, damp leaves and foliage mixed with the musky human scent, the scent of a man so very close, without the odor of cologne. Quinn. She dared to allow her eyelids to flutter open. She made out his chin and jawbone so very close then the curl of brown hair behind his ear. This was a cozy spot, despite a few prickles under her side. She didn't fear him. He'd claimed that he hadn't pressed the blade to her throat and if it were as sharp as it appeared, she believed him. She shifted, hoping he would keep her close.

  He pulled away from her, causing her head to slide down his arm, catching her with her eyes open. "Awe, the damsel wakes. Ya okay? Ya warm enough?" His voice carried a warm cadence.

  "I fainted again, didn't I? If I didn't know better, I'd almost think I was--" she stopped herself.

  "Ya did, but ya didn't finish your sentence. What is it you're thinkin'?"

  Trish didn't answer, instead, she silently willed him to continue playing with her hair.

  "Come on, Trish. I could coax it outta ya."

  She scooted away, allowing her head to slide down to his wrist, getting a better look at him. "You said you'd never hurt me." Her tone held a tentatively confident quality.

  He wrapped a drying tress of her hair around a finger of his right hand, drawing it taut.

  "There's ways, other than a blade, to get ya to talk, ya know."

  She huffed. "Like what?"

  He gently rolled toward her, positioning her on her back. She watched him gaze at her from under her lashes, her heart skipping a beat.

  His attention went from the wet tresses atop her head to her shoulders and settled on the bare flesh at her collar bone. Her breath caught and she quickly gathered her blouse in her hands before she realized his attention was no longer on her bust, but her lips. His musky smell filled her, yet she didn't dare breathe. The lengthening shadows of late afternoon caught her attention. She struggled to her feet, swaying slightly.

  "Whoa, woman. What has ya all stirred up?"

  "I have to go."

  Quinn smiled to himself, so she was being shy. He could deal with that. "So we'll get a moseyin' along soon enough."

  "No. I have to go now." She raced to the nearest patch of sunlight. He watched her dangle the talisman with one hand. It danced in the golden rays of sunlight. She flicked it with her free hand, sending it spinning.

  Trish seemed to expect something to happen. When nothing did, her brow furrowed. She checked the suns long rays, repositioned herself, holding the talisman in a long sunbeam and flicked it again. She looked about herself, a semblance of alarm darkening her appearance.

  He stepped tentatively forward, his hands extended to her. "Trish?"

  Trish focused her attention on him. Her features clouded before growing childlike. "It didn't work. It's supposed to work. I should be home now."

  Concerned for her, Quinn adopted the same tone he used when training horses. "What didn't work?"

  She looked up at him, her voice dismayed. "The talisman, it should have taken me home. I caught the sunbeam. I know I did."

  "Trish, you've had a nasty bump." Her bump today, combined with her amnesia, had certainly had a hallucinatory effect. He needed to keep her calm.

  "The talisman was supposed to take me home," she argued, her tears surfacing.

  "Yes, yes." He gathered her into his arms, wondering what more he could do. "Let me take you home."

  Trish clapped her hands to her face, covering her eyes.

  "I was so sure." Her breathy words were becoming hysterical. "Quinn, I even remembered to get my things from Lucinda."

  "Shhh." Quinn tried to soothe her. He started moving an unwilling Trish toward the horse. "You need to rest. It'll all look better in the mornin'."

  "If I don't go home today, it may not be there tomorrow." Tears streaked her cheeks. "Seven days. Today is the day I had to go home."

  He put her on the horse and took her to the saloon. Her babbling came to an end, replaced by stilted silence. An owl hooted in the distance. Darkness was falling fast.

  The eyes of half a dozen men watched him guide a dejected damsel across the tobacco-stained floor. Their ravenous watchfulness bore witness to each man's willingness to trade him for their evening's business. Quinn glared at each. He planted his foot on the first step when Pierre spoke.

  "She gonna be coming down to sing later?"

  Quinn glanced at Pierre. "Not tonight. She's had a rough day of it with being sick an' all."

  Pierre nodded, "You'll be carin' for her then?"

  Quinn nodded and continued assisting a disheartened Trish up the steps. Once in her room, Trish drooped while Quinn lighted the lantern. He guided her to the bed and when she sat, he bent on one knee, unlacing her boots and pulling them off one at a time. What had happened? Her actions weren't right and her silence was even more baffling.

  "Do you want me to help you to bed?"

  Shaking her head, Trish lay down.

  Quinn knew her clothing was damp. She may not want his help but he couldn't let her catch her death of cold. She didn't oppose his actions as he disrobed her to her camisole and bloomers. She lay there as if inviting him to do as he pleased. He shook his head in an effort to dislodge his desires.

  The lantern light danced on her silken smooth skin, highlighting delicate curves in need of a broad expanse of gentle caresses. He wanted her, his body even ached for her, but her, the Trish that exhibited so much spirit, not this feminine shell before him. With a heavy sigh, he pulled the sheet and blanket over her.

  "You shimmy out of those wet things while I hang these to dry." He hung her things about the sparse room, over the edge of the small table and over the brass footboard of the bed. He had his task complete and yet Trish hadn't moved.

  "Trish."

  Silence.

  "I won't have you like this. I know yar upset about not goin' home. That ain't no reason to give up hope."

  She still didn't respond. In frustration, he went to the far side of the bed, sat down, pulled off his boots before lying next to her and pulling her to him. Every nerve in his body demanded he love her. It required great effort to lie still, ignoring his needs and concentrating on her emotional state rather than her body. His battle waged a valiant effort until at last he felt able to control himself.

  "Are you still awake?" No answer. "Trish, I have no idea what it's like to not remember home, yar family and the likes, but I do know what it's like to not be able to go home. The ones ya love move on and you have to, too. You have to find a reason for livin' everyday, a reason to get up in the mornin' and get somethin' done. You're a fighter. This isn't you to lie down and die."

  Quinn figured he'd said about enough, but she still didn't move. He touched her cheek. It was warm. "Ya warm enough then?"

  A night bird's call penetrated the silence in the room, intensifying its heaviness. How was it she was so silent now, when before he got her on the horse she was almost raving, babbling on about home and seven days? Seven days for what? His mind grasped at the only thing he could. In six days, God created the heavens and the earth and on the seventh, He rested. So a week is seven days. Why not say a week?

  "Seven days are a week. One week, but the Sabbath comes once a week on Sunday. Monday is day one, Tuesday is day two…"

  Trish sat straight up in bed, staring at him.

  "Sunday is day seven. Quinn, do you know what that means?" The energy and spirit that had vanished hours ago filled her whole being.

  Quinn allowed the corner of his mouth to curl and shook his head. She was amazing and so appealing when she was excited like this. So much like yest
erday. He reveled in her excitement. This was part of why he loved her, the excitement, the fight, the needing to be loved and assured. He'd learned to appreciate a woman able to fight for herself. When his mother and sisters had been too deeply steeped in being ladies of the south to defend against wicked men bent on ravishing not only their land, but the feminine beauties of his family, he'd been too young to know how to defend them. Years on the trail, fighting for his own survival, had changed that.

  When he had found Zelda, she had been a victim of yet another wicked man, but instead of allowing herself to be killed, she had yielded to prostitution. He had thought to rescue her from the bawdy life, but now it was what she chose.

  Trish was not a religious woman as Lucinda, nor a helpless, silly female like Penelope. Trish was a woman that did her best under difficult situations and asked a man's assistance only when necessary. She didn't need a man to stay about the house to take care of her. Trish could take care of herself in most situations. Her serious recitation of discovery pulled him back to her.

  "That means that I didn't miss the sunbeam. The talisman wouldn't transport me today because it couldn't. Tomorrow. Tomorrow is the day." She reached for him, lacing her fingers through his hair and kissed him full on the lips. "Thank you, so much. I have to get some sleep. Tomorrow's a big day."

  She pulled the bedding up to cover her, looking at him expectantly.

  The resurgence of Trish's spirits served to reignite his desire for her. This was the woman he wanted and loved.

  "Your fight back for everything?" He allowed his desire for her to etch itself on his features.

  "Quinn, I… I can't. I've got to go home. Please understand."

  He scooted off the bed, pausing long enough to put his boots on. She had dragged him around the barnyard, over the haystack and stabbed him in the heart. He needed a drink. His hand touched the doorknob. He should hate her.

  Trish sat with her back straight, her arms bracing her at either side. Her hair tumbled over her shoulders in gentle curls. She stared at the lantern across the room, its flame flickering, searching for more than the wick at its base and the oil that permeated it, much like the flames of a simmering campfire. The memory caused an involuntary shudder to chase up her spine.

  Trish pulled her knees to her chest, hugging herself. For a moment she thought she saw Curly's body, the blood-trickling from his head and chest on the stained wall behind the lantern. She scooted back against the brass frame of the bed until the knobs and balls scored her ribs.

  "No." she said, shaking her head. She'd experienced a similar vision while Quinn held her. Then she had been safe in his arms and afraid of revealing secrets she didn't feel it safe to share. She had remained silent, willing the memories to retreat. For a few minutes they had. She shook her whole body.

  The motion dislodged one apparition to replace it with another. This one more real. Albert stepped toward her, holding a small blacksmith's hammer in his hand. Trish's breathing was ragged, her heart beating in accelerated bumps against her ribcage. She looked away only to find Albert in her lap, looking up at her as if begging for her help. She scrambled from her bed, a silent scream lodged in her throat. Her legs shaking until like strained twigs, they buckled, dropping her to the floor.

  Trish placed her hand over her heart in an effort to keep it from bursting from the safe captivity of her ribcage. The talisman's familiarity grounded her, calming her soul. Grammy had often spoken of the talisman's seven-day cycle and Trish had understood it as every seventh day, Saturday one week and Friday the next, then Thursday and so on. The cycle had caused Trish more than a little consternation. Now she needn't worry. She had taken her pleasure ride on Sunday morning and on Sunday, she would return home.

  Missing what she believed to be the talisman's travel cycle had scared her. Grammy mentioned how she hadn't traveled on the right day and consequently, she had found herself in a totally different time than she had expected to arrive in. The possibility of that happening to Trish frightened her.

  Sleepless hours passed. Trish welcomed the chill of the night air. It kept her awake and if she stayed awake, the phantoms of her memory couldn't haunt her. They would not keep her here. Curly and Albert's ghosts would remain here. She would outsmart them, abandoning them for her own time.

  At last, the hint of light over the eastern ridge pierced the black darkness, chasing her night demons to the corners. Trish struggled to her feet, pushing the stiffness of cramped joints away. She dressed in the clothes of the twenty-first century in the fading darkness, tucking the talisman under her shirt and slipped down the steps barefoot. Soundlessly, she pulled on her socks and boots. Today would take her home.

 

  Chapter 34

  Day 8