Tyson stuffed the hat in his pocket and wound the scarf over the one he already wore on his neck.
“This is Ari’s favorite. She wouldn’t leave it behind,” he muttered to himself, but his eyes were already on his next target. Something hung off another branch a few feet away.
Beth tried to stop him, tried to calm him, but when she reached for him, she singed her fingers on his shoulder. He was that hot. Snow melted underneath his feet as he strode over to pluck a mitten off a branch.
He finally stopped to simply stare farther out into the forest. More items of clothing hung along a zigzag path through the trees. Heat radiated off of Tyson. Water from the rapidly melting snow was running across the toes of Beth’s boots. Fire danced through her brother’s hair, as he breathed raggedly. He wasn’t even trying for control, but rather seemed to be steeling himself for what was to come.
“Ari!” he screamed at the woods.
“Tyson, please! Calm down, we’ll find her.” Beth tried to keep the panic out of her voice, knowing it wouldn’t help the situation, but was unsuccessful. She turned back to yell, “Bryan! Bryan, please, we need you!!”
This was why Tyson and Ari were inseparable. While they learned to control their growing powers, they balanced each other. Only Ari could douse a blaze triggered by Tyson. Without Ari, and fueled by anger and frustration, her brother could kill them all. Maybe, if they were lucky, Bryan’s compulsion ability could —
The tree next to Tyson burst into flame. He hadn’t even touched it.
“Tyson, no!” Beth screamed. The heat dried her tears as quickly as they streamed down her face.
Tyson’s hands were just globes of fire and, too late, Beth decided she needed to run — only to discover that the trees behind her were also aflame. She tried to hide her face in her hands, and when that didn’t work, she dropped to press herself into the muddy ground.
A ring of fire jumped from tree to tree, surrounding them. Only Tyson could walk through fire.
“Theo!” Beth screamed the name her head. She screamed and screamed for her mother, even as she was pretty sure the back of her hair was burning.
And then, suddenly, she was cold again.
She opened her eyes to find her face smushed in snow.
She sat up.
Tyson was nowhere to be seen.
The trees were not on fire. All looked as it had before. Except, Beth was sitting in the middle of a pile of snow with no tracks leading to or from her position.
Her hands ached, and she looked down to see holes burned through her mittens. From where her fingers had touched Tyson’s shoulder? Her face felt raw, like it was badly sunburned. Not knowing what else to do, she scooped up handfuls of snow and held it to her cheeks. The fabric of her jacket flaked off as she bent her arm. She was pretty sure she was missing the back of her hair, if the breeze on her neck was any way to judge. She waited for the pain to come, knowing she must be in shock.
“Sorry about that, little one,” a woman’s voice drawled behind her. Though Beth’s skin crawled, and her senses screamed for her to turn around and face the dangerous creature, she waited until her older self stepped around in front of her.
Bethany stood with hood flung back and hands on hips, all fierce and proud, staring at her. Unlike the first time, though, she seemed a little … unsure … unsteady. “I’d forgotten he was so easily triggered at this age,” the older woman murmured as she squatted down to take a closer look at Beth’s face. “Interesting that I can’t seem to affect you. Sorry about the burns. They don’t look too bad, and Bryan doesn’t care about such things,” Bethany said with a smirk. “It might actually be better if he runs to your rescue …”
“Why would I care what Bryan thinks?”
Bethany barked her creepy laugh. “Still hiding your feelings, are you? I’d forgotten I did that for so long. You can’t hide such things from me. I am you, remember?”
“I don’t remember any such thing.”
“I like your feistiness, just as I loathe your ignorance. And I do suddenly find myself concerned about those burns scarring. I think there’s a healer around here somewhere.”
Bethany turned toward the path, stood as if in thought for a moment, and then disappeared.
She just vanished in that blur of magic. No extra footprints in the snow … no obvious transportation device … she was simply and utterly gone.
As pain slowly started seeping in from her skin until her brain was hazy with it, Beth tried to piece the clues together. The older Bethany had some sort of power that she didn’t have … like she could appear and disappear, and possibly travel between two locations unseen. She didn’t just go invisible, like Beth felt she almost did when she moved through shadows, because she left no footprints in the snow.
The older woman also seemed to be able to transport people with her when she traveled, and make it so things hadn’t happened … fire, no fire … Tyson, no Tyson … hat hanging off the tree, no footprints. Bethany also spoke of the future. And obviously, seeing as the world was made by magic, the weirdly logical conclusion was that she came from the future, even if that was supposedly impossible.
Maybe there was a way to portal through time, not just space, such as the mirrors Theo and Rhea used to travel to other locations. So what did that all add up to? Maybe Bethany was actually not her older self at all, but just some sort of really powerful mind mage who could control thoughts so completely that she could create complete realities in another person’s head. Maybe none of this was actually happening, or maybe this was all some sort of terrible, magically-induced dream …
Bethany reappeared, and this time she dragged a shrieking Calla with her. Calla fell to her knees and threw up the meager breakfast they’d all shared hours before. Bethany sneered, but quickly moved her tall leather boots out of the way of Calla’s vomit.
Beth’s instinct was to reach out to the sick girl, but her aching hands were slowly tightening into claws she couldn’t uncurl. She couldn’t tell if Calla was simply frightened out of her mind, or if throwing up was a side effect of having been dragged around by Beth’s older self.
Bethany nudged Calla none too gently in the ribs. “Come on, pretty girl. Time to do your thing for Beth. She’s hurting, and it’s really the only thing you’re good for. Though we could wait for Bryan to show and get his opinion.”
Calla stuffed some snow in her mouth — perhaps to wash out the taste of vomit or settle her stomach — and seemed to be struggling not to cry. But, when she looked up at Beth, her fear dissipated to leave only concern, even horror.
“Oh, Beth …”
“I’m sure it looks worse than it is,” Beth said in a lame attempt to deny the horror she saw on Calla’s face. It really hurt to talk, though.
Calla reached out and hovered her hands over Beth’s.
“Face first,” Bethany snapped, and Beth noticed she was looking around a little nervously. Maybe her older self didn’t know where Finn and Bryan were. Maybe she felt threatened by one or both of them somehow.
Calla obligingly cupped her hands around Beth’s face without actually touching it, and a coolness eased through the skin of her cheeks and jaw. Beth sighed with relief.
Calla moved on to her hands, carefully pinching off the crispy remains of Beth’s mittens. Some of the wool was actually stuck to the now oozing burns, and the removal was painful.
“Sorry,” Calla whispered. “I have to remove it before I heal it.”
“I’m the one who’s sorry,” Beth whispered back. She cast her eyes up at Bethany, who was now pacing behind Calla.
“None of this is your fault,” Calla said. But Beth wasn’t about to take the healer’s absolution to heart, because deep in her inner self, buried deeper than she’d thought was possible, she knew where this was all heading. It wasn’t a good, peaceful place. Bethany was going to drag them into the dark and never let them go, she was going to trap them, crush them, and —
“Snap out of it,” Bethany
barked, and she flicked Beth on the forehead with her finger. “You’re starting to hyperventilate. I need you focused. Who doesn’t trust herself this much? Why wouldn’t you trust yourself?” Bethany had hunkered down behind Calla as if to check the healer’s work over her shoulder. Though she wasn’t any bigger than Calla, it was an intimidating posture.
“I never knew that you and Bryan dallied beyond your little moment in the barn. Which calls into question whether it ever happened at all.” Bethany didn’t seem to be asking a question, or even addressing either of them, and Calla didn’t bother answering as she began to treat Beth’s hands.
Bethany smoothed a piece of Calla’s white-blond hair off the healer’s shoulder, but it was a threat, not a caress. “You don’t wear a token of his, as I do.” The older woman stretched her hand out past Calla until it hovered before Beth. She thought about biting it, about how ironic it would be to bite her own hand, if Bethany was her —
Bethany snapped her fingers peevishly. She was trying to show Beth something … there on her wrist, she wore a manly silver bracelet. It was carved with an animal motif, done by the same artist who’d carved Hugh’s sword. An artist who claimed First Nations Ancestry from the Before, but why that background was important enough to pop into her head, Beth didn’t know. It only meant she recognized this bracelet.
It was Bryan’s. A gift from their grandmother for his Rite of Passage.
“I can’t do anything about the hair right now. I’m sorry,” Calla murmured, seemingly capable of ignoring Bethany as she focused on simply healing.
But Beth couldn’t ignore Bethany. She felt utter rage boiling in her belly. Rage that had been previously swallowed by fear, then overwhelmed by adrenaline and pain. “You have no right to be wearing that!”
“Don’t I?” Bethany straightened, but kept Calla between them. Beth slowly pulled her legs underneath her into a crouched position.
“That’s for Bryan’s protection. It’s imbued and interlaced with spells specific to him. He would never give it away, could never give it away. So you’ve taken it. You compromised his safety.”
Beth’s voice ground into a kind of growl that she wouldn’t have thought possible for her vocal cords. She suddenly felt her knife slip into her hand, pulled from the holster in her boot even though she hadn’t realized she was reaching for it. Her hand hidden behind the remnants of her long coat, she turned the knife until she gripped it as her Uncle Dougal had trained her to do when he’d given her the blade. The training was a condition of the gift.
She locked her gaze to Bethany, watching as her older self’s eyes widened. And in that second, Beth suddenly knew she’d jumped to the wrong conclusion.
“He’s dead, isn’t he?”
“What?” Calla cried. They both ignored her.
Bethany took a step back as Beth straightened out of her crouch. She held the knife ready but still at her side.
“Did you kill him?” she asked, completely ready to strike at Bethany’s throat.
This accusation broke through Bethany’s wall of self-righteous arrogance. “He wouldn’t be dead if it wasn’t for her!” She spat, but she didn’t mean Calla.
“Bryan’s dead?” Calla cried, again.
“Not in this now, you slut,” Bethany snarled. She lunged for Calla, dragging the girl back by her beautiful long hair. A knife identical to the one Beth held was at the healer’s throat before Beth could even react. Bethany was too fast, impossibly fast, as if she’d jumped rather than stepped.
“I need that sword to make everything right,” Bethany hissed.
“To fix your mistakes, you mean.”
“Your guesses are ill-informed and childish.”
“You’re the one playing hide and seek.”
A thin line of blood appeared at Calla’s neck, where Bethany held the knife tight. Beth began to shake, as if she had too much energy coursing through her body and nowhere for it to go.
“Are you going to get me that sword or not?” her older self asked calmly.
“Not.”
Calla stifled a scream as Bethany pressed the knife deeper. But when Beth locked eyes with the healer, it was clear that Calla didn’t want her to give in. The wounds on her neck seemed to heal instantly, just a trace of blood left behind.
Bethany’s expression showed how she hated not being in control of the situation. Her face darkened even as Beth’s confidence grew. The older woman swayed back and forth, shifting on her feet like she wanted to run, but was forcing herself to be still.
“You think I won’t kill them? You think they mean anything to me?”
“They mean something to me,” Beth said quietly. “So, if we are the same person, then the same must be true for you.”
“No, you stupid girl. I am you, but you are not me.”
“I might be stupid, but I’m not a slow learner. What happens to me happens to you, doesn’t it? You can’t hurt me without hurting yourself.”
Beth lunged for Bethany just as she slashed the knife across Calla’s throat. Calla twisted away, her blood spurting across the snow as Beth knocked into Bethany and the two of them tumbled.
Bethany somehow got her foot between them, and with a fierce kick, she flung Beth back against a tree. Beth cracked her head, spots swimming before her eyes as Bethany scrambled back toward Calla.
“Beth?” Bryan yelled from somewhere nearby.
Bethany’s head snapped up and she took a few stumbling steps in the direction of Bryan’s voice. Then she froze as if just waiting for him to appear. “Bryan,” she whispered.
Calla sat up in the snow. Blood was splattered all around her, but there was no wound on her neck. She stared at the forest beyond Beth.
Finn slipped almost silently around the tree against which Beth leaned. He had come into the clearing from the direction opposite Bryan’s call. It had been a feint, then. Beth had forgotten Finn could track Calla, and maybe even knew if or when Calla was hurt.
Bethany’s back was still to Finn. He took a few silent steps closer to her.
“Beth?” Bryan called again, his voice closer this time, but unfortunately, he now sounded like he was behind Calla. When Bethany, still spellbound, swiveled her head to track him, she saw Calla, whose eyes were still locked on Finn.
Bethany didn’t even bother to look to see what Calla was watching. She simply lunged toward the healer and they both disappeared. Though Finn had managed to get his sword unsheathed, his lunge met empty air.
∞
Bryan raced into the clearing but paused with a stumble at seeing Beth sitting in the snow, surrounded by Calla’s blood and missing half her hair.
“Beth!” Bryan cried. “Are you okay? You look … you look …”
“Crispy?”
“I … where’s Tyson? Whose blood is this? Is this your blood?”
“Calla’s,” Finn snapped. “She has her now. And Tyson?”
“Yes,” Beth said. “I think so. I didn’t actually see her take him, but —”
“Her? Who, Beth?”
“Her, me. She’s me. Though supposedly, I’m not her.”
“You’re not making any sense.”
“What else is new?” Beth’s head was still spinning from being smacked against the tree, and she wasn’t sure she was capable of walking anymore, of going onward at all. All the assurance she’d built up had been exhausted the moment Bryan stepped into the clearing. And as he reached down to help her to her feet, she hoped, just for a moment, that her big brother was just going to fix everything. That he was even capable of fixing it. But he wasn’t …
She let Bryan pull her up, but dropped his hand quickly. She still felt the faint tinge of the compulsion he’d used on Tyson, and it made her slightly ill to touch him now. So when she stumbled with her first few steps out of the clearing, it was Finn’s arm she reached for, not her brother’s.
It was definitely odd that she found Finn, who was still practically a stranger, more comforting than Bryan.
“I like the hair,” Finn murmured. “Good for knife fighting. Sight lines and all that.” Looking oddly proud, he handed Beth back her knife by the blade. She had lost it when Bethany threw her against the tree, but she tucked it back into her boot now.
“Did Calla heal you?”
Beth nodded and allowed Finn to support more of her weight. He was warm even through all his winter layers. Bryan frowned at her, and she turned her head away from him. She wasn’t remotely interested in being judged by him.
“She says she’ll kill them all if I don’t bring her the sword.” Beth remembered that at least, though a lot of what had just transpired was fuzzy. Weren’t there a bunch of things she should be telling Bryan? Weren’t there questions he should be asking? But no, he just nodded briskly and set out off toward the castle once more.
She and Finn followed at a slower pace. As they stepped back onto the path, she snagged the knit hat off the tree. She remembered that Tyson had already grabbed it, and yet it was still hanging there. As Tyson had said, it was Ari’s favorite.
“Why can’t she open the tower door? If she is me?” Beth spoke to no one in particular, and no one answered. “And she can change things, like this hat. It was here, and now it’s here again.”
“That’s impossible, Beth.” Bryan didn’t look back at her when he spoke. “You look like you hit your head. Did you hit your head?”
“My head does hurt. And I lost Calla. She wouldn’t have been dragged into this if it wasn’t for me … and Tyson, I suppose.”
“It is what it is at this point,” Finn answered without anger.
“Maybe just be quiet for a bit, Beth. Let us get you back to the castle. Mom will fix it all.”
That sounded a lot like Bryan was telling her to shut up, but then Beth got distracted by the thought of Theo fixing everything. She’d screamed for Theo in the clearing when it was burning, but her adoptive mother hadn’t come to her rescue. It reminded her of some other time, some other feeling, that she couldn’t quite place.
But she did remember the crazy glint in Bethany’s eyes, and the fear that glint had triggered in her. An irrational, claustrophobic fear of the dark and being trapped. She didn’t know where that fear had come from, had never felt that before. In fact, she’d always liked the dark and confined spaces … maybe it was just being hurt … maybe she just didn’t do well under pressure, maybe it was all changing her like Finn had mentioned. But that sounded a bit backward, like he hadn’t meant it that way. Maybe it was Bethany’s fear she’d felt …
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