A Leap of Faith

by Linda Boulanger

  A Leap of Faith

  ©2017 by Linda Boulanger

  All rights reserved.

  This book or parts thereof may not be reproduced in any form, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without prior written permission of the copyright owner and/or the publisher of this book, except as provided by United States of America copyright law.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Edited by Grace Augustine/Edits with a Touch of Grace

  Cover Design/Interior Design by Tell~Tale Book Covers

  First released as part of the The Fountain Box Set

  Published by TreasureLine Publishing

  To Mom…

  Thank you for giving me the courage

  to take my own leap of faith.

  Join the Guardians…

  Linda’s Dragon Guardians, on Facebook:

  https://www.facebook.com/groups/664151640414859/

  Chapter 1

  The sun glistened off the rippling water in the fountain and cast a shadow over the face of the dragon statue standing guard in the center. A different kind of shadow shrouded the young woman who stood at the edge of the pool. Knees slightly bent, she leaned forward, laboring to pull in great gulps of air. She cocked her head, coppery red curls sliding from her back, swishing against the cotton fabric of her dress as she tried to listen for noise beyond the drumming between her ears. Her heart sank. She could still hear the sound of feet slapping against the earth, way too close for her to gain any comfort from the distance.

  Sucking in another deep breath, she straightened and shook her head trying to clear her mind. She needed to think, especially since none of what was happening made any sense.

  “Come on, Rynne,” she chided herself, knowing she also needed to hurry. If those men caught her, she might never get home.

  Eyelids closing over deep blue orbs, she prayed the old gypsy woman was right. This had to work, otherwise… Rynne Willowthorne shivered. She couldn’t bring herself to think of the otherwise. Instead, she concentrated on the words the dark-skinned woman with even darker hair and eyes had told her.

  The Gypsy had made her repeat them multiple times after giving her the coin when she’d slipped into her shoppe in an attempt to avoid the men.

  Her lips curled into the beginnings of a curse directed at the old witch back home who had sent her forward in time. Thinking better of it, she bit her tongue, quickly clamping her mouth shut. Had it not been for the witch, she wouldn’t have the potion to help her brother.

  Provided he wasn’t already dead, her inner voice whispered.

  Rynne growled. He wasn’t dead. But in that perpetual sleep he fell into after he put on the ring from their father, he might as well be.

  That’s why she’d swallowed her fears and had gone to the old witch for help in the first place. She sighed, remembering how the woman had taken two steps away from her, crossed herself, and shook her head with such fervor that Rynne was concerned it might snap right off her thin neck.

  It was all quite comical really. She’d nearly laughed, catching herself just in time to keep from it. She’d needed the woman’s help, not to find herself on the receiving end of one of the spells she knew the witch was capable of.

  From across the room, the old hag told her to go to the Cave of Dracha where she would find a pool of water. Rynne was to take the heart-shaped vial the bony finger pointed to on a shelf against the far wall and fill it with the water. It sounded so simple she was sure that even she could do it. Only, when she leaned forward, she fell in. She could have sworn she’d been pushed, but that was neither here nor there. The fact was, she’d gone into the water in the cave and when she’d surfaced, a clear blue sky had hung above her head and it had taken her all of four seconds to realize the sky was in a time not her own. The huge shiny bird reminded her of the blade of a sword. It flew far above her, initially confusing her, but it was the woman at the water’s edge who had finally made her understand.

  The woman motioned for Rynne to follow, even before her feet touched solid ground.

  “Come. I have what you need.”

  Rynne’s heart beat faster than she’d imagined possible. She crawled from the water and followed at a distance, surprised the woman never once looked over her shoulder to see if she was back there. She’d probably been able to hear Rynne slogging behind in her sodden clothing. Walking in a wet dress would have been bad enough, but three layers… She’d never hated the thickness of her kirtle more.

  Her need outweighing her fear, she finally stammered out the one question that she probably should have asked from the beginning.

  “Where am I?”

  The woman answered with the name of a place Rynne had never heard of, supplying the year as well. She chuckled when Rynne gasped.

  Had Rynne not just surfaced in a different place than the one she had fallen in, she would never have believed she could’ve fallen over five hundred years into the future. It wasn’t possible… and yet, it had happened.

  Rynne’s heart raced, her mind searching for a way to keep from having to continue this crazy journey. She wondered, or maybe hoped that she would wake up and find it all a dream. She pressed her eyes tightly shut for a few seconds and pinched herself as she opened them. The sights, the smells… they remained distinctly not her own.

  A hound came running toward them when they crested the next hill, and Rynne could see a house nestled in the trees not far beyond. She was glad because the ache in her legs and the growling of her stomach were pushing primal need before fear. She frowned. She’d eaten just before going to visit the old witch. It may have seemed to have taken mere seconds, but her trip through time must have lasted much longer.

  When the woman stopped at the bottom of the steps that led to the door of the house, she reached down to pet the dog and Rynne realized it was no dog at all. It was a black wolf.

  Rynne held her distance, even though the animal showed no intent to harm. Much like the hounds back home at Honorcrest, the beast gazed up at its master with great admiration, especially when her fingers reached that magical spot just behind his ears.

  “He’s harmless,” the woman told her, almost as if she could read her thoughts. “Unless I want him to be otherwise.”

  The combination of her chuckle and the deep throatiness of her voice made goosebumps rise on Rynne’s arms. There was something different about her.

  “Go, Vilks,” she ordered the black beast. “Stand watch.”

  Rynne could have sworn the wolf bowed his head before he turned and took off. As quickly as he went, she wondered if magic had taken him away.

  “Come,” the woman commanded her, much as she had the wolf. She stopped at the threshold of the doorway and looked out across the land, squinting as she did so. “There’s not much time,” she told her. “Your presence here has alerted many. They’re already looking for you.”

  Her eyes going wide, Rynne looked over her shoulder to see no signs that anyone was near. Still, she shot up the steps to join the woman, blinking as she walked into the interior of the dusky cottage. She shivered, a feeling of movement in the dark shadows making her skin crawl. But it was the vial next to a low burning candle in the middle of a table that grabbed her attention. It was exactly like the one she’d lost in the pool, except for the murky liquid inside. When she reached for it, the woman stopped her. Rynne turned determined eyes upward meeting those of the taller woman. All fear aside, she had to have that vial.

  A
fter a few seconds, the woman broke the stare and smiled.

  “Mordrin was right. You are a strong one.”

  Rynne gasped at the mention of the name of the old witch back home.

  “I am Corvona Bruxa.” She laughed again at Rynne’s raised brows. “I see you’ve heard of the Raven Witch. Don’t worry. I mostly use my magic for good these days.” She cooed as she pulled a thin ball chain from a rack hanging above the table, working it through the eyelet screw in the top of the bottle top.

  “Wickedness can get so tiresome as one ages, especially in this day when it is so plentiful. It’s much more fun now to foil the nefarious.”

  Rynne scrutinized the woman while she worked with the bottle. A few inches taller than herself, she couldn’t imagine her being more than a decade older than she was, which was odd because the fabled Raven Witch had supposedly lived centuries before her own time.

  Her lithe body was clad in black from knee high boots to her leather pants, even the vest that covered her dark shirt was black, as was her hair and eyes. It was easy to see why she was called the Raven. When she handed her the vial, Rynne jumped and the woman laughed again. She could tell some of the witch’s old ways still remained.

  “You needed a better way of securing it,” she told her, motioning for Rynne to put the chain over her head. “Now, for a change of clothes. Those wet skirts will slow you down too much.”

  Too much for what, Rynne wondered.

  Rynne had just managed to change when the wolf bayed and the dark-haired witch told her the men had come. She handed her a black feather and told her to run, to find the water, and that the coin would assure her return home.

  And run Rynne had, back in the direction she thought they’d come. The problem was, there was no water, only a town. Secondly, or maybe it was the third problem, since she was now being pursued, was that she had no coin.

  Believe, her inner voice told her.

  She had to believe everything would work out. She couldn’t lose hope. It was all she had to save her brother’s life.

  “Slow down,” she whispered to herself at the edge of the town.

  Rynne forced herself to return a smile to a lady who walked past with an infant in an odd-looking carriage. Making herself take slower steps while trying to control her breathing, she walked into the town trying to figure out what to do next.

  Part of her screamed that she needed to turn back, but she could hear runners in the distance and assumed they were the men the Raven Witch had told her about. She still had no idea who they were or how they’d known she was there, but she felt certain they wanted the vial.

  Rynne’s heart sank. She didn’t know where she was or how she was going to get the potion home to her brother, provided she could avoid the men chasing her. She’d needed to find the water, not a town with oddly constructed buildings along even odder streets. What material looked of white dirt, yet felt as hard as wood beneath one’s feet?

  She looked up, squinting at the lights that hung from black posts above her. The same kind of light shone in the windows of the shoppes, but it wasn’t from oil lamps or candlelight. It illumined clothing that looked more like undergarments than outer attire. It was like nothing she’d ever seen, what with the short length of the women’s skirts and the tight form of the men’s britches. Scandal would have erupted had people dressed this way back in her brother’s fiefdom of Wolfdenreve.

  A call came from behind her and she whipped around to see four men, one of them pointing toward her. They had to be the ones who had been following her.

  Dressed in the same odd clothing of the other villagers, they quickly blended in and Rynne knew she had to get away. She took off, darting down a side street, weaving through an alley and into a shoppe that looked to sell items closer to what she might have seen at home. Inside, the old Gypsy woman seemed to be expecting her and held out a heavily bangled arm, hand upward, asking for the raven feather only seconds after Rynne burst through the door. Rynne looked at the black feather Corvona Bruxa had given her. Was this the reason why? What if she gave it up and…

  When the Gypsy woman produced a coin in her other hand, Rynne thrust the feather at her and grabbed the coin.

  “Where?”

  The gypsy understood her one-word question and replied, “To the fountain with the dragon’s body,” she answered.

  Rynne leaned closer, trying to understand through the woman’s thick accent and clipped words.

  “Say these words and step into the water.” The Gypsy recited a handful of words, had Rynne repeat them, then took Rynne to a door in the back of the shoppe that let her out into yet another alley. “Stay to the East, with the sun before you.”

  Rynne thanked her and ran until she found the fountain exactly where the woman had said it would be. Slowing as she approached it, she stared at it, circling it, and taking in the design. Quite old looking, it was magnificent with the water trickling from the stone dragon’s mouth into the basin atop the pedestal that rose from the center to where it then cascaded down into a coin-strewn pool. It appeared to be constructed of a fine stone, except for the tile bottom and the copper eyes.

  With shaky legs, she climbed up on the fountains edge, feeling ludicrous when she spread her arms like the woman had told her, and even more so when she turned three times and began chanting the words she’d been rehearsing in her mind.

  “Întoarce-mă la mine acasă.”

  Rynne wasn’t quite sure of their meaning, only that when she combined them with the actions and tossed the ancient coin into the fountain, they were supposed to take her from this place, sweeping her through time. She prayed for safety.

  Even though she’d crossed time before, fear still crept up her spine. This time she was doing it on purpose. She second-guessed herself. What if something else went wrong and she ended up God only knew where?

  Mustering as much courage as she possibly could, Rynne lifted her chin and braced herself, knowing she was the only hope her brother had. Now, with the vial secured on a chain that allowed it to hang low, nestled in the hollow between her breasts, she had to get back home where she could help him.

  With the words completed, Rynne kissed the coin and tossed it toward the stone beast in the middle and stepped forward. Before either she or the coin landed, she could feel herself falling… floating, really. This time, she submitted to it, allowing herself to be pulled in, whisked away on the threads of time like a soft feather sailing upon the wind.

  “Home,” she whispered.

  Rynne was ready to be home. She had to believe her wish would come true. She had to believe, because this was her only chance.

  Chapter 2

  All Brendan MacCailín wanted was a few extra minutes of peace outside his bedchamber. That seemed to be the only place he could be alone anymore. He stood near the pond at the far end of his garden, breathing in the familiar smells of his own lands. The gentle breeze that ruffled his brown hair was welcomed.

  He’d ordered the windows of his castle opened to take advantage of the reprieve from the stillness of the days prior. The air had grown quite stale within his halls during his time away, especially since his sisters had refused to allow the windows opened.

  His Steward had done his best to wrought compliance from them, but they’d refused to listen to the man. Poor Durstan, a man in his middle ages who had never married, he’d been content to spend his life acting as Steward to Locktonhurst. Running the castle was the man’s forte, not corralling young women on the verge of becoming headstrong ladies.

  Three months they’d held Brendan’s home captive, demanding the windows locked after the first of the feathers had been found. Three months, plus travel time, adding another six days was how long he’d been gone.

  He hadn’t been away that long since his years spent at the Battle of Volante. He’d been ready to come home, until Sophia met him at the door blubbering about the black feathers they’d been finding in various places inside his halls.

  Brendan
had rubbed his shoulder, the hair on the back of his neck standing up at the mention of the black feathers, though the concern was quickly replaced with a sense of right. Whether that was because he was home, or the strange happenings were a foretelling of something good, he wasn’t sure. One thing was certain, the black feathers meant something. Not only had they been found in his home, but one had also emerged as a dark scale-like image on the flesh of his right shoulder. It was his mark. He’d been expecting it, even if he hadn’t known what it would look like.

  He shuddered. Change was upon them. Too bad his sisters couldn’t embrace it.

  Unfortunately, with the unrest in the neighboring fiefdom of Thurwickden, everyone was on edge and they couldn’t accept that whatever was happening just might bring good. He groaned, knowing he needed to do some accepting of his own. It could be a good while before they stopped shadowing him.

  Brendan rubbed his shoulder. He needed time to think, to figure out what was happening. More importantly, he needed to find out what his part was in the whole of things. If only he could arrange for Sophia and Margaret to visit elsewhere. He loved his sisters, but their continual care since his parent’s passing was quite wearisome even in the best of times.

  And this was not necessarily the best of times. He touched the spot on his shoulder, thinking of his recent trip. It had come at the request of the mother of his best friend, Kensey Willowthorne. Lord of Honorcrest in the fiefdom of Wolfdenreve, Willowthorne had taken ill and his younger sister had gone missing.

  Brendan sighed. He hadn’t seen his friend in almost a year, though the last time they’d been together he’d thought Kensey fit enough. It was strange to see the man laying abed as if asleep though never waking, his only nourishment coming from whatever liquid his mother could force past his lips. The cream on the milk had come with his sister’s disappearance… this was the main reason Kensey’s mother had summoned him… to lead the men in a search for her.