'Oh,' Pembrake slipped his hands into his pockets and nodded, 'that's good.'
Abby nodded too. 'We need to get back to our quest. We need to find the Key of Time and fix your mother's bracelet. I think the less time we hang around in the past the better.'
Pembrake nodded firmly. There was some truth in that. They did need to figure out how to get home, but there was something they needed to do here first, something important. But how to tell her? How to tell Abby that he didn't plan on going back to the future until he'd changed it for the better. How to tell her that he, Pembrake Hunter, was proposing to dispose of the Colonel.
He couldn't tell her yet, could he? She'd just hit him with those white-gloved hands and look at him with round, frightened eyes, bemoaning how horrible he was for even thinking of such a thing.
But Pembrake would be helping them both. Without the Colonel there would be no Witch Ban: Abby would be safe and free to return to the future.
He had to introduce this slowly; he had to make her understand.
He took a breath. 'There's another reason we have to get out of here. Abby, how good are you with your history?'
She bit her lip and made a face. 'I'm good on the history of mountain herbs.'
'How much do you know about the Witch Ban?'
She withdrew from his words, as if he'd struck her. But then took a little sniff. 'I have direct experience of it… but I guess I don't really understand how it happened.'
Pembrake licked his lips urgently and looked around the balcony as an automatic precaution. 'It's happening now: this is what will lead to the Witch Ban.'
Abby looked paler than usual. 'What?'
'This, the assassination attempts. They succeed – the Prince.… The murder of the Prince by the witches is what leads to the Ban.'
'What are you talking abou… it does? The Prince is going to die?' she said a little too loudly.
He stepped in hushing quickly. 'If I remember correctly, that's the first move. Then they find a conspiracy or something... the point is we are living it right now and have to get the pleck out of here.'
Abby took a step back until she was pressed up against the balcony's edge. 'You don't believe it though, do you? You don't believe those sweet witches we met – you don't believe they did this, they do this?'
'Abby, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter what I think – because it's going to happen, and we have to get away now.'
'It does matter, Pembrake, it matters to me,' she was trying to back away but there was nowhere left to go. 'I need to know if I can trust you.'
'Of course you can,' he said weakly, floundering at her sudden question.
'Can I?'
'Yes,' he said defiantly as he took up both her hands, 'Abby, you can trust me. I'll get us to a better future.'
Chapter 15
His hands were warm as they held hers, even though there was a chill wind circling on the balcony.
'Abby, there's something we need to talk about,' Pembrake took an obvious swallow. She'd never seen him show such obvious nerves. Usually he was the pillar of control, a man with a rock-solid mask of arrogance and self-assurance. But now he was looking down at her, and she could almost see his eyes wobbling from whatever emotion his thoughts were stirring.
Her heart hadn't stood still yet, wasn't your heart supposed to all but stop at a moment like this? Wasn't the world supposed to draw to a halt and time dwindle to a trickle: leaves and raindrops drifting past in frame-by-frame slow motion?
That wasn't happening at all. Her heart had begun, when he'd swept her hands up in such a smooth motion, to skip erratically like a child jumping through puddles. But now it was racing along, making her rib cage shake with the effort.
What was he going to say?
'Abby, I think-' Pembrake paused suddenly and tipped his head towards the balcony door behind him.
The break in proceedings was torturous.
Was that sweat accumulating on her brow, even on this chilly balcony?
'I think someone's coming.' He stepped away from her and shrunk towards the barely open doorway.
Abby slowly put a hand up to her chest and rested it there, like a weary farmer leaning on his pitch fork. She was all of a sudden very fatigued indeed.
'Look, I'm going to go out,' he was watching the doorway, his head bobbing around like a hawk following the movements of the guests within, 'but after the Ball we'll finish what we started here.'
She couldn't talk right now.
He turned to her, looking up from under his eyebrows, his brow furrowed. He always did that when he was making the transition for the calculating, militaristic Commander to the arrogant but human Pembrake.
She tried to nod her head, but her neck was so stiff it came out as a wobbly jerk.
One more unreadable look and he was gone, leaving Abby alone on the darkened balcony.
It took her a good long while to settle down, but from what, she could not put her finger on at the moment. Her heart, her body, her mind – all were racing for some inconceivable reason.
She put the back of her hand up to her forehead, more strands of unruly hair popping out with every moment. She felt quite hot: was this a fever?
~~~
Pembrake joined the crowd seamlessly. He inserted himself at the back and made his way through the chatting and laughing guests until he stood in what he believed was the most innocuous place in the ballroom – in the centre.
His neck was slick with a sticky layer of sweat, and he put a hand up and wiped it off in a casual movement. Then he tugged down hard on his jacket and straightened the cuffs of his shirt.
Sure enough by the time he had safely made it back to the ballroom, the official introductions were winding up. He had barely grabbed a grateful drink from a waiter had the Princess begun darting through the crowd looking for him.
He dearly wanted to run back to the balcony, close the door, and finish what he'd begun. There didn't seem to be a better time than now to tell her. But he just didn't have that option.
Pembrake smiled what he thought would be the most dashing of grins as the Princess pushed her way to him. But his heart was not in it, and the corners of his lips drooped like daisies in the night.
'Pembrake!' she always exclaimed whatever she spoke. It was like listening to the most chipper of primary school teachers.
He tried to pull the corners of his lips up, alight his eyes with any false interest he could manage. But once again his heart would not comply, and he found his facial features frozen like a man laid to waste in the arctic.
'Oh, Pembrake, I was looking for you in the crowd but I couldn't see you! Did you like the speech daddy made?'
'Riveting,' he stared at the bottom of his glass as he took a wild draught.
'It was, wasn't it?' Princess Annabelle grabbed his arm and hooked onto it causing him to spill some of his wine on the floor. She was like a terrier with his left arm, he'd be lucky if it would ever be the same again. One more night with the Princess and it would probably fall off.
Without really thinking, he turned to stare back at the balcony. Abby apparently had not come out yet. What was she doing out there, what was she thinking?
'Oh you look so thoughtful, Pembrake!' the Princess yanked at his arm, 'I hope you aren't worrying about what will happen after the Ball?'
'Hmm,' that was very perceptive of her; he was worrying about what would happen after the Ball. How he would tell Abby his plans… how she'd take them.
'Well don't you worry at all! I'm sure daddy will understand once I tell him,' the Princess moved closer to his shoulder and appeared for all the world like she wanted to lay her head on his upper arm.
'Ah, what are you doing?' Pembrake tried to pull his arm back, but could hardly push the Princess away in the middle of the ballroom.
Several officious looking men in regal clothes with matching facial hair began to stare at them with drawn-lipped disdain.
Pembrake coughed. 'Um I really don't think i
t's a good idea to do that here.' He suddenly had the urge to loosen his collar, but couldn't spare a hand right now.
The Princess looked up at him, blinking under her eyelashes with over-the-top emotion. 'But daddy will understand once I tell him.'
'Understand,' his voice wavered as if it were breaking.
'He has to! Because we simply must be together!'
There were certain things that were worse than being punched in the face, and this was one of them. Having a barely-old-enough effervescent Princess hang off your arm in the middle of a packed ballroom and admit her undying love for you was top on the list. Her undying, and obviously one-sided love.
Several of the officious gentlemen nearby cleared their throats. That would be the prelude to ordering him into prison, no doubt.
'Oh…' what the pleck was he supposed to say?
The Princess shook his arm again, like a terrier latching onto a bone before they trotted out to the garden and buried it forever. He shook so violently that his wine slipped and splashed in his glass, covering his hand and the floor.
Now it appeared that everyone was staring. Why wouldn't they be? If it were anyone but him at the centre of this farce, he'd be staring right along with them.
He really needed to loosen his collar; it felt like his head was becoming turgid with blood.
'I… think you need a drink… how about I get you a drink?' his voice went up at the end of his statement like a kazoo, almost reaching the general pitch of the Princess' own yelps.
The disapproving gentlemen around him practically hissed. Offering a drink to the barely-old-enough Princess? He knew what they were thinking, but that couldn't be further from the truth.
She pulled away, looking up at him with mascara-rimmed puppy eyes. 'Oh, you're so thoughtful! Yes please, my dear.'
Pembrake took a step away, placed his fingers into his collar and pulled it out until he could breathe again. Then he turned quicker than a keen cadet following his Captain's orders, and ran for cover, shaking the wine off his hand as he went.
Pleck.
~~~
Abby leant against the balcony edge, the thin fabric of her gloves not really protecting her from the cold stone. Her bare neck and back were chilled through by the cold night air, but she didn't want to go back to the Ball just yet.
There was a full moon in the sky. It was funny, she hadn't even known that there would be one tonight and, for a witch that was unimaginable. So much of what happened in life, the ebbs the flows, the waxing and the waning – it was all influenced by the moon. When the moon was full things always came to a head.
Abby stared up at the grey-white orb in the sky. She hadn't even realised. She hadn't once looked up in the sky since coming here. Hadn't once checked and observed her usual witchly routine.
Things were so different; she was so different.
Abby looked over her shoulder at the balcony door. She didn't want to go back in there. She didn't want to pretend with the Captain of the Guard anymore. She didn't want to pretend with the Colonel, with the Princess… she didn't want to pretend with anyone anymore. She just wanted everything to be over, to be home again, and to be free to…. return to her normal life.
Missing the cycle of the moon was a symptom of her general life in the Bridgestock of 28 years ago. The longer she stayed out of her own time, the more she forgot what it was to be a witch.
That's why she had to fix this already. That's why they had to find the Key of Time, figure out how Mrs Hunter's bracelet was connected to this all, and finally tie their destinies to something immovable.
She had been distracted lately; she had allowed this time to take her mind off the future. How many opportunities had she had to look at that bracelet? She had not once thought of, let alone sought for the Key to Time. Nor had she once thought concertedly of what two temporally lost people could tie their destinies to.
So distracted. Abby tapped a stiff hand onto the balcony edge. She'd allowed herself to be so distracted. All this time running around and she hadn't once done something useful. She was a witch, had she forgotten that? Had she forgotten that destines, magic, and mystery were exactly what a witch dealt with best? Had she forgotten that this was up to her?
She shouldn't be at this ball at all. She should be roaming the halls when all the staff were busy with the party, and looking for the Key to Time. The witches had said that the palace was important, no vital, to her and Pembrake's quest – but she hadn't explored it at all. Even when she was allowed to stay here legally under the auspices of the Princess, Abby had not once taken advantage of her position to scour the halls, rooms, and passages for the elusive Key to Time.
Abby looked down at the neckline of her blue dress and picked at the fabric. Dresses, balls and…. Nothing like that should distract a witch from her goal.
Abby nodded at her thought. She was trying to convince herself of something, but what that was she wasn't quite sure of. It was more like she was trying desperately to convince herself that something was not so. That some possibility that had been lapping at the island of her mind was not in fact a fabulous white ship bound for better times.
Whatever opportunities existed for her… they would come to nothing. Abby believed in destiny, even if hers was apparently broken. But she still believed that her life would take a certain track, and that it would be free from… distractions.
Abby sighed heavily and leaned into her arms. Her emotions were swirling around in her mind; at one moment making her want to slam a fist onto the balcony in determination, and at other times burst into tears.
She didn't want to feel this conflicted anymore; it was getting in the way of her finishing this quest.
Abby put a gloved finger up to her eye and wiped underneath, in case a stray tear had somehow leaked out. She did the same to the other eye then took the largest sniff she had ever made.
She smoothed down her dress and walked back into the ballroom.
~~~
Pembrake saw her walk out from the balcony finally. He'd walked as far away from the Princess as was possible. There were waiters walking around with drinks, after all – there was only so far he could go on his quest to grab her a glass of wine before it looked suspicious.
He tried to catch Abby's eye, but she had them firmly rooted on the patch of floor below her feet. She had her arms crossed and appeared to be distracted by something. Her forehead was pale but her cheeks strangely blotchy.
She did not look happy.
Pembrake's stomach gave the slightest of kicks, and he gripped harder onto the glass of wine he had secured for Princess Annabelle. Abby looked like she needed it much more right now.
He knew he shouldn't, but he walked up to her.
Her eyes began to shift uneasily as she finally recognised his presence. It was as if she were looking at a treacherous mirage in the desert, watching him shift between a hill of sand and a glorious oasis.
'Pembrake,' her lips barely moved, her voice almost inaudible.
He handed her the drink. She took it and began to stare at the bottom of the glass somewhat like he had done in the Princess' company moments before.
'Shouldn't you be with the Princess?' her voice was so distant, as if someone had carried the Abby he had been talking to on the balcony – the Abby full of passion and zeal – and sailed her over the furthest sea until only an echo of her voice remained.
What was she thinking in there?
'Right now I'd rather be with a pack of hungry wolves,' he offered and was more than glad when she almost smiled at his words. 'Or fighting a wild bear in a snowstorm,' he added with a smile of his own.
This time she did giggle and the wine in her glass tipped along with her petite shoulders. 'So you heard about what the maids were saying about you and the Princess then?'
'Oh yes. Eloping to wind up fighting a bear and dying in a blizzard – I heard all about that. And frankly, dying in the snow after being mauled is just a notch above being eaten by sharks. The pa
st hates me.'
She finally made eye contact with me. 'You aren't going to die in a shark attack anymore, that would have only happened if we'd stayed in the future.'
He looked at her, about as evenly as he could manage at the moment. 'No, neither am I about to elope with the Princess and end up fighting woodland creatures.' He'd said it about as clearly as he could, putting so much emphasis on ‘no’ it sounded like a command.
She nodded. 'Okay.'
'Yeah.'
She looked at her drink again. 'Yeah.'
'Abby?' he took a breath.
She looked up so fast she must have been expecting him to tell her the greatest secret in the universe. Her pretty grey eyes were so alight with desperate interest, it was almost as if….
'Pembrake? Abby?'
He knew that voice.
His mother.
Both he and Abby turned to see Lilly Hunter push through the crowd to get to them. Her eyes were rimmed with red. Karing was moving several steps behind her, more like a bodyguard than a fiancé.
'Abby!' Lilly's voice was high, but it had lost its usual happy edge.
Karing came to a rest behind them and his face was drawn and slack, with a look a widower might give at the sight of his dead wife's ring.
It wasn't hard to see that both of them, though they were holding it in, were distraught.
A nervous, shivering twitch took to Pembrake's stomach.
'It's so good to see you,' Lilly put out a hand to Abby and touched her shoulder lightly.
Abby was clearly as shocked as Pembrake felt, and switched her eyes quickly from Lilly to Karing. 'What's happened?'
'Oh,' said Lilly, obviously not wanting to draw attention to whatever had shocked the couple into a bitter silence. 'Nothing….'
Karing cleared his throat. 'I didn't really expect to see you two at the Ball….'
Pembrake bit into a polite smile. Karing was under the impression they were both poor, wasn't he? When they'd run into him on Esquire Street both he and Abby had looked like they had been dragged up from the dregs of the slumps, especially Abby with her thin arms and baggy clothes. But now they were dressed in fine clothes and looking like–
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