by Karen Mead
“I’m afraid I’ll have to refuse your kind offer,” said Sam in a monotone. “She stays here.”
Tad chuckled and looked at Sam like he was an overindulged child. “Oh, it’s not like I’m being unreasonable and asking you for your Cassandra! This girl is not your familiar or your lover, is she? She’s nothing to you. And surely you were prepared to offer me a souvenir to remember my trip by,” he said. Then something seemed to occur to him and he crossed his arms, inclining his head towards the woman at the door.
“If you’d prefer to trade, I’d be happy to give you Arianna in exchange. I’m sure it would be helpful for Cassie to have another witch around the place.”
Cassie’s eyebrows shot up at that. Arianna was a witch? She’d figured the silent companion for either a human or a vampire; the fact that the vampire had a witch at his disposal was disturbing. Usually only demons had witches….
Sam had entered that calm state; that place he went before bodies started flying. Cassie wondered if Tad even knew the danger he was in.
“Mr. O’Donnel, I don’t know what you’ve been told about me. But I don’t buy, trade or sell, people.”
Tad’s eyes wandered back to Aeka’s face. “No, you don’t. You take them from others and give nothing in return.”
Sam took a step towards Tad, only to be stopped by Eugene’s hand on his shoulder. “You forget yourself, Thaddeus. You are in the presence of the Son of Sammael. You are in no position to be making demands.”
“Which is why I’m only asking for the most minor of tribute,” Tad said stretching his arms wide. “A human in exchange for a skilled witch is a great deal; my host makes out like a bandit here. And all because this is a beauty that should never be tarnished!” He took a quick step towards Aeka and lifted her chin with his hand. “This face—”
Aeka moved so fast that Cassie only fully realized what had happened later; at first, all she saw was the ribbon of blood across Tad’s throat. Her mind processed other bits and pieces one at a time: Tad, gurgling and holding his throat, for even though he was a vampire, he wasn’t immune to pain—or shock. Aeka, her face expressionless, a few drops of blood marring her perfect gown.
But Aeka wasn’t done; after opening the vampire’s throat from ear to ear with the boxcutter, she jammed the blade into his Adam’s apple, all the way up to the hilt.
The girl had used the force from jumping out of her chair to open his throat, and her downward momentum to bury the blade in her victim. It had all taken less than a second.
While Tad made pathetic, tortured sounds, everyone’s eyes watched him, horrified. Even Eugene looked to be at a total loss.
Cassie put her hands on her ears as a loud thunderclap threatened to rip her skull apart, but there was no escaping the sound. After taking a few seconds to catch her breath, and feeling her arms explode into goosebumps at the sudden chill, she realized that Sam had frozen time.
Tad was frozen in place, individual particles of bloody froth suspended in midair around his butchered throat. Ariana was frozen too, but in her case, it made little difference. Everyone else in the room was unaffected.
Khalil broke the silence first, walking towards Tad’s body and examining it as he would a wax statue. “Well damn, that went south awful fast. The hell do we do now?”
“Is time frozen? Is this a time freeze?” said Ethan in excited tones, then Cassie paled as she realized that the boy must have seen Aeka savage the vampire’s throat. Eugene shushed the boy, and stroked the back of his head.
Sam was holding his head like he had a pounding headache. “I…I think I did it again. Too big an area. I might have frozen…everything.”
Cassie felt sick to her stomach. At first, she thought it was just horror at the thought that Sam could have frozen time everywhere, but as the feeling grew, she realized it wasn’t natural. She was being pulled, from the inside out, and there was nothing she could do about it.
She tried to scream, but before she could open her mouth, something seemed to twist her inside out and she didn’t know where her mouth was anymore. When she finally regained a sense of herself, and felt that all her parts were in the right places, a little girl with messy black hair was tugging on her hand.
“Mommy! Daddy come and see, I got Mommy!”
Chapter Eighteen
Cassie swayed, unsteady on her feet. She appeared to be in someone’s backyard; a cluttered patio took up about half the yard, and there was a swingset to her right. It was warmer than where she had been last, clearly spring or summer, and the trees that rimmed the yard were full of white blossoms.
The little girl continued to tug on her hand, and when Cassie didn’t move beyond swaying some more, she threw her arms around Cassie’s waist and jumped up and down.
“Daddy come down, it’s Mommy!” she cried again.
Okay, even for my life lately, this is weird.
“What is it?” called a familiar voice, and Sam walked out the backdoor and onto the patio. Only it wasn’t Sam; something was different, something was wrong. Though the only physical difference that she could see was the lightest whisper of silver peeking through blond hair at his temples, she could immediately tell that he wasn’t the man she knew. His features looked exactly the same, yet he looked older, somehow. Tired.
When Sam (whatever version of him it was) saw her, he paused and paled as though he’d seen a ghost. He looked at her in disbelief for several seconds while the little girl continued to cheer and dance in front of Cassie.
“Daddy, see? I told you! I told you I could bring Mommy back!” She ran from Cassie to her father, and put her arms around his legs. “There was a biiiiiiiig knot, and I pulled the knot, and Mommy fell out!”
With obvious difficulty, Sam took his eyes off of Cassie’s face and looked at the little girl. He knelt so he was at eye level with her, holding her firmly by the shoulders. “Corianne, you promised. You promised not to do any more magic without telling me.”
The child struggled in his arms, frustrated. “But look, it’s Mommy!” She pointed in Cassie’s direction, and Cassie got a good look at her face for the first time. The girl had very familiar blue eyes; the same ones she saw staring back at her from the mirror every day. She felt her body go numb.
“That is not your mother,” said Sam, with a vehemence that frightened Cassie. “You shouldn’t have done this, Cor. You broke your promise, and now you have to be punished.”
“But Da-ad—” Corianne started.
“Go to your room, now!” Sam bellowed. Cassie winced that he was yelling in the girl’s face. Corianne’s lip started to tremble, and Cassie could tell she would start crying any second.
“Idiot! I hate you!” Corianne yelled, then she ran back into the house, sobs escaping as she ran.
Sam sighed and rubbed his temples. Then he took a deep breath and looked over at Cassie, as though afraid she might have disappeared in the interim.
“She really did it,” he said quietly. “I’m sorry. Corianne…my daughter can see specific places in time, and the easiest places for her to see are the places where I’ve already touched it. She calls them “knots,” and sometimes she pulls at the knot to see what happens. She’s pulled out an old toy, and once even a cat that had died.” He swallowed, looking pained. “If I had any idea that she would do this, I would never have left her magic free….” He seemed to lose track of what he wanted to say and just looked at her, with that same fascinated expression that frightened her.
Cassie took a shaky step forward. “So this is really the future,” she said in awe.
He took a step back; it was as though he thought she was a deer in the woods, and if he got too close, he might frighten her away. “To you, yes.” He seemed to catch himself backing away from her and shook his head, fortifying himself. He took a few steps toward her and offered her his arm, which she gratefully took; she was still very unsteady on her feet.
He directed her back to the house, this Sam she didn’t know. “How old are yo
u now?”
“17,” said Cassie.
He took a deep breath and then exhaled. “My God,” he said quietly. “Let’s sit you down inside and get you something to drink, and then we’ll see about sending you back where you belong.”
He led her through the basement, up the stairs and to the living room, where he helped her sit down on an overstuffed couch. He walked out of the room for a moment, presumably to get her a drink, and Cassie took stock of her surroundings. The house was furnished like Sam’s current apartment; sparse, but what little was there seemed expensive.
The only knick knack in view was a picture in a silver frame on the end table next to her. She picked it up, unable to help her curiosity. It was a family picture taken at the beach. She recognized Corianne, although she was younger; a toddler in a sunhat, fidgeting in her mother’s arms. Cassie recognized herself as the mother, only in the picture, her hair had grown into long black ringlets. The Sam in this picture was different, beaming as he held his wife and child. She’d never seen such a warm smile on his face.
Because that was when he was still happy. What happened to me? What’s going to happen to me?
Sam paused when he came back and saw her studying the photo, but didn’t say anything. He was holding a soda can and a glass with ice. “I don’t know if you’ll like it, but this is my wife’s favorite drink,” he said, placing both the can and the glass on the end table beside her. Cassie didn’t recognize the brand of soda, but when she poured it, she could tell from the smell that it was a kind of super-sweet cherry cola.
“Your wife has good taste,” she said, then proceeded to gulp the soda down quickly. Apparently time travel could make you thirsty.
The corners of his mouth picked up into a small smile when she downed the soda. “Want another?”
“Yes, please?”
In another few moments he was back with a second can of soda, which she also finished. After that, she began to feel almost human again.
“So. You and I got married, and then we had a little girl.”
He didn’t say anything, just looked at her.
“And then I died.”
He still didn’t respond, but his eyes took on a faraway expression. She leaned forward on the couch, a strange excitement coming over her.
“Tell me. Maybe if you tell me how I died, I’ll be able to do something about it.”
“Or maybe you die because I told you. There are never easy answers with this,” he said. “What were you doing when you were pulled here?”
“Um,” Cassie started, feeling lightheaded. It had only been a few minutes, but it had also been years and years ago, and it was like she could feel that juxtaposition on some level she couldn’t explain. “We were…meeting with a vampire, at DG. Thaddeus O’Donnel. Calls himself Tad.”
“Ah,” said Sam, resting his chin on the tops of his hands. “I remember that. I also don’t remember you being gone, so we must have sent you back at the exact instant that you left.” He knit his brows at that. “I should be able reverse whatever Corianne’s done, but I’d rather wait until she calms down and have her do it herself; I’m trying to get her used to undoing her own spells, rather than cleaning them up for her. I’ll supervise her of course, to make sure you’re safe.”
Cassie nodded, as though it was totally normal to be discussing magical discipline with your daughter’s future father in a world where you were already dead.
“Tad O’Donnel, let’s see,” said Sam, getting up and pacing his living room. “That was right after that wonderful evening when I tried to sweep you off your feet for the first time.” He smiled that same sad smile. “Of course, I do remember picking you up and taking you to the bedroom in my arms, so at least I got the sweeping part right.”
The familiarity of Sam’s speech patterns seemed to have an effect on her that even seeing Corianne hadn’t, because for a second, she felt like she couldn’t breathe.
Sam really is my husband. We really do get married, we really do have a little girl. And that means I really do….
He rushed to her side when he heard her gasp. “Are you okay?”
“I think so,” she said when she could breathe again. “It’s just, it’s so much to take in.”
She waited for him to move away from her after she recovered from her panic attack, but he didn’t. When she looked at his face, he was staring directly at her, like he still couldn’t believe that she was there. When she drew back, startled, he moved away.
“I’m sorry…I know you’re not really my wife. I know you’re someone else, the person she was before…you’re someone else. But, what’s making it so hard is that, well…she didn’t age much before she died. She didn’t have time. So you look so much the same…”
She realized that she had a death grip on her soda can. “Tell me how I died.”
“No,” he said quietly. She could tell he wouldn’t budge.
“Then…tell me about Corianne,” she said, realizing that something had been bothering her ever since she’d learned that the little girl had performed the spell. “How can she be a witch? She’s still so little…”
He seemed relieved to talk about his daughter instead of her, and went back to his seat on the couch. “Cor seems to defy all of our categorizations,” he said. “She’s simultaneously demon, witch, and maybe angel. All we know is, she was born with her powers active, and it’s like nothing anyone has ever seen.”
Cassie considered that for a moment. “It’s got to be hard to raise a kid like that,” she mused. “Especially as a single parent.”
He let out a hoarse laugh at that.
“The Western Court, though,” she said, thinking out loud. “They can’t like it that a girl has so much power. They’re so used to it being an all-boys club. Have they tried to….”
“Hurt her? No. I’m fending off marriage proposals every day as we speak.”
Cassie gasped at that. “Marriage proposals! But she’s a little kid!”
“I know, she’s only four. She made her debut at court at the age of two; they call her The Little Queen.” He said. Through the weariness, through the grief, was that pride in his voice?
“With how strong she is already, even at this age, the prediction is that she’ll have the most powerful magic on earth when she grows up. Everyone is trying to make a good impression, hoping that they can join their line to hers and rule the future.” He sighed. “I’m just worried how long I can control her.”
“Maybe…it’s not about control,” she said slowly. “Maybe you’re worrying too much about controlling her, when you really should just love her.”
She didn’t think he was really angry at her, but there was definitely something dark in the look he shot her. “No. You don’t get to do that. You don’t get to die, then tell me how to raise our child from beyond the grave.”
“It’s not beyond the grave for me,” she said quietly.
There was a long silence, though not an uncomfortable one. It was like they both mutually realized just how much stood between them, how hard it was to have anything like a normal conversation. Eventually, Sam stood up.
“I’m going to see if Cor’s calmed down a bit. Maybe we can fix this now,” he said quietly, and left her alone in the room.
She hugged her knees, sad. She felt sorry for him, this future husband of hers who suffered after her death. She was scared that she was going to die too, but that was almost too abstract to wrap her mind around; it didn’t seem real. But Sam’s pain was right in front of her.
Maybe I should stop trying to work with him. Maybe I should be mean and horrible to him, even more than I am already, then he’ll never fall in love with me and this will never happen. None of this will happen.
Sam came back down the stairs and stood in front of her, hands on his hips. “She cried herself to sleep,” he said, looking past her, out the window. “Do you mind waiting until she wakes up? I still think it’s important for her to undo the spell herself.”
&nb
sp; “Uh, okay. I guess I’m not really in a hurry.”
There was a pause.
“No. You’re not, are you.”
Something about the way he said that bothered her. He continued looking out the window. “I wonder: as long as we put you back right when you left, does it matter how long you stay? A day, a month, a year?”
Cassie’s breath caught in her throat.
“You could stay for a while and watch Corianne grow up. Take back some of the time that was stolen from you,” he said, dropping his hands to his sides and balling his fists. “There’s no reason why you can’t stay here. With us.”
“Sam, no. I don’t belong here.”
“But where else do you belong, if not with your family?” he said. He sounded so calm, so eminently reasonable, that it sent a chill through her. There was a melodiousness to his voice in this incarnation that she’d never heard before; like he was used to making grand speeches. This version of him, this man she didn’t know, clearly was used to getting what he wanted.
Instead of sitting down across from her on the couch, he sat down next to her, putting his arm over her shoulders and pulling her close. “It’s alright, Cass. It’s alright, you’re safe with me.”
“Look at me! This is wrong, I don’t belong here, I belong in the past, remember? Sam—!”
He pulled her into his lap, and before she could take a breath he was caressing her and leaving gentle kisses on her neck. His hands had gotten more skilled and dexterous in the intervening years, but instead of making her feel good, it drove her even further into a panic.
“No, this is wrong! I’m saying no! Let me go!”
I’m sorry. I don’t think I can.
“No. Get your hands off me, I am NOT your wife! I don’t love you!”
I’m sorry.
He pulled her close one final time, and then everything was gone again.