Gypsy's Quest

by Nikki Broadwell

  “What did he do?”

  “He managed to release the priestesses. Somehow they found their way back to Fell, but it won’t be long before the sorceress rounds them up again. To her they are like cows to be used until they give out. With Loki as her ally there is little I can do to help,” he added, watching my expression.

  “But I killed Adair.”

  “That’s news to me,” Gunnar said.

  “She’s not dead?”

  Gunnar shrugged. “I haven’t heard one way or the other. Apparently Brandubh set the priestesses free around the same time you left with Kafir.”

  “And Dancer?”

  “Dancer is with me. Luckily she’s older, her youth long gone. If the sorceress is still alive Dancer is of no importance to her.”

  I sighed, thinking about the possiblility of Adair being resurrected from the hideous creature she turned into. “It’s hard for me to believe that Adair could be brought back. She looked like a skeletal husk at her death.”

  “Loki is very powerful,” Gunnar told me.

  “God, I hope she’s dead,” I mumbled, remembering the satisfaction it gave me to plunge the knife into her heart.

  With the near disaster of our time travel, and having Gunnar appear, Rifak’s death had been shoved to the back of my mind, but as we talked, the pain of it returned, tears springing into my eyes. “I think I’ll lie down,” I told the men. I headed into the cabin and closed the door behind me, sitting cross-legged on the bed and trying to stop the flow of tears. The thought that Maeve and Harold were searching for me made me cry even harder. I felt horribly responsible for Brandubh’s actions during that time and my inability to act on their behalf. Maybe Rifak’s death was payback for the person I’d been back then.

  When I came out later the men were gone, the tea things and food plates left on the counter. I cleaned up and put things away, waiting for Kafir’s return.

  It was nearly dark before I heard his footfalls on deck and the sound of voices. “Gertrude, are you decent?” he called.

  “I’m dressed,” I called back, surprised when a strange man followed him down the ladder. “This is Vogel. He’s going to help me with Gypsy’s repairs.” Kafir rummaged around under some extra sails, pulling out a toolbox. “Here it is.”

  “Where’s Gunnar?”

  “He’s heading back.”

  I didn’t have to ask what he meant by that, watching Vogel struggle with a loose board in the floor. He pulled it up, peering down. “No water damage in the bilge,” he told Kafir, before replacing it.

  “I think the mast is cracked,” Kafir told him, heading up the ladder. Vogel followed, their mumbled conversation garbled once they were out of the saloon.

  I heard a couple of loud curses and then the sound of splintering wood, before I rushed up the ladder to see what had happened.

  “It needs a scarf,” Vogel said, followed by a loud god-related expletive from Kafir.

  “I guess it could be worse. How long will that take?”

  Vogel ran a hand over his chin, his gaze going to his feet. “Could be done in a day or two. What can ye pay?”

  “I have a few gold pieces and some rare items from the future. You could be the envy of the town.”

  “Not sure what that’d get me. Right now I just want to feed my wife and children. We came from Dragoon.”

  “Dragoon, where the power plant exploded?”

  Vogel nodded. “Not many survived it.”

  “Gold then.”

  I listened to this exchange, surprised by Kafir’s knowledge of the past and wondering if he’d been here at another time. Or was that even possible? I shook my head as the confusion of time travel muddled my brain. The delay didn’t really bother me; my grief would be with me no matter where I was. I headed into the stateroom, aware that Gypsy was keeping the room this way especially for me.

  The Otherworld-2012

  “Gunnar’s seen them. Gertrude is on her way home to Milltown. The sailor is taking her. According to Gunnar it’s a dangerous trip. Let’s hope they make it. From what he told me her child is dead, killed when Gertrude and her friends tried to steal him back from Adair.

  “My gods, MacCuill, I can’t imagine how she must feel!” Maeve picked up Airmid, hugging the little girl to her chest. “If something happened to Airy I don’t know what I’d do.”

  “Hopefully you won’t ever have to find out.”

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Somewhere in time

  Another week went by. Most days and nights I spent sleeping in the large bed while Kafir sailed or looked at his maps. He hadn’t attempted to sleep in the same bed, bunking down in the saloon instead. My heart ached for him and for myself but I could do nothing to change the dynamic between us. My dreams had been strangely absent, a void into which I fell, as though drowning, every night.

  “Can you make tea?”

  Kafir’s voice entered my consciousness from a distance and it took a moment to realize he was asking something of me. He had left me alone for the past week, only checking on me before he napped and occasionally insisting that I eat something. I pulled on a sweater and left the cabin, my eyes meeting his briefly before I headed to the stove.

  “We’re about to go through another time loop. I thought I should warn you.”

  I didn’t answer, mechanically adding tea leaves to the pot and moving around to add some kindling to the stove. When his hand came on my shoulder I flinched in surprise, trying to move away, but he didn’t release me.

  “You need to snap out of this now. It’s been several weeks and I’m getting tired of being with a zombie.”

  The word zombie jarred me for a second. I wouldn’t have expected him to use it. I looked up. “Zombie?”

  “Like a dead person walking around?”

  He pinched my upper arm in the soft spot on the back and I cried out.

  “And yet you aren’t dead, Gertrude. If you would wake up maybe you could see what you have here. This is the last time I’m going to say this and I want you to listen closely.” He grabbed my shoulders turning me to face him. “I love you, I always have and I always will. I’m very sorry if this isn’t enough for you but I’m begging you to reconsider this decision. Once you’re back in Milltown there will be little chance of us ever seeing each other again. Do you fully understand this? I remember you telling me that we’d wasted so much time—well, take a look at what you’re doing. Just because you’ve lost your child doesn’t mean your life is over.”

  I wrenched away from him, tears blurring my vision. “It does to me.”

  “You are a fool, woman, a stubborn fool.” He shook his head, took the mug I held out and went up the companionway, leaving me to consider his words.

  Around an hour or so later he yelled down that we were heading into the time loop and to brace myself. I grabbed anything loose but I wasn’t finished with that task when things began to distort. I fell against the stove, burning my hands, my back and neck before I could move away. Why hadn’t he told me to forego the fire? The entire boat could burn up if the burning wood got out. Gypsy groaned, protesting the forces that seemed to be trying to tear her apart. I almost heard the boat cry out in pain as the hull twisted from one end to the other. I crawled to the stateroom but it was gone, replaced with the tiny cabin, but before I could get to my bunk there was a wrenching sound, like what I would imagine when a tornado lifted a house off its foundation, and a moment later there was a foot wide hole in the upper deck. I screamed as my body was sucked into it. Trying to hold on, I was caught between, my hands bleeding from the splintered boards. When I heard Kafir yell, I turned, watching in horror as he tumbled across the deck and off the boat. There was a splash and then the boat careened away in the wind and I was pressed downward again, my head banging against the stove.

  ***

  I don’t know how much time passed before I came to consciousness. I was lying on the floor belowdecks amid splintered boards, cups and utensils, maps and everything
else that hadn’t been battened down. I stared upward through the hole, noticing a blue sky. I pulled myself to standing, and then climbed the ladder, hoping against hope that Kafir was steering Gypsy. But there was no one there. Gypsy was adrift on a dark sea, her sails in tatters. I crawled along the gunwhale searching for Kafir in the water but there was no sign of him. Why hadn’t he used the safety harness? Things blurred. Why hadn’t I listened to him and stayed in Fell? Why had I insisted on this trip, and turned down the love he offered me? I barely remember heading back down the companionway and crawling into the bunk to cry myself to sleep.

  I guess I slept a long time because when I woke again the porthole was dark, the boat rocking gently in the waves. A dream hovered on the edge of my consciousness—Freyja with a message. “There is greatness in you, Gertrude. You will discover it. Your quest is only just beginning.” I wanted to keep the vision of her lovely face in my mind but already the tendrils were drifting away, leaving me alone to deal with the predicament I was in. Kafir was gone, certainly drowned. I hadn’t even told him I loved him. I screamed in frustration and pain as those last moments moved before my eyes—his body rolling across the deck and over the side, his terrified eyes on mine. His death was on my hands. And how could I find my way home without Kafir at the helm?

  When I finally climbed the ladder I noticed Gypsy had drifted into a narrow harbor. In the distance were electric lights. Lots of them. And once my heart slowed down enough for me to hear something besides its beat, I registered the blare of car horns, the drone of planes overhead and train whistles in the distance. “Where am I?” I asked. And faintly I heard the answer, whether from Freyja, Gypsy or my own knowing, “You’re home.”

  Once it was light enough I was able to see the broken-down dock next to where Gypsy had gone aground in the mud. It was in a neglected part of the harbor, away from any hustle and bustle. I gathered a few things together and stepped off, tying Gypsy to a piling. “I’ll be back,” I whispered.

  Milltown looked the same even though it had been two years. I was surprised to find my housesitter still there when I arrived at my apartment. Carla, a recently divorced neighbor, was delighted to find a place to stay for the month I would be gone. But she’d never bargained for this length of time. She answered the door, a smile lighting up her thin face.

  “How was your vacation?” she asked, holding the door open for me.

  “Vacation? Oh. I suppose that’s how I referred to it before I left. Have you been here the entire time?”

  Carla looked surprised. “Of course. You told me you’d be gone a month or so.”

  Lucifer appeared behind her, rubbing up against her legs as he studiously ignored me. “Lucifer missed you,” she said, reaching down to scratch behind his ears.

  “What month is it?”

  Carla frowned. “It’s February twenty-seventh.”

  “And the year?”

  “What’s wrong with you, Gertrude? It’s 2010, of course.”

  I let out my breath. I had asked for this, asked to go home to my timeline in 2010. “I feel like I’ve been gone for years,” I told Carla, depositing my pack on the couch.

  “You kind of look like it too. Where did you get those clothes?”

  I glanced down at my torn and filthy black skirt, the ragged tunic top that belonged to Kafir, the mud-covered boots that were too big for me. I put my hand up, trying to smooth my spiky and filthy hair. I was sure I looked like a bag lady. “It’s a long story.”

  “You can tell me after you get over jetlag,” Carla said before going into the bedroom. “I’ll pack up now and let you get resettled, but I expect a full report in a few days.”

  After Carla left I went through my apartment picking up things off tables and putting them down again. When my phone rang I jumped at the nerve-jangling sound. When I answered, a man’s voice said, “Is that you, Gertrude?”

  “Yes,” I answered warily. “Who’s this?”

  “It’s Alex, Alex Lewin. Everyone’s been wondering what became of you. When did you get home?”

  “Just this moment and I haven’t even unpacked. Can I call you back in a few days once I get re-acclimated?”

  “Everyone’s been really worried about you. Can I at least call Finna in Bailemuir so that she can relay that you’re safe?”

  “Of course. I’ll talk to you soon.” I hung up the phone, my mind reeling. People in the Otherworld were worried? I shook my head trying to wake myself up; Gypsy’s repairs would have to wait until I got a handle on the life I was in.

  Deep in the night I woke from a horrible dream in which Kafir and Rifak were floating face down on the ocean. I had been crying in my sleep and the tears didn’t stop now that I was awake. Lucifer watched me with wide eyes and then jumped off the bed, heading to the living room to spend the rest of the night.

  When I left the apartment the next morning, I was startled by the noise level and general frenetic chaos. Horns honking, people yelling at each other and flipping each other off, jackhammers working on the roads, people shoving by me going the other way, yelling into the phones held to their ears. I navigated as best I could but several times I had to stop and take a deep breath, pressing my body against the brick buildings.

  It took a long time of wandering through the grocery store to make a decision; the amount of food displayed was astounding. The people in line behind me when I was counting out my money were annoyed, their remarks loud and irritated. “Get out of the way, lady!” one man yelled. “I don’t have all day.” I was shaking by the time I left.

  At home I put things away, trying hard to keep the tears at bay but they refused to be held back. I kept seeing the desperate expression on Kafir’s face during the last conversation we had. I hated myself for not acknowledging him, for being such a stubborn bitch. If I hadn’t acted that way he might be alive right now instead of on the bottom of the ocean inbetween timelines. Right after that thought passed, the pale skin and closed eyes of Rifak appeared in my mind and I let out a scream of rage and pain. How could I live when everything I loved was gone?

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Milltown-2010

  Months went by with me trying to cope with the world I was in. Walking down the street I would see Tara pushing a baby carriage, but when I caught up of course it wasn’t her. The same thing happened with bright-haired men dressed in what I now called hippy clothes. They looked so much like Kafir from the back that my heart would speed up, making me act rashly. One time I grabbed hold of the man’s arm before I saw my mistake, the annoyed expression on his face making me cringe. Even Gunnar hovered in my peripheral vision, but when I examined further, I would see that I had created something out of nothing, the gaunt men with long gray hair not anything like the druid. And then there was the frenetic pace and negative atmosphere; I was fast becoming a shut-in. When I thought of Ygrassil’s worlds now their edges had been softened; the people were what I missed. Even Hreidmar seemed better to me than the inhabitants here who wouldn’t meet my eyes. I cried in the grocery store, cried in the park, cried on the bus and cried myself to sleep nearly every night.

  Carla came by to talk but I had nothing to say. How could I explain that I’d given birth to a baby and lost a baby, been in love with a man who was now dead, and left the best friends I’d ever had, in a world far in the future? I decided that the only person who might understand was Alex. I hadn’t called him back yet and hoped he was still around.

  “Alex, it’s Gertrude.”

  “Ah, I’m glad you called. I’m getting ready to head back to Scotland for good.”

  “You and Finna?”

  “Yes, and our grand-daughter, but maybe you haven’t heard. Maeve and Harold’s baby was born on August first.”

  A sharp pang went through me and I bit into my lip to keep from crying. “I would really like to get together before you go. Any chance of you coming into Milltown?”

  “As a matter of fact I do have some business down there to take care of. I’m
selling everything up here in Halston. There are a lot of papers to sign. Can you meet me for lunch tomorrow?”

  “Since we’ve only spoken on the phone, I’ll wear a red scarf around my neck,” I told him.

  He laughed. “You’ll know me by my grizzled gray beard.”

  The little café we’d settled on was packed and the only place to sit was outside under an umbrella. I liked the spot since it wasn’t close to any tables. I wouldn’t want anyone to overhear what I was about to tell him.

  “Good to meet you,” he said holding out his hand. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”

  “I’m sure none of it was good.”

  “I wouldn’t say that. There was some concern about your involvement with…”

  I held up my hand. “Don’t say it. After what I tell you, you may have a different opinion.”

  The waiter came over, taking our attention for a few moments and giving me a chance to collect my thoughts. Alex seemed nice enough, an older man with laugh lines at the corner of his pale blue eyes. He might believe my story.

  Once the waiter left, he turned to me. “So what did happen to you after the wave? I wasn’t there but I’ve heard all about it from my daughter and Harold.”

  I took a sip from my water glass and began to talk. I only told him the main parts of what had happened but even so it took twenty minutes before I was finished. I waited for him to say something, watching his expression.

  “Interesting story,” he finally said. “I’ll tell you, a year ago I woudn’t have believed a bit of it, but now…” he shook his head. “After my time with Finna and our trip into the Otherworld, well, let’s just say I’m more open. Do you want me to pass this on to Maeve and the others?”