A Midsummer's Day (23 page)

Why was she here?  T had never shown herself.  She had never made herself known outside of her notes and, apparently, the moth.  Why was she here now?  Was her appearance good? 

Was it bad?

The poor girl had seen better days.  Her hair was in knots.  The diamond band that held her hair back was gone.  Her skirt was rumpled and torn.  What had happened to her?

“Whatever has happened, whatever she put us through,” Vaughn said in Sam’s ear, “whatever’s about to happen, she’s led us to at least one good thing.”

“What?”

The cage door flew open.  Jameson grabbed Sammie’s bandaged wrist.  Hard.   

Vaughn grabbed her other arm.  She felt very much like a wishbone.  The crowd, even the most proper and boringly sadistic nobles, erupted with boos and jeers and Vaughn pulled her back into the cage.  Their lips met in a hard, passionate kiss.  “I love you, SamanthaAn Hallows.”

The Sheriff yanked Sammie from the cage.  He pulled her across the stage and threw her into the dunking chair.  She barely noticed when he strapped her arms to the wood.

Vaughn loved her.  He really loved her.  It was the greatest thing she could have ever heard.

It was the greatest thing to hear in the seconds before her death.

If only he had told her earlier…

“I love you too.”

The chair swung through the air.

<>

Nothing scared him as much as watching her disappear beneath the water.

Vaughn willed the chair to rise back up.  To bring her to the air that she needed. 

What if her feelings of doom were right?  What if she was right about dying? 

No…  She couldn’t have been right about that.  The moth had appeared again.  T appeared for the first time.  They had to be omens of good.

Omens of hope.  T had said so herself in her last letter.

Sammie couldn’t die.  Not now.  Not now that he knew that she loved him.

The chair stayed below for far too long.  She wasn’t supposed to be under the water for more than thirty seconds at a time.

But these dunkers wouldn’t know that.  Under the word of their sadistic master Jameson, they could leave her under until her lungs burst from the pressure of holding her breath.

He had to say something.  Sammie had to come up.  She couldn’t die beneath the water.

She couldn’t even swim for safety.  The dunking was supposed to be punishment.  Not death.  So why in the blazes had Jameson strapped her arms down?

Vaughn had to say something.  But what?  What could he say that wouldn’t inflame his Lordship the Asshole Sheriff to keep Sammie down even longer?  What could he say that wouldn’t cause her death? 

Just then the chair rose.  Sammie sputtered.  She gasped for breath.

Vaughn sighed with relief.

Jameson walked to the edge of the stage.  “What sayest thee, Lady Halloway?” he asked coldly.  “Hast thou repented of thy most hated and devious crimes against nature and the Crown?”

Repent, Vaughn thought to himself.  Repent.  Tell the bastard what he wants to hear.  Tell him what you have to tell him to save your life.  They might go easy on you.

She struggled to take a few short breaths.  “I have done nothing wrong.”

Vaughn closed his eyes.  Pride would get her nothing but an earlier death.

The dunking chair hit the water again.  Vaughn held his breath.  He started to count.

Five.  Ten.  Fifteen.  Twenty.  Twenty five.  Thirty. 

Forty.

Vaughn’s lungs burned after thirty seconds.

How well was Sammie holding up after forty?

Forty five.  Vaughn looked around him in a panic.  Jameson watched the spot above the chair with stoic sadistic-ness.  The Queen, high on her perch on the third level of the stage, watched the water with a look too frightening to even try to decipher.

The dunking crew looked to the Sheriff with expectation.  Their arms shook with effort to keep the counterweight where it was.  They waited for Jameson to give them the order to bring Sammie back up.

But Jameson didn’t look like he had any plan to do that.

“I beg of you, my Lord High Sheriff,” Vaughn yelled through the bars.  “I beg of you, your Grace, bring Lady Anne back to the surface.  Verily she must be near death!”

Jameson and the Queen ignored him.

“I beg of you, your Grace!” he shouted louder.  Thoughts raced through his head.  How could he save Sammie?  “My Lady Halloway hath repented of her crimes.  She did tell me the words herself e’en as I freed her of that dungeon.  The dunke hath confused her most delicate sensibilities.  That be why she doth not repent now!”

The Queen turned towards Vaughn.  He lowered his head with humility, and peaked at the water.  Bubbles still popped at the surface above the chair.  Sammie still had air.

But for how much longer?

The seconds that ticked by were eternally painful.  Finally, the Queen nodded to Jameson.  He sighed and signaled his dunkers.

The dunking crew looked more relieved than Vaughn felt as they pulled the chair back to the surface.  None of them wanted to be involved in someone’s death.

Sammie sputtered as soon as she found air.  She gasped, breathing so hard that T must have been able to hear the whistling in Sam’s lungs.

Her asthma was in overdrive.  She had no air left.

She had no time… to take in any more.

The bastard Jameson gave the order to drop her again.

Sammie barely had time to scream.

“You can’t do this!” Vaughn yelled before
Sammie completely
disappeared below the water.  “She didn’t get to hold her breath.  She’ll die for sure!”

The content smile on Jameson’s weasel of a face turned sadistic.  The Queen…  The Queen started to fidget.  She was growing impatient.

Vaughn didn’t want to think about what she was waiting for.  But…  In his heart… he knew.

He boosted himself up so he stood on the wooden ledge between the wooden bottom of the cage and the iron bars on the top.  He stuck his head out of open cage top.  “Bring her back up.  You have to bring her back up!”

Nobody moved.

He turned to look down the Dead Road. T stared straight at him.  She nodded.

He knew what he had to do.

He jumped onto the stage.  Jameson’s two constables and three of their own brutes rushed onto the stage.  Vaughn ignored them.  He stared at the bubbles coming to the surface.

They were slowing down.

Anger filled Vaughn from head to toe.  “You said you weren’t going to kill her, you bitch!” he shouted at the false queen.

The constables charged.

The air bubbles stopped.

Vaughn dove.

Chapter 24

Every molecule of her body fought the pressure squeezing her from all angles.

Her lungs burned to the rhythm of a hidden clock, ticking down the seconds until they failed.

A tear fell from her eye.

She was going to die.  She knew it.  Jameson wasn’t going to let her up.  He was going to keep her down here until she drowned or her lungs collapsed.  He was going to kill her, in spite of what the Queen had said on the hill.

Or was the Queen up on the stage, sitting on her perch, waiting for her to die?

If only drowning were easier…  If only it could go more quickly.

Maybe she shouldn’t fight it.  She wouldn’t suffer so… 

She relaxed her lungs, ceasing to hold her breath.  She closed her eyes.  The world went dark.
             
This was it.

I love you, Vaughn, she thought as the pressure of the water overtook her.

If only she wasn’t strapped into this horrible chair…  She would let herself go, and slowly sink to the bottom of the pond.  Forever she would be Tudor legend…  Forever would she be the poor, tragic noble Lady who gave up her life for the one she loved.

When Vaughn got back to the future without her, he could spread the tale.  He would be the inventor of a new Renaissance Festival myth.  And only he would know the truth behind it.

She flew through the water.  Painfully bright light flooded her eyes, and she slammed them shut.  She coughed up water.  And there it was...

The dear, dear sweet air she never thought she’d breathe again.  She gasped, taking in as much of it as she could. 

Her lungs burned with the effort of trying to slow her breathing.  She had to stop gasping.  She had to keep herself from hyperventilating.  She was fine.  Things were okay.  She was no worse off than she would be after an asthma attack.  She relaxed.

She realized…  She wasn’t moving.  She was still in the air, high above the water.  She wasn’t moving closer to the water, closer to another chance of death and drowning.  She brushed her soaking wet hair from her eyes so she could see.

Wait a minute…  Her hands were free.  How were her hands free?  Jameson had strapped them down himself.

Where… where were the straps?  They hadn’t broken.  There was no sign of the leather being nailed to the wood at all.

She still stared at her hands as the dunkers swung her over the water.  She still stared at her hands as she landed on the stage with a thud. 

A hand came into view.  A black cuff, with gold embroidery…  Had the punishment been enough?  Was he satisfied?  Had his homicidal tendencies towards her ebbed?   She didn’t want to take his hand.  But there was no getting out of the chair without help.  So she accepted Jameson Kent’s help. 

His hands pulled her to her feet.  His hands, which had caused her so much pain, steadied her as she got her land legs back.

What had changed?  Jameson Kent proved he couldn’t be this gentle.  This caring.  Yet he showed no signs of the evilness she’s grown to know over the past two days.  There was no sign of the pure, unadulterated hatred he had shown for her.  She finally looked at his face.

He looked at her with kindness mixed with false sternness.  His act was as bad as Johnny’s was.

What in the blazing hell was happening?

“My Lady Halloway,” Jameson said in the most proper of tones, though he still held her hand.  “I pray thy time in the pond hath washed clean thy virtue.”

It was the same line.  It was what Johnny said every time he dunked Sammie.

It wasn’t what she expected to hear after almost being killed in the pond for witchcraft, heresy, and treason.

Sammie looked into the holding cell.  Vaughn wasn’t there.  The cage was completely empty.

Tears flooded her eyes.  Had they taken him while she was in the water?  Had they killed him in secret? 

Had she survived only to have Vaughn die?

How could she live without him?

Maybe she could make it back into the pond.  She’d let herself sink.  She’d hold onto something until she slipped away.  They would be together again.

Death didn’t seem so horrible.

Then she heard it...

A ringtone.

Sammie looked into the audience.  The entire population of Sherwood was gone.  In their place were people in denim and sneakers.  In their place were people wearing sunglasses.  People videotaped the dunke with cell phones and mini cameras.

They were back.  The tourists were back. 

She was back.

The blond tourist she flirted with at the tomato throw sat in the exact same place he’d been in.  He wore the exact same outfit.

Was it possible…?  Was this… the very same dunke?

Had it been less than five minutes since the first time she’d gone into the water… yesterday?

Johnny, the person she thought was Johnny, stared at her with worried eyes.  He waited for her line.

“My virtue doth remain as white as snow, my Lord High Sheriff,” she said so quietly she hardly heard herself.

He breathed a sigh of relief and smiled.  With another squeeze of her hand, he moved to one side to let her pass.

Last time she left the stage, the entire world had converted to 1586.  This time…  It was 2012 again.

Had two days really happened in the span of one dunke?  Thirty seconds was the longest she was allowed to be kept under water.  Had everything that happened… the beatings, the running, sleeping behind the mud stage, falling in love…  Had it all happened in the span of thirty brief seconds?

And where was Vaughn?  Had he somehow been transported back to the Pits?  Was he safe?

Would he remember…?

She grabbed her skirt and ran up the Dead Road.  She didn’t stop until she had found her usual quiet spot behind the Tavern
Aragon
.

She needed time to think.

<>

He watched her take off near the end of the Dead Road.

Her asthma had seemed so bad when she’d come out of the water.  It was as if she’d spent five minutes below, instead of her maximum thirty seconds.  But now…