A Midsummer's Day (24 page)

Johnny didn’t know.

Sammie wasn’t herself coming out of the water.  She was scared.  Lost.  Like she didn’t know where she was.  It took her forever to say her line and, when she did, she said with no emotion.  It was as if Anne had broken beneath the waves.  There was none of the sarcasm, none of the overbearing pride, Anne was supposed to possess.

It was like part of Sammie had died beneath the water.

Johnny hoped that she would stop behind the tavern, like she always did after a dunke.  He could find out what bothered her so badly.  It was painful to see her so… dead inside.  As soon as he figured out what was wrong, the sooner he could fix it for her.

But first…  He cleared his throat.  There was still an audience to deal with.  “My good Lords and Ladies,” he said as properly as he could.  “We have run us out of vile criminals to send to the depths of this briny drink.  But full of knaves and criminals be the Midsummer Festival.  We shalt see us more to dunke at the trial this afternoon.  Join us anon as I, Lord High Sheriff of the great shire of Nottingham, do dispense most righteous punishment upon the mildly wicked, and wherest thou, the people of Nottingham, shalt become my judge, jury, and executioners.”

The audience applauded.  The hundred plus people melded together as they filed down the Dead Road.

Johnny joined the exodus flowing away from the pond, breaking with the pac
k
to slip behind the tavern.  Let her be there.

Let her be there.

Thank God.  She was here, waiting for him just like she always did.  But…  Something was wrong.  Tears filled her silver eyes.  She shook and muttered to herself.  She was trying to figure something out.

She looked up and saw him.  He took a step towards her.  She backed away.

“What’s wrong, baby?” he asked, approaching her slowly.  Was she scared of him?  It was a thought he couldn’t bear.  “Did something happen in the water?  Sam?”

The change that came over her was miraculous.  In one split second, life filled her eyes.  Color came back into her blanched cheeks.  “You called me Sam?”

“I didn’t think you minded Sam over Sammie sometimes.”

She threw her arms around his neck.

He didn’t question it.  Something had freaked Sammie out.  Maybe tonight, after the faire was closed down for the day and they were snuggled together in the coziness of their hotel bed, he’d convince her to tell him what happened.

But for now, she was back to life…  Nothing else mattered.

He ran his hands up her arms and down her sleeves.  Her skin was cool, damp and soft.  There was nothing better than the feel of her bare skin, the shuddering vibrations that went through her entire body when she was happy or excited.

There was something around her wrist.  He broke away from the hug, as painful as it was, and pulled up her sleeve.

It took a minute to realize that the green mesh was supposed to be a bandage.

“Jesus, Sam.  What happened to your wrist?”

<>

The green bandage was as bright a beacon of hope as the shockingly white moth had been.  She knew that it hadn’t been on her wrist when she’d dressed for her last, modern, dunking. 

There was only one way it could have gotten there.  Vaughn tied it himself, when they were down in the dungeons.

It wasn’t a dream.  It wasn’t.  Everything really happened.

But…  She pulled her sleeve up.  Her arms had been black and blue.  Jameson had well seen to that.  But her bruises were gone.  She realized that nothing hurt anymore.

Was her wrist better as well?  She undid the knot.  The mask fluttered to the ground.

“Jesus, Sammie.  What in the hell happened?”

The sight of her wrist stole all possible words from her mind.  It was completely chewed up.  The water had swelled the edges of every single cut and slice and deep gash.  Vaughn had been right.  She was lucky that her wrist hadn’t gotten slit.

Wasn’t it strange that it didn’t hurt at all?

Until Johnny grabbed her hand.  “Oh no.  It looks like you lost your claddaugh ring in the pond.  I know how much that thing meant to you.”

Her ring was gone.  The finger next to her engagement ring looked glaringly empty.  “I didn’t lose it in the pond,” she whispered, her heart fluttering wildly.  The first smile she’d felt in four hundred years spread across her lips.  She knew exactly where the ring was.

“Sammie?”

His voice brought her back to reality.  She looked at him, taking in every detail of his face.  She took in every centimeter, every crevice and line and blemish in his skin.  She studied the worried wrinkles growing around his icy green eyes.   

Every cell in his face screamed Johnny Williams.  And every cell in his face screamed Jameson Kent.  The worry masked the same anger that Jameson had.  It masked the same hatred.  The hands that held hers were the same hands that caused her so much pain.  His arms, clothed in black, had held another in lust.

The worst thing about that was that he’d held another in lust, both in the past and in this time.

The only thing that she could see in his face, a face she loved that morning, was cheating and anger.  All she could remember while looking at him was the beatings that he gave her.  All she knew was the startling lack of love that he showed so openly.

She turned around.  She didn’t want him to see what she was doing.

And how little pain it caused her.

She turned and clasped hands with him.

“What I’m about to do…”  She didn’t know what to say.  No matter what she did, she was going to crush him.  At least she was still human enough to feel bad about that.  “I have no choice.  You left me no choice.”

<>

She walked away from him.  He was confused.

What was going on with her?  What was she talking about?  What choice had he denied her?

He opened his hand.

Inside was the engagement ring he’d given to her on the best day of his life.  He understood.

How long had she planned on leaving him?

“Sam?”  He left his hiding spot behind the tavern.  She ran down the path.

“Sam?  Sammie?  Samantha!”

Chapter 25

He landed face down.

But not in water.

He sank.  Slowly.  Through something that felt like molasses.  It was warmer than the water in the pond.

He knew where he was.  He was back.

Back at his own stage.  Back in his own gritty pit of mud.  He was on the exact opposite end of the grounds from where he was not two seconds ago.

He was on the complete opposite end of the grounds from Sammie.

The sound of applause brought him to the surface of his tinier, dirtier pond.  Tourists in jeans and denim shorts, in tank tops and tee shirts with colorful sayings or brand logos, now liberally splattered with mud, were standing and clapping.  The ones at the backs of the seats started to flow out of the audience area. 

What in the bloody hell happened?  How had he gotten all the way back here?  What magic had transported him all the way across the festiva…

Water.  It was the water.  Water was the reason.  It was their answer.  Both he and Sammie had been in their own versions of water when the time change had happened.  And when he dove into the pond after her…

They were both in the water again.  And now…  Now they were back. 

Or…  At least he was.

Was she back, too?  Had she come back with him, or was she still trapped in 1586, fighting for her life against the bastard Sheriff who thought to call himself her betrothed?

If he’d survived the horror of everything only to come back alone, only to learn that Lady Anne Halloway had died in 1586… 

If that was the case…  If he was forced to live the rest of his existence without his best friend…  The love of his life…

He’d throw himself into the pond and find something on the bottom to hang onto.  And he wouldn’t let go.

He’d have to find out.  But first…  There was no getting out of the show without the proper procedures.  He stood and bowed with his fellow beggars.  Forarin pushed him back into the mud.  It was the same movement from yesterday’s show.

Or had it really been yesterday?  A tourist walked the path between the two sets of bleachers.  He had been there yesterday.  Vaughn remembered giving him special attention because of his sparkling white tee shirt.  Now he looked every bit as muddy as any of the beggars.

It was the same day.  It was the same show.  Everything that had happened over the last two days…  Could it have really happened in a matter of ten seconds?

He wiped the mud from his eyes and opened the compartment beneath the stage.  The burlap rag had been replaced with a terry towel.  The fabric had long forgotten that it was white, and it was hard and incrusted with mud in some spots.  But still, it was better than burlap.

He wiped the mud from his hands.  A silver band was screwed tightly around his pinky.  He turned it.  Rimmed in mud was a crowned heart, still shining green, cupped in loving hands.

He smiled.  Weight fell from his shoulders.  Things were okay.

But still…  He had to find her...

He threw the towel back into the compartment.  Before he closed the door, he saw something he hadn’t noticed before.  A haphazard stack of wooden and metal dishes.  They were covered in a thick blanket of dust.  It looked like no one had touched them in years.

Five hundred years, maybe?

He smiled at the thought.

He closed the cabinet door and started to walk down the path.  Forarin ran to his side.  “Dude, where are you going?” he whispered.  “The three of us are supposed to go up on Hill Street soon.”

He was speaking English.  American English, from the twenty first century.  Vaughn wanted to turn and kiss him on the mouth.  It had been too long since he’d heard anyone other than Sammie speak like a normal, modern person.

“I have something to do real quick,” Vaughn whispered back, so no tourist could hear them break character.

Fo... no… Scott stopped and pointed down the path.  “Is that…  Is that Sammie?  What in the hell is she doing?”

Sammie, in her dunking gown, with her beautiful red hair and sparkling silver eyes, ran at him with so much speed that even Kaiser, across the path scaring children near the mud throwing game, stopped to look at her.

<>

She never knew she could run so fast, so far, so hard… without her asthma making an appearance.

She ran from the Tavern
Aragon
and down the King’s Road.  She ran past the woodcarver and the Woodland Stage.  She ran past the jousting field and the Court Pavilion.

She ran and ran.  She didn’t care who stopped to watch her, a soaking wet, mad noblewoman who ran full speed through their Renaissance Festival.  She didn’t care how she looked, or how much trouble she would get in with the director for breaking character so thoroughly.

She was on a mission.  And nothing short of dropping dead on the path would keep her from her final destination.

She sped through the Lover’s Bridge and past the bench where she’d sat with Vaughn.  The bench that said, right on its surface, that those who sat together upon it would be bound in love eternal.

God, let Vaughn still be alive.  Let him be alive and well at the Pits.  Let him remember what happened.  Let him remember…

That he told her he loved her.

God, if he remembered only one thing, let him remember that.

She turned down the Dregs and towards the Pits.

And stopped running. 

He was covered in dark, fresh mud from head to toe, save for a freshly wiped face and almost clean hands.  Mud dripped from his hair.  From the torn and ragged hems of his worn, patched breeches that were so old and stained that the original color of the cloth was long forgotten.

Never had someone looked more heavenly.  Never had someone looked more like an angel.  Never had someone looked more gorgeous than he did now.  He smiled at her.

She ran again.  She needed to feel his skin again.  She needed to feel his strong arms around her.  She needed to feel his lips on hers so bad that the lack of them was unbearable.  Painful.

She ran until she was wrapped in his arms. 

“You’re going to ruin your dress with all this mud,” he whispered into her hair.

Sammie laughed.  It was the most beautiful “I’m glad you’re not dead,” she’d ever heard.  “Screw the dress,” she said, nestling her head into his neck.  The feel of the mud was warm on her cheek.  “Was it real?  Did any of it really happen?”

“We did something at the start of all this so we’d be able to tell.  Remember?”  He took a step back so they could see each other.

Sammie smiled until her face threatened to crack.  Her thumb ran over her empty middle finger.  “My claddaugh ring,” she whispered.

He held out his hand.

The silver had dulled in the mud.  The crowned heart and hands were limed in drying mud.  The emerald still shone as bright as a green star.