Dreamspell (36 page)

Aye, her place was at the convent, and to the convent she would go. Pretending she felt no regret for the keeping of her vow, she looked to Lady Marion.

The woman smiled. “Good eve, Lady Lark.”

Lark started toward the stairway. Odd though Marion was at times, especially in the presence of her mother when she turned quiet and passive, Lark liked her. In her mother’s absence, she was talkative, especially on the subject of Sir Arthur and Nedy Plain, both of whom Marion had visited twice this day.

Lark ascended the stairs. As she neared the chamber occupied by John and Harold, she heard a sound. Were the boys well? She pushed the door inward. The light within came from the hearth where a fire leapt and crackled. Before it sat John and Harold amid the carved wooden soldiers their uncle had presented this morning. So intent were they on their playthings, they didn’t notice her.

She was tempted to slip away and allow them these stolen hours, but it was late and they needed their rest. Crossing the threshold, she winced as the rushes underfoot cracked and popped in time with the logs in the fire. They ought to be replaced. They were too dry and lacked the scent of strewn herbs that only fresh rushes could impart. Her heart tugged. These boys needed a mother to care for them and see to those things a village woman with her own children would care nothing of.
But not me,
Lark reminded herself. Fulke Wynland would have to find another mother for them.

“Boys, you ought to be abed.”

They yelped and jerked back, causing the rushes to scatter. Not that they hadn’t already made a fine mess of them. The rushes would have to be cleared from the hearth once the boys were abed.

“L-lady Lark.” John sheepishly cast his face down. “We were just looking at our soldiers—could not sleep for thinking of them.”

She lowered to her knees and lifted a soldier to firelight. “And fine they are, John.”

“That one is Sir Arthur,” Harold said.

“I do note a certain resemblance.” Lark smiled. “Now, ‘tis time you and your brother were asleep.”

Harold groaned. “One more minute, my lady. Please?”

As he was still somewhat weepy-eyed from the sickness that had laid him abed at Farfallow, it appeared he was near tears. She swept the hair back from his brow. “The sooner you sleep, the sooner you shall awaken and take up your soldiers once more. Now to bed.”

Harold thrust his lower lip forward, but John began picking the soldiers from the rushes and settling them in their wooden box.

“May we sleep with them?” Harold asked.

Lark rose. “You will not play with them?”

“Nay, my lady, we shall just hold them.”

She smoothed John’s hair. “Very well.”

Shortly, the boys were snugged deep beneath the blankets.

“Will you stay a while, my lady?” John peered through the shadows at where Lark stood alongside the bed.

“Just until we sleep,” Harold said.

“Well—”

“Sir Arthur always sat beside us until we slept,” John said.

It seemed nearly all conversations with the boys began and ended with the knight. If only he could be here for them. “You miss Sir Arthur.”

Their heads bobbed.

“When can we see him?” Harold asked.

Lark knew she should not speak for Fulke Wynland, but the boys needed reassurance. “When Sir Arthur is recovered, your uncle will bring you to him.”

“When will that be?” John asked.

“I do not know. A sennight, mayhap a fortnight.” She smiled large. “Now hug your soldiers tight and close your eyes that the morrow will come all the sooner.”

“You will sit with us?” Harold pressed.

Five minutes, Lark told herself. “I will.” She pulled the chair behind nearer and lowered into it. “Close your eyes.”

They complied, but not a minute passed before John’s hand crept from beneath the blanket and his small fingers slid over hers.

Poor little soul. Lark laid her head on the mattress. Not that she would be able to sleep draped over the bed, but if the boys thought she did, perhaps they would also go adrift.

John turned onto his side and bent his head near hers. “Good eve, my lady.” His sweet, warm breath fanned her brow, making her awkward perch suddenly comfortable.

“N
ay!”

The shout tore through Kennedy’s dream of flying. “Mac?” She sat up and searched the darkness that was broken by an orange glow.

“Not my boys!” His tormented cry hauled her regard to where he stood before one of the narrow windows that faced the keep. Through it and two others, the orange light entered the room, accompanied by smoke.

Kennedy stumbled to her feet. As she neared Mac, she heard shouts in the bailey below.
Dear Lord, not this.
But it was. She knew it without seeing past Mac. Her hand trembled as she reached to him. “Come away.”

His head snapped around, the tears in his eyes reflecting flames. “John and Harold cry for me. Can you hear them?”

Not over the roar and hiss of fire, the gabble of those in the bailey. And neither could he. Kennedy put an arm around him and tried to draw him away.

He wrenched free and reached through the window as if to pull the boys from the flames.

A tear slid down Kennedy’s jaw. She swallowed and crossed to the window to the left of the one through which Mac was trying to squeeze himself.

The left front corner of the keep was ablaze, flames shooting from the upper windows, smoke billowing from the rooftop. As the building was made of stone, it would hold, but those within would perish.

She pressed herself back against the wall. Real or not, this terrible night was long ago written and there was no stopping the madman who had once more seen it to its heinous end.

And Fulke? Where was he? Not with the boys—unless that had changed as so many other things had done. No, he was all right. She had to believe it. But what torment the deaths of John and Harold would bring him. Never would he forgive himself. She slumped down the wall.

Mac was raging now, tearing around the room as if his injury did not pain him, and perhaps it didn’t, as gripped as he was by this new ache. He cursed, shouted, overturned, and threw the few items he could lay hands to.

Kennedy dragged herself upright. Sinuses stinging from the smoke, she went to where Mac was before the door clawing at the lock and shouting to be let out.

“Mac,” she spoke as evenly as her quavering voice allowed, “there’s nothing you can do.”

He slammed back against the door. “Then why am I here? Why are you?’ As when the wheelchair had been the recipient of his fists, the door shook with the anger he landed to it. “I refuse to believe it!”

Kennedy squeezed her emotions into her own fists. “It happened, Mac, just like the book said.”

He shoved off the door. “It can be changed. I’ve seen it, and so have you. It—” He grunted, reeled back, and grabbed his thigh.

Had he torn his stitches? “If you’re not careful, you’ll—”

“Let him take my leg! He can have both of them. All of me!”

It was time for some shrink talk, and the only place she could think to start was with an acknowledgment of his feelings. Kennedy laid a hand on his shoulder. “You love them, don’t you? As if they were your own sons.”

He slowly lowered his lids over his pain. “They’re my second chance. I can’t lose them.”

But he had. Barring a miracle, John and Harold were gone as surely as his two sons taken from him by their mother.

“Mac—”

His eyes sprang open, and when he spoke, hope trembled from him. “You can make it right.”

His intensity made her step back.

“One last trip, Ken.”

She stared at his face that was partially lit by the orange glow. Time travel. Though the slip of reason that was all that remained of her sanity insisted it could not be real, her mad heart believed. “This is crazy.”

He gripped her shoulders. “You’ll do it?”

She looked down, watched her hands clasp and unclasp.
Go on, stop trying to make sense of it.
Accepting what her heart had known for some time now, she felt a surge of elation, a shower of hope, a soaring in her breast.  A second chance. A new start. She had only to let it in.

“Will you do it?”

She focused on his deeply shadowed face. “Yes, providing I haven’t. . .” Why was it so hard to say? She knew it, accepted it. Didn’t she? Still, it stuck in her throat. She cleared it. “Providing I haven’t died.” Just because he had felt the final pull didn’t mean she would.

He sighed.

So she would make the journey. When—if—the pull came, she wouldn’t fight it. But what if she couldn’t make it back? She would never see Fulke again, would die with only a memory that would blow out like a candle with her last breath. “I could die before I reach the level of deprivation needed to return me. You know that, don’t you?”

“I know. How many hours does it take you?”

“Eighty-six the first time.”

His hands fell from her. “That’s all?”

She felt almost ashamed. “I’m no stranger to insomnia, but I’m not conditioned to the level you are—were.”

“Do you think you can do it in less?”

“On the second go-around, I got it down to seventy-two.”

“How?”

“By not sleeping after the first awakening. I knew I didn’t have much time to complete my research, so I started right into the next cycle.”

“I tried that but couldn’t do it.”

She wasn’t surprised he had made the attempt. “Two hundred plus hours is a far cry from eighty-six, Mac.”

He turned, stumbled, and fell against the door. “My leg. It’s. . .” He pressed a hand to it and showed her his crimson palm. “The stitches are torn.”

She eased him to the floor. “I’ll send for the physician.”

“Nothing can be done for me.”

She sat back. “If I can change John and Harold’s fate, maybe I can change yours and make it so this never happened.” How, she didn’t know, but if she made it back to the twenty-first century she would have several days to work it out.

“Not that far back, Ken. This is the night you need to return to. Put yourself in the keep before the fire and bring the boys out.”

“But what about your leg?”

His jaw shifted. “What matters is John and Harold. I have lived. It’s their turn.”

Though she had no intention of leaving him out in the cold, now was not the time to argue. “All right, but don’t you think it’s cutting it close to return to this night? There’s no room for error.”

He leaned his head back against the door. “The Dr. Kennedy Plain I knew didn’t need room for error. Four-point-oh, wasn’t it?”

“This is different, Mac. It’s not textbooks and exams. This is more. This is. . .” She tossed up her hands. “It’s life and death.”

“It is. But I’ve tried it the other way. As you know from what happened at Farfallow”—he gripped his leg—“the farther out one goes, the more there is that can go wrong. You have to come back to this night. If I could live it again, it’s what I would do. I would forget the heroics and just bring the boys out and. . .” His face crumpled. “. . .worry about the loose ends later.”

He was right. To return to a time prior to the confrontation between him and Fulke at Farfallow was too great a risk, one that would likely land her right back here with two little boys caught in a fire. “Then this night it is.”

“Do it soon, Ken.”

As if she could control her awakening. “When the pull comes.”

She thought he might sleep, but a few minutes later he said, “Before you return here, get as near your death as you can.”

“Why?”

“That way there may be too little left to pull you back to the world you leave behind.”

Providing she made it to the fourteenth century. “I understand.”

“Didn’t you say your first awakening occurred while you were sleeping?”

At Lady Jaspar’s castle. “Yes.”

“You can’t let that happen again. When you return here, you mustn’t sleep until after the pull.”

“I won’t.” What was a little more sleep deprivation? “Anything else I should know?”

“Just that it’s real, Ken. Don’t let that educated head of yours tell you otherwise, and if it does, remember you have nothing to lose and everything to gain.”

Including Fulke? Was there a chance she could make things right with him? “I’ll remember.” She scooted forward and tugged Mac’s hand into her lap. “I won’t fail you.”

“I know.”

She sighed and settled her head back against the door to wait for her ride to the twenty-first century.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

F
iery deaths, as foretold by Crosley.

Fulke stood on the threshold he had been unable to breach in the earliest hours of morn when the flames had leapt into the corridor. He had tried, had been determined to go inside though he knew no life breathed within, but Richard had fought him and brought a sconce crashing down on his head.