Cate shrugged. "I can only guess at this point, but she is far far into the future. I was there hiding, as it were, trying to juggle her memory of who we once were. Her spirit did not hear. Her spirit hears little *
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beyond its own thoughts."
"But that spirit is you," Lachlan said softly. "You did it, Cate. You went into the future and came back. You have done what no other has."
"But Lachlan, it was a failure. Just as she cannot recall any of this past, nor can I, mine. It appears that the spirit chooses to live in the moment, guided by the body and time it inhabits, but brings nothing of a memory with it into its new life. Parts of my soul may come out from time to time, but it is not I. Not anymore."
Maeve looked down at Cate. "But that does not mean that those memories are not there, Cate. It means they are weaker in color, in shape, in form, because there is no body, no senses to remind it of what once was. If you can manage to push your memories through to the being you are in the future, then we can turn this into a success. Catie must return and keep returning until she has opened a door through which to share her memories of this life. The more she is there, the more easily she might be able to help the future Cate remember who she was."
Lachlan gazed off into the distance. An owl screeched as it left its nest in search of food. "It is a possibility I can consider, Maeve, but not without a great deal of thought. I do not know what could happen-"
"We know what the Romans have in mind for us," Maeve said, cutting him off. "If we are to save any lives at all, then we must give this a chance. One time through was only a fact-finding quest, Lachlan. If Cate believes she can manage to break through, then I think we need to give it more time."
"Maeve-"
"Time, Lachlan, it is-"
"I wish to return." Cate"s announcement caught them both off- guard. "I was not prepared for how I would feel, or the oppression I encountered by a soul that, while my own, is vastly different from the one I currently have. I would appreciate another chance. I have abilities the others do not possess, Lachlan. I can go where others cannot. If our people, nay, if our very existence is threatened with extermination, and my powers can be used to keep that from happening, I have an *
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obligation to use them. I wish to."
Lachlan laid his hand on her shoulder. "Very well then. But not tonight. Tonight, you rest, and let Maeve care for you." Turning on his heel, he left Maeve to watch over Cate.
"It is not as Herodotus believed, Maeve," Cate said, walking slowly back to Fennel. "The portal allows us to move to a place and time not of ours, which means that multiple times do, in fact, exist at once."
Maeve smiled. "Not us, Catie, you."
Cate sighed. "Indeed. Not everyone can go through, as we have known for quite some time. But I have the sight. I saw the young woman, as clearly as I have seen you in my dreams. My sight has somehow allowed me to venture out-as has Angus"s and Quinn"s."
"We have not heard from them. Lachlan fears the worst."
Cate felt chills run down her arms. "They have the sight as well. I am sure they will be fine, but Maeve, the idea of multiple times may not be the truth. It is possible that the portal sends me forward . . .
that time could still be linear, but there are rifts that allow us to move along it."
Maeve stared at Cate through the rays of moonlight cascading down on her face. The young woman before her was different than the one who walked away from her in order to travel to that part of the forest where people had gone and seldom returned. Everyone in Fennel, as well as in every other village on the east of the isle, knew about the Forbidden Forest and what usually happened to people who were foolish enough to venture into it. Many figured it was haunted with restless shadows; still others thought it was pure evil and many leaders did not allow their Druids to enter it. Only the Silures knew that the Forbidden Forest contained the Sacred Place, and only the Silurian Druids were brave enough to face it.
Cate had been brave. She had had the sight, gone through the portal, and returned unharmed. Changed, yes, but unharmed, nonetheless. Maeve could tell by the look in Cate"s eye that she had left here an energetic young lady and returned a weary, if not wary traveler.
Cate may not have remembered what it was she saw, but it clung to her like the forest mist, becoming a part of who she was now, in this *
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moment.
"Catie, are you feeling all right?"
Cate pinched the bridge of her nose, tears threatening to escape her closed eyelids. "It"s just . . . when I first returned, I . . . I did not even know who I was. I looked down at my robe, and I knew it was my robe, but I did not know who I was yet. It was very disconcerting."
Maeve reached out and gently pushed her hood back, revealing Cate"s long red hair. "Perhaps that is the very thing that will save us, Catie. Perhaps when you struggle as you return, that is because you are bringing memories of the future with you; memories we must access to know which way we must turn to save ourselves."
Cate sighed, allowing two small tears to form and drop. "It was very trying, Maeve, and I am so very tired. I understand how important remembering is, but once I crossed over, I became a young woman very much molded by an environment that is more foreign to me than the Land of Chin."
Maeve brushed the tears away with the sleeve of her robe. "Go on."
"Who I am there is shaped by events I know nothing of. Even now, as I try to remember, it feels like trying to remember a hazy dream, and being unable to recall anything but the fog."
Maeve nodded. "The past feels like memories because those events are stamped upon our spirits, but the future is dreamlike because we cannot envision those revelations that time enables us to have. Can you remember any of the dream?"
As they walked, Cate suddenly leaned against one of her favorite trees, drawing strength from it. "I am exhausted, Maeve."
"I understand, sweet one. You need not work so hard. Do not let Lachlan"s haste burden you."
Cate nodded. "I know it"s important-I shall try. I remember . . . ice blue eyes . . . and the feeling that I was so horribly out of my element, uninvolved, alone, and-this is strange-I was even saddened by something. She is very alone and sad for it."
Maeve sat next to Cate and stroked the side of her head. She could feel the exhaustion drip off Cate like water running down the crevices *
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of the bark. "Go on."
"I remember a curiosity about something, and a willingness to face a fear, though I do not know what fear it was." Cate sighed. "That is all I have." She closed her eyes.
Putting her arm around Cate to let her rest, Maeve whispered, "You are very brave, not only to go, but to wish to go back. You are but three and twenty, yet you are so wise and so courageous. I envy you that courage."
Cate rested her head against Maeve"s shoulder. "She"s . . . younger,"
Cate said so softly, Maeve could scarcely hear her. "And . . . not very wise."
Maeve strained to hear Cate"s last words before she fell to sleep; "Only wisdom can save us now."
At the very edge of the Sacred Place, where Lachlan and Maeve would stay until one of their questers returned with what they needed, Cate glanced at her hand, at the Egyptian ankh Maeve had given her a lifetime ago. The ankh, in the shape of a gold key, had been hanging around Cate"s neck for almost ten years. It was the only thing she possessed and her greatest gift. When she was younger and afraid she would hold it for comfort, so she was surprised when the necklace began growing warmer the closer she got to the portal.
"Remember, Catie," Maeve had whispered to her before sending her off to the portal the day after she had returned. "Remember and return.
For if you do not return, I shall go after you. You know I will."
Cate believed her. Maeve always did what she said she would. Cate remembered the very first time she held the necklace in her hand and saw her very first sight.
Lachlan hadn"t believed that she had the sight. He thought her too young and inexperienced, as if only aged and gifted priests could see as clearly as she did. But when Maeve had handed her the ankh as a gift that night at the inn, she had seen a world unlike anything she could ever dream. The vision was scary, fiery, and not a place she wanted to be. That was nine years, almost ten years ago, when Cate was a mere *
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three and ten, full of high hopes for obtaining priestess status among the Silurian Druids. Lachlan doubted her then. It was several more years later that he realized the extent of Cate"s powers; several years before she saw the same vision Lachlan had seen, and in nearly the same place. She remembered it as if it were yesterday.
Lachlan and Cate had been on a walk. He had been teaching her some alchemy and herbalism along the way. When Cate came to a large rock near the coastal forest, she recoiled so violently from the sight that she fell backward.
"What? What is it you see?"
When Cate rose, she was trembling. "Blood. There was blood on that rock. So much blood, it felt-sacrificial." When Cate saw Lachlan pale, she swallowed back her bile and stated, "You have seen it also."
She knew before he answered.
Nodding, Lachlan touched the rock, grimaced, and pulled away.
"Blood, yes, but not just anyone"s blood."
Cate"s eyes grew moist. The most vile, most wretched sight Cate could imagine: it was Maeve"s blood on that rock.
"Aye, I have seen the accursed vision, and it haunts me daily."
Lachlan then shared his theory about the Sacred Place, about the other visions, and about his fears for Maeve and the others. He admitted his love for Maeve, and the place she held in his heart. This was not news to young Cate, who could tell how he felt by the way he looked at Maeve. He would risk his life for her, for all of them. Cate knew that as well. Then Lachlan told her the one thing that would change her life forever.
"Cate, you have learned how time is circular in nature, and that we live beyond the present time of our bodies. The truly gifted Druids can slip between the fabric of time to discover a future that knows what happened in our own time. Knowing the outcome of our present predicament will enable us to act instead of react. We can plan instead of being caught unprepared. I have known others who have tried to enter the portal, but they were unsuccessful, and it ultimately cost them their lives. But you, Cate, you might just have the powers and the strength to do what the others could not."
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"Which is what?"
Lachlan frowned. "Return."
As strange as that conversation was ten years ago, it was beginning to make much more sense now. Grasping the ankh, Cate peered through the darkness, but could no longer see Lachlan, Maeve, or the remains of the fire burning itself out.
She had slept into the afternoon the day before, and risen to eat, bathe, and share stories with some of the other priests, and she was surprised when Lachlan asked if she was ready to go back and try again.
Maeve had not been very pleased with Lachlan"s suggestion that she go back so quickly, but Maeve did not know what Lachlan and Cate had seen. She could not know the desperation they were feeling now that the portal had become a viable option for them. And if they had their way, she would never know the depth or horror of the subsequent visions they both continued to see long after they had touched the rock.
Now, as she stood at the portal once again, Cate inhaled deeply and released the ankh. She knew the risks involved in slipping through the fabric of time; knew that it was always possible she would never return.
Still, she could not allow herself to hesitate like that. She had to be stronger, better than those who went before her. She needed to remain focused on the tasks at hand, because there were plenty of them. She could do it. She knew she could. It was time.
Stepping through the ever-present mist that enveloped the triad of oaks, Cate disappeared into the fog. When she walked to the great white oak with its hollow center, she reverently touched its deep, craggy bark that reminded her of the wrinkles of a very old man. The tree must have been a thousand years old. Once she pa.s.sed through the trunk, she would be transported to another time, to another place, to another being altogether. If she thought about it for too long, fear would consume her and she would back out. Sending her soul into another time was far more frightening than she had related to Maeve.
She did not know what became of her body once her soul was gone.
She did not know how far into the future she had gone, and she knew nothing about the person who housed her soul in the future. It was *
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all so much more than her mind could accept, so it was best if she just walked right through the large opening of the trunk and not look back.
And that was precisely what she did for the second day in a row.
When Cate was on the other side, she found herself, once again, looking down at the unfamiliar clothes and the young, slender hand holding a key. A key? Where was her ankh? Reaching for the necklace, she realized she was no longer in the forest, but in a small, apparently unused room in an inn so very far from home.
Home.
This was her new home, and for better or worse, Jessie was going to have to accept it. Staring down at the key in her palm, Jessie wondered how long she had been standing in this dusty, forgotten third-floor bedroom. Looking down at her watch, she was surprised to see that she had been standing there a little over ten minutes. What had she come in here for?
She had come into the room to-to make sure the room existed?
Shaking her head, she walked out of the room, closed the door, and locked it again, wondering if, perhaps the stress of moving wasn"t getting to her.
Downstairs, she hung the keys on the too-cute kitty key holder in the kitchen, grabbed a bottle of water from the refrigerator, and decided to check out the back porch of the inn. Unlike Daniel, she hadn"t shown any curiosity about the inn and its surroundings; he had been over every inch, running all the way up to her room to report news of his findings. One of those findings was the wooden swing on the back porch overlooking those incredible pine trees that hugged the Oregon coastline like a lover. They were the biggest trees she had ever seen next to California redwoods.
The swing wasn"t very old, and, to her surprise, was very comfortable. She drank her bottled water and stared out at the wooded forest which was now her backyard. The forests and trees of Oregon were spectacular, and it surprised Jessie how much she had grown to love them in such a short period. She hadn"t even given trees, or lack of them, a second thought back in San Francisco. Now she wondered *
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how anyone could live without having them close by. She had always fancied herself an ocean lover, but this feeling she had about the forests and the pines was actually surpa.s.sing what she had always felt.
How odd to be drawn to something she hadn"t given a nanosecond of thought to two weeks ago.
Gently swinging, Jessie closed her eyes and listened to the songs of the red-headed woodp.e.c.k.e.r and chickadee. She thought she heard the western tanager as well. It had a beautiful little song. As she inhaled deeply the scent of the fir and cedar, her eyes suddenly popped open.
"What the h.e.l.l?" Jessie sat straight up. Jumping off the swing so hard it crashed into the wall, she ran into the house and into the library.
"There it is," she said, pulling a thick book from the shelves and dashing back out to the porch. Standing with one foot on the bottom railing and positioning the dense book on her thigh, she quickly thumbed through the pages of Sunset Guide to Western Flora and Fauna. When she came to a picture of the same trees that stood behind the inn, sure enough, they were Douglas firs and western red cedars.
Gently closing the book, Jessie stared out into the woods. "How in the h.e.l.l did I know that?" she whispered, closing her eyes once more.
Listening to the many quiet and not-so-quiet noises of the woods, she recognized the call of the gull, the screech of a red-tailed hawk, and the song of the western meadowlark.
Western meadowlark? Chickadee?
She hadn"t ever even heard of the d.a.m.n western meadowlark until now. What in the h.e.l.l was going on with her?
Putting the book back, she headed outside once more.
"This isn"t happening," Jessie uttered, her hands trembling slightly.
"I can"t possibly-no I don"t know this stuff. I couldn"t even pa.s.s biology!" At that moment, a shadow flew overhead, and when she glanced up, sure enough, there was a red-tailed hawk. At least it looked like one . . . no, it was more than that. She knew it was. Somewhere deep within her, she was able to know these things that she had never known before this moment, and it was starting to scare the c.r.a.p out of her.
"Okay, Ferguson," she said, inhaling deeply and trying to calm her *
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nerves. "Get a grip. There has to be a reasonable explanation for this."
Turning to face the ocean, she hiked a little through the rugged pines swaying from the caress of the slight ocean breeze. Whatever was happening was filling her with a warm, calming feeling that began at the base of her spine. Here, in the woods of Oregon, Jessie felt her first feelings of belonging.
But how could that be? She didn"t want to be here. This was not her home, and yet . . . and yet what?