Chapter Twelve
The birds called out to one another as she made her way through the undergrowth. Shoes would have been beneficial. Of course, back when she’d been in her house she hadn’t had to worry about shoes. “Ouch,” she yelped, and hopped. Leaning against a nearby sapling, she examined her foot. A good-size thorn had imbedded itself in her big toe. Luckily, there was enough base for her to pull it out. Blood trickled out of the wound. Not good. Even she knew walking on it in the dirt would cause an infection. Who knew what medieval germs might do to her? Possibly give her some disease they’d managed to eliminate through vaccinating generations of people.
Some antibiotic cream would have come in handy. Better yet, a bandage would have been nice. Remembering hearing something about saliva being helpful in the healing process, Leah spat in her hand and rubbed the spit on her toe. All the spit did was rub off some dirt. She couldn’t walk on a bleeding foot. Using the edge of her robe, she applied pressure for twenty seconds, which was challenging since she had to keep her balance in a semi-crouched position on one foot. Mentally, she counted off the seconds. By the time she got to ten, she realized sitting down would make it easier. Letting go of her injured toe, she balanced on the heel of her hurt foot as she eased herself to the ground.
Holding her robe down, she made sure the fabric touched the ground protecting her skin. The last thing she needed was poison ivy on her butt. That would have been grand, as if things weren’t already. Sitting cross-legged, she was better able to examine her toe. Her thumb felt for the hole. Not finding it, she pulled her foot closer to her face. Nope, nothing, except a clean spot on her big toe, but that couldn’t be right. It had to have been the other foot. Pulling up the opposing foot, she examined it, which was filthy. Employing her spit method, she cleaned the other toe, which looked fine.
Okay. Neither toe had a hole. She wiggled both toes. Both toes worked, and there was no pain. Had she stepped on a thorn? Had she imagined all of this? Was she starting to lose her mind? It might be a result of traveling through time rapidly. Placing her hands behind her for support, she rested as she considered the various scenarios. Right now, she could be in a padded room to keep her from hurting herself. None of this was real, not even the mild discomfort in her right palm. Pulling up her right hand, she looked at it. Pressed into it was a dirty, bloody thorn.
It hadn’t pierced the skin. Apparently, it had been lying on the ground where she’d thrown it after extracting it from her toe. She held it up close to her. The blood was still wet on the thorn. The palm of her hand bore the impression of the thorn and a smear of blood. It had happened. She wasn’t in a padded room somewhere. The only thing she’d done, other than clean it with her saliva, was use her robe to staunch the bleeding. It had to be the robe, didn’t it?
Never a big one for pain, she forced herself to test her hypothesis. Jabbing the dirty thorn into her palm enough to pierce the skin, she watched it bleed before applying the robe to it. Concentrating, she felt the pain leave and the skin heal. Dropping the robe, she examined her unpierced palm. “Whoa, who knew?” Actually, she did. Nana was full of mysterious healings, and apparently magickal garments, too.
Still, this was the first time she’d experienced it. At home, when they’d wrapped her in bandages with the cream, she had been so drugged all she’d done was sleep. She’d believed she had whip marks on her body because Stella, Nana, and Mother had assured her she did. She saw them too. Just a few minutes ago, she hadn’t paid attention to when her toe stopped hurting, focused on leaving the woods before dark. This time, she knew. She’d felt the healing. She’d witnessed the magick. This changed everything. Pushing up, she decided to continue her walk.
Gingerly, she put her formerly injured foot down and felt no pain. That was good. Still, it was hard to get her mind around a magickal healing robe. Fingering the fabric, she continued eastward. The robe was attractive with all the blues and greens in it. Looking like leaves sometimes and flames when she looked it again. Occasionally, it flashed silver, but that color had somehow dulled when she’d crouched in the tree. You would think everyone would want robe so special that it clung to her when climbing or running to stay out of the way. No underbrush caught on it, either. It was almost as if it moved away.
Those thirteen women versed in the nature-based religions had each held her robe and put some version of themselves into it. They’d whispered incantations and invoked protection from the various goddesses. Since Nana’s group was not pro-god, they only believed in the Divine Feminine, so they never bothered to call on any gods. Her father could have invoked the Lord of the Forest to look over her. He’d sent the snake.
Up to now, she’d been ready to distance herself from her family’s faith to give herself a better chance to date Dylan. Wow, it made her wonder if this trip into the past had been more for the current Leah, than her past life as Arabella. Overall, she didn’t really like Arabella much, but she tried to remember she was a product of her time. Emotions, motives, and actions that didn’t jive with her present-day interpretations weren’t necessarily wrong for this time.
A bunny darted in front of her. It sat and looked at her for a moment, showing no fear. This was odd, considering bunnies often ended up in stew pots in this century. Its casual attitude might have been more understandable in her neighborhood, where all the rabbits had to fear was a half-hearted chase by an overfed pooch. They usually outsmarted the dog by standing still, since dogs chased only things that moved.
The hare hopped forward about a foot, then turned to look at her. It stared at her with its gentle brown eyes. Leah took a step toward the creature. The bunny hopped a few more feet, then looked at her again. It acted as if it wanted her to follow. How weird was that? She took another step. The bunny glanced over its shoulder to make sure she still followed. After a while, it quit looking, confident Leah had finally gotten with the program.
The light in the woods grew dimmer as birds found their perches to roost for the night. Leah knew the nocturnal animals would be out soon. What ran around at night in the woods? True, she was a city girl, but she did take biology. Raccoons, possums, and owls tended to dominate the night, with the occasional shrew, mouse, and rat. A shudder ran through her at the thought of rats. Wait a minute? Didn’t rabbits come out at dawn and dusk, too? This little fellow had come out early.
She considered the white-tailed bunny in front of her. It was an enchanted bunny, so that made sense. Enchanted? Really, those words were in her head. Better yet, she accepted them as if she were in a fairy tale. What if the harmless little bunny was leading her astray and taking her to some place evil?
Henry was a bunny, in a way. She’d trusted him, never thought he would hurt her. Yep, she remembered how that turned out. Barking sounded in the distance. Had the villagers returned with dogs to hunt for her? Another bark answered the first one. Then there seemed to be a chorus. Not dogs. She’d watched Dracula enough to recognize the children of the night, wolves. Hurry bunny. Get us there. The rabbit increased its speed, which made sense, since rabbits were a wolf delicacy.
They broke into a clearing where a neat little cottage sat surrounded by a wood fence. Glancing at the smoke curling out of the chimney, she wondered who lived there. A child brought up on Grimm’s fairy tales would expect an evil witch, but she knew better. Nana had let her know most fairy tales scared kids into appropriate behavior. Children wandering off into the woods could end up as dinner for large predators. The thought had her swinging open the gate and hoping for the best. The bunny hopped in step with her, which didn’t surprise her.
The door opened. A tall, bearded man stood in the door. Leah bit her lip, taking in the man, trying to decide if she could trust him. Everyone in this century had proved to be unreliable, always out for themselves, unlike in her century, where the intentions were the same, but people at least tried to hide them. His eyes were alert, intelligent. He allowed her to take his measure before smiling. “So have you decided yet if you can trust me?”
How did he know? He’d sent the bunny. She looked around for the bunny, but it was gone. A man, a teen really, walked around the side of the cottage, attired in a tunic, drying his face. His brown hair was a bit unkempt and long. He lowered the towel and smiled when the bearded man praised him.
“Good job, Simon, leading my granddaughter home.”
Granddaughter? She looked at the bearded man and tried to see the dapper man depicted in the pictures Nana had showed. His hair and beard were white, which time and living here would have affected. Her head swiveled to regard Simon, whose eyes appeared to have an interested gleam. Still, they were the same soft brown as the rabbit’s.
Her grandfather? It felt weird calling him that. He flourished a walking stick and reached past her to rap Simon on the shoulder. “Take care to remember she is my granddaughter.”
The teen colored, hung his head, and murmured, “Sorry, Master.”
Master? This was becoming stranger and stranger. Was Simon a slave?
Her grandfather stood aside and motioned her in. “Come in, come in, I will answer all your questions. I bet your mother calls you Leah.”
“How did you know?” This man she’d never met before could not only read her thoughts, but he knew about her.
He chuckled. “All in good time. Have a seat.” Two chairs sat near the fireplace, where a large dog dozed.
She sat in one while she watched her newfound grandfather dip a cup into a bucket of water to fill a kettle. After several cups of water, he hooked the kettle on an iron arm that he swung over the fire. “We’ll have tea in no time,” he commented, as he turned to sit.
She cataloged all the changes in him since his last photograph. She’d had no clue he’d be so wizardly looking with his long beard and hair.
“I know you have questions. You may wonder why you can’t read my thoughts. Well, I’ve walls in place as do most good ceremonial magicians.”
Actually, she hadn’t thought that far. She tried to open her mind to see if she could receive anything. A weak message came to her, but not in her grandfather’s voice. Something about her being beautiful, special…she preened at those words, until they were followed by “sure she’s not wearing anything under her robe.” Her head swiveled as she pinned Simon with a glare, obviously the source of the thoughts.
Grandfather stood, pointing his index finger at the door. “Out,” he shouted in Simon’s direction. “Stay out until you have control of your thoughts. I taught you better than that.”
Simon scurried out of the house, his actions reminiscent of the rabbit. Grandfather shook his head. “He shows great promise, but still he’s an adolescent male, and when faced with a beautiful girl his mind tends to run to the earthy side. Forgive him for my sake. There is much to like about him.”
Leah nodded her head. It wasn’t as if Simon had been the first boy to ever ogle her. She wasn’t offended. The ability to read people’s minds perplexed and intrigued her. Would she be able to know the answers for a test without studying for it? Would she understand people better? “Grandfather, you can read people’s minds. Is it helpful?”
His teeth flashed in his beard. “The sad truth is most of what people think is not worth knowing. I am sorry to admit humans must be the whiniest creatures alive. There’s a lot of ‘I am tired,’ ‘I’m hungry,’ ‘this is too hard,’ ‘that’s unfair.’ When they aren’t whining, they are hatching plots against one another for gain, sometimes revenge and, in some cases, love, but that’s only what they call it. A person never hatches a scheme to snare love. It happens, one of the grandest occurrences in the universe.”
Her plan to tap into her teachers’ minds flamed out. She could do without knowing a teacher hated his job, had missed breakfast, or wore contacts that were bothering him. The last part about love had caught her attention. “If love is one of the grandest occurrences in the universe, why did you leave Nana?”
“Esmeralda.” He said the name and placed a hand over his heart. “Is she still spitting fire?”
Leah had almost forgotten her grandmother’s real name. She always called her Nana, her mother referred to her as Mother, while friends all called her Baba Esme. “Daily. I’m not too sure if she’ll be thrilled you are alive or will be ready to beat you with a stick. Can we go now and find out?”
Grandfather shook his head as he swung the kettle off the fire. Lifting the lid, he threw in a handful of leaves. “Ah, it’s not that easy, little one. I came to this time when I divined one of my grandchildren would have need of me. The portals of time aren’t always easy to find or to open. Twenty-one years ago, I found this one and knew it might be my only chance to help you.”
If her grandfather had willingly gone into the past, why did she keep going back and forth? “It makes no sense to me. You wanted to be here and used your skills to find your way here. I don’t want to be here, but I keep coming back. Why is that?”
Her grandfather stood to lift two mugs from the shelf. He poured steaming, fragrant tea into each cup and handed her one. “There’s no real access to sugar, but I can offer you honey.” He held out a small earthen pitcher to her.
She drizzled some into her tea, realizing Grandfather hadn’t answered her question. She placed the cup to her lips and tasted the aromatic tea. It was quite delicious, even though she wasn’t much of a tea lover. Everything wasn’t bad in the past.
His eyebrows beetled down as he spoke. “I’ve given a great deal of thought and research to this. Because I am here in this time, I witnessed the courtship and love of Arabella and Lionel and the corruption of that love for evil.”
“Did you actually see it?” She imagined her grandfather in the bushes while Lionel offered his wildflower bouquet to Arabella.
“Ah, you’d make a Peeping Tom out of me.” He sipped from his mug. He sighed and then gestured to a dark mirror leaning against the wall. “I used my scrying mirror to see them. I felt Arabella’s soul, and I knew it was part of my future granddaughter. This was the reason I came. In a way, I spied on the two of them, but I needed knowledge to help you.”
Leah wondered why he hadn’t helped her when she was hiding in the trees from the peasants. Why hadn’t he helped her when they’d lashed her? What about when she was hiding from Henry? Her gaze darted to the man sitting across from her. He’d already demonstrated he could read her thoughts.
“Ah, little one, I’ve helped you as much as I could. I cannot leave this place.” He gestured to the room. “I cannot even step outside the fence. This time portal is my home until it blinks out of existence in three days. In that time, I will be transported back to my dear Esmeralda.”
Her mind caught on the facts that he had helped her and that he would transport back in three days. “When you go, I want to be with you.”
“That’s my plan.” He leaned forward to pat her hand affectionately.
Leah considered him. He seemed nice and rather what you’d expect in a grandfather. Well, if your grandfather happened to be a ceremonial magician. “How did you help me?”
“Harumpft.” He cleared his throat, clearly bristling at the implication that she doubted him. “As you know, I cannot leave this place, but I could see what was happening. Do you think the men and their dog turned away per chance? No, I put the fear of the tree folks in their heads. As for your lashing, it was a gentle one. Most people die from it. I held the wrist of the flogger, making it hard for him to put much force into his swing. He was a brute. It wasn’t easy, let me tell you.” He pointed to his head as an explanation of how he’d accomplished such a feat.
Leah thought she understood. “The snake I threw on Henry. That was you, too. Was the snake Simon?”
Her grandfather laughed. “Simon would not like to hear you liken him to a snake. No, that was Horace.”
“Is he another apprentice?” How many did her grandfather have?
“No, Horace is a snake. I’ve become very familiar with the woodland creatures with my time here. I’ve named most of them. I am not sure if I am ready to socialize with regular folks.” He pursed his lips and looked into the fire.
Her grandfather had willingly given up so much for a granddaughter he’d never met because of something he’d seen in his scrying mirror. His faith and love had to be absolute. She wished she had both.
Setting his cup down, he looked at her. “It will come. I imagine you want to hear the story about Lionel and Arabella.”
The birds called out to one another as she made her way through the undergrowth. Shoes would have been beneficial. Of course, back when she’d been in her house she hadn’t had to worry about shoes. “Ouch,” she yelped, and hopped. Leaning against a nearby sapling, she examined her foot. A good-size thorn had imbedded itself in her big toe. Luckily, there was enough base for her to pull it out. Blood trickled out of the wound. Not good. Even she knew walking on it in the dirt would cause an infection. Who knew what medieval germs might do to her? Possibly give her some disease they’d managed to eliminate through vaccinating generations of people.
Some antibiotic cream would have come in handy. Better yet, a bandage would have been nice. Remembering hearing something about saliva being helpful in the healing process, Leah spat in her hand and rubbed the spit on her toe. All the spit did was rub off some dirt. She couldn’t walk on a bleeding foot. Using the edge of her robe, she applied pressure for twenty seconds, which was challenging since she had to keep her balance in a semi-crouched position on one foot. Mentally, she counted off the seconds. By the time she got to ten, she realized sitting down would make it easier. Letting go of her injured toe, she balanced on the heel of her hurt foot as she eased herself to the ground.
Holding her robe down, she made sure the fabric touched the ground protecting her skin. The last thing she needed was poison ivy on her butt. That would have been grand, as if things weren’t already. Sitting cross-legged, she was better able to examine her toe. Her thumb felt for the hole. Not finding it, she pulled her foot closer to her face. Nope, nothing, except a clean spot on her big toe, but that couldn’t be right. It had to have been the other foot. Pulling up the opposing foot, she examined it, which was filthy. Employing her spit method, she cleaned the other toe, which looked fine.
Okay. Neither toe had a hole. She wiggled both toes. Both toes worked, and there was no pain. Had she stepped on a thorn? Had she imagined all of this? Was she starting to lose her mind? It might be a result of traveling through time rapidly. Placing her hands behind her for support, she rested as she considered the various scenarios. Right now, she could be in a padded room to keep her from hurting herself. None of this was real, not even the mild discomfort in her right palm. Pulling up her right hand, she looked at it. Pressed into it was a dirty, bloody thorn.
It hadn’t pierced the skin. Apparently, it had been lying on the ground where she’d thrown it after extracting it from her toe. She held it up close to her. The blood was still wet on the thorn. The palm of her hand bore the impression of the thorn and a smear of blood. It had happened. She wasn’t in a padded room somewhere. The only thing she’d done, other than clean it with her saliva, was use her robe to staunch the bleeding. It had to be the robe, didn’t it?
Never a big one for pain, she forced herself to test her hypothesis. Jabbing the dirty thorn into her palm enough to pierce the skin, she watched it bleed before applying the robe to it. Concentrating, she felt the pain leave and the skin heal. Dropping the robe, she examined her unpierced palm. “Whoa, who knew?” Actually, she did. Nana was full of mysterious healings, and apparently magickal garments, too.
Still, this was the first time she’d experienced it. At home, when they’d wrapped her in bandages with the cream, she had been so drugged all she’d done was sleep. She’d believed she had whip marks on her body because Stella, Nana, and Mother had assured her she did. She saw them too. Just a few minutes ago, she hadn’t paid attention to when her toe stopped hurting, focused on leaving the woods before dark. This time, she knew. She’d felt the healing. She’d witnessed the magick. This changed everything. Pushing up, she decided to continue her walk.
Gingerly, she put her formerly injured foot down and felt no pain. That was good. Still, it was hard to get her mind around a magickal healing robe. Fingering the fabric, she continued eastward. The robe was attractive with all the blues and greens in it. Looking like leaves sometimes and flames when she looked it again. Occasionally, it flashed silver, but that color had somehow dulled when she’d crouched in the tree. You would think everyone would want robe so special that it clung to her when climbing or running to stay out of the way. No underbrush caught on it, either. It was almost as if it moved away.
Those thirteen women versed in the nature-based religions had each held her robe and put some version of themselves into it. They’d whispered incantations and invoked protection from the various goddesses. Since Nana’s group was not pro-god, they only believed in the Divine Feminine, so they never bothered to call on any gods. Her father could have invoked the Lord of the Forest to look over her. He’d sent the snake.
Up to now, she’d been ready to distance herself from her family’s faith to give herself a better chance to date Dylan. Wow, it made her wonder if this trip into the past had been more for the current Leah, than her past life as Arabella. Overall, she didn’t really like Arabella much, but she tried to remember she was a product of her time. Emotions, motives, and actions that didn’t jive with her present-day interpretations weren’t necessarily wrong for this time.
A bunny darted in front of her. It sat and looked at her for a moment, showing no fear. This was odd, considering bunnies often ended up in stew pots in this century. Its casual attitude might have been more understandable in her neighborhood, where all the rabbits had to fear was a half-hearted chase by an overfed pooch. They usually outsmarted the dog by standing still, since dogs chased only things that moved.
The hare hopped forward about a foot, then turned to look at her. It stared at her with its gentle brown eyes. Leah took a step toward the creature. The bunny hopped a few more feet, then looked at her again. It acted as if it wanted her to follow. How weird was that? She took another step. The bunny glanced over its shoulder to make sure she still followed. After a while, it quit looking, confident Leah had finally gotten with the program.
The light in the woods grew dimmer as birds found their perches to roost for the night. Leah knew the nocturnal animals would be out soon. What ran around at night in the woods? True, she was a city girl, but she did take biology. Raccoons, possums, and owls tended to dominate the night, with the occasional shrew, mouse, and rat. A shudder ran through her at the thought of rats. Wait a minute? Didn’t rabbits come out at dawn and dusk, too? This little fellow had come out early.
She considered the white-tailed bunny in front of her. It was an enchanted bunny, so that made sense. Enchanted? Really, those words were in her head. Better yet, she accepted them as if she were in a fairy tale. What if the harmless little bunny was leading her astray and taking her to some place evil?
Henry was a bunny, in a way. She’d trusted him, never thought he would hurt her. Yep, she remembered how that turned out. Barking sounded in the distance. Had the villagers returned with dogs to hunt for her? Another bark answered the first one. Then there seemed to be a chorus. Not dogs. She’d watched Dracula enough to recognize the children of the night, wolves. Hurry bunny. Get us there. The rabbit increased its speed, which made sense, since rabbits were a wolf delicacy.
They broke into a clearing where a neat little cottage sat surrounded by a wood fence. Glancing at the smoke curling out of the chimney, she wondered who lived there. A child brought up on Grimm’s fairy tales would expect an evil witch, but she knew better. Nana had let her know most fairy tales scared kids into appropriate behavior. Children wandering off into the woods could end up as dinner for large predators. The thought had her swinging open the gate and hoping for the best. The bunny hopped in step with her, which didn’t surprise her.
The door opened. A tall, bearded man stood in the door. Leah bit her lip, taking in the man, trying to decide if she could trust him. Everyone in this century had proved to be unreliable, always out for themselves, unlike in her century, where the intentions were the same, but people at least tried to hide them. His eyes were alert, intelligent. He allowed her to take his measure before smiling. “So have you decided yet if you can trust me?”
How did he know? He’d sent the bunny. She looked around for the bunny, but it was gone. A man, a teen really, walked around the side of the cottage, attired in a tunic, drying his face. His brown hair was a bit unkempt and long. He lowered the towel and smiled when the bearded man praised him.
“Good job, Simon, leading my granddaughter home.”
Granddaughter? She looked at the bearded man and tried to see the dapper man depicted in the pictures Nana had showed. His hair and beard were white, which time and living here would have affected. Her head swiveled to regard Simon, whose eyes appeared to have an interested gleam. Still, they were the same soft brown as the rabbit’s.
Her grandfather? It felt weird calling him that. He flourished a walking stick and reached past her to rap Simon on the shoulder. “Take care to remember she is my granddaughter.”
The teen colored, hung his head, and murmured, “Sorry, Master.”
Master? This was becoming stranger and stranger. Was Simon a slave?
Her grandfather stood aside and motioned her in. “Come in, come in, I will answer all your questions. I bet your mother calls you Leah.”
“How did you know?” This man she’d never met before could not only read her thoughts, but he knew about her.
He chuckled. “All in good time. Have a seat.” Two chairs sat near the fireplace, where a large dog dozed.
She sat in one while she watched her newfound grandfather dip a cup into a bucket of water to fill a kettle. After several cups of water, he hooked the kettle on an iron arm that he swung over the fire. “We’ll have tea in no time,” he commented, as he turned to sit.
She cataloged all the changes in him since his last photograph. She’d had no clue he’d be so wizardly looking with his long beard and hair.
“I know you have questions. You may wonder why you can’t read my thoughts. Well, I’ve walls in place as do most good ceremonial magicians.”
Actually, she hadn’t thought that far. She tried to open her mind to see if she could receive anything. A weak message came to her, but not in her grandfather’s voice. Something about her being beautiful, special…she preened at those words, until they were followed by “sure she’s not wearing anything under her robe.” Her head swiveled as she pinned Simon with a glare, obviously the source of the thoughts.
Grandfather stood, pointing his index finger at the door. “Out,” he shouted in Simon’s direction. “Stay out until you have control of your thoughts. I taught you better than that.”
Simon scurried out of the house, his actions reminiscent of the rabbit. Grandfather shook his head. “He shows great promise, but still he’s an adolescent male, and when faced with a beautiful girl his mind tends to run to the earthy side. Forgive him for my sake. There is much to like about him.”
Leah nodded her head. It wasn’t as if Simon had been the first boy to ever ogle her. She wasn’t offended. The ability to read people’s minds perplexed and intrigued her. Would she be able to know the answers for a test without studying for it? Would she understand people better? “Grandfather, you can read people’s minds. Is it helpful?”
His teeth flashed in his beard. “The sad truth is most of what people think is not worth knowing. I am sorry to admit humans must be the whiniest creatures alive. There’s a lot of ‘I am tired,’ ‘I’m hungry,’ ‘this is too hard,’ ‘that’s unfair.’ When they aren’t whining, they are hatching plots against one another for gain, sometimes revenge and, in some cases, love, but that’s only what they call it. A person never hatches a scheme to snare love. It happens, one of the grandest occurrences in the universe.”
Her plan to tap into her teachers’ minds flamed out. She could do without knowing a teacher hated his job, had missed breakfast, or wore contacts that were bothering him. The last part about love had caught her attention. “If love is one of the grandest occurrences in the universe, why did you leave Nana?”
“Esmeralda.” He said the name and placed a hand over his heart. “Is she still spitting fire?”
Leah had almost forgotten her grandmother’s real name. She always called her Nana, her mother referred to her as Mother, while friends all called her Baba Esme. “Daily. I’m not too sure if she’ll be thrilled you are alive or will be ready to beat you with a stick. Can we go now and find out?”
Grandfather shook his head as he swung the kettle off the fire. Lifting the lid, he threw in a handful of leaves. “Ah, it’s not that easy, little one. I came to this time when I divined one of my grandchildren would have need of me. The portals of time aren’t always easy to find or to open. Twenty-one years ago, I found this one and knew it might be my only chance to help you.”
If her grandfather had willingly gone into the past, why did she keep going back and forth? “It makes no sense to me. You wanted to be here and used your skills to find your way here. I don’t want to be here, but I keep coming back. Why is that?”
Her grandfather stood to lift two mugs from the shelf. He poured steaming, fragrant tea into each cup and handed her one. “There’s no real access to sugar, but I can offer you honey.” He held out a small earthen pitcher to her.
She drizzled some into her tea, realizing Grandfather hadn’t answered her question. She placed the cup to her lips and tasted the aromatic tea. It was quite delicious, even though she wasn’t much of a tea lover. Everything wasn’t bad in the past.
His eyebrows beetled down as he spoke. “I’ve given a great deal of thought and research to this. Because I am here in this time, I witnessed the courtship and love of Arabella and Lionel and the corruption of that love for evil.”
“Did you actually see it?” She imagined her grandfather in the bushes while Lionel offered his wildflower bouquet to Arabella.
“Ah, you’d make a Peeping Tom out of me.” He sipped from his mug. He sighed and then gestured to a dark mirror leaning against the wall. “I used my scrying mirror to see them. I felt Arabella’s soul, and I knew it was part of my future granddaughter. This was the reason I came. In a way, I spied on the two of them, but I needed knowledge to help you.”
Leah wondered why he hadn’t helped her when she was hiding in the trees from the peasants. Why hadn’t he helped her when they’d lashed her? What about when she was hiding from Henry? Her gaze darted to the man sitting across from her. He’d already demonstrated he could read her thoughts.
“Ah, little one, I’ve helped you as much as I could. I cannot leave this place.” He gestured to the room. “I cannot even step outside the fence. This time portal is my home until it blinks out of existence in three days. In that time, I will be transported back to my dear Esmeralda.”
Her mind caught on the facts that he had helped her and that he would transport back in three days. “When you go, I want to be with you.”
“That’s my plan.” He leaned forward to pat her hand affectionately.
Leah considered him. He seemed nice and rather what you’d expect in a grandfather. Well, if your grandfather happened to be a ceremonial magician. “How did you help me?”
“Harumpft.” He cleared his throat, clearly bristling at the implication that she doubted him. “As you know, I cannot leave this place, but I could see what was happening. Do you think the men and their dog turned away per chance? No, I put the fear of the tree folks in their heads. As for your lashing, it was a gentle one. Most people die from it. I held the wrist of the flogger, making it hard for him to put much force into his swing. He was a brute. It wasn’t easy, let me tell you.” He pointed to his head as an explanation of how he’d accomplished such a feat.
Leah thought she understood. “The snake I threw on Henry. That was you, too. Was the snake Simon?”
Her grandfather laughed. “Simon would not like to hear you liken him to a snake. No, that was Horace.”
“Is he another apprentice?” How many did her grandfather have?
“No, Horace is a snake. I’ve become very familiar with the woodland creatures with my time here. I’ve named most of them. I am not sure if I am ready to socialize with regular folks.” He pursed his lips and looked into the fire.
Her grandfather had willingly given up so much for a granddaughter he’d never met because of something he’d seen in his scrying mirror. His faith and love had to be absolute. She wished she had both.
Setting his cup down, he looked at her. “It will come. I imagine you want to hear the story about Lionel and Arabella.”