Reaching Through Time (5 page)

S
arah shrank from him, terrified by the look on his face and the steel in his voice. His eyes had turned dark and foreboding, like thunder clouds ready to storm. “You’re hurting my arm,” she squeaked.

Instantly he let go and closed his eyes. He rocked back on his heels. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you. You scared me, that’s all.”

“How?” She rubbed her elbow.

“I didn’t want you to go into the maze.” His eyes opened and they were a lighter shade of gray. “It’s dangerous.”

He reached out to touch her, but she shrugged him off. “Dangerous … how?”

“It’s a very old maze. See how tall and thick the boxwood are?”

“I see that.”

“Many years ago, some ancestor constructed it for
people to play in. A master maze maker was hired to create it in the fourteenth century. He was the best my family’s money could buy. The boxwood were shorter then, and you could see over the tops of the bushes. Lots of light came in. Now it’s grown too tall and it’s dark along the inside paths. The maze is a giant puzzle, almost impossible to navigate and treacherous with dead ends. People have gotten lost in it.”

“People get lost in it?” Sarah repeated.

“True story. They can’t find their way out and the bushes muffle their cries when we search for them.”

“How do you find them?” The idea was frightening. Lost inside a maze like a trapped mouse.

“We only find them when buzzards begin to circle.”

She shivered. “Really?”

He nodded. “The very brave tie a rope around their waist and wander through it. We always have to pull them out, though.”

“So no one gets out by themselves?”

“Perhaps some have, but not for a long time. It’s easier to make it off-limits.”

She peered at the opening. It did look dark and unfriendly. “You should put a chain up. And a sign.”

Heath nodded. “Yes, we should. I’ll speak to the head gardener.” He flipped her hair. She didn’t draw away this time. “We should be getting back. I’m sure the horses have stuffed their bellies with grass by now. Almost time for supper for us too. Aren’t you hungry?”

Supper! Sarah could hardly believe so much time had passed, but she saw long shadows stretching across the path. The hedge maze looked even more ominous in the shadows. “Yes,” she answered, thinking that time was an oddity on Heath’s estate. It either passed too quickly or stretched beyond belief.

They retraced their steps along the pathway, past beds of flowers growing dim in the gathering darkness. “Why don’t you cut it down?” she asked. “The maze, I mean. What good is it if it can hurt people?”

“I’ve wondered that too. I was told because it’s very old. It would be wrong to destroy plants that have weathered several hundred years of survival. So we allow it to stand and grow older and warn visitors away from it.”

She didn’t say it, but she had plainly seen that the great maze was well cared for. It was groomed and cut and nurtured, and perfectly manicured. Why would gardeners waste their time on keeping up a thing considered so dangerous and deadly?

The voices came at night. Long nights that Sarah lost track of in a jumble of days and riding with Heath. Sarah gave up answering the voices—she couldn’t make herself heard—and just lay in the bed listening to them, to the cadences and the sincerity in their tone. She wasn’t afraid of hearing them anymore. To the contrary, the voices soothed and comforted her. The one called Mother shared all kinds of stories about family that Sarah wished
she could connect to, but no matter how she tried, her memory door was shut and locked. The voice called Dad read to her—charming fairy tales and stories about princesses being rescued by handsome knights. But it was the Justin voice that touched her the most. His voice was soft, gentle. He told her things about a place called school and about people whose names she didn’t know. Mostly he told her how he missed her and how much he loved her and how much he wanted to hold her and kiss her and touch her the way he once did. She cried when the voices faded, usually when the sun rose and gleamed through the window of her room on Heath’s estate.

Strangely, she was never tired in the mornings, and was always ready to face a day of riding with Heath, of slipping through endless forests, of watching the falcon that Heath had trained to ride on his gloved hand. “Sharp talons,” Heath had explained to Sarah. She thought the bird majestic. It wore a leather hood decorated with a single white plume.

Morning followed night, and days melted into one another. On one gleaming morning, Heath reined in Titan on the crest of a hill overlooking an open field. Sarah stopped beside him on Lethe. The sun bounced off the droplets of dew, making it look as if jewels had been sprinkled across the grass. The air smelled sharp and sweet with wildflowers. The feathers of the falcon on Heath’s glove shimmered.

Heath stroked the bird and said, “He needs to hunt.”
He pulled off the hood and the great bird blinked. Heath held up his arm and the bird took flight.

Sarah watched it soar into the blue sky, circling, spiraling ever higher, until she lost sight of him against the sun. “Will he come back?”

“Always. He was trained on a tether and forgets that he’s no longer on it. He’ll hunt, eat and return to his roost.”

She watched the bird swoop down, disappear into faraway woods. “Does he ever fly over the fence? You know, to the outside?”

“No. He has all that he needs here. He’s contented.”

Sarah read between the lines. She wasn’t contented, and Heath must have sensed it. Like he did with the falcon, Heath gave her all she needed—food, clothing, his company, his undivided attention. So why wasn’t she content? She didn’t know. The voices made her long for something else, but with no memories beyond waking up at Heath’s estate, she had no idea what the “something else” was for her.

She sent a sidelong look at Heath. The breeze ruffled his hair. He had a noble air. He was handsome and self-assured, and he liked her. She was wary of him, though. Beneath his surface lay a dimension she couldn’t fathom, a mystery she couldn’t touch.

He turned toward her, catching her off guard. “Are you staring at me?”

Embarrassed, she averted her gaze. “I’m not staring.”

“Okay. You were looking hard. Have I grown a wart on my face?”

“No warts,” she said. Anxious not to be quizzed, she dug her heels into Lethe’s side and yelled, “Just wondering if you can keep up.”

Lethe bolted away, and in seconds Sarah heard Titan thundering behind her. She laughed, yelled over her shoulder, “Your nag is slow!”

Wind whipped Sarah’s hair. She leaned low into the horse’s neck and felt the sting of Lethe’s flying mane on her cheek. Sun beat on her back, and she felt the flexing muscles of the horse between her legs. Exhilaration shot through her. In minutes she and the horse had crossed the meadow and reached a part of the estate that didn’t look familiar. When an iron fence loomed up, Sarah reined Lethe hard to avoid crashing into it. Lethe pulled back and stopped short, throwing Sarah forward and almost over the horse’s head. Seconds later, Heath and Titan were by their side.

“You all right?” Heath asked, his amusement at the chase replaced by alarm.

“We could have crashed!” she cried, her pulse pounding from the near disaster. The fence had seemed to appear out of nowhere. Only Lethe’s quick action had prevented an accident.

“Lethe wouldn’t have let you get hurt.”

Still trembling, Sarah looked around. “Where are we?”

“I’ll show you.” Heath slid off Titan and grabbed
Lethe’s reins. “Here’s a riddle for you, dear Sarah. What brings equality to all men and women, to royalty and beggars, to rich and poor, to old and young, to friends and foes? Can you tell me?”

Without waiting for him to give her a hand, Sarah dismounted and peered through the solid bars of the low fence. Behind the cold black iron rails lay an ancient cemetery.

S
he knew the answer to his riddle but didn’t respond.

Heath tied their horses to the fence and took Sarah’s hand. “You’re shivering.”

“I’m okay now.” Her heart had slowed as she settled herself.

“This is where my ancestors are buried. Let me show you. Nothing here to be frightened of.”

“I’m not scared,” she said with more bravado than she felt. She didn’t want to wander around burial grounds, yet when they stepped through the gate, her apprehension turned to fascination. She saw great slabs of gray granite, towering monoliths etched with coats of arms, knights brandishing swords, fearsome lions and dreaded gargoyles all frozen in time and guarding the dead. Moss and age had settled on every headstone and monument. Her eyes were drawn to a rearing horse so beautifully chiseled that it looked ready to come to life. “How old is this place?”

“No need to whisper,” Heath said. “No one here but the dead, and they can’t hear you.”

Her face went hot. “Was I whispering?”

He held her hand more tightly. He leaned close to her ear and whispered, “Yes.”

She looked and saw that he was grinning. “It doesn’t seem respectful to shout,” she said with a haughty sniff.

As they walked the area, Sarah caught glimpses of names and dates. Hundreds of years were reflected on the old headstones. “Fourteen hundred and fifty-one,” she read off one. “Seventeen hundred and five,” she read off another. “And all of these people were members of your family?”

“Everyone buried here has a connection to the de Charon name one way or another.”

“Pretty big family,” she said, looking out over the haphazard collection of grave markers that stretched as far as she could see.

“We cover the earth,” he said in a conspiratorial whisper.

She wondered about her history, her family. Somewhere people wanted her to come to them. They told her so every night. She was deep in thought when Heath stopped in front of a large rectangular building. “What’s this?” She inspected the smooth, windowless granite surface, its entrance marked by a massive wooden door.

“It’s a mausoleum. I’ll show you inside.” Heath produced a key, opened the door and walked into a dark
hallway. In minutes, he’d lit a row of candles hanging on the walls.

Sarah peeked through the open doorway, unsure she wanted to follow him. The place was spooky and gave her the shivers. Smeared by candle smoke, the air smelled musty and was eerily quiet.

“Come on,” he urged. “No one here but the dead.”

She wasn’t comforted, but she hesitantly stepped onto the narrow marble floor, between two high walls with small brass nameplates running their length in straight lines. Some of the plates had names on them; others were blank.

“For future de Charons,” Heath said, coming alongside her and running his fingers over a smooth piece of brass.

“You too?”

“Me too,” he said. “And those who come after me.”

His breath brushed her cheek. A chill shot up her back. In the flickering candlelight, Heath looked otherworldly, ethereal, capable of melting away like icy mist. His skin was the color of the stone, his eyes, translucent. It was as if he’d stepped off the side of the carved fireplace at his estate. How had she ended up in a graveyard with the person who had become her caretaker?

“What are you thinking, pretty Sarah? Tell me.”

“You’ll laugh at me.”

“I won’t laugh. Promise.”

“Are you a vampire?”

In spite of his promise, Heath laughed. “There is no such things as vampires. They’re myths. Made-up stories.”

She felt foolish now that she’d asked such a question, so she tried to make light of it. “So you aren’t going to turn me into a creature of the night? Suck my blood and make me sleep in a coffin? Because I’m telling you, this girl won’t be sleeping in a dirty coffin.”

Heath rocked with laughter. “You have some imagination.”

“A girl needs to ask these things,” she said with a toss of her head. “Accommodations matter.”

“Would a vampire wear this?” Heath sobered, reached inside his shirt, pulled out a gold chain and dangled a thick gold cross in front of her eyes. “It’s Byzantine,” he said. “One of my ancestors wore it fighting in the Crusades.”