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“It’s all going to be fine, Meredith. Isaac has agreed to meet with us. He said he’s willing to help us defeat Alex.”

“What? Isaac is going to help?” I asked, confused.

“Yes, he contacted Abby, and we are meeting him at the church on the outside of town. Don’t worry, we are all going and will be prepared if things go wrong.”

“No! That’s why I came here. Things go wrong, horribly wrong. I saw it in the papers. You die, you all die in the fire at the church. Somehow you all get trapped inside and can’t get out. Please, don’t go,” I screamed.

Blake’s door swung open, and Abby stood there staring at me, much like she had the first day we met.

“How did—you—get here?” she asked.

I couldn’t help but smile, just seeing her made it all the more real. “My mother, I think.”

She ran toward me, pushed Blake out of the way, and hugged me. “I was scared I would never see you again.”

“Me, too,” I said, feeling tears welling up in my eyes.

“Abby,” Blake said, picking himself up off the floor. “Meredith has come here for a reason. She saw something. She saw that we were going to die in a church fire.”

“What?” Abby looked at me with a tortured expression. “No, he said he wanted to help. He wouldn’t do that to us … to me.” She shook her head and gazed down at the floor.

“It’s a trap, Abby. Isaac is luring us there to kill us,” Blake said. I was thankful he was the one who told her, so I wouldn’t have to.

She continued to shake her head. “I don’t believe it.”

“I saw it, Abby,” I said. “In the newspaper, it said that you all were trapped inside, unable to get out. It only makes sense if they were trapping you in there with magic.”

She sat next to me on the bed and stared down at the floor for a long minute. “Well, if that’s the case, we know what has to be done, don’t we?” She held her head high and stood up. “I have spent the last couple of years loving him and fighting for him but I won’t do it anymore, especially not at the expense of losing my family.”

I looked toward Blake, and by the expression on his face I knew what he was thinking.  Then my heart broke as I looked into Abby’s tortured eyes. The pain she must be going through right now must be unbearable, I thought.  She was left with choosing the man she loves and her family.

“Let’s go. He is expecting us there by sunrise, and if we’re late, he will start suspecting something,” Abby said, standing and walking toward the door.

Blake stood up and faced me. “Meredith, you’re staying here.”

“The hell I am!” I said, jumping off the bed. “There is no way. I have come this far to make sure you all don’t die out there, and there’s no way I’m stopping now,” I said with irritation.

“Understood. Let’s go and get this over with,” he said, not even bothering to put up an argument.

We all went downstairs and found Annette and Samuel in the kitchen.

“Meredith?” Annette gasped.

“Meredith came here to warn us. We don’t have much time, I’ll explain when we get there.” Blake said as he scooped me up in his arms. “Close your eyes, it’s probably going to be a bumpy ride.”

I obeyed, and before I knew it, we were flying through the air. It was the fastest he had ever flown with me, and it took every part of me to fight back the nausea. The trip didn’t last long, and when I opened my eyes, we were standing in front of the church. Blake quickly filled in Samuel and Annette when we arrived.

“Let’s finish talking over there,” Abby said, pointing toward the large pine tree in the distance. “Isaac should arrive any minute now.”

We all followed her and gathered together, out of sight from the church.

“We will somehow have to get Isaac, Alex, and whoever else comes with them inside the church before we enter. Then we will have to combine our powers to seal the doors and ... start ... the fire,” Abby said, barely choking out the last few words.

“Are you sure about this, Abby?” Samuel asked. “We can think of another way.”

“No. We will always be running from them. This may be our only chance,” she answered.

“And here I thought you loved me.” A voice from behind us spoke.

“
Loved
you is correct,” Abby snapped, whirling around to face him. “How could you do this? Plan to kill us all?” Her bottom lip quivered and it was clear she was suffering terribly.

The five of us stood facing Isaac, the man I knew from my dreams as Alex, and four unidentified men. We were outnumbered.

My eyes scanned the group and stopped on Alex, the last one to the left. Alex was the oldest of the group, whereas all the others were closer to my age. This was the first time I had ever come face-to-face with him in real life. His eyes were locked onto mine. Blake stepped in front of me to shield me from the glare Alex directed at me.

“It was the price I had to pay.” Isaac’s words drew my attention back to him. “Lose a family to gain a family.” He shrugged. “But this is an unexpected surprise,” Isaac said, pointing to me. “After all that work in trying to get you all to the future so we could use your powers … and yet here she is.”

So it was true then. They had used the Harpers in order to get to me.

“What happened to you?” Abby asked Isaac, forcing back tears.

“What happened? Do I really need to go into details with you?” His voice was full of anger and frustration.

“I just can’t believe it,” she paused. “You! You did this to him,” Abby shouted toward Alex, lunging toward him. Samuel grabbed her by the shoulders and held her back.

Alex turned toward her and smiled. He was smiling the same evil smile that I had seen in the woods that afternoon, the last day my family was alive. That memory made me question how he got to my time all those years ago. Whose power did he and Isaac use to cross time? Could they have somehow channeled my mother’s power? Then all the puzzle pieces in my head began to fall into place. Then another memory flashed into my mind.

I saw Alex standing in the middle of the road, on the outside of town. It was
him
that had caused my dad to swerve the night of the accident. My body shook with rage. The longer I stared at him the more I remembered from that night. All the memories that I had blocked out because of the pain, began to come back to me. I remembered my mother surviving the initial impact of the accident. She was awake and speaking coherently. She was saying something over and over again … a chant of some sort … or now that I knew she was a witch, it was probably a spell. I couldn’t remember the exact words but I do remember seeing Alex approaching the car but stopping a few feet shy of it. He met my gaze and new that I was still alive. But he looked confused and irritated that he couldn’t get any closer to me. It all made sense now. Before my mom died, she
had
said some sort of spell in order to protect me from him. But the spell went far beyond just that night; it had protected me until my 18
^th
birthday.

I felt an indescribable feeling come over me. Anger ripped through me and a craving of revenge twisted all around me. Before I knew it, I felt an overwhelming feeling of power coursing through my veins.

Just then the church doors flew open. Alex, Isaac, and the rest of their group focused their eyes on me. Blake still stood in front of me, but I pulled my head around and focused on them. I focused on pushing them toward the open doors. It took all the courage inside me, but I tried to focus on using the one spell I had learned. It was a simple spell and I had only been able to move a leaf and rock but now my focus was on all the men before me. I could sense resistance, almost as if they were all combining their powers and pushing against me. I was not sure how much longer I could keep this up, the power I felt inside me felt strong but I wasn’t sure if I could possibly lose it all at any second. My eyes remained focused on Alex and I slowly began to see all the men before me move toward the opened church doors. I closed my eyes in order to concentrate. I breathed deeply, seeing them moving in my mind, toward the open church.

I could hear yelling in the background, someone screaming to “Make it stop,” and I thought it sounded like Isaac. It was strange, because I didn’t know where all this power was coming from. Maybe it was from the anger that I felt toward Alex, knowing that he was responsible for my family dying that night in the accident. Or, maybe it was the fear that he would take away the people standing beside me, the people that I now cared about deeply. I squeezed my eyes tighter, forcing myself to push out every thought, allowing my mind to concentrate. Then I heard a loud slamming noise. I saw the church doors crashing shut in my mind.

“Meredith, let us take it from here,” Samuel said, placing his hand on my arm. I kept my eyes closed, afraid that if I opened, they would find a way to escape. “Meredith, please,” he asked again.

I opened my eyes and saw Samuel’s pleading eyes staring me.

He then turned to Blake and Abby, nodding his head. “We will finish this. Take Meredith back to the house.”

Blake scooped me up in his arms, and then we were flying. He was much gentler with me that time than on the way over. I leaned back to feel the cold air on my face. My body felt weak and exhausted. I wondered if this is what it felt like to use the type of magic I had just performed.

It was not long until we were standing on the front porch of the Harper Estate. My heart ached for Abby. I hoped that one day she would be able to forgive me.

“Where’s Abby?” I glanced around, searching for her, my voice cracking.

“She needs to be alone right now. But she’ll be okay,” Blake answered.

It was a couple hours later when Samuel and Annette got home. Their expressions held both relief and sadness, relief that it was over and sadness that Abby was suffering. No one spoke about what had happened back at the church after Blake, Abby, and I had left. I knew deep down what had happened.

I waited up all night until Abby finally came home. There was no way I could sleep until I looked into her eyes and saw forgiveness. I was lying in Blake’s arms when I heard her footsteps walk past his door.

Without even having to ask, Blake lifted his arm. “Take all the time you need.”

I crept slowly toward the closed door at the end of the hall, not knowing if this was the right time or not. But I had to at least try and talk to her.

I knocked lightly and heard a faint voice telling me to come in. “Abby,” I said as I entered the room. “I just wanted to say I’m sorry. I can’t imagine how you feel toward me right now.”

She looked at me with a curious expression. “Meredith, you saved my life, my family’s life. I will forever be in your debt.”

“But Isaac ...” I whispered.

“It was difficult for me to see past my love for him, but I realized long ago that I had lost him. It just took me until today to see it. He was too far gone for me to bring back.” She sighed, looking blankly at the wall. “You did amazingly today. You should be proud.”

“It was nothing, really.” I shrugged. “I just closed my eyes and did what you taught me that day in Steer Swamp. But I had this overwhelming feeling within me. I can’t explain it.”

“Well, it’s clear that you have amazing power within you, and you’ve just scraped the surface of it today.” She smiled. “Get some rest. We can talk more in the morning.”

I put my arms around her and held her for a long while. When she finally drifted off to sleep, I slowly walked back down the hall to Blake’s room. The door was cracked open, and I pushed on it gently, hoping not to wake him. But once I got close enough, it was clear he was still awake.

“You didn’t have to wait up,” I said.

“I would wait forever for you.”

I melted back into his protective embrace. The warmth of his body and smell of his skin sent me into a peaceful trance at once. His warm lips pressed upon my forehead, which sent a shockwave of pleasure through me.

“It’s all going to be all right now.” He sighed.

I lay there, exhausted from the day. It was just over twenty-four hours ago that I had read the paper and seen that the Harpers were going to be killed. Now I was back in 1905 and had stopped it all from happening. Relief washed over me, knowing that the people that I had come to love were all safe. It should’ve given me the desire to sleep, to let my body rest and recover. But I was scared to close my eyes, scared that when I woke up, Blake would not be there, holding me in his arms. What would happen when I woke up? Would I be still be in 1905, or would my mom or the Council transport me back to my time? Just the thought of being separated from him again sent a shiver of fear through me, causing me to wrap my arms around him as tight as I possibly could, wanting to be as close to him as possible.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“As long as I have you,” I raised my head and pressed my lips to his.

THE END

Meredith’s story doesn’t end here. . . .

Check out the author’s website for updates on the next book.

www.heatherlondon.com