Guardians of Time (3 page)

Anna would never have dared to suggest that
driving a city bus into a cliff wall was beyond her brother. She
wasn’t sure if anything was. But if he tipped the bus over before
they reached the wall, it might not be enough danger to cause them
to time travel, and then they’d be stuck trying to figure out a way
to right it before returning to the beginning and going through the
whole procedure again.

Nobody wanted that. Since Jane was the
mechanic, and since they were
traveling
in large part for
Shane’s benefit, she’d taken on the task.

“Yes, sir.” Jane started the engine, which
roared to life and then settled into a well-oiled
purr.

“Nice.” David straightened, resolve in every
line of his body.

“Wait a minute!”

Anna shifted in her seat to look behind her,
and her mouth fell open to see Bridget, a woman in her mid-twenties
and the last person Anna would have expected to see rising to her
feet and gathering her gear. Her red curly hair framed her face in
its usual untamed mane, and her green eyes gazed stonily ahead at
David.

Like everyone else who’d come to the Middle
Ages on the Cardiff bus a year ago, it had taken time for Bridget
to adjust to the medieval world. But as the year had progressed,
she’d done better than most. Back in Avalon, Bridget had worked in
a shop in Cardiff, and as with Callum, her arrival in the Middle
Ages had clarified her purpose in a way the vicissitudes of modern
life had not. She’d rejected the malaise of some of the other
travelers her age, and made the best of a bad situation.

She’d come to the Middle Ages with little
formal education, though Anna knew her to be intelligent and more
well-read than many university graduates, thanks to her local
library and the internet. Bridget had a strong working class
background, which meant she’d connected with the regular English
folk in Shrewsbury, Callum’s seat, better than Anna or Cassie ever
could.

Her secret power was that she was a knitting
aficionado, a skill that had been developed in the Middle East for
luxury items in silk, cotton, or linen, but hadn’t yet reached much
of Europe. Shortly after Christmas a year ago, Bridget had set up a
shop in Shrewsbury, which was the wool capitol of western England,
using start-up funds given to her by Callum.

She’d begun producing knitted woolen
products, among them hats, mittens, scarves, and sweaters—one of
which David was currently wearing. Before spring, she’d hired three
employees, and by autumn, with demand growing by leaps and bounds,
she’d employed ten.

What’s more, Callum had seen qualities in
her that had been lost on her society in her old life and turned
her shop into the clearing house for his spy network. Rather than
having informants make the trek up to the castle to deliver news,
thus revealing themselves to anyone who might wonder what business
they could have with the earl, they now brought their news to
Bridget. In turn, Bridget passed what she learned on to one of
Callum’s lieutenants: Samuel, the sheriff of Shrewsbury; or Peter
Cobb, his right-hand man. Or so she had done until today.

Bridget marched up to David. “What’s this
about Mark coming back here with you?”

David glanced down the bus towards Mark
Jones, the man in question. He was one of the former MI-5 agents
who’d come with Anna and her mother on the bus from Cardiff and had
found a place in the Middle Ages working for Callum. As Anna
watched, Mark raised his shoulders in an elaborate shrug and
mouthed the word,
sorry.

David looked back to Bridget, hesitating
before answering and clearly stalling so as to give himself time to
figure out how to reply. Bridget kept her gaze fixed on him, and
finally he said, “It was the only way to get him on the bus, short
of handcuffing him to a rail.”

“You didn’t tell me that I had that choice,”
Bridget said.

Peter, who’d remained standing near David at
the front of the bus, put out a hand to her shoulder. “It’s going
be okay, Bridget—”

Bridget flailed out her right arm, smacking
his hand away. “Don’t patronize me.”

Eyebrows in his hairline, his mouth forming
a
whoo
, Peter put up both hands, palms out, and stepped
back. “No, ma’am.”

That didn’t appease Bridget in the way Peter
might have been hoping for because Bridget turned her glower on
him. “I don’t suppose you’re staying either.”

Peter’s eyes shifted nervously towards David
and then back to Bridget. “Er … no.”

Bridget swung back to David. “So why do I
have to come at all?”

“I suppose, when it comes down to it, you
don’t.” He cleared his throat. “But you have to be really sure this
is what you want because I’m not doing this again. If you get off
this bus, you’re living in the Middle Ages for the rest of your
life.”

Bridget turned to look again at Peter. “Are
you coming back for sure?”

Peter fell back on his military training,
clasping his hands together behind his back and standing at parade
rest. “Yes.”

“Do you promise?”

Peter looked at her warily. David’s eyes
were flicking between the two of them, a slight smile on his lips,
and then he shifted forward and lowered his voice. “Bridget, I will
bring him home if it is at all possible for me to do so.”

Bridget chewed on her lower lip, studying
Peter, who had the look of a man who knew that
something
was
going on, but he wasn’t sure what that something was.

“What?” he finally said when she still
hadn’t moved from her spot—about six inches from where he was
standing.

By way of an answer, Bridget took the lapels
of his coat in her fists, tugged on him so he had to bend towards
her while she stood on tiptoe, and kissed him full on the
mouth.

To his credit, Peter responded instantly,
wrapping his arms around her and pulling her to him so he could
return the kiss properly.

Everybody around them burst into laughter,
even David, though he rolled his eyes at Anna when the kiss went on
longer than a few seconds. Finally, Bridget and Peter let go of one
another, moving apart enough for their gazes to meet.

Whatever Bridget saw in Peter’s eyes seemed
to decide something for her, because she nodded, turned to David,
and poked him in the chest with one finger. “Okay. I’m holding you
to that.” Then she picked up her hat, gloves, and backpack from
where she’d left them on a nearby seat, marched down the aisle to
the back door, and left the bus.

Peter’s normally pale face had flushed all
the way to the roots of his dark blond hair, which he still kept
extremely short for ease of care, and his expression was
stunned—probably not only at the kiss but also at Bridget’s
subsequent departure.

“What just happened?” he said.

Grinning wildly, Darren clapped him on the
shoulder. “If you don’t know the answer to that, my friend, you
truly are a hopeless case.”

Callum gripped Peter’s upper arm. “You
should get off the bus. Follow her.”

Peter glanced in the direction Bridget had
gone and then cleaned the window of steam with his fist in order to
peer through the glass. “Don’t you need me?”

“We could use you, it’s true,” Callum
said.

“But do you really want to leave it like
that?” Cassie said from behind him. “You want to be with her,
right?”

“Of course, I do.” Peter straightened to
look at Cassie. “I’d get off this bus in a heartbeat if—” He broke
off, his eyes moving now to David’s face.

“If what?” David said.

Peter took in a breath. “If I didn’t feel
obligated to you, sire.”

David shook his head. “For the last few
hours, I’ve had a nagging feeling in my stomach about how few of us
are remaining behind. I didn’t say anything because it would be
unfair of me to ask anyone to sacrifice the opportunity to go home,
but it would relieve my mind very much to know you were here
holding the fort.”

Peter puffed out his cheeks and released a
breath but didn’t answer.

“Speak, Peter,” Callum said.

Anna had spent enough time with Peter over
the last year to know that the command was necessary. It wasn’t so
much that his upper lip was British stiff. He was perfectly
talkative when it came to work or an investigation he was
conducting for Callum. But he was one of those men who had a
particularly hard time conveying to anyone else what he was
feeling. For him, showing no emotion and speaking little was
ingrained.

He managed it this time, at least to Callum.
“Yeah, I’ll stay. I’m glad to stay. I was dreading going back
almost as much as Bridget, though I didn’t realize it until right
now.” He turned to Darren. “Call my parents. Let them know I’m
alive.”

“I’ll tell them you’re working undercover in
Botswana,” Darren said.

Peter nodded. “That will make sense to
them.” He blew out another breath and looked around at his friends.
“Good luck.”

“The sooner you get off this bus,” David
said, with a smile splitting his face, “the sooner we can get this
show on the road.”

Peter followed the path Bridget had taken,
and David hit the intercom so the people on the second level could
hear him too.

“Folks, in a minute we’ll be on our way.
Just as a reminder of what’s going to happen so nobody is
surprised: the road winds down the hill, and then it will
straighten out and head directly towards the bottom of the cliff.
Jane’s going to get going as fast as this old bus can travel on a
gravel road. We plan to hit the cliff wall at speed, and Jane has
promised not to put her foot on the brake.” He cleared his throat.
“I’d like everybody to fasten their seat belts. The ride might get
a bit bumpy.”

He paused, releasing the button and studying
the faces in front of him. Then he activated the intercom again.
“If this doesn’t work, I’m sorry. It’s been an honor.”

And with that abrupt comment, he turned
around and placed both hands on the dash in front of him.

Anna knew her brother. His voice had been
thick with emotion there at the end, and he’d cut off any further
speech because he didn’t want anyone else to know how he was
feeling. As Jane shifted into first gear and started down the hill,
Anna met her mother’s eyes. Mom was clutching Papa’s hand the same
way Anna was holding Math’s.

They didn’t speak as the bus safely
navigated the first two switchbacks, and then the bus started down
the straight stretch, picking up speed and jostling everyone as it
went. The bus wasn’t designed for gravel roads, even one hardened
and smoothed as this one had been. Rain pounded on the roof and ran
in rivulets down the windows, at a slant because the wind was
whipping too and the bus was going fast.

“Mother of God,” Math said.

“I can’t let David do this alone.” Abruptly,
Anna unbuckled her seatbelt and staggered towards the front of the
bus. She steadied herself with one hand on the metal bar that ran
from floor to ceiling behind the driver’s seat and grabbed for
David’s arm with the other.

“Anna! What are you doing?” The tears were
gone from David’s voice. Now he just sounded horrified.

“We started this together. We’re going to
finish it the same way.” Anna glared at David, daring him to send
her back to her seat.

“All right.” David brought his hand off the
dash and clasped her left hand with his right. “Together.”

They both stared out the front window as the
cliff rose up before them.

“David.” Jane’s voice was all fear and
warning.

“Keep that pedal to the floor,” David
ordered.

A hundred feet. Fifty feet.
People in
the back of the bus and on the upper level, where they had a better
view, were openly screaming now. Some were praying. Anna was
screaming on the inside, her breath caught so far up in her throat
it was choking her. She glanced down at the speedometer, which was
in kilometers per hour. It told her they were going a hundred.

And then Mom was behind them, wedging
herself between her children, her arms wrapped around their waists.
“I’m here, you two.” The cliff wall was right in front of them.

Twenty feet. Ten feet.

There was no stopping now, even if they
wanted to. They were going to hit the wall. An irresistible force
colliding with an immovable object.

“Eyes open!” David’s voice cracked.

Anna screamed as the front of the bus hit
the stones of the cliff with a resounding
crash
—

But no, like the miracle it had always been
and continued to be, instead of hitting the wall, they went right
through it, as if they were on a ghost bus and had become ghosts
themselves. Anna could only guess what it looked like from the
outside. For the first time, because she was determined to
experience the
traveling
fully, she kept her eyes open wide
as David had ordered. But the lights at the front of the bus shone
into nothingness.

She clutched David’s hand, which she was
still holding, felt her mom’s tight grip around her waist, and
counted through the three seconds of blackness that surrounded the
bus.

Then they were through to the other side—and
the bus was screaming down a highway going the
wrong
way.

Horns blared from the two lanes of cars
coming at them.

“Iesu Mawr!” Jane said, swearing fluently in
Welsh as she swerved the bus to avoid the oncoming cars.

The bus’s windshield wipers flailed back and
forth at high speed. It was snowing here instead of raining, with
at least three or four inches already on the ground. Since the road
wasn’t a true divided highway, the easiest thing for Jane to do
should have been to veer into the far left lane, where cars were
going in their direction, but a series of giant orange barrels
barred the way. The road was under construction, and it looked to
Anna as if it was being expanded into a four-lane divided highway.
They were driving on the right side of the road, which of course
was the
wrong
side for Wales.