Preserving Hope (37 page)

“A few months before you got here, Mother and I were sitting at the table in my room. I whispered and told her that I’d been feeling wonderful, even though I did everything I could to look terrible. I didn’t want these people figuring out that I’d discovered
something
, even if I didn’t know what it was. She smiled at me, and I know now it was because she was proud of me, proud of me for figuring it all out. About the berries and the zirple and… about Father.

“While we were there, that warmth got more intense than I’d experienced before, and I was uncomfortable. I just tried to throw it off, and a cup across the room suddenly slammed against the wall and shattered. It was right where the warmth would have gone if I had actually thrown it, which is exactly what I’d done. Mother nodded at me and smiled, and told me to never tell Father about anything I actually figured out how to do; she was cautioning me for the future. But Father had started to listen outside the room; he’d been walking by and had heard the cup shatter. So he was there, listening in, and heard her tell me not to share what I knew.” She looked at him, and he could see the effort it took to hold back the tears. “You know what happened next.”

He nodded.

“When we buried her, I managed to slip away. I wandered around, and somehow found a cave.
This
cave, in fact. I stayed here for three days, and didn’t do anything but try to figure out what the warmth was. I realized it went where I put my attention, and that I could control it wherever I sent it, even outside of me. I could heal myself, or make myself look horrible, or move things with my mind, even move things instantly from one place to another, though only a dozen feet or so. I figured out that I could wrap that warmth around everything I was ordered to eat or drink and basically guide it through me without my body actually trying to
use
it, so I wouldn’t actually get sick. I could
look
like I’d been made sick, of course.

“While I was here, in this cave, I realized it was my chance to leave. They didn’t know where I was. I could run away, and they’d never find me. But I didn’t. I thought that would make me a coward. I was fifteen years old, and I’d never really had a childhood. I was basically a slave. The people who made me a slave had escaped from being slaves themselves, and one of them was my own father. I had no reason to have hope that life could get better, but I also had no reason to think life would be any different anywhere else. I had no basis to think that people could be anything other than those in the village; that was my whole world, and my whole impression of what people are. Yes, I could leave the familiar evil, and I had no reason to think that my father would start treating me as his daughter, as someone he actually loved. But without reason to believe I’d be trading it for something better, there was no reason to move.

“But I wanted to hope for the best. I wanted to be there and help them, however I could, to be better people. I knew what they were doing was evil, and I worried that it meant that they were doomed forever. And I worried that if I didn’t help to… cure them, I would be evil, too, and I didn’t want that. I don’t want to be evil, Will! So I went back, full of hope, but each day proved to me that they were beyond help. Eva was the only one who truly came around; she treated me like I was her daughter, like I thought a parent should treat their child. Some of the others treated me with some decency, but I knew how they really felt. They were just doing what they thought they had to do to remain Traders, because they liked that work. Being decent to me was just a means to an end, not what they truly believed and felt. Eleanor, at least, was honest. The rest? They were doing it to feel good about themselves, but they would be happy to let me suffer if needed. They proved it last night, when the mob attacked.

“Then you showed up.” She looked at him with a strange longing, and he knew his earlier impression was accurate. “You were new, and you were different. I knew right away you had those abilities all of the Travelers talked about, and the abilities I knew I was developing, because I heard the noise around you, and it was louder when I guessed you were doing… things.”

Interesting. “Noise? What noise?”

“I don’t know how to explain it. I heard someone playing an instrument at the inn we stayed at, back when I traveled with the weavers. It had strings. That’s the sound I heard, but the noise around you sounded… purer.”

Stringed instruments that were smooth? Perhaps a violin? “Your Energy sounds like a flute. It’s a beautiful sound, produced by a beautiful soul.”

She smiled, but it lacked warmth, for she didn’t believe him. “So if we listen well, we can always find each other?”

He nodded, and then took a deep breath. “I don’t think you can go back to the village.”

Elizabeth laughed. “I’m dead and buried, and I’m happy to be away from them.”

“So you should go to Eva.”

She looked disappointed. “You don’t think
we
should go to Eva?”

He sighed. “My place is still here. I know that I’m meant to help this community become what it’s supposed to be. My first and most important mission, though, was to see you safe and out of harm’s way.”

She bristled. “I can take care of myself.”

“I know that, but it’s far better if you don’t need to do so. Your methods of taking care of yourself would cause a lot of questions to be raised.”

She considered that. “Will… please, come with me. I… I know how you feel about me.” At his shocked look, she laughed. “I’ve told you for quite some time that I can sense emotions and thoughts, even yours. You can’t hide anything from me. I knew about Eva the instant you got back, knew why you didn’t tell me, knew it was protect me. And I know how you feel about me; your emotions aren’t subtle.” She took a deep breath. “I feel that way about you, too.”

And there it was. He couldn’t deny what he felt for her, for she knew the truth as well as he did. He knew how she felt for him as well, for the same reason, though she had stated so out loud. Thus, he couldn’t lie, even if he wanted to lie, and that was something he simply couldn’t do. Not to her.

It couldn’t be done, though. He couldn’t do it, couldn’t be with her every day, knowing he shouldn’t and couldn’t, because it could mean that Josh and Angel might never come to exist. Given the situation they’d thrown him into, all without telling him the truth, however…

No, they were his children, and he’d fight for them, even if they’d done him this wrong.

He refocused on her face. “I was sent to save you, Elizabeth…”

“You never told me
why
, though, Will,” she replied. “Why? You said that they thought I was worth saving, but why? How did they know enough about me to decide I was worth saving? Why would they care enough to send someone like you to save someone like me, someone they’d never met? It makes no sense.”

He’d asked the same question in the future… and his son had suggested that the move had been a mistake. An accident. It was a lie, of course; they’d known who and what he was the entire time. He’d not liked what they’d done.

He made his decision. “They knew who you were, Elizabeth, and knew you to be worth saving, because to them, it was literally a matter of life and death as to whether or not you survived your treatment in that village.”

He took a deep breath. “They knew all of that, Elizabeth, because the people who sent me to save you…they’re your children.”

XXVI

Reunion

Elizabeth’s face was one of baffled incomprehension. As the implications of Will’s statement permeated her mind, a truth she could affirm with her own empathy and telepathy skills, she sagged back to the ground and curled up. Will was hit with a broadside of overwhelmed emotions as her breathing hastened, sounding much like one hyperventilating.

Will was surprised that his own reaction to his statement was one of relief. He no longer needed to hide who he was from Elizabeth; she’d know he’d come from the future if he’d been sent by her children. He gave her the space she needed to reach a degree of acceptance. The notion of time travel had been difficult for him to accept, and he’d grown up reading books based on the topic. In this era, where traveling machines of any type, save those pulled by a horse, were unimaginable, it had to be a much more difficult concept to grasp. He would allow her all the time she needed.

Gradually, he heard her breathing stabilize, and she was simply silent. A few moments later, she sat up. He looked at her in anticipation, wondering if this was the emotion that Adam, Fil, and Angel had experienced as they’d made their own time travel revelation to him. It was far more difficult on this side; he knew the truth of it, and all was dependent on her acceptance of the truth.

She finally turned to look at him, took a deep breath, and asked her question.

“Who is their father, Will?” Her eyes suggested she knew the answer.

Will lowered his head. “It’s not important.”

He could feel her eyes flashing. “Not important? It’s
very
important! I can’t risk their existence by choosing incorrectly.”

Will smiled faintly. “You aren’t questioning if I’m telling the truth? You do realize what it means, if your children sent me to save you, right?” He finally raised his head and faced her again, refusing to back down from her withering gaze.

She smiled back. “You may have forgotten… someone’s taught me to develop my Energy skills. You couldn’t successfully lie to me even if you wanted to, Will. Somehow, through some form of magic I can’t imagine, you lived in my future and came back to me. My children are the ones who made it happen. I can’t quit now, not if I’m to give birth to children able to figure out how to accomplish something like that.” Her gaze narrowed. “If they’re capable of something like that, though, I rather suspect that their father must be rather special as well.”

Will said nothing.

“How far into the future did you live, Will? How far back to you have to travel to come to me?”

He grimaced. “Your children won’t be born for a very long time.”

“After you were born? Or before?”

Intelligent women could certainly be a curse. “After.”

She sighed. “I suspect I’ll have plenty of time to figure out the answers.” Her face suddenly filled with mischief. “Perhaps when I leave this place I can find a good man to settle down with, who’ll help me create these future children…”

His eyes flashed with anger at the idea, and he realized she had her confirmation.

He groaned.

“I suspect
my
children were adults when they sent you back to me?”

Will nodded.

“What were their names?”

He hadn’t been expecting that question, and he stepped back, almost as if he’d been hit. “What?”

“What were the names of
my
children?”

Now she was teasing him. It gave him an odd sense of comfort, for it meant that she was healed enough emotionally to derive humor in such a fashion. “Your son’s name was Joshua Phillip. I did not know our daughter until she was fully grown. Her name was Angel, and she looked exactly like you. Including the red hair.”

She looked at him, and he could feel the sadness from her. “Why didn’t you know her until she was fully grown? Why only Joshua?”

“They rescued me from three men who wanted to kill me and pulled me into the future, and then sent me here. She hadn’t yet been born when that rescue happened; I didn’t know she existed when the grown-up Angel rescued me from my own tormentors.”

“You don’t know her middle name?”

“I didn’t ask. I found out who they were right before they sent me here. Mere
seconds
before, actually. They hid who they were from me. I didn’t want to do the same thing to you.”

“Oh,” she said, as if this made perfect sense. He watched her as she worked through the details, reminding him of their first meeting in the future, when she saw him reviewing plans for a walled, gated community, and told him exactly what was wrong with it. It was that same look of calculation, an expression of deep concentration, that told him that she was examining every detail, developing a thorough understanding.

“Can we go back to your time, in the future? To have our children?”

Ouch. “The means… they were destroyed. We cannot go back the way I came.”

She considered this, and nodded. “I’m going to live for a very long time.”

He nodded.

“How long?”

He looked into her eyes, trying to assess her readiness for the news, and then realized he was judging her again. “At least a thousand years.”

Elizabeth’s eyes widened, her face telling the story. She knew it would be long enough for any children they’d have to grow to adulthood, so it had to be several decades. And yet if he knew they were to be together, but was sending her away while he remained behind, he clearly must know nothing happened for a while. She was already nearly twenty years old; their children must both be nearly that old or older before they’d be capable of developing the ability to send Will back in time. Will was in no danger that he couldn’t handle right now, no matter how many men came after him. She’d rationalized that it would be several decades before he’d start his trip back to her. She never questioned how she could live so long; perhaps, even now, she sensed that she’d live a long time, though probably not a thousand years or more.