Patricia, sitting near my hip on the opposite side of the unmade bed, smoothed hair from my forehead. “Rest for a spell, if you’re able. You appear to have been beaten about the eyes, poor thing.”
“Do you think Yancy returned to the future, as well?” Cole asked, standing near the foot of the bed, Monty in the crook of his left arm. “Derrick, I mean, not Fallon.”
I wagged my head slowly side to side. “I don’t know what to think. I suppose if Derrick showed up in the twenty-first century, he may have decided to stay.” The more I considered the possibility, the more it struck me as plausible. And a part of me understood his reasoning; would I return to a dangerous, unpredictable century if not forced? Derrick had no vested interest in returning; the offshoot timeline was all he had ever known, at least in this life.
“All we know for sure is that Fallon is not dead yet,” Malcolm said, casting a quick glance toward his abandoned rifle. “He’s still out there and I believe that’s why your future hasn’t changed back to what you remember, Camille.” My name sounded so sweet on his lips, his soft drawl elongating the vowels.
“You’re right,” I whispered. “We saved Blythe, we warned Ruthie and Marshall. We have to assume the Rawleys’ house didn’t burn. But the future timeline hasn’t changed. It can only mean Fallon will keep striking at us as long as he’s capable. It means nothing changes until he’s gone, for good.”
“Let that bastard show up here again tonight,” Cole muttered, gazing toward the open door at the silent hallway. “I’ll fill his rotten hide with lead. Thank the Lord we’re the only ones in this place tonight. We’ll have to do some fast-talking to explain them bullet holes in the floor.”
Thunder rumbled, prompting Monty’s crying to escalate. Cole shifted him inexpertly, still cradling his rifle over his other arm, and Patricia rose to retrieve the baby. I thought of what she’d confided about her love for Axton Douglas, recognizing the depth of sacrifice in her courageous, sensitive soul. Cole would never know what she gave up to stay with him and their son, the ultimate surrender of one kind of love for another.
Axton really is Case, I thought, with a shiver of understanding. Patricia told me she would forget Axton to be with Cole. That guilt must have stuck with her, never fading. That’s why Case recognized her right away in the twenty-first century, the night he saw her picture at The Spoke, but why she resisted him for so long. And all along he was all she ever wanted.
“Here, you should be lying down, too,” I told Patricia, indicating the space beside me on the bed; I wanted in that moment to hold her close, maternal and comforting, acknowledging the forfeiture she had made for her child’s sake.
She sank to the mattress, feathering her baby’s soft hair.
Malcolm leaned close and kissed my lips. Lingering near for a moment, he whispered, “Cole and me will keep watch, don’t you worry.”
“Fallon changed the entire timeline?” I asked for about the fifth time.
“Yes, like I said, but only your sisters remembered what was right, at least at first. You arrived in 2014 to warn us and the plan was for you to come back with me, to 1882 – this was two days ago now – but you weren’t allowed to return. Your sister showed up, instead.”
It was too much to comprehend in my current state of mind, too overwhelming to grapple with in light of everything else. I couldn’t bear to imagine another version of myself existing in the world Derrick had just described and I studied his solemn face without responding; we sat facing each other in our fog-infested prison, two ants in Fallon’s glass jar. And then something else occurred to me. “Is this place something that Fallon controls, do you think? It feels like we’re almost…outside of time. Can he keep us here, indefinitely?” I struggled to remember his words. “He said…he said no one had ever followed him here except me. And now you.”
“That’s a good question. I don’t know. He vanishes when his life is threatened.” Derrick reconsidered. “Maybe he vanishes here.”
“But where is here? It’s horrifying,” I whispered, casting my gaze in a loose circle. Derrick and I had attempted twice to ‘jump’ away, to no avail. There was a distinct feeling of stalling in a holding pattern, like an airplane circling the runway without the ability to land. Nor was there a place to seek shelter or conceal ourselves, no solid walls or foundations to guard our backs. We sat in rigid tension, me in a baggy sweatshirt and nothing else, Derrick in dirty jeans and a sweat-stained t-shirt, awaiting Fallon’s reappearance armed with nothing more than Derrick’s sturdy boots. And our combined resolve.
Derrick nodded agreement. “This place is even worse than the nineteenth century. And I thought that was unendurable. Everything stinks there, literally. I’ve never been exposed to so many terrible smells.”
I ignored his slightly pompous tone, concentrating instead on his admirable qualities, of which there were many, no matter what any of us once believed. I persisted, “You were just with my sister and Malcolm? And Patricia? They were all right when you left?”
“They were.” He paused for a second. “I know it’s none of my business, but isn’t your sister married? I only ask because she and Malcolm Carter were all over each other. I mean all over.”
“Malcolm is her husband in that life,” I explained, a small part of me overjoyed by this news. “I know it’s probably hard for you to understand…”
“So Malcolm is Mathias Carter in
