His fingers grabbed mine, giving them a firm squeeze before linking through and entwining his golden skin with my pale.
Silence enveloped us as we both contemplated our own thoughts. I was the one to break it. “Do you think we are them, or it’s just dreams?” I hesitated, unsure if he’d think I was being foolish. But why else were we sat on the edge of my bed holding hands? I didn’t know Tristan Prince. We hadn’t flirted with one another for weeks before finally summoning the courage to ask the other out on a date. We hadn’t texted or had long phone calls about nothing in the middle of the night. We hadn’t stared at one another across a classroom while all our friends nudged one another and laughed. That was the normal route. I’d seen it.
But here we were. Just together. I knew I wouldn’t change it.
He turned towards me, running a finger along the edge of my jaw. My skin tingled at its lazy path. “I don’t know. But I know you. I can’t explain it, Mae, there’s no rationality, it’s just a simple fact.”
I nodded, my mouth too dry to speak. His lips lowered to mine, and I watched them come closer, soft blooms of delicate flesh. My heart pounded, blood rushing in my ears. I caught my breath waiting for his kiss.
“Excuse me.” Phil barged through the door and I scowled at her arrival. She plopped her stuff on the bed. Tristan’s eyes glanced at mine with a chasing shadow of regret. He moved with a sigh to make room for the whirlwind that was Philomena Potts. “Right, let’s get researching. Charlie is waiting in the line for the phone. She’s going to ring her mum and see what she remembers of Grandma Crazy’s reincarnation ramblings.” She unpacked her laptop with the same excitement the average five-year-old would attack a pile of Christmas presents. I chuckled, and she glared. “What can I say, I’m my parents’ daughter. Anyway, you can’t comment, Miss 'I Want to Talk to the Trees'.”
It was my turn to glare. Tristan’s heavy stare fell onto me. “Did you feel an affinity with nature before you came here, Mae?” He leaned closer, his words low, his breath fanning over my face.
I flushed. “Well, I wouldn’t describe it as an affinity.” I glared again at Phil who just shrugged.
“Isn’t that like the dreams, though?” Tristan asked.
“I don’t know, they are hazy.”
His dark gaze widened. “But wouldn’t they be hazy if you are remembering a life from thousands of years ago?”
Scrunching my face, I contemplated this. If I was the girl from the dreams, yeah sure it was a long time ago.
“So, you think the dreams are about Druids?” Phil’s question made Tristan and I spring apart.
I nodded, thinking hard, trying to push through the dense mist that separated me from the dreams. “I think so. She’s wearing red robes, her father white.”
“Okay,” Phil concentrated on her laptop. “I just need the connection.” She pointed at a USB hook-up on the side of her laptop.
“How have you got a laptop with internet, when the rest of us can’t even have our cells?”
Winking, she sniggered. “I don’t know what laptop you’re talking about.”
I grinned at her. “Me neither.”
Phil laughed. “I think we know that already.” She turned back to her laptop and Tristan squeezed my hand.
“You aren’t crazy, either that or we both are.” Tilting his head to the side he thought for a moment. “I really hope we aren’t crazy.”
I squeezed his hand. I didn’t want to be crazy, but then I also didn’t want to know we’d died on those stones, two bodies hugging one another in death.
“Druid magic.” Phil spoke out as she typed once the connection was made. I gulped loudly. This was happening. We were exploring the crazy.
The room shrunk, my head whirling.
“The Romans stamped out Druidism in the United Kingdom,” Phil said, speaking from within the glare of the laptop screen. “The Druids built the stones as a portal to the gods, to create a connection between the earth and the gods.”
My heart thrummed in my chest. “Yes, I think they are coming for us.” Closing my eyes, I felt around me trying to reach into the dreams. I sighed, centring myself. A gentle hum of gold spread from my heart through my veins until it felt as though my blood were gold not red. “There’s an army. They want to bring back magic and create a force while they rule over all the isles.”
An army of red marched in the depths of my memory. Golden spears held aloft, they carved a path through the lands, always looking for one thing. At the head, leading the march was a cavernous darkness. Endlessly deep and evil, it ruthlessly turned those aside who it wasn’t seeking.
My eyes flew open. Tristan and Phil watched me intently. My hand squeezed Tristan’s so tight his skin bleached white. “The Roman’s weren’t expanding their empire, they were searching for magic.”
Phil’s mouth dropped. “You can’t know that.”
My gaze met hers, my heart thrumming. I knew what I knew, even though I couldn’t explain it. “I do. They weren’t coming for slaves and land. They were coming for her.”
I stood, my eyes gazing out the window. The forest called for me. Come find yourself. The stones, they wanted me.
When I turned back to the room, my body flowed with an indescribable strength. “They were coming for me. The stones, they harnessed the magic.” I’d felt it when I’d touched them. I remembered how it had felt when I’d seen the images from my dreams in the flesh. The scent of the earth, the birds in the air. The world was young, the stones were young, untouched by wear and tear.
Turning, I ran from the room, rushing down
