Daylight vanished as if I were in a swoon and the night stars winked down at me. Then the deafening crack split the air and the earth shuddered, and all time spun.
16
My hand sunk into the earth and I heaved, my stomach squeezing tight and my skin breaking out in a chilled sweat. I shivered beneath the wet clothes clinging to my legs.
Trying to stand, my legs shook so much I fell onto my ass in the dirt. Shaking fingers felt my face, my hair. The universe shifted as I breathed a sigh of relief. I was me. Mae Adams. But, I was wearing her clothes. The wool weighed heavy with water from her dousing in the river.
I gasped. Every moment was real. The dress was wet. It wasn’t a dream. Scurrying across the soil I glared at the stones. They were the same, unmoving, as they had been for thousands of years.
I couldn’t bring myself to think it.
Could I?
My gulping swallow lodged in my throat.
I’d walked through the stones.
I’d walked through the stones and become her.
I shook my head. That wasn’t right. It wasn’t true. I stared at the stars as I contemplated the enormity of the truth. They shone down, urging me on. What were they saying? They’d always been there? The same stars over my head.
I’d walked through the stones and I was her.
I was her.
“Miss Adams?”
I screeched at the surprising call of my name, blinking into the looming darkness. I expected it to be Tristan. Tristram. They were one and the same. Same as her and I were the same.
We were the same people living a different life.
But I knew this to be right. Souls came around again. It was what I’d been taught to believe… but it wasn’t me taught that. It was her.
I locked the thought away as a shadowy form slipped through the shadows. “Don’t be scared, Miss.” I blinked like a startled animal at Jeffries, the chauffeur, as he came closer. He was dressed in a thick coat and gum boots. “We’ve been searching for you for days.” He dropped to a crouch on the ground. The earth rumbled beneath my hands. Was it a warning? I didn’t know. Should I be running?
But Jeffries of the facial hair fame had never threatened me. I’d hardly seen him since I’d arrived. I’d hardly seen anyone. I’d been sleeping and dreaming. My heart boomed in my chest.
Not dreaming. Remembering.
“What do you mean days?” I shook my head trying to give myself some space to get my brain engaged and working.
“It’s Sunday, Miss. You’ve been missing for five days.”
I stared at the stones I’d gone through. As crazy as it sounded, I knew I’d walked through the ancient stones into Mae’s life. Yet it had only been a day. Hadn’t it?
The sound of crashing footsteps through the forest made me spin. Tristan, his face pale, the shadows under his eyes bruised and deep, rushed into view. “Thank God.” He fell onto his knees in the space before me. His fingers slid around my face, his thumbs brushing across my cheeks.
It was madness. A few days before we’d hated one another. Now, my lungs ached to be beside him, staggering to draw breath because the beating of my heart was so deep. “Tristram,” I whispered his real name and the depth of dark longing in his gaze told me he understood. He got it too.
If that was him and I on those stones, tangled together in a deathly embrace we’d died loving one another. The purple gem at my throat heated and pulsed against my skin. Was that why Heather the Kneel Woman had given it to Mae? I shook as I stared wildly into Tristan’s face. “I’ve found out so much,” I whispered.
He smoothed my hair and leant close. “Shh, let’s get you back and checked over.” He pulled me from the ground with a gentle tug. “Can you walk?” He moved as if he planned to pick me up, but I waved him off.
“No, I’m fine.”
One of his arms slipped around my waist tight, and Jeffries flanked my other side. I didn’t know how many of them they thought they’d need to catch me if I stumbled, but I was too tired to argue. Shuddering waves of exhaustion threatened to pull me down, and I was grateful of Tristan’s supportive arm.
The castle loomed into view. Despite its crumbling façade, when I looked hard at it I sensed it was there for a purpose. The foundations which I knew delved deep into the soil had stood on that site for hundreds of years for a reason. The environment had absorbed the castle into its very fabric. The castle was linked to the stones, I just knew. Was it protecting them from being found, or hiding them from being found by the wrong people?
Hadn’t Phil told me her parents had searched and searched but found nothing?
My head whirled.
Had they been waiting for me?
Had the castle been waiting for me to step through its doors?
Why?
And why… I glanced with apprehension at the man by my side. Why was Tristram here with me at the same time?
My eyes flickered with black spots, and my knees quaked.
“Nearly there.” Tristan held me tighter, his chest pushing against my rib cage as he took all my weight.
We were through the wide arched doorway when shouts drifted towards us. “Take her to the sick bay,” the shrill broad voice of Mrs Cox called. I fluttered in and out of darkness as Tristan weaved through more corridors I hadn’t yet ventured down. When I landed on a hard yet soft surface I kept my eyes shut.
How could I face reality? What was reality?
“Mae?” A brush of breath fanned across
