Once Every Never Part 7

"I didn't say that ..."

"But you don't. Why would you? Why would anyone? I don't-and I'm the one it happened to. This is stupid. Al-can we go now, please?" Clare could barely look at Milo with his cool, compa.s.sionate, appraising gaze, his head tilted slightly to one side ...

Big brain at work, Clare thought. a.n.a.lytical. Probably trying to decide whether to call in the paramedics or a mental health professional.

"Al?" Clare pushed her chair back and stood.

"Wait-Clare. Don't go." Milo got up and put a hand on her arm.

"Why? You're busy and I'm crazy. Obviously. This is just a waste of time."

"Hey now." Milo smiled down at her. "I don't think you're a waste of anything. And I don't think you're crazy. But I also don't know what to tell you. What you're telling me is ... well. It's impossible. You know?"

Clare glared stubbornly up at him. "Yeah. I know."

"But something happened to you. And"-Milo's smile faded and a frown ticked away between his brows-"there's only one way I'm going to be able to help you figure out what that something was."

Clare swallowed noisily in apprehension.

Milo's fingers tightened as he gently squeezed her arm. "Can you ... show me?" he asked quietly.

"Show you what? The brooch?"

"Show me what you can do with the brooch."

"Empiricist," Al snorted. "Oh ye of little faith."

Milo's gaze flicked over to his cousin above the rim of his gla.s.ses. "If you hadn't seen it with your own eyes, would you believe Clare's story?"

Clare looked back and forth between them while Al hesitated.

"Um." Al blinked rapidly.

"Thanks, pal," Clare sighed.

"Well ...?" Al shrugged helplessly.

"Fine." Clare unslung her shoulder bag and set it down on the desk with a thump. She reached into the side zipper pocket, fished around for the pompom sock, and tossed it onto the desktop. It landed with a dull clank. Al and Milo both flinched a little at her cavalier treatment of what was probably a priceless-and mysteriously powerful-artifact, but Clare just crossed her arms over her chest again and stared back and forth between them. She wasn't feeling particularly reverential. "Put a nickel in the cup and the monkey dances. I'll do my little magic trick for you if that's what it takes."

"I ... hang on a second." Milo put his hand on her arm again, and his grip was a little less gentle this time. "I don't want you to do anything dangerous-"

Clare shrugged off his touch and resolutely reached for the sock. She tugged at the scarf and the brooch spilled out, spinning in a little circle before coming to rest. The red stone winked at Clare in the light and she felt her mouth go dry. Beside her, Milo had gone very still.

The antic.i.p.ation building in Clare's chest was like a bubble expanding, pus.h.i.+ng against her lungs. Making it hard to breathe. She could almost feel the firefly tingles along her arms even before she touched the brooch.

She reached out her hand ...

"Wait!" Al yelped. "On second thought, I don't think you should do this." Her dark brows knit together. "Why not just leave it alone? It's done. Past. Literally. I mean ... what are we trying to accomplish by having you go back there? Uh, then."

"I'm trying to prove a point. Empirical evidence, remember?"

"This is stupid. I don't need to see you do it again and I don't care anymore if Milo believes us or not. Sorry, Mi ..." Al took a step toward Clare. "I just don't think it's worth the risk."

"Aargh!" Clare huffed in frustration. "You're the one who suggested we come here. And aren't you the least bit curious about it all? About how I can do this? Why I can do this?" She knew it wasn't just proving a point to Milo that had made her want to touch the brooch again. Clare's heart was thumping with excitement at the mere thought.

"Sure." Al nodded. "I'm curious as h.e.l.l. Also? Vaguely terrified."

"Allie's right," Milo said quietly.

"I am. Wait-I am?"

"Sure. You're absolutely right to be afraid. I mean ... every time Clare takes one of her supernatural sightseeing jaunts, she risks altering the s.p.a.ceatime continuum, yeah?"

"Well, yeah," Al nodded. "That's what I tried to explain to Clare earlier."

Clare rolled her eyes. "Here we go again ..." she muttered. "I did not throw a wrench at the monkey."

Milo raised a questioning eyebrow in her direction.

"Clare doesn't watch any of the sci-fi channels back home," Al explained. "The inner workings of the universe are a mystery to her. She watches MTV."

"That's not all I watch!" Clare protested. "I like game shows, too." She glanced at Milo as his other eyebrow crept up. "And ... um ... Star Wars?"

Milo's expression grew pained.

"Wait! Trek! Star Trek. I think. Whichever is the one on TV ..."

Al shushed Clare into silence before Milo started to actually sputter. Cute he may have been, but his geek flag still flew high and proud over his tousled blond head, it seemed. Clare made a mental note to bone up on Dr. Who. Not that she even really knew what that was. She'd just heard Al mention it enough to know it was nerd high art.

"Stop trying to sidetrack me. I'm doing this."

"Okay, okay," Al said. "Just promise you're only gonna go there and have a look around this time. A quick look. You're not gonna try and, y'know, change the course of history or anything."

"I promise."

"You're not gonna touch anything ... you're not gonna talk to anyone."

"No touching. No talking."

Clare understood Al's eminently sensible concerns. But she also couldn't resist the urge to try again. It was an adventure. It was secret, thrilling, maybe even a little dangerous ... but it was also more than that. Much more.

"I know why you're doing this," Al said pointedly. "You think you're responsible." She had an uncanny way of reading Clare's thoughts sometimes.

"Pff." Clare avoided Al's gaze. "You know perfectly well that 'responsible' is not a term frequently used to describe me."

"I think what Allie means," Milo said, leaning back on the edge of the table and staring intently at Clare, "is that you think you were somehow responsible for that girl getting captured by a Roman soldier. But the last time you went back, the brooch she was wearing hadn't even been finished. Your trips don't necessarily follow a linear timeline. And I think you think that if you keep going back then maybe you'll somehow find a way to get to that girl before the soldier does. You think you can help her. Don't you?"

Clare's eyes dropped to the brooch on the table.

"I do not," she said.

"You do too," Al said quietly. "It's a n.o.ble sentiment."

Clare rolled her eyes. This was getting to be a bit much.

"It is. It might also be a dangerous one." Al shrugged. "Just sayin'."

"Al ... I know you've done more research." Clare picked up the empty sock and plucked idly at the pompom. "What happened to Comorra? What does that Tacitus guy say?"

"He doesn't." Al shook her head. "And most other historical accounts are generally either inconclusive or contradictory."

"But?"

"But, from everything I've read so far ... I'm thinking it probably wasn't good."

"That's what I'm afraid of." Clare threw the sock on the table and gazed down at the elegant, intricate shape of the raven brooch-its wings, its jewelled eye. "Lla.s.sar-the blacksmith guy-said that this was powerful magic. Protective magic. I helped him make the thing. And if I can use it to help that girl, I think I kinda have to, y'know? At least I have to try."

"I guess I can't argue with that," Milo said quietly. "We should let her try, Allie. We don't have any right to stop her."

Al turned a suddenly fierce glare on her cousin. "Tell me that again if she doesn't come back."

Clare reached out her hand toward the brooch. Al went stiff with tension beside her and Milo leaned forward, watching intently. Clare's fingertips brushed the cold, smooth surface of the brooch. Her blood fired icy-hot in her veins ... and the world winked out.

8.

It had never actually occurred to Clare what it would have meant to live in a world that existed before the invention of the light bulb. It meant DARK. And SCARY. And it suddenly made sense why those horrid old fairy tales meant to scare the c.r.a.p out of young girls and keep them from wandering away from home almost always took place in the depths of overgrown, lightless forests. As Comorra's world coalesced around her once again Clare took a look around, waiting for her eyes to adjust from Sunny London Afternoon to Murky Ancient Forest at Midnight (likely infested with virgin-devouring ogres-or, at the very least, a lascivious troll or two).

Clare thought she could hear the sounds of howling in the far distance, only it didn't sound like any wolves she'd ever heard on nature shows. She s.h.i.+vered, wondering what on earth could make such an eerie noise.

She took a step forward, out from behind a tree. She had re-materialized at the edge of a clearing in the woods, a meadow ringed with soaring oaks, with the sky overhead an endless black and spattered with stars. A crescent moon cleared the tree tops, and by its pale wash of light Clare saw that a ring of immense stones stood in the middle of the clearing, a manand-a-half high each. Between the stones bladed pikes had been stuck in the earth, stabbing up at the darkened sky and draped with colourful banners bearing the stylized images of animals, stretched and knotted, fantastical and intricately beautiful.

In the centre of the ring stood a lone, rough-hewn stone larger than the rest, about ten feet high and five wide. Kneeling in front of it was a cloaked and cowled figure. As if sensing Clare's sudden intrusion, the figure stood and spun toward her, pus.h.i.+ng back the deep hood to reveal her bright, strawberry-blond hair and pretty face.

"Comorra!" Clare gasped.

The girl's bright blue eyes went wide and she stumbled backward until she stood with her back against the stone. Her gaze took in Clare's appearance-from the strappy, metallic-hued sandals she'd worn that day to the sparkly, beaded-b.u.t.terfly details of the adorable, time-travel-impractical sundress she'd plucked out of her closet. It was a little early in the season for something so summery, but it was a cute outfit and Clare had been secretly pleased to see Milo's eyes light up when he'd first seen her in his office.

Of course, to someone from first-century Britain, it probably didn't read the same way. It probably made her look like ...

"Tylwyth teg," Comorra whispered.

Yeah. A faerie. Or something like that, anyway.

Clare auto-translated the words as the other girl said them, just as she had before, somehow understanding that the translation wasn't exactly ... exact. But it was close enough.

"Disgleirwen," Comorra murmured, dropping her head in a respectful bow. "I did not imagine I would be so honoured as to have one of the Good People here this night ... Have you come to grace this ritual with your goodwill?"

"s.h.i.+ning One." That's kind of nice, Clare thought.

"Uh ... yes." Clare went with the suggestion. Cautiously. "Yes, I have ..."

Comorra c.o.c.ked her head. "Your words ... they sound so strange. And yet I understand them." Her eyes widened as if she'd just realized that she'd spoken out loud. "I mean no of-fence, s.h.i.+ning One!"

"Oh, seriously, none taken!" Clare a.s.sured her.

"I have never seen one of your kind before. I wasn't sure if the stories Connal told me were true."

What about on the riverbank? Clare thought to herself. You saw me then.

But after a moment it occurred to Clare that that "then" might not have happened yet. As Milo said, she wasn't necessarily travelling through time in a linear fas.h.i.+on, and so this might be one of those "before" trips. Just like her visit to the blacksmith's hut when he'd been making the brooch-a brooch Comorra hadn't even owned yet, which had later ended up in Clare's pocket, and which Clare had then used to take her to the moment of its making ... Ouch, she thought. The whole thing was giving her a headache. It was like one of those word problems in math cla.s.s crossed with that broken telephone game. If a brooch travelling through time leaves the first century at point A and a girl travelling through time leaves the twenty-first century at point B, then how many purple monkey dishwashers does it take to get to Carnegie Hall ...?

"s.h.i.+ning One?"

Comorra's voice broke in on Clare's knotted thoughts. The Iceni princess did look a tiny bit younger than the first time Clare had seen her. Maybe only a year or so-her face just a touch rounder, hair a little shorter ...

"Is something wrong?" she asked.

Clare realized suddenly that she was frowning at the girl. She wiped the scowl from her face and smiled. "Call me Clare, okay?"

Comorra's eyes went even wider. She looked as though she was trying to figure out how to respond correctly to such an invitation from a ... well, from an Otherworldly being. Somehow, maybe just from the way she'd said it, Clare recognized the significance of the "tylwyth teg" to someone like Comorra.

Comorra looked as though she desperately wanted to continue the conversation, but the distant sounds of howling-which Clare now recognized as coming from human throats and celebratory rather than meant to strike terror-were not so distant anymore. It sounded like the biggest, wildest party ever-and it seemed to be heading their way.

I have to get out of here, she thought.

Except she didn't know how.

Right. d.a.m.n ...

Clare knew that if this trip followed the same parameters as the last ones, Comorra would be the only one who'd be able to see her, probably because they'd come into physical contact. Still ... she was a little worried by the young Druid, Connal, who'd been able to sense her presence in the blacksmith's hut. Maybe he just had exceptional hearing. Heard her breathing. Or her heartbeat. Something ...

The sound of the approaching revellers was now shaking the leaves on the trees, and Clare could see the orange glow of torches reflecting off the forest canopy.

"Thank you for the gift of your presence at my sword ceremony, Clare," Comorra said.

"Oh, uh ..." Clare struggled for something appropriately mystical and significant-sounding for a ... a sword ceremony. She remembered Lla.s.sar and Connal saying something about how Comorra had been chosen by Andrasta. The Raven G.o.ddess ... G.o.ddesses and faeries hung out together in Celtic cosmology, right? She hoped so ...

"The Raven sends her best," Clare said. That ought to work. Comorra's eyes sparkled fiercely and Clare suspected that it had, in fact, been exactly the right thing to say.

"But I'd really love it if we could keep my presence here our little secret. My ... magic keeps me hidden from all but those to whom I choose to appear. And, tonight, that's just you." Clare glanced over her shoulder as the first of many cloaked figures appeared at the edge of the clearing, dark shapes picked out in shadow and flame. "Okay?" She put a finger to her lips.