Chapter Seven

“Wow, okay.” My brain was scrambling to keep up with the revelation. “The plot thickens. The plot…is thick.” I shook my head then looked from the time pocket to Callan. Ashe made a curious sound and started carefully sniffing around. “What exactly do you remember?”

Callan crossed his arms over his chest. His eyes were all for the time pocket. Its magic wafted against us like a stirring wind. “We drove up here. It was before she’d altered my memories. She told me she wanted my help making a new time pocket for another community. When I asked her why she said it was a contingency plan; somewhere for us to go if the one we’d been living in was compromised. I didn’t think anything more of it. She showed me a huge plot of land. When I say huge, it’s probably twice the size of Merewynd.”

“Whoa.”

“Yeah. I enclosed the land and she said she’d check on it every so often to make sure everything was okay. But I can see houses inside. When did that happen? She didn’t say anything about developing it.”

“Maybe she kept that from you, but clearly she wanted you to end up here.” I bit my lip as I considered whom we might find here. I looked at Callan. “What do you wanna do?”

I was dying to get inside, but this was Callan’s journey and if he didn’t want to check it out after coming all this way, I’d respect that.

Callan was quiet for a few moments, then shook his head. “We have to head inside. I need to understand why my mother wanted me to come here.”

He started walking toward the time pocket and Ashe and I fell into step beside him.

“Are you gonna collapse it?”

“I don’t have to. Technically anyone can breach a time pocket, but Temporals can create openings in them.” He held his palm up close to the time pocket.

His magic rose and the air in front of his palms started to vibrate. He arched his hands over the surface and an opening was revealed.

“Nifty.”

Now we had a clear view of what lay beyond.

So far we didn’t see anyone, but a rabbit and three baby bunnies that were hopping by did pause to give us a curious look before continuing about their day.

“Ready to see what lies behind door number one?”

Callan, his face serious, nodded, and I let him enter first before Ashe and I followed.

We walked onto a grassy area that was slightly overgrown.

I batted away a dandelion that tickled past my nose as I looked at the tall trees that bordered the lawn. About twenty feet to the left was a tall wooden watchtower, but there wasn’t anyone up there.

Beyond the grass were several wide, neatly paved pathways, and not too far down one of them were houses made from the dark wood of the trees in the forest we’d come through.

The three of us took a few tentative steps, and I was about to suggest that we head to one of the houses when a young girl came dashing down one of the pathways, appearing from around a bend as she chased after a ball.

When she saw us, she braked so hard she almost face-planted but caught herself.

Ashe, Callan, and I froze, as did the girl who stared at us with wide blue eyes and a mouth that had fallen open in shock.

Before Callan or I could say anything, she screamed.

“Daddy! People are here! We’ve been found! We’re under attack! Tell Uncle Igiro to make a Suniksu!” She pelted back down the path yelling at the top of her lungs.

“Igiro?” Callan sounded startled.

The name sounded familiar to me as well, as someone Callan had told me about.

It wasn’t long before we heard running footsteps approaching and I unsheathed the Gladius.

Given that the first person we’d encountered had been a pigtailed little girl playing with a ball, I couldn’t imagine I would have to start swinging, but she had called for a fire-spewing magical construct, so better safe than sorry.

Soon, several people appeared, one of them a man who looked around our age. He was holding the girl who had her best “mean face” on like she was ready to come at us with her little fists. Adorable, really. The other two people were carrying weapons; the woman a pair of fighting sticks, the older man a short sickle.

I grounded myself and held out the sword. Ashe showed those pointy teeth.

But it didn’t seem like we’d be brawling when I heard the sound of disbelief Callan made as he locked eyes with the man carrying the girl.

He was slowly lowering her to the ground, his blue eyes on Callan.

As I looked at him, recognition finally hit me.

He had dark brown hair that almost brushed his shoulders and was working his mouth open and closed as though he couldn’t figure out what to say.

I had never met this man, but I had seen him before. In Callan’s memories when he’d touched the Cillari Stone and allowed me into his mind.

I put the sword away and the other two people lowered their weapons.

Callan took a step forward. Then another one. “Eruci?”

“Callan? Callan?” Eruci’s eyes grew wider. He looked at Ashe and me, then back at Callan. Both men stared at each other for a heartbeat more before they swiftly moved in and had their arms around each other, clapping each other’s backs and rocking from side to side.

My heart ached, but in a good way.

Trekking out here and finding Callan’s childhood friend was a welcome surprise.

I knew Callan had continued to wonder what happened to everyone who had left the community with him and Linella and scattered after she’d been killed.

For Eruci to be here, in the new timeline, and recognize Callan, was…tremendous.

Ashe sniffed and I glanced at her. “Need a tissue?”

She reached over to nip me and I sidestepped out of the way.

“Thank all the gods that exist.” Eruci sounded weighed with relief as he and Callan stepped back. His hands were clasped on Callan’s shoulders and his chest rose and fell as he sighed deeply, briefly closing his eyes. “You made it, you made it.” He smiled at Callan before turning to the man and woman behind him who were smiling and looking relieved as well. The little girl looked confused.

“Dada, so we’re not under attack?”

“No, Willow, no. This is Uncle Callan, the one I told you about. The one we were waiting for.”

Callan frowned slightly. “Waiting…”

“Callan, it’s so good to see you again.” The woman embraced him. Callan smiled at her. “And you, Jia.”

I recognized her from Callan’s memories as well.

She was the Earth Conjurer who’d made the secret tunnels Linella had used as part of their escape plan. She was beaming at Callan with tears in her brown eyes. She hugged him again, then stepped back, shaking her head and running her hands through her short hair. The tight coils were dyed bubblegum pink. Her brown skin sported several bold, colorful tattoos.

“I was really hoping you would make it,” she said. “That you would find us before it was too late.”

Too late?

The third person was now hugging Callan, clapping him on the back. He looked to be in his sixties. He was bald, but his gray beard was a dreadlocked masterpiece that reached the middle of his chest and was decorated with the odd bead or twist of wire. He was about Callan’s complexion, and now I remembered Callan telling me about his Uncle Igiro, his father Marcai’s older brother.

“Uncle Igiro,” Callan said, his voice heavy with happy emotions.

“Finally, my boy! I was about to take the risk and go find you out there!” He had a hearty voice, the kind that told the most epic stories in an ale-soaked bar in the middle of the night and sang the best shanties while fishing off the shore.

Callan’s frown was back, but Igiro now turned his attention to Ashe and me.

“This is them, yes?” He gave us a thorough look, the sickle now sheathed through his thick leather belt. “You made some serious moves under that Auraxa Reiv, my girl.”

He opened his arms and I had no choice but to forgo a handshake for a hug. He thumped me on the back too. Thankfully he had enough sense not to try and hug Ashe and simply gave her a polite nod. Eruci and Jia also came over and we exchanged greetings. Willow gave me a shy wave.

“Your sword is very big and glowy,” she declared. I gave her a wink.

“Wait until everyone hears Callan is here,” Jia said to Eruci. “We have to put out a feast. And Hina owes me money because she said he was gonna be Erased and you’d have to put up a new time pocket.”

“Erased?” Callan and I both said, our tones sharp. Callan came to stand closer to me.

A foreboding feeling gripped me. What were the chances we were about to hear that “Erased” was something positive?

Zero.

“What do you mean Erased?” Callan asked Jia, who grimaced and looked at Eruci to take the wheel of the conversation.

I wanted the answer. And I really did not want the answer.

Eruci momentarily dropped his head before looking at Callan. Jia looked uneasy and was twisting her hands together while Igiro’s arms were crossed over his chest, his expression tense.

“I guess there’s no time like the present to explain,” Eruci said. “Erasure is exactly what it sounds like: being erased from existence. It’s what’s going to happen to all of us who time jumped to the future.”

Callan made a shocked noise, and I felt like a cannonball had blasted through my stomach. “Now that the Magical Collapse was averted, we do not exist in this timeline. Because we never jumped through time. We stayed in the magic-era and lived out our lives.”

He was right. Realization was dawning on me. Horrific realization.

I had left Linella in the past the night she, her family, and many others jumped hundreds of years into the future when the Majimorta had been unleashed.

But that reality no longer existed.

Linella, Marcai, and Callan had remained in the past. As had everyone else from the Temporal community.

“Erasure isn’t the same as death,” Jia continued, a sad note in her voice. “There’s no body to bury, no soul to cross over. Being Erased is…nonexistence. Because you altered the timeline, Pennrae, there now exists two versions of us, one in the past, and one now. Which presents an aberration.”

“Oh my God…” My pulse accelerated.

I reached for Callan’s hand and it was slick. I linked my fingers with his and could feel his equally racing pulse thudding against mine.

I wanted to throw up. Callan was supposed to be Erased?

He was supposed to not exist anymore?

When the hell were we gonna catch a break?