The River of No Return by Bee Ridgway (mobi ebook reader .txt) 📗

Nick. Nick Davenant. It all came flooding back in an instant. He was Nick. She let her memories settle like dust. She loved him. He had a mistress. He could manipulate time. So could she. But he didn’t know she could. She had run, and been bashed on the head by Eamon the Horrible, but now here she was in a barn with Nick again, and some strangers. And some chickens.

“Are you all right?” He was peering at her closely and holding her hand so tightly it almost hurt.

She blinked and pulled back her hand. He released it, but she didn’t want that and reached for him again. “Just not so hard,” she said, and her voice was a scratchy remnant of itself. “Oh. I’m thirsty.”

“Water.” Nick spoke urgently, over his shoulder, and one of the men set off at a trot. Nick turned back to her. “Does it hurt? Your head?”

Julia considered the question. Did her head hurt? Yes, she decided. Yes, this feeling that her world might crack into a thousand pieces at any moment was pain. She nodded slowly, and Nick stroked her hand.

“Poor darling,” he said.

The man came back with a ladleful of water from somewhere and held it to Julia’s lips. She looked at him as she drank. He was the most handsome man she had ever seen. “You’re the most handsome man I’ve ever seen,” she said when she had drained the ladle.

He smiled and became even more handsome. “Thank you,” he said in a slight French accent. Julia looked to Nick to ask him if he thought the Frenchman was handsome, but Nick was scowling. Julia began to chuckle, then winced as her head seemed to explode with pain. “You’re jealous,” she whispered. “And I’m sleepy. Are you going to sleep with me?”

She took a scientific interest in watching him blush. Had she ever seen a grown man blush before? It spread up his neck like a rash, then out under his stubble, which was heavier than last time she had seen it, back in the coach. “If you are going to sleep with me, Nick, you should shave first.” She closed her eyes, and let sleep come and waft her away.

* * *

Nick and Leo were out walking across a field toward a line of trees, looking for firewood.

Nick had no idea what to say.

Leo had been alive all these years. An Ofan. But he had never once contacted Nick, never shot him an e-mail. And now it had been ten hours since that goose breakfast, and Nick and Leo hadn’t spoken again. Nick had stayed in the coach with the sleeping Julia, with Leo driving. Penture had ridden alongside, keeping an eye on the two horses now tied behind the coach. It had been more than enough time for Nick to remember that maybe Leo didn’t consider Nick his friend. More than enough time for Nick to remember that he had taken Guild money for nine long years while Leo had managed on his own, making his own way.

As dusk began to fall, Penture, who seemed to know the country like the back of his hand, had led the strange entourage off along a narrow track between several long meadows to an enormous, half-ruined medieval barn. They had lit a fire with the few logs they had found in the barn, and settled Julia in a pile of hay. But then Leo had turned and said to Nick, “Come on. Let’s go scare up some more wood.” And now they were marching silently off into the gloaming.

“How is Meg?”

Leo glanced at him. “She’s okay. She’s seventy-five now. She worked with us in Brazil for about seven years, but then she retired. Lives in an apartment in Salvador. She has a Natural lover, Tabitha, and the two of them are making hay while the sun shines.”

“Is she fat yet?”

Leo grinned. “No. She says she must have hollow legs, because she eats all the time and she’s still just as skinny as the day she first jumped.”

They kept walking. The meadow grasses were lush, and the ground was wet. Their tall boots made squelching sounds as they walked. “It’s funny to see you all dressed up like this,” Nick said. “In this kind of gear.”

“You, too.” Leo looked Nick up and down. “I mean, I know it’s your natural habitat and everything, but when I think of you it’s in that pair of faded jeans you wore practically every day.”

“I can’t tell you how much I miss those jeans. Actually, jeans were the first things I loved about the future.”

“Not me. I hated them. Still do. But then, I had been wrenched away from the most beautiful couture in the world.”

Nick glanced at his friend. “I’m glad to see you kept your scalplock.”

Leo reached back and threaded the three long braids through his fingers. “Yes, well. Some things never change.”

“Everything changes. Or everything could change. I thought that’s what Ofan believe. Or want to believe.”

Leo shrugged. “I guess you saw the ‘end of the world’ pictures. And heard about the Pale.”

“Yes.”

They reached the trees and began gathering whatever wood they could find, wandering away from each other. When they both had an armful they caught each other’s eye and started back again. They could see the path they had made as they came, the grass silvery where they had stepped. Without discussing it, they started a new path and walked back toward the magnificent barn looming up in the middle distance. It was dark against the clear sky, which glowed with that blue-green evening light so specific to an English springtime.

“Why did you leave?”

Leo didn’t answer for a minute. Nick stared ahead at the barn, hearing the silence, which was in fact alive with the evening chatter of birds and insects. “We had to,” Leo finally said. “We had realized. We didn’t know anything of course. About the Guild and its money and its policing of the past and the future. But