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

in wretched ignorance. Grief and anger and panic rose like the three furies in her breast.

She had no idea how to start time up again. And once it did so, she had no idea how to avoid having her throat cut by Eamon, who would simply pick up where he had left off.

She could slip out from under the knife and run away, leaving time to start up again on its own accord. But then he would know that she was the Talisman. And once he knew, Julia doubted she had enough control of her power to freeze him in his tracks every time he came at her.

She could take his purse. This instant. Take his purse and enough of the family silver to sell. Take a horse from the stables and flee. Perhaps she could somehow gather enough money to leave the country. She could go to live in America, or Italy.

But why should she be the one to run? She had done nothing wrong.

She could kill him. Here and now. Take the knife and plunge it into his heart.

She turned her head slightly and looked out of the window, into the dusk. The treetops were moving in the wind. Time was only stopped here, in this room, and indeed, that was how it always was when Grandfather did it. A local pause or acceleration, of only a few moments’ duration. How long could she hold time back? Perhaps it would simply start up again on its own, at any second, and she would die after all.

Think, Julia, she told herself fiercely. Think about what to do. Grandfather had stopped time, and he had sped it up. He had sped it up and made his own death come more quickly. But was it possible to make it run backward? Perhaps she could wind time back, like yarn onto a ball, to the moment before she had so rashly aggravated Eamon. Perhaps it couldn’t be done. Grandfather had never done it before, at least not in her presence. Perhaps it wasn’t possible. But it was worth a try.

Julia took a deep breath and focused again on Eamon’s frozen pupils. Go back, she whispered. Go back.

Nothing happened. She let her breath out and tried to remember how it had felt when Grandfather had played with time. He had always focused on something inconsequential, like dust motes. She closed her eyes and slowed her breathing. Then she opened them and let her eyes rest on a little pagoda in the Chinese wallpaper, under the wall sconce. Grandfather, she thought, recalling his smiling face. Winking roguishly before doing his trick.

There it was. There was the rushing at the back of her head, and time began to reverse, ponderous, reluctant, like a team of oxen being made to back up in a furrow. But it was happening. It was like looking out through misty, rainy window glass. Eamon pulled away and melted down the table to his seat.

Julia closed her eyes in relief and time resumed its forward push. She reached up and touched her throat. The wound was closed over, with no trace of blood. She opened her eyes. Eamon was pushing his food around with his fork. He looked up and caught her eye. “Penny for your thoughts, kitten,” he said. “Are you thinking of the talisman?”

“No,” she said, and quietly sliced a medallion of pork in half.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Nick woke fighting with his sheets, the dream tearing away from him like a cat’s claws, leaving its thin, raw wounds. The room was dark and close, overheated. Nick cursed and kicked the sheets aside, then went to the window and hauled it up. He leaned out into the night, gulping in cold winter air.

The house was in St. James’s Square, almost the only residence among embassies and corporate headquarters. The park itself, filled with mature trees, was unrecognizable to Nick. Back in 1813 the square had been treeless. In fact, it had been entirely cobbled over in white Purbeck stone. There had been a pool at its center, protected from animals and bathers by an octagonal iron fence. On that last night, Nick had sauntered away from this house across the stones, the ripe full moon following him in reflection across the pool. He had walked away into London, a free man. Now the Guild wouldn’t even let him out of this blasted house.

Nick peered up to see if there was a moon now, and indeed, there she was, visible in spite of the bright glow of the city. She showed only the curve of her full cheek to the wintery world. Nick liked the moon best this way—flirtatious. “‘Had we but world enough, and time,’” he said to her, “‘this coyness, Lady, were no crime.’” Quoting poetry to heavenly bodies had once been a fashionable thing for a man to do. Now it was ridiculous . . . but now didn’t really mean anything to Nick anymore. He was locked away in this mansion, like an heirloom. Essentially useless in the present, but strangely valuable to the past and future.

It was only when he pulled back into the bedroom and was shutting the window that the rest of the poem stung him like a wasp. He whispered, his breath clouding the glass: “‘Time’s wingèd chariot . . . deserts of vast eternity . . .’” Then he spoke, loudly: “‘Let us roll all our strength and all our sweetness up into one ball, and tear our pleasures with rough strife through the iron gates of life: thus, though we cannot make our sun stand still, yet we will make him run!’”

Nick stared at the white screen his breath had made. He put his hand on the lean flesh below his ribs; his skin was cold, for the window was still half open, but he could feel the heat beneath. His liver. Once upon a time he had believed that his liver was the origin of his courage and hope and love. All three spreading through him, warm and wet, in his