27. Chapter 27
Avoiding anyone we knew meant keeping completely off the beaten track. We kept to the forests and the rural roads, diving into bushes whenever we heard a car coming. I spent half the walk picking thorns out of my skin and the other half wishing I had brought some more appropriate footwear. My feet ached from walking such a long distance in sandals. If I ever got to go to a shop again, I would buy the biggest, flashiest, most supportive pair of walking boots I could find.
It didn’t exactly help my mobility that Ben and I held hands the entire way, but nothing would have made me let go of him. Our rendezvous in the bunker had hit different, with a desperation that had me wondering if it was the last time we would ever be together.
What we would do when we got to Freddie’s mansion house still eluded me. We had no plan, even though we had lived through this once before. Everything had happened so quickly that the memory was only a blur no matter how much I tried to home in on it. But maybe this time we could intervene and stop the event from happening altogether.
But Esther’s warning niggled at the back of my mind.
“You cannot change poignant events of the past.”
What Isadora and Freddie had done that day created a moment so poignant in Dusk’s history that it had opened up a portal in the pirate ship. But if we couldn’t change that event, perhaps we could change one that came before it in order to stop the escalation that led to the spell they cast?
Even if we didn’t know how we would rectify what Isadora and Freddie had - or would - cause, the only time and place we could figure it out was at ground zero.
“How are we getting in?” Ben asked as we reached the locked front gates of the estate. “We can’t exactly take the same route we did before.”
Not unless we wanted to risk running into ourselves.
“We need to stick to the outside of the house,” I said. “That way we minimise getting seen.”
“But how do we do anything useful if we don’t go inside?”
“One step at a time. Let’s just get up there first.” I squeezed through the gap in the gates, ducking under the chains that held them closed.
Ben followed suit, and we gave the house a wide berth as we hurried around the left side of the estate to approach the house. The further away we stayed from the water house, the better. That was, after all, where we had come from to the house last time.
We stayed low as we approached the house and ducked under every window to get around to the back. If I had remembered correctly, there was a back door not too far from where Isadora had set up her cauldron. The closer we could get without being seen, the better.
We crept to a window at the back, a little way from the back door, and peered inside. The cauldron sat exactly where it had that night, smoking a little, and the fire underneath it was down low. The sofa where they had kept Allison lay empty, and the room appeared deserted.
“Gods, there it is,” Ben whispered.
“What?” I followed his gaze to the table alongside the cauldron, on top of which sat the gleaming phoenix egg. “Oh, my goodness...”
The stolen egg that had sent the phoenix into such a rage even before Isadora had added it to her potion. But there it lay, still perfect and unadulterated... still alive.
“I’m going to get it,” I whispered.
If we took it back to the phoenix, we might avoid it casting its curses on the island altogether.
“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Ben asked as I shimmied over to the back door. “Do you remember what Esther said?”
“I remember, but she also said we could fix this somehow. If I don’t try, we won’t.”
I grabbed the back door handle and pulled. An ungodly crunching noise, accompanied by a screech like metal on metal, had me snatching my hand back like I was electrocuted. As soon as I let go, the noises stopped.
“What was that?” I whispered.
“I have no idea.” Ben stared at the handle like it had sprouted limbs. “Try it again.”
“You’re nothing if not chaotic,” I said, grinning at him.
Grasping the handle once more, I gave it another firm pull. The sounds returned, piercing my very being like bolts of lightning. I pulled harder, but the door wouldn’t budge and the air reverberated around us as if a tornado had spawned where we stood. No matter how hard I pulled, the door didn’t give even an inch, and finally my ears could take no more.
“Do you think it’s some kind of alarm?” I asked, once I had let go, flexing my fingers.
“No.” Ben scrunched up his mouth. “Esther said if we tried to change such an important event...we risked tearing the fabric of time. Remember?”
Maybe I had tried to block the specifics out.
“So we’ve got to just watch it happen all over again?” I asked. I couldn’t even stomach it the first time around.
Ben wrapped me up in his arms, and I pressed my forehead to his lips, in need of a kiss there.
“I think...” he said, slowly, “...that this event has to happen. And I have a theory as to why.”
“What is it?” I asked into his collar.
“I kinda want to wait to see if I’m right before I tell you.”
I opened my mouth to persuade him to tell me, but a scuffling sound from inside had us both ducking down low and peering in through the window.
Freddie marched in with an unconscious Allison in his arms and deposited her on the sofa so hard that she bounced but didn’t wake.
I gritted my teeth. Prison was too good for this guy. If time wouldn’t rip everything in half when I stormed in there and punched him, I would have.
“You didn’t have to be so rough with her,” Isadora said as she marched over to the cauldron with her hands in her hoodie. “She’s a pushover. She isn’t going to do anything.”
“That doesn’t mean she won’t run if we show her any leniency.” Freddie gestured to the cauldron. “Shouldn’t you be finishing that?”
Isadora grimaced, as if she had just smelled something unpleasant. It didn’t take a genius to realise that she didn’t like Freddie but that she had made a stupid mistake by allowing his charm to lure her in. Well, she wasn’t the only one. I had approved of him for Allison early on. Only Kira had had any reservations, and I made her quash them to support Allison.
Ugh. Maybe if I hadn’t been such an idiot, this would never have happened.
“I don’t know if I can watch this,” I whispered.
“We don’t have a choice.” Ben took my hand and kissed my knuckles. “I know this is our only shot, but... can you trust me?”
I didn’t have a choice in that either. But even if I did, I would choose to. And not just because I had no idea what to do from here.
We watched Isadora fiddle with her potion, and Freddie sat down on the arm of the sofa, texting on his phone. If they knew what they were about to unleash on Dusk, I doubted they would have been so calm.
I tried not to move while we waited, though my legs screamed for relief after so long in a crouched position. But any sound might set an already wound up Isadora and Freddie on a hunt for us.
But just as I gave in and tried to shuffle my way into a more comfortable position, the door inside burst open.
“Gods,” Ben whispered.
I couldn’t tear my eyes away as Ben and I entered the room, each wearing our own brand of confusion on our faces.