Chapter 33 Rhys #2
Getting across town took some time. The church was on Byward Street near the Tower of London. Rhys kept the windows up to minimize the rotting stench of the city. Magellan was looking out the window wide-eyed, gazing up at the darkening sky. “We have to hurry. There’s not much time.”
He crossed his arms, refusing to engage in the conversation.
“Rhys, I know you don’t want to believe me, but now that I have Fanny’s part of the song, I have to leave 1829. I can’t stay here.”
He scowled again. He was itching to wrench open the satchel and see what “things” she had brought with her to leave 1829.
He looked glumly out the window, his arms still crossed as he brooded on this madcap situation.
Darker clouds were rolling in. “Perhaps we should save the organ for another day and turn around?”
“No!” She grabbed on to his arm so tightly he startled. “We must keep going. Can’t you hear those vibrations?”
“I believe that is thunder rumbling in the distance.”
She shook her head as if he had no idea what he was talking about. “Maybe you can’t hear it. Maybe only I can. But do you see how they’re all looking at us?”
“How who’s looking at us?”
“The people. It’s like they know I shouldn’t be here anymore.
” Her gaze was fixed outside the window in pure terror.
Rhys did notice a few disreputable fellows watch the carriage pass by.
Their prolonged stares were odd, perhaps unnerving if he were to let his imagination have free rein.
He knocked on the ceiling to order the driver to go faster.
Magellan turned to him and took his hand in hers. “Do you want to come with me? I don’t know what time I’ll land in. It could be dangerous.”
He could only stare at her. How on Earth did he handle her when she was like this? “Of course I will go with you. I never want to be parted from you again.” There! Let her stew on that.
She searched his eyes. “Even if we wouldn’t know how long we’d be gone or where we were going?”
He tried to stay calm. “Even then.”
She expelled a heavy sigh and looked out the window. “I have no idea how to convince you it’s real before it happens, and by then it will be too late.”
Suddenly the carriage lurched and she screamed. Rhys braced her as the carriage almost tipped, but somehow the driver stayed in control and maneuvered the horses to the side of the road.
Rhys got out to investigate.
Magellan jumped out after him. “What’s happened?”
“We’ve broken a wheel, but never fear, we have a spare. Wait in the carriage while we change it, and then we’ll return to the house.”
She was clutching the satchel and looking wildly about. “No! We must go to the church. It’s getting louder. They’re coming. We can’t just wait here like sitting ducks!”
Sitting ducks? Whatever did that mean?
Thunder cracked across the sky and the horses startled. Rhys had never heard thunder so loud. He tried to reason with her. “Today is not the best day for an outing. Look at the sky.” Storm clouds were forming quickly, obscuring the daylight. Thunder crashed again and she yelped.
“Today is the only day.” She pointed up. “That is the labyrinth breaking. I’ll go on foot if I have to.”
The sky opened up and poured rain down on them. He tried to usher her into the carriage, but she resisted. His patience was at its wit’s end. “Fine! We’re going! Just get inside and stay dry.”
Instead, she was looking at something behind him and took a step back in horror. She covered her ears as if to block out a painful sound. “She was right. They’re here!”
Who was right? Rhys turned around to see what else could have upset her so. Four men were moving toward them. Two blocks still separated them, but they had a deadly intent in their eyes. “Those men?”
“No, the shadows,” she whispered, still plugging her ears with her fingers. Gripped by full-on hysteria now, she started weeping and backed away, her tears mixing with the rain. “Either help me now or I swear to God I’m running!”
Her absolute terror was real—and contagious. London criminals were the deadliest in the world, and these men clearly had their sights set to rob them.
He could not fight all four and ensure Magellan’s safety. Moving quickly, he brought out his dagger and within seconds freed one of the horses from the carriage. Using the undercarriage as leverage, he jumped up and mounted the horse. “Hurry! Give me your hand.”
The men saw them trying to escape and broke into a run. Rhys shouted to his driver to take shelter and he wrenched Magellan onto the horse, taking off at a gallop.
“Hold on,” he yelled over the wind and whipping rain.
He raced to All Hallows by the Tower as if he were competing in the Derby. By the time they arrived, their pursuers were nowhere in sight. He and Magellan were drenched, and the streets around them were beginning to pool with water.
He dismounted, helping her down, and they rushed into the church out of the rain. Throughout their whole escapade, she still had the satchel with her. He took it from her without a word and slung it over his shoulder.
Once they were inside, Magellan sagged against the door and closed her eyes. She stopped covering her ears and fought hard to slow her breath.
“Are you all right?” He wanted to comfort her, but he was shaken by the whole encounter, by those criminals along with Magellan’s terror over seeing shadows and hearing noises. Hallucinations were a clear sign of madness. Dear God, she truly did need medical help.
“I just need a moment.” Magellan kept her eyes closed, fighting to calm down.
Then she started humming. Rhys did not know what to do. “There, there.” He tried to soothe her, patting her back. “All is well now. You’ve had a fright, that’s all. Let me go enquire about the organ. Then you can play and feel all better.” He led her to sit in the back pew.
The church was empty midafternoon. Services were over. No priests were about. Rhys found a man busy mopping the floors and gave him a shilling to allow them upstairs to the balcony.
He escorted Magellan to the organ, feeling proud he’d at least accomplished this one request. Perhaps if she played, she would return to her senses. He stared up at the towering pipes. It was the grandest instrument he’d ever seen. He could barely believe Magellan knew how to play it.
Was there any instrument she couldn’t play?
The question boggled his mind, and for a moment he thought of Gwynedd. They did share the same gift.
The same ring? Whose symbols matched the standing stones. In the diary, Cathan had said it meant know the way.
Goose bumps trailed up his arms. Had his father truly believed in the story, like Magellan? Rhys stood beneath the pipe organ’s magnificence, a bit of heaven brought down to Earth, forged in metal, and once again questioned everything he believed to be true.
Fate came from the Latin word fatum, a divine decree of what had yet to happen would happen.
Magellan entering his life was fate. He knew that with an unshakable certainty.
She believed she was on a mission to save the world, and he had been chosen to help her.
Well, here they were in a church with an organ. All she had to do was play it.
Magellan stood beside him, staring at the organ with a strange mix of apprehension and determination. Then she sat down on the bench as thunder quaked outside. She jumped at the sound, as if she would be its next victim.
Rhys hovered waiting for her to play, waiting to see what she purported to be true. But instead of playing, she turned away from the keys to face him. “I know you’re waiting for me to come to my senses.”
“Magellan,” he began softly, “please just play.”
“When I play, I will leave.” Tears slipped from her eyes.
“It’s real, Rhys. I have to keep going. Your time doesn’t want me here anymore.
” A wind howled outside and banged on the church doors as if a force was trying to get inside.
“When I play this, I will end up in another time. I will disappear.”
“All right, then,” he said, sitting down on the bench beside her. “We’ll go together.”
“Why can’t you take this seriously?”
“I thought I was.” He scowled back. “I brought you here, didn’t I?”
“Yes, but you think I’m crazy!”
“Just play the bloody organ!”
“But when I do—”
He kissed her to make her stop. It was either that or shake her to make her see sense. She soon turned into putty in his arms and then broke away, closing her eyes. “Is it wrong I want you to come with me?”
He kissed her again, whispering, “No, I want to go everywhere with you, even in your dreams.” Even as he said the words, he found them to be true.
Magellan stared at him hard a long moment.
“I promise this is not a dream.” She kissed him tenderly on the lips as if this were goodbye.
“I can’t take you with me. You don’t believe me and afterwards it will be too late.
You won’t be able to get back home.” She shook her head, truly believing what she was saying.
She was weeping now. “I have to go. I’m so sorry.
I was born to do this.” She clutched him in a desperate embrace.
“I promise I’ll come back to you if I can. I’ll find a way to come back.”
“Of course you will,” he said, trying to soothe her. He just needed her to stop crying.
“Go stand over there. Please,” she begged him.
“Of course.” He hurried to stand where she wanted him. “I’ll be right here while you play.” He was six feet away, not far.
“Thank you for everything.” She looked so solemn, her eyes shining. “I’ll never forget you.”
Rhys could no longer play the part. His mouth dropped in disbelief. Was she actually saying goodbye to him on a piano bench as if she’d go poof?
Then she gave him the most heartbreaking smile. “You have my heart.”
With those words her hands resolutely came down on the keys, and powerful music filled the cathedral in a torrential wave of sound. The organ pipes opened, bellowing chords like an ancient bugle call on a mountainside to herald in something magnificent.
Magellan’s hands flew over the keys as she played Bach’s masterpiece in a wild tempest of notes.
The grandeur was staggering. Rhys could only look on stunned as her hands moved faster and faster—the music growing louder and louder and more and more until the air around Magellan seemed to glow and crackle.
She continued to play on like a charioteer riding into the eye of the storm. Then lights began to swirl around her.
At first Rhys thought his eyes were playing tricks on him.
He blinked, then he blinked again.
To his astonishment her body began to fade within a shroud of rainbows. The ring on her hand was glowing with the brilliance of a star.
She was disappearing right before his eyes.
Rhys didn’t second-guess his actions. He lunged to grab on to her right before she vanished.
Falling to his knees, he wrapped his arms around her waist and suddenly he was enveloped within the brilliance too, falling and flying, as the world around him fractured and then splintered into infinite prisms of light.