Chapter 10
Time’s Running Out
The next day was largely uneventful, with Apollo coming into Maya’s room to make sure that she ate and moved around some. Her body didn’t seem to be entirely under her control, which upset her, but it wasn’t the first time in her life.
He was helping her walk around the room when there was a knock on the door.
“Daddy! I have—” A little girl with black hair came charging into the room, a book in her hand. She stopped and looked at Maya, her large gray eyes staring at her. “Oh.”
Still holding Maya up, Apollo said, “Misty, honey. Please return to the living room. I need to help Miss Maya for now, but we are almost done.”
“Okay,” the girl said, looking between them.
Maya smiled, “No, it’s okay. She can stay in here.”
Apollo immediately started to nix the idea. “I don’t—”
However, his daughter was faster, and she put her hands together, the book crushed between them, “Please, Daddy. I want to try reading the book. I’ve been practicing.”
“I would love to listen to you read,” Maya said, her voice light and friendly. “I haven’t been read to in a few years, and I’m very tired.”
“I can read you to sleep!” the little girl said, bouncing on the balls of her feet. Her curls bounced around the side of her head, exposing streaks of yellow that matched her father’s. “Please, Daddy!”
Apollo spoke in a low voice, “You don’t have to do this, Maya.”
“Oh, please. You are the only person I’ve had to talk to in several days. So unless you want to get my tablet for me, I would love a bit of a change.”
“Who are you, and where is Maya?” he asked, a smile playing around the corners of his mouth.
She laughed and pushed his chest, causing her legs to buckle under her.
Apollo was leading her to the bed as the girl followed. “Is she learning to walk?”
“She’s been … hurt, Misty, so she’s having to relearn a few things.”
“I can teach her to walk. See, I’m good at it.” She then walked around the bed. “You put one foot in front of the other, but you can also grab onto things. Like this.” Her little hand stretched out and pushed down on the bed.
“You are right, Misty,” Maya said as Apollo helped her onto the bed. “But I’m a bit taller than you, so it’s easier to use your father to walk around.”
The kid nodded. “He’s much taller than you, so he couldn’t use you.”
Maya smiled. “You are right about that. What book do you have there?”
The girl bounced over and put a picture book on the bed. With a bit of help from her father, she was able to sit in the chair he usually used when he was helping Maya eat or when they talked. “It’s about lunar dragons. Daddy says they are gone, but they are still alive in books.”
Maya looked over at Apollo. “Really? You think they are all gone?”
“Maybe we should get another book, Misty.” Apollo avoided Maya’s gaze as he looked at his daughter.
“No, no,” Maya said, reaching out to stop the girl from getting out of the chair. “I want to hear the story.”
Misty launched into the tale. With a bit of help from her father, she was able to get through all of it, even adding some voices that sounded much too deep to be her own.
Maya realized the child was trying to imitate the voices her father made when he read the book, and she couldn’t help but smile when the girl wasn’t looking.
Otherwise, she gasped and looked concerned at the right times.
She took a particular interest in the images that the girl showed her, although there were far fewer of them than Maya had expected.
Finally, the child closed the book and beamed. “The end!”
“Beautifully done, sweetheart.” Apollo kissed his daughter on the head. “You are getting to be quite a proficient reader. Next thing you know, you’ll be stealing books from Uncle Cosmo.”
“No! I will always ask because I don’t want to steal.”
Apollo smiled wide, “That’s right, honey. I misspoke. If you would like to, please go see if Uncle Cosmo will order dinner.”
“Can we have pizza?”
“Ask your uncle. If he says yes, then we’ll have pizza.”
“Yeah!” The girl threw her arms in the air to celebrate, then she pushed herself off of the chair. Something told Maya that Uncle Cosmo was easily persuaded by the little girl, so it was a foregone conclusion what dinner would be. As soon as her feet hit the floor, Misty raced out of the room.
“Cosmo is here?” Maya looked up at Apollo.
“Yes, he is. And Naomi is spending a lot of time here. Can’t say that it’s too surprising.”
“So … they’ve already left the island?” Maya looked confused. Apollo nodded. “But I thought he wanted to find his mate.”
“Yes. And he did.”
Maya frowned, “Who?”
Apollo tilted his head to the side. “Naomi, apparently.”
Maya felt like her brain had stopped working. “Really?” Memories of him expressing an interest in her business partner were starting to come back, but it seemed surreal to see it actually happen.
Again, he nodded. “I haven’t had much time to talk to them. Between taking care of you and Misty, my hands are too full to discuss much.”
“Huh,” Maya sat still and looked at a picture on the wall. “Naomi found a mate. And it’s Cosmo. I’m not sure how to feel about that.”
“Me neither.” He smiled at her. “Now it’s time for you to get a bit of sleep. If you would like, I can—”
“Cullen!” Maya nearly shouted, her eyes getting wide. “I have to get to my shop!” She swung her legs over the bed, still feeling a bit wobbly.
“Whoa, whoa! Hold on, Maya, you need to rest.”
“I’m running out of time, Apollo. I have already taught him how to work with glass and clay. I saw what we made at the wedding.”
“What—you saw something you haven’t done yet?” He looked confused.
“I have to get back to make sure it happens. I will not create a time paradox like my grandmother did. She killed thousands with it!”
“I don’t understand, Maya.”
“I was intercepted on my way home and was forced onto the island. I need to make sure that I am at my shop to help Cullen make something for his brother’s wedding.” She rubbed her head. “I have to bend time twice to make things work. And time is running out.”
“You are in no state to go anywhere.”
“You are right. I can’t do it alone. I’ll bend time so that it is just after the wedding. You take me to my shop—I won’t run into myself that way. Then I can bend time again for Cullen, so we don’t have to fold time around us twice. It feels suffocating enough just bending it once.”
“Wait, Maya, I think we need to—”
Maya wasn’t listening as she shimmied her body so that the dress she wore that night appeared on her.
Next, she looked at Apollo, her mind cycling back to the first time she had seen him.
Once she had his attire in mind, she redressed him to match her memory.
Then she wrapped time around them, taking them back to the time right before she was accosted by the woman outside of the venue.
Standing in the same bedroom, nearly a week earlier, Maya felt a little off, but her body was much stronger. “Okay. Let’s go.”
Apollo looked a little pale as he said, “I’m not sure—”
“Right! You don’t know where to go.” Forming a memory in her hand, she reached up and pressed the directions into his mind. “There. Now, we need to—”
“Daddy!” Misty ran into the room. “I thought you left! Can we read?” She stopped and looked at Maya. “Who is that?”
Apollo looked at his daughter, not sure what to say as his mind tried to catch up with everything that had happened. Maya leaned over and said in a low voice, “If you want to bring her, my shop is safe.”
“I have no idea what is happening,” he said softly.
“I’m avoiding a time paradox. Since I know that it has already happened, I need to ensure that it happens. That’s where I was going after Sasha and Noel’s wedding, and Cullen was asking when he could do it again, which means that we have already done it.”
Apollo squeezed his eyes shut and turned his head, as if nothing had yet sunk in. “You said you were getting ready for bed.” He looked at her. “That’s what you told us before going upstairs at the bed and breakfast.”
Maya blushed and looked down. “I just said that to get you guys to leave me alone. I was actually heading to my shop.”
“Please, Daddy! I want to go out too!”
To her surprise, Apollo seemed to accept the situation far faster than she expected. As he looked between his daughter and Maya, he asked, “Are you sure a five-year-old will be safe?”
“I swear that your daughter will not be harmed. Cullen seems like a great kid, but he’s a bit too eager, so I clearly chose something that will ensure he doesn’t hurt himself.”
“He’s still a decade older than Misty, so safety is a very different consideration for my daughter.”
“I have something she can do. Will you allow her to paint?”
Apollo looked at his daughter, who was looking up at them with wide eyes. Instead of arguing with Maya, he asked, “Misty, how would you like to go paint some animals?”
She started bouncing, her curls going all over the place as she clapped and started screeching, “Yeah!”
Maya smiled. “She’s very enthusiastic. I hope that she’s able to retain that well into adulthood.”
“Me too,” Apollo murmured. He looked at Maya as they followed Misty out of the room and into a long hallway, “Are you sure you are up for it? I mean, you are barely able to walk on your own.”
“That’s one of the benefits of time bending. Existing twice in one place strengthens me. Don’t ask why, because I have absolutely no idea. I just know that I generally feel stronger when I do it. Until I return.”
“Will there be a strong adverse reaction when you return? Will you be considerably weaker?”
“Very likely. But I’ll deal with it when the time comes. For now, I just want to make sure the timeline continues as it should.”
Apollo didn’t say anything in response. Instead, he looked as calm and composed as usual.