Chapter 12
TWELVE
What had I become while seeking justice for the dead?
The Pearl Ward
Dragon Heights, Wyoming
I returned to the precise moment I had skipped into the past, opening the bathroom door to emerge into the hectic arcade. Somehow, I kept from bursting into tears at the sight of the children running around and playing, many of them without their parents close enough to yank them out of danger.
But the truth of Adam’s death lingered, digging deep claws into me.
His mother had been close. His mother had been attentive. She had simply turned her attention off him for a mere moment, taking care of her responsibilities for him, a little life fully dependent on her.
I forced myself into motion, heading to the nearby table where my husband waited for me.
Judging from the weight in my purse, the sickle had slipped through the sands of time, remaining with me.
That would lead to an interesting conversation.
What had I become while seeking justice for the dead? Who would I become?
More importantly, who would I choose to become?
I sat, placing my purse on the table with care.
“You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” Erik commented, tilting his head to the side. “What happened?”
“I had a thought. Actually, I had many thoughts. But before I share those thoughts with you, I have a question. How long has this diner been here?”
I eyed the space, and now that I had been to the past and seen some parts of the truth, I could tell how it had once been a warehouse, with the industrial beams along the roof and the room’s height, gargantuan compared to most restaurants.
I spotted something I remembered from the past, the rail for the permanent crane system along the wall.
Pointing at it, I said, “Isn’t that for a crane in a warehouse? ”
Erik twisted around for a better look, and he chuckled.
“It is. And yes, this was a warehouse once upon a time. I’d guess it was converted into this place maybe fifty years ago?
Possibly a little longer.” Snatching his phone, he tapped at the screen.
“Forty-five years ago, it was purchased and renovated, opening forty years ago, as the renovation project took longer than expected. Good catch. But why would that make you look like you just saw a ghost? And don’t even think about trying to trick me.
You’ve seen enough of them lately for me to know what you look like after seeing one. ”
“I saw a ghost,” I confirmed. “I saw a few ghosts. Most importantly, I saw Adam’s ghost.”
“Adam Merorie’s?” Erik whispered, his eyes widening.
I nodded. “The date of his death is wrong. He died about a year earlier. May 2, 2034. His mother was grilling, and he climbed onto a table, got into a tree, and broke his neck when he fell.”
Erik stared at me, and his mouth dropped open. For a long moment, he spluttered before swallowing and saying, “But the records say he died in a car accident, a hit and run to be specific.”
“The records are wrong. There was no hit and run. There was no car. He fell from a tree. It was just an accident. She took her eyes off him for just a moment. He was an agile and quick little boy. And when he died, he was upset his mommy was crying, and he wanted her to know he was sorry.”
“That explains why you’re so rattled. That’s terrible.”
I nodded. “And like with the other ghosts, I could interact with him. I lied to him, Erik. I lied and made it seem like everything was okay and that he hadn’t done anything wrong. I just wanted him to rest.”
“Necromancy requires the soul, and if the soul is at rest, it can’t be brought back, which is why she failed.
She couldn’t use a conjured body to move his soul like Monster had been moved.
His soul was no longer present, no longer lingering.
He’d been sent to his rest at the moment of his death, and even if she had known necromancy then, you’d released him.
” My husband’s brows furrowed, and he took a sip of his water.
“But that would be a paradox. When he died, you hadn’t been born yet.
His soul should have been available for her to capture. ”
“Or I rewrote history and we have no way of knowing it,” I whispered.
“Or he found his rest without my intervention. Or she somehow released him to his rest unwittingly. Or someone else beat me to him, but then I rewrote it a little. But I didn’t see her trying any necromancy.
She clutched his body and cried. She had no doubt he had died.
But perhaps that was the moment her madness began.
Maybe he lingered a little longer before moving on?
He... He seemed like a sweet child. At the very end, he just wanted one last hug. ”
Erik winced. “Which you gave him, probably while crying your heart out, because that’s how you are.”
“I didn’t cry, but when we get home, I will be burrowing under the covers and doing so.” I eyed my purse, wondering how I would explain the other part of my split-second journey through space and time. Inhaling until my lungs hurt, I braced for the worst, pulled open the zipper, and peeked inside.
Sure enough, the sickle waited, and as though understanding there would be problems if caught, it had reduced its sunny glow to the faintest of hints, revealing a series of ancient runes along the curved blade.
I turned my purse and showed him the ancient relic.
“Madam Merorie got her hands on the body of a deceased girl, one who dripped water from her slit wrist. She had cut it to create a barrier to protect the city of Uruk from a catastrophic flood. Some military group stole her body from an oasis and sold it at auction, separating her from her sickle. This sickle.” I gulped.
“It was in a warehouse in England, and it burned its way out of its box, Erik. I picked it up and put it in my purse. And now it’s here. ”
Erik bowed his head and groaned. “You influenced the past?”
“I think I did it in a sensible way at least? It seemed abandoned in a warehouse. I mean, it just looked like an old sickle at the time. Well, mostly.”
“I’m guessing the glowing runes counts as the mostly.”
I nodded.
“You better tell me everything that happened, from the top.”
I closed my purse and set it on the floor beside me, careful to loop the strap around my ankle so nobody would make off with it and its precious cargo. “You believe me?”
“Considering I watched you pack your purse, and you did not slip a sickle in it, yeah. Also, you don’t own a sickle.
You also can barely handle English let alone another language, and that’s definitely another language on the blade.
As such, even the impossible seems to be possible unless we were both hit with some form of hallucinogenic compound, one that happened to influence us in the same exact way.
I mean, my father can transform into a massive dragon.
And you’re definitely kin to chrome dragons.
Timeskipping is just the most common type of chrome power.
There are chrome dragons who can influence time itself, but they’re few and far between.
And your purple powers already let you see back into the past. Perhaps your chrome heritage is enhancing your purple powers? ”
I shrugged. “I don’t know, and I’m not sure who I can ask without either becoming an experiment or drawing unwanted attention to myself.”
“There will be no experimentation upon your person unless it is me doing it. I’m allowed to experiment on you, as long as I’m doing so in mutually beneficial fashions, preferably in our bed.”
One day, my yellow hatchling’s libido would get us both into trouble.
“As I’m likely to be overwhelmed with guilt over this for quite possibly the rest of my life, should we happen to have a son, we should name him Adam.
We can’t bring him back from the dead, nor should we try to, but at least we can make sure there is a little boy named Adam who is loved just as much.
And that I can confirm, Erik. She truly and deeply loved her son. ”
“And the circumstances of his death must have broken her completely.” Erik heaved a sigh. “How utterly tragic.”
“A car accident is also tragic, but I’m wondering how she managed to concoct such lies. There was never any car. I guess she needed a front for the ‘official’ death certificate. But Adam was only four when he died, not five. And that leaves the matter of who was buried in his place.”
“That’s under investigation, and I don’t have the information at this point, but I’ll ask tomorrow at work. But now we have more problems than I care thinking about. Who was that girl? Where is she now? How are we going to transport her body back to Iraq of all places?”
“And how are we going to transport her without the military group that stole her in the first place returning to her oasis? Then there’s the issue of that minefield.”
“That was hundreds of years ago, Kinsley. That militant group has probably forgotten she exists by now. I mean, she was sold hundreds of years after she was stolen from her oasis in the first place. I think we need to try to build a proper timeline of events—and see what we can learn from the other victims. This case is a mess.”
That it was. “You work on the timeline, I’ll work on the financials.
If we’re going to find the trafficked victims before they’re sold and transported, we need to find better leads and we need to find them now.
However much I hate to say it, the girl isn’t going to be hurt if she waits a little longer.
I do want to reunite her with her sickle as quickly as possible, but those trafficking victims might lose their lives if we don’t hurry. ”
The arrival of the waiter put an end to our conversation, and I decided to handle the situation maturely, choosing to eat my feelings. I ordered roast beef with mashed potatoes, cheese sticks, a piece of apple pie, a piece of cherry pie, and a chocolate milkshake.