40
FINN
Through the branches, Veyron Hall was visible across a stretch of open ground. The manor looked prosperous. There was new stonework on the tower, and the gardens were more expansive and well-tended. A new stable, large enough to house dozens of horses, stood near the rear of the manor.
Cecily stopped beside him, staring at the distant buildings.
“How will we get onto the estate without being noticed?” she asked.
Finn glanced at her. “Don’t forget, I used to live here. I know a way.”
He turned and headed deeper into the woods. They moved carefully through the undergrowth, staying in the shadows. Finn paused every few minutes to listen. Nothing. No sounds of workers or guards nearby. Just birds twittering and the gentle rustle of leaves.
Finn knew this land—every path, every stream, every stand of trees.
He’d played in the fields, fished in the streams, climbed the tallest trees.
It felt strange approaching his family’s estate like a trespasser.
These had been his lands once. His home.
He would have inherited all of it, along with the title, had he not disappeared with Cecily.
Now he was sneaking through the forest to spy on his own house.
The trees opened up slightly ahead. Finn stopped.
There it was. The old oak near the south wall.
He’d climbed it many times as a boy. The branches spread wide over the estate wall, reaching toward the manor.
From the upper limbs, you could see directly into the solar windows.
The tree was taller now, thicker. The years showed in the trunk’s width and the spread of its canopy.
“That one,” Finn said, pointing. Cecily looked up at the massive oak. “I used to climb it when I was young.” He studied the branches, mapping the route up. “The solar windows are just there. We’ll be able to see inside, but the branches will hide us.”
They crossed the last stretch of forest floor, checking once more for any sign of movement. All was quiet.
Finn reached the trunk first. The lowest branch was higher than he remembered, but he pulled himself up easily enough. His ribs protested, but he pushed through. He climbed to the second branch, then the third, testing each one.
“Here,” he called down in a low voice, extending his arm. “Come up.”
Cecily hiked up her skirts and reached for the first branch. Finn leaned down, caught her hand, and helped pull her up.
They settled into the branches about fifteen paces above the ground. Leaves concealed them on all sides. Through a gap in the foliage, Finn had a clear view of the solar window, about ten paces away.
The room was empty. There was an embroidery frame by the window, books stacked on a shelf, and a cushioned chair.
They waited. The sun moved. Finn’s legs cramped. Beside him, Cecily barely moved, her eyes fixed on the window. Neither of them spoke.
Finn watched the empty solar and tried not to think about what lay beyond those walls, his father’s hall, his father’s table, the rooms where he’d grown up. His own private suite as the oldest son. He wondered if his portrait still hung on the wall.
Then the door opened.
Someone entered the solar, a woman moving slowly. She wore fine clothes, a gown of deep blue, sleeves embroidered with silver thread. A veil covered her hair.
She crossed to the open window, her head down, and sank into the chair as if the short walk had exhausted her.
When she turned slightly toward the window, Finn saw her face clearly.
Beside him, Cecily made a strangled sound. He grabbed her arm to steady her.
Fair hair beneath the veil. Pale skin. Delicate features. The woman in the solar looked ill. She was thin and drawn, with shadows beneath her eyes. Her blue eyes had lost their focus, fixed on something beyond the room. But the face was unmistakable.
It was Cecily’s face.
“That’s…” Cecily’s voice came out barely a whisper. “How is it…?”
Finn couldn’t answer. He was staring at the woman in the window, trying to make sense of what he was seeing.
He glanced from the frail figure in the window to the girl beside him, her breath warm and solid in the cool air. The same face, yet one was fading while the other was vibrantly real.
The woman in the window picked up the embroidery from the frame. Her hands trembled as she held the needle. After a moment, she set it down again and simply sat, staring out at nothing.
“I don’t understand,” Cecily whispered. “How can I be in two places at once? Is it really me?”
“I don’t know.”
“Is she me?”
“I think so.”
“Then how can both of us be real?”
Finn could not answer. Anton’s words echoed in his memory—something about time branching, splitting, if the past was changed.
But what had they changed? When? He scrambled for a single moment that could have done this and found nothing.
He looked from the pale woman in the window to the Cecily beside him.
“I don’t know,” he said, his voice rough. “But I think… that is you.”
They watched the woman in the solar. Lady Veyron. The other Cecily. She looked so tired. So alone.
“Did this happen because we didn’t go forward ten years, as we’d planned?” Cecily whispered. “We only came one year, and now there’s two of me?”
Finn struggled to find words. “Maybe. Or when we first escaped together from our time—when we changed what was supposed to happen—it created another path, a path where things went differently.”
“Then she’s real. She’s actually me, living a different life.”
“I…” Finn shook his head. “I think so.”
Cecily stared at the woman in the window. The woman inside hadn’t moved. She just sat there, her hands folded in her lap.
The door to the solar opened again. Another woman entered. Dark-haired, wearing a matron’s gown.
“Isabel,” Cecily whispered to Finn. “Julian’s sister.”
Isabel sat in the chair opposite Lady Veyron. They spoke, though Finn couldn’t hear their words from his perch in the tree. He could see the concern on Isabel’s face as she reached across and touched the Lady Veyron’s hand.
Then heavy footsteps sounded in the corridor. Both women went rigid. Isabel’s expression became a mask of panic; she stood quickly, whispered something, and fled the room just as the footsteps passed the door without stopping.
The other Cecily was alone again. She sat very still in the fading light. One hand rested on the arm of her chair. The other lay in her lap. She laid her head back and stared out the window at the gardens beyond, not seeing their hiding place in the tree. Finn didn’t think she was seeing anything.
She looks like someone who has forgotten why she walked into a room, but keeps standing in the doorway anyway.
Beside him, Cecily made a small sound. Not quite a sob. Just a sharp breath in.
He took her hand and thought of the other Cecily sitting in her chair by the window, alone and ill. If he could hold on to this Cecily, was he also holding on to the other one?
Finn thought about Anton’s warning.
“One of them has to win out.”
He looked at Cecily beside him, alive, here, safe for now. Then at the woman in the window, pale, weak, trapped.
Both real. Both her.
A servant entered the solar, spoke to the other Cecily, Lady de Veyron. She rose slowly, unsteadily, swaying for a moment, then followed the servant out. The room was empty again.
“We have to help her,” Cecily said. Finn saw there were tears in her eyes, and something tightened in his chest at the raw anguish on her face.
Finn didn’t answer immediately. If the timelines couldn’t stay split, what happened to whichever version lost? When had the timeline split?
Finn said, “If she’s real, if this is another version of events that actually happened, or happen, I don’t know how we help her without…” He struggled to find the words. “Without changing everything all over again.”
“Then what do we do?”
Finn looked at the empty solar. “We need to understand what’s happening here first,” he said. “Why things are so different in this timeline. Then we’ll know what we’re trying to fix.”
Cecily did not speak.
“We should go,” Finn said. “It will be dark soon.”
They climbed down as twilight deepened. Finally, as the lights of the town appeared ahead, Cecily said quietly, “We must know what happened to her. To me. Why she’s so sick. Why she married him when I was able to escape.”
“Tomorrow,” Finn said. “We’ll come back tomorrow.”
Then Cecily said, “If we wait too long, I’ll be dead.”