The Time Traveller’s Tongue

Chapter 1

Thealina

‘At least he doesn’t hit me’—isn’t that what we say? It’s what I have said. Countless times. Over and over, convincing myself to stay with him just a little bit longer as the words ‘in case’ haunted my mind. In case he’ll change. In case it’s the wrong decision. In case he’s my true soulmate.

In case no one else will ever love me, talk to me, be with me. Touch me.

In case.

In case.

In case.

‘At least he doesn’t hit me’—no, he just abused my mind and soul. Warped it with constant derision, hollowed me out by verbal cruelty and neglect, belittled me into silence. I am emotionally emaciated but not touch deprived.

Never touch deprived.

“Careful. Eyes draw eyes.”

The black fog scatters, my brain catches up to what, or who, I’d been watching before I slipped yet again into the gutter of my mind, thinking of my husband.

Surroundings rush back into view as smells and sounds peck at my brain, overstimulating me.

Burnt coffee and sticky syrup pastries creep up my nose as the clanking of porcelain cups and high-pitched animated chatter batters my eardrums.

“Not all who pull you closer, do so with their hands.”

What?

My head whips to the side to see the owner of those spoken words so fast pain tweaks in the stretched muscle of my neck.

I wince, rubbing at the spot, taking in the black, curly haired woman sat at the other side of my small table outside the café.

Mature, but still so beautiful with her dark, gentle eyes and deep sun-kissed skin.

My mouth opens to ask her the meaning, but I snap it shut. I can’t speak to her.

I literally can’t.

She smiles at me; her gentle eyes fill with a kind of knowing that makes me squirm and sweat.

Being rude isn’t my nature, but I didn’t come here for company.

She shifts her observant gaze from me to the Portal Master across the street—the man I’ve been tailing.

His hand rests in the pocket of his dark grey trousers whilst the other squeezes the bridge of his nose as a group of older patrons throw their arms up in the air, talking loudly over each other trying to dominate the quarrel over the next portal travel to Alarithia, the Air lands.

He’s been at this for a while with them. Even I’m exhausted by this drawn-out heated exchange. They can’t seem to understand that until further notice, travel to Alarithia has halted until the life-threatening gales die down.

With the lack of brain cells they’ve displayed, I’d have opened the portal and booted them through. Let mother-nature decide if they live or die for their stupidity. Natural selection.

This woman is right though, I am drawn to him, but not in the way she thinks. Sure, he’s handsome with his dark eyes and chocolate coloured close cropped hair with longer, sweepy strands on top. Fit and strong looking too, but it’s his brain I seek, his knowledge, his ability.

“Fate favours the bold…”

Does she…

“Or the desperate.”

My eyes narrow at this random woman who keeps her gaze on the Portal Master while I burn holes in the side of her face. A tight curl blows across her cheek, though she doesn’t move to swipe it away.

She can’t possibly know…

“Here,” she says, riffling through her tan satchel. “No ink is needed.” She places a cream feathered quill on the table beside the saucer holding my uneaten strawberry tart. “And this, will never run out of pages.” A thin, leather-bound book is slid next to the quill.

I examine the gifts, smelling the potent leather before I glance up and quirk a brow; she doesn’t grant me any elaboration.

“Only those intended can read your words.”

This woman gets more peculiar by the second. Odd, because a quill never needing ink and a notebook with infinite of pages is useful to someone like me. A notebook only to be read by those of my choosing. But how… how does she know this? Who is she?

A witch maybe… or a seer?

Or am I that transparent I may as well walk around with a written sign on my back — ‘Hidden time traveller required as voiceless wench seeks retribution’ — because that won’t get me flogged in the town square.

Or perhaps they will leave me in the hands of my husband, for him to take something else from me.

She holds my stare. Our eyes lock as we scrutinise each other.

My brain aches deciphering how much she knows, and I fight the urge to rub my temple.

She cannot see how much her presence has jittered me, for if she knows, then I’m not safe, because what I’m about to do, or try to do, goes against a law enacted many, many moons ago.

And if caught, there’s no merciful trial.

No time spent in a local prison chamber and let out with a slap on the wrist. It is instant death.

Execution by the Chief Enforcer himself.

“Miss Mallory, the carpenter has fixed the cartwheel. We’re ready when you are.”

A young, stocky, uniformed man looms over us, his wide shadow blocks out the warm beams of the mid-morning sun as the insignia of the Prison Guard Service glints on the left breast of his ceremonial dress.

Ok, this gets weirder.

So, a beautiful stranger, Mallory, seemingly knows what I need to achieve getting what I want from who I have been spying on recently, is being escorted somewhere by a member of His Majesty the King’s Prison Guard Service, yet no nullifying cuffs shackle her wrists.

And breathe.

I inadvertently shake my head. Perhaps I bumped it on the oak table a little too hard this morning when I stood from cleaning my kitchen floor.

This was after my wretched mother-in-law decided it was a good idea to traipse in mud, shit and straw from the chicken coop we have in our back garden.

A floor I had already scrubbed hours earlier.

My fingers drift to the crown of my head as the phantom pain pulses.

“Thank you, Maxim.” She pats the guard’s bicep as she stands, chewing her bottom lip and narrows her brows like she’s warring with herself on whether to leave as is or walk away with some parting words.

She bends down, so close her lavender scent overpowers the smells of the café and her lips so close to my ear her warm breath tickles the tiny hairs on the back of my neck.

My body fights a shudder. My mouth aches to open, my throat—voice—screaming to be used.

To tell her to get out of my space and leave me be.

Leave me with my thoughts, my pain, my dilemma.

My ultimate demise.

“His fate has yet to be carved into stone. It may be undone.”

I jerk away, my eyes glaring into hers as the screaming voice inside me pleads for me to demand answers from her in an instant. I can’t. My throat grows a thick, hard lump. Hot and painful as my fingers twitch, resisting the urge to grip her wrist and yank her back to me.

I don’t do any of that. I watch her walk away. Her form smaller and smaller as she strolls beside the guard with a slight limp to his gait to a carriage down the cobbled road.

As if sensing me, she looks back, her smile radiant. I swallow hard, the smile this strange woman gifts me is oddly… comforting. It falters for a moment and her gaze drifts down to the leather notebook on the table before she holds her guard’s hand and hoists herself into the carriage.

A whip rings in the air, hooves beat against the cobblestones, horses’ nostrils puff wide, sucking in their next breath to pull the carriage in the direction of the royal castle up on the hill.

My lungs painfully expand as I open the notebook, though the words staring back at me siphon all the oxygen I crammed in.

‘More will be taken from you next time.’

My head spins and my soul shatters once again. Sweaty palms and trembling fingers have the notebook landing back on the table with a thud.

‘At least he didn’t hit me’ is something I can no longer say. Something I can no longer use as an excuse to stay, because he did put his hands on me. He and his mother pinned me down, held a knife to my mouth and stole my voice.

He silenced me in a most barbaric way.

He cut out my fucking tongue.

…But I’m getting it back.