A Midsummer's Day (14 page)

“Balmer!”

The constables were halfway up the Dead Road.  They stopped and turned.

“Arrest the gypsy.  Put her in the stocks to stay all the night.  She be charged with witchcraft.”

The constables smiled.  It was a job they could do with little trouble.  One that would not incur the wrath of their master.  Arresting a young lass, nude at that, would be far easier than finding that despicable Puck.

“Come, wench,” Balmer said as he approached the witch.  “Back on with thy dress.”

“Nay,” Jameson said.  “Leave her without it.”

The constable’s smile grew even larger.  He pulled the gypsy up the path.

Tacyn struggled against Balmer’s strong grasp until the man was forced to grab her around the waist.  “Your time be hence, Jameson Kent,” she spat.  “Mark you my words.  Your time be hence.”

Jameson’s lips curled into a smile.  “Ever have I sought to treat thee most harshly, lads,” he told his men.  “Make thyselves a gift of the girl, and continue thy search for Puck and Anne anon.”

Chapter 14

There had been a time, a lifetime ago it felt like now, that Sammie wished she could have really spent a day in a Tudor Era Midsummer festival. 

Now that wish had come true, in the most horrible way.  Now all she wanted was to get back to her own time.  To hear somebody on their phones during her show, to hear the most annoying of ringtones interrupt her singing.

Right now, a harsh, unending ringtone would be music to her ears.

It was deadly silent as they walked through the nearest street of tents, decorated with brightly colored banners and standards bearing the crests of several of the higher ranking noble families of England.  The grandest tent, three times bigger than any around it, bore standards decorated with the red and white Tudor rose.  It was Queen Elizabeth’s tent.

The flags fluttered like shredded plastic blowing in the hot breeze of an apocalyptic city.  They were nothing but signs of the end of the world.

The end of their world.

The Mayans said that the apocalypse wouldn’t happen until December.

“This is horrible.”  She could barely hear herself.  She shuffled through the caramelized air, through the thick fear and almost impenetrable horror.

“Did you think the time change happened only inside the grounds?”  Vaughn poked his head into tent after tent.

“I was hoping.”  Her voice cracked.  She choked back a sob.  If she didn’t keep it together…

Another asthma attack would be too much.

He popped his head out of the tent he’d been looking in.  “Yeah.  Me too.”

Tears forced themselves from the confines of her eyes, but she swiped them away.  “If this happened to the whole world…  We are royally screwed.”

Vaughn draped his arm around her shoulder.  His touch was the only thing that brought her any amount of comfort anymore, and it tore her heart apart when he let her go.  He took her and turned her so they were looking eye to eye.

“We’re going to be okay, Sam,” he said with conviction, a wry smile splitting his lips.  “We won’t be in this time forever, and something in these tents is going to lead us back.”

He was so confident.  So sure of the way things were going.  Why wasn’t he as afraid as she was?  What did he know that she didn’t? 

She wiped her eyes.  “How do you know?”

Before he could answer, a blast of heat hit them.  Hard.

“Come on,” Vaughn said.  “It’s got to be cooler in the tents.”

“What if there’s someone in there?”  She gasped.  She willed her asthma to stay hidden, to stay locked in the flimsy cage that kept it at bay only part of the time. 

“Everyone’s at the faire.  You need to get out of the sun for a bit.”  He opened a tent and shooed her inside.

If they hadn’t already been transported backwards in time, this tent would have been their portal.

She ran a finger over the blue and white porcelain water basin and pitcher.  Over the smooth cherry wood of the nightstand.  An ornate carpet disguised the grass, and the walls of the tent were decorated with intricately woven tapestries depicting stories of Roman mythology and the history of England’s kings and queens.  The heavy poster bed was nearly identical to the one in the bedroom slash break room, save for the lighter cornflower curtains.  A chaise lounge rested nearby, covered in the same cornflower blue.

Nobles really did travel with everything, didn’t they?

“Okay, now this is weird.”  Vaughn bent over a gilt writing desk at the other end of the tent.

“What is?”

He handed her something small.

It was fortunate that the chaise was directly behind her.  Her legs gave out as she looked at the thing Vaughn had given her.  It was a simple silver frame, no smaller than a tablet or a book.  Inside…

The painted version of herself sat stiffly in her Court dress.  Behind her, with his hand tightly gripping her shoulder, was the Lord High Sheriff in his finest black clothes.

Her heart fluttered wildly.  Despite the marked coolness in the tent, her breath came in painfully short gasps.  “Is this Jameson’s tent?”

“Or yours.”  Vaughn sat next to her.

She couldn’t take her eyes off of the painted woman staring back at her.  There was no sign of the boldness that Sammie prided herself for when she played Anne.  Either the artist had done a good job painting out the strong will and the defiance from her face.  Or…

The thought hurt.  The thought that Anne, her strong Anne, had been broken.  That the Lord High Sheriff, or some other male in her life, had beaten out everything that was good about Anne Halloway.  Everything that made Anne who she was, and why she was loved by all the tourists she interacted with.

It would explain why the Sheriff went off the way he did, when he found her and Vaughn together on the stage. 

She dropped the picture face down on the carpet.  “I don’t like this, Vaughn.  It’s too creepy.”

“I think we were led to this specific tent for a reason,” Vaughn said calmly.

His confidence started to sting worse than salt on a wound.  “How do you know?” she implored.

He pulled something from his waistband and handed it to her.  Parchment.  Dry and brittle, as if, even in 1586, it was ancient.  “Somebody’s helping us,” he said.  “This is how I knew where to find you, Sam.  This is how I knew to come out here.  Whoever left it left me this outfit.”

Her eyes passed over the strange riddles.  Vaughn explained how the dragon and the den of danger led him to the bedroom.  Sherwood Forest needed no explanation.  That’s what everyone who worked at the faire called the parking lot.

But the last part…  “What air lingers shalt not remain.”  If that meant what it sounded like…  If it was talking about her asthma…

Had she nearly died?

She shook the thought from her head, focusing instead on less devastating thoughts.  Like who wrote the note.  Who left the fancy scripted initial T at the bottom of the page?  “Who is this mysterious T?  They must be aware of what’s going on.”

“I found the outfit and the note behind Gypsy Way,” Vaughn said.

“A hive full of psychics and fortune tellers.”

He nodded.  “We always thought the gypsy from this morning might know something.”  Vaughn stood.  “I think we should go and try to find her.”

“I don’t want to go back in there,” she whispered.  Going back inside meant the possibility of being found.  Going back inside meant the possibility of seeing Joh… Jameson.  Jameson would send Vaughn to the block.  He would beat her again.

She never thought she’d be so scared of the man she loved.

“I know you’re scared, Sammie.”  Vaughn knelt in front of her and grabbed her hands.  “I’m scared too.  But it’s getting late and the faire is going to shut down for the night soon.  Those inside will be coming back out.  It’ll be safer inside.  Even the note said that we’d only find temporary safety out here.”

“But why send us out here only to have us go back in?”  This wild goose chase they were on didn’t make any sense.

“I don’t know.”  Vaughn stood and held out his hand.  “Let’s find out together.”

Sammie smiled.  She took his hand, and he pulled her to her feet.  There was nobody else she’d rather go through this with.  There was nobody else she felt safe enough with to go back into the heart of danger with.  There was…

There was nobody else.  Period.

Vaughn smiled back.  “Let’s get going before they start pouring out.”

“We can’t go through the gates.”

“No.  We’ll go the long way around.  We can get to the Pits from there.”

<>

The long way around meant exactly that.  They were in the right front corner of the grounds.  The Pits and the pond were in the very back left corner of the grounds. 

They stayed between the second and third rows of tents, protected from the gaze of some overly observant eye from within the grounds.  But still they kept their eyes on the landmarks of the festival.  The maze.  The camel ride.  The back of the weapons throwing game.  As long as they kept the faire on their right shoulder, they were good.  To get lost in this never ending sea of tents would bring them capture at best, and death at worst.

They took their time, speeding up only when they began to hear voices amongst the tents.  Yet Sammie’s asthma came back in full force.  Before the end of Caravan Way, Vaughn had to hold her up.

By the time the mud stage came into view, he was carrying her.

He laid her on the soft grass behind the stage so she faced the pond.  “Are you all right?”  He brushed stray hair from her face.

Sammie shivered, her heart fluttering wildly.  His fingers tingled on her skin as he let them linger on her unbruised cheek.  His chocolate eyes glowed like gems in the late day sun.

She turned, hiding her scarlet cheeks.  She took a shaking breath.

The cool breeze blowing in from the water soothed her lungs.  But not enough.  “This is ridiculous.  I won’t be any good if…”

She gasped.  Damn.  Too many words.

“If we don’t find you a more permanent fix for your asthma?” Vaughn asked. 

She nodded and sat.  Lying down wasn’t doing her any good.

A gust of gorgeously refreshing wind blew through their sanctuary.  Green and gold leaves from trees just beyond the pond sprinkled the air, alighting in Sammie’s hair like a flight of faer
y
.

Maybe they were the festival
’s
faer
y
.  Maybe, instead of going back to their faer
y
world, they stayed to bring pleasure to the one person at festival who truly loved them.

Sammie laughed.  Such a simple thing, wind.  There was nothing supernatural about it.  There was nothing frightening about it.  It wasn’t harsh.  It didn’t want to cause her any harm.

It was a wind that could have happened in 2012. 

It was a joy she hadn’t felt since…  She couldn’t even say this morning.  She didn’t know the last time she had experienced such simple, peaceful, perfect joy.

It was a joy expanded by the fact that Vaughn laughed as he gently pulled the leaves from her hair.

Until he yanked a leaf, and several hairs, from her scalp.  “Blasted, Vaughn.  Be careful,” Sammie said.  She chuckled.  The joy of the moment was not completely lost.

“Sorry, Sam,” he said sheepishly.  “It looks like we got another one.”  He next to her, carefully unfolding the parchment he had wrenched from her hair.  They read it together.

“A friend doth await thee upon the Sundries Corner.  Her gift shalt ease thy air.  The fountain bringest safety to the one who doth not yet possess it.  Be at peace this night, but know thee that thy sanctuary seekest to become thy doom shouldst thou linger long into the growing day.  Seekest thou not me, but water, which be the key to thy reality.  T.”

“Seekest not me…” Sammie read aloud.  “Seekest not me.  It must be the gypsy.  She knows we’re looking for her.”  She scanned the line again.  “I wonder why she doesn’t want us to find her.”

“Whatever the reason, it must be a good one.  She’s been right about everything so far.”  Vaughn examined the note again.  “I wonder what’s on Sundries Corner.”

Sundries Corner…  Where a gift will ease the air…  Make her breathe better?

A light bulb went off in her head.  “The soap maker.  I bet you anything she’ll have lavender.”

“Lavender?  How will that help?”

“We went to her store in the off season.”  Vaughn looked lost.  Sammie wanted to smack him in the forehead.  “Remember, she sold faeries and handmade soap?  I was having trouble breathing when we walked in, but I got better inside.  Because of the lavender.”

“Okay.  I get that.  But what about the next part.  About a fountain giving safety?”

“The only fountain I know is next to Howard Tavern.  Guess we’ll figure it out when we get there.”  She tried to stand, but the effort, and the long conversation she had in her excitement, proved too much.  She sank back into the grass.