The Time Roads

Her eyes went wide and blank. Her mouth worked, as though she would speak.

Then she screamed.

* * *

I was a coward. I said I was fetching my uncle, but in truth I was running away.

Síomón tapped his pencil against his palm in an irregular rhythm. A blank sheet of paper faced him, one edge darkened where he’d rubbed his thumb absentmindedly. Unable to face ordinary conversation with Evan and Susanna, he’d sequestered himself in the library, leaving only to take supper at a nearby tavern. Now the mutton lay heavily in his stomach, and the overcooked vegetables had left an unpleasant taste in his mouth.

Maeve was dead. The phrase echoed inside his head. Strange, he still could not quite take in that she was gone.

He glanced out the window. A harvest moon hung low in the sky, its orange disc sharply drawn against the black night. He and his uncle had called the doctors that same day; within a week, they had removed Gwen from Gleanntara to the hospital in Awveline City in the far south of Éire. Only the best for her, he thought now. The best drugs. The best treatment—

The floorboards creaked behind him. Síomón twisted around to see Evan De Mora standing quite close. Evan’s face was drawn tight; his eyes were like blue moons against the whites of his eyes.

“Why didn’t you tell me about Maeve?” he said.

Síomón hesitated, not certain how to reply. Evan must have mistaken his silence for a refusal to answer, because his mouth twitched into a grimace. “Confused, Síomón? That’s not like you.”

“No, I—”

“That’s why that officer wanted you, isn’t it? He told you about Maeve.”

“He did. He asked me not to say anything until tomorrow. Who told you?”

“Her sister.” Evan pressed both hands against his cheeks, as though to suppres

s an ache. “I thought it peculiar when I heard about Ó Néill’s assembly tomorrow,” he said in a muffled voice. “Even when I didn’t see Maeve at her afternoon lectures, I didn’t think anything amiss. I knew she was spending extra time with her advisers, and that I’d see her at supper. It wasn’t until she didn’t show that I—”

His voice broke. Síomón started to speak, but Evan waved for him to stay silent. He soon mastered himself. “I went to her rooms. Her sister was there with a crowd of servants, packing Maeve’s belongings. She told me what happened.”

His cheeks were wet with tears. Síomón touched Evan’s arm and felt him trembling beneath the apparent control. “Evan, I’m sorry.”

His friend drew a shuddering breath. “Thank you. Whatever that means. I was so angry. Not with you. With—”

“I understand,” Síomón said softly. “Come. It’s nearly ten. We’ll go back to my rooms for coffee.”

Evan wiped a hand over his eyes. “I would like that.”

Síomón collected his books from his desk, and together they retrieved their gowns and coats from the closet on the first floor. The college bells were ringing ten o’clock as they bid good night to the porter.

Outside, the wind had picked up, damp and raw with the promise of rain. Clouds raced across the moon’s face, and the green was nothing more than a black expanse, with the library at their backs, and the several junior dormitories lining either side. At the far end of the quad lay Begley Hall and a cluster of smaller buildings for Anglian Studies. Síomón and Evan buttoned their overcoats and turned up their collars before venturing from the portico’s shelter.

Evan shivered. “Last week I boiled in the lecture halls.”

“It’s the turning point of seasons,” Síomón said. The sound of the wind sifting through leaves recalled Gwen’s voice, reciting her numbers, and he had the unsettling impression of memories blurring together, like photographs of dancers whirling across the stage. He shook his head to dispel the sensation.

They set a fast pace across the empty green, while leaves whirled about them. Few students were about at this hour, and though most of the upper floors of the dormitories were alight, the grounds themselves were nothing more than shadows. Síomón could taste rain in the air. Soon frost would silver the pathways, the winds would strip the trees completely, and the world would become like an ink sketch, with sharp black lines and shades of gray.

A harder gust caught him full in the face. Síomón ducked his head, blinking away tears. Ahead, he heard Evan’s footsteps slow, then come to a stop.

“Síomón.”

Síomón looked up to see Evan pointing toward a spot farther ahead. Squinting against the wind, he made out a dark mass sprawled upon the brick walkway. Whatever it was lay motionless, except for a fluttering edge of cloth, as though a blanket or cloak had worked loose from the body’s weight.

His skin prickled. We don’t know it’s a body.

Evan retreated a few steps and took hold of Síomón’s hand. “How cold you are. Can you manage? We cannot go without seeing what has happened.”