“What? No!” he cried, ripping at the ring.
I tossed the strip of fabric we’d cut earlier to Bran. He caught it and quickly bound Collum’s hands together, then ran over and grabbed Michael MacPherson’s sword. He shoved it into the scabbard at Collum’s belt while Collum writhed against his restraints and cursed us.
“Make it fast, Hope,” Bran shouted against the roaring wind.
The translucent cyclone began to circle higher and higher, whipping dark curls into my face, blinding me. My hands shook so badly that I could barely wrap the pendant’s chain around my unconscious mother’s wrist. When I closed her limp fingers over the stone, the soft purple light transferred instantly to her. My own skin turned an ugly mustard color. “I love you, Mom,” I whispered.
“Come on. We’ve got to get out of here.” Bran hauled me to my feet and rushed me to the edge of the glade.
The instant we passed the tree line, the muddy haze around me faded.
“Oh, Hope. No.” Tears poured down Phoebe’s ravaged face.
“Get them to the hospital as fast as you can,” I shouted. “Tell them it’s placenta previa. There’s time if you hurry.”
I tried to smile, but the muscles in my face had turned to stone. My knees wobbled. Bran’s arm came around me, propping me up as he had when we were children when we were lost in the woods so long ago.
“We’ll find a way back,” I cried. Bran pulled me farther from the cyclonic wind and raging light. “I swear it.” My voice broke on a sob. “Tell Lucinda . . . Tell her we’ll find a way.”
Collum screamed in frustration. Phoebe and I had time to share one horrified look before the air around them ignited in a fireball of violet light.
Chapter 43
THE SHOCK WAVE SMASHED INTO US AS THE INEXORABLE power of the Dim wrenched the others back to their own time. Hurtling backwards through the trees, I slammed hard into the snowy ground, the breath knocked from me. Green spots danced behind my eyelids.
They’re safe. Thank God they’re safe.
Bran crawled over to me, groaning. “Well, that smarted.”
“You knew,” I blurted as I blinked up at him. Above him, the clouds glowed in a riot of amethyst and topaz. “You knew about us all along, and you didn’t tell me.”
When he only gazed down at me, I shoved him away and sat up. “How could you? Don’t you think maybe, just maybe, that’s something you might’ve shared with me?”
He jumped to his feet. “And just how was I supposed to do that, hmm? Sit you down over a pint and say, ‘Oh, hey, by the way, you remember when we met as children back in the sixteenth century? Boy, weren’t those jolly times?’”
I felt my lips peel back, ready to hurl an answer, but he was faster.
“Or maybe I could’ve reminded you of the time you and your rich pop-pop, or whatever you called him, burst into my tiny village, a group of men on your tail? Men who killed everyone and burned my home to the ground?” He paced back and forth, his voice growing louder. “Or . . . how I had to forget watching my real mum drop dead from an ax blow to the skull while I dragged your butt through the forest for two days before we got abducted by bloody time travelers!”
Bran was panting as he glared down at me.
Furious, I jumped to my feet. “It’s better than being left in the dark!”
“Oh, you think ignorance is worse? Worse than being the only person who knows you don’t belong in your own fucking time?” he shouted. “Worse than your mother spewing poison and telling you every day that you’re nothing but a mongrel who’s only alive on her charity?”
“Maybe not, but . . . but . . .” I trailed off at the look of unutterable pain that creased his face. He turned away and slumped down on a nearby log.
I dropped beside him, wondering if he was right. Maybe ignorance was better. My mother probably thought she was protecting me. Yes, she was demanding and controlling. But she loved me. I never doubted that.
“I’m so sorry, Bran,” I whispered. “About your mother—both of them. About everything.”
I felt him shrug. “You don’t remember any of it?” he said. “Not even me?”
“Not till just now. But when we first met, I . . . thought I smelled apples.”
He smiled at that. “I don’t remember that much myself,” he confessed. “I was only five. I get glimpses sometimes. My house. My mum. I had a dog named Beaufort.”
I put a hand on his arm. “I’m sorry I was such a brat.”
He nudged me. “Eh, you weren’t that bad.”
I shot a sideways glance at him. “I um . . . think Dr. John Dee is my grandfather.”
He turned to me, brows pinched in thought. “Yes,” he said, nodding. “Yes, I remember now. He’d been to our village before, visiting with our wise woman.”
“I think he was taking me home to my parents,” I said, realizing as I spoke the words that they were true. “I’d been visiting him in London for a few days. I think . . . I think I did that a lot.”