I didn’t know what to do. If I had brought the kamandal with me, I could heal her. The least I could do was help her get warm. Using the fire piece of the amulet, I created a heated pocket of air that surrounded us. She sighed and buried her face in my sweater. Brushing my lips against her hair, I said, “Close your eyes, sweetheart. Don’t open them until I tell you.”
Her eyelids fluttered closed, and I shifted us to the forest floor not far from the still-burning mangled car below. Metal pieces had torn off and littered the ground everywhere. I used the water amulet to douse the hot flames. Black smoke rose in the air, and it was cold enough that the water around the car began to freeze. Making my way toward the car through a deep snowbank, I approached the broken vehicle and stopped cold when I saw an icy pool of blood with more seeping slowly into the snow from the driver’s side.
I heard a crunch as someone moved through the underbrush and whirled around, hoping to see Kelsey’s mother, but instead it was Kadam. He carried Kelsey’s blanket and wrapped it around her shaking body. Traveling with her using the power of the amulet had affected her. She was barely conscious.
“Her parents?” I asked.
He shook his head sadly. “Her father is gone.”
I swallowed thickly. “Maddie?”
“She was thrown from the vehicle. Maddie Hayes will live for only a few more moments. Her back is broken as is her leg and her arm is crushed. She has third-degree burns covering over seventy percent of her body, and she will die before help arrives,” he answered.
Taking a determined step forward, I said “That’s enough time do something. She doesn’t have to lose her mother too. You stay here with Kelsey while I go back and get the kamandal.”
Kadam blocked my path and put a hand on my shoulder. “No, son.” His wizened face seemed carved in stone. Only his eyes showed how painful this was for him as well.
He walked off through the trees, and when he paused, I clutched Kelsey close to my chest with trembling arms and listened to his voice as he murmured softly to Kelsey’s mother.
“There now, Maddie. I promise I will take care of her. Help will come soon. She will be just fine.”
Then I heard it, the soft rasping of Kelsey’s mother as she struggled to breathe once, twice, and then the horrible sound of nothing at all. She was gone.
When Kadam made his way back to me, I asked harshly, “Why?” Tears fell freely down my face. “Why save only her?”
Sighing deeply, he said, “The mermaid’s elixir must not be used to change destiny. Each person has their time allotted. Their time has passed.”
“Daddy?” Kelsey said drowsily, trying desperately to rouse herself.
I turned away from the accident, walking into the trees so she wouldn’t see the mangled, smoking wreck wrapped around the bodies of her parents.
I couldn’t bear to tell her what happened. “I’m here, Kells,” I said.
“Daddy, I had the best dream!” She smiled sweetly but then groaned and pressed a hand against her scalp. I quietly asked Kadam if she was going to be all right. He nodded and mouthed, “Concussion.”
My heart was breaking for her. “What did you dream about, love?” I asked, trying not to let my grief show in my voice. Wrapping the quilt around her, I sat on a log and smoothed her hair away from her face.
“I’m…I’m a little dizzy,” she said when she tried to open her eyes.
“Shh. Just keep your eyes closed and try to relax.” I warmed the air around us again while Kadam kept vigil at our side.
“I dreamt about a handsome prince. He saved me from a dragon!”
“He did, did he?” I smiled while pressing my lips to her hair, unable to resist the brief moment of closeness.
“I think he loves me, Daddy.”
“I know he does,” I replied.
She fell quiet after that and drifted into a light sleep. When I lifted my head, I asked Kadam, “What’s next?”
“We wait for the authorities to arrive.”
“And then what?”
“We leave her.”
I shook my head. “No. No. I can’t leave her alone to face her parents’ deaths by herself.”
Kadam pressed a cloth to Kelsey’s bleeding scalp. “We must, Kishan. If she is to become the girl you know, the girl willing to come to India to help a stranger, the girl you fell in love with, then we must leave her to experience this sorrow on her own.”
“How is that the right thing to do?”
“The right thing often hurts. If anyone knows that, it’s you.”
After a moment, I asked, “Why me?”
“Pardon?”
“Why was I the one who needed to save her? Why wasn’t it you? Why not Ren?”
“It is you because it was always you.”
I clutched Kelsey closer and remarked irritably, “Destiny. Destiny is your answer to everything, isn’t it? Well, I have no faith in destiny. In fact, I think destiny got my life wrong.”
“You’re not thinking of it in the right way. Destiny is no guardian angel influencing your choices. Destiny chooses nothing. It simply is. You are here saving Kelsey solely because you did save her. If you weren’t here, now, at this time, then she would have died with her parents.”
“So you’re saying I have no choice? No freedom? I am simply a pawn pushed back and forth in a cosmic game of chess?”
“Not at all.” Kadam sat on the log next to me. “You have always had the freedom to make your own choices. It’s just that your choices have been recorded in the annals of time. All of our choices have. Each person is accounted for. Each event chronicled. The only difference is that I have been able to glimpse the events that affect our lives and now know my place. The irony is that if I hadn’t seen my own timeline, I wouldn’t have the knowledge to assume my role as your guide.”
“Do you know my future as well?”
He hesitated. “Yes.”
“And Ren’s? Kelsey’s?”
Kadam nodded.
“Is…is she happy?”
“I think it’s better for you not to know how things unfold. To travel in time is no light undertaking. The knowledge I have influences every thought, every word, every action I take. If you were to learn the things that I know, it would change you forever. What has happened is something I cannot fix, Kishan.” After a pensive moment, he added, “I often wish I could.”
“I’m not asking you to fix it. I just want you to tell me. Is the future Kelsey happy?”
“I’m sorry, but that is information that I cannot share with you, and there are events that you must not know. If you attempt to learn more or to tamper with things that should be left alone, the consequences could be catastrophic. I beg you, leave Kelsey to her fate.”
Her fate. Her destiny. As I cradled the young version of the girl I loved and listened to her soft moans as she slept, I knew leaving Kelsey to her fate was something I could never do. If I’d made a mistake in letting her leave with Ren, then I needed to know it. Kadam may have qualms about altering the timeline, but if I could spare Kelsey pain and assure myself of her happiness, then I would make every effort to do so.
My thoughts were interrupted when I heard a siren on the road high above us and the shouts of men.
“It is time,” Kadam announced. “We need to leave before they come.”
“You want to leave her here unattended?”
“We must. There must be no record of us or our names associated with what happened here today.”
I narrowed my eyes briefly, then sighed and kissed her soft cheek as I stood. Studying the surrounding landscape left me unsatisfied. I refused to place her too close to the car for fear of her waking up alone to that traumatic scene, but if she continued to sleep, I needed her close enough so the rescue workers could find her.
Closing my eyes, I used the power of the Damon Amulet. The earth rumbled and rocks appeared to block her view of the car. I melted the snow and dried the ground around us and even caused tender shoots of grass and wildflowers to bloom. Kadam raised an eyebrow but said nothing. Satisfied with my efforts, I carefully laid her down on the natural carpet I’d created.
When I was finished, Kadam said, “And now it’s time to take her memory.”
I started. “Take her—” I set my jaw. “What are you saying?”