Page 19 of Borrowed Time

“Nothing at all until I woke up in that hotel room,” she said.

Jeremiah had listened to all this in grave silence, clearly doing what he needed to do to put all the pieces together. “The human mind — and I include our witch talents in that, since it seems they must also reside somewhere in our brains, even if we’re not sure of the location — can do strange things under duress. If your talent, Devynn, was the one for translocation, not Seth’s, then I would say your gift awoke to send you home, even if the year was utterly wrong. But now I am not quite sure what to make of any of this.”

Neither could Seth. Except….

“Do you think it’s possible our talents could have gotten intertwined for a moment, just long enough for Devynn to somehow use my teleportation ability to send us to Flagstaff?”

Jeremiah didn’t respond right away. He still held the delicate porcelain cup with its intricate design of gold leaf and red roses, and one finger tapped against its side, as if the movement might somehow help with his thinking processes.

“I suppose that might be possible,” he said at length. “Magic is far from an exact science, and witches and warlocks can accomplish many unexpected feats. I suppose the good thing in all this is that at least your combined talents sent you to a place where you could get help. My sister is a very skilled healer. I am not sure you would have fared as well, Devynn, if you had suddenly appeared in the office of one of our doctors here.”

No, probably not. Seth wouldn’t pretend to know much about medical practice in the 1880s, but he had to believe it was far behind what they had in the 1920s, with antiseptic operating rooms and sulfa drugs to help fight the spread of infection.

Devynn wore a lopsided smile as she replied, “I suppose that’s possible…although if I really wanted the best medical care, I would have sent myself to my own decade. We’re pretty advanced about those things.” A pause, and then she added, “Of course, hospitals in my time also have to report gunshot woundsto the local authorities. Considering I was shot by a man who would have been dead for decades by then, that might have taken some explaining.”

That was for sure. Seth honestly didn’t know what was more unsettling — to go forward in time more than a hundred years, or to be sent back into a past he’d never had any desire to visit.

Well, he was in the past now, whether he liked it or not.

“Did you not try to take Devynn to your clan’s healer using your gift of translocation, rather than drive her in your vehicle?” Jeremiah asked then, and Seth couldn’t quite ignore the stirring of shame the question had awoken.

Which he knew was foolish. Talents were talents, and witches and warlocks had no real control over how strong they were.

“I couldn’t have,” he admitted. “My talent isn’t strong enough to allow me to carry another person. I learned pretty early on that I could manage to carry an extra thirty or forty pounds with me at the most.”

And Devynn, slender as she was, still weighed a hell of a lot more than forty pounds.

“Ah,” Jeremiah said. “I suppose that would cause a problem. Well, whatever the mechanism that brought you here, it seems it knew it would be sending you to a safe haven.”

Seth’s first impulse was to chuckle at those words, although he remained silent. There was no way in the world he could ever allow himself to think of Wilcox territory as a “safe haven.”

But…Jeremiah had given them a place to stay, had provided a story that would explain their presence here in Flagstaff. How all this would end, Seth had no idea, but at least he knew they were in no immediate danger.

A rustle at the entrance to the back parlor — it was open to the hallway — and all three of them looked in that direction. Standing there was a little boy, probably around eight, whose night-black hair and eyes proclaimed him to be a Wilcox,although his complexion appeared several shades darker than his father’s.

“Ah, Jacob,” Jeremiah said, and went over to the boy so he could place a friendly hand on his shoulder. “How was school today?”

“It was fine,” Jacob said. His voice was clear, each word enunciated crisply and cleanly. “Although I don’t much like Mrs. Pierce teaching our class. I wish Miss Prewitt would come back.”

Something in Devynn’s expression was almost stricken then. Did she feel guilty on behalf of her mother, who had escaped this world and this time without leaving a single word for those she left behind? While Seth doubted anyone would have blamed Danica Wilcox for returning to her own century, it couldn’t be denied that she’d left some significant loose ends behind.

A shadow touched Jeremiah’s face as well, but he sounded hearty enough as he said, “Unfortunately, I don’t think that’s going to happen. And you know that Mrs. Pierce taking over your class is only temporary. The other trustees and I are looking for a new teacher, and we hope we’ll have someone here by the end of the year. For now, though, have Mrs. Barton get you some cookies and milk, and you can go to the library to work on your lessons. I need to finish up with my guests here.”

A lot of little boys that age would have protested. Jacob, however, only dipped his head, flickered a glance in Devynn and Seth’s direction, and headed back down the hallway.

“My apologies for the interruption,” Jeremiah said. “He does like to check in with me when he comes home from school, and he left this morning before I could tell him I would be having guests this afternoon.”

“It’s fine,” Devynn said at once. “He seems like a sweet little boy.”

“He is too solemn, too quiet,” Jeremiah replied. “But I can’t blame him for that. There has been much tragedy in his life.”

Devynn nodded while Seth did his best to seem sympathetic. He knew that Jeremiah’s first wife had died of a fever and had laid some kind of curse on her husband, but to be honest, he’d never thought much about the situation, except to think to himself it was nothing more than the Wilcoxes deserved.

Now, though…now he was starting to see firsthand the toll that curse had taken on the clan.

More and more, it was beginning to feel as if he — and the rest of the McAllisters — had been wrong about the Wilcox family.

“But you know it will be better someday,” Devynn said quietly, and Jeremiah’s head lifted.

---