Page 71 of Stay with Me

“No.” The one word was as testy as usual. “I’m not going anywhere.”

He really was there for her. He’d gotten out of bed. He was at the hospital. And he was refusing to leave her side. Did that mean he still cared about her after all?

The voices lapsed to silence. Her mind whirled with the information she’d gleaned. She was dying. That was abundantly clear. And she didn’t have long to live.

No one had thought to contact Harrison about her being in a coma. And why would they? None of them knew the details of Harrison and Ellen lapsing into comas after taking holy water, since she’d kept the information as private as possible.

If Isaac had discovered the empty glass bottle in the closet with her, he wouldn’t have understood its significance. Although, as a good investigator, he’d likely had it tested to see if the remnants were related to her unconsciousness. Even then,he wouldn’t have discovered anything in the molecular structure other than the components of regular water.

Harrison had studied the holy water and conjectured that it wasn’t of this world, that its origins had to come from God Himself. Of course, he subscribed to Arthur Creighton’s theory that the holy water was somehow related to the Tree of Life that had existed in the Garden of Eden, that somehow the special properties of the original tree had added longevity to lives by rejuvenating the body and healing it from illness.

Indeed, the early patriarchs of the Bible had lived to very old ages, often hundreds of years. But Sybil wasn’t sure how remnants of the Tree of Life would have survived centuries or how they would have ended up in England. Harrison also had theories for all of that too. And although she’d listened to him carefully, she hadn’t known how to separate fact from fiction.

Even if the theories were a bit muddled, she was clear on one thing—the healing she’d witnessed had defied all possibilities of earthly medicine and had to be otherworldly. And now that she’d experienced the effect of the holy water taking her to the past, she couldn’t deny its power to do more than most people understood.

She strained her ear, waiting for Dawson to say more. She didn’t think he’d ingested the holy water she’d left for him. Otherwise, the energy in the hospital room would have been more positive. One of his friends would have mentioned the healing, wouldn’t they? Such a miracle was too massive to ignore. And if Dawson hadn’t considered the holy water for himself, then he clearly hadn’t considered giving it to her either—not that she wanted him to use it to save her. She still wanted him to drink it and experience a better life for himself.

The silence continued, more pervasive, the whirring of the medical equipment gone. Had she lapsed back into oblivion?

At the chatter of squirrels and the trill of a songbird, she stirred, digging her fingers into the cushion of grass underneath her.

Her eyes flew open, and she found herself peering up at a canopy of branches and leaves. And Ralph’s anxious face. He knelt beside her, his forehead grooved and his lips pressed into a stern line.

“Praise be.” His shoulders sagged. “I was starting to fear you might not awaken and that I’d have to bear wretched tidings to Nicholas.”

She pushed up and fought through a wave of dizzy exhaustion. The overgrowth of the woodland told her all she needed to know. She hadn’t returned to the present and was still solidly living in the Middle Ages.

Relief spilled through her in such overwhelming waves that she knew with certainty where she wanted to belong. If only she could figure out a way to stay.

~ 26 ~

“You gave me quite the scare.”Ralph finally spoke over his shoulder to her after the nearly silent ride back to Devil’s Bend.

The tiredness that had clung to Sybil for most of the return journey was starting to abate. “I’m feeling better now.”

Twilight was settling around them, and the shadows lengthened. Although Ralph had been right to make the decision to head back to Devil’s Bend, she was disappointed anyway. She was no closer to finding holy water than she had been from day one in the past. In fact, she might even be farther from it now that she’d scared Ralph with her... episode.

She wasn’t sure how to label what had happened. In some ways the experience felt similar to the short overlaps with Nicholas after she’d consumed the droplets of holy water. Except this time, she hadn’t had any more holy water. And still she’d been with Dawson, Acey, and Baxter in the hospital room.

She’d also considered the possibility that her bodies in both eras had been in proximity to each other. Although she hadn’t been able to distinguish exactly where she was in 1382 Kent, they’d been on the outskirts of Canterbury and very well could’ve been near the hospital. Maybe her quantum particles had somehow been drawn to one another.

Whatever the case, Baxter hadn’t given her long to live. She suspected she had hours, maybe another day. Perhaps that’s why she’d experienced the fatigue and illness. As her present-day body deteriorated, she would weaken and worsen until she died in both time periods.

That meant her mission to find holy water was more urgent than ever. She couldn’t expect Ralph to take another day to ride with her to Chesterfield Park—or anywhere else, for that matter. She’d have to work out another way to go. Maybe sneak out while he was busy. Or perhaps early in the morning before he arose. Such a move would be difficult, especially since she would have to pass his pallet to exit the cottage.

But if she wanted to live in the past with Nicholas—which she desperately did—she needed holy water.

Ralph reined in his horse sharply, and Sybil managed to bring her horse to a halt alongside him, glad for her quick reflexes.

“Do you smell that?” Ralph lifted his nose and sniffed.

She took in a whiff but couldn’t smell anything out of the ordinary. “What is it?”

“Smoke.”

The medieval air always held a hint of wood-fire smoke. It was becoming a familiar scent. Perhaps given enough time, she wouldn’t notice it anymore—if she had enough time.... But for now, between the odor of the woodsmoke along with the horse and the forest, she couldn’t distinguish anything else.

Ralph stared up through the branches, but the forest was thick and hardly allowed for a glimpse of the sky. Even so, his eyes narrowed. “There’s fire.”

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