Page 4 of Echoes on the Wind (Borrowed Time #2)

“I’m going to slap his face.”

“You can’t just hit him.”

Unfamiliar voices roused me from a sleep that I didn’t remember falling into, but I stayed still, eyes shut, listening.

“Well, what else do you suggest? It’s been almost a day.”

Every muscle in my body ached, and my head felt like it was going to split open with pain, but I remained motionless as my mind raced, trying to work out where I was and who wanted to hit me.

“Maybe he just needs more sleep?”

“We haven’t got time for that. I want answers.”

The voice trailed off as footsteps faded away into the background, but I sensed someone else getting close. A second later they pressed down on my shoulders, and I flicked my eyes open to find a rugged young man staring back at me.

He jumped back, startled, then backed off towards the door of the room I found myself in. There was something familiar about him, and I tried to picture what he might look like without the dark, almost black beard that covered the lower half of his face.

“He’s awake,” he called over his shoulder, and I followed his gaze to the closed door behind him.

The room was familiar, too. I knew it, I was certain, but it was like the memory of it was sitting right on the edge of my mind, just out of reach, and I couldn’t quite work out where I was.

He took a step toward me as we stared at each other, and I pushed myself back on the bed I was lying in, unsure of his intentions. “It’s alright,” he said, raising his hands out to me, and as he took another step, the door behind him burst open, stopping him in his tracks.

“I was just about to throw this in your face.”

“Mair?” I forced out, my voice hoarse, and I brought a hand to my eyes in an effort to rub away the fogginess.

“Well, who else were you expecting?” She stood in the doorway with a jug in her hands and a stern look on her face, but as she walked towards me, it quickly faded, replaced with a relieved smile.

She rushed forward and put the jug down next to the bed, then knelt onto it and threw her arms around my neck, drawing me in close. Her embrace hurt, but I felt comfort in it, and I wrapped my arms around her and held on as tightly as I could, happy to see her again.

“How did I get here?”

She looked at the man, then back at me, and sat herself down beside me, causing the already bowing bed to dip even more under our combined weight. “He found you up in the top field yesterday, unconscious, with a bloody nose. Came running straight down to get me he did, but didn’t think to bring you with him. Just left you lying in the snow.” She grinned at him, and he averted his eyes, embarrassed. “We went straight back up there with a barrow to get you, and Zack wheeled you back here. God knows how long you were out there.”

I stared at him again, and as I rolled his name around in my mind, I realised why he seemed so familiar. We’d met at Gethin and Nellie’s wedding the day before I was sent back to my own time.

“Thank you,” I said, and he gave me a nod in return.

“Right,” Mair said, taking to her feet. “Now he’s awake, you can go down the pub. Me and Thomas have things to talk about.”

“But it’s not even ten,” he protested as she nudged him towards the door.

“Then go and bang something in your shed.”

Resigned, he shook his head, then turned in the doorway to face us again. “It’s nice to see you again, Tom,” he said, then he pulled the door closed, leaving us alone.

Mair listened out for the sound of the front door clicking shut, then resumed her place on the bed beside me, tucking her hands into her lap. “Don’t worry, he doesn’t know.”

“Doesn’t know what?” I asked.

Her face became serious, and she leaned in close. “That you’re a wizard.”

“What? Mair, I’m not a wizard.”

“Well, either way, I’ve never told a soul. ”

I pushed myself against the bed frame, sitting myself upright. As I did, the sheets pulled back to expose my chest, and I lifted them to see I was naked underneath.

“It wasn’t me,” she said, eyes wide that I might even imply it. “Zack undressed you and got you into bed. You were only wearing a pair of unmentionables, and they were soaked through. You weren’t even wearing shoes. You could have frozen to death. What on Earth happened to you?”

I racked my brain for an answer, but nothing was coming to me. I had no idea how I’d come to be there, and all I could offer her was a shrug. “Where’s Gwyn?” I asked, changing the subject entirely. I hadn’t intended to be quite so blunt, but the more that I was coming around, the more I was aware of his absence, and Mair rolled her eyes at the question as she grinned back at me.

“That didn’t take you long,” she said, then her expression changed to one of sadness. “He’s gone, Tom. I’m sorry.”

My heart thumped, and a knot rolled over in my stomach with such force that I thought I might be sick.

“No, no, no,” she added, reaching out to take my hand. “He’s not dead or anything. He’s moved away.”

I let out a long breath and clutched my hand to my chest. “Jesus, Mair,” I sputtered. “I nearly had a heart attack. Moved where?”

“Bryncoed. It’s up the valleys, near Cardiff. Gethin was offered a headmaster’s position in a school there, so when he and Nellie moved in September, Gwyn went as well. He boards with them and works in one of the mines. He writes often, but he hasn’t been home for months. It was hard for him to be here after you went, I think. He really missed you.”

She wrapped her hands around mine and squeezed tightly, but the smile she offered didn’t mask her sadness at him being gone.

“And this?” I said, smiling as I brushed my thumb over the thin wedding band on her finger, and she held it up to me as she beamed with joy.

“Hounded me, he did,” she grinned. “Followed me up and down the village every day for weeks until I finally gave in and agreed to marry him. It was the only way I could get some peace and quiet. Irresistible, see.”

“Mair Griffiths. Who would have thought someone would be brave enough to tie you down?”

“I know,” she replied, and she threw her arms up in the air like she couldn’t quite believe it herself. “He must be mad. But it’s Lloyd now.” She rolled her eyes again and shook her head. “It’s not enough that I had to let him move in. I had to give up my name as well.”

I laughed as she spoke, but it soon turned to a cough, and she reached for the glass on the bedside table as I rubbed my throat. It felt sore and bruised to the touch, and she nodded towards it as she passed me the water. “That looks nasty, too,” she said, and I raised an eyebrow, confused. “Your neck. It looks like you’ve been strung up. Do you really not remember anything?”

I sipped from the glass and held it tightly at my chest, shaking my head at her. “Everything’s just a bit fuzzy. It’s like it gets worse every time I travel.”

She patted my knee sympathetically, then rose to her feet. “It’ll come to you,” she said, then she turned to the dresser and pulled open the bottom drawer. “Here, put these on, and we’ll have some tea. Gwyn brought them down from the farm for you. He never stopped believing that you’d come back, you know.”

With a final smile, she ducked out of the room and pulled the door closed, and I looked through the pile of clothes she’d put beside me. Shirts, trousers, underwear, even my old suspenders were all there, and seeing them again brought comfort, as did the knowledge that Gwyn had kept them, sure of my eventual return. Putting them on again felt as though I was slipping back into an old character, someone who I used to know, and once fully dressed, I felt an immediate sense of belonging.

I spotted my wallet on top of the dresser and slipped it into my pocket, then turned to check out the damage to my face in the mirror. The spot where it usually hung on the door was empty, however, and I was left to hope that I looked presentable enough as I stepped out into Mair’s living room.

“The water’s boiling,” she called out from the other bedroom, and I paused in the doorway to take it all in.

Tools were scattered around everywhere. Likely Zacks, though I wouldn’t have been at all surprised to hear that Mair had taken up a trade. Otherwise, though, things seemed just the same as when I’d last seen it all. The dressers were still cluttered with ornaments and trinkets, and the picture of Mair’s parents was still on the little table between the armchairs. Even the pots over the fire were the same. The familiarity of it brought comfort to my confusion.

“It’s like nothing’s changed,” I called out as I took my usual seat at the table .

“Well, some things are a little different,” she called back as she stepped out from the bedroom, holding a baby at her waist.

The little girl, with a mop of red hair just like Mair’s, looked as though she’d just woken up from a deep sleep. She had her mother’s wide blue eyes, too, and they watched me warily as Mair approached with her.

“This little madam,” Mair said, “is Thomasina.”

“Oh, Mair,” I replied, feeling a surge of pride. “You named her after me?”

Mair’s lip quivered a little, then she burst into a fit of laughter. “No, twp , her name is Iris. Thomasina? What kind of a name is that?”

I hid my face in my hands, and she continued to laugh at how gullible I was as she took a seat at the table with Iris in her lap.

“I can’t believe you have a baby.” I reached out a hand to her, but she turned her body away and tucked her head into her mother’s chest, refusing to look at me.

“She’s not shy,” Mair said, stroking her daughter’s hair. “She’s just grumpy after her nap. She’ll be climbing all over you soon enough. Here, go finish that tea off.”

I moved over to the stove and took the pan off the boil, then reached up to the shelf above but found it empty. “Where’s your teapot gone?”

Her mother’s blue china teapot was her most prized possession, and in all the times I’d been to the cottage, she’d never served us tea in anything else.

She shifted in her seat, then waved me off, not giving an answer. “Just use the jug. ”

I did as I was told, and once prepared, I brought it to the table and sat back down. “So how do I get to Gwyn?” I asked, wasting no time cutting to the chase.

“Slow down a minute now. You’ve only just got here. Don’t you think you’ve got some explaining to do?”

She reached for her cup and took a sip, managing to bounce the baby on her lap while drinking the hot tea without spilling a drop, then settled back in her chair, waiting for me to explain myself.

“I suppose Gwyn filled you in about where I come from?”

“Well, he didn’t really have much of a choice. You just vanished right in front of my face. One of you could have seen fit to give me a warning, mind. I came over all funny seeing that. Still, I can’t say that it didn’t bring some sense to things?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well,” she said, becoming more animated as she spoke. “You could hardly function when we met. You didn’t know anything about anything. I mean, I put a lot of it down to you being, you know… English. But you wore the strangest clothes, and you seemed bewildered by the simplest things.”

“I caught on quickly, though,” I said, proud of how well I’d adapted to being stuck in the past. “But, what happened after I left?”

“Where do I even start?” She set her cup down on the saucer and tucked Iris tightly into her lap, then leaned in a little closer. “After you vanished, we ran. I was in such a panic, but Gwyn was shouting that we had to leave before Graham Morgan got to us, so he grabbed hold of me and we ran as fast as we could. And of course, he made us go the long way around so nobody from the big house would see us. You can imagine the mood I was in by the time we got back home.”

The more she talked, the higher her pitch got. Every word was punctuated by her arms waving about as she told her tale, and I couldn’t help but smile as I listened.

“We’d not been inside for more than a minute when Gwyn tells me that there’s a body buried up by the old barn and that we had to go and dig it up before they come looking for it. If I hadn’t been so out of breath from running through the village, I’d have walloped him right there in the doorway.

“So off we go, up to the top field with a pair of shovels in hand, creeping around like a pair of petty criminals, to dig the poor woman up and try to get us all off the hook.”

“Then what happened?” I asked, hanging on her every word.

“Well we couldn’t just leave her lying around, so we hid her in the coal shed until it was dark. Gwyn went to borrow the wagon off Mr Hopkin, and in the middle of the night, he took her up to that building that Arthur had been keeping you in on the estate. How he didn’t get caught is beyond me. The constables were everywhere.”

“And do they all still think I killed Arthur?”

“They did,” she said, taking a sip of tea to give herself pause. “Arthur’s family piled loads of money into an investigation, and they brought a detective all the way from Aberystwyth. Put Graham's nose right out of joint, that did. He’s the local constable after all, and Arthur’s cousin at that, so letting someone else take over only served to annoy him more. He knew what had happened, of course, but he couldn’t speak about it without implicating himself. They found that body and said it was Elinor Lewis, and there was nothing he could do to say otherwise. The detective was satisfied that it was a murder and a suicide, and that was the end of that, mostly.”

“Suicide? Arthur was carrying a pistol, and you shot him in the chest with a rifle.”

“Well I wasn’t going to go and point that out to the nice detective, was I?”

“And were you ok afterwards?”

She contemplated my question for a moment and settled back in her chair, her arms now still and her tone more even. “I’m not proud of what I did, Tom, but I don’t lose sleep over Arthur Morgan, and I’d do it again if I had to.”

“Honestly, Mair, I don’t even know how to thank you for saving my life. But what about Graham? He knows Arthur didn’t kill himself. He must be on the warpath.”

Right then, a loud bang came at the door, and Mair scooped Iris tight to her chest and scraped the chair back against the wall as far as it would go.

“What’s got into you?” I asked with a confused laugh, but she stayed completely still, staring at the door. “I guess I’ll get it then.”

“Just leave it.” She tried to keep her voice even, but it was barely above a whisper, and she still wouldn’t take her eyes off the door. “They’ll come back if it’s urgent, and we still have so much catching up to do. ”

When the banging came for a second time, I got up from my seat, and Mair reached out to grab my arm, stopping me from answering.

“Please, Tom,” she said, and her eyes pleaded for me to heed her.

“Mair, what’s going on?” I asked, dropping my voice down to a whisper that matched hers. “Who is it?”

Footsteps on the path outside pulled my attention back to the door, and a shadow moved in front of the window, silhouetted by the closed curtain. It lingered for a second as whoever it was tried to see inside, then a moment later, they were gone, and the sound of their footsteps trailed off down the lane.

“Right, I’ll make us some more tea,” Mair said, and as I turned to face her, she dropped her head close to Iris, avoiding my stare. “Let me just put her down first.”

“Mair?” I called out, but she disappeared into her bedroom without another word.

When she came back, she acted as though nothing out of the ordinary had happened and set about putting a fresh pot on the stove.

“What was that about?”

“Tom, it’s nothing. Honestly. Don’t worry yourself.”

“Well, I am worried.” I stepped up beside her and leaned against the wall, ensuring I was in her eyeline. “I won’t stop asking.”

She put one hand on her hip and rubbed the other across her forehead, then turned to me and let out a huff. “It’s stupid, really. After you went, I– ”

She was interrupted by another noise at the door, and as the handle twisted, she grabbed a ladle from the stove and held it in front of her, ready.

“Mair, what the hell is going on?” I whispered, but she stayed locked on the door.

The handle twisted again, then a key turned in the lock, and as Zack’s face appeared in the doorway, she relaxed her shoulders and tossed the ladle down.

“Safe to come in?” he asked, poking his head through the door and looking around. “Why is the door locked?”

Mair left his question unanswered, and he didn’t press the issue, but as he took his jacket off and wandered into the bedroom, I spun her around to face me and dropped my voice to a whisper.

“Mair, what’s going on?”

She looked over her shoulder to the bedroom, then leaned in close, pulling me down to her level. “Wait until he goes back out, and I’ll explain everything.”

I nodded hesitantly, but I was filled with concern. Mair, however, showed none and continued to fuss at the stove until we finally took our seats again.

“Mair, I really–”

“You managed to get it working again, then?” she asked, cutting me off and grabbing my hand.

I knew that she was trying to stop me from asking questions, but as she poked at the little red stone in the ring, her attempts at distraction began to work, and I looked down at it, quizzically.

“I must have,” I replied, shrugging.

Travelling this time had been different. The last two times had left me with sickness and a migraine, but the effects had worn off fairly quickly. It had never left me unconscious for a whole day or with no memory of what had happened.

“You really don’t remember?”

I shook my head at her, then, as I stared at the ring, I closed my eyes and tried to run my mind over what I could remember so that I could attempt to determine how much I had forgotten.

“It’ll come back to you soo–”

“Oh, fuck!” I shouted, cutting her off.

I bolted up from my seat and sent my cup smashing to the floor. The sickness in the pit of my stomach returned, only this time, it wasn’t the hangover of travelling back to Cwm Newydd that was making me want to vomit.

It was because I finally remembered.

“Where’s Lee?”

As the memories came flooding back, I clasped my hands to my head and began to pace. Mair rushed to my side and put a comforting hand on my back, and I spun around, taking her by the shoulders.

She looked up at me, startled, and her eyes flicked between mine. “Tom, you’ve gone as white as a sheet,” she said, and she reached up a hand to my forehead. “What’s wrong?”

“Was I alone?” I blurted out. “When you found me, was I alone?”

She nodded quickly. “Yes. There was nobody else there. We would have seen them. There’s snow all over the field. That’s how Zack spotted you, lying in the middle of it.”

“Shit, shit, shit,” I blurted out as I pulled away from her and began pacing again. I rubbed at my face as I tread a track into the stone floor and mumbled aloud, trying to order my thoughts. “We were in the room… the man… and the necklace… he definitely put it on.”

“Right, stop!” Mair yelled, and I paused on the spot and turned to her. “You’re not going to get anything solved by stomping around and muttering to yourself like a madman, for goodness sake. Tell me what’s the matter.”

I took a deep breath and leaned on the back of the chair for support. “It’s Lee,” I said. “My brother. I have to go and find him.”

She cocked an eyebrow and took a step towards me. “What do you mean? Find him, how? You’re going back again?”

“No, I–”

The bedroom door swung open, bringing me to a stop, and we both turned to Zack as he stepped out carrying the baby.

“Feeling better now, Tom?” he asked, looking over at us briefly. “More tea?”

I straightened up and smoothed out my waistcoat in an attempt to look casual and inconspicuous. “Thank you, but I can’t. I have to go and find my brother.”

“Ah, I met your brother,” he replied. He was bouncing the baby on his hip and smiling down at her, paying no mind to either of us as he spoke. “Nice chap.”

“You did?” I asked, and for the first time since I’d realised Lee was missing, the knot in my stomach seemed to ease off. “Where?”

“Down by the smithy shed,” he replied, still not looking up .

“Oh thank God,” I said, and I smiled at Mair as the relief began to set in. “I better go and get him. He’s obviously gotten himself lost.”

“Oh, he’s not there now,” he said, finally shifting his attention from Iris and casting us a bemused grin. “That was two years ago.”