Page 71 of The Messengers of Magic

Chapter Forty-Nine

T hat night, Pen watched silently as Adelaide read the remainder of Rowland’s journal.

Leaning in the bedroom doorway, he noticed how her fingers hovered over each line, how her shoulders curled tighter with every page.

When she reached the final entry, tears tracked down her cheeks.

It pained him to see her cry, but this sorrow, he knew, might finally open a door.

She didn’t move at first, the journal lying open on her lap. Her gaze was fixed, her lips parted slightly. Was it sadness or pity? When she finally closed the journal, she spoke softly into the room.

“I’m so sorry, Rowland. Carolyn was lucky to have a man who would risk everything for her… like you did.”

But it wasn’t Rowland standing in the shadows between the hallway and the bedroom. It was Pen. Trapped between timelines, bound to the space between her world and his. Her eyes almost locked on his, she could sense him there, as if some invisible thread connected them across the unseen divide.

That night, she tossed and turned, throwing the blankets off only to pull them back over herself moments later.

Pen remained by her side, keeping silent vigil, watching her thoughts flicker behind shuttered lids.

When her body finally stilled and her breathing slowed into a steady rhythm, he slipped away.

The apartment no longer felt like his, and it felt wrong to stay there now. He carried a blanket and pillow down the stairs into the hidden room, and settled beside the Underwood typewriter.

For a long while, he just stared at it. Then, he placed his fingers on the keys.

Dear Adelaide,

As promised, I am writing to tell you the rest of the story now that you have finished reading the journal. Now, with Rowland’s story fresh in your mind, mine might not seem so far-fetched.

My name is Pen Turner. I came to the Feather Thorn back in 1955 when the shop was left to me by a man named Ward Richardson, my old neighbor back in West Virginia. His wife, Emily, was Rowland’s sister. When Rowland vanished, the deed passed to Emily, then to Ward, and then to me upon his passing.

I wasn’t meant to stay. I told myself I’d fix the place up and sell it off, then return home to my brothers, but something about this place just drew me in, and I fell in love with the idea of bringing it back to life.

I am not sure how much of those were true feelings and how much was the pull of the magic in this place, and the watch wanting to be found.

So, I stayed. I repaired what I could, reopened it that fall, and slowly began to settle into this little corner of the world.

For the first time, I thought I might have found a place to belong.

But then I heard the chimes.

I traced the sound to a hidden room, the very one Rowland described in his journal.

That’s where I found it, the Astral Synchronum, buried among old journals and forgotten relics.

I didn’t know what it was at the time or what it could do.

I only knew it was beautiful and strange.

So, I took it upstairs, unaware of the danger I carried with me.

One night, it began to chime again. The sound pulled me from sleep, and in my groggy confusion, I tried to silence it. I must have activated it, though I didn’t know how. It was only for a moment. But a moment was all it took to trap me here.

I’m not dead. I’m caught in a loop of time that begins and ends within these walls.

You thought it was Rowland’s ghost you felt here in the walls of this place, but it’s me. I do not know what happened to Rowland in the end, but I fear his fate might be as mine is, trapped somewhere within time.

I seem to be able to manipulate certain aspects of both our timelines using objects I touched the day I was trapped. One of these is the old Underwood typewriter I’m using to write this letter. I know this must sound impossible. It was to me, too. But I need you to believe me.

I need your help.

For so long, I drifted here, fading into the quiet, thinking this shop would swallow me whole.

But then you came with your beautiful light, and it cracked something open.

You reminded me of who I was before all of this.

Thank you for being the light at the end of this seemingly endless tunnel.

For that, I owe you more than words can say.

I hope, somehow, if we work together, that maybe we can find a way to set me free.

Until then, I’ll be here with the books.

Pen.

He folded the letter with care, climbed back up the stairs, and paused beside the letterbox. His fingers hovered just above its lid, but the weight of uncertainty held him back. He turned, letter still in hand, and headed back up to the apartment.

Dawn leaked across the mountain tops in pale streaks of burning orange. Pen lingered by the window, watching the light inch forward, hoping the world would offer him some clarity, some sign that this was the right thing to do.

He finally set the letter on the kitchen table, next to her box of things. Then he prepared a pot of coffee. It was a small gesture, an offering of sorts, though he couldn’t be certain it would register in her timeline.

As the coffee brewed, the aroma filling the room, Pen leaned on the counter, eyes fixed on the rooftops below and the glowing horizon beyond.

A new day had arrived, and with it the jagged edge of uncertainty.

The hope he’d clung to while typing that letter now felt brittle.

Had he said too much? Revealed his hand too soon?

The last thing he wanted to do was frighten her off.

But worse still, what if, after all of this, Adelaide didn’t believe him?

The thought lodged deep in his chest and refused to let go.

Maybe it was too soon after the journal, maybe he should give her a few more days.

As Pen turned around to retrieve the letter, Adelaide was already there, standing in front of the table, staring down at it.

He hadn’t heard her come in, too lost in his own thoughts.

Sleep still filled her eyes, and she rubbed at them, as if trying to be sure the letter was real.

Then her gaze drifted to the coffee pot, and her eyes widened.

It had worked. The coffee had brewed in her timeline. Pen’s pulse thundered. Something had shifted. The connection between them felt tangible, as if their energies were feeding off one another, opening a gateway, allowing him to cross the boundary between their worlds in small, unpredictable ways.

Adelaide spun, scanning the apartment like she expected someone to leap out from behind the furniture. But there was no one for her to find, even though Pen stood mere feet away.

She turned back to the coffee, reached for a cup, and filled it to the brim. Then, lifting it toward the empty room with a nod of thanks, she said, “Morning.”

Pen swallowed hard.

She moved to the table and picked up the letter. His stomach twisted; this was it, the moment of truth, his one chance. His words would either be the key to his escape or the final lock on this prison.

Adelaide sat down at the table, blew gently on the coffee, and took a slow, careful sip. Then, she began to read.

The cup never reached her lips again as she took the letter in line by line.

She leaned in, reading quickly at first, then slowing.

Her breath was shallow, and her fingers worked the edge of the paper as she continued to read.

Pen watched closely until she finally lowered the page.

She didn’t move, just stared at it, her thoughts somewhere far beyond her eyes.

He couldn’t quite read her expression, but something had shifted, a sharpness in her focus, a flicker of understanding.

As if the last piece of the puzzle had finally fallen into place.

A shape emerging. The truth of what was really happening inside the Feather Thorn.

Slowly, she stood and faced the living room.

“Pen?”

His name on her lips nearly undid him. She believed him, or at least, it seemed that way, enough that she would speak his name out loud.

The tension that had knotted his ribs for days began to loosen, unspooling.

He stepped closer, aching to meet her gaze, but her eyes moved through him, unseeing.

The fragile connection he thought they’d found fell away again, leaving that familiar emptiness behind. He was still invisible.

“If you’re here,” she whispered, looking around the room, “give me some kind of sign.”

Every nerve in his body fired at once. She was reaching for him, and he had to answer, had to do something, anything, to prove he was here, that he was real. His eyes caught the book on John Dee, resting on the side table in the living room. He knew, with certainty, that he could manipulate that.

Striding across the room, Pen reached for it. His grip was unsteady, his heart pounding. The book felt heavier than he remembered, or maybe it was the weight of what it might bring. He raised it up, held it for a brief moment, then let it fall.

The thud as it hit the floor was loud, sudden, a crack splitting the silence in two.

Adelaide jumped, her sharp breath catching in her throat. “Holy shit.” She stood frozen, staring at the book on the floor. Then, slowly, she walked over and knelt, fingers trembling as she picked it up. “Is this really happening? Or have I gone completely mad?”

“You’re not mad,” Pen said. But his words dissolved into the space between their worlds, vanishing before they could reach her.

Adelaide cradled the book, weighing its truth, as though it were both proof and impossibility pressed into paper and ink.

For a moment, Pen felt the ache of being so close to her, yet impossibly far. He longed to comfort her, to say, This is madness, yes, but it isn’t yours.