Page 34 of The Witches Catalogue of Wanderlust Essentials (Natural Magic #2)

Chapter 19

There Will Be Signs

H e’d been so close to deploying the Gearheart Locket. His only hesitation had been whether it was possible for both of them to fit inside. That and the question of where the locket would land once deployed. It provided temporary shelter in a pocket universe and spelled to return home to the Mudpuddle. But that might not be the case if deployed in a temporal zone.

These thoughts had been going through Will’s head as he crashed through the stained glass window.

He knew the port was going wrong even before Zani shouted to him.

Perhaps it was the actual bloodstone’s nearness. Presumably it was somewhere in Cosimo’s lab. Or it might have been their need for such a speedy departure. He’d had to open the port too quickly. Their leap was premature. He couldn’t feel the ley lines properly. They felt faint and insubstantial, as if they were floating above instead of anchored below him. Untethered. He recalled the word scrawled by Zani on the back of the Thai food menu.

There was something wrong with the void as well. It wasn’t empty. He was neither in nor out of it. He saw glimpses of traffic lights and taverns there. A never-ending parade of ghostly people thronged and threaded through the surrounding space. They left silvery snail trails of absolute truth in their wake. He saw the same man at different points in his timeline. As a child, as a young man, as a soldier, and as an ancient elder.

Will floated in awe for what could only have been a split second before he realized they were falling and Zani’s hand was slipping from his. She was being pulled away by a force much greater, much stronger than him, and there was nothing he could do about it but scream into the abyss.

Will had never lost a passenger. Not once. Never. And Zani was not just any passenger. What a fool he’d been to let her talk him into this voyage. How would he find her again? How would she get home? And how would he even get back without her as a catalyst?

Just as she was torn from him, Will plunged into a much more familiar version of the void. The same space he moved through with lumbering care on a near daily basis. He should have been relieved to be back here, where the ley lines were fixed and time was predictable. But the gut punch of Zani’s absence made him stagger and stumble. It tempted him to lie down and sink into the quicksand of oblivion.

But what if she’d merely arrived before him? There was a slight chance of that, wasn’t there? Will clung to this hope as he pushed on, crashing forward, back into the Metaphysics room of the Mudpuddle.

“Oh, my! Back so soon?” Granny Luna was dutifully dusting the shelves. Will had the feeling she’d been waiting for them. “I would have thought you’d want to spend more than one hour in France!”

Will wasn’t wearing a watch, but he could hear the clock on the mantel chiming the hour. Eleven o’clock. They had left at precisely ten a.m.

“And where’s Zani? Left her there to do a spot of shopping, did you?” Granny shook the feather duster for emphasis. Will felt the dragging emptiness of his stomach, but it was nothing compared to the hollow pit of dread carving a hole in his soul. Zani had not arrived before him, and the portal behind him was already starting to close.

“She’s not here?” Will asked.

“Heavens, no.” Granny wrinkled her brow and shook her head. “Did you lose track of her over there, then? Shame on you! I’m sure she’ll be ringing here any moment in a right strop about that!”

“No…” Will sank to his knees. “No, no, no, no…”

“What is it? What happened?” Maida poked her head in the door. She took one look at Will and went pale herself. “Wretched spells! You just time traveled again, didn’t you?”

Will sat in silence for the first forty-five minutes after porting back into the Mudpuddle. He sat in the turret reading nook, watching a spelled cup of “comfort tea” stirring itself. One by one, his friends tried to approach him with offers of food, drinks, and sympathy. They all clearly wanted to know what had happened, but he didn’t feel like talking about it yet. It was too awful.

“Just leave me be a minute, all of you!” Will snapped. He didn’t feel like talking to anyone. He was weak and tired and just empty . Never had he felt so empty.

Where was Zani now? Wherever she was, it was too far away for him to feel. Lost in space and time. And it was all his fault. He laid his head on the table.

“You have to eat, Will. And tell us what happened. We can’t help unless you tell us.” Maida slid a sandwich in front of him. “If Zani were here now, she’d be telling you to eat, too. You’ll need your strength to find her.”

Finally, Will raised his head.

“You really think I can find her?” he asked, tears in his eyes.

“Of course I do.” Maida sat down beside him and wrapped her arms around him. “You’re Will Porter. You can go anywhere. And apparently, anywhen, too. Wherever Zani is, I’m sure she’s going to be thrilled to see you.”

“But she could be anywhere OR anywhen.” Will bit into the sandwich begrudgingly. It was warm, slightly soggy egg salad. Not exactly his favorite, but it would have to do. He was grateful Maida had made it for him. He didn’t think he deserved much of anything at the moment.

“Maybe I should put in a call to Amrita?” Maida suggested.

“I don’t know.” Arthur sat down on the far side of the nook. “It might make more sense to fetch Zephyr and Minerva. They’re closer.”

“How about I go get Tarquin.” Granny Luna paced in front of the table. “He doesn’t see patients on weekends.”

Will shook his head “no,” refusing all of them. He finished his sandwich and stood up to use the phone. There was only one person he wanted to call. Burnside Porter.

He dialed the number from the house phone and waited patiently as it rang ten times. Finally, the old porter picked up. Burnside was just finishing up a set of wind chimes, but he agreed to pop over just as soon as he was done.

“I hope she’ll forgive me when I find her,” Will said. When. Not if. He didn’t want to speak any alternatives into existence.

“Course she will!” Granny Luna tutted. “But if you wanted to pop by a florist I know in Malibu, having a nice bunch of flowers waiting couldn’t hurt.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence, Granny. But I need to figure out where Zani is before I can start planning homecoming gifts.”

“Oh, I meant for me. The flowers were for me!” Granny winked and ducked as Will lobbed a balled up napkin at her. She was winding him up, of course. “That’s more like it, Will.” Granny smiled. “Moping around never did anyone any good. I’m happy to see you get your spark back.”

“So how much of what you told us about going to France was true?” Maida asked gently. “Did you go back to the train, then?”

“No!” Will held up his hand. “We went much farther back, to the court of Catherine de Medici. Zani found a notebook in the archives that referenced her amulet. She wanted to track down the author.”

“And you found her?” Arthur joined Will back at the table with a fresh cup of coffee.

“Him.” Will frowned. “The notebook belonged to that vampire friend of hers.”

“Oh, dear.” Maida bit her lip.

“I can’t see what Zani sees in him. He wasn’t particularly friendly, shall we say?”

“You spoke to him?” Arthur was aghast.

“No.” Will shook his head. “We got away before he caught us snooping.” He reconsidered that for a moment. “I mean, I got away. I thought we both escaped but now I don’t know where Zani ended up. The temporal stream ripped her right off my back.” He rested his head in his hands again, fighting back tears, trying not to think of the worst possibilities.

“There has to be a beacon. Some kind of magical signature or clue to where she is. I know Zani. She always leaves a bread trail,” Maida said.

If only the Pair Tags had worked as efficiently as the Pathfinder’s Web had. “We were wearing a sort of magical pairing device, but it shorted out in the temporal space. I think the proximity detectors cannot function across the temporal dimension. Closeness takes on a different meaning.”

Will unpinned the tag from his vest. It was blackened and battered-looking now, with a small spring sticking out.

He thought of the moment she was ripped away from him. Time had been standing still and happening all at once. It had left him with such an odd feeling. One that he was now having a hard time explaining to his friends. But even without the pairing devices, he felt sure if he could at least get some physical proximity, he would be able to detect Zani across the void of time. If he only knew where to go.

“You know, when we were traveling, I saw a man walking right past himself at different times and ages without even noticing.” Will looked up at his friends surrounding him in the booth, hopeful they wouldn’t think he’d gone crazy. “I’m pretty sure we’re all sitting here together right now in a different now. It’s right on top of us, but also a million miles away. It’s like time is not linear, but in fact, concertinaed in on itself in layers.”

“Now that sounds like a really cosmic cake.” Rosie bit into one of the colorful cupcakes she’d brought over from the bakery case.

“Exactly.” Will picked up one of the other cupcakes and considered it. “With little more than a fluffy swipe of buttercream insulating us from the past and future.”

“I feel that way sometimes,” Maida confessed. “Like I’m sitting somewhere, right next to the younger version of myself, or the older version of myself. Sometimes it feels like there’s something they need to tell me, or sometimes I think there’s something they need to hear. I really want to sit with my childhood self on the swing at my dad’s house, and tell her that magic is real.”

At this, Arthur put his hand protectively over Maida’s. “You aren’t the only one who feels that way.” He looked at Will and pointed at a table across the cafe. “You see that table over there? I recall sitting at that table with Rosie the first time we came to the Mudpuddle. And sometimes I sit there and tell my past self not to let her get that second cup of cocoa she’s asking for. She was up half the night afterward and ended up getting sick on the couch. So far, I haven’t been able to get myself to listen, but I do recall having had an inexplicably bad feeling about giving in to her at the time.”

“Ugh, Dad, why? Why do you always have to tell that story?” Rosie groaned. “Besides, you can’t change the past without risking screwing up the future. Who knows what would have happened if I hadn’t puked on that sofa?”

Will felt chills going up and down his spine, as one by one, everyone at the table related similar experiences. Both because it was so lovely to be supported by friends at a moment like this, and because it was so terrible to imagine future gatherings without Zani.

“Speaking of changing the past, what were the two of you thinking?” Arthur asked gently. “Weren’t you worried about that?”

“Zani warded us!” Will held up his hands in self defense. “She made it impossible for us to change anything. That was my one condition.” He rolled up his sleeve and showed them the small hourglass-shaped tattoo on his wrist. “We both have them. I don’t know exactly how the wards work. All I know is that they prevent us from saying or doing anything that we wouldn’t have already said or done in the past.”

“Interesting.” Maida studied the tattoo.

“Too bad they don’t work retroactively,” Granny Luna quipped. “There are a few things I never should have said or done.”

“Will, do you know what this means?” Rosie drummed her fingers on the table. “It means wherever she is now, or then … or whatever… she was already there .” Rosie’s eyes were shining now. “Like she was always already there.”

“Well.” Maida took a deep breath. “I can’t imagine Zani not doing everything in her power to let us know where she is, so she can get back to us. We just need to pay attention and look for the clues. There have to be signs.”

They all paused, thoughtfully looking around, though Will was sure that none of them had a clue what they were looking for.

“This kind of reminds me of those cartoons about people winning the lottery,” Rosie said. “The ones where they say that they won’t tell anybody, but there will be signs? But in the cartoons, the signs are really obvious, like they suddenly have sixteen cats.”

“Zani’s definitely not the most subtle about stuff. If she did send a sign, it would be obvious,” Maida said.

“Like a letter?” Granny Luna looked up. “Shall I go check the post box?”

“I don’t think it works that way, Granny.” Arthur unbuttoned his collar and steepled his fingers. “A letter probably wouldn’t have worked if she was warded. She would have needed to hide it somewhere that nobody else could discover it, besides Will.”

“You know, I still would like to try a spot of time travel myself,” Granny mused.

“Absolutely not!” everyone at the table shouted at once. They were so busy reacting, they almost didn’t notice the slight man who’d wandered in from the hallway.

“Burnside!” Will stood to greet his old friend and make introductions. Everyone warmed to the old professor immediately, but Granny, in particular, was dazzled. She couldn’t stop staring at his bright blue fang tooth.

“Rosie,” she said, “go fetch this fine man some tea and biscuits. He must be famished from the trip here.” She fluttered her lashes shamelessly at the older porter.

“It was just a short port, but don’t mind if I do.” Burnside pulled his flask from his chest pocket, and placed it on the table. “Now tell me about this trouble you seem to have gotten yourself into, Will. Didn’t I warn you not to toy with temporal travel without proper training?”

“It’s not like you offered to train me, sir.” Will stared at his shoes and mumbled.

“Well, that’s because you wouldn’t tell me who the catalyst was.” Burnside scoffed. “It’s a girl, isn’t it? Or is it a boy?”

“It’s a girl this time.” Granny furnished the answer to his question.

“It’s almost always about a girl, isn’t it?” Burnside winked at Granny as he poured the contents of his flask into a teacup and sipped it. “Where and when did you lose her, then? I don’t think she would have traveled very far.” He scanned the cafe, looking toward the bakery case. “Can I see a menu? I could use a little something more substantial to eat, come to think of it.”

“Of course.” Granny Luna held up one hand, and a menu flew out from behind the cafe counter. She caught it and handed it to Burnside. “Order whatever you like, honey. It’s on me.” She batted her lashes again.

“It’s on the house,” Maida corrected, shooting a stern look at Granny. “Any friend of Will’s…”

“Hang on. Can I see that menu?” Will’s hand shot out.

“Give me a moment, Porter.” Burnside held up a finger. “How are the herring sandwiches here?”

“It’s an acquired taste.” Maida wrinkled her nose.

“Sounds delic?—”

Burnside was cut off as Will snatched the menu away. He stared intently at the Mudpuddle logo. It was the same as the one hanging on the sign out front, and the same as the one painted on the sign in front of the counter. He’d seen that sign every single time he’d visited the bookstore, coming and going, for years. So it was no wonder he’d never noticed the similarity. There was somewhere else he’d seen that delicate symbol, much more recently.

“Where did the Mudpuddle logo come from?” Will asked.

“What do you mean?” Maida answered.

“This butterfly?” Will tapped the menu.

“I’m not sure, but I think it’s based on a family heirloom,” Maida said. “Aunt Minerva has a portrait of her great-great-grandmother Flora wearing a necklace with a similar charm.”

“That’s it, then!” Will clapped his hands together. “Drink up, Burnside. We’ll get going as soon as you’ve finished your sandwich. And Granny, maybe you should order those flowers after all. I think I know where Zani is. Flora is the key!”