Life was good, and Catherine certainly didn’t want to miss one moment of Lisa’s growing up. She had grandchildren to look forward to one day.
Perhaps she should have Jack look into some life insurance, while she was at it.
“YOU ARE CERTAIN THIS WILL WORK?” CIRCENN worried.
“Yes. We will remove her from Morar while she sleeps and return her to her new future. I’ve done this before; however, this is the only time I have allowed the person to retain dual memories. Are you certain you wish her to recall the other reality? The one where her father died and her mother is ill?”
“Yes. If we take it from her she will not know me. She will have no memory of our time together. Without those memories she would be a different person, and I love her precisely the way she is.”
“Then let’s do it,” Adam said. “She will be very confused at first. You will need to get to her quickly, to help her understand. Once she has been returned, race to her side. She’ll need you.”
* * *
Lisa was drifting when she heard the voices.
“You must do it now, Circenn.”
Circenn, my love, her dreaming mind purred.
I’m coming, Lisa.
* * *
Lisa woke from a sleep that felt drugged. Her pillow smelled funny. She sniffed it: jasmine and sandalwood. The scent brought tears to her eyes; it reminded her of Circenn, the way the faint smell had always seemed part of his skin. Another scent overpowered it swiftly: frying bacon. She kept her eyes closed and puzzled over that thought. Where was she? Had she stumbled down the beach and in her delirium found a house and a bed?
She opened her eyes cautiously.
She looked about the room, seeking traces of the fourteenth century—her first thought was that she’d blessedly traveled back to Circenn. But as her gaze skimmed again over the pale blue walls, her heart thudded painfully—she recognized this room, and had thought to never see it again.
She dropped her disbelieving gaze to the bed in which she lay. A four-poster of blond wood with a frothy white canopy, she’d adored this bed in their home in Indian Hill, a lifetime ago.
She shot straight up in bed, trembling violently.
Had she finally, irrevocably lost her mind?
“M-Mom?” she called, knowing full well no one was going to answer her. And because no one would answer her she felt safe tossing her head back and wailing it.
“Mom!”
She heard the rush of feet on the stairs, and held her breath as the door opened. It seemed to inch inward in slow motion, as if she were watching a movie and the door opened frame by frame. Her heart tightened painfully when Catherine stepped in, a spatula in her hand, her brows drawn together in an expression of concern.
“What is it, Lisa? Did you have a bad dream, darling?”
Lisa swallowed, unable to speak. Her mother looked precisely as she would have looked had the car accident never happened, had the cancer never taken her. Eyes wide, she feasted on the impossible vision.
“Mom,” she croaked.
Catherine looked at her expectantly.
“Is, um … D-Daddy here?” Lisa asked faintly, struggling to comprehend this new “reality.”
“Of course not, sleepy-head. You know he leaves for work at seven. Are you hungry?”
Lisa stared. Of course not, sleepy-head. So normal, so routine, as if Catherine and Lisa had never been separated. As if Daddy had always been alive and the tragic past that had torn their family apart had never happened.
“What year is it?” she managed.
Her mother laughed. “Lisa!” She reached out a hand and tousled her hair. “It must have been quite a dream.”
Lisa narrowed her eyes, thinking hard.
Downstairs, the doorbell chimed, and Catherine turned toward the sound. “Who could that be this early?” She glanced back at Lisa. “Come down for breakfast, darling. I made your favorite. Poached eggs, bacon, and toast.”
Lisa watched her mom leave the room, stunned. She fought the urge to leap from her bed, wrap her arms around her mother’s departing knees, and hang on for dear life. Her mother’s knees were unscarred and strong. Joy flooded her. She must have died, she decided, on that strange beach in the stranger land. Was this heaven?
She’d take it—whatever it was.
Snatches of conversation floated up from the foyer. She tuned them out, studying her room. She’d kept a calendar on her desk and was itching to know “when” she was now, but before she could move, her mother called up.
“Lisa, darling, come down. You have a guest. He says he’s a friend of yours from the university.” Her mother’s voice sounded excited and oh-so-approving.