Notes from the Future: Her Ladyship

One lantern hanging from a broken branch jammed into the left wall of the dugout lights a map spread out on a log, pored over by the figure kneeling next to it. Both men salute. Should I? Who is this?

"First Lieutenant Petherbridge and Private Boggs, Your Ladyship. We've brought her," he says. 

She turns, standing, faces me.

I can't believe my eyes.

"At ease, Gentlemen," she says. Her accent is amazing, it's British but tinged with something more European ... is it French? Basque? Tad would know. Damn him.

She stands in front of me in a tailored man's uniform, her hair -- a dark brown bordering on black -- pinned up under an Officers' cap, her face unlined. She is so beautiful, she looks incredible in that uniform, I feel under-dressed and outclassed. But this can't be real. She can't be who she seems to be. It has to be a coincidence. 

"Veronica," she says. "Our time here is extremely short. How we have achieved this is too long a story to tell at this time. Why we have achieved it is simple: in order to alter the course of events and secure your safety in this place and time, we needed to intervene."

"My safety? What about ... everyone else?" I feel like I'm talking slowly. Emotional molasses stuck in a mental January.

"Their safety is your safety, but what you did not know was that there were those among ... the Rachels and Ezekiels -- who planned to assassinate --" Hesitating, her eyes shift to First Lieutenant Petherbridge. He gives a crisp little shake of the head, his eyes shifting down and away. There is a pause as she breathes, then: "I see. It is exactly as I was shown. We are too late for that, then. Well. We shall simply redouble our efforts here and accept no result other than total and complete victory."

"Wait, wait -- are you talking about what just happened? About how -- the shooting?" I'm stumbling on my words, lost and angry, and I sit down, right away, because that's my only option. She's kneeling in front of me and Petherbridge and Boggs are kneeling on either side of me.

"Veronica, look into my eyes," she says.  I do, and she continues, "You know these eyes. You know my face."

I'm thinking, They look familiar, but this has to be a coincidence. It has to be.

She is still speaking, and I do my best to focus on her words: "What you do not know is where I come from and how I got here. But there is a message that I need to give you, a message that has taken quite a long time to reach you in the here and now. I need you to stay focused and to remember that we are your friends. The first shot that was fired, the first bullet ... came from behind. I know this as certainly as I know that Edward loves you still, that he loves you from countless centuries and miles away, and that he is -- even as we speak -- fighting to return to you."

Now, with the smell of smoke stronger and the sounds of gunfire somehow muted in this place, she turns and opens a very old and solid wooden trunk. It looks like the prototype pirate chest, only small and covered with strange symbols. As she opens it, there is a brief shimmer -- like light through water. She withdraws something that looks like an ancient glass lantern. It is filled with a thick, clear ambler liquid, in which there appear to be flakes of gold, floating in place.

Petherbridge draws a pennywhistle from within his jacket or whatever it would be called, and Boggs begins to hum. Her Ladyship withdraws an old oil lamp -- like the one Aladdin's Djinn lives in -- from within the trunk as well. Opening its lid, she breathes a word or two over the oil inside and a whisp of blue-white light swirls up out of the oil like condensation over a cup of hot coffee. I feel my eyes widen. She closes the lid and sets the lamp on the flat, level top of a log round in front of us. From within the trunk she draws a brass tripodal arrangement which she sets up over and around the lamp. She hangs the lantern from the tripod, directly over where the flame of the lamp would be.

Petherbridge begins to play something, a tuneless wail that seems to weave in and out of Boggs' humming. Like snakes intertwined. As that thought comes to me, the pennywhistle and the voice settle into a harmony that sounds very Eastern, very Arabic, I think.

Her Ladyship says a word:

"اللسان"

A tongue of blue-white flame leaps up from the mouth of the oil lamp, heating the bottom of the amber liquid lantern.

Almost immediately, the specks of gold look like they're glowing. Her Ladyship sings softly in that other language and the flame grows stronger and the golden flecks begin to move within the liquid. The light around us changes, no longer coming just from the flame lantern on the broken branch or the oil lamp beneath the amber liquid lantern, but from all around us. It starts as a light pinkish glow, like everything around us -- from the mud and dirt and leaves to the Oak and Bay trees, to the map and the log and maybe even we ourselves -- everything is putting out a general light. And there are no shadows. It looks like the light before a really big storm, when late afternoon sun is reflected off of the bay and from there off the underside of the clouds about to burst, and everything is soft and pretty for a few minutes.

I find that I can't take my eyes from the golden specks in the amber lantern. As the lantern grows warmer from the oil lamp beneath it, the specks start to move around one another. Even as they move from the heat, it seems that they are moving with the music of her voice. The sound of fighting is very far away, now, and the smell of the smoke has become sweet like incense. I am completely comfortable, at ease. It's like being stoned, but aware and awake at the same time. Like sleeping would be if walking and sleeping were possible without the sleeping part, and if the walking part were in a really nice park next to a beautiful palace like in Prince of Persia or Aladdin. With peacocks roaming the grounds. Yes. 

Now the specks are moving so fast that they are making streaks of light. The more she sings, the faster they move. And as they move, a picture begins to form within the streaks of light, until they are zipping around so fast that the picture is as solid and as real as everything around us. 

It is the picture of a gigantic eyeball. I lean back in disgust. It looks like the eyeball is inside the lantern. Like I could touch it. The pupil is dilating, focusing, almost as though it is focusing on us, on me. The eye itself is just slightly bloodshot, but the iris ... the iris is the prettiest shade of blue-green, almost the exact color of peacock feathers, only with little brown specks. 

Little brown specks ... ?

I gasp and there is a hand on my shoulder, Her Ladyship calming me; I know without being told that to speak now would break whatever is going on.

The eye grows smaller and more of the face appears, like it's leaning back away from inspecting us. The image solidifies. And there he is. Looking directly at me, from inside a magic lantern brought here in a treasure chest from I don't know where, looking at me with his happy half-smile and eyes all crinkly, is ...

"Tad ..." I breathe. His eyes light up.

"Wow. I didn't expect to be able to hear you so well. This is wayyy better than Skype," I can tell he's expecting me to laugh, but I'm crying. Again. Damn it. Damn him.

"Damn you, Edward Hightower. Where the fuck are you? And when the fuck are you coming home? And where the hell is our boy? Where is Max?! This is not just some jaunt to the mountains, Tad, you disappeared. You literally disappeared right in front of me! Where are you?!" 

His eyes are soft and his smile is sad. I wipe more tears from my cheeks.

"The question is not so much about where I am, honey. The question is, 'When?'" As he says this, I sense more than see Petherbridge and Boggs nodding. "And the answer to the question of when is something that can change at any time -- though truth be told, it hasn't changed all that much in the past year or so."

"Year?! YEAR?!  You've been gone a few days, what are you talking about, 'the past year'?" I'm shouting now, and someone shushes me quietly, gently. I realize in that moment how risky this is. I glance up and around at the trees, lit only by these strange lamps and lanterns and whatever it is that is making everything around us glow. 

"Veronica, I am lost in time. I have been trying to find my way back to you ever since I got here, but you have to understand that I can't just pop back and forth like I was doing before you broke the Prophet's hold over the compound. And I ... seem to have lost someone. Within time," his eyes flick to my right and I realize he's looking at her. Why? He continues, "And what I have to ask you, right now, is this: the next time you have a chance to kill Torvald Mayberry, do it. Please."

The golden flecks that have been whirling within the amber liquid have begun to fall, sand-like, in an hourglass pattern, which Tad seems to see at the same time I do. 

"Crap. My time is running out. You're going to see him sooner than you think. Reload that pistol the instant this lantern stops. Shatter the lantern at the base of an Oak tree, do not leave it for anyone to find. The lamp and tripod may be kept, but the lantern is too dangerous to be risked. Promise me, Veronica, that you will immediately destroy this lantern. And that you will kill Torvald Mayberry the first chance you have."

My face is so wet with tears that I don't even bother wiping them away now. His image has been decaying fleck by golden fleck as he talks, and though now most of his face is gone, his eyes seem to be glowing brighter.

"Honey," I say, barely a whisper. "Can I touch your face through this?"

His eyes grow sad again as he says, "No. It would not even be a good idea to try. But just seeing you touches my soul. You are my star, my beacon, Veronica. I set my course by your light every time I travel. And travel is all I seem to do, these days."

"How can I get you back here? What can I do? I would walk from here to Nepal and back if that's what it takes," I'm sobbing a little. Keeping it under control. His eyes are smiling, as is what's left of his face. I realize the light in his eyes is the reflection of the lantern in tears.
  
"Do as I ask," he says. "Kill him the instant you have the opportunity. He is connected to too many other things, like a spider in a web of time. Eliminate the spider, and his hold over the web disappears. Now --" and I see his eyes glance around him, like he's checking the weather. "We are almost done. Petherbridge? Boggs?"

Both men snap to attention, saluting from where they are sitting. Curious.

"At ease. Keep an eye on these ladies. I'll get back to you all as soon as I can," his eyes are disappearing fleck by fleck. "Good night, Veronica. I love you." 

I can't even speak, I'm holding my left hand over my mouth and I raise my right to wave goodbye. What's left of his eyes look very sad. They shift to my right.

"Take care of her, Henrietta," he says.

The last golden specks fall. The amber liquid lantern goes out. The light from within fades.

I turn to my right.

"Mother Henrietta? Is that really you?" I ask.

She opens her mouth to answer, and in that moment a figure leaps to the top of the embankment in front of us, shouting, "Die in the name of the Prophet!"

It's a woman, her silhouette looks familiar. And as fire ignites in the treetops all around us, more figures appear on the embankment near her and I realize who she is.

Iron Rachel has found us.