Chapter 6

At the very edge of the Sacred Place, where Lachlan and Maeve would stay until one of their questers returned with what they needed, Cate glanced at her hand, at the Egyptian ankh Maeve had given her a lifetime ago. The ankh, in the shape of a gold key, had been hanging around Cate's neck for almost ten years. It was the only thing she possessed. When she was younger and afraid, she would hold it for comfort, so she was surprised when the necklace began growing warmer the closer she got to the portal.

"Remember, Catie," Maeve had whispered to her before sending her off again the day after she had returned. "Remember and return. For if you do not return, I shall go after you. You know I will."

Cate believed her. Maeve always did what she said she would. Cate remembered the very first time she'd held the necklace and saw her very first vision.

Lachlan hadn't believed that she had the sight. He thought her too young and inexperienced, as if only aged and gifted priests could see as clearly as she did. But when Maeve had handed her the ankh as a gift that night at the inn, she had seen a world unlike anything she could ever dream.

The vision was fiery and cold at the same time. A frozen mist seemed to enter her bones, chilling her to the very essence of her being. It was not a place she wanted to be. That was nine years, almost ten, years ago, when Cate was a mere three and ten, full of high hopes for obtaining priestess status among the Silurian Druids. Lachlan doubted her then. It was several more years before he realized the extent of Cate's powers; several years before she saw the same vision Lachlan had seen, and in nearly the same place. She remembered it as if it were yesterday.

Lachlan and Cate had been on a walk. He had been teaching her some alchemy and herbalism along the way. When Cate came to a large rock near the coastal forest, she recoiled so violently from the sight that she fell backwards.

"What? What is it you see?"

When Cate rose, she shuddered. "Blood. Blood on that rock. So much blood, it felt-sacrificial." When Cate saw Lachlan pale, she swallowed back her bile. "You have seen it also." She knew before he answered.

Nodding, Lachlan touched the rock, grimaced, and pulled away. "Blood, yes, but not just anyone's blood."

Cate's eyes grew moist. The most vile, most wretched sight Cate could imagine: Maeve's blood upon that rock.

"Aye, I have seen the accursed vision, and it haunts me daily." Lachlan then shared his theory about the Sacred Place, about the other visions, and about his fears for Maeve and the others. He admitted his love for Maeve, and the place she held in his heart. This was not news to young Cate, who could tell how he felt by the way he looked at Maeve. He would risk his life for her, for all of them. Cate knew that as well.

"Cate, you have learned how time is circular in nature, and that we live beyond the present time of our bodies. The truly gifted Druids can slip between the folds in the fabric of time to discover a future of those who know something about what happened in our own time. Knowing the outcome of our present predicament will enable us to act instead of react. We can plan instead of being caught unprepared. I have known others who have tried to enter the portal, but they were unsuccessful, and it ultimately cost them their lives. But you, Cate, you might just have the powers and the strength to do what the others could not."

"Which is what?"

Lachlan frowned. "Return."

As strange as that conversation had been ten years ago, it made much more sense now. Grasping the ankh, Cate peered through the darkness, but could no longer see Lachlan, Maeve, or the remains of the fire burring itself out.

She had slept into the afternoon the day before, and had risen to eat, bathe, and share stories with some of the other priests. When Lachlan asked if she was ready to go back and try again, she was surprised.

Maeve had not been very pleased to have her go back so quickly, but Maeve did not know what Lachlan and Cate had seen. She could not know the desperation they were feeling now. And if they had their way, she would never know the depth or horror of the subsequent visions they both continued to see long after they had touched the rock.

Now, as she stood at the portal once again, Cate inhaled deeply and released the ankh. She knew the risks involved in slipping through time; knew that it was always possible she would never return. Still, she could not allow herself to hesitate like that. She had to be stronger, better than those who went before her. She needed to remain focused on the tasks at hand, because there were plenty of them. She could do it. She knew she could.

Stepping through the ever-present mist that enveloped the triad of oaks, Cate disappeared into the fog. When she walked to the great white oak with its hollow center, she reverently touched its deep, craggy bark that reminded her of the wrinkles of a very old man. The tree must have been a thousand years old. Once she passed through the trunk, she would be transported to another time, another place, another being altogether. If she thought about it for too long, fear would consume her and she would back out. Sending her soul into another time was far more frightening than she had related to Maeve. She did not know what became of her body once her soul left. She did not know how far into the future she had gone, and she knew nothing about the person who housed her soul in the future. It was all so much more than her mind could accept, so it was best if she just walked right through the large opening of the trunk and not look back.

And that was precisely what she did for the second day in a row.

When Cate stood on the other side, she found herself, once again, looking down at the unfamiliar clothes and the young, slender hand holding a key. A key? Where was her ankh? Reaching for the necklace, she realized she no longer stood in the forest, but in a small, apparently unused room in an inn so very far from home.

Home.

This was her new home, and for better or worse, Jessie was going to have to accept it. Staring down at the key in her palm, Jessie wondered how long she had been standing in this dusty, forgotten, third-floor bedroom. Looking down at her watch, she was surprised to see that she had been standing there a little over ten minutes. What had she come in here for?

She had come into the room to-to make sure the room existed? Shaking her head, she walked out of the room, closed the door, and locked it again, wondering if, perhaps, the stress of moving wasn't getting to her.

Downstairs, she hung the keys on the too-cute kitty key holder in the kitchen, grabbed a bottle of water from the refrigerator, and decided to check out the back porch of the inn. Unlike Daniel, she hadn't shown any curiosity about the inn and its surroundings; he had been over every inch, running all the way up her room to report news of his findings. One of those findings was the wooden swing on the back porch overlooking those incredible pine trees that hugged the Oregon coastline like a lover. They were the biggest trees she had ever seen next to California redwoods.

The swing wasn't very old, and, to her surprise, was very comfortable. She drank her bottled water and stared out at the wooded forest which was now her backyard. The forests and trees of Oregon were spectacular, and it surprised Jessie how much she had grown to love them in such a short period. She hadn't even given trees, or lack of them, a second thought back in San Francisco. Now she wondered how anyone could live without having them close by. She had always fancied herself an ocean lover, but this feeling about the forests and the pines actually surpassed what she had always felt. How odd to be drawn to something she hadn't given a nanosecond thought to two weeks ago.

Gently swinging, Jessie closed her eyes and listened to the songs of the red headed woodpecker and chickadee. She thought she heard the western tanager as well. It had a beautiful little song. Inhaling deeply the scent of the fir and cedar, her eyes suddenly popped open. "What the hell?" Jessie sat straight up. Jumping off the swing so hard it crashed into the wall, Jessie ran into the house and into the library.

"There it is," she said, pulling a thick book from the shelves before dashing back out to the porch. Standing with one foot on the bottom railing and positioning the dense book on her thigh, she quickly thumbed through the pages of Sunset Guide to Western Flora and Fauna. When she came to a picture of the same trees that stood behind the inn, sure enough, they were Douglas firs and western red cedars.

Gently closing the book, Jessie stared out into the woods. "How in the hell did I know that?" she whispered, closing her eyes once more. Listening to the many quiet and not-so-quiet noises of the woods, she recognized the call of the gull, the screech of a red-tailed hawk, and the song of the western meadowlark.

Western meadowlark?

She hadn't ever even heard of the damn western meadowlark until now. What in the hell was going on with her?

She put the book back and headed outside once more.

"This isn't happening." Jessie's hands trembled slightly. "I can't possibly-no I don't know this stuff. I couldn't even pass biology!" At that moment, a shadow passed overhead, and when she glanced up, sure enough, there flew a red-tailed hawk. At least it looked like one...no, it was more than that. She knew. Somewhere deep within her, she was able to know these things that she had never known before, and it scared the crap out of her.

"Okay, Ferguson," she said, inhaling deeply and trying to calm her nerves. "Get a grip. There has to be a reasonable explanation for this."

Turning to face the ocean, she hiked a little through the rugged pines swaying from the caress of the slight ocean breeze. Whatever was happening filled her with a warm, calming feeling that began at the base of her spine. Here, in the woods of Oregon, Jessie belonged.

But how could that be? She didn't want to be here. This was not her home, and yet...and yet what?

Something in the back of her mind was poking and prodding her to remember something important, but she had no idea what it was or how to reach it. All she knew was that something very strange was happening to her, maybe even to Daniel as well. Was it this house? Was it this place? What in the hell was going on?

Sitting against the wide trunk of a cedar, Jessie closed her eyes to bask in the warmth that peeked through the endless clouds that hovered over this coast. She hadn't been stoned in a long time, but her mind acted as if it were; her thoughts were so disjointed that she could barely keep one train of thought going. Maybe she was just exhausted; drained from the emotional and mental ordeal of adaptation. This felt so much like pot that Jessie wondered if it might be a flashback. Could people flashback on marijuana? She'd never heard of it, but that didn't mean it couldn't happen.

With her eyes still closed, she watched a variety of scenes play out in her head: partying with her friends and relating some old folk tale she'd been reading for class. Having those listening tell her she had a gift-a great gift for storytelling, for holding an audience captive.

She saw herself on the top of the Bank of America building with Wendy just before the junior prom, when she had told Wendy that she'd always felt like she was looking for something, some deeper meaning than the drug-filled life she led. Wendy's advice had been to look deeper into the pot brownies and less into the stupid schoolbooks.

"I just feel like I'm missing a piece," Jessie had said, staring down at the panoramic view of the city. No more beautiful skyline than San Francisco's existed. "Or maybe I'm just missing peace."

Thinking back on it now, Jessie wondered if they weren't one and the same.

As serenity descended upon her, and the sun's rays caressed her face. Jessie fell into a deep sleep filled with dreams of a blue-eyed man urging her to remember. She dreamt of a young woman with hair the color of nutmeg, who hovered just beyond the fringes of the dream. And then there was a steel-eyed woman looming grandly like an ancient ghost. Those gray eyes, like the man's, kept imploring her to remember.

Remember what?