Timeless Read online

  Timeless

  Amanda Paris

  Published by Amanda Paris at Smashwords

  Copyright 2010 by Amanda Paris

  Smashwords Edition, License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author. This book is available in print under the pen name Emma Eliot or Amanda Paris at most online retailers.

  This book is a work of fiction. Any similarity to persons living or dead is purely coincidental. Cover Image: “The Horsehead Nebula,” photo courtesy of European Southern Observatory Accessed 9 December 2010 and reproduced and licensed from Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported

  CONTENTS

  Prologue

  Emily

  Chapter One: "The Dream"

  Chapter Two: "Plunging In"

  Chapter Three: "The Quest"

  Chapter Four: "Darkness Falls"

  Emmeline

  Chapter Five: "Dream Kingdom"

  Chapter Six: "Reckoning"

  Emily

  Chapter Seven:"Discovery"

  Chapter Eight:"Torn"

  Chapter Nine: "Limbo"

  Chapter Ten: "Flight"

  Chapter Eleven: "Touching Eternity"

  Chapter Twelve: "Voyagers"

  Chapter Thirteen: "The New World"

  Chapter Fourteen: "Encounters"

  Chapter Fifteen:"The Ring"

  Chapter Sixteen: "Following"

  Chapter Seventeen: "Déjà Vu"

  Chapter Eighteen: "Being and Unbeing"

  "Epilogue"

  Time present and time past

  Are both perhaps present in time future,

  And time future contained in time past.

  If all time is eternally present

  All time is unredeemable.

  What might have been is an abstraction

  Remaining a perpetual possibility

  Only in a world of speculation.

  What might have been and what has been

  Point to one end, which is always present.

  T. S. Eliot, “Burnt Norton”

  Prologue

  Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm: for love is strong as death; jealousy is cruel as the grave: the coals thereof are coals of fire, which hath a most vehement flame.

  Song of Solomon, King James Version

  The icy waters engulfed me, pulling my long skirts down to the depths below. The chill reached inside my lungs, stripping the air slowly as I fought the first rush, the great flooding torrent that overwhelmed me.

  I could see her shadow above the water, a thousand glittering lights fading as I drifted farther below. Her horrid brilliance dimmed as I lost consciousness, and a weight pressed down upon my chest, now lit from within by an inescapable fire that tore the last breath from my lungs, shredded by a thousand frigid knives.

  I saw his face, my last conscious memory a kaleidoscope of our lived past, fused together in a radiant burst of careless passion that had led us to this awful moment.

  Death loomed. As I felt its icy grip envelop me, a curious peace ensued, despite the knowledge that, either way, I would die. I struggled the first minute—anyone would—it was a natural, human reaction. But then I stopped fighting it. To break the surface, to draw breath, would be to choose another death, a more hideous, violent end. I had my choice—fire or ice. And I would not give her the satisfaction of fire. He would come back to fight for me, would try to save me, and I could not let her kill him too…

  EMILY

  …And the end of all our exploring

  Will be to arrive where we started

  And know the place for the first time.

  T. S. Eliot, “Little Gidding”

  Chapter One

  "The Dream"

  And where you are is where you are not.

  T. S. Eliot, “East Coker”

  I tried reasoning, pleading desperately for them to relent. I felt the tears spring forth, though I refused to shed them in front of her. Why couldn’t I make them understand? Why couldn’t they comprehend my terror?

  “Emily, I’m afraid to tell you, if you don’t pass your swim test, you can’t graduate,” Mrs. Anderson, the guidance counselor, said. She looked compassionately into my eyes and slowly nodded her gray head in my direction to emphasize her point.

  I groaned inwardly. I’d tried everything to get out of it, but there was no hope that I could see. I’d have to learn to swim. It was a well-known rule that everyone had to pass to graduate. Fifteen years ago, someone left a sizeable amount of money to the school after a beloved son, a senior about to graduate, had died in a boating accident. The one stipulation made was that every student must learn to swim.

  I’d made the effort to several times, but I had an unnatural fear of drowning since I was a small child. To my knowledge, this aversion was completely unfounded—I’d had no traumas to attribute to it. And yet, anytime my head was under water, I panicked.

  It was perhaps one of the great ironies in my life that my boyfriend Ben was captain of the swim team at school.

  He waited for me patiently while I collected my things and mumbled my thanks to Mrs. Anderson. Much good that appointment had done me, I thought. I was no closer to getting out of it than I had been before.

  “What am I going to do?” I complained to him once we were in the hall, out of Mrs. Anderson’s hearing.

  Ben smiled at me, taking my book bag as we walked together.

  “Well, you have two options. Either you can stay in high school forever—you know how much you love cafeteria food…” I punched his arm lightly at this.

  "Or…you could do what everyone else does and finally learn to swim,” he finished.

  It was true. Ben and I had grown up together in the small town of DeLand, Florida, not too far away from Daytona Beach. It was almost unthinkable that I wouldn’t know how to swim. Most of the kids in town had long progressed from their doggy-paddling days to windsurfing and jet skis. Water surrounded us everywhere we turned. There was the St. Johns River that ran through the county and several beaches, including Daytona, less than an hour away.

  Ben had tried teaching me, starting with the first summer after I’d moved to town as a kid, but to no avail.

  We entered the parking lot, and Ben put his arm around me to offer some reassurance. I definitely needed it.

  “Well, Em, where to now?” he asked.

  “Wait, I thought you had practice for the swim meet tomorrow?”

  “Coach gave us the afternoon off. He said we could use some rest before the big day.”

  By now, we’d reached his red pick-up in the school parking lot, where our friends, Zack and Annie, waited for us. Zack had longish brown hair, and like most of the students at our high school, very tan skin. Annie, with her dark hair and wide brown eyes, was a little on the paler side, like me. But even she tanned during the summer.

  “About time. We thought you guys got lost behind the bleachers,” Zack snickered.

  Annie rolled her eyes at him. Like Ben and me, Zack and Annie had been together since our childhood days. We did almost everything with them.

  “Don’t start, Zack,” I warned, smiling nonetheless.

  “So what did Mrs. Anderson say?” Annie asked.

  Annie’s large dark eyes showed real concern, and I knew I could always count on her. She’d been my best friend since I’d moved to Florida over ten years ago.

  “Looks like I have less
than two years to learn to swim or I won’t be going to college after all,” I said, not feeling as lighthearted as I sounded.

  “Really? Wow, they’re really serious about that swim rule. We could practice, you know, at the Y,” Annie offered. She knew I was mortally terrified of drowning and wouldn’t even approach the deep end.

  “Thanks, Annie, but I think it’s going to be harder than a few tries at the Y,” I said, still glad to have her support.

  I did appreciate everyone’s concern. Annie thought it was really my intense fear of wearing a bathing suit in public. On that point, she wasn’t entirely wrong. Being the palest person in a school where everyone else consistently worked on their tans was not my idea of fun. But my fear went much deeper than that, I knew.

  Ben could read me better than anyone else, and he quickly changed the subject, suggesting that we all go downtown to find something to eat. But I wasn’t feeling all that hungry, and I’d already promised Aunt Jo, my seventy-year-old aunt, guardian, and only living relative, that I’d help her paint several rooms in our house when I got home.

  Ben and I made plans with Zack and Annie to meet up later in the evening for a movie, and then Ben and I climbed into his pick-up.

  Once we were inside, I knew he’d bring up the swim test again.

  “You know, Em, you’re going to have to learn sometime,” he began, more serious now.

  “No, I don’t. I’ll change schools,” I retorted. I knew I sounded like a child, but I didn’t care.

  Ben rolled his eyes, shifted gears, and looked over at me.

  “You’re really beautiful when you’re stubborn, you know that?” he said, reaching over to kiss me when we came to the stop sign in front of Aunt Jo’s house.

  Ben had a deeply Southern accent, the kind that draws out in soft, stroking waves. His family had moved to Florida from Georgia when he turned two, and while he’d lost some of the slow dripping heaviness characteristic of a true Southern voice, he’d lost none of the charm. His impeccable manners—he always held doors and said “m’am” and “sir” –blond, wavy hair, clear blue eyes, and six-foot-two athletic frame compelled every girl to follow him with their eyes. With my unruly red mane, freckles, and sunburn-prone skin, I knew I was the luckiest girl in school, especially since I wasn’t exactly the prettiest one.

  I could feel the flush creep up my neck.

  “Hey, watch where you’re going,” I cautioned, not wanting Aunt Jo to see us.

  “I always do,” he replied as he pulled into the drive.

  Aunt Jo’s small, two-story brick house was within walking distance to downtown, and I loved growing up in this turn-of-the century home with a large front yard and swing. I’d spent hours of my childhood here playing with Ben, Zack, and Annie, and I had happy memories of planting roses with my mother, who’d died a year ago of cancer.

  Aunt Jo must have heard us drive up because she came out to the front porch. A still-attractive woman with glossy white hair, Aunt Jo braided it into two long, thick plaits, which she wound around as a swirling bun, a coronet atop her graceful head. She had startling light blue eyes and few wrinkles beyond a couple of well-earned laugh lines.

  The Duchess, Aunt Jo’s long-suffering black cat, followed her, perching on the top step to watch the activity below. As always, she commanded our attention, and Ben and I paid our dues on our way up the stairs, stroking her back as we passed. The Duchess reigned over the house, and she had to approve all guests. Fortunately, she had long accepted Ben as a member of the family and began to rub her fur against his legs, circling the inside of them as he walked.

  “Hi, Miss Jo,” Ben said, greeting her with a hug. “Emily told me you needed some help painting.”

  One of the qualities I loved most about Ben was his generous spirit. He was always ready to help, no matter how long it took or how boring the task.

  “Hello, Ben,” Aunt Jo said, smiling and picking up the Duchess. Her hand automatically began stroking the Duchess’s head as we walked into the house. She only let Aunt Jo carry her around. The rest of us hadn’t yet earned the right.

  No one actually knew how old the Duchess was. Even Aunt Jo couldn’t remember, though she’d often remarked that the Duchess had come from a long line of proud felines. She’d been living at the house for as long as I had, and I often wondered if she really did have nine lives.

  “We’re tackling the dining room today,” Aunt Jo continued, glad, I was sure, for an extra hand.

  Aunt Jo and I had been painting each of the downstairs rooms for the last several weeks. Ben had helped us last week with the living room and kitchen.

  “You kids go inside to get something to eat first, and then we’ll get started,” she said, giving me a wink. I knew she wanted to leave us alone before we became too busy and dirty with painting. Aunt Jo was a little shameless and totally romantic.

  Thirty minutes later—the appropriate amount of time for a young lady to entertain her boyfriend—and she joined us in the kitchen.

  “How was school today?” she asked us when we sat around the table, eating the cookies she had ready. Aunt Jo loved to bake, which was fortunate. Cooking wasn’t exactly my strong suit.

  I sighed deeply.

  “I have to learn to swim,” I began, “Otherwise…” I left my sentence unfinished.

  Aunt Jo knew the “or else” part. We’d talked it over a hundred times, and she’d already visited the school principal. Going to see the guidance counselor was a last, desperate step. I’d hoped for a pass for psychological reasons, but since this actually involved seeing a doctor, that door was closed too. I wasn’t quite ready to go there yet, not because I wasn’t desperate enough—I was—but whatever fear I had, I wanted to leave it undiscovered, if possible. Something inside of me didn’t want to face it.

  Aunt Jo stopped smiling then. She understood my fear, and she never tried to push me.

  “You don’t have to learn today, dear,” she said sympathetically, patting my shoulder as she stood up to signal that it was time to get down to business.

  I smiled at her less-than-subtle hint. Aunt Jo was my grandmother’s youngest sister and had helped to care for me since I’d moved to Florida with my mother. We relocated from Denver after my father died in a skiing accident when I was five. Though most of my memories of him had eventually faded, I did remember the overwhelming grief and longing I felt when he died. His face and voice had merged with pictures and a few home videos, as Mom had tried to keep his memory alive for me. She never got over losing him.

  When Aunt Jo offered her home, Mom decided that we should leave Colorado for sunny Florida, a total change and a new start for us. It was a welcome haven, and my mother, who loved children, had made a place for herself as a kindergarten teacher at the local elementary school near our house in DeLand. I was happy she had some real happiness before meeting her own tragic end a year ago. I still felt close to her in the house and yard, filled with the now overgrown gardens she had once lovingly tended.

  Everything reminded me of her. I suspected that Aunt Jo, who’d lived in this house all her life, wanted to change the rooms to help me overcome my loss. I thought that Ben suspected it too. He’d not been that surprised when Aunt Jo announced that we’d started painting the house a few weeks ago. He was eager to help.

  Ben had looked after me almost from my first day in DeLand, when he’d passed by the house on his bike. He’d seen the U-Haul and stopped, waving and welcoming us to Florida with a “Howdy, Ma’am” to Aunt Jo and a much shier “hello” to me. Two cupcakes and several glasses of lemonade later, we’d become good friends. By the end of the first week, we were inseparable.

  I knew that no one else really understood why Ben and I were always together. Even I didn’t really understand it. Only my green eyes were remotely attractive, and according to Mom and Aunt Jo, they didn’t come from anyone in my family. I didn’t know any other red heads—and I do mean that carrot-top, orangey-red color—in school except for Mrs. Colms, the H
ome Ec. teacher, and I suspected hers came out of a bottle. Why anyone would actually choose red hair was beyond me.

  Ben had already gone upstairs to the guest bedroom to change into some old clothes that Aunt Jo had found for him. She’d bought me painter’s overalls when we started this project several weeks ago.

  The Duchess had positioned herself on top of the overalls, which Aunt Jo had neatly laid out on my bed, a four-poster canopy with an antique lace coverlet that had belonged, like everything else in the room, to my grandmother. It took several minutes for the Duchess to agree to let me have them. She would not be moved. Once she became settled, that was usually that.

  “Please?” I asked her, exasperated.

  She cocked her head at me, licked one paw, and finally deigned to move over, stretching herself on her back. I obligingly scratched her belly.

  I picked the hairballs off the front of the overalls and quickly dressed, cringing when I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror. Painter’s overalls aren’t exactly the most flattering attire, not that I gave too much thought to what I wore anyway. Carelessly throwing my long hair in a bun, I was ready to go.

  We decided to move the furniture out instead of trying to cover it with plastic. We’d learned our lesson painting the kitchen and living rooms, when we ended up bumping into chairs and overturning tables.