Page 42 of The White Knight

Merlin clears his throat, looking into the trees as if waiting for someone to appear. “If you would only be patient a little while longer, you can ask Galahad yourself.”

I sheath my dagger, clenching my hands into fists before taking a step toward Merlin. “What the hell do you mean? And what of Guin?”

“She, too, is fine.”

My heart cannot hear his words. It is still clenched with fear, anger, and anguish. “That is not good enough. I will not wait any longer for an answer.”

“I agree with Sir Lancelot.” Arthur takes a step toward Merlin. The king of kindness looks like he could murder his most trusted advisor with just one glance.

I walk to Arthur, placing a hand on his shoulder to offer him as much comfort as I can spare. “Answer the king. And answer him plainly. We all deserve some answers after witnessing…I do not even know what we witnessed.”

Merlin sighs. “Queen Guinevere knew you two would be frightened, but we could not say anything for fear that it would alter what had happened, what would happen.”

Vivienne steps toward Arthur and me, putting her hand out to stop me from another attempt at slitting the Druid’s throat. “Merlin, did they…travel?” Vivienne’s voice is soft, but I hear the tremor of fear. A slight nod from Merlin seems to answer her question. “How far back?”

“Two weeks. They went straight to the Druid temple to wait for my arrival when it happened, and they have been hiding there ever since. I told them they could not go near themselves.”

My mind is racing, trying to make sense of what Vivienne and Merlin are saying. “What does that mean?” I speak louder than I intended, the panic inside becoming more difficult to tame.

“Lance,” a voice I recognize intimately speaks behind me. Guin’s voice. My heart jumps in my throat, freezing me where I stand, but I force myself to turn around.

Guin and Galahad walk past the boulder on the lake’s edge. I sprint to them, not thinking, not caring who might see. I pull them both to my body, letting my grief spill out onto Guin’s delicate neck.

“Dad, you’re squeezing too tight. I can’t breathe!”

“Sorry, my boy,” I say, before bringing Guin’s lips to mine. She melts into me. It takes everything I have to release her. Turning back to Galahad, I give him a gentler hug. “Never do that again. Whatever it was you just did.”

“Sorry, dad. I didn’t mean to.”

Arthur appears in front of Galahad, kneeling before him as I step out of our embrace. I grab Guin’s hand, not wanting our skin to be apart ever again. “What exactly did you mean to do?” I ask my son.

Galahad looks up at Guin, who nods back down at him. “I was trying to connect with the magic in the lake. Excalibur resonates with it, but the magic is difficult to tame. If I can somehow tap into it, just a small part of it, I could…potentially travel. That is what I did.”

“Travel?” Arthur and I ask in unison.

Vivienne steps in next to Galahad, placing a hand on his cheek, and wiping away a smudge of dirt. “Travel in time.” Galahad nods vigorously in response to Vivienne’s statement. Then she turns back to Merlin, anger etched on her face. “Why did you keep this from me? Why did you not tell me what you were training the boy to do?” The anger in her voice shakes.

“Vivienne, I—”

“You better not be making up an excuse. This is my island, my lake, my grandson.”

“I did not want to risk—”

“Risk what?” Vivienne interrupts again. She is seething. Her dark eyes kindling with a fire I rarely see in her. “I have been trying to understand the magic of this lake my whole life. Others before me, their whole lives. You put Galahad and Guinevere at risk. Who knows where or when they could have traveled.”

“Vivienne, I had to let it happen because it had already happened. If I stopped it, well, I honestly do not know what would have occurred.”

“Probably a paradox. The universe exploding, you know, normal time travel stuff,” Guin says with a shrug.

I stare at her in wonder, my eyebrows pinched together. She reaches up to smooth the wrinkles. “Don’t think too much about it. Time travel will give you a migraine.”

“I do not understand.” I reel Guin in closer to me. I am so afraid she will disappear again.

“Let me try to explain it to you, dad.” Galahad plops down on the boulder behind him. “What happened to us two weeks ago only just happened to you. Mom and I, well, we’ve been hiding on the island since before we arrived at Avalon. Wait, let me back this up a bit. Mom and I were in the lake a few minutes ago. You saw us disappear. But for us, we didn’t disappear. When the light around us faded, you disappeared. No one was at the lake. When we got to the Druid temple, we were told that Merlin had not yet arrived. That our entire party had yet to leave Joyous Gard. Mom and I haven’t seen you, father, or Grannie Vivienne for two weeks.”

After Galahad’s attempt to explain the unexplainable, I look at Guin, searching her tear-filled eyes. “But last night, this morning…” I was thinking about how Guin had fallen into a fit of sadness and how I had attempted to soothe her. She smirked back, as if reading my mind.

“That was two weeks ago for me, my love.”

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