Page 20 of Simon Says

“Which direction?”

“This way.” He began retracing the steps he’d taken so long ago.

“Then you chased her. It was like a game?”

“Yes.”

“Same direction?”

“Yes. Does that mean something?”

“Maybe. I think you might have accidentally thrown the switch.” It was clear from Simon’s expression he had no idea what she meant. “Look. I’m so far away from a conclusion, I really should be keeping quiet. Anything I say right now would be speculation.”

“Tell me anyway.”

“Long as you understand it for what it is. Guessing.”

“I understand.”

Rosie nodded. “You know what deosil means?”

Simon looked befuddled. “Of course. It’s Gaelic for clockwise.”

“That’s right. You walked around the ring deosil. Then you ran around the ring while adding more emotion to it. The ring was like a wind-up analog watch that had been left in a drawer. You wound it up and then stopped at the northernmost stone, which happens to be the gateway.”

Simon’s head jerked toward the tall stone. “To where?”

“That’s the question. I’m going to have to see if we can repeat the sequence of events exactly as you performed them. If all goes well, I can go through and see what’s what.”

“Go through?” Simon started shaking his head. “No. No. No. No. No.”

“Simon.” Rosie laughed. “Isn’t that why you called me? Because you want to find out what happened to your girl?”

“Yes. I want to find out what happened, but we don’t know the price tag on what you’re suggesting.” He looked back at the stone. “What if you followed her in there and then couldn’t come back?”

“That’s extremely unlikely.”

“It doesn’t feel extremely unlikely. It doesn’t even feel a little unlikely. It seems to me like that’s a real possibility.”

Rosie couldn’t tell Simon that her abilities were far beyond what he imagined they were. Even she didn’t know her full capability and, for some reason, Kellareal had made it clear he didn’t want her testing boundaries. One of the problems was that, if Simon knew what she could do, he’d be tempted to use her as a resource. That would raise all sorts of moral considerations. If she was a walking Armageddon, like the angel seemed to think, she couldn’t afford to let Black Swan know. Absolute power and all that.

“Don’t worry, Director. Taking care of myself is not the problem. The problem is faithfully recreating what you did so that we end up with a viable experiment.”

Simon was torn between his desire to find out what happened to Sorcha and his need to keep Rosie safe. “Deliverance.”

“What about him?”

“Ask him to help. I’ll feel better about it if he’s the one helping because I know he won’t let anything happen to you.”

She shrugged. “I could. The idea doesn’t fill me with delight because the only thing predictable about Grandpop is that you can count on unpredictability. But if it eases your mind, I’ll ask. If he comes, we might be able to skip a couple of steps.”

“It would.”

“You be okay here? I’ll need to, um, go away.”

Simon chuckled. “Yes. I don’t need babysitting.” He looked at his watch. “How long will you be gone?”

“Hard to say. Could be ten minutes. Could be an hour.”

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