Page 12 of Just in Time
I just needed to figure out where we were going.
I poured the water from the kettle into the smoking pan, wincing as it hissed loudly, turning to steam.
* * *
The problemwith being the only time witch in my circle was that there was literally no one to go to when there was an issue like this.
Obviously, Brody was fading away. Something I’d read about online in one of my many searches that day. (Try searching ‘my boyfriend is fading away’ and tell me you don’t die a little inside…) Anyway, after finding a site run by another time witch, one who’d written a few of the books that usually resided on my shelf, but were currently open in a semi-circle around me as I researched, I found what I hoped to be a credible explanation. I ran a fine-tooth comb over the last of the mats in my hair as I read it through a third time, sufficiently convinced that this was the only piece of helpful info I’d run across.
If Brody was fading away, that meant that someone was trying to erase him in his past.
If someone was trying to erase him, then in order to save him, I had to go back through his past and find out where he was being erased.
The problem was, I’d checked back through his entire timeline and found nothing. Less than nothing. In fact, I really couldn’t find anything. I couldn’t see his past. His memories were there, but the thing that made them tangible was gone.
Which meant, I’d have to follow a different line. Go back further. Which was something I’d promised myself I’d never ever do again.
I took a deep breath and let it out again. This was no time for personal hang-ups, this was a time for action.
The thing about time witches… we were more than just time-alterers. We could also kind of see lifelines. Timelines were part of it, but lifelines were the deeper part of my magic that I hadn’t really delved into much. Not since the whole fiasco with my dad’s.
I’d seen most of Brody’s past before, but I knew lifelines went back so much further than that. Further back before birth. To the very faintest wisps and glimmers of a person’s being. The actions of our parents which brought us into being. Of our grandparents. Further back still, all the way to the dawn of everything, if the witch was good enough at following the line. Personally, I’d seen my own lifeline, but I’d never followed it back further than my parents lifetime.
I’d seen Brody’s too, but I never followed it. It felt like an invasion of privacy to do so without permission.
Given the right motivation, and permission from Brody? I could definitely follow it. And with the man I loved literally fading away, I found all the motivation I could ever hope for.
Now, for the permission.
I reached over, taking his hand… or where his hand would have been, if he wasn’t fading from there.
“Babe?” I said softly, reaching for his face, I ran my hand over his cheek. “Brody?”
He looked up at me, the warmth in his eyes flickering steadily as he locked my gaze. “Did you find something?”
I nodded. “I did. But I need to go back…”
“Anywhere you go, I’m going with you,” he said softly, reaching for the gloves I’d pulled out of the closet. He’d been wearing them around so he could see what he was doing. And apparently, he intended to take them wherever we went as well.
I nodded. “You can. It’d be good if you did, actually… so I could see if what I was doing worked…”
“Where are we going?” he asked. “Back to my childhood?”
I shook my head. “Further. Before you were born.”
He frowned. “How does that work? Someone’s erasing me before I even was?”
“Looks that way,” I said, grimacing as I pushed up from the hard floor. “I’ll have to take us back further than I’ve ever gone with two people before…”
I reached for his gloved hand. “C’mon, let’s go back and sit on the bed. It’s more comfortable.”
“Why? Don’t we need to go?” he asked urgently.
“I need to figure out where we’re going first,” I explained. “I need to look at your lifeline. Go back until I can find a spot where it’s broken. Or where there are holes or something. I’m not sure what I’m looking for, but I’ll know it when I see it.”
“How? Have you done this before?” he asked.
“Not this specifically…” I said softly. “I’ve been back on a lifeline before though.”
