Vera had never had any notion of a life other than the one that she’d lived. No visions of battles or castles. “I don’t remember anything.”
“You used to dream about it.” Allison had been quiet so long that Vera jolted at the sound of her voice—and more so at the content of what she said. “You must have been three or four years old, and you never remembered in the morning, but you’d wake up in the middle of the night talking about him.”
“About who?” Vera hadn’t meant to whisper.
“The king. Once, you said you went on a walk with him and that everyone knew him and wanted to talk to him.” Allison laughed a little. “You thought he must be tired after carrying on as if he liked them all.”
Vera never had more than a passing hello with strangers on the street. She agreed with her toddler self’s assessment. Still, that was a child’s dream. Glastonbury was reputed to be the ancient Isle of Avalon, and the thirteenth-century monks at the abbey had claimed they unearthed Arthur and Guinevere’s tombs. Even with her aversion to Arthurian legends, she could hardly go about town without hearing some reference to it. She was an imaginative child. She could have come up with some King Arthur story. That proved nothing.
“You talked about Merlin, too,” Allison said.
Merlin straightened in his seat, and Vera thought he gripped his whiskey glass more tightly. But when he spoke, he merely sounded interested. “Really?”
“Yes,” Allison said. She shook her head and offered a half grin. “She said you made … water balloon animals to cheer her up. It sounded like nonsense. Does that ring any bells?”
“It does,” Merlin said.
“Do you remember what her favorite was?” Allison asked as she leaned toward the wizard. It seemed an odd question to Vera.
Merlin considered a moment before he flicked his wrist at his whiskey glass. The liquid soared out of it, and, at the twist of his fingers, it gathered into the unmistakable shape of a monkey, bulbous and fluid though not sweating a single drop.
“Oh,” Allison cooed at the whiskey sculpture. Vera felt the unbidden smile on her lips. It did resemble a balloon animal, and it was indeed made of liquid.
Merlin turned his fingers downward, and the drink flowed like a wave back into the glass as Allison relaxed into her chair. Vera realized with a jolt that her mother had been testing him.
She turned back to Vera. “And there was a woman called Matilda. You woke up crying once and asked me to braid your hair … that Matilda lived in the castle and plaited your hair when you were sad.”
“She’s your chambermaid,” Merlin said. “You see? The memories have always been within you. It might take some time, but when you’re back home, we’ll be able to begin unlocking them.”
It was jarring to hear somewhere else, sometime else, referred to as home. This was home. Vera was not a queen. She wasn’t—she couldn’t be—Guinevere. But she couldn’t deny that they were made from the same (what was the word Merlin used?) essence, nor could she deny her own childhood memories. Perhaps she was some sort of … container for Guinevere’s story.
Accepting that brought the possibility of actually leaving into sharp relief. It frightened her. “If I go back with you, will I be stuck there forever?”
Merlin frowned, and there was pity in it. “If you can remember and get the course of history back on track by late spring, we will have another chance for you to return. If returning to this time is what you want.”
“But I can come back?” Vera asked, with a glance at her mother. Allison seemed to be working to keep her face impassive. “It wouldn’t rip the fabric of time or whatever?”
Merlin took a careful sip of his whiskey. “After you’ve helped us set things right, I can bring you back—if that’s what you want.”
Vera clenched her teeth together to keep from grimacing. He kept saying that: “If you want.” Of course she would want to. But as much as the timing was important for Merlin and Arthur, it was for Vera, too.
“Will that bring me back to right now, or will six months have passed here, too?” Vera asked.
Allison gave a sad hum as she reached over and squeezed Vera’s shoulder. “My love, you cannot map your life around his treatment.”
Vera yanked away from her. “Can you guarantee he will survive six months?”
“The treatments are going well—”
“We won’t even know if they’ve worked for another month.” She glared at her mother to stifle her rising tears.
“Ah …” Merlin said quietly. “I gather Martin is ill?”
Vera rubbed at the side of her glass. She’d rather chuck it at the wall. “Yes. Fucking cancer.”
As soon as she said it out loud, she froze. What was she thinking? This man had saved Guinevere from death. “Could you heal him?” Vera asked. “Show me that magic, and I’ll do whatever the hell you want.”
He smiled sadly, and her hope turned to ash. “Cancer differs from mortal flesh wounds. I’m sorry.”
