He wasn’t the same for the next hour. His laughter was subdued and he rarely smiled. But he told them all about Morgan Le Fey’s obsession with Arthur. He had heard rumors that if she rose up, she would kill anyone in Arthur’s life. There were many other nasty things said about her that need not be repeated presently. She had to be kept from finding him. That was why, it is whispered, Arthur cast another, more powerful enchantment on the brooch.
“What kind of enchantment?” Charlotte asked.
“That the person holding the brooch and saying the name would be sent to his or her one true love.”
Her eyes fixed on Michael’s. She drew in a deep breath, as if her lungs were starved for air. Had they somehow enchanted her? Is that why Michael didn’t want the others around? Why him? Why her? How could they be hundreds of years apart and still be the other’s true love? How could an enchantment be so powerful that it could bring two people together who were perhaps born at the wrong time?
“So,” she remarked, staring at him, “you were sent here to meet…me?”
He smiled but shielded his gaze behind his dusky lashes. “I don’t believe in stuff like this either, trust me. Some old, blackened piece of jewelry isn’t going to tell me who I love.”
She straightened her shoulder. “Nor me.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Mr. Simeon said. “The question is, are Sir Gawaine and Arthur’s knights going to let him stay?”
She smiled and did her best not to laugh. This was all so preposterous. They were talking like mad people. King Arthur and his knights…
“If King Arthur’s own magic made Michael come here, I doubt he will change his mind now and send him back,” Charlotte said.
“King Arthur has nothing to do with this personally,” Mr. Simeon told them. “He cannot be found. Morgan had sent for him and he never showed up. They have not seen him in Avalon in fifty years.”
Charlotte didn’t care so much about Avalon and its king. She cared about building what Michael wanted here, a jail withofficers, as he’d called them. She wanted to do what would make him stay. But at what cost? Preston? Michael and Preston didn’t belong in the same century. One of them would not survive. The thought of it made her want to weep. Her hands felt shaky.
She had to warn Preston. Would Michael truly take her to Preston’s tomorrow?
“I still do not understand how any of this proves that you are from the future,” she told Michael. She wished it did prove his story. But as Mr. Simeon had said, it only proved that Mr. Simeon could travel through time.
Which was difficult to believe.
“I’m not one hundred percent convinced you are telling me the truth, Mr. Simeon.”
“Very well.” He took her blanket in his hand and held up his free index finger. “Be right back.”
He disappeared, making her gasp and reach out to feel the air where he had been. She looked at Michael. “Is this real?”
“Yes.”
“What if you disappear like that one of these days?” she asked him, more worried than she would admit.
He opened his arms, as if knowing she needed to be in them. She hurried to him and was engulfed in his strong embrace.
Mr. Simeon appeared again a few feet from where he’d been. He smiled slightly when he saw her in Michael’s arms, then handed her the blanket.
It was older, tattered, well loved. It looked the way it had just before it disappeared.
“I returned it and then went back for it several years later.”
“You truly did,” she breathed. ’Tis my blanket.” She broke away from Michael and took it and held it to her cheek to let it absorb her tears. “May I keep it?”
“Yes, of course It’s yours.” Mr. Simeon replied then turned to Michael. “Don’t go anywhere.”
He vanished and she shook her head, doubting she would ever grow used to that.
He appeared again, and this time he carried a small figure of a man. It was about twelve inches long and wore green clothes. It wore squishy boots and a hard hat on his head.
“My GI Joe!” Michael took it in his hands when Mr. Simeon handed it to him. He looked it over lovingly for a moment and then his eyes shone with tears. “No. It’s Geoff’s.” He looked up at her. “It’s one of my brother’s toys.”
“I took it from the room you and he shared when you were seven,” the time traveler told him.
