He shrugged a shoulder. “What if it brought me to you?”
She wanted to run to him, be caught up in his arms.
“Oliver, we were…both solid.”
He stared at her and she was so thankful for his needful gaze. She told herself she could remain with him this way until her dying day. She didn’t need anything more than his attention.
“Bring me back with you, Magnolia.”
She nodded, thinking of a hundred reasons they shouldn’t play around in the past. But this wasn’t a game. She had to save him.
After a quick breakfast with her eating and him watching, they went to the library and stood before the gauntlet.
“What if it sends us to different places?” she said with worry making her voice quaver.
“I’ll find you,” he reassured her with a slight wink.
“I don’t know how this thing works, Oliver.”
“Since it didn’t bring me back when I tried,” he said, “I suspect we have to be connected, or touching.”
He held out his hand. She looked at it, translucent in the library. She lifted her fingers to it. As they touched, Maggie closed her eyes, imagining his flesh, his heat, the roughness of his hand. But it didn’t change the fact that there was nothing there. If the gauntlet were somehow only meant for her, it wouldn’t work.
“Oliver,” she said softly, “you have to come through me. Ready?”
Before he opened his mouth to answer, she stepped forward, straight into him with one hand resting on the ancient glove.
Maggie wasn’t aware of how much time passed as she was transported through it. She was only aware of the intruding spirit filling her as it had once before. But now, his presence was comforting. His scents of the briny sea, leather, and chainmail went straight to her head and made her smile. Every part of him mixed with her and made her cling to him, vowing to never let go. But too soon she landed on her rump on that battlement. Separating from him was the most difficult thing she’d ever had to do. It made her realize that she was wrong to think she would be satisfied without touch. No. She knew she wanted to be consumed in his arms.
When he left her, she wanted to cry out to have him back.
“Magnolia, did it work?”
She looked at him and was overwhelmed for a moment with the need to cry. “You’re still a ghost.”
“Is it still two thousand and twenty-four?”
“I don’t know,” she answered, rising from her rump.
It was evening. The sound of musical instruments drifted up and blended with the sound of the crashing waves below.
She caught Oliver moving out of the corner of her eye. He was going toward the archway and the doors that led to the inside of the fortress.
She called out to him.
“I know what night this is, Magnolia.”
Her heart sank. “We have to stay together!”
She heard a sound from the exit in the southern wall. A woman’s voice.
“Quickly, Henry. I am not certain how long the effects of the wine will last.”
“He’s not a small man, Eleanor. If the elixir wears off and he awakens I’ll just put my blade to his neck and kill him quickly.”
Eleanor! Maggie hurried and hid around the corner. Out of sight, she peeked around the bend to see a man hauling another, unconscious man over his shoulder.
“No!” Eleanor admonished him. “I told you I want him to begin to wake up and know he’s about to die.”
