“He cannot,” said another voice.
The Keepers appeared between us in a curl of blue flame. “Edwin Ashborne never tapped the true potential of his abilities as Keeper. Unlike you, he never swam the strid.”
That struck a chord with me. “So you’re saying, in order to fully use these abilities to help, he would have had to risk his life by diving into the strid like we’ve just done?”
“Correct. Dreams bring you closer to the Bloodstream’s truths, but in these dreams you are a spectator. In order to become their architect, you must let the blood of the strid flow through you.”
“That seems an unfair risk to take,” Kessian muttered. “Why did it choose me?”
“Because you chose to make Shearwater your home. Edwin Ashborne’s family were no longer fit for the task, fractured and sending their own away as they have. The people of Shearwater benefit from the spring’s magic, the Ashbornes most of all, yet a balance between give and take was not struck. They exploited it.”
“So it took our lives instead?” I asked.
“No. Those are the actions of the poisoner. Lives are a poor substitute for what the strid truly wants.”
“Which is?”
“I’ve told you. To go home. So poisoned, it cannot. You must heal it.”
“How?”
The Keepers gestured into the study, where Grandad had turned back to his wall of clocks. “Some things are easier when demonstrated. Watch, and we will guide you.”
They vanished once more, and we turned our attention to the study. Edwin stared at the shelf of clocks. He pinched his mouth between his fingers while he thought. After a moment’s hesitation, he spun the hands of the clock labelled with my name.
As he did, the world washed out as if it were a rained-on watercolor. The noise of the strid’s current roared in my ears. Briefly, I couldn’t breathe, lungs straining.
Then the river released me, and I washed up in the warm, welcoming place I used to call home.
It was my childhood bedroom. I looked around at the posters ordered neatly on the wall, the shelf of my earliest ceramics, wobbly and charming in only the way a child’s work could be. My teenage self slept with one leg stuck out from the duvet to keep cool on a summer’s night.
Seeing myself in a memory might have been strange, but not as much as seeing the calico cat curled up on my pillow next to me. If Lunaris hadn’t transformed yet, that might mean—
My side of the room had mathematical order to it while the opposite overflowed with clothes, books, crafts, a plastic bug tank with something crawling inside. And in the bed was a face I hadn’t seen in nine years.
Laurelie was curled up tight, cuddling a crochet egg with a duckling hatching out of it.
“Is that Lunaris?” Kessian whispered.
“Yeah. Always slept by my head so my feet wouldn’t get too hot.”
“So that’s …?”
“My sister.”
We looked alike. There’d been other fraternal twins at my high school who looked nothing alike, but Laurelie and I had looked more or less identical until puberty hit.
I missed her so powerfully, the nine years seemed to shrink, leaving me freshly stung by the grief of her passing. She slept right in front of me, but I couldn’t escape the knowledge this was just a memory.
A noise pierced the quiet night. Something eerie and unnatural that silenced the song of summer insects, replacing it with a different sort of music. I shuddered at its familiarity.
A few hollow notes whispered through the window, cracked open to let in the night air and dispel the heat, and in response, my younger self blinked awake. He sat up wearily, rubbing the sleep from his eyes, and stood. A frisson of fear made him scrabble a hand over the bedside cabinet for something to hold on to. It clenched around the silver pocket watch, the gift Grandad had given me. Whatever directed him pulled too powerfully. His eyes glazed. The floorboards creaked quietly underfoot as he rose and walked past us into the hallway. Laurelie shifted in her sleep but did not wake to stop him.
Kessian and I followed.
On the landing, another figure from photographs and memories appeared. My father wore only his sleep shorts and walked barefoot down the stairs. The sight of him added to the weight of grief burgeoning within me, as he opened the front door, then waited for his son to sleepwalk over and take his hand.
They walked out into the night, leaving the door ajar.
