Abby the Witch (37 page)

Pembrake
reached out his hand and rested it on the cold bar of his cell. It
was rusted iron, and flakes of the oxidized metal chipped off in
his hands. If he had time and a chisel, he could break through. But
lost in the past, he had neither of those.

He was full of
regret. Pembrake gripped the bar in one powerful hand and tried to
shift it again, only to have more flakes of red-brown metal chip
off in his hand. There was much he had to regret, and this seemed
like the perfect moment to think of it all.

He could list
it all in his mind and still try to shift the bars of his prison
cell.

He had not
given up: he still wanted to escape and finish what he'd begun or
at least to find Abby one last time. But an air of finality had
settled over him.

Things
appeared to be coming to a head.

There was a
creak from the other end of the prison and the large heavy door
opened.

The Colonel
sauntered in. 'My, my, my, you haven't escaped yet, spy?
What have they been teaching you in Elogia? You are the
least effective spy I've ever met. Oh well,' he walked further in,
'at least I'll have both you spies in the same place for now. Your
time in prison will allow me time to come up with a new plan and
will allow you time to imagine what I'll come up with.' the
Colonel turned to the man behind him who was still past the
threshold of the door. 'Throw her in the cell next to him; I don't
want them trying any pathetic escape attempts.'

The Turn About
dragged her in.

He stood up
and pressed himself against the bars. 'Abby?'

She looked at
him and nodded briefly, almost officially. He'd expected her to be
a blubbering wreck, but she was standing all stiff and strong like
an old woman standing up to a bully.

She looked
like a different person.

'Don't get any
ideas, witch,' the Turn About threw Abby into the cell and she lost
her footing and fell hard onto the dusty floor.

'You Pleck!' Pembrake threw himself at the bars, but of
course they held.

The Colonel
laughed as he left the room. 'You Elogian spies are good fun
really.'

In a moment
the door closed behind him and they were alone.

Abby picked
herself up and dusted herself off. Her movements were still stiff
and strict, and she swatted at her dusty dress like a washerwoman
beating a stubborn stain.

'Abby, Abby,
are you okay?' he moved across the bars that separated their cells
and reached out a hand.

She seemed to
consider it for a moment, a strange play happening between the
strong and proper Abby that had walked into the cell, and the
ordinary Abby he knew was underneath.

She seemed to
come half way. Her face opened up with concern and warmth, but her
shoulders did not drop with defeat.

She reached
out a hand and took his. 'Pembrake, I'm fine.'

'Oh,
Abby.'

She breathed
deeply. 'Yes... we seem to be in a bit of a pickle.'

He laughed at
her understatement, trying not to hold onto her hand with all his
might lest he hurt her. But it was hard.

'I'm sorry,
Abby... I should have listened to you.'

She nodded.
'And I should have listened to you. If I hadn't been so... weak...
if I hadn't been so indecisive, we could have done something
sooner.'

'Are you
saying you would have supported my stupid plan to kill
the Colonel?'

She looked at
him with a very mature look, but at the edges it was touched with
warmth. 'No, Pembrake, I would have tied you up as soon as let you
near the Colonel.'

He laughed at
her sincerity. She seemed so different....

'But if we'd
worked together...' she looked down at her free hand but did not
loosen her grip on his, 'if I'd trusted you... trusted in myself...
I think we would have found that there were different options. I
think we were wrong when we thought it was a decision between
either killing the Colonel or doing nothing... I think if we'd
trusted each other properly... we would have found something else,
something better.'

She wasn't
berating him. She wasn't telling him off for ruining their chances
of ever returning home. She was just holding tightly onto his hand
and thinking out loud about how things could have been
different.

'Abby, it
shouldn't have ended this way,' he tried to push his arm further
through the bars, ignoring the pain in his shoulder.

'Perhaps it
still won't,' she broke away from his hand and delved into her
pockets, 'Pembrake I think I can fix your mother's bracelet.'

'What?' he
flailed for a moment, surprised that she'd dropped his hand, but
when he realised what she was talking about he dropped his arm
also.

'I ran into
your mother and she gave me this,' Abby held up a bracelet that
looked identical to his mother's heirloom. 'It's the bracelet!' she
held up the other bracelet, the broken one from the future, 'it's
this bracelet except in the past!'

He shook his
head, startled at the sudden energy in her words. 'But what does
that mean?'

'It means I
can fix it.' She sat both bracelets in her lap and stared at them
keenly. 'It means I can use material from the past bracelet to fix
the future one.'

Her energy was
catching and he grabbed the bars, pulling himself against them,
trying to get a better look. 'But why can't you just use the past
one?'

Abby looked
confused for a moment. 'I don't think that's the point somehow... I
think fixing the broken bracelet is like... well, like
fixing the broken timeline... I think it is all symbolic
somehow.'

He nodded. He
didn't follow at all. But he wasn't the expert here, she was. Abby
was the witch. 'Okay... go ahead then. But how long will it
take?'

Abby ignored
him for a moment, apparently lost in thought as she picked up both
bracelets and analysed them carefully. 'I can take some of the
supporting string from the past bracelet... but I'm not sure if it
will be enough. It will re-establish the magical connection to the
beads... but I don't think it will be strong enough to go all the
way round....'

Pembrake had
no idea what she was talking about, but wasn't about to
second-guess her now. She needed his support and he was going to
give it to her. 'What do you need?'

She moved her
tongue across her teeth. 'Some string would be nice... though it
probably wouldn't work... it would have to be something organic,'
she tapped the fingers against the beads of the one of the
bracelets, 'I don't know – I guess hair might work... but where am
I going to get that....'

He looked at
her for a moment, waiting for her to say more. 'You aren't serious,
are you, Abby? You didn't just ask where you're going to get hair,
did you? You have a full head of beautiful, long
hair.'

She blushed
slightly. 'Yes, I know... thank you. But I can't use mine because
this bracelet doesn't belong to me.'

'What do you
mean?' He had been so sure that she was onto something....

'I can't weave
my own hair into your treasured family heirloom? I'm not part of
your family, Pembrake, I would have no right, the magic just
wouldn't work.'

'It wouldn't
work if you weren't part of my family?'

'Yeah,' she
looked glumly at the bracelets.

'Then you can
have it,' he said it very slowly, very carefully, very warmly,
hoping she'd pick up on what it meant.

'But this is
an heirloom, Pembrake! It's part of your family – you can't just
give to me. The magic would be broken. If I'm right, then this
bracelet should act like an anchor for us – pointing in the right
direction towards the future. It belongs to your family and will
connect to your Bridgestock, so giving it to me will just
break the magic.'

'Abby,' he
really spoke carefully now, 'I don't think you understand
me. I want you to have it.'

Perhaps she
picked up on something in his voice, because she looked up.

She didn't
look serious anymore, or innocent, or angry or any other expression
she usually held. 'What do you mean,' she spoke carefully
herself.

'It's a
tradition in my family to give that bracelet to the person you
intend to marry.'

'...Pembrake?'

'Abby. Will
you marry me?'

Her face was
alight with a sudden life. 'I... you aren't serious?'

Was he
serious? He'd just kind of said it…. If it was the only way to make
the magic work… then it was the right thing to do, right?

But… he was
serious… wasn't he?

He nodded.

'But we're
stuck in a prison cell – how are we going to get married?'

'Surely it
doesn't matter. I've just proposed to you, Abby, and now I've given
you that bracelet... you'll be part of my family if you accept
it.'

It was hard to
tell what she was thinking. Her face was turbulent like a sudden
squall at sea. Was she about to cry, laugh, or refuse?

She closed her
eyes for a moment and smiled. 'So you are serious then?'
she checked one more time.

He held out
his hand.

She took
it.

'I am serious.
Marry me, Abby.'

It would have
been the perfect moment, had they not been in prison. But
they were in prison and time was running out.

'Can you fix
it now?'

She smiled,
her cheeks warm and red. 'I'll give it a go.'

He silently
watched her work, fixing the bracelet in her lap. He didn't want to
interrupt her, but a thought came to mind as he watched. 'But what
of the Key of Time?'

She looked up
for a moment. 'What?'

'Those witches
said that we had to find the Key of Time.... Do you have any idea
what that is?'

'I... well I
don't know. I'd figured that it must have been something in the
castle... but I guess I'd never found the time to look.' Abby
looked suddenly crestfallen.

'So it is a
physical object then? Not something magical, nothing like a spell
or anything?'

She screwed up
her nose. 'To be honest I hadn't thought of that... I'd just
assumed that it would be an object like a talisman of some sorts.
But I guess it could be anything.'

'So it could
be in this room with us then?' Pembrake said hopefully, giving Abby
a brave smile.

She laughed
lightly. 'Wouldn't that be nice.'

'Well why
wouldn't it be?' he didn't want her to give up hope. Even if he
didn't know what he was talking about, he wanted to convince her
that there must still be hope. 'If you have no idea what it is, why
couldn't it be in this room with us? What would be a key to time
anyway? Would it be a clock, a calendar, a watch?'

She shook her
head. 'No... it shouldn't be. Witches don't really think of time
like that. Clocks and days only measure time....'

'So what would
the key be then? What would lock up time? How do witches talk about
time?'

She leant back
slightly, her nose still crinkled with thought. 'It is supposed to
be the most powerful force in the universe.... It's supposed to
reach everywhere and be capable of doing anything... witches are
very wary of time. Mrs Crowthy hated talking about it. She used to
ensure there was a roaring fire in the hearth before she even
mentioned the word.'

Pembrake
chuckled. 'It sounds more like you'd want to lock time out, not
open it up.'

Abby turned
quickly, her face alight with amazement, her grey eyes almost azure
from the sudden energy flickering behind them. 'What?'

'Lock time
out?'

'I just
thought… well, when they'd said it, I'd thought that they'd meant
the key opened time... but why couldn't it lock time out? A key
locks and it unlocks. I'd never even thought!'

He smiled at
her. 'Neither had I.'

'Pembrake,
that must be it, that's exactly how a witch would think.
They wouldn't want to unlock time and allow more in, they'd want to
lock it away so they only had just the right amount.'

'I see,' he
lied but in an excited tone.

'When the
witches said that we'd broken our destines, I think that's what
they meant. By changing our destinies, we'd left our lives open
ended, flapping in the ether with no direction.'

'We were lost
in time?' Pembrake hazarded.

'Yes. We were
lost in time, with no ending... but if we set our destinies
straight again... if we lock out the open-ended entirety of time…
we should get out lives back…. Without a destiny we
had too much time. But with a destiny we have just the
right amount to do what we have to.'

Pembrake
really tried hard to follow. 'Like a ration?'

'Yes... we
have a set amount of time, and it is up to us to do what we will
with it.'

'So all we
have to do is find a way to lock time out?'

'Yes,
Pembrake, that's it!'

'... And how
are we going to do that?'

She faltered.
'I... um... well I guess... oh.'

'Why don't you
just fix the bracelet and see what happens?'

She looked up
at him. 'Do you think that could work?'

'I have no
idea.'

'I guess,' she
began to work at the bracelet again and her voice dropped to a
mumble, 'I guess technically...' she blushed suddenly.

'What?' the
interest in his voice was obvious.

She swallowed
delicately. 'Well... I guess if we are getting married... and I'm
fixing your... our family heirloom with my own hair... in
a way I'm kind of….'

'Yes?'

'Binding us
together in a kind of way I guess....'

'Together?'

She
gulped.

'Well that
sounds perfect doesn't? It you have two broken strings, you tie
them together. right?'

She hadn't
looked up at him; she was still blushing, after all. 'I guess
so.'

'You guess
so?' he pressed.