All Times Must End, Part 3

Erieri clutched the boom tightly, running the worn bristles over the floor repeatedly, as if swiping away every speck of dust could prevent what was coming. Nothing could prevent this future. Her past. She saw it creeping closer every day. Saw it in the way that Erie’s hand healed. She remembered that wound. She remembered this time.

And she didn’t remember this time either.

There was an unfamiliarity around the events she had already lived through once, which surprised her. The sensation was unlike when she had confronted herself on the plains. Here she recalled living through them generally. The details, however, she realized had been swept away with time. Her younger self had once said she didn’t remember, and Erieri did not.

Had they been swallowed by the darkness to come?

Erieri shook her head and furiously brushed the floor more listening to Tinarie and Erie chattering in the kitchen. They had began the preparations for the midday meal. The workers would be back soon enough. Those who plied their trade on the river, and those who plied their trade in the town. Any with no other home stayed at the boathouse.

Erieri had found them all fascinating as a child, hearing tells of different places so many nights. She had thought there could never be anything grander. Scoffing slightly, Erieri knew now how narrow her view had been back then. How much more she would see.

“I think that part’s been swept enough,” Tinarie said with amusement ringing clearly in her voice.

Erieri looked up from the broom and offered a hesitant smile. “I’m sure there’s another section I can attack then.” Lifting her broom, she glanced around the room but didn’t spot anywhere needing attention.

Tinarie put a hand on her shoulder. “I know you feel like you should pay for your board somehow, but…” Trailing off, she glanced at her daughter. “I wish your ethics would rub off on Erie.”

Erie harrumphed, crossing her arms.

Erieri gave a crooked smile as she looked at Tinarie. “I’m sure she’ll do much better than you hope.”

Tinarie ruffled Erie’s hair and turned away, going to fetch some item or another. “I’d love to see that day.”

Erieri pressed her lips into a tight, thin smile. She wanted to say that she wished that as well, but she couldn’t let the words out. She trapped them instead and returned the broom to the closet.

When she returned to the chamber, Tinarie was nowhere to be seen. Erie sat at a table, folding napkins into a neat pile. Erieri’s throat tightened as she looked at the girl swinging her legs with a doll in a blue dress laid beside her. “Where’s Tinarie ?”

Erie jerked her head sideways, motioning toward the doorway behind her. “Destern came with a delivery.”

Erieri’s stomach sank. Destern had come with a delivery. The napkins, the doll, the healing hand. Erieri tensed as she turned toward the doorway. No, it couldn’t be today.

All times must end, Cormac’s voice echoed in her head.

Erieri shook her head again, taking another step toward the doorway. No, he was wrong. All times did not need to end.

She was the guardian. She could rearrange times.

Moving toward the doorway, Erieri saw the wagon in the yard with the horses still yoked, sitting on the rise in the land. A rise common in this part of town where it sloped towards the river.

“Tinarie ,” Erieri called. She couldn’t see the woman yet, couldn’t see Destern.

“I’ll be right with you,” Tinarie called, waving her hand over the wagon, distractedly at Erieri. “Erie love, come and fetch this, would you?”

Erieri froze as her younger self needled past her in the doorway, skipping out into the yard toward their mother. “No, don’t go,” Erieri whispered. There was no strength behind her voice. Merely the lightest whisper, which not even a breeze could carry.

She stepped forward and saw Destern and Tinarie standing beside the wagon, arguing. Their words, though loud enough, did not reach Erieri’s mind. There was a buzz beating against her thoughts.

Erie, her younger self, clambered up on the back of the wagon, moving to retrieve some bushel of vegetables that the boathouse needed.

“That isn’t what we agreed on, Destern,” Tinarie said. She crossed her arms and scowled at the man. Erieri remembered those words.

“Agreed upon or not, it’s what I can do,” Destern stomped back up the side of the wagon and called over his shoulder, “Unless you’d like me to just take the lot and go.”

The next happened in such quick succession, even watching it from here, Erieri could not untwine the movements in her mind.

“Of course not,” Tinarie said as Destern smacked the nearer horse’s rump.

Tinarie should have known better, Erieri thought.

Destern had become increasingly angry, increasingly erratic. His nearly running them off the road had only been the first point. Talk of him and his temper had spread around town, moving from whispered rumors to quiet conversations.

After today, it would be declared loudly.

Unless Erieri acted.

She stepped forward as the horse reared, lurching backward. She heard the remembered crack as the wood splintered holding the wagon to the base. Erieri heard her younger self squill.

The wagon, broken free, rolled backwards quickly. Backwards, but not toward a road. Toward the river abutting the boathouse. The river so close allowing the boats to dock within the enclosure.

“Erie, my love!” Tinarie cried.

“No,” Erieri whispered. She stepped forward, raising her arm as if she would stop her mother from leaping onto the wagon, even as the woman moved.

Time flowed before her unraveling from the path Erieri recalled, rushing and screwmaing in her ears like a river overspilling its banks.

A moment flashed by. Hendat kneeling before her as he gazed intently into her eyes offering her his hand.

The moment vanished.

“No!” Yanking her hand back, Erieri pressed it against her chest and turned away.

She could change this moment. She could not change Tinarie and Erie’s fate. And Erieri’s fate.

She could not change her fate.

Jerking, she took a step back toward the boathouse.

A second.

She crossed the threshold and closed the door behind her.

Leaning against it, she covered her ears and did not hear Erieri’s shrill cry as Tinarie threw her to the side. Nor the splash as the wagon rolled into the river.

Opening her eyes, Erieri called to time again. The air broke in front of her, and the portal formed opening the path back to the nexus. Unable to get her legs to work in anything but a chaotic rhythm, she stepped through.

Hendat and Cormac fell silent as Erieri entered the plains. She knew they had been arguing. Doubted for them it had been more than a moment since her departure, but Erieri drew in a shaking breath and squeezed her eyes closed.

“I told you!” Hendat’s angry lecture was interrupted quickly.

Silence followed for a moment before Cormac spoke, “I’m sorry, Erieri.” His voice had softened with compassion. “I told you all times must end, including individuals.”

She felt a hand on her shoulder and opened her eyes. Cormac stood beside her, his eyes creased with sorrow. Erieri jerked her shoulder out from beneath his weight. “Her time has not ended for me. Not now.” She shook her head furiously. “I saw no end.”

Hendat drew in a deep breath as if he might speak but said nothing. Cormac remained equally silent as Erieri turned away from them and marched onto the Plains of Time holding desperately to the memory of Tinarie.