

Bartholomew Pike's Spell Book

A Seven Spell Story (six)

T Stokes

Formerly published as book six of the Seven Spell saga, this is not a new story.

It is re-covered, re-edited, and formatted, to include all new Kindles and all e-readers.

All Kindle and e-reader Edition 2013

ISBN 978-1-908210-84-5

Copyright T Stokes 2013

The moral right of the author has been asserted

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return toSmashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to actual people living or dead is purely coincidental.

All rights are reserved Worldwide 2013

Covers designed and produced by the author Copyright 2013

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Preface by the author

In the last book of A Seven Spell Story: The Task, there were a few endings for readers to choose from, but the author's cut ended where a new story would begin and this is that story.

The end paragraphs from the book 'The Task', in the author's cut chapter, are repeated below.

*******

Tristan left to take Cedric home, and I dashed off to shower and change. I had only just finished dressing again, and my hair was still wet, when Oliver knocked on my bedroom door. Steven had let him in. We flung ourselves at each other. It was funny really. Oliver just had me so tight against him I had to loosen his hold to breathe after a moment, and he let me take one breath, and then started to kiss me. We kissed each other for about two minutes just as if we had lost each other and found each other again. Oliver finally spoke.

"Why didn't you answer your phone? I was scared half to death that something had happened to you in the night."

I shook my head. "Oliver it was a complete accident that I didn't have it on me as usual. So sorry, I'm fine and what about you, anything wrong at all?"

He smiled then and kissed me again before replying.

"Nothing at all and now I have you close, I'm totally fine. Chloe I can't help feeling that Tristan came into contact with something bad on that last time travel, and maybe I caught it from him, but all's well that ends well. When is Tristan coming down, he did say we were going out for lunch? I thought we might go to the café where we all got together again after the California incident."

I laughed at this, and then hugged Oliver again. I was so relieved he was okay, and so much in love with him.

We kissed each other a few more times before going downstairs.

Tristan arrived seconds after and we decided to go to the café in Oliver's Land Rover. We were in the kitchen and piled out of the French windows there. As I turned to close them, Oliver grabbed Tristan by the arm and called out.

"Hey could that possibly be Gaston over on the top path?"

We all stopped dead and stared over the length of the garden to the top path that would lead down to the waterfall. It looked like Gaston to me in that blue outfit I had last seen him, sorry her in, with the fleur-de-lis on the breastplate. I looked at Oliver, and Tristan turned to us both. "I think it is Gaston. Oh my god."

Bartholomew Pike's Spell Book

A Seven Spell Story (six)

Chapter One

No sign of Gaston

It was six weeks since we had seen Gaston on the top path, and we were once again at the café near the library, where we had been heading on that particular day. The sun was beating down, and we were all crowded under the shade of an umbrella. The weather was so warm that even the usually lush streams that ran through the town were shrunken. People passed dressed in cut-off jeans, and sleeveless tops, their shoulders, and noses shiny and red from too much sun. A man in a business suit sat at an adjacent table. As he sat down he took off his jacket, and threw it on the chair nearby, followed by his tie, and then as he rolled his shirt sleeves up he levered off each shoe, first one against the toe of the other shoe, and then the other against his toe in its black sock. He glanced across at me as he pulled off his socks, and I smiled at him. He looked as if he had been desperate to become cooler, and he shrugged at me as he stuffed his socks in the pocket of his suit jacket.

Tristan was crunching an ice cube that he had fished out of his orange juice, and I smiled at him.

"So tell us about the things you found in the attics Tristan?" I said to him, and Oliver joined in.

"Yes don't just keep us waiting like this, especially after what has been happening" and he grinned at me as we both waited for the crunching to stop.

Things had gotten weirder than ever in the last six weeks.

When we had seen Gaston, we had started racing over, but obviously spooked by it, Gaston had turned around, and dived amongst the trees and shrubs. By the time we were at the waterfall, Gaston had gone.

I never know if I should call Gaston she or he. When we were down at the waterfall that day Tristan had called her he, and she, as well as Gaston.

We knew now she was female, but it was odd as Tristan put it calling Gaston she when we talked about her, which we did off and on over the first few days after we had seen her. Firstly, Tristan had talked about the passageway that was behind the waterfall, and we had looked closely at the place he thought it might be. Then we had decided not to try to find it properly because who knew what trouble we might find ourselves in, and as Oliver had emphasized didn't we find trouble enough as it was. We expected her to appear again in that first few days, and I kept a look out for her, but she never came back. Well not so far anyway.

We had stopped talking about Gaston when we all discovered that the hearing and projecting thoughts ability I thought was mine alone had somehow been developed by Oliver and Tristan.

I had been with Tristan, it was one in the morning, and he was kissing me when I heard Oliver clearly in my mind. He was thinking he wished he was with me, and was sick of the website he was building, and he bet I was with Tristan, well words to that effect. I stopped kissing Tristan because that was odd. I should have been with Oliver to hear him and have tuned in. This was random as if he had put that thought into my mind.

Tristan sat back from me and frowned. "This is going to sound weird, but I feel sure I just heard Oliver's thoughts. Did you do it?" he asked me.

I shook my head. "No but I heard it too. He's sick of the website he's building."

"And he wishes he was with you and thinks you are with me," Tristan finished.

We looked at one another and Tristan grinned. "I'll think back to him," he said.

I had sighed thinking how awkward this could actually get and heard Tristan's thought back to Oliver. 'Stop thinking so loud Oliver. Chloe and I can hear you over at the Dearing place, can't we Chloe?'

Tristan told me that Oliver answered in his thoughts, 'How are you doing that Tristan? I can actually hear you'.

I didn't hear that thought.

I had to join in and I addressed a thought at Oliver. 'Oliver we heard you say you were sick of the website, how did you do that?'

It had all been so weird that Oliver had driven over, and we gathered in the kitchen at the Dearing place with Charlie thinking something hugely exciting was going on, waddling from one to the other of us being stroked, and wagging his tail until it tired him out. He had gone to his basket, and we had stayed until two thirty in the morning testing out the new ability Oliver, and Tristan had. It seemed to my huge relief that the words Oliver had actually spoken were addressed to me, and then to Tristan, and that was how we could communicate telepathically. We had to address the thought to the other person.

I could hardly contain my relief when we realized that, because I couldn't be kissing either of them, and they could both hear my thoughts, that would have been a disaster. It wasn't quite my ability they had developed, I could listen in to anyone usually if I wanted to, but it was awesome none the less. Now we could communicate over distances, talk to each other with our minds.

When Oliver had left that night, Tristan had turned to me and said, "Phew, thank heavens we can't all just hear each other's thoughts all the time. How could I ever think 'I love you, please kiss me' to you if Oliver could hear it?" and he laughed all the way out to the Wrangler. I hugged him tight, and kissed him trying very hard not to think at all, but somehow the phenomenon where I transferred my feelings to him happened, and we spent longer saying goodnight than I intended.

Since then we have talked to each other a few times with our thoughts, but strangely reached for our cell phones more; force of habit I guess.

The other weird things have been stranger, if that is possible. I healed mom of a headache by touching her hand. I was a bit spooked by it because it was noticeable. She had come down to the kitchen, and was going to take painkillers with her coffee. I caught hold of her hand to give her a hug, and wham the headache was gone.

She said, "That's weird my headache, it's suddenly gone, just disappeared. Must be your healing touch Chloe." She laughed, but I had felt a little zap as I touched her, and I thought maybe that it actually could be my healing touch. I told Oliver and Tristan, and naturally, at first, they thought it could have been a coincidence. Then I did it in front of Oliver to Samantha, who had a cold, when we were at the Kool Kafé, and we decided it was another thing to add to the telepathy.

What else has happened that's weird? Well Tristan who has always had a strong bond with animals suddenly thinks for sure he knows what they are thinking, and that's not all, he gets the same feeling with plants, trees, and the earth. Although in that case, it's not thoughts, but what he calls 'their' feelings he knows. It's quite weird and spooky too, and he's had to stop cutting flowers. He says he feels it, and so Jo and Martin have to do all the cutting, and Tristan takes care of all the rest. In a way, it's made his workload heavier because now he does so much checking up on the woodlands and flowers to see if they are okay. He has all the paperwork to do and delivers lots more too.

We are all a bit jumpy about what might happen next and trying to downplay the new gifts as Oliver dubbed them. I was with Oliver only the other day, and he confessed to being relieved that he hadn't developed anything other than the telepathy gift.

So when Tristan said he was going to clear out the attics in the big house near the White Woods now that Aristide and family had gone home to France, we had decided to help him for a couple of days. We thought that a bit of physical work might ground our imaginations, but Tristan had started on one side of the attic the night before without us. Now after receiving what could only be called a bizarre message from him, 'to please meet him at the library café this morning to talk about strange things he had found in the attic', Oliver and I were waiting to find out what was going on.

Chapter Two

The strange find

Tristan stopped crunching his ice cube and moved a little closer to us.

"The attic I started on is full of weird stuff, more than antiques, sort of artifacts."

"Artifacts" Oliver said in a questioning way. Tristan looked around as if he didn't want anyone else to hear.

"Yes, things that seem to have mysterious auras. Not your usual antiques; strangely carved cups and bowls for instance." Tristan lowered his voice.

Oliver grinned at me and I smiled a little. The things must be strange for Tristan to act like this because he'd seen some sights in his lifetime.

"Come on Tristan, even for you this sounds a little weird. Mysterious auras?" Oliver was amused and grinning again. He leaned back a little in his chair, and took the glass of ice-cold water in his hands to roll it across his palms.

"Why did we have to meet here Tristan?" I asked him, because we could have met at my place or his.

"Oh that's because I had flowers to deliver, and this was on the way back, and I wanted to check the library too. You know this branch has a special section on lost and endangered languages." He smiled at me.

"I didn't know, but it sounds intriguing. Come on Tristan you are being especially enigmatic," I said, smiling more at him because he looked so intense, and I sent him a thought. He smiled then too, since I had effectively sent him a kiss and he drank his orange juice.

Oliver leaned over and gave him a gentle shove. "What else? Just cups and bowls? The whole attic is full of them?" He was grinning, and as the waiter passed he gestured to him, and we ordered more spring water and juice with ice.

Oliver sent me a thought. 'Chloe, we could still be at my place in the cool of my room and I could still be kissing you'.

I glanced at him lovingly, but didn't reply.

Tristan was explaining.

"Not full up as in up to the beams. I mean there are lots, and there are other things, lots of other things. There are patterned blankets, and bead curtains that make music, strange music. I'm not kidding, I felt very peculiar when I touched the things, and the music could only be described as haunting. I'm not faint-hearted as you must know, but I'd rather not be on my own when I next go up there."

Tristan was sincere and I was surprised. He was a knight and had all kinds of experiences, as well as the magic that had surrounded him all his life, and so it was strange he would feel like this.

"That's odd Tristan," I said to comfort him. "You have seen and done so much. What do you mean by auras?"

He gave me a tender look. "Just like vibrations coming off the things, but not really frightening vibes just strange and sort of alien."

At this Oliver really laughed. "You don't mean as in ET stuff?"

"No," Tristan answered, and grinned.

"I think we should go round there as soon as possible and see this stuff. Did you only go in the one side of the attic? Also could this stuff belong to Anna the witch?" Oliver asked suddenly becoming serious.

"I rang Aristide last night and he told me that Lily says they never in all the years she lived there went up in the attics, so I can't imagine where they came from. I'd like to ask Jonathan if he knows anything, such as if his father or grandfather could have amassed them on their travels, but I'm not too keen to let either him or Jack know anything anymore. I just went into the one attic area last night."

I reached over and squeezed Tristan's hand then because he had looked a little downcast. The truth was things had never been quite the same for Tristan and Jack, although they seemed to get on okay. I think deep in his heart Tristan had never forgotten how easy it had been for Jack to fall into trying to get rid of him.

Suddenly Tristan smiled happily and looked at me, then at Oliver. "Let's get going. I want to go into the library, and just check out a couple of books, and then go over to the White Woods house. You can both come over?" he added as a question.

I nodded.

Oliver said, "Absolutely, I can't wait."

I smiled at him. It was hard to know as Oliver grinned if that was a joke, and then he nodded and added, "Truly, I'm fascinated."

We finished the juice we had, and Tristan crunched up another ice cube as we walked around to the library. I walked between them and had a hard time not holding hands with either or both.

In the library Tristan made straight to a section that was out of the way, right at the back within a room of its own and smelling of dust. He started to browse the books and took a few down from the shelves to flip through the pages. I stood nearby and watched for a few minutes, and then asked him, "Tristan why don't you just use the internet for research?"

He smiled at me and stood closer. "I don't know what I am looking for, and so I thought I would browse here first to give me ideas." I nodded and moved closer to him enjoying the feel of his arm near mine.

Oliver was over in one corner where a glass case held some Roman finds from the local area. I had glanced at them as we walked in, but was more interested in what Tristan was looking for.

Oliver turned, walked to us, and looked over Tristan's shoulder.

"Are you thinking the carvings you saw might be a language Tristan?" he asked.

"Yes, but I can't imagine what and from where, that's why I am looking at ancient, and extinct stuff. I have to get the ideas from the books, especially since I don't know how to spell any of the names and such. I just wanted to see if any of the symbols were portrayed in any of the books here. I will try the internet of course."

He stopped at a photograph of an extinct language. "Hey this is similar. Oh well not really, just a few of the symbols are. It's some kind of ancient Goth language." He sighed. "This is a little discouraging there is so much to trawl through. I'd rather show you the stuff in the attic, shall we go?"

I nodded. "Let's go, Tristan. What do you think, Oliver?" I asked him because he had picked up a book with lots of photographs of Sanskrit. He put the book down.

"Yes, let's get going."

Chapter Three

Spooked

We followed Tristan who was driving his old truck.

We were in the Land Rover and as he drove Oliver glanced at me. I leaned over carefully and kissed his cheek.

"Tristan seems a little spooked by this stuff in his attic, which is unusual don't you think Oliver?" I asked as I sat back.

Oliver was slowing down for the lights and he answered, "A little, and yes it's unusual, but the fact is, aren't we all a bit spooked by the things that have happened since that wedding incident. I figure your telepathy transferred to us when you saved us with your blood Chloe."

I considered this for a moment watching the people on the sidewalk before the lights changed and Oliver drove on.

"I think that's true, but it doesn't account for the other things. Maybe we are just developing more immortality spin off abilities as we get older," I said.

"We don't talk about it enough. We skirt around it all the time, which I think means you and Tristan haven't come to terms with your extra abilities. Aren't you just a bit scared of it all Chloe?" Oliver asked.

I sighed because it was true, after the first shock of what had happened to Tristan and me, we just didn't say much more. I did wonder privately how I might use my ability for some good in the community without drawing attention to it.

"I know Oliver, and I think we must talk more about what it might mean, but it is hard isn't it?"

He smiled slightly in empathy, and I put my head against his shoulder for a few seconds.

We were soon at the White Woods house and parked up behind the truck in the large driveway. I was surprised to see the big gates open that were usually closed and prevented anyone not seven feet tall from seeing down the side of the house to the back. I walked down there curiously when I had gotten out of the Land Rover, and to my surprise saw that at the bottom of a huge lawn, there were woods, not dense woods, but trees of different kinds evenly spaced. I was not far down the drive and Tristan called to me to come into the house.

I went back up the path and steps to the big front door, which was open. Oliver and Tristan were about midway down the hall and after closing the door, I joined them.

The house was strangely cool, and very quiet as if it was waiting for us. I found that odd, having never felt that atmosphere before. The massive stairs to the next two floors were situated about halfway down the hall, and curved up to the first floor, and then again to the second floor like something from one of those old American deep south mansion staircases in movies. Usually I would be passing it and going on down to the kitchen or conservatory, but this time I followed Oliver and Tristan up it with a sense of excitement tinged with a little worry about what we were going to see.

We reached the very top, then Tristan took us through a large bedroom, and into a smaller room, where a trap door in the ceiling was already open, and a built in ladder was visible where I guess he had just left it ready to use again.

I shivered slightly. Something was waiting for us up there, something exciting and enticing I just knew it.

Tristan stopped at the bottom of the ladder and looked at Oliver, and then at me.

"I'll go up, there's lighting, wait until I switch it on."

I nodded at him, and Oliver smiled and said softly, "Okay."

I felt for Oliver's hand as Tristan went up the ladder, and he glanced at me as he squeezed my fingers, and then he brought my hand up to his lips and kissed my knuckles.

"You okay?" he asked me. I nodded when light flooded the attic as Tristan switched it all on.

Oliver went up there first, and then I climbed up as he waited and made sure I was fine at the top of the ladder. I was because it was just a matter of stepping off onto the floor of the attic, which was properly boarded over like a real floor and it was even slightly polished.

I looked around and saw how Tristan had unpacked boxes. He had placed items next to them on the tissue paper they had been wrapped in. The whole place looked as if he had been looking for something.

"Tristan, why did you start looking in the attics anyway, I don't think you actually said did you?" I asked him because that was true, suddenly he had just asked for help clearing them out.

He turned around from a box he was fishing around in and grinned.

"It looks as I have made more mess rather than cleared up doesn't it. Well actually, it's because when I got the deeds and paperwork having purchased the place, I realized that I had forgotten this house has a name. I was sitting in the conservatory with the stuff in the manila folder, and I suddenly remembered coming over here with Sebastian way before the house was sold, and there used to be a lovely carved wooden name plaque on the wall by the door. The old deeds have the name and that's what jogged my memory. Who knows when it was taken down, but it was lovely, and I thought I would look around in places it might have been stashed. It was not in any of the garden sheds or the glasshouse, not in the conservatory store cupboard, and I suddenly thought maybe it would have been stuffed up here in the attic because people have a habit of doing that, putting things out of the way in attics."

He smiled and then shivered. I smiled at him. It wasn't cold up here at all, but I shivered too. "What is the name of the house Tristan?" I asked.

"Hawthorns," he replied.

I don't know what I expected but maybe something grander.

Oliver said, "Hawthorns as in the tree?"

Tristan nodded as he answered.

"Yes the garden trees have Hawthorns amongst them, lots actually. I was down there the other day just checking on it all. Birches, Ash, and Hawthorns, all doing really well, some of them are very old too."

"So did you find the house name plaque Tristan, up here amongst all this stuff?" I asked him gesturing at the open boxes everywhere.

"Not yet, just this mysterious stuff," and he handed Oliver a large shallow wooden bowl. Oliver took it and shivered.

I looked at the bowl too. It was not carved at all on the outside. Oliver turned it over in his hands, and it was smooth as if worn to a polish, but on the inside were carvings. Beautiful patterns, swirls, and spiral shapes like the ones you see on the bottom of some shells, and strange curvy vertical, and horizontal lines all around the bowl until they reached the center.

Tristan reached down, picked up a wooden goblet from next to a box, and handed it to me. It made me shiver as I took it from him and held it by the smooth stem to look at the carvings on the inside. There were more of the vertical, and horizontal curvy lines, and little patterns made with dots indented into the carved spirals. I felt as if I was holding something sacred somehow and I looked up at Tristan to find he was watching my face intently to gauge my reaction to the goblet.

Oliver gave a big sigh and we both looked at him.

"Tristan, let me see other things," he said, and Tristan raised his eyebrows slightly at me because Oliver's voice was a little shaky.

Tristan picked up a long pole, carved and with holes bored into it as if it was a musical instrument, a flute, or something, and Oliver took it with the bowl still in one hand. He seemed to be comparing the carvings and he looked up at us.

"I think I get the carvings. I don't know why or precisely what they say, but you are right, Tristan, this is a language, and it's kind of familiar in a weird way to me. It somehow reminds me of computer languages. I feel the pattern. I can feel there is a pattern, and it's speaking to me, but I don't know what it is saying yet."

I shivered, and Tristan held out his hands to take the things from Oliver. I put the goblet down next to the bowl and the flute thing.

Tristan fished around amongst some tissue paper and brought out a blanket. Unfolding it, he offered it to Oliver, and Oliver held it up by two ends to look at it.

I watched his face. He was a little pale and widened his eyes.

"I see the pattern here quite clearly; we read the language right to left, and up and down. Bloody hell I feel resonance from the patterns; maybe I've just got my next immortality gift. Not quite as good as healing by touch, but it feels as if my eyes have been opened somehow. It feels like I have developed another sense, extreme pattern awareness, awesome and scary." He smiled a little at Tristan and me.

Tristan was elated. "Oliver, this is great. I can feel something every time I touch one of the things, but it's more like a shiver for me. You might be able to read the language eventually. What do you think?"

I had taken hold of one side of the blanket and felt the shiver myself again. The blanket was lovely, soft and very brightly colored in different shades of blue. Oliver folded it.

"Show me the musical curtains you told us about Tristan," Oliver said softly.

Tristan walked over to another box and brought out what could have been a modern bead curtain, until you were close to it, when you could see the carved beads and hanging rail were very old. He held it up and gave it a little shake. The lengths of beads seemed to come to life with real music. It was tinkling and had soft woody chime sounds. The sound was lovely and Oliver reached forward to capture one length of beads in his hand. The music stopped even though all the other strands were free and moving. This was bizarre and wonderful. I felt like smiling and looked at Oliver who did smile before he looked down at the carved beads.

"Musical notes," he said simply.

Tristan and I exchanged glances as Oliver let go of the strand, and the music started again when Tristan held the curtain up by its hanging rail. He gently let it fold onto the floor and smiled. "There are lots more things. I thought we might sort them out into stacks, you know like stacks of plates, bowls, goblets, and then check if they have anything in common."

"Do you mean like the symbols on them Tristan?" Oliver asked, and Tristan nodded as he walked over to the far side of the attic.

"Let's get all the boxes in rows so that we can see what we are doing. What do you think?" Tristan questioned us, and we just started doing that in answer.

When we had finished we had three rows each with about seven boxes in them, and the things already unpacked carefully placed in front of the box. I wanted to open the boxes that were not already opened, but first Oliver started looking at a quilt that lay on the floor in front of a box. He held it up. The quilt looked as if it was made of silk, and had bigger versions of the swirly patterns and shell shapes on it. It was in shades of green, and some of it sparkled from a gold thread that was woven at intervals in the fabric.

It made me happy just to look at it and Oliver grinned at me.

"This is just lovely isn't it? It's got an extra pattern on it too, like more of the language, a word, or letter." He was studying the symbols and Tristan walked over to look at it.

"How does it look to you? Is it like in The Matrix when Neo suddenly sees all the lines of code in green all over the place?" Tristan asked Oliver, and I giggled because that was funny. Firstly, I wouldn't have thought Tristan had seen the movie, and because it was a strange thing to think.

Oliver laughed and answered, "No, when I said like a computer language, I meant patterns. It's not that it's a specific computer language. It's just like looking at magic eye pictures for me. My eyes do this thing, and I can see the information in the carving. It's a rhythm, and I can tell the carvings, so far anyway, are instructions. Yes, that's what I mean about like a computer language. This is a language as you said Tristan, and the carvings on the things we have seen, and the symbols on the blanket, and quilt, they are all instructions."

Tristan and I looked at each other, and exchanged a thought, 'spooky' and then grinned at each other.

Oliver folded up the quilt. "Hey I don't think it will work putting the stuff into category stacks such as all goblets, all bowls. I think there will be a better way." Oliver was smiling, but serious, and Tristan shrugged.

"Just say what Oliver."

We all three went to the first box and looked through the contents. There was a lot of other kinds of junk, old newspapers, and music sheets. There was also a flat carved piece of wood with a handprint hollowed out, and carving all around it. Oliver put that to one side. The second box held more, a blanket covered in patterns. Oliver put that by itself to one side. There were two goblets, both carved beautifully on the inside again, and Oliver put them with the green silk quilt. The last item in that box was a goblet and Oliver put that with the blanket in shades of blue.

Little by little, we opened everything up and as Oliver put things together in stacks, it became obvious there were seven stacks. Oliver said they had different instructions, and information in the carving and patterns, but that the items in each stack were supposed to go together.

In the last box, which was a bit bigger than the others were, we found the house name plaque and a carved wooden book. Tristan looked at the plaque and smiled as he held it under the light for us to see.

"Look at this, extraordinary, but some of the carvings on the outer edge are like the patterns on some of the bowls, look," he said excitedly.

I was just putting the carving of a book down on the floor as it was quite heavy, and I shivered a little as I went to look at the house name plaque.

It was about half a meter square and in lovely wood, polished and carved, the name Hawthorns surrounded by carved leaves and flowers. There were the spirals and strange dotted line carvings. I looked up at Tristan. "It's great. I'm pleased we found it."

Oliver looked over my shoulder. "That's cool Tristan, but how strange that it has those symbols on it. It clearly isn't as old as the other items. They feel ancient."

We all collectively shivered.

"So what's the haul looking like now?" Tristan asked, and turned to survey the line of little stacks of items.

Oliver answered. "Seven stacks" and he grinned at that, and then continued, "Four have a quilt or blanket, and those also have a musical instrument and a goblet. The other three stacks have a couple of different sized bowls, and a goblet. Two of those stacks have that weird handprint thing as well. Then there are three bead curtains, but they don't seem to go with anything."

"Plus there's that carved book. I wonder where that fits in?" I added pointing down at it.

Oliver picked it up. It was a great carving, very realistic. A big book, again about a half-meter square like the house name plaque, and very thick, maybe eight inches or so, more than my hand span anyway.

"Hey this is interesting," Oliver said, shaking his head as if in surprise.

"This book carving has some of the patterns, and symbols on the part that is carved to represent the closed pages; they look like the bead curtains. I think there might be musical notes among them. Wow how cool is this?" He smiled at Tristan and me, and we smiled back.

I felt a little dazed.

"I'm really in need of a cup of coffee shall we go down for a break?" Tristan asked, and I nodded.

"Yes please, I'm shivery even though it's not cold. I'd like a break."

We descended the ladder, and then the stairs, and went along the hall to the kitchen.

Tristan started making coffee, and Oliver got a glass of water and offered me one. The kitchen was quite warm and I accepted the water. He touched my hand as I took the glass from him and it felt comforting. I looked up into the kind and loving expression in his chocolate brown eyes.

We all three sat down at the big table with tea, coffee and glasses of water. Funny, but true.

"Where could this stuff have possibly come from Tristan? Do you remember anything in the past that might give us a clue? I asked him, and he sighed slightly.

"You know I have lived so long I have forgotten lots of stuff and some of it on purpose, but I can't imagine where, and when those carved things were put into the attic. Obviously, someone in the more recent past has seen inside one of the boxes because those old newspapers were dated eighteen-ninety weren't they? The sheet music was nineteen-twenties." He shrugged and drank some of his coffee.

I was thinking aloud. "Yes, but they were stashed on top of the box as if someone had just thrown those in a box without looking into it. That could have happened; someone comes up and tidies the attic just ditching things into boxes so that they are not all over the floor."

"Well I suppose so. Maybe it was done when the house was initially sold. A bit odd, but it was sold with lots of the furniture too. I'd have taken my stuff if it had been me who sold it, but then again, I wouldn't have sold it." Tristan sighed, and pushed his hair off his forehead.

"I find the entire thing bizarre. I mean who sells a house with an attic full of boxes of stuff, and they don't even know what's in them?" Oliver was exasperated by it, and I agreed.

Tristan grinned. "It happens a lot. People think it's junk, take the easy way out, and leave it. There's all kinds of stuff in the hunting lodge attic."

"Yes except dad is renting the house from you Tristan," I mentioned, as I also speculated what might be up there.

Oliver looked at Tristan. "Just think, Tristan, if you had not bought this place back who knows what would have happened to the boxes of stuff. What a terrible thought. I almost feel ill thinking about the loss of those items and they don't even belong to me. Oh god, I do feel terrible, really strange as if the things have called to me and I can't lose them."

Oliver was a little pale. I reached over and took his hand. At the same time, I looked at Tristan questioningly. This was weird.

Oliver sighed. "It's okay, it's subsiding. I'm okay again."

Tristan frowned. "That's a strong reaction Oliver. These things have really got under your skin. If you feel like this why don't we collect them up and bring them to your place. Except for the house name plaque, I'd like to put that back up.

"That's good of you, Tristan. I'd like that," Oliver said softly.

I was watching his face and he was very serious, it made me a little afraid.

Chapter Four

Chloe is Loved

We finished our drinks and went back up to the attic.

Tristan hung back a little, and touched my fingertips as we reached the top of the stairs, and I could feel him shiver. I sent him a thought.

'Are you okay Tristan?' and he returned one, 'Yes just a little worried about Oliver."

We made sure there were no more of the strange items in any of the other areas of the attic. There was a very cool table up there in the other side of the attic, and some paintings stacked against the beam up there, but Tristan made no move to look at them. As Oliver and Tristan picked up a stack each of the carved items, I looked at the paintings. They were just what you would expect to find in an old aristocratic family attic, paintings of crusty looking men except for one, a painting of a young woman. She was very lovely, and had an air of mystery. She was dressed in clothes, which I imagined were old, but couldn't recognize what century they might be from.

"Chloe are you bringing anything to Oliver's car? We are about to take the first load down," Tristan asked me. I let the paintings go so that they stacked again, and I went over to pick up some of the items.

We carefully loaded Oliver's car, Tristan closed up the attic, and we went down to the kitchen again. For some reason we were all quiet when we got there, and then Oliver sighed loudly and it made me smile.

"Wow that was a big sigh Oliver," I told him, and he smiled.

"I know it's just that I'm surprised about my reaction to those things. I wonder what it really means?"

Tristan who was of course making coffee turned around and smiled at me, and then at Oliver. "We can only wait and see Oliver, sorry to say, but whatever it is will be significant, it has to be."

When Tristan brought coffee over to the table for Oliver he passed close to me, and I felt as if I wanted to get up, and hug them both close just in case we were on the edge of something unpleasant.

I did get up and took my cup of tea from the work area where it sat beside Tristan's cup of coffee. I turned to see both Tristan and Oliver looking at me, their dark blue eyes, and chocolate brown eyes, were both beloved. I smiled at them, but there was something in the atmosphere, something strange, and almost like an echo. I shivered as I broke eye contact.

I was seeing Tristan that evening, and yet I wanted to go back to Oliver's place with him and those strange items. I felt irrationally that I wanted to protect him from them. I sat down with my cup of tea, and looked down into the dark golden liquid. I felt an inexplicable sadness, and looked up to find Tristan still staring at me.

This was all too weird for me and I took a deep breath.

"Shall we all go over to Oliver's place with him and unpack those things?" I asked, wanting us all to be together and safe.

Oliver shook his head. "This will sound odd, but I would like to look through them all again alone and make sure I have them in their correct categories. Is that okay with you both? I might go when I have finished my coffee actually." He smiled, but it didn't reach his eyes, and I know a frown of worry appeared on my face.

Tristan shook his head as if he meant no, which was odd because then he said, "Sure it's fine, it's okay with me, just remember you can call us anytime either by phone or with your thoughts. Do it very quickly if anything weird happens. I can't pretend those things don't give me the shivers, and I don't mean just physically. So you know, Oliver, be careful."

Tristan had said it all and I just nodded at Oliver.

He stood up to leave and I looked at Tristan. "I'm going to say goodbye to him, Tristan, okay?" Tristan's thought was a warmth and a 'Sure do it'.

I followed Oliver to his Land Rover and caught hold of him as he opened the door.

"Oliver, what Tristan said, please do it. If anything even slightly weird happens please call us." I hugged him tight, and Oliver put a hand alongside my face and brought my head up to look into my eyes. He kissed me so gently on the lips that I moved my hands up to his head, and held him there kissing him back hard. Oliver began to smile against my lips and I moved slightly.

"What Oliver?" I said, smiling too.

"Just that despite everything weird I wish I was just taking you home to bed. I will be careful. I'll let you know as soon as, or if, anything bizarre happens."

We kissed each other again then, and Oliver hugged me close before he got into his car, and reversed out of the driveway of the big white house.

I watched him as he drove away and then turned to go back into the house to Tristan.

He was in the kitchen and had the house plaque in his hands. He looked up as I came through the door.

"Chloe, I think I will put this back up. I need to go over to the Dearing place for a drill and masonry nails. Will you come too?"

I nodded, and cleared the cups and glasses we had used away into the dishwasher.

"You needn't do that Chloe, I can do it" Tristan said, and began to pick up the same cup as me. His hand came down over mine and I turned to him.

"Tristan, do you think we are at the start of some incredible adventure again?" I asked him as we stood close to each other.

He bent his head to mine and kissed me on the forehead.

"I do" he answered simply, then took the cup from me, and put it in the dishwasher.

We left the house and I waited for him as he locked the door.

Tristan held my hand as we walked the short distance to his old truck.

On the drive to the Dearing house Tristan was quiet and I looked out of the window at the trees all full of blossom and bees.

He went straight down to a utility room when we were in the Dearing house, and came out a couple of seconds later with a plastic case, and a packet, which looked as if it held the masonry nails.

We went straight back to the white house, which I now knew was called, 'Hawthorns'.

Tristan opened the door and we walked into the cool hall. He left the tools by the door and went to get the plaque from the kitchen. I stayed by the door and looked at the walls either side of it. There was no sign of them ever having anything attached and so it must have been a long time ago that the plaque was taken down.

When Tristan came back, he had me hold the plaque to the wall as he drilled, and positioned, and finally the thing was up on the house wall.

We stood back and looked at it. I thought it looked great.

"It's really cool Tristan. What do you think are you pleased with it?"

Tristan smiled and put his arm around my shoulders.

"I am Chloe. It feels right don't you agree?"

I couldn't feel anything except the warmth of the sun and Tristan's arm around me, but it looked very right and I told him that.

Tristan dropped me home because I wanted to check my emails. I expected Joshua Glazer to send me an assessment of my new designs for his business, and I had promised mom I would call granny as soon as it was a respectable time in the morning over in California.

I would meet Tristan later at the stable apartment.

When I had done everything I needed to, I called Oliver to check everything was okay and he was fine. I took a shower, and put on clean jeans and a shoestring strap top because it was still very warm. I picked up my jean jacket and stuffed things in the pockets, comb, lip-gloss, wallet, and cell phone.

As I drove over to Tristan's apartment, I felt happy. The sky was blue, the sun was warm, it was just evening, and a lovely calm seemed to have settled on the countryside.

At the stable apartment, I parked in the yard there behind Tristan's truck and went to the door. It opened as I approached and Tristan grinned at me.

"You look so pretty with your hair down Chloe," he told me. "You could wear it down more often."

I was in the hall and he closed the door.

"Could I Tristan?" I said to him smiling.

"Yes because then I could wrap it around my fingers and keep you close, like this," he said, and put his hands into my hair, pulling me gently against him.

He started to kiss me, and I put my arms up around his neck to hold him close.

It was lovely to be with Tristan. He was so loving, and kissed me until I thought I wouldn't be able to stand up when he let go.

I didn't have to worry he picked me up and carried me into the bedroom.

"I have to make love to you right now, because I love you so much I can't take another minute without feeling your skin against mine."

He pushed the straps of my top down and kissed all the way along my shoulders.

I pulled his T-shirt off him and traced kisses down his chest.

"I love you too Tristan," I told him as we snuggled against each other.

"Don't go home tonight, stay all night with me, I need you desperately" he said, and I undid his jeans. He took my top off me, and kissed me all over my face.

"I can't think of anything I would rather do," I said, and I meant it.

Chapter Five

Oliver's findings

I unloaded what the three of us were calling the strange items from the back of my Land Rover, and took them into my office. I kept them in the stacks I had sorted them into when I was back in Tristan's place, and put them around the room on the sofa, the table, the rug, until the office was pretty much filled up with them. It was odd, but now I had them with me, touching them had stopped making me shiver. I stood back and looked at the little stacks of items, and knew they were in their correct place. For some reason, even though not all the stacks had a colored item, the impression of a rainbow came to me. I suddenly realized that I had placed the stacks in a bow shape, and even though they ranged the length of my office, the things were a rainbow as I stared at them. My eyes did that thing I had tried to explain to Tristan and Chloe. I seemed to see beyond what was actually there, to something else, but because it was not a group of symbols, as on the bowls or bead curtains, all I could make out was the rainbow, and the impression of a forest. The picture was strong and I felt as if I could walk right into that forest.

I turned away and went to make some coffee. I intended to try to decipher some of that language if it took all night. Already the things spoke to me, and I knew the symbols inside the cups and bowls were instructions. I just had to find a loop or a repetition that would somehow lead me somewhere else.

It was exciting rather than worrying, and I brought my coffee back and put it on my desk. My computer came to life as I nudged the mouse, and I typed 'lost and extinct languages' into the browser search box smiling that Tristan had not thought to do this. Somewhere out there in that enormous web of information and conglomeration of thought was the beginnings of the answer. I felt sure of it because the thing had never let me down. I was addicted to technology and believed in it implicitly, and so I never expected to find that it was midnight, and I had found nothing that resonated with the symbols on the items.

I didn't think about Chloe or Tristan until then. I stood up to go and make more coffee with the thought, 'I've not found anything significant yet, Tristan'. I hadn't meant to send the message and so it made me smile when he answered.

'Thanks for trying, Oliver'.

I brought my coffee back into the office and walked over to the window to close it up. There was a little coolness to the breeze coming through it, so I sat down on the sofa, and put the lovely green quilt thing over my left arm. It was against the rest of me, but only against my skin on my arm where I felt cool. I had the coffee in my right hand and was about to take a sip when I heard a whisper. It was not a voice, but a whisper of sound, and to my great surprise, the bead curtain on the stack where this green quilt belonged, was twitching slightly at each end of the lengths of beads. The whisper was a musical note, low and mellow. I got a shiver up my spine then because, wow, how cool was this?

I put my coffee down on the floor and took my T-shirt off.

It was almost a compulsion to wrap the green patterned quilt around me, and when I did, the whole bead curtain began to move, not upright as if being held, but shuddering along horizontally on the sofa. I suddenly felt the most incredible wave of happiness. Then I began to see the items differently. I could feel some kind of glow transferring onto my skin from the quilt and my brain just clicked into action, and I realized each stack was glowing with a color so that the impression I had earlier of a rainbow was now in full color in the room. The whole room was a rainbow. It was very cool, not scary at all because the quilt was there like a friend, like a helper. I stood up keeping the quilt on my bare shoulders and picked up the bead curtain that was trying to make music. When I held it as high as I could the music came drifting from the curtain, and I felt my mind expand. I felt as if I could learn anything. I carefully walked over to the computer and brought up the web page of Sanskrit I had there from my last go at research. As I looked at it, I realized I could read it. I knew what it said as surely as if I had been born into the language.

I turned carefully from the computer and took the curtain back to the sofa. I placed it gently down because it seemed so precious, and then I took off the quilt. The room went slightly dull and the brightness of the colors receded, but the impression of each stack being a color remained. I was hooked. What might drinking from one of the goblets do I wondered? What significance might the colors have? Green was obviously about learning. I decided to try them all out, after all what could happen? The things were obviously benign. They were probably part of some extinct culture's healing equipment so I sat down again, and picked up my coffee. It suddenly occurred to me to try drinking it from one of the carved cups.

I could still see the colors of the stacks, and even though I knew the carved wooden cup was not violet, I could see it as violet. I poured some of my coffee into it and drank. It occurred to me that I might be drinking the dust accumulated for who knows how long, and then I knew I wouldn't have. The things simply would not have accumulated dust, or dirt, and would do me no harm. I was surrounded by magic, pure, loving magic. I sighed in contentment because the feeling of being in touch with some spirit of love and peace was so strong. When I looked into the cup I had used I could read the language. I had been right, the carvings were instructions, and this cup instructed my heart and soul to connect with the magic and spirituality of the universe.

I didn't know if I should call Tristan and Chloe then to tell them I could read the language, but I only hesitated for a second.

They would be together, and even if not asleep, then they needn't be disturbed.

Tomorrow would do, and I went to the computer to finish a website I had been building.

Chapter Six

Tristan's dream

It was still dark when I woke up with a start from the most realistic dream I've ever had. Chloe was cuddled up to me, one of her legs over one of mine, and her arm across my waist. She had her face in my neck and her hair splayed out on the pillow.

I was relieved to find her there because I'd been dreaming of someone else. I dreamed I was with another young woman. I didn't know who she was but she was dear to me. Her hair was dark and long like Chloe's, but instead of Chloe's green eyes, this woman had blue eyes. I had been holding her close and stroking her hair down her back. It was so real, and I could see the violet color of her dress, and feel its softness where it touched my bare arms. We were standing in a forest near a small lake. There was a little waterfall and a strange little fountain thing in the rocks nearby. She had just been to that fountain and taken a drink. I kissed the water from her lips, and that's what had woken me, I had kissed her. I kissed her as if I loved her, and my heart knew I loved Chloe, and had woken me up. How could I have made love with Chloe nearly all night, and then dreamed about another woman? It was disconcerting and I felt bad about it as if it had actually happened, the kiss with the woman in my dream.

I watched the sky lighten and dawn come before I must have dropped off to sleep again. Chloe woke me the next time kissing me softly and saying my name.

"Tristan, its nine-thirty don't you need to go to work? Tristan," she whispered.

I think she really wanted me to stay asleep and cuddled against her, but it was true I had to take the flowers off to the florist. They would have been cut by Jo earlier in readiness. I was grateful not to have to cut them anymore because it was horrible for me.

I opened my eyes and turned to Chloe

She was so special to me that my heart nearly hurt with love for her. I hugged her close.

"Chloe, I love you never forget it no matter what." I didn't know where that had come from, but it seemed I needed to say it. I kissed her then, and she traced down the side of my body with her fingertips. It was very sexy and I wondered if I had time to make love to her before I left. Perhaps not I thought, and kissed her again.

Chloe kissed me back and then moved a little.

"Tristan, what was that about? You haven't got one of your weird feelings again have you?"

I knew she was referring to the times when I did have strange glimmers of premonition.

I shook my head. "No nothing like that it's just that it's true" and I started to get up.

"You're right, Chloe, I do need to get some work done as there's that enormous wedding tomorrow. I pity your dad actually. It's going to be such hard work. The restaurant is closed to the public for the whole weekend. Did he tell you?"

Chloe grinned at me. "He never said a word."

I stepped in and out of the shower, and when I dashed into the kitchen I discovered Chloe had made me coffee.

I kissed her, and she pushed her hands gently through my wet hair.

"Tristan, you are one of the most gorgeous guys I have ever seen. Did I tell you that?" She was smiling, and kissing me on the cheek and the nose, and I hugged her.

"I don't see it myself, and I have gray hair now..." she didn't let me finish.

"One strand or three maybe of silver from nearly dying, and that doesn't count."

We kissed each other all the way to the door, and then I left her because I had to.

"Call me. Call Oliver and find out if he made any progress, darling" I said, and realized I had called her darling aloud. I saw it register on her face, and had to walk back to her and kiss her again.

On the drive to the greenhouses, I thought about that. I usually had it in my head to call her darling, but last night had felt so special, I somehow forgot she loved Oliver too, and the endearment I usually kept for her in my head, had slipped out. You can't get used to calling someone darling, no matter how much you thought of them as such when it might slip out in front of the other guy she is seeing.

I thought about that too, as I packed all the boxes of flowers in the back of the truck from the cool room. I covered them with a cooled tarp, and the reflector that Martin and I had devised since the summer was so warm this year.

Oliver had to know I made love with Chloe, he had to, and yet I had no idea if he made love to her. I don't think about it ordinarily, but it was suddenly there in my mind. There was absolutely no evidence to suggest it. Maybe they just hugged and kissed I thought, as I set off for the florist. If that was so, then Oliver couldn't love her as much as I did, he'd never be able to stand it, just hugging and kissing. I still occasionally wish she just loved me. I'd marry her if I could. Oddly, as soon as I thought that I pictured the woman in my dream. I didn't want that picture in my head, and I was thankful to park, on a double yellow line as usual, and take the flowers into the florist.

Chapter Seven

Chloe has news of Gaston

Tristan dashed off to work. I used his shower before I went home.

I rang Oliver as I was making tea and toast when I got home, because there was no bread in the stable apartment.

"Oliver, how's things? Have you found anything out? How are you?" I asked, and the oddest thing happened I very nearly called him darling, just as Tristan had called me. How weird, but it wasn't okay because I might then call him darling in front of Tristan, and that would be totally unfair.

"Chloe, I can read the language, and I tried out a cup. It's all so very cool I can't begin to tell you what a fantastic find we have here. Come over, no wait, I'll come to you because I want to go over to the 'White witch woods' house and read the plaque. Is Tristan with you, can he show it to me?"

He sounded so excited and happy.

"Oliver, that's great. Tristan is working, but he put the plaque on the house so we can drive over and look at it on the outside."

I heard a smile come into Oliver's voice.

"Excellent, I'll come over now. Are you at home?"

I told him I was, and I realized he had assumed I might be at one of Tristan's places having been with him all night. Dear Oliver he was so centered, and such a gentle, caring person, sometimes I wished I could've loved only him.

It was a weird feeling when that thought came to me, but then again when I was with Tristan, and especially lately, because he was like heaven to be with, I thought the same about him.

Since I had nearly killed them, they both meant even more to me than before, if that was possible. It was I thought because I knew in my heart I could never be apart from them, never stop caring. If we were not lovers, then we would have to be siblings, perhaps not the right word, blood brothers perhaps, except I'm female.

I was on the patio outside the kitchen eating my toast when I heard Oliver's Land Rover arrive. I walked around to meet him. As he got out of the car, it seemed to me that he had a glow about him. He was always lovely. His blond hair got almost white streaks in it when he was in the sun for any length of time, and his skin would go light golden. He never tried to tan, and kept out of the sun as far as I knew, but somehow the rays found him and made him light up. Sun-kissed I think the term is.

I met him as he walked towards me and hugged him.

"Oliver, you look great have you been in the garden this morning?" I asked him, and he smiled.

"No but I do feel great. I think it's the influence of the precious objects I have care of," he said, and he lifted my face up to his, and kissed me.

His lips felt cool and soft.

"Precious objects now Oliver. Not strange antiques then?" I asked him gently teasing, as we walked back to the patio.

He smiled and took my hand.

"No, they are no longer strange. I can read them. I put the corner of that lovely green patterned quilt over my arm last night. It was about midnight, it had gone a little cool, and I was in my T-shirt. No sooner had the quilt touched my skin than it made the bead curtain that goes with it ripple. I took my T-shirt off, and pulled the quilt onto my shoulders. I held up the bead curtain and wow, I just knew things. I could read Sanskrit and then the language in the carvings. I drank from the violet cup and it gave me some kind of magical, spiritual, hit.

Chloe, I think we have some ancient magical peoples' healing equipment. I had a little work to do, and then I went to bed, but as soon as Tristan and you are free we can go through it all, and I will find out what each group of items does. Let's go over to the 'White Witch woods' house."

I smiled at his excitement. "Oliver, do you want some coffee or juice? Have you had breakfast?"

He shook his head. "Okay coffee, and then we'll go." It made me smile again, and I put my arm around his waist as we went into the kitchen.

I made him coffee and he made some toast. We kissed each other before we took it out to the table on the patio.

"You seem completely at ease with this stuff, Oliver, and yet it should be scary," I said to him because it was true. Although I too felt no real surprise that we were dealing with magical stuff again. I guess you get used to it after all.

He put down his coffee cup. "That's true I feel fine about it, but I think it's the stuff. It feels as if it chose me. I know, don't look like that. Perhaps I was just ready to use my brain in a weird way like you heal, and we all send thoughts to each other, and Tristan hears plants cry."

I had frowned slightly at the idea the objects had chosen him. I couldn't take the thought that anything might harm him, or single him out, just in case it would eventually harm him.

I got up and moved to put my arms around his shoulders leaning over his head.

"Oliver, I love you and I can't lose you," I told him, and he turned his face up to be kissed. I kissed him for a long time.

When I finally stopped kissing him, and he had finished his coffee, which he did quickly grinning at me occasionally, Oliver drove us over to the 'White witch woods' house.

We parked on the long driveway and walked over to the house doorway.

Oliver took my hand as he looked at the house name plaque, and then let go as he bent to read all the way around the plaque. He stood up and sighed.

"Well this is interesting" he said, and looked at me as if mystified.

"Can you read it Oliver?" I asked him taking his hand again.

"Oh yes I know what it says. It tells Bartholomew Pike where his spell book is and where the artifacts of enlightenment and healing are."

"Yikes Oliver, and where is that?" I said wide-eyed, because it was very interesting.

Oliver looked at me with excitement, his lovely brown eyes sparkling.

"Here Chloe, in this house, it must be what we found in the attic. Apart from the spell book of course, we didn't find that. It must be in one of the other boxes up there."

I looked into his eyes and put my arms around him.

"We found a book Oliver, a carved book. The wooden book, remember?"

He held me close and I could hear his heartbeat.

He kissed the top of my head and then moved back from me a little.

"Chloe, that can't be it, unless that carved book is a case perhaps for the actual book, maybe that's it" Oliver was grinning, and then he sighed.

"We need to wait for Tristan. What are you up to today? I have the day off because I'm working all day tomorrow, and the next day on that incredible wedding, that's going to happen up at the restaurant. Have you seen the amount of preparations going on?"

I shook my head. I had neither seen nor heard anything, but that could have been because I hadn't seen dad in days, and mom was holed up in her study programing like mad because Kim was coming over from California next week. Some big job was happening and it meant Steven and I just did our own thing, not that we didn't already. I was old enough to be doing my own thing anyway.

I smiled at that thought because the years might go by, but I wouldn't look any different. It was bizarre and it would become problematic eventually.

Oliver was watching me.

"What are you thinking, Chloe?" he asked, and I shook my head.

"Nothing relevant, Oliver, just about not seeing dad for a few days," and I smiled at him. "I'm not doing anything. What do you want to do today?"

Oliver's eyes darkened at me, and he kissed me. "Well I'd like to kiss you for a long time and then," he said between kisses, but suddenly stopped, and stared over my head.

I turned around in his arms to look in the direction of his stare, and saw a young woman walking towards us. She looked purposeful and quite fierce as she strode along. Both Oliver and I waited, still holding each other.

When she spoke, it was with a strange accent.

"I look for Tristan Dearing," she said, and the 'i' in Tristan sounded like 'ee', and the 's' like a 'zee'. Her pronunciation of Dearing was so strange that had I not known it had to be Dearing I would have had trouble with it. The 'g' was like a 'k', and she almost breathed the 'Dear' part.

I was still in Oliver's arms, and we looked at each other before letting go, but then held hands.

"He's at work. Could I ask who you are?" Oliver said, just as I opened my mouth to say the same thing.

Her eyes were very blue, and her hair was down her back held by a sort of tie around her head. It was dark, and thick, and she was wearing clothes from another century. They had to be men's clothes. She also had a 'short sword' in her belt, and as I stared at it, she covered it a little with the short cloak she was wearing. Her clothes were all shades of blue and purple. She looked exotic, and magical. I sighed. Here we go again, I thought.

After looking around her, she answered in her strange accent.

"I am Dale D'Rohan-Ahzaynor. I must find him, and I have asked at the other castle, but he is not there. I have news of Gaston. There is trouble."

Oliver held my hand as she spoke, and I leaned against him.

"Gaston" I said, and added "what trouble?"

"No I have not time to tell you. I must find Tristan. Where is this work?" She asked, and her accent was suddenly quite beautiful.

Oliver had let go of my hand, and he stepped a little away from me towards her.

"We can contact him and tell him you are here," he told her.

I saw her look past Oliver and her eyes widened. She spoke in some other language and walked towards me. I thought she might have cracked up, and moved aside. Oliver must have thought so too as he came back to me and held me around the shoulders against his body as if to shield me.

She bypassed me and stood in front of the plaque on the house. She did exactly as Oliver had done and bent to follow the inscriptions around the plaque with her eyes. She stood up then and turned to us.

"I must have the book it belongs to me," she said, and her eyes flashed as if she was agitated.

Oliver kept hold of me and replied. "I don't think so and anyway the book is not here."

She sighed. "What is this telling me it is then?" and she pointed at the house name plaque. I half smiled at her words, but she spoke English, and I was sure even though I didn't know what her language would be, that I could speak none of it.

Oliver shook his head. "We found the name plaque recently in the house and put it up, but we didn't find a book."

Dale Ayznor, or whatever her name was, shrugged.

"You will find Tristan for me as you said?" she asked looking at Oliver.

Oliver sighed. "Sure, wait a moment." He let go of me, and took out his cell phone.

"Tristan, Chloe and I came over to the 'white woods' house to look at the house sign. No never mind why. We were there on the porch and this young lady came along. She's looking for you and has news of Gaston, trouble. She didn't say. Well hang on." Oliver looked back at Dale.

"Tristan asks what trouble?"

Dale grimaced. "No I have to tell him. I need to see him." Her accent was thick with emotion.

"Tristan she's not saying. She needs to see you. When can you get here? Well we could take her back to Chloe's place. Okay we'll do that. See you then."

Oliver put his phone in his pocket.

"He can't get here for about an hour. Come with us, and have tea or something" he said to Dale, and to me he sent a thought. 'Is it okay we take her to your place, Chloe?'

I thought back, 'Yes, Oliver'.

She stood considering this for a few seconds.

"I will wait with you. I have no choice as it happens." She had dropped the 'h' on happens, and I wondered if her accent was some kind of French, and then dismissed it. It didn't sound like the old Norman French, or the modern stuff I had heard.

She followed us to the car and Oliver held the back door for her to get in. It was weird but as she stood there looking at the door, he suddenly offered her his hand, and she took it to get in as if she was alighting into some old carriage. I grinned at Oliver as he opened the door for me and put his hands around my waist to lift me into the Land Rover. He needn't have done that at all, but he was smiling at me as he closed the door as if he had enjoyed doing it.

I turned around to Dale and pointed at the seat belt.

"You should put that on" I told her, sitting back down and fastening my own. We were not going far, but you never know when some maniac will come speeding out to knock you off course. I knew in my heart that she would not know what the seat belt was, and that we were dealing with a time traveler, but I wasn't going to think about it. Not yet, not when she was asking for Tristan, and I felt an overwhelming desire to protect him from whatever was going to happen next.

We got to my house and Oliver went around the car to help her out of the back seat. I gave him a questioning look as he did this and he smiled at me enigmatically. It occurred to me that she couldn't be that fierce if she went around letting men open carriage doors for her.

I went to the front door and it was unlocked. Mom was in, or Steven. I hoped neither would appear.

I led Dale into the kitchen and offered her a seat. She took it and sighed putting her elbows on the table and her head in her hands.

I suddenly felt sorry for her.

"Dale would you like tea, or water, or juice?" I didn't know if she knew what any of those things were.

"I have been in a time such as this before. Sorry to be frantic as we met, but Gaston is in danger. He is imprisoned."

I put the electric kettle to boil.

Oliver glanced at me and got glasses from the cupboard. He poured orange juice for all of us.

"He is a she Dale. Gaston is a girl."

I sighed. "Tell us about the danger." I brought tea for her to the table, and Oliver brought mine, and sat beside me facing her.

"Of course he is a girl. I need to wait for Tristan, this is no good telling the story over and over," she said, and she took a sip of the orange juice. She smiled.

"I drank this once before with Gaston, we were next to a lake."

I looked at Oliver and raised my eyebrows. So they had time traveled together had they?

I was about to drink some of my own juice when the doorbell rang.

I frowned at Oliver because surely Tristan was not here yet, but when I got to the door it was him.

"Chloe, I drove straight over because what the hell is going on this time?" He hugged me, and now kissed me softly by the side of my mouth as we turned to go into the kitchen.

As soon as Tristan saw Dale, he stopped walking and seemed to stare in confusion. I thought maybe he knew her from some time in the more than eight hundred years he had been alive.

She stood up and seemed equally confused.

"You are the Tristan that Gaston has sent me to find?" Her accent thickened.

Tristan nodded, and then looked at me. I found my voice.

"Tristan, I'll make you some coffee okay. Sit down and let Dale tell you what's happening."

He went to sit next to Oliver and I saw Oliver give him a little shrug.

Dale was staring a little at Tristan, but he couldn't have known her, as he never said anything.

"Tristan, this is Dale Ayznor. Gaston is imprisoned."

Chapter Eight

The real story

My ineptitude with her name shook her out of whatever trance she was in.

"I am Dale D'Rohan-Ahzaynor" she said, and then continued, "I come to find you because Gaston is imprisoned by my own brother. He of course does not know I have the information he seeks from Gaston. That must remain a secret now I have discovered that the book is here in this time."

I could barely make that out her accent was so thick right then.

She had stopped talking, and I sat down next to Tristan after putting coffee in front of him on the table.

"You must start at the beginning. What secret, what book?" Tristan said softly, and smiled at me for the coffee.

Dale gave him a look and then cursed in her language. I knew it was a curse because they are so obvious no matter in what language. The tone of voice gives them away.

Tristan smiled, and said gently, "Just try to tell us the whole story."

She liked that and after about five minutes, we had most of the story.

Oliver and I looked at each other around Tristan, who had leant forward to get the message better, I guess.

Tristan sat back and drank some coffee. Dale had stopped speaking.

Her brother, a wizard naturally, had Gaston who she knows from some time travel visits. He wants the whereabouts of the door in time, as she called it, to go and find a spell book, and other magical items. He has imprisoned Gaston, and Dale came to find Tristan to help free her. She can't risk her brother knowing that she too knows where the door in time is, and she can't free Gaston herself as her brother has not only the key to the door of the room, but has also placed a guardian spell upon it. She was allowed to take Gaston food, and they hatched this plan to come for Tristan. Unbelievably, she had tried five times to find Tristan waiting for the portal, because that's obviously what it is, to bring her to this time.

Tristan sighed and I took his hand as he sat back against the chair. We were quiet for a moment during which Oliver sent me a thought.

'Just what I expected, Chloe.'

I had to smile at that.

"Where is the portal that you came through, in your time I mean?" I asked Dale, and she knew what I had said.

"In the water as usual of course, although this is a trick, the water is not in the same place all the time" she told me, and pursed her lips to indicate how bizarre this water was.

I looked at her and shook my head because I had no idea what she meant.

Oliver sighed. "I don't really understand Dale," he said quietly, and I thought that might go for all of us.

"Ah, it is in my time, in the forest near my castle, but when we go in the water it will take us to Gaston's home in her water, and then if I climb to the cascade it will take me home again. To come here I stand in Gaston's pool but it might take me to any time, not always this one." She looked at each of us exasperated by our lack of understanding.

I got it then and nodded at her.

"I understand," I told her, and Tristan squeezed my hand.

"Me too, although when Gaston told me about her pool, she didn't mention it could take her anywhere else, only to my waterfall." Tristan told Dale.

I had to laugh a little at that because it sounded so funny.

Dale looked at me horrified at first, and then suddenly she laughed too.

Oliver cleared his throat and asked, "Is anyone else hungry because I am. Shall we get something to eat?"

I stood up. "There's always heaps of food in the fridge when mom's home. I can get us something. Tristan, will you need to go back to work, or what?"

He looked at me. "No I'm not needed now actually, although I would have done some checking up and accounts, but no, I need to stay and sort this out. Chloe, would it be okay to go back to 'Hawthorns' and eat there? I feel as if we need to. Look at what she's wearing." He seemed a little wistful as he waved a hand at Dale, and I smiled at him.

"Last time I checked there wasn't much food at the 'Hawthorns'. We'll take some stuff from here." I turned to the fridge and looked inside. There was cold chicken, salad, and packets of some kind of pastries. I threw the lot in a plastic bag.

I got in the Land Rover with Oliver, and Tristan took Dale in the old truck he had shown up driving that day.

On the way, I couldn't help but talk about her.

"Oliver, Dale is gorgeous isn't she? Even though a little strange."

Oliver smiled, but didn't look at me.

"She's gorgeous, but if you are asking am I attracted to her, the answer's no. Chloe I don't think you get it. I think you are gorgeous. I mean look at you." He smiled again. I looked down at myself, jeans and T-shirt, and slip on shoes. I had trodden the heel down to make them easier to get on and off quickly as I raced about. I didn't see it myself so Oliver must really love me. I suddenly wanted to kiss him. I hadn't spent that much alone time with Oliver recently, and even when we had thought we might have some time together, something had cropped up, take the time Tristan asked us to meet him about the artifacts for instance.

We drove up behind Tristan's truck on the driveway of the house, which I needed to start calling 'Hawthorns', all the time. I leaned over to Oliver and kissed his cheek.

He turned to me, held my face kissing me on the lips softly, and then said.

"Chloe, I do love you. I think you're gorgeous. I still wish very occasionally it was just me in your love life, but I know that isn't to be." He kissed me again, and this time I clung to him kissing him back before I answered what wasn't really a question.

"I love you too, Oliver, and I wish we had spent a little more time, you know really together recently. I miss you."

Oliver grinned before he agreed. "For heaven's sake let's find time soon I miss you too," and then he opened his door, and glanced back at me. "Come on, Chloe, we better go before I start the engine and take you back to my place."

I got out and walked up to the front door as Tristan was just opening it.

I put the food onto the kitchen table, and put out some plates so that people could help themselves.

Oliver took some food and sat next to me, as I had flopped down in a chair wondering what was going to happen next.

Tristan was busy making sure Dale had some food, and then making coffee.

Dale ate quite hungrily to begin with and then sighed.

"Thanks much I was hungry," she said. It was endearing, and I was sorry not to have thought to offer her food as soon as we had arrived at my house after meeting her.

"Dale is a strangely modern name for a girl from the past," I said to her, and she looked a little upset.

"I think I am no girl, and I am not from the past," she said.

I thought my comment must have lost something in the translation and smiled.

"I meant I like your name and find it unusual," I told her.

"It's little name, not my whole name, that is Claudine. Gaston he has called me Dale and as it is good I keep it."

I grinned at Tristan who sat beside Dale.

"It seems we all call Gaston he when we all know he's a she."

Everyone smiled then, even Dale, and I continued to talk to her.

"Did you get here through the waterfall, the cascade, near where I live Dale?" I asked, and she nodded having taken another bite of food.

I wondered if the five times she had tried to get to Tristan was without food, and frowned in sympathy if it was.

"Dale, where do you live? What is the name of your home? For instance, this house is 'Hawthorns' in England." I thought I'd like to get to know her because I found myself liking her.

"My home is La Ducla castle in the forest of Brocelliandez. This is a huge forest, and my water fountain pool is in there, the one that will take me to Gaston's cascade. It is my magic place, and my brother does not know that it is where the door in time is. I have to be secret because he searches for the spell book. I think he knows it's in this place. Why else would he torture Gaston for the map to here?"

I gasped. "Oh my god he tortures Gaston?" I said in horror, and Tristan stood up, then turned around, and sat down again looking pale.

"How does he torture Gaston?" I asked softly.

Dale shook her head. "She is in a tiny cold room alone. Her food must be one piece of bread and a cup of water, not even every day. She has no place to wash and the guards wake her all night. It is horrendous. I am so very sad. Gaston tells me that you are a great knight Tristan and have magic to call upon. We need it to free her. I have none without the spell book except my fountain water that I can call upon to bring a storm." She looked around at each of us expectantly and hopefully.

I raised my eyebrows at Tristan who looked anxious.

"Dale I have no magic, and I do not know where the spell book is," he said quietly.

Oliver who had been quietly listening said.

"I think I do, and I think we do have magic now. Those mysterious things from your attic Tristan, they are magical. I can read the language. For instance, I know the house name plaque tells the people who can read the language that this house contains Bartholomew Pike's spell book and the artifacts of healing and enlightenment."

He addressed Dale. "How is it that you can read that language? The sign on this house," he clarified, and Dale smiled.

"It's mine."

I looked at Oliver and then at Tristan.

"The language is yours do you mean?" I asked her.

She nodded and smiled at each of us.

Oliver was smiling when he said, "Well I needn't have spent half the night learning it then since you were about to show up." He was trying to be upbeat as usual.

Tristan stood up and got more coffee, offering it around to Oliver and Dale, and then he said.

"If we go to Gaston's waterfall or cascade as Dale calls it, we might be gone a long time firstly rescuing Gaston, and secondly finding our way back to this time. We need Aristide because he'll more than likely be able to make sure we come back to this time straightaway."

Dale turned to Tristan and looked up at him as he stood there with the coffee pot.

"My brother must get none of Bartholomew's things and never know for sure they exist here. The spell book must be hidden here somewhere. This is a place of magic and Bartholomew would have known this when he chose to hide his things here. This time is far away so that my brother cannot follow. He is not such a great mage, even if he thinks so." She smiled at Tristan, and then turned to me and smiled.

Her accent thickened now and then, and I had to listen hard to understand but the whole story was fast becoming clear to me.

"Who is Bartholomew?" I asked her.

Dale looked at me as if I was stupid.

"He is the greatest mage that ever lived. He will be here somewhere, I think, in this place."

I sighed.

Tristan had sat back down and was pushing his coffee cup around.

"I'm ringing Aristide because we have to ask him to get us back home instead of taking who knows how many attempts from Gaston's lake. I also think we can't go yet no matter how dire the need because we are all tied up with work until Monday."

I nodded in agreement, and Oliver shrugged but agreed, "That's true. Where's Dale staying meanwhile?"

Tristan looked at Oliver and me, and then said, "There's the good old stable apartment. Dale can stay there. I'll get clean linen and food in this afternoon."

Dale looked at me. "I could stay with you."

I smiled, but shook my head sadly. "I know it looks as if I have a big home, but my family will ask awkward questions, and you don't want to be discovered."

I don't think she understood awkward, but she got the part about not being discovered, and she seemed downhearted.

Tristan looked at her kindly. "The stable apartment is a little house. It does not have horses in it."

Dale smiled.

Oliver leaned a little closer to me before he said, "We really need to go and look at the artifacts. Is everyone free because the sooner we check them out the sooner we'll know if there's anything amongst them that can help us?"

I turned to him. "I can come over Oliver, and obviously Dale should come."

"Me too," Tristan said, and by silent, but mutual consent we all got up and cleared away the remains of lunch before we left.

I went with Oliver, and Dale went with Tristan, as it seemed the thing to do.

Chapter Nine

Oliver's magic

Oliver and I arrived at his place before Tristan, as the lights had gone red after we drove through the junction, and Tristan was obliged to stop at them.

I followed Oliver into his place, and he left the door open for the others when they arrived. As we walked into his office he held my hand, and I pulled him closer to kiss him. He smiled as I stopped and took me over to the sofa, where he picked up the goblet that was on top of the green quilt. Oliver looked inside it.

"I hoped to be able to read the carvings inside this cup and I can. They are instructions to 'open your mind to learning and drift with the flow of universal knowledge.' How cool is that Chloe? Mind you I don't exactly get it."

I took the goblet and looked inside at the carvings.

"Why do you think they are on the inside Oliver? The carvings on all the items are on the insides of things, bowls, and cups?" I asked him looking at the stacks of things, which Oliver had around his office.

"I'm certain you drink, or eat from them either with the musical curtain playing, or the quilts on, and hey presto you are healed, or enlightened. I wonder if a curtain opens the case with Bartholomew's book inside it?"

I shrugged. "Do you think he's here in this time, or even still alive, Oliver?"

Oliver grinned. "I wouldn't be surprised if he lived down the street to be honest after everything that's happened to us."

I was smiling at this when Tristan and Dale arrived.

Dale ran around the office looking and gasping at the artifacts, and Oliver followed her obviously to make sure she touched nothing.

I was amused by this and Tristan came to stand near me.

"Oliver, can you actually read each carving?" Tristan asked, and Oliver glanced at him not wanting to let Dale pick anything up.

"Yes Tristan, and I'm about to find out if she can," and he waved a hand at Dale.

"Dale what does this say," Oliver asked, and showed her one of the handprint artifacts with carved language on the hand part.

Dale looked at it and shrugged. "I don't read this language. It is Bartholomew's magical language. Not the same as at the house."

We all looked at each other.

"Oliver that's amazing you read her language, and the magical language. Very cool" I thought this was amazing.

Dale picked up the golden yellow blanket from the rug where it lay folded and alone. It seemed Oliver thought nothing else went with it.

"I know this one of course. It will make you go like the wind," she said, and Oliver smiled a little.

"What exactly does that mean Dale?" he said, and held out his hand to take it from her.

"You can go quickly with it. So quickly you cannot be seen," she answered.

"How do you know that Dale?" I asked as she gave the blanket to Oliver.

"Uncle Bartholomew was wearing one of these the day he escaped to a place that I know now for sure is here," she told me.

Sometimes it felt as if she was speaking in riddles, but still I admired her pluck.

"Escaped from where Dale?" Tristan asked.

"From my brother of course" she answered.

It made us all smile.

Oliver had the blanket held up, and was reading the symbols embroidered around the border.

"It does say that. ' Move as the wind; announce your choice', is the actual translation. Oliver nodded after telling us this, and folded it back up. "So there are more of each artifact Dale?" He looked at her in interest.

Dale shook her head. "No just one or two."

Oliver shrugged at this answer. He picked up one of the handprint artifacts.

"This is blue although you can't see it but I can. That's true isn't it? Well this can heal you of your disease, and the indigo colored one, tells us it can heal any disease," he grinned, then added, "a bit like you Tristan, or maybe you Chloe. There's another one that I'm not sure of yet as it doesn't seem to have a color." He put them all down. "I see their colors. I can read the carvings and I know what you would do as in drink, or eat from them, wear them, or place your hand on them. The musical curtains must enhance them somehow. Certainly last night when I wore the green quilt the curtain that goes with the green stuff just came to life on its own, and helped me learn."

I was watching Oliver as he told us, and it seemed clear to me that he was special because he could see the colors of the things and we couldn't. It stood to reason that Oliver already had some magic, and he was probably right when he thought this was his extra gift.

"Oliver that's very cool" I said again.

Dale sighed, and I turned to her.

"Dale who taught you English?"

She looked puzzled for a moment, and so I added. "How can you speak our language?"

"Gaston is teaching me. It did not take long after I use some of my magical water."

I raised my eyebrows at Tristan, who was standing next to her, and he nodded. It seemed there was more to Dale's water, as she called it, than simple time-travel. If I understood her that is, and if you can call time-travel simple.

"Does anyone want a drink, water, juice?" Oliver asked, and it seemed to me he wanted us out of the room and away from the artifacts.

I smiled at him. "Sure Oliver, let's all just go to sit in the garden and make a plan."

I turned to leave, and Dale followed me into the kitchen, but as I opened the door to the garden, she caught hold of me.

"Who are you?" she asked.

I suddenly realized neither Oliver nor I had told her our names, and even though I had called Oliver his name, and she had been introduced to Tristan, she had not caught my name. I told it to her, and smiled at her. I liked her.

She took off the short cloak she was wearing when she was sitting in the garden, and stretched out her legs. Her trousers and boots looked very warm, and the tunic she wore over the top was double layered and belted with a very wide piece of fabric that must have added yet another layer of warmth. I felt sorry for her because I was warm in my lightest jeans and T-shirt. Oliver and Tristan had come along, and had misty bottles of mineral water with for us.

"Tristan I think I should get Dale some clothes. She must be boiled in what she's wearing."

He smiled at me. "That's kind of you Chloe. I'll take her to the apartment soon and sort things out for her, but if you could get some clothes and bring them over later that would be great."

Oliver was rolling the cold bottle of water over his forehead.

I drank some of mine, Dale drank some of hers, and then sprinkled some on her head, and as it dripped down her forehead, and her nose she giggled, and caught it with her tongue.

I smiled at this and noticed Tristan smiled too.

Shortly after that, Tristan announced he would take her to the stable apartment and they left.

Oliver went to the door with them. When he came back to me, he leaned over and kissed me quickly.

"I want to show you something, Chloe," he said softly, and I grinned.

"Okay Oliver," I said, and followed him.

He went straight to the office, where from behind the leather sofa he brought out the carved wooden book.

"I just couldn't let Dale see this, nor know what I know, until we prove she is trustworthy. These things Chloe, they are extremely special, and precious. I must take care of them." He was solemn as he said this, and I nodded.

"Okay Oliver I understand," I told him.

He put the carved book on his desk and then picked up the green quilt, and taking off his T-shirt, he draped the quilt over his shoulders.

I watched him fascinated. With his blond hair sort of sparkling, and the gold thread in the quilt adding a glow to his face and body, he looked like some ancient mystical shaman.

He traced the carving on the closed page part of the book. Over on the sofa the musical curtain started to whisper and move. I was completely in awe of it all and Oliver said, "Bring it over Chloe, and hold it up if you can."

I did as he asked and held the curtain as high as I could. It started to play lovely music, soft and low. Oliver turned the book up to read the carving, and as he read, the thing became a real book. The wood disappeared, and it was a big old leather-bound book with real pages where the carving had been.

Oliver smiled and put the book on his desk. He took off the quilt and folded it onto the sofa. I was standing there just watching him and the curtain was still playing its music. He came back to me, took the curtain, and folded that gently onto the quilt.

"Wow Oliver that was awesome. Did you know you could do that earlier when Dale and Tristan were here?"

He smiled and pulled his T-shirt back on.

"It came to me as we were in here just looking at the stuff that every other line of carving is words, and not musical notes as I first thought. It's incredible isn't it? This is Bartholomew Pike's spell book. I feel very privileged."

I turned to the book but didn't touch it.

Oliver opened it and on the first page in gold lettering was a series of the symbols.

"It's his name again," Oliver told me and closed the book.

"What will you do with it to keep it safe Oliver?" I asked him, and he thought for a couple of minutes.

"Turn it back into wood, I think."

"Wow, Oliver, can you?" I asked, and he grinned.

"Yes I think so, although I feel I should read some of it first. I'll wrap it in the orange blanket because that protects, and the 'thing or being within is guarded.'

I looked at him and shook my head.

"Oliver, you've turned into a wizard," I said in awe, and he caught hold of me and kissed me before he turned back to the book.

I watched as he wrapped the book up in the orange blanket and placed it behind the leather sofa.

We left then to buy stuff for Dale.

Chapter Ten

Tristan and Dale confess

Dale sat alongside me in the truck and I heard her sigh.

"It will be okay Dale. Your brother will not hurt Gaston if he wants information from her. We will be there in two days' time I promise" I told her, and glanced quickly at her. We were nearly at the Dearing house where I intended picking up clean linens and some food.

She touched my arm.

"Tristan, I know you will help. I know you are important to both Gaston and me. I must tell you this. I know you from a dream."

I sighed because I knew her from a dream too. It was the dream I had last night, which had woken me in worry that I was kissing another woman, when Chloe was real and in bed cuddled up to me.

"I know you from a dream too Dale. I dreamed of you last night," I told her, looking straight ahead as I drove.

I heard her sigh again.

"Only last night, and only one dream? I have dreamed about you many times and for a long time."

I felt my heart sink at this revelation.

"Have you ever seen me in real life before today, on one of your time travel adventures with Gaston perhaps?" I asked her, wondering if that was it.

"No I have not," she answered and I glanced at her again.

I felt drawn to her. I had this urge to protect her, and I sighed with the knowledge that I found her very attractive. It was worrying. I remembered kissing her in my dream, and it felt suddenly right instead of alien as it had when I woke.

I parked at the end of the Dearing house car park and got out of the truck to help Dale down. She was obviously used to the kind of courtesy that I had been brought up with, and I fell naturally into it. I helped her from the truck and kept her hand on my arm as I walked to the door.

"I came here this morning, Tristan, and you were not at this place," she told me.

I smiled at her and shook my head at the accent and the quaint English. I had to admit to wondering when and how Gaston had picked up English. Time travel obviously, I decided, as I opened the door. I let go of Dale's arm then and led the way down to the kitchen. McPherson could help me I thought.

Charlie was in the kitchen in the part where he had his basket, and came up to be stroked. Dale fussed over him, and I took the opportunity to assemble a bunch of stuff from the fridge and the larder as there was no sign of McPherson.

I asked Dale to stay in the kitchen, and bolted up the stairs two at a time to get linen from the big press in the second-floor bedroom, where all kinds of stuff was housed, spare quilts, and pillows, towels, and supplies of things like soap and shampoo. I stuffed a pillowcase with towels, some soap and shampoo, and then a pillowcase with bed linen. I ran back downstairs to find Dale sitting on a chair with her head down on her arms folded on the table. She looked up as I walked in.

I felt like comforting her and I held myself back from putting an arm around her shoulders.

"I'll find something to carry the food in and we'll go to the place you can stay. You seem tired," I said to her, and foraged in the utility area for a plastic bag.

She followed me back to the truck as I carried the things I'd collected to make the apartment okay for her stay, and I loaded them. She stood by the door waiting for me, and as I went to her, she turned to me and put her arms around me, with her head on my chest. I held her for a couple of seconds. It was alarming, but only because I actually felt the need to hold her.

It's a short drive to the stable apartment, and we were soon there. When I parked in the yard outside, Dale looked out of the window, and then turned to me and smiled. She was probably relieved it was a 'little house' as I had told her.

I took her in there and gave her a quick tour. I showed her the shower and gave her the soap and towels, even though there was already this kind of thing in there. I left her turning on the washbasin taps, and dashed into the bedroom where the decent bed was. It took me a couple of minutes to strip the used linen, and then I had started to put the clean things on the bed when Dale came in.

She watched me finish and pick up the things that needed laundering. I put them in the basket in the tiny little utility area, and went into the kitchen. It wasn't good for me to be in the bedroom where I had the dream about kissing her.

She followed and I made coffee, to keep busy. I kept glancing at her, and even dressed the way she was I liked her hair and her pretty face. Her blue eyes watched me, and I thought this must be what it's like for Chloe. She loves Oliver and me, and now I think I get it. I really like Dale it's the weirdest thing. I love Chloe, but I can't help this. I look at Dale, and I feel something warm and kind well up in my heart. It would be the easiest thing to fall in love with her I think.

I took her to the sofa we have there in the end of the room, and got her to sit down with a cushion for her head. She closed her eyes as she put her head down, but wouldn't let me take her sword, or cloak. She kept her cloak bunched up next to her, and the sword in her belt, so I let her, after all who cares. I've slept with my sword in my hand before.

I sat in a chair at the table and watched her fall asleep. I felt confused; everything had become even more complex than it already was. I thought about Gaston and that she had sent Dale to look for me. Why did Gaston think I had magic? It must be the waterfall, and of course, the things I'd told her the last time I had seen her.

I texted Chloe to find out what was happening with the clothes she was finding for Dale, and a text came back moments later saying they were on their way. I can't tell you how relieved I felt at that.

I watched Dale and thought about how Gaston had reduced the name Claudine to Dale. It was strange, and I considered if there was a message in it for me, but then dismissed that.

I went and stood in the doorway of the apartment with the door open and the sun hitting my shoulders. It stopped me thinking about Dale.

Oliver and Chloe showed up ten minutes later with a few colored bags that must have held clothes for Dale. It always amazes me how Chloe knows what to get. She is special, and dear to me, and I love her, so what's this feeling I have for Dale? I sighed as they followed me down to the kitchen living area of the apartment.

Although we were quiet, Dale woke up with a start when I filled the electric kettle to make coffee, and Chloe took the shopping to her. Dale's eyes lit up at the colored bags and as she looked inside them, I felt a wave of care for her because the things gave her such pleasure.

Chapter Eleven

Chloe talks with Aristide

When I was with Oliver, Tristan, and Dale, I had told them I would contact Aristide and sort things out with him. This made sense because I was the least busy over the next couple of days. I was also the one calling in on Dale to make sure she was okay.

It was great because I really liked her. She had great fun looking at the things I bought for her, and when she was finally dressed in the light gray chinos and lovely sleeveless top she looked so pretty.

I couldn't ring Aristide Friday night because by the time we'd all finished planning and dealing with things, I felt it was too late to call him, so I made sure I was up early Saturday to do it.

I was in my room and was about to call him. I'd never told him about giving Tristan and Oliver the potion that had nearly killed them, nor did he know that we had developed extra abilities after I had saved them with my blood. For that matter, our immortality was still secret, and had to stay that way.

His phone was ringing, and I put mine on speaker leaving it on my desk, as I stared out of the window at the late afternoon sun. When he answered, and found out who was calling, he was so pleased to hear from me, and that made me feel better.

"Aristide, a situation has arisen and we need your help. Naturally, if you feel you can't give it we will understand, but I'll tell you what's happened." I told him about Dale, and about the artifacts, and Bartholomew, but not about Oliver being able to open and read the book, because Oliver seemed to want to keep that a secret.

I heard Aristide chuckle a little.

"Chloe, you three are the most interesting people I know. This is remarkable and I'm fascinated. Dale said the forest of Brocelliandez. It's very close to another name for a make believe forest. I wonder if the story is based on some truth and on these 'magical antiques' as you have called them? They do sound wonderful. I can't help but think there is some parallel between Merlin and Bartholomew, although that sounds far-fetched now I have said it. Chloe, as you know I'll be able to try, at least, to do something about making sure you come home to this time as you ask, but I'll need to be with you.

It sounds as if we travel to a lake, and then use a waterfall to go to the water feature that is in the forest. I can't wait. How exciting. I'd love to see the things that belong to this Bartholomew. You know I'm not surprised that Oliver has taken charge of them. I'll drive over tomorrow. I must tell you that the spell to open the door of the room where Dale's brother has Gaston imprisoned might be a problem. I'll need to be there before I know what to do."

Aristide amused me with his excitement, and I found myself smiling at his meandering conversation. I was grinning as I asked him if he would need anything, since I was the 'gofer' this weekend, and could get it.

He would bring what he needed he told me, and then added, "I suppose there's no way you can get some dynamite, or similar?"

I was taken aback. "You don't mean it do you, Aristide, because I don't think that would be possible. What do you want it for?"

"Just in case I can't take the spell from the door of the prison, we could blow out a few bricks further along the wall or something." He was chuckling as he said this.

"You aren't serious, Aristide? The spell would encompass the walls as well wouldn't it?" I asked, but then thought that perhaps it wouldn't, since Dale's brother might have thought it would only be the door, which people tried to open.

Aristide was chuckling again. "I think we should have some weaponry just in case, as this is unprecedented. The magical fountain and forest," he stopped mid-sentence in excitement. "Did Dale tell you the name of her home, a castle perhaps, or her brother's name?"

I didn't think she had mentioned her brother's name.

"Not her brother's name, but her castle is La Ducla. Why Aristide what's the significance?"

I heard him sigh. "It's just my old imagination working overtime. La Ducla you say? Oh, wait a minute, how odd, it could be Landuc with the letters re-arranged. This is so exciting Chloe. This promises to be such a great adventure. We could be dealing with some very ancient and potent magic that will make my magic look very tame."

I sighed worried. As far as I was concerned, Aristide was our ace in the hole, so I didn't want to find his magic was not up to what we were facing. Hopefully Dale's brother wasn't such a hot shot and only Bartholomew was.

We ended the call and I expected Aristide to rock up the next night, which was Saturday. I couldn't help but hope that he would be able to weave a suspend time spell, because mom would expect me to be around when Kim arrived. Let's face it disappearing for who knows how long is always going to be problematic. No one would be free until Monday morning anyway. This whole thing couldn't have come at a worse time in my opinion.

I went downstairs to get a drink of water and mom was in the kitchen on her cell phone. I was about to leave again with my glass of water when mom finished her conversation.

"Hi Chloe, I have the worst headache how about you try that healing touch of yours again?" She smiled, but I thought I would do it, and I made a joke out of it.

"Okay, Mom give me your hand," and I took her hold of her fingers.

She gasped and stopped smiling.

"You did it again, Chloe, the pain has completely gone," she said looking at me curiously.

I grinned. "Come on Mom stop messing about, the pain has not gone," I said to her hoping to laugh it all off.

Mom shook her head. "I'm not joking. The headache has gone again."

I covered my tracks. "Mom, you maybe just needed to move around a little instead of being in front of the computer, and just as the headache was about to go I touched you. I need to do some emails, so see you." I beat a hasty retreat up to my room. If I ever wanted to heal people, it would have to be done in complete secret I decided.

There was no way I could lay my hands on dynamite for Aristide, and anyway who wants to risk a stick of that in their back pocket when time traveling, but I decided to tell Tristan that Aristide thought we might need weapons. I knew it would mean swords and such to him, and that was okay since he was an expert in sword fighting.

I didn't know where Tristan would be, but I called him to tell him about the conversation with Aristide.

He was at 'Hawthorns.' Dale had insisted on looking for the spell book and they were in the attic. I told him I would come over even though I knew exactly where the book was. I figured I would ask if Dale wanted to do something today, and let Tristan get some work done.

I drove over to 'Hawthorns' and parked behind the little white car that Tristan had obviously had to use today. He must have judged when I would arrive because he was at the door opening it as I walked up the steps.

I put my arms up around his neck to kiss him hello, and he smiled hugging me to him. "Chloe, it's good to see you," he said, and kissed me. I smiled at him as we let go of each other and followed him into the house.

"Dale is convinced the spell book belonging to her uncle is here somewhere. I don't know where it might be. We've turned over the attic already." He sounded a little worried, and I put my arm around his waist to walk down the hall with him. I leaned into him and he kissed the top of my head.

"I need to deliver some flower baskets, but after that I have no more urgent jobs. Can I leave you with Dale? I need to go to the greenhouse where Martin is loading the truck."

I nodded. "Of course, I'll take her shopping and stuff. Let's tell her you need to leave and I'll move my Jeep."

Tristan stopped at the bottom of the stairs and hugged me to him.

"Chloe, I do love you, you know that. Whatever else happens I will always love you."

I was puzzled by this. "Tristan, I love you too, and I know you love me, but I can't help thinking you're worried about something the way you are talking. Is it this rescue and the artifacts?"

"Something like that," he said. Then we walked up to the attics, where when we were at the bottom of the pull-down ladder, I could hear Dale cursing again, and I looked at Tristan, and laughed.

She heard me and looked down at us.

"Nothing but junk," she called.

"Come down out of there please, Dale. I have to work and Chloe will be with you for that time." Tristan said to her, and she started down the ladder. She was about four rungs from the bottom when she looked at Tristan, and he stepped forward, put his hands around her waist, and lifted her the rest of the way. She held him and they looked into each other's eyes. It was all of a sudden clear to me what was wrong with Tristan; he was attracted to Dale. I looked away from them.

We all went downstairs to the hall.

"I'll move the Jeep" I said and left them. As I walked to my car and then moved it out onto the road, I realized this must be what it was like for Tristan when he left me to say goodbye to Oliver. I felt a little sadness for both Oliver and Tristan, as I felt a pang knowing that Tristan might hug Dale goodbye. It was a bit soon to kiss her, wasn't it, I asked myself, as I walked back up the drive?

Tristan came down from the porch and I smiled at him. He smiled back and caught my hand pulling me to him. "I'll call you as soon as I am free. Thanks for this, Chloe." I watched him drive away, and then went into the house.

Chapter Twelve

The Painting

There was no sign of Dale and I went down to the kitchen to check if she was in there. She was and she was making tea. I watched her as she tried to flick the tea bags out of the cups onto a saucer. I smiled at her.

"Dale do you want to come shopping, it can be fun, and waste a couple of hours amusingly?" I asked her.

She looked at me with interest.

"Gaston has shown me shopping here before, and we had fun," she said.

I raised my eyebrows. "Really, when was that Dale?" I asked, thinking this highly unlikely.

"Some time ago," she answered, and I shrugged, that could have been any time.

"We can go after you have had tea," I told her wanting to make friends with her. I liked her, and if Tristan liked her then I wanted to make sure she was not going to hurt him in any way. I smiled inwardly thinking this was exactly what Liz used to do and say.

"I am disappointed not to find my uncle's spell book. It might have been of great use to us. All there is up in the roof is a painting of my mother," she told me, and sat down with a sigh.

I nearly choked on the mouthful of tea I had. She couldn't have let the water boil as it was barely warm and very strong, but it was what she'd said that had me choking.

"A painting of your mother," I echoed stupidly.

"I said so, did I not?" She gave me one of her looks and then smiled. "Of course you will not know. There is a painting up there in the roof. It is my mother. Bartholomew painted it. He loved her very much."

I was at a loss to know what to say.

"You talked about your brother, but never told us his name. Is your father alive Dale?" I asked her thinking all the time about why there would be a painting of her mother in the attic.

"My father is dead as far as I know, although he could be in hiding. Bartholomew is I am sure of it. My brother is called Esteban. My mother disappeared when I was a baby. She was a mage too. I sadly, only have my magical water, and without it, I am useless. I can fight now because Gaston taught me. He is very good with the sword."

I looked at her and sighed thinking how good it would be to be able to fight well with a sword. Maybe Tristan would teach me if I asked.

"We should bring the painting down from the attic Dale," I told her. This made her smile.

"Yes," she said, and I stood up to go for it.

She trailed along behind me talking about her brother.

"We must not let him know anything. Nothing about anyone or anything, I hope you all understand that. He will appear charming, but he is very bad."

I thought the hell with even meeting the guy. We should sneak into her castle rescue Gaston and vamoose.

"I think we do understand Dale. I have a friend coming to help. He is a mage too and will free Gaston. What will happen to you? Your brother might guess you helped Gaston?"

We were in the attic and I flipped through the stack of paintings, knowing there was only one that could be Dale's mother. I pulled out the painting I had noticed earlier of a lovely young woman.

"This is your mother?" I asked Dale and she nodded.

We both carried it down the ladder. Dale went down first, stopped, I handed her the painting, and then we both carried on down the ladder. It was just a precaution on my part so as not to do it any damage.

We carried it down to the kitchen.

She seemed to decide to answer my question.

"I will not stay there in my world. I must leave. Perhaps I will go to Gaston's time, but I much prefer to come here again and search for Bartholomew. I like you and your friends. I very much like Tristan. Is he special to you?" She asked, as we propped the painting on a chair.

I turned to her and considered the question.

"He is very special to me, special to many people, and I would always want him happy and safe." I figured that would do for the time being.

We stood back from the painting and she put her hands on her hips.

"It is the same as my locket painting," she said, and I glanced at her.

"That's how I know it is my mother, you see," she said to me.

I had to admit to not even thinking about how she knew, and then I remembered that she had said her mom had disappeared when she was two.

I thought, 'what's the betting she ran off with Bartholomew, since even though Dale had called him her uncle he could have been her father's brother.'

"Dale, did Bartholomew paint the locket picture?" I asked her.

She was drinking the remains of the horrible tea she had made.

"He did," she answered.

"Did he disappear before or after she did?" I asked her.

"He disappeared when I was eight," she sighed, and flopped into a chair dispiritedly.

I felt sad for her.

"So do you know what he looks like Dale?" I asked, thinking what if we came across the guy, how would we know him?"

"I do you know. I do as he is printed in my brain forever. I have a picture of him too in the other half of my locket. It's like a tiny book, open and on one side my mother, the other side Bartholomew." She had put her hands together to indicate the book opening and closing.

I sat down and stared at the painting.

"You don't really look like your mother Dale. Usually there is some resemblance. Something," I added, whilst remembering that a couple of my friends in high school looked nothing like their moms.

"I look like Bartholomew," she said innocently, and I glanced at her, but said nothing.

"Let's go shopping Dale." I said, wanting to go out and do something normal instead of puzzle over magical things. We had plenty of time for seriousness on Monday.

I stood up and was on my way out of the kitchen with Dale close by me, when I heard it, the noise of the painting sliding off the chair. I turned to step back and grab it, and so did Dale; we collided slightly and both grabbed the same corner of the painting. A corner still came off the chair and hit the old kitchen tiles. I heard the smash and groaned as the bottom corner of the lovely carved wooden frame smashed on the hard surface.

We both pulled the painting up, and I looked at the crushed corner of the frame.

I pushed at the wood where it was splintered, and a little piece of it fell off, and floated softly to the floor.

Dale and I put the painting down flat on the end of the big kitchen table, something we should have done right off.

I bent to pick up the piece of wood and found it soft in my hand.

It was fabric, like canvas, and only made to look like wood.

I unrolled it and found a series of numbers written on there, just a long row of numbers in black paint. I handed it to Dale.

"Look at this Dale. Do you know these numbers?" I asked her, as she took the little piece of canvas.

"Not at all," she answered, and gave it back to me.

I looked again. It could be a phone number I thought, as some of them are incredibly long now, or maybe if it had an international code in front of it I thought, and I rolled it back up, and put it in the pocket of my jeans.

My cell phone rang and it was Oliver on his break checking up on things. I told him everything was as mysterious as it wanted to be, but that Aristide was coming over to help, and would arrive tomorrow night.

Oliver laughed and told me things were hectic at the wedding, and we ended the call.

I was just putting the cell phone back in my pocket when it rang again.

Tristan was checking up on how things were going. I told him I was just about to take Dale shopping and would see him later.

Dale watched me, and then held out her hand for my cell phone.

"I want one of these," she said, and turned it over in her hand.

I grinned. "Fine, then you shall have one Dale. Let's go, I need some fresh air and normalcy," I told her.

Chapter Thirteen

The Plan

It was Sunday evening and Aristide had arrived. Tristan had given him a room in the Dearing holiday accommodation, and we had arranged to meet the next day, Monday, at lunchtime in Hawthorns.

I hadn't thought about Dale and Tristan, but I hadn't seen him on Saturday night or today yet, although he'd called and we'd talked for a short time. Dale had been in the background adding things to the conversation, and I had to smile at her appealing way of speech.

I got some work done, and thought about the most important aspects of what we had to do. It was midnight and Oliver had just finished work. He called me from his car.

"Chloe, is there any chance I can come over and see you? I feel as if I need to hug you and it's not that late."

I smiled as I answered.

"Oliver, I'd love to see you, please do come over." I had my hair down instead of clipped up and quickly brushed it before I went downstairs. Oliver arrived just as I had started to make coffee.

I opened the front door before he rang the bell, and he stood there smiling at me with the porch lights glinting on his lovely blond hair.

I took his hand.

"Oliver, it's great to see you. How was work today? It was the last day of the monumental wedding celebrations wasn't it?" Dad hadn't asked me to help that weekend, and I was glad in a way, as it meant I could be with Dale a little.

He grinned.

"Not as busy as Saturday but still hectic. Who would want that much fuss for their wedding? Seriously?" he asked, and gave me a look.

"Don't look at me, I can't think of anything worse," I said and smiled.

Oliver pulled me into a hug.

"As a wedding or such a fuss?" he asked teasingly, and then he kissed me.

It was always the most delicious mix of comfort and sensual feeling being kissed by Oliver, and I held him close returning his kiss for a moment or two.

When we let go of each other he took a deep breath before saying, "I know we are meeting with Aristide tomorrow, but has anything else been said? Do we have any plans at all Chloe?"

I shook my head. "I haven't seen much of Tristan, and when he called we didn't talk much about what to do. To be honest I think it's going to be a 'play it by ear' trip this time around."

Oliver grimaced. "That sounds like such fun Chloe," he said, and as he leaned against the table, he pulled me close. I smiled at his ironic comment, and put my arms up around his neck to be close to him.

"Oliver do you ever regret any of this stuff, you know meeting me, being kidnapped, Tristan saving you and becoming immortal?" I asked him.

Oliver raised his eyebrows. "I have to admit I don't think about it in that way. I don't regret meeting you naturally, but once or twice I have thought what it might be like not to have so much magical stuff going on all the time, although I am very captivated by those magic artifacts now. Why do you ask? Do you regret stuff?"

He was talking softly, and looking at me with an expression of such care, I felt grateful for him. He was always so centered, and I felt suddenly as if he was more solid than Tristan. He was not surrounded by magic all the time and sought out by weird people and such from the past. It felt for the very first time that I should always have Oliver by my side, whatever that meant.

"Not really, Oliver, it was just that we are getting older and yet not. It's nearly three years since I left the States. It's hard to think I will not look any different for instance. I would have liked to get a little taller or something," I told him thinking I might have liked a size up on my bust measurement too.

Oliver smiled at me. "You aren't that short Chloe and I like the way you fit against me." He kissed me and held me very close, which was, as always, lovely.

Oliver didn't stay long and we arranged that he would drop by and pick me up the next day to go over to 'Hawthorns'.

I fell asleep thinking about how Oliver could open that spell book because we might need a spell from it to free Gaston.

Remarkably the next day it was throwing down with rain, and there was a little thunder in the air too off in the distance. A fitting atmosphere to be planning a time-travel adventure to rescue Gaston from an evil wizard, I thought, as I got into Oliver's car and kissed his cheek in greeting.

We didn't say much on the way to 'Hawthorns' and I think both of us were wondering what the plan would consist of.

Tristan let us in at the house, and we followed him down to the kitchen where both Dale and Aristide were sitting at the long kitchen table.

The painting of Dale's mother was propped against the far wall, and I suddenly remembered the bit of canvas with numbers on it, that was in the pocket of my jeans slung over the back of my desk chair at home.

I sat down because it looked as if a plan was made already from the notes on a big sheet of paper laid on the table.

"Hello Chloe, Oliver. I've been making sure I know the layout of the places we need to use to do the travelling," Aristide said, waving his hand across the paper.

Tristan joined in. "We know we have to use my waterfall to get to Gaston's home. The pool is where we show up, but we use the waterfall in Gaston's pool to take us to the magic fountain pool that's in the forest near Dale's home."

Aristide smiled. "That bit is simple because there is no discrepancy in the time we arrive; it's only from Gaston's pool to Tristan's waterfall on the way back that there will be trouble. By which I mean I have to ensure we arrive back in this time. The only way to do that is to cast a suspend spell as we leave, which sadly means we must hurry with the whole trip, as this portal we will use behind Tristan's waterfall isn't known to us. You must remember the original portal came about from the seven spell cast upon Tristan by Rene, but this portal, well, what can I say, it exists outside that spell. The seven spell portal is closed unless opened on the reed pad by Tristan and me, and the one below your kitchen Chloe that one is decaying. The waterfall that saved Tristan appears to have ancient magic over and above that which surrounded Tristan as he drowned in eleven ninety." Aristide stopped talking and shrugged.

I think even he was at a loss to explain how, or why things were as they were.

Tristan grinned at us all.

"At least the portal from Gaston's waterfall goes only to Dale's and in her time, so that's something isn't it?" He seemed hopeful we would agree and Oliver made a little oh sound before he answered.

"Yes, but it seems complex. When we get to Dale's forest, fountain pool, then how do we rescue Gaston? That's what I want to sort out."

I nodded because as far as I was concerned the time-travel bit generally took care of itself, a little too well in some cases.

Dale patted the paper on the table.

"The castle has more than one entrance and I can get you in by the lake entrance. You must look like traders, merchants you know, as they are always coming and going. The lake is at the back of the castle, and has the river coming into it so that people use that like a road. You come to the castle and then row away after you visit on that side. It is not the side for royalty."

"Clothes are going to be a problem," I said.

"No there are still bits and pieces I have stashed away from other journeys," Tristan said smiling, and adding, "Being wet will be the problem in my opinion."

Oliver was nodding in agreement when Dale said.

"No not when you are coming out of my pool, you will walk away into the forest and there you are dry. Not wet at all."

We all looked at each other and I was about to speak when Aristide started.

"You know more and more I get the feeling we are not really travelling to another time in the past. I feel as if we are travelling to another world."

Oliver made his little groan sound that usually meant he was skeptical, but thought the worst and I smiled. I was close to him and felt like taking his hand.

Dale beamed at us all. "I told Chloe that I was not from the past, did I not Chloe?"

I nodded but had nothing to say to this.

Tristan was smiling at Dale and then at Aristide.

"Will it make things easier for us is my question."

Aristide shrugged. Dale seemed to misunderstand.

"I will lead you to where Gaston is held, and you will dispatch the guards, and free him. That will be easy except for the guardian spell. Unless Esteban is there questioning Gaston, when we will need a strong spell to freeze him, and that's why it would be so much better if we had Bartholomew's spell book."

I wondered what dispatch the guards actually meant but asked, "How will we know if he is likely to be there, Dale?" She looked at me and shrugged.

"I will look, and then come and bring you from the lake," she told us, and Tristan joined in.

"I will have swords, Aristide will have spells, and the fact is we have to just go and do it, rescue Gaston that is."

Dale smiled at Tristan. "I have a sword too."

Aristide looked at us all before he spoke carefully.

"You know of course that you don't all need to go. Tristan, Dale, and I could go."

I shook my head. "No, Aristide, we all go, something tells me that's the only thing to do." I just couldn't face one of those situations where we got split up and we were there waiting and worrying.

Oliver agreed. "Let's all go. It might take all of us and I for one can't be waiting here worrying about what's going on. Let's just do it and get back. Should we take any of the artifacts? The orange blanket 'guards that within', according to the symbols, and I am wondering if we should take it. Then there is the speeding one, the yellow one that lets you 'go like the wind' as Dale put it," and he smiled at her.

"You will find the red one useful too, as it gives enormous power and strength to the one wearing it," Dale told us.

I shook my head. "I think we should leave the stuff here, after all if Bartholomew hid them here then there must be a good reason."

Aristide nodded. "I agree, even not having seen them, I agree."

"Yes I think that's true I do feel anxious about it," Oliver said.

Dale nodded. "That's because of my brother. He must not get them. Bartholomew left them here to be safe."

We fell silent and then Tristan asked if anyone wanted tea, or coffee, or something since it was lunchtime and got up to make it.

He turned from the coffee percolator. "Dale, if we travel at night will it be the night when we get to Gaston's pool?"

We looked expectantly at her, and she stared around at our faces concentrating.

"I remember it has been the same for arriving at Gaston's pool, but not for arriving at mine."

Aristide stood up and started to help Tristan but also said,

"I think we should go tonight."

Tristan nodded. "Okay, I'm game."

I thought 'why not' and nodded.

Oliver sighed. "Sure I'm not expected at work until Wednesday if anything goes wrong."

Tristan looked over at him. "Nothing will go wrong, Oliver."

Chapter Fourteen

The Travel

We were heading for the waterfall around ten thirty that night, dressed in bits and pieces of things Tristan had rounded up. I was in my own leggings and a long sweater that came down to my knees. My boots came up to my knees so that I felt as if I would pass muster with the belt, and short sword I had slung around my body and the cloak Tristan had given me. We all were similarly decked out, and Dale kept giggling as we walked along. It set me off, and Aristide joined in too, suddenly chuckling.

The whole business of getting behind the waterfall was ridiculous and I slipped almost falling backwards into the pool. Aristide stopped me by grabbing me and saying some words that turned out to be a freeze spell of sorts. I had a few seconds to wait to unfreeze, and Oliver grabbed me from inside the waterfall, and pulled me down to safety. It was very weird, but when we all stood there on the inside of the falls with the water pouring down before our eyes Tristan took a deep breath and said, "Well now I know the way for next time." We were all dripping wet and I wondered when we would do the time travelling.

Aristide was chanting something, which I guessed was the time suspend spell, and suddenly his voice seemed to begin to echo.

Then the whole lot of us were standing knee deep in a pool.

It was a decorative pool with stone statues standing at each corner and huge stone planters filled with flowers. The moon was full in the sky unlike the sky we had just left where the moon was a crescent. The cascade was to one side and looked nothing like the waterfall I had imagined. It was only about ten feet high and thin, cascading down a series of mossy stones deliberately set in the bank that it fell down. The whole lot looked landscaped to me and I grimaced wondering how this was a portal.

Tristan waded over to the cascade and Dale followed.

"You will not all go at once, as we have just done in Tristan's cascade," she informed Oliver, Aristide and me, as we began following them.

"You begin to climb the stones and before you are at the top you will be in my water. Do not get out until we all stand in it."

I was about to ask why when Tristan who had begun climbing, and was three stones up, disappeared.

"Bloody hell," Oliver muttered as Dale did the same, and Aristide started up.

"You go next," he said to me, and I started the climb.

The stones felt slippery to the touch, but were remarkably stable to stand on, and as I looked down to step to the third one, I found myself not on the stone, but in a pool.

The pool was wild, quite shallow, but not landscaped like Gaston's, and at the far right was a fountain coming out of the rocks, and a strange little stone bowl shape nearby that caught some of the fountain water. The cascade as Dale called it was on the left and was small like the holy spring in Tristan's waterfall in eleven-ninety. The water was very blue, as if someone had taken a watercolor paint and painted it. It was day here and the sky echoed the blue of the water. I looked around and we were all there. Dale was grinning happily.

"This is it; we are here. We should drink at the fountain before we leave, it will help sustain us," she said, and was wading over there. We followed, and as I scooped up a handful of the water to drink it, I looked into the water and saw not myself reflected, nor the stone bottom of the bowl, but Oliver. I looked around to check if he was behind me, but he wasn't. He was still wading from the middle of the pool.

When we were all on the bank Tristan who looked a little pale suggested that we just head for the castle and check it out.

Walking along I realized I was no longer wet. Not at all, and I tried to remember when I had dried out but couldn't.

Suddenly over the tops of the trees, we could see the castle turrets. It was not one of those fairy tale type places as I had imagined, and almost seemed ruined at one end.

I commented on this to Dale and she shrugged. "That was where the battle between Bartholomew and my brother took place before he left. It cannot be repaired. Esteban has tried, but the castle reverts to that destruction. It will be as Bartholomew wants it."

I glanced at Oliver, and he widened his eyes at me, and then smiled.

This didn't seem like the past, just as Dale had said, and I wondered where we really were.

Dale stopped us on a small slope of land where we could see the castle only a short distance away. It wasn't like the castle in the Norman times I had been to with Tristan, and seemed to have no outer curtain, and perimeter walls. It was surrounded by a moat of clear blue water, and the bridge over this to the front gate was not even guarded.

We sat on the slope, and watched Dale as she squatted down and pointed to the right of the slope.

"Only a short walk away you will come to the lake side, and you will see the gate on the other side in the castle wall. This is where traders can moor the boat they are in. You do not have your own boat and will have to pay the ferryman to get across. You can pay with this." She took a coin from a pouch I had no idea she had inside one of her tunics, and gave it to Tristan. Her quaint way of explaining things was back, and I had to grin at her.

Tristan was turning the coin over looking at each side, and it glistened gold in the sunlight.

"If we are pretending to be traders Dale, what will we have to trade? We can hardly say we are traders when we arrive empty handed?" I asked.

Oliver agreed saying, "I was about to say the same thing."

"This will seem odd I know, but you must simply say, if you are asked, that it is not for their eyes, then the guards will know you are trading in magic spells," Dale told us, and nodded her head in a knowledgeable way.

I accepted it, because it was typical.

Tristan grinned.

"That's great isn't it?" He looked around at us, and I nodded. It was cool if you left out the whole scary business of rescuing Gaston that lay ahead.

Dale stood up and so did Tristan. She hugged him, and then walked away, and we watched her go down the slope and start to cross the bridge. Suddenly out of thin air two men with tigers on leashes appeared on the bridge. They just seemed to shimmer into view and Dale stopped. She appeared to speak to them and they disappeared. I looked at Oliver and Tristan turned to us.

"Magic everywhere then, and yet Dale said she had none," he shook his head, and Aristide smiled.

"She may not really, the guards must know her, but yes there seems to be a good deal of magic in this place. We are not in the past I might add just as I expected."

Dale had disappeared into the castle and we got up to walk to the lake side.

To the right, where we were to walk, there was a thicket of trees, that as we reached the other side, opened out into a path alongside the lake Dale had told us about.

The river that fed the lake came into it on the far side away from the castle walls, and there were a number of boats on it, either coming or going from the castle. Along the path we were on was a wooden jetty, and a boat moored there.

Tristan turned to us.

"Do you think Dale might have had enough time to check on her brother?"

Aristide shook his head.

"I honestly don't know. Maybe we should wait for a few more minutes."

We stood around by the jetty; there was no one to act as ferryman anyway.

Just as I was about to suggest we take the boat and chance it. Tristan suggested we do that.

He had only put one foot in the boat when a man appeared in there, just materialized. He was smiling and holding out his hand.

Tristan gave him the gold coin and we all got into the boat. The ferryman didn't ask where we were going. It seemed there was only one place it could be. He proceeded to row us to the castle entrance.

As we approached the steps leading up to the walkway from the river, the ferryman disappeared. The boat rocked gently on the water by the steps and Tristan leapt out. He held the boat still and we all got out onto the steps.

Another boat arrived, and the people in there stepped quickly up the steps without even looking at us.

On the walkway, it appeared there were no guards, but at the gates, four men looking very friendly and seemingly unarmed came forward.

They all spoke at once.

Naturally, I had no idea what they said, and I looked at Tristan, but it was Oliver who answered them in their own language.

Whatever he said appeased them, and we were allowed to walk through the gates into the courtyard.

"What happened back there, Oliver?" I asked him, and he grinned at me.

"Just what Dale told us would, they wanted to know what we were trading, and I told them it was not for their eyes."

Tristan was smiling. "I'm glad you can speak the language Oliver. I never even considered that aspect."

"Me neither," I said, and Aristide stopped staring about him, and nodded in agreement.

We were in the courtyard for only a couple of minutes, standing next to a row of what were very familiar market stall style tables with people buying things. Fabric, vegetables, pots, and stuff like were being sold, or traded maybe.

Dale approached us, and she looked different. She was dressed in a sleeveless leather tunic belted over a calf length, purple skirt, with a jeweled belt and long sword in a jeweled scabbard, not the little short sword she had before. She appeared to have on leather leggings under the skirt, and her ankle boots were purple leather, she looked great.

She smiled at us and put her hands together in a prayer-like way to bow slightly to us, and then she spoke softly in English.

"I need to pretend you are traders as you said because we will be watched. Follow me and do not speak to anyone."

We followed, and she took us through a winding alleyway between castle turrets and smaller overhanging buildings. She stopped at the base of a tower, and turned to us.

"This is the dangerous part. My brother is not with Gaston but I do not know where he is. This is where Gaston is being kept. There will be guards and they are real men, so we need to deal with them. I favor knocking them unconscious unless, Aristide, you can put a spell on them." She looked hopefully at Aristide.

He nodded, but Tristan unsheathed his sword. Oliver was to stay guard at the bottom of the turret. I wondered if there was any point in me going up to the room as what part would I play? Perhaps I should stay and help Oliver, but I followed them up the stone staircase, up and up as it spiraled around, until we reached a floor where the stairs stopped, and a corridor could be seen leading down to a wall.

Dale proceeded along the corridor, and as she did, two guards came out of a room the doorway of which simply appeared in the wall. Dale said something to them. The guards bowed politely to her and were turning away when she and Tristan struck. They hit the guards who were wearing no headgear at all and quite flimsy chest armor, hard on the back of their heads as they turned. It seemed in unison and almost choreographed. Dale and Tristan grinned at each other pleased with their work.

It surprised the hell out of me because they uncannily seemed to know what each other would do.

The door to the room was still open, and we filed in there. In the back of this room was another door. It looked ordinary, but when Dale approached it, the door disappeared.

She stepped back and it reappeared.

"You see what we are up against," she whispered. "We must open it with magic and quickly as who knows where Esteban is."

Aristide put out his hands and seemed to be feeling the air in front of him.

"There is a spell which I need to break so that we can always see the door. That's our first hurdle." He looked at us and Tristan checked the guards.

"Can we hurry?" Tristan asked, and came back to stand with Dale and me.

Aristide was chanting something, then he approached the door and it disappeared, so we all sighed collectively in disappointment.

"Don't worry I'll try something else," he told us, and walked directly at the door chanting again.

As it disappeared, he touched the place with the palms of his hands, and chanted again. This time the door appeared and stayed visible.

"Now open it please," Dale urged, and Aristide nodded.

"Yes, yes," he answered, just as a guard sprang up and ran at us brandishing his sword.

Tristan turned and began to fight him. Dale circled around them and taking hold of the other guard by the hair, she slammed his head down on the floor as some kind of precautionary measure. I watched and was surprised he did not bleed. I hoped she hadn't killed him. I moved as Tristan and the other guard ran fighting to one side their swords clanging.

Aristide was holding the door and chanting, but nothing was happening.

I watched as Dale ran at the guard who was fighting with Tristan and she swung her sword at him menacingly. As he turned to parry her blow, Tristan whacked him on the head with the hilt of his sword, and the guard went down again. Dale and Tristan grinned at each other, and I had to smile. They were a good team.

Aristide turned to us.

"I can't do it. I don't know why. How do the guards open it to give Gaston food, Dale?" he asked, and she pointed at the table in the corner, where a large key could be seen lying next to two crystal glasses half full of water.

Aristide got the key and put it in the lock trying to turn it, but it wouldn't.

"They are spelled so that they can open it, but otherwise it will not open," she told us pointing at the guards, and starting to look frantic.

Aristide frowned. "This is more complex than I expected since it's not the door that is spelled, but the guards, so it probably involves a potion."

Tristan grinned and took hold of the guard he had just knocked out by the shoulders. He dragged the guy over to the door where the key was in the lock, and hoisted him up to lean against the door.

"Not if we use the guard. We'll use his hand to turn the key," Tristan said.

I watched as he did this, and to my shock, it worked. As the door swung open Dale ran through it, and Tristan let the guard slump unconscious to the floor. I followed Dale and saw Gaston lying on the floor of the room. The girl looked thin, unkempt, and didn't open her eyes as we approached.

"Oh Gaston, no, wake up," Dale cried, and knelt to take Gaston's head onto her lap. Tristan went forward and felt Gaston's pulse.

"She's alive, but in a bad way I'd say," and he glanced at me. I thought he would like to give her our blood, but we couldn't do it in front of Dale and Aristide. Dale was running for the water on the guard's table, and Tristan held Gaston up against his chest.

Aristide was watching the guards now, and as Dale tried to get some water into Gaston, Tristan looked at me.

I saw no way of giving her blood, and it would look equally suspicious if I tried to cure her by touch, and so I shook my head.

Suddenly Tristan lifted Gaston up in his arms.

"Let's just get her out of here, come on" and he took off down the corridor to the stairs. Halfway down the stairs he asked me to take Gaston's legs, and Aristide her shoulders so that he and Dale were free to fight if need be.

Oliver was at the bottom of the stairs looking up as we rounded the last spiral.

"I was just about to run up to you and check what was happening. Is Gaston okay?" he added, seeing her being carried.

I was questioning why my touching her had not worked at all so far to heal her, and didn't reply.

None of us answered him, but at the bottom of the stairs, I checked her pulse and found it, but a little weak.

"She's in a bad way, Oliver," I echoed what Tristan had said, and I sighed wanting to give her even the tiniest drop of blood. Oliver came to look at her.

We set off again with Oliver holding Gaston and Aristide helping. I walked quickly along by their side with Tristan at the rear and Dale heading our group.

We reached the end of the alleyways with no problem, and then had to cross the market square. This was going to be harder. Aristide and Oliver had Gaston between them holding her with her feet dragging on the ground as if she was walking. I tried to cover the fact she wasn't by circling them and blocking the front view as we got to the gates. Dale stepped up to the guards and engaged them in some kind of conversation that enabled us to get to the steps and the lake side. There were no boats and Dale cursed. On the other side of the lake, a boat was moored.

"Someone must go and bring that boat. Can you go Chloe?" she asked, and I nodded.

She said, "Tell the ferryman I have the fee on this side."

I had no idea how deep the lake was, but I could swim well. Growing up alongside the Pacific Ocean, and surfing at Manhattan Beach had ensured that.

I threw my cloak down onto the walkway and dove into the water. It seemed a long way once I was swimming, and I felt as if the water could be magic in some way, but I keep going and reached the boat. I clambered into the boat and as expected, the ferryman appeared at the other end of it with his hand out. I caught a breath.

"The fee is at the other side," I told him, pointing over the water, and after nodding, he started to row, and I sat down on the wooden bench seat.

We got to the other side quicker than I had swum over, and Dale took a gold coin from the pouch now hanging from her belt, and handed it to the ferryman who then disappeared.

"You must get out of the boat, and then we must get in again for the ferryman to appear" Dale told me and so I got out.

"Can't we just row ourselves?" Tristan asked, but as he got in the ferryman appeared to take another coin from Dale.

We had reached the other side and were hurrying off still carrying Gaston. I felt as if things were going well, and we had reached halfway up the slope of ground heading for the thicket of trees, when we heard shouting.

I turned to see a group of guards heading over the bridge, and behind them, a tall man with dark hair, totally clothed in purple running along with a sword in his hand, and waving it about over his head. Suddenly, as he pointed the sword at us a hail of fiery stones came flying towards us. Dale turned and cursed.

"Faster I must get to my fountain" she called, and Aristide stopped, stood very still, chanted something, and waved his arms. The fiery stones fell to the ground some distance from us. We ran as best we could to the trees with Oliver carrying Gaston, trying to take care of her, and Tristan helping by holding her up in the middle now and then. Aristide kept chanting as a barrage of arrows came flying towards us. You could hear them whistle in the air, and the man in purple was waving his sword to create another wave of them. Aristide put up an invisible barrier, and we reached the trees.

Dale had run ahead faster than I could have run, and now she was heading back, her sword out of the scabbard, the gold of it glinting even without sunlight, but it dripped with water, and as she passed us she shouted, "Give Gaston my fountain water, and get into my pool."

Tristan wheeled around to follow Dale, but she put up her hand.

"No Tristan, you must get everyone into my pool and wait for me." She ran towards the man who was waving his sword once more over his head as he entered the forest, and this time Dale did the same. Oliver and Aristide were running ahead with Gaston, but I waited for Tristan who was still looking at Dale.

She pointed her sword at exactly the same time the dark haired man pointed his, and they both lit up and crackled with lightning. It arced and flew towards each of them. I didn't know what would happen next and watched mesmerized. The lightening met and exploded into white fire. Dale and the man each lifted off the ground with the force of the backlash when the two streams of lightening met. Tristan called out, "Dale," and I caught hold of him as he was about to rush back to her.

"Wait Tristan," I shouted, as the air seemed to grow dense with power.

A massive blizzard started. Snow and hail came pelting out of the sky. The trees were coated with snow in seconds, and the air felt freezing. I expected the pool to ice over the blizzard was so bad, but it didn't, and suddenly the snow turned to rain pouring straight down.

Dale dropped to the ground in a crouch, and the lightning seemed to swirl around from her sword over the treetops and away towards the castle. The man, who I decided had to be her brother, turned to follow the lightning with his eyes, and in that instant Dale sprang up running.

"Why are you still here?" she called, and we all three ran to her pool and fountain.

Aristide and Oliver were holding Gaston, but she was standing up between them awake, and they were all in the water.

Dale ran to her fountain and scooped up some water from it in the little leather pouch that had held money. She hurried to us as we all waited in the pool.

It was the strangest thing, but as she finally reached us, and we were all together the portal kicked in, and we traveled to Gaston's landscaped pond with the little cascade behind us. As we all looked around a bolt of lightning came with us. Dale cursed, poured the water she had brought onto her sword, waved it, and aimed her own lightning to meet the bolt. The lightning seemed to implode into itself and Dale laughed.

We climbed onto the side of the pond and sat next to one of the statues.

"I have destroyed my own pool with that lightning. Esteban will not be able to follow. Sadly Gaston, your cascade will no longer lead to my pool, but then you would not wish to go there again I am sure." Dale was smiling, and she handed the little pouch to Gaston.

"There is the tiny drink left in there, Gaston, please drink it to make sure you are well."

Gaston took it and drank.

Tristan went to Dale and touched her shoulder.

"Are you okay? You weren't hurt in the fight? You were lifted quite high off the ground, Dale."

She grinned at him.

"I'm fine but I can never go back home. Not that I care, and the best part is, Esteban cannot follow."

We were silent for a few seconds and then Gaston got up.

"Thank you all for coming for me. I was sure that was the end of me a few days ago." Her accent was very like Dale's.

Tristan walked over to Gaston and hugged her. Dale did the same. Oliver, Aristide, and I watched.

"We have to get going you know," Aristide suddenly said, and Tristan nodded.

"Gaston, will you be okay? Are you staying here?" he asked.

Gaston nodded. "I must for my family," she said, and then Dale hugged her again.

Aristide was thoughtful. "I wonder if this portal should be closed, Gaston, after we leave? I can close it as we go with a decaying spell, but it will mean you cannot time-travel again. What do you think? It might be the wisest thing to do."

Gaston sighed and then nodded.

"Do it. I have traveled much, and if you do that it will make sure Esteban cannot ever follow."

Dale shook her head. "He cannot I assure you. The portal will be closed in my pool, although my fountain will remain. He cannot use that magic water it belongs only to me."

Gaston smiled. "I will miss you Dale it's been such fun having a friend like you."

Dale was frowning. "I must go to find Bartholomew and I will miss you. Take care Gaston." They hugged and Gaston watched us walk back into her pool.

I turned to her as I stepped into the ornamental pond.

"Are you sure you will not come with us, Gaston?" I asked, because even though I didn't know her, I suddenly felt as if she shouldn't be left there.

Oliver took my hand to urge me into the pool, and Tristan took Dale's hand as she too stopped to turn back to Gaston. Gaston took a deep breath, and I thought she was still saying she wouldn't come. Then suddenly she grinned and leapt into her pond.

"I will come" she called.

As the water splashed up in a wave, I thought I saw through it to see, standing on the side of her pond, a small group of people huddled together. I looked again, but it must have been an optical illusion caused by the wave, because I could no longer see them.

We were all together and Aristide began a chant. I heard his voice waver and start to echo again, as the light we had been in disappeared, and we stood at the back of Tristan's waterfall once more in darkness.

Gaston led the way from behind the falls, and we gathered together on the bank of our pool near the big holly tree, and the Norman ruined steps. The crescent moon was in exactly the same place as when we had left to rescue Gaston.

We were dripping wet and yet elated. We joked about things as we walked across to my garden and then fell silent.

Tristan had brought Dale and Aristide to my place in the little white car, and now as we trailed up the top path to the house it was agreed he would take Dale and Gaston to the stable apartment, and then drop Aristide at the west wing apartments. We would meet tomorrow lunchtime at 'Hawthorns' to discuss everything.

Oliver and I waved them off, and went into my place to get dry.

Chapter Fifteen

Oliver 'finds' Bartholomew

We went straight up to my room and I started taking off my wet clothes. Oliver had brought spare clothes and left them in my room before we went off to rescue Gaston. I had a quick shower and then Oliver did too. We were clean and dry, and Oliver hugged me to him.

"Chloe, that was quite some adventure, don't you think?" he said as he kissed me softly. I kissed him back before I answered.

"It was, Oliver, and isn't this great it's still Monday night. You don't have to work tomorrow and we can hang out together, unless you need to leave." I said to him and kissed him again.

We went downstairs to make tea and find something to eat.

"I really want to explore that spell book before I say anything to Dale or even Tristan," Oliver said as we sat side by side to eat a sandwich.

I nodded at him expectantly.

"Dale's magic sword is reliant on her fountain water obviously, but what if there was something in Bartholomew's spell book which could mimic that effect for her? I don't know why Chloe, but I feel as if we have found those artifacts at a crucial time. Maybe I am being melodramatic." Oliver smiled a little, and picked up his sandwich again.

I was thinking.

"Oliver there were a couple of things that happened on that adventure that were a little strange. When I looked into Dale's fountain bowl to drink as she had asked us to, I saw your face reflected and not my own."

Oliver smiled at me.

"I wasn't going to mention it because I figured that the whole area was spooky with magic, but I saw your face not my own." He was smiling again.

"I saw something else too, Oliver, but it was at Gaston's pond when she jumped in and a wave of water flew up," I didn't finish speaking because Oliver widened his eyes and said,

"You saw a little group of people on the bank watching us. About three people, maybe four, sort of huddled together."

I nodded. "Yes, Oliver, did you see them too? I thought it was an optical illusion through the water. Wow. Who were they because they sure were not visible without the water? Should we tell the others?"

Oliver drank his coffee. "I don't know to be honest. It was so strange and they just stood there, and we came home." He sighed then and shuffled closer to me. He put his arm around my shoulders and I turned to kiss him.

"Do you want to stay the night, Oliver?" I asked him in a whisper.

"I thought you'd never ask," he whispered back, and kissed me again.

The next morning we woke up snuggled together. It was quite early, and Oliver kissed down my neck as he said softly.

"I want to check out the artifacts. Stay asleep if you're still tired. I'll come back for you just before lunch."

I wanted to go with him.

"Oliver, no I'll come too." We got up and I cleaned my teeth, threw on my jeans and T-shirt grinning as Oliver tried to cuddle me. I brushed my hair and we ran downstairs.

"Let's get coffee at my place," Oliver said, and I nodded.

On the drive to Oliver's place, I thought about the people on the side of Gaston's landscaped pond again, and tried to picture what they were wearing. I couldn't and we had arrived at Oliver's place, so I stopped thinking about it when we got out of the car.

Oliver set the kettle to boil for coffee and tea then took my hand as we went into his office where the artifacts were still in their respective stacks around the room.

He let go of my hand and went to reach the spell book from behind the sofa.

As Oliver took the orange blanket from around it, he gave the blanket to me and I was surprised how heavy it felt as I folded it up, but as soon as I had finished folding it the thing became lighter. I put it on the side of Oliver's desk as he carefully laid the spell book on there.

The book was wooden as Oliver had left it that way, and I watched as he brought the musical curtain over that helped change the wood to a real book. I held it up and Oliver read the language along the carved pages, this time being able to do it without the green quilt. The music emanated from the curtain and the book changed.

Oliver smiled at me and took the curtain to fold it onto the sofa.

"It's incredible that you can read Bartholomew's magical language, but Dale cannot," I told Oliver. and he shook his head.

"I don't know why, Chloe. I just connected with the stuff. It has to be something to do with the way my brain worked and the immortality we have."

"I wonder what else you know, Oliver, after wearing the green quilt?"

Oliver grinned. "I suppose I'll have to wait and see."

He opened the spell book and turned the pages.

They were meaningless to me as the text was in that carved language, which Oliver could read. He had gone about ten pages in when he stopped.

"Spells, all spells so far. Let's get that tea Chloe," he said.

In the kitchen, I flicked the kettle switch back on to make sure the water was boiling for tea and we stood close to each other quietly.

We made the drinks and then Oliver took me into his arms. He seemed thoughtful as he kissed me gently.

"I have a feeling Bartholomew is waiting out there somewhere, for something, or someone. Maybe Dale," he said softly.

Hearing her name from Oliver I remembered the painting of her mother and the slip of canvas.

"Oliver, I keep forgetting. Dale and I, we dropped the painting of her mother. You saw that the other day. Well a bit flew off the corner of the frame and it was a piece of canvas with numbers on it." I fished in the pocket of my jeans and took out the tiny roll of fabric.

Oliver stared at me then at it. "Chloe, it could be important, although I'm not surprised you forgot about it what with everything that is going on. Let me see." He leaned closer, kissed my cheek as if he was comforting me for forgetting the fabric, and looked at it as I unrolled it.

"It's a string of numbers, Oliver. Maybe it's a phone number. I haven't tried it or anything."

Oliver took it from me and grinned. "When someone calls me and I have not a clue who it is, often just so I know what I'm dealing with, I put the numbers into a search engine and see what comes up." He saw my expression as I was still feeling a little stupid for having forgotten the find, and he kissed me again tenderly.

"Come on Chloe," he took my hand, and we went back into his office.

Oliver typed the numbers into the search box of his browser as his computer was already booted.

A page of results appeared. The number was not a phone number, and the engine had identified the numbers together as a map reference.

Oliver grinned at me.

"It's latitude and longitude. A bit simple for a man like Bartholomew, but then I suppose if a person only had this bit of canvas and no idea who had painted the picture, it wouldn't seem important. It's only because we know about Dale and him that it does."

I looked at the map reference as Oliver typed the numbers into a map search, and the map appeared for us to click a pin, and see where it was.

It was in Cornwall, and I looked at Oliver with raised eyebrows.

"Wow Cornwall that was one of Tristan's hangouts in the past. Interesting."

Oliver smiled at me. "It is, and yet I feel it's nothing to do with that fact, not to mention Chloe he might have been there at the time he painted the picture but has moved on since."

I nodded but was thinking.

"There are several questions surrounding that painting. Did he do it from memory? When did he do it and stash it in the attic? When were latitude's and longitudes first used Oliver, was it long ago?"

"Oh yes Chloe, he could have placed this in the painting a hundred years ago, or more," Oliver answered.

We looked at each other for a moment.

"I can't help feeling there might be more clues to his whereabouts somewhere, although if he was expecting Dale, and she doesn't speak his language on the carved artifacts then he would only have left the painting for her, and let's face it there would be no guarantee she knocked the corner off the frame and found the numbers. Perhaps he was expecting someone else, and it couldn't be her mother since her mother disappeared before he did." Oliver took a breath and fell silent.

I sat down on the spare desk chair next to him.

Oliver started to turn the pages of the spell book. I watched him. About a third of the way into the book Oliver looked up.

"He is in Cornwall. This isn't a spell," he turned the book a little more towards me and I grinned.

"I have no idea what it says, Oliver."

"It's a poem, a love poem, and it speaks to his love who awaited him so long in the castle by the sea," Oliver said and his eyes sparkled.

"But Oliver," I said. "That could be anywhere not just Cornwall."

Oliver smiled. "He calls the castle the ancient home of Arthur. Well it has to be Tintagel doesn't it? That's in Cornwall. The other homes of Arthur are not by the sea to the best of my knowledge. I'm willing to think he was, or is in Cornwall."

I looked into Oliver's eyes. "I wonder if I could learn things wearing the green quilt Oliver?" I asked thinking how cool it would be to read some of the language.

"We could try it," he answered me, and got up to get the green quilt.

I took my T-shirt off so that it touched my bare skin and Oliver kissed my shoulder as he draped the quilt around me. He went to get the musical bead curtain which was ominously silent and he held it up.

I looked at the spell book and saw the same symbols, nothing was falling into place, and the curtain was silent. I grinned at Oliver.

"Not working Oliver," I said and he smiled.

He took the bead curtain back to the sofa and folded it down.

I took off the quilt and folded it up.

Oliver came to me and held me close against him.

He whispered. "Does it matter? You're a healer that's so great."

"No it's fine Oliver," I said as he kissed me.

I put my T-shirt back on as Oliver printed the map with the exact location of what could be Bartholomew's whereabouts.

*******
Chapter Sixteen

The people huddled together

When Chloe had seen the group of people huddled on the bank of Gaston's landscaped, garden pool, she thought it an optical illusion. After all, it's easy to see shapes in clouds and water. She was not expecting to see anything real, and she along with her companion time-travelers had only just been on that very bank.

Unknown to Chloe, Dale, and the others, a group of four people had watched hidden by their only remaining magic quilt. A quilt of rainbow colored silk that hid them from even Esteban's view, as they waited near the magic fountain in the forest to follow Dale back to wherever it was she had been. They suspected it was the same place that Bartholomew had gone to, and had been waiting patiently for the opportunity to follow.

It had come to their notice that Claudine, as they knew Dale, was time-traveling with a friend on occasions via the magic fountain pool. They could not use its magic the way Claudine could, but it kept them from sickness when they drank at the fountain, and they had made the forest their home for the last centuries. Devoted to Bartholomew they had hoped, wished, and dreamed of his return, but knew in their hearts he would not come back. He had gone forever. They knew that and slowly they had concluded that they must live out their lives without him, and without their healing and learning artifacts.

So it had come as a surprise when Orlando had come back to their camp deep in the Brocelliandez forest to report that he had seen Claudine, and a young man appear in the magic fountain pool as if from thin air. The two had been laughing and carried a strange bag, which appeared to be full of clothing. Orlando beneath the quilt of invisibility had watched, as after spending a little time talking on the banks of the magic fountain pool, the young man had waded back into the pool and disappeared.

Gina, Marcus, Pia, and Orlando had set up a vigil watching at the magic fountain pool, and seen the comings and goings of Claudine and the young man, who after some consideration Gina declared was a young woman like Claudine.

It had been hard not to try to help when they found out, that during a visit to the castle, Esteban had imprisoned the friend who visited Claudine through the magic fountain pool. They spent whole days trying to come to some agreement about telling Claudine who they were, but in the end the centuries of hiding had won out, and they continued to watch and hope.

When they visited the market disguised against recognition by Esteban, they had overheard the conversations about the wizard torturing Claudine's friend for information about a time-travel portal, and guessed it was in the magic fountain pool.

Orlando had tried it. Standing there in the pool just the way he had seen Claudine and her friend, whose name they now knew as Gaston, had done. Nothing had happened, and Pia was convinced they had to have Gaston with them to achieve the portal opening. None of them knew it, but she was half-right. Gaston was a key, but so was Claudine, and her magic fountain water. Once after running through the forest both Gaston and Claudine together had dipped their hands in the fountain bowl, washing and drinking away the warmth of the midday sun. It had been enough for the fountain to transfer some of the time-travel key to Claudine, and to capture the image of Tristan from the memories in Gaston.

Only a night later Claudine began to dream about Tristan. She could also travel alone through the portal to Gaston's landscaped garden. Neither Claudine nor Gaston knew what had happened as they had only ever travelled together. Gaston appearing at designated times when Claudine knew Esteban was away for a few days gathering spells, and only then would they go off on an adventure.

Gina had seen Claudine leave alone when Gaston was imprisoned in the tower, and Marcus keeping watch had seen her arrive back with the others, Chloe, Tristan, Oliver, and Aristide. They knew the old man was a wizard as he emanated magic, and they saw the courage imprinted on the faces of the others. They waited for the chance to travel to wherever these people had come from, because as Pia had insisted they themselves had gotten nowhere in centuries. It had to be this portal that Bartholomew had used to flee after the great battle with Esteban had ended, the battle when Esteban had threatened to kill Claudine if Bartholomew continued with it.

Claudine had been a child at the time, and in the dubious care of a woman who later turned out to be under the thrall of Esteban and primed to kill her at the wizard's command. Balthazar had disappeared into the forest so quickly Pia, Orlando, Gina, and Marcus knew he must have used one of the magic quilts. They knew in their hearts that he waited for them to find a way to come to him, wherever he was.

As they saw the fight between Claudine and her brother, and because the travelers had Gaston with them, it made sense that now was the time to travel through that portal. Using the shelter of the invisibility quilt, they entered the magic fountain pool just in time to go with the group.

Their mistake was in thinking the pretty pool surrounded by statues was the final destination. Huddling under the quilt on the bank there, wet and watching, they had missed going back into the water as Gaston had done, and watched forlornly as the time-travelers disappeared.

Gina waded in there after Claudine, Gaston, and the others had gone but she had quickly come back out saying she could feel a spell within the water that was dangerous. It was the decay spell that Aristide had left behind.

Pia and Marcus sat down for a time on the edge of the pond and looked at the stone statues. A horse rearing up, a unicorn, an angel and all the stone faces stared back.

When after a few days, Orlando having been off scouting, had reported to them that they were in, 'not only another time, but another world', they felt despair.

A year went by for them during which they discovered Bartholomew had passed this way. He was in this world according to the forest sprites they met and the one or two Elven people travelling west.

They could not time-travel and so they settled down to wait until the right year, the one the time-travelers, Gaston and Claudine had gone to.

During the centuries of wandering in Gaston's world, they encountered the courageous young man who had been with Claudine, the time-travelers, and the old wizard that day, a dark haired, blue eyed knight. Unknown to him they had tracked him to the country of his birth, and waited hidden in forests and high places for a time when they might come across Bartholomew. That time was fast approaching. They did not know it, and it would be by accident, that to their shock they came across the young knight after all the centuries still alive.

*******
Chapter Seventeen

The map

Oliver hid the spell book again in the orange blanket behind his sofa, and we took the printed map and the little roll of canvas over to 'Hawthorns' to meet Aristide, Dale, Gaston, and Tristan. Oliver grinned as he drove along.

"You know what, Chloe, it's just occurred to me that now we have Gaston and Dale around for good. They have nowhere to go. One is from a different magical world who knows where, and one is from the French aristocracy in the past, what was it the thirteen hundreds?"

I glanced at him. "That's true. I guess that if Gaston got homesick Aristide could open a portal in Tristan's waterfall pool, and send her to her time, but that's about the only way. It could be she turns up anywhere too. Her own portal is decaying, and as for getting to Dale's world I imagine there is no way, and that's a good thing I think."

Oliver laughed and agreed.

At 'Hawthorns' Tristan's old truck was parked in the drive, and we got out of the car. Oliver held my hand as we walked up the drive and steps to the house, and then as we rang the bell he kissed me and smiled tenderly at me. It was good to be with him. It felt peaceful.

Dale opened the door and smiled at us.

"Hello. We are all here and you are early." I grinned at this, as it was her usual amusing way of speaking.

We followed her down to the conservatory where Tristan, Gaston, and Aristide were sitting looking at some tree branches they had.

"Hi, Aristide. Hi, Gaston, we were not really introduced properly yesterday, but I'm Chloe and this is Oliver," I said, waving my hand towards Oliver as he stood next to me. Gaston smiled and stood up. She came forward hugged me, and then Oliver.

"I have heard about you both. Tristan has been telling stories all night and this morning," she said.

I looked at Tristan with a small frown. "Didn't you guys get any sleep?"

He grinned. "She means until about midnight last night and for about two hours this morning, just filling her in and settling things down. Dale and Gaston will stay at the stable apartment for as long as they want to."

I smiled at him and them.

"Should we still be calling you Gaston?" Oliver asked, and looked from her to Tristan.

"I like it you know, and who cares? It is a good name, it suits," she said and smiled at everyone.

I nodded towards the tree branches.

"What's going on with the tree?"

Aristide's eyes lit up and he beamed at Oliver and me.

"I've been telling everyone that the garden of the house is full of magical trees. Trees you can use to make magic wands. Sacred trees too, such wonderful trees, hawthorns, rowan, ash, birch and this branch is hazel. I can have it to make a wand."

I glanced at Tristan wondering if he had cut the branch, as that would have hurt him, but he caught my look.

"The branch was on the ground. One or two came down that time we had weeks of torrential rain," he told me.

Aristide continued talking then. "We don't know who originally planted the garden, but Tristan believes much of it was already there as part of 'White Witch woods'. The whole area is full of natural magic. It's very interesting to me, but my work is done here this time around, and I need to go home. I'll leave tonight in fact."

I would be sorry to see him go. For someone who we once upon a time dreaded, he had become a real friend. It's weird how life works out.

Tristan went to sit near to Dale and I looked at them both side by side. They were a good match, both dark haired, blue eyed and so attractive. They both could fight and seemed fearless. I liked it.

Oliver was still standing next to me even though I had perched on the edge of a chair, and now he pulled another alongside me and sat down.

"When Chloe and Dale found the painting in the attic they forgot to say they also found a bit of canvas with numbers on it," he stopped talking as Dale called out.

"Yes, we did" and grinned at everyone.

"Well," continued Oliver, "the numbers are a map reference, and I reckon it could be where Bartholomew is." Before Oliver had finished saying 'is' Dale had stood up and was racing over to Oliver.

Oliver laughed. "We have printed off a map of the place he could be, and I stress could be, Dale, because who knows how long ago he hid the numbers in the painting."

Tristan had stood up and followed Dale across the room.

"Can I just say this, how do we know it was him that hid the numbers, we're assuming it aren't we?" Tristan said, as he took the bit of canvas from Dale, who had taken it from Oliver.

Oliver waved the printout at them. "It's Cornwall. It's Tintagel and I know I've said nothing so far about this, but I can read his spell book, and he writes a poem amongst the spells about Arthur's castle by the sea."

Oliver couldn't go on as Dale, turning, and clutching Tristan on the arm shouted out.

"You found Bartholomew's spell book and didn't tell me."

Tristan shook his head. "This is news to me Dale. Where is it Oliver?"

I grinned at them both their face were so serious.

"Tristan you have seen it, but it's taken Oliver to free it up; it's the carved book," I said and Oliver joined in.

"Yes it's the carved book. I can read the carved language on the artifacts, which I did tell you and then I read it on the wooden book, and the thing turned into a real book, Bartholomew Pike's spell book." He stopped then and looked at them all.

Everyone was silent for a moment and then Tristan smiled.

"Let's see the map, Oliver. No one lives in Tintagel castle. It's a total ruin high on a cliff. He might live in the town though, who knows, that is if he is still alive."

Dale, who had let go of his arm, clutched it again saying, "He is of course. We live for very long. Our race we live for centuries. He is also the greatest wizard that ever lived, of course he is alive."

Tristan turned to her and put his arms around her.

"Dale, don't be upset. If you think he lives then perhaps he does, but you must understand things could happen to him in this world. We don't know how long ago in our time that he came here. We don't even know what year he travelled through Gaston's portal, or for that matter, how long a portal existed there. How about we all go and get a cup of coffee and talk about everything that everyone does know."

Dale seemed calmed by this, and she rested against Tristan for a few seconds and then replied.

"Yes that will be fine."

We walked into the kitchen, and everyone stood around talking and helping with cups and glasses.

"My pond in my garden was built on an existing spring, I know that. It was built by my grandfather for my grandmother, he added to it over the years, and when I discovered the portal it brought me to different times. Amongst them, the eleven hundreds and those were the times I met Tristan. It brought me to this time too, and then one day after I had considered how strange it was that I stood in my pool and arrived behind Tristan's waterfall, I began to climb my own little cascade just for fun, just playful you know, and 'poof' I am in Claudine's magic fountain pool. Lucky I think that she was already familiar with magic." Gaston was talking and smiling, as she took a seat at the table and began spinning a coaster around absent-mindedly.

Dale shrugged. "You know about my magic pool, my magic forest, my fountain. It was my only source of magic, and I am sure Bartholomew used the time travel portal to come to Gaston's garden. I do not know what year in your time as my world has different measures, but like you, he used her portal to come to this place. It could have been many years ago we can't know, but we know he did because he wrote the message on this house name sign, and he hid his magical things here." She had lapsed into such a thick accent again, although the words were correct I had to concentrate to understand.

Aristide was handing around the coffee that was ready and took a deep breath as if to speak. We looked expectantly at him.

"The best thing we can do, or sorry you can do, is just go and look for him. If Dale knows what he looks like, a few days in the vicinity of the map reference, and he may turn up. What's the harm? He must eat. He may even be in the phone book. If he has been here a hundred years, he has to have somewhere to live. The question for me is why did he leave his artifacts?"

Oliver cleared his throat. "He didn't leave them here. The house name actually states they are here. It's a sign telling him, or whoever can speak the language the sign is written in, that the stuff is here. If you remember Dale you read the plaque it's in your language."

We all looked at Oliver, and then Dale, who said, "Yes, and so someone else other than Bartholomew left the magical things for him." She sighed and sat down at the table. It seemed a puzzle because that would mean someone else had travelled first to Gaston's pond, and then to Tristan's waterfall with the items.

"Maybe it was your mother Dale," I said absently, thinking about what I knew already.

Tristan nodded. "That's possible isn't it Dale? Maybe she was one of the white witches the wood was named after many years ago."

Dale just looked at him and said nothing.

Gaston spoke again. "Whatever the story, this means that Bartholomew does not know his things are here, or wouldn't he have already taken them? I think this puzzle is too hard to worry over. We look at this map Oliver has, and we say to ourselves let's go and look for him at least once. If we cannot find him, then the things belong to Dale."

Oliver grinned. "Sounds like a plan."

Dale shook her head. "Bartholomew's things are no use to anyone who cannot read his magical language, and I cannot."

Tristan sighed. "Are we going around in circles? Dale, you want to find Bartholomew and so we will give it a try."

I agreed. Gaston nodded and Oliver grinned. "Sure I could use a couple of days holiday that isn't in a different time or world."

We all smiled a little at that.

Tristan looked at the print out of the map and put it back down on the table before saying,

"Could it really be that simple as looking in the phone book for him?"

Oliver took out his phone. "Your internet is still up isn't it Tristan?" Tristan nodded.

After a couple of minutes Oliver said, "There's no sign of him having a phone in Cornwall. That doesn't mean he isn't there. Maybe I should read the spell book poem again, and then we can plan something. Let's do that. Seriously, I'll bring it over tonight, or I could go and get it now, and read it all again."

Tristan looked at Dale, and she smiled. "Oliver, that is so kind."

I took that to mean he was going to get the spell book, and I looked over at Oliver.

"I'll come with you, Oliver," I said, and I stood up.

We left, but on the way past it, Oliver checked the house name plaque out again, and grinned at me.

"It's exactly as I said, it tells him or whoever else coming from Dale's world, that the artifacts of healing and enlightenment, plus Bartholomew Pike's spell book is within."

I suddenly had a thought. "Oliver, they never expected it to be Esteban did they? Strange how he thought he knew where the book had gone, good job he had no way to get here." Oliver stopped at the car door.

"Chloe, that's a really interesting point worth thinking about later" he said, and then we got in the car.

Chapter Eighteen

Just who did leave the artifacts?

Oliver was driving and I had been thinking about the house sign.

"Oliver, you know Bartholomew still could have written it himself. He could have written it for others to find the things, knowing or perhaps suspecting he might not survive something. Then again Dale's mother might have hidden the things, and thinking Bartholomew would find her painting, have some pre-arranged message system that tells someone, him perhaps, where she is."

Oliver nodded. "That's all possible, but since it's such a mystery maybe it doesn't matter, we are only going looking for him for Dale."

I looked out of the window and considered for a moment.

"You're right now I come to think about it. It doesn't matter who put the stuff in the attic, or even when. I just love a mystery I guess." He smiled at this.

We were at Oliver's place and went into his office to get the spell book.

"Chloe, have you thought at all about what good we could do with the abilities we've developed. You for instance could do so much good, and yet you would need to be careful. I can't think what I would do with Bartholomew's stuff, but there has to be some way to use it for the good of others. I don't know Chloe, but I feel as if just talking to each other in our heads, and occasionally curing your mom's headache just isn't enough."

I watched him pick up the spell book as he said this and I had to agree.

"I know Oliver, I do understand."

We drove back to 'Hawthorns' with the book strapped in the back seat with a seat belt.

I thought about what Oliver had said and decided that as soon as the business with Dale was sorted out, I would start thinking long term about how to use the abilities I had. Maybe we all three could come to some decision about how we could make a difference somewhere, or somehow. I felt so much older than when I'd arrived here. I might still look the same, but I knew that the years still counted in my head. I was growing up, or I already had.

We arrived at 'Hawthorns' and Oliver smiled at me as he got the spell book out of the car. "You're quiet Chloe, deep in thought, is anything wrong?"

I smiled back. "No Oliver, just thinking how much older I feel than a couple of years ago. You know the years do still matter."

He smiled gently. "I know, I agree, no wonder Tristan is the way he is. Let's get this book inside and hope that reading the page over is helpful," he said, and I nodded.

We were about to ring the bell when the door was opened by Tristan.

"Hi, come in," he said happily, and we followed him back to the kitchen.

Oliver hadn't turned the spell book back into carved wood, and so the book he put down on the table captured everyone's attention with its magical looks. Dale's eyes were sparkling.

"Bartholomew's book, I have never seen it only heard about it. Esteban was desperate to get his hands on it."

"Why was that, Dale, do you know?" I asked, because he was a wizard and by the looks of the place he lived had enough magic of his own.

She sighed. "He wanted another world. He wanted your world or any other."

I was surprised and glanced over at Tristan who was making Oliver coffee, and he gave me a wide-eyed look.

"Bloody hell that's a worry," Oliver said, as everyone else was silent.

"Yes it is" Gaston added in a soft voice.

I think we were all a bit shocked that this revelation was in our real lives and not some movie we were watching.

Oliver opened the book and carefully turned the pages until he reached the one he wanted to read. It was the poem and Oliver read it aloud.

It seemed to me that Bartholomew had written it for someone he loved, and it certainly alluded to a castle by the sea attributed to the mythical King Arthur, but when he sat back from the book and looked around at us, he shook his head.

"You know now I read it again, I'm not as certain that he's telling us where he is. I could have just been swept away by the romanticism of it all before. When Chloe and I were driving over to my place, we were talking and we think now that it could be your mother Dale, or Bartholomew, that we have clues about. What exactly was their relationship? You called him uncle once or twice? Was he your mother's brother?"

Dale stared at Oliver for a moment and then looked at each of us before she answered.

"He was not her brother as far as I know. I was told when I was about half-grown that my grandparents only had one child, my mother. She had Esteban and me, but I do not know who my father is. He died in some accident shortly after I was born, so Esteban said. The family situation is unclear. I do not know about my father's parents, my other grandparents, as they came from afar, but perhaps Bartholomew is my father's brother."

She was very vague, and waved her hand about when she said 'half-grown', and 'afar'.

Tristan sat down next to her. "So Dale, how old are you now?"

I smiled slightly because she looked about my age or slightly older, so about twenty-one.

"Old?" she questioned, and then she smiled. "I am grown. That's it now. I will just go on for a very long time."

We all looked at each other and smiled at this. Who knew what it really meant.

Gaston watched us smile and then said, "Their time is very different. She is more than four hundred of our years old, maybe much more from what I have been able to gather on my trips to her world. The times don't match either, for instance one year here is not one year there. Why does it matter how old she is Tristan?"

He shook his head and glanced at Oliver and me before saying, "It doesn't matter, it was more about the timeline of when Bartholomew might have come over to this world. None of it matters now, Gaston, after what you have just told us, because we just can't calculate anything real."

"Are we still going to take a look down in Cornwall or not because I have to let mom know? She's got visitors from California tomorrow," I asked, and for some reason that was funny and they all laughed.

We decided to go the next weekend because that would give Tristan time to deal with work, and Oliver time to ask Dad if he could get that weekend off. I could be there for mom for the first couple of days that Kim was visiting, and I had a meeting with Joshua Glazer to go to.

Oliver closed the spell book. "Dale, did your brother know for sure that the spell book was here in our world?"

Dale shook her head. "He was always spying on me when I went to my magic fountain because the magic would only work for me there, and so he saw me with Gaston. He sometimes asked me if I remembered Bartholomew, and if he had ever told me about any secrets or hiding places for things. Esteban did not know for sure, but he suspected lots of things, and he was desperate for Bartholomew's magic."

Oliver nodded. "But if your brother is such a great wizard, and he must be Dale, after what I saw in your world, why would he bother with a spell book? Why would he be looking for it years after Bartholomew disappeared?"

Dale sighed. "You know I have told you Bartholomew is the greatest mage that ever lived, well he can create worlds, he can bend time, and his book contains all the spells ever created in all worlds."

We all glanced at each other. There was more to this whole story than we knew I was sure of it, but everyone fell silent for a moment.

Oliver was the first to speak again.

"Okay I'll take this to a safe place, and we'll meet tomorrow night to actually do something about travel and accommodation down in Cornwall.

He picked up the spell book, the map, and the bit of canvas that was still on the kitchen table, and we said our goodbyes to Aristide who was leaving that night.

"Keep me up to date on what happens. This is intriguing, and if you do need any help call me straight away. I almost wish I had told Angelique I would be gone for a week," he said with a big smile.

Oliver and I left to take the spell book back to his place.

Chapter Nineteen

Oliver trips the beacon

I went into Oliver's place with him and he put the spell book down on his desk. I had brought the little piece of canvas, and the map we had printed out of where Bartholomew, or somebody unknown was hanging out, and I put that down on the desk too.

Oliver put his arms around my waist and brought me close to him

"Stay for a little while Chloe, it's good to have you to myself" he said, and I smiled at him, put my arms up around his neck, and kissed him.

I leaned back slightly from him and looked at his lovely face as he opened his eyes. "Oliver let's test out all the artifacts and see what they do. They could be useful in finding Bartholomew for Dale," I suggested.

Oliver frowned slightly but then smiled a little too.

"Chloe, I don't know if we should play with them. You know they are serious objects."

I grinned. "Oliver, just one or two; put the yellow blanket on and run round the garden."

Oliver laughed aloud. "Chloe, that's funny. Oh okay I will."

He picked up the golden yellow blanket, and we walked through his kitchen to the back door. "I wonder if I need to have it against my bare skin like the green one. I'll try it over my T-shirt first" Oliver said, and put it over his shoulders.

"Okay here we go," he said, and set off running to the top of his garden, but before he had taken one step he was up there. Oliver's garden at the back isn't that long as his parents' garden still L-shapes and has some of the land, but even so he was at the bottom of the garden like lightning.

"Whoa Oliver, that was fast, the thing works, how did it feel?" I called out as he turned, and taking a step forward was by my side again.

He was laughing and taking the quilt from around his shoulders.

"It didn't feel like anything other than I took a step and was where I wanted to be. How extraordinary these things are, Chloe. Here you try it" and he draped the quilt around me.

I took a step but nothing happened I was still there next to Oliver. I glanced at him and took another step this time as if I intended to run to the end of his garden. Nothing, the thing didn't work for me. "Oliver, it doesn't work for me. I wonder if you are the only person from our world that they will work for?" I asked him softly because the green one hadn't done anything for me either.

He sighed. "Mysterious. Let's try one or two of the other things."

We took the yellow blanket indoors and Oliver folded it next to the other things that he must have designated as yellow. I grinned at him.

"Oliver, it's just so cool that you can see they are colored. I'm in awe of it all."

"Don't be Chloe. I was in awe when you got rid of Samantha's cold for her, but now I figure we have the evolution of the immortality blood to thank."

I nodded. "Do you think using the portals, and all the magic surrounding us during the time travel we have done might also have helped?" I asked him, suddenly realizing just how much magic we had come into contact with over the last couple of years.

Oliver was thoughtful. "I think that's highly probable, let's face it every two minutes we've been in contact with some kind of magic," he said, and I laughed at the exaggeration, but knew what he meant.

Oliver was picking up the artifacts randomly and as he turned back to me, he held one of the handprint carvings, the one that seemed not to fit in with any stack of items.

He read the carving. "Let the light shine forth," and then he shrugged as he glanced at me, and put his hand into the handprint.

"Hey look it's an exact match for my hand, you'd think it was carved for me," he said surprised, and grinned at me.

I walked over. "Let me try, Oliver" I said, and he held the handprint out for me.

I put my hand into the shape and felt a vague tingle. The carved hand fit my hand too and I looked up at Oliver who raised his eyebrows.

"Magic," he said, and smiled.

We both smiled, but at the same time, I felt a little strange, and was happy when Oliver put the thing down and turned to me.

"Chloe, come and be cuddled. I love you, did I tell you that yet?" and he kissed me. It was a long time before we stopped kissing each other, and I left my head against his chest after to catch my breath, and stop feeling as if my legs had melted.

"You don't need to go anywhere right now do you?" Oliver asked in a whisper, and I shook my head. I didn't want to be anywhere other than pressed against Oliver right then. He took my hand and we went to his room.

It was early evening when we went back into Oliver's office. We sat side by side to look up accommodation in the vicinity of where the map coordinates had indicated Bartholomew might be. Oliver slipped his arm around me, and kissed my face and ear.

"I don't really want to let you go home at all today, Chloe, but I guess you have to?"

"I'll check in with mom just in case she needs any help, and then I might come back over," I told him and kissed his lips gently. It was hard not to leave my lips against his and forget about booking accommodation, but we both stopped the kiss and turned to the screen again.

Oliver picked up the little piece of canvas. "I wonder if he really is there?" he said absently as I clicked on a hotel website link.

"Oliver, how many rooms should I look for?" I asked him, but he was sitting up away from me now with the canvas in both hands, and he turned to me with a look of speculation.

"Chloe, you remember I told you the carved language reads right to left, unlike our own, well what if the numbers should be read right to left? I already think I was reading too much into the poem after we discovered the numbers are map coordinates for Tintagel. Find that map site we had, I bookmarked it, and put the numbers in again. I'll read them out back to front this time. Just to check out where that might lead us."

I looked at his serious face and leaned over to kiss him because he looked so lovely and he grinned.

"Chloe, the map site," he said, but he put his arm back around my waist as we sat together and I scrolled down the bookmarks to it.

Oliver read the numbers out and I put them into the box to check out where in the world they led us.

When the map loaded onto the screen with the red pin icon, which enabled users to look closer, I gasped and looked at Oliver. The map was the part of England we lived in.

Oliver put the piece of canvas down and tightened his arm around my waist.

"Click on the bloody pin Chloe, let's see where it's leading."

I did that and stared at the screen. Oliver gasped.

The pin was in the map, on the massive Dearing estate. Oliver got up and came around to take the mouse from me.

"Bloody hell," he said, as he got the magnification tool and we looked closer. "It's the bloody Dearing house well almost, what do you think?" He asked me and I peered at it, but I knew it was around there, close enough even to be the house where I live, or even the waterfall.

"I think so too, Oliver," I said in a whisper. His face was close to mine, and suddenly he smiled and kissed me, before he stood up and took his cell phone from his pocket.

He was grinning as he began talking. "Where are you Tristan? Well we have astounding news. The map coordinates are supposed to be read like the carved language, and so we had them backwards. When you look at the map for the numbers right to left the place isn't Cornwall at all, it's the Dearing estate. Yes. Yes, I'm sure. Well it would make more sense Tristan. We'll come over. Give us an hour because Chloe has to call in at home. Okay see you."

****

Chapter Twenty

The light shone forth

A short way across the county Orlando sat at his desk in the house he shared with Gina, Marcus, and Pia. He was intent on the document before him on his laptop, when suddenly the carved hand that served as a paperweight, and had a number of bills, paid and unpaid presently under it, began to glow. It glowed with all the colors of the rainbow until it settled down to emit a white light that rivaled the desk lamp Orlando had on the other side of his desk.

He stared at the carving for a moment, and then silently got up to walk quickly into the living room. Pia and Marcus were sitting at the large table there gluing paste gems of all shapes and sizes onto white wood picture frames. Marcus looked up and seeing the elation on Orlando's face guessed that the beacon had finally been turned on. Bartholomew had finally arrived in the same time and place as them.

They called Gina on her cell phone and she answered after a moment.

"I'm on my way home already, so I will be there soon," Gina told them because she had finished her work early teaching music at the local community college.

Orlando, Pia, and Marcus went into the room where the carving sat on the desk. It still glowed with an aura of white light. They needed Gina to get home before the four of them could hold hands and receive the information about where exactly the beacon was. They could not stop smiling. It had been a long wait, such a long wait, and after the first hundred years in this country, when they had lost sight of the young knight in whom they set great store, they had settled down to simply merge into this world and wait.

Naturally, they had seen no sign of the other time-travelers in that first hundred years, not even Gaston, and they assumed Tristan was dead. It had been the year thirteen-ninety when the time-travelers had disappeared taking the hope of the group with them.

They knew the portal was lost to them then, and it was only because they did not know what else to do that they had stayed in that part of France.

They moved away from France as history gave them a series of unpleasant experiences, plague, war, revolution. It had not been any better in the country where the young knight made his home, but they had stuck to the area knowing that there was magic in the ground and rivers. Now they lived within easy reach of what was an old castle the last time they looked. Now it was a new castle built over the old one known to Chloe, and Oliver as the Dearing house.

Right then in the Dearing house a woman known as McPherson to Tristan, was clutching a pendant she had always worn around her neck next to her skin. It had begun to make her skin tingle, and she had looked in amazement when it began to glow with a rainbow, and then a soft white light as she held it away from her body, having opened her shirt to look at it.

She turned to the old dog Charlie who was lying in his basket.

"Charlie the beacon has been lit. At long last Bartholomew has found me," she whispered to the dog because she had no one else to say it to.

Alone, she could not produce the spell to find out exactly where the beacon was, and she sighed thinking that the only thing she could do now was continue waiting. He would find her, he was powerful enough to follow the beacon and find her, she thought. She had real hope in her heart for the first time in many centuries.

Gina raced through the front door. She dumped her music case and guitar case on the hall floor. She ran at the others who had appeared in the doorway of Orlando's office, and they all hugged each other before making a circle and holding hands. Marcus chanted the words of the spell they needed, and they all repeated them like an echo, until in each of their minds came a vision. It was of a house. A long house, old and new, thatched roof on the oldest and biggest part, but new blue tiles on the roof of the long low building close by. This bore the marks of having previously been a stable and stable yard. The house was lit up, and had a big window at the front so that light spilled out onto the car parked outside it. A Land Rover, they knew that because Pia had an old one very similar, and they used it to deliver the art and craft creations they made. They had made their way in this world as artists because it came naturally to them.

There was another artist quite some distance away, who, driving along the narrow country lane to his home, almost drove into the ditch running alongside it, when the carved stone dangling on his key ring from his car key in the ignition, lit up. The rainbow light fanned out across his knees in the jeans he wore, before it reduced to a white glow. It pulsed slightly as he drove over a few shallow potholes in the road made by the downpour of rain some time ago.

Bartholomew had almost given up hope of ever seeing that glow of white light, and now he did, he could hardly believe his eyes. His people had finally found a way to this world, his darling Evangeline perhaps. He hardly dared hope it was her, but whoever it was they had to be of his race, his ancient, magical race, and Bartholomew smiled.

He drove into the driveway of his home on the crest of the hill, and parked the truck he drove. He took the keys from the ignition and held the carved stone. He concentrated, then chanted his spell over and over, until he saw a vision. It confused him for a moment until he realized it was three buildings superimposed on each other in his mind's eye. He whispered a few other words in his language and the pictures of the buildings parted. There were three buildings and he set his mind just as Pia, Gina, Marcus, and Orlando had done, to simply tune into the beacon, which had been the first to be triggered. He knew by his magic that house was about a hundred miles away, and he let himself into his home to pack a few things and start the journey to it.

****

Chapter Twenty-one

A surprise meeting

When Oliver had finished talking to Tristan on the phone, we looked at each other and then hugged.

"Chloe, this is so exciting. It seems only logical that Bartholomew would be around here, around the waterfall. I don't think he is in the Dearing house, he couldn't be, but at some point in time, he was there. More than likely the coordinates refer to the waterfall. I feel sorry that he's not at the end of the map reference, but it must all mean something. Don't you think?"

I looked into Oliver's shining eyes and smiled.

"It must mean he was there, and perhaps there are clues somewhere else as to where he is now. Maybe in 'Hawthorns' again," I said, but in my heart I couldn't help but wonder if he was still alive. I hoped he was for Dale's sake.

We hid the spell book again and Oliver drove me home. We would call in on my mom, check if anything was needed, and then go on to Tristan who was at the stable apartment with Gaston and Dale.

On the way, I glanced at Oliver. He was so excited and he was smiling.

"You seem happy, Oliver, I mean really happy as if this is such fun for you," I said, and he looked at me for a couple of seconds.

"I am, Chloe. I don't know why, but I feel as if we are on the verge of something huge and life changing," he answered looking ahead again at the road.

I grinned at this.

"As opposed to having been made immortal by Tristan then?" I said, and I grinned again to myself looking out of the window because I found that really funny.

Oliver smiled. "I know. I mean something extra, something happy. I just feel a sense of expectation and happiness."

I put my hand along his arm and leaned over to lay my head on his shoulder for a few seconds.

"Oliver, you are such a lovely person," I told him, and we had arrived at the road where I lived, so that I let go of him as he turned the car into my driveway.

We went into the house through the front door, which was unlocked. Mom's car was alongside mine, but my brother Steven was obviously out.

I walked down the hall to mom's study and opened the door.

"Hi Mom, what's happening with Kim's visit? Do you need any kind of help? A room getting ready? Shopping? Bathroom cleaning?" I asked her smiling, and she looked at me over her glasses.

"Chloe you're too late. Steven and I got the room and bathroom ready for Kim this afternoon, and tomorrow I will pop out for some extra supplies. He will only be here for five days so I want you available for dinner on Friday night. We'll go up to the restaurant so that dad can join us. Other than that, Kim and I will be working here. You could just top up supplies if you see the fridge emptying, because Steven, John and Will are also rehearsing in the library Thursday, and you know what that means." She grinned then.

I smiled at her. "Sure Mom that's achievable. Oliver's here and we're going over to Tristan's place in a moment or two as he has visitors too."

She sighed. "Make me a coffee before you go please, Chloe? I don't want to take the time to do it myself."

I grinned at her. "Sure Mom." I went down to the kitchen where Oliver was just making coffee.

"Oliver, you are an angel, mom just asked me to make her a cup of coffee before we dash off to Tristan's place."

He smiled and took another cup from the cupboard.

I watched him re-boil the kettle and scoop coffee granules into the cup, and then I turned to the fridge. I looked for something to take down to mom with her coffee and found a chocolate cake in its cellophane wrapper with half already gone.

I took it to the counter to cut some off and asked, "Oliver, do you want some cake with that coffee you just made?"

He smiled. "Thanks Chloe, I'm starved aren't you? What with this afternoon's activity and feeling so happy I'm really hungry."

I smiled back and cut a chunk off for him. I took a piece down to mom with her coffee and she groaned.

"Chocolate cake, my favorite."

I shook my head at her smiling and left her to it.

Oliver had made short work of his cake when I got back up to the kitchen and was drinking his coffee. He handed me a cup of tea and leaned against the counter sighing. "I can't pretend I'm not just a little pleased that Tristan is tied up hosting Dale and Gaston because it's meant I have you all to myself."

I looked at him affectionately. "I'm really enjoying being with you, Oliver," I told him truthfully.

I didn't feel like drinking all my tea and we left in my car to go to the stable apartment. Oliver was still drinking his coffee and carried it with him. Somehow, I had begun to feel it urgent that we got there.

Tristan's truck was outside the apartment, and he opened the door as Oliver was about to knock.

Oliver laughed. "How do you do that, Tristan? You have a knack of knowing just when to open doors."

Tristan smiled. "I listen out for you, or I time it just right. Oliver, what's going on? Are you sure that the map references are right this time, it seems incredible that Bartholomew was ever at the Dearing place?"

We followed him down to the long kitchen-living area, where Gaston and Dale were sitting at the table with cups of coffee. I smiled at them.

Oliver smiled at them too and then answered Tristan.

"They're right this time. I feel it. Not only that Tristan, but how coincidental would it be that the numbers when read backwards are the map reference for this exact estate? I'm not saying it's totally correct that it's your family home, Tristan, you know internet map pins and such are not necessarily exact, but it will be near there, near here, near the waterfall for sure. I think it's hugely exciting."

Tristan ran a hand through his hair. "Have you eaten yet?" he asked Oliver and me.

Oliver shook his head. "No except for a piece of cake, have you had dinner yet?"

Tristan grinned. "I need to go and get supplies, more linen, and stuff now we have Gaston as well as Dale for our guests. So I was going to head off home, and there is always such a lot of decent food going at the house. How about we go around there and see if McPherson has cooked up a storm. Liz, Laura, and Corbett are home tonight too, so there will be dinner on the go of some kind. I can't think what to do next about Bartholomew can you?" He seemed to be including both Oliver and me in the question.

I shook my head. "An honest answer is no. We probably would be better giving the issue a miss tonight and taking a fresh look at it tomorrow."

Oliver agreed. "I think that's true. What can we do in reality? The trail has gone cold as they say."

Dale stood up and put her coffee cup in the sink.

"Who are they that say this?" she asked.

I broke into a grin, Oliver laughed, and Tristan smiled.

"It's just a phrase. It means people in general might say something; in this case we don't know what to do next to find Bartholomew." Tristan was smiling as he said this.

Dale seemed to understand and we followed Tristan out to the truck and my Jeep.

I watched Tristan hesitate at the truck, he seemed a little tired and vulnerable.

"Why don't I take Gaston and Dale, and you go with Tristan I said to Oliver, but so that the others heard too, and after glancing quickly at me Oliver answered.

"Okay that's fine" and he opened the door to my car to show Gaston and Dale into it, and then he got into the truck beside Tristan, who uncharacteristically had allowed Oliver to do the courtesy stuff whilst he just got in his truck. It made me smile and I thought that maybe he was a little overwhelmed with the idea of having the two girls visit indefinitely.

I drove the short distance to the Dearing house with Gaston telling me she wanted to learn how to drive a vehicle, and I wondered how we would arrange that for her.

I parked next to Liz's car in the Dearing house car park and Tristan was already there next to Laura's car. He and Oliver waited on the steps of the house for us.

The door opened as he stood talking with Oliver there, and I saw Liz in the doorway.

Dale walking beside me said. "Oh, that is the one who I talked to when I came looking for Tristan. She was very kind, but she did not have him home."

I smiled. Dale was a never-ending source of cute comments.

Liz was laughing at us all.

"Hi, I see your friend found you, Tristan. Sorry I had no idea where you were working on Monday."

Tristan turned to introduce Dale and Gaston. Dale was still in her outfit from her own world and it was actually fine, but she had given Gaston some jeans and a T-shirt, which I had brought for her, and they were a little big on Gaston. I made a mental note to take Gaston shopping.

"Hi Liz, that's okay, yes Dale and Gaston are visiting, we all came over in the hope McPherson has made dinner," Tristan told her. Liz nodded closing the door after we had all wandered into the wide hall of the Dearing house.

"She has made dinner. Laura and Corbett have eaten and disappeared. I still haven't had pudding so come on; we are eating in the kitchen. I hope your guests don't mind."

We followed her down the hall as Tristan assured Liz no one was going to care about eating in the kitchen.

As we walked into the big kitchen, I saw McPherson over by the windows and Tristan called. "McPherson, I know you'll not mind, but I have brought a crowd of people to eat tonight. How are you? I haven't seen you all week." He approached her as I had often seen him do to give her a quick hug.

McPherson turned around and the smile on her face froze as she looked at us, and at the same time Dale shouted out, "Mother, Mama, it is you isn't it? You must remember me, Claudine, look I have the locket," and she was running at McPherson holding out the necklace that was around her neck.

McPherson looked the same to me as she always did, and it was nothing like the woman in the painting from the attic at 'Hawthorns'

Dale was in front of McPherson, we were all watching, and suddenly McPherson hugged Dale.

"Claudine, I remember you and I would know you anywhere. I have often considered what you would look like now and my projections are right except for one thing. You are even prettier than my feeble magic suggested."

I had taken hold of Oliver's hand as we stood near to each other, and now he let go, but put his arm around my waist to pull me close into him. I was glad of it.

Chapter Twenty-two

Changes

Tristan was the first to speak after McPherson. He looked around at Oliver and me for support before saying to McPherson , "Should we leave you and Dale alone to catch up?" and continued, "We can do that can't we?" he asked us.

I nodded in agreement.

McPherson looked up from her hug with Dale and smiled wanly.

"Tristan, I need to explain some things to you and since your friends are so closely involved in your life now I think they need to hear it too. I have seen you my dear," she nodded at Gaston, "But I don't know your name."

Gaston stepped forward. She was very 'old world courtesy' at the best of times and now she bowed low. "I am Gaston, and I am very pleased to meet you, as Claudine has become a very good friend."

Dale turned to Gaston and then her mother.

"Mama, Gaston has called me Dale, and that is how my new friends know me. I like to be called Dale. They are the best of people and have prevented Esteban from following to this world."

I sighed a little thinking maybe she was leaping ahead with a complex story, but McPherson smiled around at all of us.

"I need to talk with you all, but first you must sit down and have dinner. Liz you come and eat your pudding."

Liz looked at Tristan and he grimaced at her.

"Seriously, McPherson, we can wait so that you have time with Dale. Perhaps you would like to go down to the morning room or somewhere; your rooms?" Tristan said, and Liz nodded in agreement.

McPherson wasn't having any of it. We had to sit down and she put dishes on the table for us to help ourselves to food. When we were there with plates of food in front of us, she sat herself next to Dale and announced.

"Time for me to let you see me as Claudine does, please don't be alarmed I am still who you know, but I currently have an outward appearance of disguise for my protection that I will drop for you all now. Claudine as one of my own race could see through it and you will also from now on, but no one else will, they will see the old McPherson."

I don't know what I expected, maybe an older version of the woman in the painting, but there before us was the woman almost the very same as in the painting, not aged at all, not even looking that much older than Dale. It was spooky, but it was also very cool. I glanced at Tristan because I had once said to him, and probably to Oliver too, that there was something about her, and even that maybe she knew about Tristan, and now I smiled at her knowingly.

Oliver sitting next to me touched my arm and I looked at him to find him smiling. He whispered, "I told you something happy was about to happen." I smiled back at him.

"I think you should eat before the food is cold," McPherson said, and so I picked up my fork.

Gaston did too and took a mouthful of potatoes. She nodded her head appreciatively. No one else was eating, not even Liz who had a huge piece of pie on a plate in front of her, which McPherson had insisted on serving.

McPherson looked around at us.

"If you don't eat I will not tell my story and I think you all want to hear it."

Tristan nodded and began to eat a little, so we all did, and as usual, the food was great. I found I was hungry.

McPherson nodded and then started to speak.

"A very long time ago, centuries, I was in trouble in my own world. Esteban had killed his father for the throne. I was then in danger because as I was the queen, Esteban wanted rid of me. My marriage to Claudine's father was an arranged marriage, it happened all the time. I was part of the aristocracy of course, but my particular group of people had special magic, more magic than usual. We hid it all the time naturally. Amongst my people, I had someone who loved me and would have married me if it had been possible. He was the highest wizard, but that didn't make him acceptable. To obtain more lands I had to marry Claudine's father and so it went on. As soon as Esteban was grown, he wanted power.

My loved one, Bartholomew, saved me. I was running back to my people, we were in the forest, and Esteban was casting magic weapons at me. Bartholomew secretly caused a storm. He caused the water of the pool in the forest to rise up, hiding me, and raining down on Esteban. Somehow, as I hid in the pool I was transferred to another time, and as I later found out, another world. That was your time and world Gaston, the ancient spring where your garden is has natural magic, and a portal was created between our worlds. We didn't know it but that ancient spring also formed a portal to the waterfall here on the Dearing estate. Bartholomew had tapped into an ancient magic, one that follows certain lines around this world and ours, and the next, and so on, all elegant strings of magic.

Bartholomew found himself alone in our world. Esteban thought he had killed me and he had the throne with no one to threaten it. Bartholomew's magic had woken the fountain and from then on, a storm could be created there. The fountain held magic for Bartholomew and anyone he blessed with his spell. I know that to be you, Claudine, or you would not be here.

Later Bartholomew came to me in Gaston's garden, and created the portal that would bring us home to our world. It was agreed that we would meet again when Bartholomew had rescued you, Claudine, from the palace. He brought with him his precious objects of healing and magic including his ancient spell book, as we could not risk Esteban ever finding them. He left me there to wait in the relative safety of that garden. He never came back.

A week had passed and a storm naturally occurred. It cast down trees and made a mess of that garden, Gaston. Your grandfather rebuilt the pond, and the path of the magical springs somehow changed so that I could not find the portal that would lead me back to my world. Instead, I found myself here in this country, brought to the waterfall that had saved Tristan. The portal in Gaston's garden is capricious, it takes you to different times does it not, Gaston? I know this because I have seen you in different centuries, always around these same places I have lived waiting for Bartholomew to find me. I have hidden myself with my feeble magic behind different faces. My magic becoming feebler, as I used it to create the illusion of those different faces. I lived in the woods here on the estate for many years, and made friends with magical people in this world. I made friends with people in your family, Tristan, and eventually came to work for them. Naturally, I had to take on different personas down the centuries to stay employed.

At first, I had all of Bartholomew's things with me and then I thought maybe he would come through the waterfall portal and look around. I put the sign in my own language on one that used to exist announcing the Dearing estate, that was long ago, and gone now for many years. Then I judged that if Bartholomew came through the portal he would walk straight to the hunting lodge, and I carved a notice there too on a tree, which used to be in the grounds directly on the path anyone might take. The tree was hit by lightning and felled.

Eventually I hid Bartholomew's healing and magical objects in the attic of the 'White Witch woods' house and I carved in my own language, a message for anyone to see that those things were there, because that area was naturally magic. The nearby woods and garden are a haven of magical trees, which a wizard would seek out. I had a new sign on this house too until Jonathan wouldn't have it any more and threw it out. I left the things in the attic knowing they were safe, although I periodically checked on them. I hid a message in the painting Bartholomew had painted of me just for good measure, but nothing happened.

I had given up on Bartholomew ever coming for me and then tonight, against all odds, the special beacon we crafted for each other long ago, similar to those my people had in my world to keep in touch with each other, this beacon began to shine. Only one of my people, hopefully Bartholomew can have triggered the beacon, no one else could read that magical language, and no one else would have the power to do it. Bartholomew is here somewhere."

Her eyes were shining and she was so happy. She didn't know about us finding the artifacts. She didn't know Oliver could read her language and especially Bartholomew's magical language. She knew Tristan was immortal she had to, but she didn't know about Oliver and I, how could she? I felt a sudden sadness for her well up in my heart and I put down my fork unable to continue eating.

Next to me, Oliver had gone very still. I glanced across at Tristan who had also stopped eating. He was pale, and he caught my eyes giving me a look that was full of sadness.

"McPherson" he started to say, and then ran a hand through his hair before he continued, "we have those magical objects. We found them in the attic at 'Hawthorns' and a painting of you. Oliver can read your ordinary language and the magical language. Oliver has Bartholomew's spell book and we were looking for him too. The portal in Gaston's pool is no longer functional, neither is the one to and from your world. If Bartholomew has not already come here then he will not be able to. I am so sorry."

Oliver joined in. "I feel responsible for this beacon coming alive although I never saw it happen. Chloe and I were exploring the artifacts, that's what we call them, this evening, and we could have, I could have, set it off accidentally."

McPherson was silent, but her eyes had filled with tears.

Dale suddenly said quite loudly, "Wait, we cannot despair because Bartholomew was gone from me and my world years ago. Years ago Mama," she said turning to her mother. "He could have gone to Gaston's pool, he could have come to find you or visit you Mama, and not have been able to return for me. I will not believe he is not still living, he is the greatest mage that ever lived." She looked around at all our faces and I felt like believing her she was so convinced.

Gaston smiled. "I think it likely he could be somewhere in this world although of course do not know what year he might have arrived here. I have been coming and going to many different times. I brought Dale too, after we are friends. The portal was open for me both ways so something happened to do that. Bartholomew could be in this world."

I looked again at Tristan because maybe Rene and his seven spell, and then Aristide helping us, had magnified the magic, or bent it, or whatever magic does. There was ancient magic in that holy spring at the waterfall, and it stood to reason the same could be said about the spring in Gaston's garden, and what about that fountain in the magical forest of Brocelliandez? I reckoned right then that whole lot swirled about in a giant cloud of magic. Using it to do what you wanted was the tricky part. I sent Tristan a thought, the first time I had used that ability in a few days.

'Tristan, you look so sad, don't be sad, things will work out'.

He smiled slightly at me and I heard in my mind. 'Thanks Chloe, I hope so'.

McPherson sighed. "This is very interesting, Oliver, how is it you can read not just my language from another world, but also the magical language of our greatest mages?"

Oliver looked around as if trying to think of a good excuse.

I took his hand under the table as he spoke.

"I don't really know. It just happened. When we found the magical artifacts, they seemed to speak to me and I felt I had to protect them. After a few days I could read them and use one or two."

He had given as full an answer as possible without blurting out to everyone there that he was immortal the same as Tristan. I kept hold of his hand as he sighed.

The answer seemed acceptable to McPherson.

I had to ask. "McPherson, where is the beacon you have?"

She pulled a pendant up out of her shirt on a chain around her neck. It looked like a carved stone and it glimmered with white light.

"Wow," I said and then smiled.

"Who else will have one of those beacons, McPherson?"

She looked at me her eyes wide. "Any of my people, my Bartholomew, and if they are here in this world their beacon will be shining, and they will know where the first one was triggered. If you did that this evening, Oliver, they will be coming to find the place you have the beacon."

Oliver looked around at everyone. "It's at my place and I think I know which one it is. It must be that 'Let the light shine forth' handprint." He turned to me. "Chloe, the one with the carvings I read out 'let the light shine forth' remember, and then put my hand in it, and then you tried it and it fit your hand too."

I nodded. "And it tingled."

"Did it?" Oliver asked. "You didn't say," he finished, and we both looked at the faces turned to us.

Tristan looked a little less pale. "Your name can't be, McPherson, should we call you something different?"

McPherson smiled. "My name is Evangeline D'Rohan Ahzaynor, but I think it's better for everyone if I remain McPherson for the time being."

Our savory food was cold, and we cleared away the plates helping McPherson load the dishwasher, but she sliced up the apple pie, which was still delicious cold and Tristan made coffee. We seemed to fall into little groups softly talking to each other for a short time, Dale to McPherson, Gaston to Liz, Tristan to Oliver and me.

Tristan almost whispered. "I need to get a few things around to the stable apartment for Gaston's room, linen, and stuff. They seemed to use up the entire supply of shampoo in the showers there, cleaning Dale told me, weird huh. I think she used it to wash dishes, herself, some clothes, and she's only been there a couple of days."

We smiled at this. I said, "Is it hard work having two girls, members of some old aristocracy staying?" and then I remembered Tristan was also a member of that same group and I grinned to soften the insinuation.

He didn't seem to notice and just sighed.

"I'll be pleased when they're more settled."

I had a sudden thought. "Now McPherson knows about them she can probably help sort them out with clothes and stuff. I guess they might need money Tristan."

He grinned. "I can give her a supply and leave her to it, thank heavens for that. I really have to get back down to work, and now all we need to do is wait for Bartholomew, or someone to show up. Thanks Oliver."

Oliver shook his head slightly and then answered. "Just as long as he, or they, are friendly, remember it's my place they're heading for."

Tristan announced he was going to get the girls some supplies from upstairs and asked me to help.

We went up to a bedroom that seemed to contain huge amounts of supplies, and Tristan started stuffing things in a pillow case, linen, towels, shampoo. I watched for a moment and then went to him. I put my arms around him and he put his head down on my shoulder. "Chloe, the adventure continues. How are you holding up? I seem hardly to have seen you, and especially hugged you in days."

I smiled at him and held his face to kiss him.

"I'm perfectly fine are you? You seem a little tired."

He took a deep breath.

"It's fitting everything in that's the issue. I was shocked by McPherson, finding out after all these years she is someone else, but now I am glad to have her help with Dale. I really like Dale though."

I looked into his lovely blue eyes.

"I can tell you do. She's great Tristan. I like her too. I like Gaston as well."

He sighed and kissed me softly. I thought there was something in his sigh I knew him so well, but we finished collecting supplies, which looked to me as if there was enough for ten girls not two, and we went back downstairs.

We planned that McPherson would take the girls shopping for clothes and things, because she had a car. Liz told her she should take holiday if she wanted to sort things out, as much as she felt she needed.

Tristan told them he had to get caught up with some work for a couple of days and would not be quite so readily available as he had been, but I said call me anytime, and grinned at Dale because we had bought her a cell phone the day we went shopping together.

It was quite late and we decided to split up.

McPherson said she would take Dale and Gaston to the stable apartment.

Liz went up to her room because she had to work the next day, first for this estate, and then do a shift for my dad she told us, smiling.

Oliver, Tristan, and I sat together at the kitchen table and looked at each other for a minute or two in the silence that followed everyone's departure.

Then we started grinning and it turned into laughter. Tristan stood up and put the remaining cups and plates into the dishwasher as he laughed.

"We can only imagine what might happen next," he said, and Oliver agreed.

"I think it will be good. I have this good feeling about it, despite I may wake up tomorrow to find a hoard of strange magical people ringing my doorbell."

It was late when we split up. Oliver's car was at my place and I drove us over there.

He kissed me gently. "I better go Chloe, but I'll call if anything or anyone crops up," he said, and smiled broadly. He was working the next day for dad in the afternoon and evening. I hugged him extra tight after kissing him and he drove off.

I let myself into the house and took the stairs two at a time up to my bedroom.

****

Chapter Twenty-three

Esteban

When Esteban had seen his sister Claudine disappear along with the time traveler and the strangers, who he decided, were also time travelers, he asked himself where would they have come from? 'Claudine had obviously used her fountain water to create magic, and the portal must be controlled by her magic too.' Esteban considered this and felt furious. He knew she could create storm magic from that fountain water, but he could not. He knew she had to have some magic of her own too now that she was grown.

He didn't know the magic fountain was connected to Claudine because of a spell Bartholomew had cast upon her, so that she could use the storm magic he had once created.

Claudine had always thought she had no magic of her own, but it was just that she had not been old enough. As she escaped with Gaston, and the others she was sure the storm she had created would seal the portal behind her, and it did, but magic remained in the pool and fountain seeping from her sword.

As Esteban ran to the pool throwing himself into the water, hoping that he would travel too, time-travel magic was forged to his sword. Esteban did not know this, and in his anger, he waded from the pool, and threw his sword into the magic fountain. This was a tantrum that had he known what it produced, he would have retrieved his sword, and danced for joy. He didn't know and he went home to his palace cursing.

The sword followed Tristan, Dale, Gaston and the others. It was only a minute behind them, but it fell into the spot they had been in behind the waterfall, as the last of them climbed out onto the ruined Norman steps.

Neither they, nor Esteban knew that Tristan's waterfall portal no longer led to Gaston's decaying, garden pool, portal, but to the magic fountain in the Brocelliandez forest.

Esteban was furious and ran into Claudine's room at the palace. He ransacked it and pulling his dagger from his belt, he shredded the pretty dresses she had hanging in her armoire. He threw her colored leather ankle boots out of the window to the cobblestones below, where a group of children gathered them up and took them to the market to sell. Esteban grabbed up Claudine's jewels and crushed them with a spell into sparkling dust. He cursed her, and smashed her full-length mirror, as he passed it on his way out of her devastated room.

Esteban had thought for a long time that she would eventually lead him to Bartholomew's secret book. He had been sure that she was time-traveling with that young person, who was firstly a boy, and then a girl. He could never catch them at it, but it made him think that perhaps the world where this Gaston lived might be the one that his mother, and then Bartholomew had disappeared into. He should have that world and any others Bartholomew might have created or found. Esteban knew his limitations with magic and searched his own world for extra spells to make himself better at it. He taxed his people harshly in order to have money to buy more, and more spells, until one day he had found the spell to copy gold and jewels, he had never looked back, and as he became increasingly rich, he felt this was only what he, as the king, deserved.

He had taken the throne by force having his father killed with no remorse, and as for his mother, she had been easy to deal with, except for her escape and that irked him.

Now Esteban was going to travel for a few days and look around for fresh new spells in his magical kingdom. Little did he know the one he sought already existed within Dale's magic fountain. If you were to dip your hand in the fountain at a certain time, you would travel to the waterfall on the Dearing estate. It was repeated daily at exactly the time of day Dale, Gaston and the others had travelled to France in thirteen ninety, but now it led straight to modern day England.

****

Chapter Twenty-four

Tristan's new love story

I had stayed away from the stable apartment for a couple of days. I knew Dale and Gaston were fine because McPherson had said so at breakfast, and I had smiled at her. It was so odd to see her as she really was, and not the McPherson who had worked for us for more than the last ten years. I had to deliver flowers for a conference today and Jo had cut, and arranged them for me because I just couldn't cut flowers any more. I was going to drive the new truck too, as Martin needed the old one for a job in the woods that would be better done with a truck we didn't care about getting scratched and overly muddy. The new truck had been painted with the Dearing logo and was actually a more professional face for the business when we delivered flowers for weddings and conferences.

I hadn't seen Chloe or Oliver over the last couple of days either and I assumed from their silence that they were busy, and that no one had actually arrived on the doorstep. It had been two whole days since the beacon had been triggered and I was wondering if there had been no one to receive the signal after all.

I finished the work I had to do and decided to go over to 'Hawthorns' to check on the woodland, and garden in the grounds there. It had been on the tip of my tongue to offer McPherson, Gaston, and Dale the place to live in instead of the stable apartment but I was worried about the fact that I felt a huge attraction to Dale. I couldn't get the dream I had about her out of my mind and although I had tried hard to stop it, my mind continually went back to her. Her blue eyes and the way she fought alongside me when we were rescuing Gaston were appealing. I could picture her as she turned her sword and made magic with the water from her fountain against Esteban. I still love Chloe, but I feel so drawn to Dale it's kept me awake for the last two nights worrying.

I keep remembering when I discovered Chloe felt the same way about Oliver as she feels about me. I keep remembering how I hoped one day it would just be me in her heart and then accepting it wouldn't. I have accepted it. I know she loves me and I never feel anything but loved by her when we are together. So what's going on with me? I don't know. I kind of like the way Dale is older. She's nearly more than half my age and I feel a sort of affinity with that. She's very clever and even though sometimes she seems odd it's because of her grasp of English, having learnt most of it from Gaston, she has Gaston's accent, and that's like someone whose native tongue is Old French.

I drove up onto the driveway at 'Hawthorns' and walked straight down to open the big gates. I closed them behind me and walked the length of the lawn checking the flowerbeds down each side and generally feeling the health of everything.

As I walked between the ash trees, I realized someone was down there in the birches humming. It was Dale and she was happily picking up bits of fallen tree. She had a soft, felt bag of them lying on the leaves and ferns between two of the biggest trees.

I took a deep breath.

"Hi Dale, I didn't expect to find you here. Are you alone?" I asked her.

She smiled and came towards me dropping a piece of birch twig into the bag as she passed.

"Tristan, how are you? I'm collecting fallen birch twigs. They are useful for magic. The garden here has not been over cultivated and lots of natural magic remains."

She was in front of me and I felt an overwhelming urge to hug her.

She looked straight into my eyes and I must have been broadcasting that I wanted to hug her because she hugged me, a quick hug, a hug of hello between friends. The kiss in my dream floated before my eyes and I wondered if she had dreamed the same dream.

"Dale, when you said you dreamed about me what was in your dreams?" I asked her. I couldn't help myself.

She looked around her at the leaves and ferns, the trees, the birch twigs she had collected, anywhere but at me.

I stepped back from her.

"Sorry Dale, I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable," I told her.

She closed the gap I had made between us and took my hands in hers.

"Tristan, in my dreams, for I had many, we were together you and I. We meant much to each other and I felt your kiss as if it was real on my lips."

I gazed at her as she said this because it felt so right. It felt as if it was meant to be. I leaned forward slowly and kissed her gently just for a second or two. So that I could feel the kiss I had from her in my dream. Dale put her arms up to hold my face and kissed me back. I didn't want it to end, but a little spear of worry came into my mind and I thought of Chloe.

Dale let go of me and took a step away from me.

"It's hard to think I might be only a friend now I have found you in real life and not in my dreams," she smiled at me. "I didn't think that you were real. I thought you would only ever be in my dreams. I was so surprised to see you looking just the same as I had dreamed about you. When Gaston sent me to find you, I imagined the worst. I thought that I would have made up my handsome knight, my blue-eyed love, completely." She smiled again and I stood there unable to speak. I had no idea what to say. The whole thing had taken me by surprise.

There had been young Emma, who stabbed Chloe when she was infatuated with me, but I hadn't returned any of her feelings. Anna had come out of the past like an avenger and tried for some time to re-kindle what we had almost a hundred years earlier, but I knew that was not going to happen for me. Now faced with Dale, and with hardly any time passed between meeting her and standing here kissing her, I felt shaken by my attraction to her.

I felt that I would like to have something with her. I would like to be cared for by her. I wanted to get to know her better and have her in my life. It was distressing because I still loved Chloe. I had never expected to feel what I feel for Chloe for anyone else, and yet Dale sparked real feeling in me. I felt a connection to her that I had never expected to feel for anyone but Chloe.

I wanted to talk to someone about it and I thought of Oliver. I decided to talk to him. If anyone would understand, Oliver would. Dale was waiting for me to say something.

"Dale, I like you very much. I remember my own dream." I stopped talking because I had no idea what to say.

She looked at me a little sadly and I felt my heart sort of contract because she was sad.

"Dale, let me drive you wherever you are taking the birch twigs. I was just going to check out the ash trees at the bottom of the woods and then I will take you," I wanted both to be with her and to get away from her at the same time.

She smiled and took my hand to walk down the grassy path between the trees and I felt her touch all the way through my body. I checked the ash trees that for a while there a couple of weeks ago, I thought had a die-back disease, but they were fine, and so it must have been weather damage. Dale watched me and as I put my hands on the tree trunks, she grinned.

"You can feel them Tristan."

I didn't know if she was asking me a question or she could just tell, but I nodded at her because what harm could it do.

When I was driving her to the Dearing house, which is where she was taking the birch for McPherson, she asked if she could see me the next day to walk in the garden again. It was a surprise that she did this but I couldn't help smiling.

"I know you have a cell phone Dale because Chloe told me, so get my number from your mother, and call me." I thought this would be a safe thing to do. I needed to talk to Oliver and as I drove into the car park at home, I thought.

'Oliver, I need to talk to you, where are you, and when could we meet?'

I hadn't expected a reply straight away and it always amazed me when we did this stuff but almost immediately, he replied.

'At work Tristan, it's slow, come over and get coffee'

I responded with a thought saying okay.

I carried the bag of twigs into the house and down to the kitchen for Dale. McPherson smiled at me as she stirred something in a big baking bowl.

"Dale take them into the utility room then come and make tea. Will you have some Tristan?" she asked.

I shook my head. "I need to go back to work, thanks."

I turned to Dale and we looked at each other for a second as if deciding whether to kiss goodbye. Suddenly I felt I had to and I held her just loosely on the arm and kissed her cheek. It could have passed for only friendship but we both knew it wasn't.

I smiled at McPherson and went off to see Oliver.

I drove over to the restaurant and parked up.

As I walked onto the outside terrace area and found a table, I sent Oliver a thought to say I had arrived and within a minute, he was there by the table smiling at me.

"What's going on, Tristan?"

"Can you take a ten minute break and have coffee with me? I need to tell you something," I asked him, and he gave me a serious look.

"Sure Tristan. I'll get us coffee and come out."

He was back in a couple of minutes and after putting the coffees down on the table, he sat opposite me and looked at me expectantly.

"No one has shown up that I know of yet, Tristan, if that's the issue. It's been two whole days and no sign of anyone."

I shook my head. "That's not it, Oliver. I'm here because something weird is happening to me. I'm feeling really attracted to Dale. I dreamt about her before I met her and now it seems as if I have feelings for her. I don't know what to think and I feel like some kind of jerk because I still love Chloe I know that."

Oliver sat back in his seat as I spoke and then after I had got that out he sighed.

"I thought it would be some kind of really bad news, Tristan, thank heavens it's not. Well what's to be said? It's not unknown is it? Chloe loves both of us. I can't see it myself, loving more than one person. It's always been a bit mysterious to me. I can't imagine doing it myself. I think if it's happening to you then there's not much you can do is there?"

I wanted to say how bad I felt about it.

"I feel bad about it. I feel as if I should try to stop it because of Chloe, but I really feel drawn to Dale. It's almost as if it's pre-destined, what with that dream I had. You know the way she just throws herself into the fray is so attractive to me. She feels like my warrior other half." I knew I must sound weird.

Oliver raised his eyebrows. "It wouldn't be magic would it? I mean you're not under some spell that is going to prove ultimately very bad for you and those around you? Because I have to say Chloe is like that too, she throws herself into the fight for people including you, Tristan. Don't forget how she came after you into 'who knew where' at the time."

I grinned at him. "I don't think it is magic Oliver. It feels fundamental as if it's real. It feels the same as when I fell in love with Chloe. I know that's so bizarre to say. I know she is a fighter too and I am always going to want her in my life. I totally get it now, what happened to Chloe when she fell in love with both of us. I'm telling you Oliver because I think it will happen. I think we will end up in love Dale and me. I still love Chloe. I don't want to hurt her. Right at the beginning we said if we ever found out we loved someone else we would tell each other."

Oliver nodded. "Yeah we said that too, me and Chloe that is."

"Should I tell her?" I asked him, and he picked up his coffee cup, then after drinking some and looking at me over the rim with some kind of amusement in his eyes, he answered.

"I can't say can I? I mean I want her to myself. I love her. If you have Dale, then that might happen. I might get her to myself."

I smiled at this. "Oliver, I understand but seriously what would you do, what's the right thing to do?"

He grinned. "You could just tell Chloe you are starting to 'really like' Dale and see what happens. I can't advise you. I shouldn't say anything. What do you want to do, Tristan?" he asked me and I had to think for a moment or two.

"I want to tell Chloe because I still love her and I feel I owe her the truth."

Oliver put out his hands in a gesture that told me what I had said was what I should do, and I sighed.

"I never expected this, Oliver."

He shook his head. "Me neither," he said.

Chapter Twenty-five

Bartholomew arrives

After Tristan had left the restaurant, I stood for a moment in the service area thinking about what he had just said. I couldn't help but feel a little happy about it. I didn't think I would ever want anyone other than Chloe. I've never really got how you can love two people at once, but she did, so maybe lots of people do and it just isn't talked about. Let's face it the practice is frowned upon by society. I'm not worried by the moral aspect. I have to admit the thought of having Chloe all to myself holds a lure. I wasn't working that evening and I was going to call Chloe after work because that was what we had arranged.

The restaurant suddenly got busier and the next time I thought about what Tristan had said I only had half an hour of my shift left.

I was just about to call Chloe half an hour later as I walked to my car in the car park when my mother called.

"Oliver, there's a man looking for you. A very polite, well-spoken man, he's about twenty-five and in a business suit. He left me his card, 'Bartholomew Pike, Art Unlimited', he said it was quite urgent he contact you, but had lost your number. Are you building a website for him?"

I stopped in my tracks as she said this and then thinking fast I answered, "Yes Mom, I am. Is there a phone number on his card because I've lost his too?"

I heard my mother sigh at what she probably thought was my unprofessionalism in losing the guy's phone number, and then she read it out. It seemed like a normal cell phone number although what I had expected I don't know. "Hey Mom, can you text it to me I'm in the car park walking to my car right now?" She told me she would text it.

I was sitting in the car when the text came and I stored the number before calling Tristan.

Tristan answered his cell phone immediately as if he had it to his ear already.

"He's here, he's arrived, my mother just called me," I babbled.

"You mean Bartholomew?" Tristan asked without missing a beat.

"Yes Bartholomew. I have his cell phone number."

Tristan said, "Call him, ask him if we can meet, say in half an hour will that be okay for you. Ask him if he will come to 'Hawthorns'."

I raised my eyebrows even though I was alone.

"Tristan, I think we should meet at my place. He knows where that is. Look I know Dale and her mother are hanging out to see him, but I want to talk to him first. I think we should get the measure of him, make sure it's him, that kind of thing. Bring your sword and come to my place."

I heard Tristan gasp. "Bring my sword, I don't think so, that might give the wrong impression. Can't you do something with the magic artifacts if need be, oh okay, I'll bring my short sword. Call him and tell me what time he's coming to your place."

We ended the call and I looked at the cell phone number my mother had texted, I felt just a little worried and then I called him.

He sounded normal as he said, "Hello Bartholomew Pike."

"Hi. You were looking for me. You left a business card with my mother, my name is Oliver Tarrant, and I believe I triggered your beacon."

I heard him falter for a couple of seconds and then he said, "You set off the beacon, not a woman then, not a woman you met or know." His tone was laden with disappointment and I felt for him then in that second. I thought he wanted it to be McPherson or even Dale.

I answered him. "I know some women, but I need to meet you first, a friend and I will meet you and hear your story before we do anything else. Come back to my house as soon as you can."

He sighed. "I can be there in about twenty minutes will that be acceptable?"

I told him it would and rang Tristan.

"Tristan, twenty minutes, at my place, can you make it?"

He said he could.

I started the engine and looked out at the trees in front of me for a minute. Chloe was expecting me to call. I called her. "Chloe, I've been held up for a while, I'll call again okay?" She said it was. I sighed as I drove off because I wished I was going to Chloe and not home to face off with Bartholomew.

I parked in my usual spot at home in front of my windows. I was only inside for two minutes during which I put the water to boil for coffee, when Tristan showed up complete with sword, which he put on the kitchen work surface.

"He's not here then?" Tristan commented, and I gave him a look meant to say 'can you see him here?' We grinned at each other then, but as the doorbell rang, we both became serious. I went to answer it and Tristan stood in the doorway of the kitchen looking quite fierce.

The man before me, when I opened the door was about two inches taller than me, so maybe six two, his dark hair was cut in a modern and fashionable way; he was damn good-looking, even I knew that. He had the same blue eyes as Dale, McPherson and Tristan so that was uncanny, but he suddenly smiled and held out his hand.

"Hello Oliver Tarrant, pleased to meet you, I'm Bartholomew."

I smiled back and shook his hand. "Yes, come in." Something about him, and I hoped it wasn't a 'convincer' spell, was reassuring. He seemed genuine, polite and kindness seemed to radiate from him.

I introduced him to Tristan and they both sized each other up, it was so obvious I almost smiled. Two warriors then, I thought.

I offered the guy coffee and he nodded.

"I would appreciate some," he told me, and so I took him into the kitchen and made it. As we passed the sword, he glanced at it, but didn't seem even remotely surprised to see one. Tristan stood in the doorway again, but I had a feeling this man was okay and asked him to sit down as I put coffee for all three of us on the table.

"Bartholomew, I inadvertently set off the beacon. I can read your language, both from your world and your own magical language. I have your stuff, but I need to hear your story," I said to him, and was surprised I had been so forthcoming.

Bartholomew smiled. "I am surprised. I'm not sure what you mean by 'stuff', but assume that you refer to my objects of healing and enlightenment. There will only be one way you have those and that is by knowing Evangeline."

I shook my head. "Not necessarily so Bartholomew, we found the stuff hidden away." He looked so sad when I said that I wished I hadn't said it.

"Tell us about Evangeline," Tristan said softly.

Bartholomew looked distraught.

"I had hoped she was the one who set off the beacon. I have searched and waited longer than you can imagine to find her. She means everything to me. I can't express how sad I am to find it is not her who set the beacon going."

I'd had enough of the poor guy's misery.

"Okay we know her, we know where she is, and we also have Claudine with us, although we call her Dale. We just needed to know you're on the level, not some kind of threat to them. We've recently had a brush with Esteban and don't want them in danger."

He seemed to stop breathing for a few seconds and then he said.

"Esteban is here, he found a way?" His tone was urgent and incredulous.

I shook my head. "No we were in your world rescuing a friend."

He widened his eyes. "You found a way back to my world?"

I sighed. "There was one, now there isn't."

We stared at each other for a full minute and then Tristan broke the silence.

"Bartholomew, we can take you to Evangeline and Dale, or bring them to you, but I need you to know they are under my protection so this better not be any kind of trick."

He smiled broadly then, a genuine smile of amusement.

"I'm impressed and could wish for no better protection for the two women I love most in the world."

I looked across at Tristan and he sent me a thought. 'I think he's genuine, Oliver, I trust him'. I nodded slightly in answer.

"Bartholomew, there will be a story no doubt you need to tell, but perhaps we can get everyone together and just tell it the once" I said, and he nodded.

"I'm staying in town at the hotel. I arrived a day ago but have been watching. At first, I thought to bang on the door when I arrived at midnight the first day that my own beacon answered the one you set off, but then I thought better of that. I found a place to stay, looked around, and saw you leave this house. I have to admit to hoping that when I rang the doorbell after you left, Evangeline would open it, but that was not to be.

Where is my 'stuff' as you call it? I would love to know that everything I left with Evangeline survived. It's been a long time." He sighed and picked up the coffee.

"I'll ring Evangeline, we call her McPherson," Tristan said, and I nodded at him because it was the right thing to do, Bartholomew was clearly for real.

Bartholomew brightened up and smiled again. "That's great, thank you."

I took a deep breath.

"I've got your artifacts here. I can show you," I told him, and stood up as Tristan spoke to McPherson.

Bartholomew stood but hovered around wanting to hear the conversation with Evangeline.

Tristan spoke. "McPherson, Hi I'm with Bartholomew, he's shown up. He's with Oliver and me. What if we meet at the stable apartment? Well that doesn't matter, tell Liz I asked you to go. Wait, put her on the phone. Liz, I need McPherson so can you just deal with dinner tonight? Great, thanks Liz. McPherson, hello again, so half an hour at the stable apartment then."

He put the cell phone in his pocket. "Well that's it, you will meet her and Dale soon Bartholomew."

I couldn't help but smile because this news seemed to light Bartholomew up with happiness. "I'll show you your artifacts and then we'll get going," I said to him and he followed me into my office.

As soon as he was in there one or two of the bead curtains started up their gorgeous music and I glanced at him. He seemed to be glowing slightly. He went straight to the violet stack and touched the bowl there. Then he touched the beacon handprint and the thing glowed. The glow had not been visible before and I was fascinated. He turned to me and he was so happy.

"Oliver, this is wonderful and you have them in their correct categories, which I find extraordinary. Was this it, all you found that is?" He was looking around and had definitely taken stock of what was there. I wondered if he meant his spell book and I went to get it from behind the sofa where I had stashed it again in the orange blanket. I took the blanket carefully from it as it was guarding the book and so was very heavy to begin with. I noticed that the blanket knew my touch and was easier to handle each time.

Bartholomew gasped as I gave it to him.

"You opened it?" he asked in a disbelieving tone.

I nodded at him as I folded the blanket. "I did, but don't worry I haven't used any of the spells" I told him and grinned at him.

He raised his eyebrows. "It should not have been easy to open. Evangeline should have been able to use my healing objects, but not open my book. I am wondering just who you are, Oliver."

I grinned at him again. "Not anyone that special I assure you. I just seemed to bond with the stuff. I could see the pattern in your 'magical language', as Dale calls it."

He gave me a look, which seemed confused, but then he smiled again.

"Put it back into hiding and I see you use the guardian blanket. I couldn't have chosen better myself."

"Do you want me to turn it back into wood or shall we just put the blanket around it?" I asked him and he looked shocked.

He answered after a few seconds. "The blanket will be fine and this place of yours seems safe too, although I can put a little guardian spell on everything as we leave just as a precaution."

I shook my head. "Maybe not, I don't want to find I can't get into my own house, Bartholomew." He grinned at this and I hid the spell book again.

Tristan had been quietly standing in the doorway and now he jingled his car keys.

"We need to get going. I'll drive us there."

He led Bartholomew out to the truck he was using, which surprisingly was the new one and I locked my place up, and then followed. I got in the back seats and looked out of the window as Tristan got us out into the stream of traffic.

I thought that now Bartholomew had shown up it would stop Tristan from having time to talk to Chloe about his attraction to Dale and sighed a little. I was looking forward to having Chloe all to myself.

Chapter Twenty-Six

Oliver describes the reunion

We hadn't told Chloe about Bartholomew's arrival and now we were heading over to see Dale, Gaston, and McPherson. I wondered if she would feel left out and I said this to Tristan as he drove along.

"We can't leave Chloe out of this, Tristan, she'd be hurt and she's been in on everything else. I'd like to call her."

Tristan glanced at me in the rear view mirror.

"Call her but I intended collecting her on the way to the stables," he said, and sent me a thought.

'Oliver, as if I would leave her out'.

I called Chloe and told her Bartholomew had shown up and we were coming to pick her up. She was so excited and pleased for Dale and McPherson I was smiling as I rang off.

Tristan glanced at me. "Everything okay?" he asked, and I told him yes.

We were only a couple of minutes from Chloe's place. When we got there, she ran out of the front door grinning at us so that we didn't even have to get out of the truck.

"Hi Oliver, Tristan, Bartholomew hello, pleased to meet you," she said, and Bartholomew turned around to smile at her as she settled herself next to me.

"This is Chloe and she knows everything," I introduced them. When Bartholomew had turned away again, I took Chloe's hand and leaned against her. What I really wanted to do was kiss her.

The distance to the stable apartment is minimal and we were there in minutes. Tristan parked the truck at the far end of the yard and we walked back to the apartment. A little car was parked closer to the door and I assumed it belonged to McPherson.

As we reached the stable apartment door it opened and first Dale ran out and leapt at Bartholomew, and then McPherson walked quickly out and stood there looking wistfully at him. Dale had herself wrapped around him and then she took his hand and pulled him to McPherson.

"Here's mama," she said simply and she joined their hands before turning to Tristan, Chloe, and me, as we stood by the door watching.

"This is so exciting, so wonderful," she said, and smiled at us all.

Bartholomew and McPherson were gazing at each other and then they hugged. I thought that was a little restrained.

Tristan seemed to have satisfied himself of something, perhaps Bartholomew's identity and he whispered to Dale.

"We should go inside. Get him to tell his story or something."

Dale nodded.

"Mama, Bartholomew, come inside Gaston is making coffee and we want to hear your story, Bartholomew."

We followed and were all seated around the table in minutes with the most awful coffee I have ever tasted in front of us.

Bartholomew was next to McPherson and I noticed he held her hand. He started talking.

"When I left you, Claudine, alone in our world it was because I had to. I was actually trapped in this world. A storm had closed the portal to our world. I had no way of coming back for you. For years, I searched this world for you, Evangeline, and had begun to think I would never find you. Such a long time has passed. If I could have, I would have opened another portal to our world to at least get back to you, Claudine, but I had left my spell book with Evangeline, and needed more than just my own natural magic. I had tried that, and it was not powerful enough. I chose to look for Evangeline rather than concentrate upon opening a portal. As the centuries went by here, I slipped into a life always hoping one day I would find you, or you would find me, and we would go back to collect Claudine."

He said this last bit directly to McPherson and I felt sad for him. It seemed to me that the portal already being open was the reason he couldn't open it. It was just in a different place that was all.

There was more to the story and McPherson's side to be told to him, but I wondered if we needed to be there for that. If I had just found my lost love, I would want some time alone with her.

I glanced at Tristan and he was already looking at me. I bet he thought the same.

"I think we should give you time alone to catch up. McPherson, you have your car to drop Bartholomew back off at Oliver's place. His car is there. Gaston, why don't you come over to my place, we'll eat over there, and then I'll drop you here later?" Tristan said hopefully. Gaston immediately got up.

"That is a good idea," she said, and so we all started to stand up.

Bartholomew was smiling and said, "Thank you. I'll call you tomorrow, Oliver, and we can talk about things. I feel happy to leave my things with you until I come to be with Evangeline, because I must do that. I don't live so far away, but it's too far from her and Claudine. I will move."

I nodded at him because what was there to say, I'd do the same.

As we filed out to Tristan's truck, I suggested, "Why don't we go over to the Kool Kafé to eat? That will be fun don't you think Gaston?"

She was grinning. "I think so. I have never been."

I smiled at this.

Tristan nodded. "Okay that's good we'll do that, unless, Chloe, you want to do something different?"

Chloe shook her head. "It's fine. Tell me about Bartholomew showing up on the way."

I helped Gaston into the passenger seat and then got into the back with Chloe. This was good I could hold her hand and lean against her.

We parked on the road opposite Kool Kafé and walked over to the tables outside on the paved area. We sat down there and Samantha came along to take our order. Gaston was delighted with the menu and then she stopped being enthused.

"Oh, I have no money. McPherson has bought everything we have needed so far and of course you, Tristan," she said.

Tristan smiled in assurance. "That's fine, Gaston, we asked you to eat, you are our guest." She visibly relaxed.

After Samantha had gone into the café to pass in our order, Gaston smiled around at us.

"Since I came here with no thought to bring any of my jewels or coin I will have to find a profession. When I visited once long ago, I found a shop along the high street that takes jewels for money. I traded a ring and the money lasted for a long time even with Dale shopping."

I thought that was quaint, but had to admit to not thinking about how she or Dale would live. I thought that Dale would be okay since McPherson was probably reasonably well off after working for centuries, especially since Bartholomew had shown up and seemed to have his own business at least. Poor Gaston might feel a bit outside the loop. I glanced at Tristan who had a look of sympathy on his face.

"Gaston, don't even think about it yet. I have some jewels, which I don't mind betting are yours, a necklace for one thing, which I know for a fact that you threw to the waterfall spirits. I will sort them out and sell them for you, or you can just let me help you for as long as needed. I'm quite well off now, isn't that true Oliver, Chloe?" He looked for support from us and I nodded.

Chloe smiled at Gaston. "It's true, and we're here to help in any way Gaston, so don't think any more about it. I can actually lay my hands on the necklace Tristan has mentioned this very night should you need reassurance."

I grinned at this because Chloe was talking to Gaston in the same polite kind of speech she used herself.

Gaston looked down at her hands in her lap and then back up at Tristan.

"Tristan, I have always liked you and I look upon you as a brother and fellow warrior. I thank you for this sincerely. I am indebted to you, first for rescuing me when Esteban had me imprisoned, and now for taking care of me."

Tristan leaned over and gave her the tiniest thump on the shoulder.

"You are not indebted to me. You've fought alongside me a few times when I was outnumbered and in trouble. I will not forget that."

They looked at each other with affection, which was cool.

Chloe was near me and I looked at her with a big smile, she smiled back at me.

"So now tell me what happened when Bartholomew found you, Oliver," she said.

I told the story, which wasn't that remarkable in the re-telling and we ate our food. It was becoming late and the breeze became cool. Tristan said he would drop Chloe and me at my place, and then take Gaston home. I thought it was significant that he had not wanted to drop me, then Gaston and then be with Chloe, but I was happy with it.

We drove into my driveway. Chloe and I were getting out of the truck when a woman approached us. She was tall with long dark hair tied back, dressed in jeans and a denim shirt, she smiled as she said, "Excuse me do you live here. I'm looking for someone. I thought he might live here," and then she saw Tristan through the truck window, and she stopped dead. She seemed really shocked and stared at him.

Chapter Twenty-seven

Oliver discovers there are more of them

Tristan got out of the truck as he was under such scrutiny and I had taken Chloe by the hand when she came to stand next to me.

The woman took a deep breath. "I'm sorry for staring I thought you were someone I knew a long time ago," she said to Tristan, and he nodded at her, but gave me a glance with a look of disbelief on his face.

I answered her original question. "I do live here, but who are you looking for maybe I know him?" I was suddenly convinced that it was Bartholomew she was looking for.

She shook her head saying, "I think I've made a mistake. I'm sorry to have bothered you" and she turned away.

I knew she was after Bartholomew and I called to her,

"It's not Bartholomew is it, the person you are looking for?" I thought I would ask because if it wasn't then she would have no idea how important he was anyway. She turned back to me.

"You know him? Can you tell me where to find him? It's urgent."

I looked at her kindly and shook my head. "I can't just tell you where he is unless I know who you are. I'm sorry, but you could be any kind of threat to him."

She bowed her head and then looked up at me after a few seconds.

"I am one of his people, a friend from long ago. I will give you my phone number, please tell him Gina is looking for him. Tell him, Orlando, Marcus, Pia and I are here in town and would love to see him."

I nodded at her and took out my cell phone, she told me her number, and I put it into my contacts list. I looked into her eyes, and saw even in the dim glow of my porch lights and the street lamps she had those blue eyes the same as Bartholomew, Claudine, McPherson and actually Tristan. She was one of them for sure. I felt suddenly sad for her if she had been rattling around the world as long as Bartholomew had, because we knew from Tristan how difficult that could be, even if she had those three friends.

"I'll call him now, wait for a moment."

I rang his number and he answered quite promptly with the same greeting as when I had called him earlier.

"Hello Bartholomew, I've arrived home to find someone looking for you. A woman called Gina and she tells me Pia, Orlando, and Marcus are in town, and would love to see you. I'm not about to tell them where you are, nor your number unless you give the okay," I told him this, and as I did, I could hear him gasp.

"Oliver, ask them how they knew where to come, ask them how they found your house and warn them they must answer truthfully, no pretense."

I looked at Gina. "He wants to know how you knew where to come. Why did you come to my house, and he says no pretense, answer truthfully."

She rubbed her hand across her forehead and turned to stare across the road at a car parked there that I had not given any attention to before, but now I thought might hold her named companions.

She suddenly answered. "The beacon, our beacon brought us here."

I told that to Bartholomew already knowing she was what she said she was.

He had a smile in his voice when he said, "It's okay, Oliver, they are my people and I can't wait to meet them. How can they be here? Miracles are happening. Give them my phone number, it's okay."

I said, "Right" and we ended the call.

I really wanted to meet the others.

"I can give you his phone number, but why not come in and have some coffee. I'd love to meet your companions, are they over there in that car?" I asked, and nodded towards the old Land Rover that was so similar to my own I had to hide a smile.

Gina didn't answer for a few seconds and then she seemed to relax.

"I'll go and tell them, and yes we will come in and have coffee with you. As it happens I have a question about the beacon now I know Bartholomew doesn't live here."

I watched her cross the road and turned to Tristan, "Are you and Gaston coming in, you might as well. Did you see the way she stared at you, there's a story there I'll bet."

Tristan grimaced. "I've never seen her before in my life Oliver."

Chloe burst out laughing at that and I had a smile on my face.

"Tristan, you've lived a long time, maybe you just forgot her," I said.

He took a deep breath. "Maybe, okay we'll come in," and he ducked his head inside the truck cabin and spoke to Gaston.

I unlocked my door and Chloe went down to the kitchen telling me she would start on making the coffee. Tristan and Gaston came in and I waited at the door for the group of people I could see crossing the road now. They were all tall and as they got closer, I was struck by just how attractive they all were. Just like Bartholomew and Dale, and of course McPherson now we knew what she actually looked like.

I ushered them in shaking hands with Marcus and Orlando as they came through the door telling me their names.

I led them into my dining room, a room I hardly used, but that would accommodate everyone around a table my mother had given me. Tristan followed and I saw them look at each other and widen their eyes.

I introduced him. "This is my very good friend Tristan, and Gaston, another friend," I added as she appeared at the door to the room with a tray of coffee. Chloe followed her with other cups of coffee and I introduced her too.

They looked at each other and then Orlando sighed.

"We must know about the beacon. How did it come to be, er, switched on, shall we say," he looked at me and I saw hesitation in his eyes. I thought that they wouldn't be able to relax until I told them things, and it was obvious to me they were the same as Bartholomew so I just launched into the story.

"Tristan found a load of things which belonged to Bartholomew. I bonded with them somehow. I set off the beacon unknowingly. Bartholomew arrived today in response and now you people who I assume are from the same world as him. The world we visited and rescued Gaston and Claudine from. We have her, Bartholomew, and Evangeline safe, and we have the objects of healing and enlightenment, which belong to Bartholomew. I can only say this to you, you can trust us, all of us, we are friends. Tell me who you think Tristan is?"

They looked at each other and I could see them considering what I had said.

It was Marcus who spoke.

"We have seen Tristan in the past and in another country, he appears to be the young knight we thought had died. We know Gaston as a time-traveler and we saw all of you along with Claudine in the year thirteen-ninety approximately. You see we followed you from our world hidden in our blanket of invisibility, but when you travelled again from the pool in the garden in France we were left behind."

At that moment Chloe gasped. "The people on the bank, the wave of water" and looked at me. I knew they had to be who we saw as we traveled home from Gaston's pool and Aristide spelled that portal to decay.

Orlando looked at Chloe. "You were able to see us?" He sounded incredulous.

"Yes and so did Oliver. We saw you huddled together on the bank of the pool near a statue. We saw you through a splash of the water. My god, have you been in this world since thirteen-ninety?"

I nodded because they had more or less just told us that, but Marcus said.

"We have and we have waited all that time hoping that the beacon would light to tell us where Bartholomew was."

He seemed to have dismissed the fact that Tristan was still around and when you think about it, the whole thing could be explained by time-travel. If anyone asked I was about to say magic because if anyone would believe it they would. They looked at each other again and Gina tried the coffee in front of her.

I drank some, it was fine, and because a silence had descended, everyone had a sip of whatever was before them on the table.

The woman Pia who had so far been silent smiled at us all.

"Now we have found everyone, it feels like a celebration. We've made our lives here not far away. It grows late and I am desperate to talk to Bartholomew. We've waited for two days in the hope of seeing him come or go from this house that we believed to be his home. Please excuse us so that we might call him."

I nodded and stood up. It was the cue for Tristan and Gaston too.

"I need to leave and so does Gaston. I'm sure we will get together again soon," Tristan told them and Chloe got up.

"Hey I'll come and see you off," she said and left with them.

I smiled at the newcomers. "I'll see my friends off too." I left them thinking they would call Bartholomew whilst I was gone.

Outside Tristan and Chloe were hugging each other and Gaston was grinning at them.

"What do you think of that then? How many more of them are going to answer the beacon I wonder?" I laughed as I approached them.

Tristan let go of Chloe and smiled. "It was a surprise I have to say, but you handled it very well Oliver. I still think I've never seen them even if they saw me, and how about you two having seen them in Gaston's garden. You never said anything."

I smiled at him. "To be honest I thought I'd imagined it, or it was an optical illusion as it seemed ridiculous. Imagine them having lived in France and then here since thirteen-ninety, how awful," I said.

Tristan shrugged. "Well here they are looking good. It can't have been that bad."

Gaston smiled. "Yes Marcus looks good to me" and we all laughed a little, but I wondered if she was serious and in that case were the four inside two couples?

Tristan said he really did need to leave and would call the next day as soon as he could. We said goodbye and I stood with Chloe to watch them drive away. Bartholomew's car was still parked in my front yard and so he was still with Claudine and McPherson.

I turned to Chloe and put my arms around her pulling her close.

"They must have just missed seeing each other, this group and Bartholomew, since they were all watching my place at one time or another over the last couple of days. It's all very exciting isn't it, Chloe?" I asked her, and she looked up at me and smiled.

"Yes Oliver," she said and then reached up and kissed me.

I let myself drift into the kiss and held her close. It was so good to be alone with her out there in the night with the moon out and the soft rustle of the breeze in the trees. I felt happy and held her face to mine to prolong the kisses for a moment or two.

"We should go back indoors the visitors might wonder where we are," I said as I let her go, and we both turned to go back to the house hand in hand.

The group of people were talking quietly as we entered the dining room and looked up at us.

"Everything okay? Would you like some more coffee?" I asked them, but they all stood up together and smiled. Orlando answered.

"We'll leave you now, but would like to have your contact number. We'll meet with Bartholomew tomorrow. These are exciting times and it is good to meet you all."

I told them my phone number and led them to the door. "Please contact me anytime. I'll be talking with Bartholomew again soon."

They filed out of the door and waved as they got into their car. I watched them drive away, and Chloe, who was by my side with her arm around my waist, closed the front door.

We cleared away the cups quietly and stacked them in the dishwasher. I was thinking about how late it was, and if Chloe needed to go home when she turned to me and gave me a hug.

"Oliver, I can stay for a while unless you have to get up early tomorrow," she told me. She kissed by the side of my mouth.

I smiled and pressed her close kissing her lips before I answered her.

"No I don't work tomorrow, so you don't need to leave at all if you don't want to."

I kissed her again and we drifted down to my room and snuggled up together on my bed.

"I do need to go home tonight Oliver, but maybe in an hour," she told me, and I smiled at this.

"Okay Chloe," I said but it was muffled against her lips as I kissed her.

Chapter Twenty-eight

Tristan tells Chloe

I didn't stay all night with Oliver, even though I would have liked to because of mom's colleague Kim visiting from the States. I needed to be around for that, at least for the first couple of days, and the dinner she had asked me especially to attend.

Oliver dropped me home about two in the morning. He is so gorgeous and he really doesn't know it. He doesn't seem to get just how special he is.

I heard from Tristan first thing in the morning, and he wanted to see me at lunchtime, so I expected him to drop by any minute.

I heard the truck crunch onto the gravel driveway as I was out on the patio, and I walked around to meet him as he got out of the truck.

He smiled and slipped his arm around my waist as we walked back to the patio.

"Chloe, I really need to talk to you. Can we stay out here? I need to let you know something, but it's important that you know I love you."

Tristan was serious and I looked at him puzzled. He didn't let go of me and leaned against the table out on the patio with his arms around me.

"Chloe, you love Oliver and me, don't you? Well I never expected this to happen, but I feel something for someone else besides you. Please don't think I don't love you anymore because I do, but to my shock, I feel very attracted to Dale. You remember right at the beginning we said if this ever happened, we would tell each other? Well I feel I owe it to you to tell you. Nothing serious has happened, but she has feelings for me."

I looked at his lovely face and his blue eyes so serious. I love him and I want his happiness. It had to be okay because didn't I do the same as this, love two people?

"Tristan, it's okay. I know only too well that feelings just happen. Has she told you she loves you?" I asked him.

He looked at me with tenderness in his eyes.

"No, but I know she has feelings for me, I can tell, and I have to be honest I really like her and might start to love her. I haven't told her. I wanted you to know. I still love you. Isn't it weird? This is what it must be like for you. I find it hard to accept. I never expected it. I never thought there would be anyone else for me but you."

I smiled at him. He was so sincere and it was endearing that he was surprised by it all. I already had my suspicions about him and Dale, but would not tell him that, he would always be in my heart no matter what, even if he ended up in a full on relationship with Dale, which I thought would happen.

"Tristan, it's okay. I know how hard it is to have feelings for more than one person. I want you to be able to find happiness and if it's with Dale then that's great. I actually like her a lot." I saw him think about what I had said and a little sadness came into his eyes.

"Tristan, I love you, I always will and that's why I want you happy. Don't ever think I have stopped loving you because it will never happen, okay?" I wanted no misunderstandings, he meant too much to me. He sighed, but he looked a little happier.

"I'll be taking it slow, Chloe, just to make sure I'm not doing the wrong thing. I'll tell you the truth because you mean so much to me. I dreamed about Dale before I met her. Just the once, but it was a dream where I kissed her. I don't think for one minute that there is magic involved in this. I just get the impression it's sort of pre-destined. I want to tell you about it. Is that okay?"

I sighed because I really hoped there was no magical influence on him. I would watch out for him. "You can tell me anything you want, always, no matter what Tristan," I told him and he hugged me tight. He kissed my cheek and I raised my eyebrows.

"I hope that I get to kiss you properly until you feel you really can't, Tristan," I told him and he smiled.

"Sorry Chloe, I'm just so surprised by it all I don't know how to act."

I reached up and kissed his lips and he kissed me back.

"I still love you," he whispered as I moved away from him and I nodded.

"Have you seen anyone this morning, for instance Bartholomew or McPherson?" I asked him, because what was going on there?

He grinned. "Neither of them. I thought I would let them contact me. It's great isn't it that they have found each other?"

I smiled at him. "It is great, Tristan. I think things are great in general. Do you want to have some coffee and then maybe we should check on Bartholomew."

Tristan grinned. "Coffee sounds good." We walked into the kitchen and he started to make the coffee just as I knew he would. I grinned at him. Whatever happened we would always be close, good friends, and we would always love each other. I was about to tell him that when my cell phone rang and it was Oliver.

"Hi Chloe, what's happening? Bartholomew's car is still on my driveway, have you seen Tristan or anyone yet?"

I smiled as I answered. "Tristan is with me now and we were just thinking about Bartholomew. He must still be with McPherson and Dale. Why not come over, Oliver?"

"I'll come over now, so tell Tristan not to leave yet. We might need to talk about how to move forward with everything."

I told him okay and we ended the call.

"Tristan, Oliver thinks we should talk about Bartholomew, you don't need to dash off anywhere do you?" I asked him and he turned to me with a smile.

"No I can stay," he said, and we took our drinks out onto the patio.

"Tristan, it must be hard for McPherson to maintain her outward looks for everyone, maybe there is something Liz can do, like tell the family McPherson is leaving, but she's hired Evangeline." After I said this, I laughed because I couldn't help remembering how I had always thought McPherson knew stuff about Tristan and she must have for years. It suddenly seemed funny.

Tristan smiled. "What, what's funny?" he asked me, and drew me close to him.

I told him and he smiled again. "It's amazing really. I wonder if Evangeline and Bartholomew's magic rubbed off on the waterfall long ago and that's why it's such a magical place?"

"We'll never know, Tristan, and maybe it doesn't matter as now all the portals are closed." I said, and he nodded then kissed me and it was just the same. The feeling of loving, and being loved was still the same, his kiss was full of tenderness. I thought about this as we let go of each other and sat side-by-side on the balustrade.

I heard Oliver's car arrive and grinned at Tristan. "That didn't take long," I said, as I walked around to meet Oliver out the front.

He grabbed me and hugged me close, and then we started walking back around the path to the patio.

"The other people we met last night called, just as I was about to start the engine to come here. It seems to me they have talked with Bartholomew and he's given them some kind of okay on me because they were so friendly. Orlando was on the phone, and he invited us all to their place later today, about four he said, to talk about things." We were on the patio and Tristan came out of the kitchen with another cup of coffee, which he set down on the table for Oliver.

Oliver smiled. "Thanks, Tristan. I was just telling Chloe that Orlando has called and asked us to visit them this afternoon about four. Can you make it?" Oliver looked at Tristan and me as he asked this.

"Well where is it?" I questioned.

"Oh sorry, it's just out of town, maybe twenty minutes from my place. Can you believe that?" Oliver grinned and drank some coffee.

I thought it was funny and grinned too. "I can believe it. It's typical. Bartholomew lives further away though doesn't he?"

Oliver nodded. "I think so. I was thinking about him and his stuff, I guess it is his, so I can't hold onto it, but I don't feel like giving it all up. I know that sounds weird, but I was worrying about that as I drove over."

Tristan raised his eyebrows. "Oliver, you can't really keep any of it, but I suppose that having been the one to understand it, and set that beacon off then it would feel like that for you."

"Maybe Bartholomew will leave it with you Oliver, at least until he has sorted out what might happen next. I mean he's just found his long lost lover, his daughter and four of his people as they call themselves, it might take some time to let that sink in."

Tristan looked at me in surprise. "Dale's his daughter?" he asked, and Oliver echoed the question with, "Is she?"

I shook my head. "Wow, I don't know why I said that. I don't know."

They both gave me 'a look' and then Oliver said, "Who knows maybe she is."

I shook my head. "I don't know where that came from," I said again as it was weird.

"Well whatever, I'll go over to see the people this afternoon, who's coming with me?" Oliver asked and I shook my head.

"I can't come, Kim is arriving this afternoon, and I told mom I would at least be here to say hello."

Tristan nodded. "I can come over as long as we're not there for heaps of time."

"Great, I want to go, but not alone," Oliver said and grinned at us. "I was thinking about how we handle things now, Tristan. You have your hands full with Dale and Gaston. Do you think things will settle down? I'd like to help somehow but I don't know how." Oliver was being kind as usual.

"I think McPherson should be able to stop using up what magic she has left on hiding her true face," I told them.

Tristan nodded. "I agree and I'll ask Liz if we can do anything about that."

Right then Tristan's cell phone rang and it was work.

"I need to go now, but Oliver, what time shall I drop around to your place because we can go off to see Orlando and Co. together if that's okay?"

They arranged to meet at three thirty and Tristan left.

I turned to Oliver. "I do wish I was going too because they are so interesting aren't they these new people? Imagine trekking about France and then England all this time. I wonder what they all do for a living?"

Oliver nodded.

"Well they inferred arty stuff, so that might be interesting for you Chloe, that's if they decide to keep in touch with us all. Although I can't imagine that not happening, what with Dale and Gaston living at Tristan's place."

Oliver made sense. I was considering telling him about Tristan and Dale but I didn't. Instead, I picked up our empty cups and took them inside to load into the dishwasher.

Oliver followed me.

"Chloe, I didn't want to say anything in front of Tristan because I'm not sure of it yet, but something a little weird happened to me first thing this morning."

I looked up at Oliver from closing the dishwasher and frowned.

"What Oliver?" I asked, and he smiled at me.

"I'm about to tell you. I was round in my mother's place to help her with this furniture she had bought. You know how she likes antiques?"

I didn't actually know that, but I nodded at Oliver so that he would get on with the story.

"They delivered it yesterday, and mom decided she preferred it in another room, so I was going to help her move it. She had a chair, and I picked up another to follow her into the next room and wham I felt this weirdness. It was like a sadness coming from the chair, and then the next one I picked up, as there are four, seemed okay, but then when I took hold of the table to help mom into the next room with it, and again I had this weird thing happen, sort of a vision. I know, it's bizarre, and it's only because of having the experience with the artifacts that I'm not totally freaked out."

I went to him, and put my arm around him as he told me this, and he shook his head.

"I know it's weird, but I saw this older woman sitting at that table in the chair that had felt sad, and she was crying. She was dressed in modern clothes you know, Chloe, so it could have been recently she was sitting there crying. The vision came and went, so it was over quite soon, but I would know her again if I saw her, the older woman that is."

"Wow Oliver, that's weird. I suppose you didn't tell your mom, well I guess you wouldn't have, but did you ask her about the stuff?"

"I did ask, and mom had bought it from an auction in the next village. She thought that one of the old houses there had been put up for sale and the antiques had come from there. I didn't want to press too much because it would've seemed weird."

He didn't seem too worried by this having happened and so I grinned at him.

"Oliver, it's like when you knew about the artifacts having a language on them. I wonder if you can 'read' things now on objects? You know emotions and so on."

He shrugged. "I could test it out on things I suppose. What's old here?" he asked, and I burst out laughing.

"Oliver, the whole place is, but it could be that the things have to be new to you, or perhaps new to you since the 'artifacts experience'. I think it's cool, but spooky."

Oliver put his arms around me and kissed down my neck.

"What are you up to until Kim arrives?" he asked.

Chapter Twenty-nine

Tristan's Meeting with Orlando and Co

I was driving to Oliver's place having called in at home to see McPherson, and caught Liz there having afternoon tea, before she went to work for the evening shift.

I hugged them both because they seem extra precious to me now, especially as McPherson has lived all those years, and looked after us Dearings for so long, and Liz because she has always accepted all the magic, and time travel, and loved me.

I told them about Chloe's suggestion and McPherson looked hopeful. Liz grasped the notion, and said it was a great idea, so I think it will happen for sure. Liz will arrange for McPherson to leave and employ her again as herself.

They told me Bartholomew had just left the house in a taxi to get his car from Oliver's place, and I told them they should have called me. I would have taken him, even if I hadn't been going over to Oliver's place.

I arrived at Oliver's house in time to see Bartholomew driving away, and I parked.

Oliver opened the door grinning at me.

"Hi Tristan, you just missed Bartholomew, but he will be at Orlando and Co's place."

I smiled at that thinking we might need to come up with a less flippant name for those people.

Oliver collected his keys, and talked as we left his house, and got in the old truck I was using.

"Bartholomew has decided to leave his stuff with me until he moves up here. I bet you don't know this, McPherson might live in rooms in the Dearing house, but she has a big place of her own in the country area on the opposite side of the village. It's about twenty minutes in the opposite direction from your place, Tristan. Isn't that uncanny that she has a place only about forty minutes away from Orlando and friends? I'll never get over how bizarre these coincidences are. That's if they are and not some pre-destined stuff going on."

I glanced at him as I drove.

"It's uncanny alright, Oliver. So is Bartholomew going to move in with her?" I asked him.

"Yes, and as soon as possible he told me. He's so happy it's like seeing someone with a bright light shining from them. Oh, and Dale will go to live there too. He didn't mention Gaston, but that will be okay with you if she has to live in the stable apartment will it, Tristan?"

I nodded as I looked ahead at the traffic. "It will. She can live there as long as she wants. I hope she can go with Dale though because it would be much nicer for her."

Oliver agreed with me, and then gave me directions for which road to take out of the village we had just gone through.

We arrived at the place. It was a big rambling house, and looked to have a huge garden with some kind of buildings down there. As I got out of the truck, I noticed there was another entrance from the road that led to the buildings in the garden. We walked to the front door and rang the bell. Marcus opened the door and smiled at us.

"Hello there, come in. Bartholomew is here now," he told us, and we followed him down a wide hall.

We entered a room at the back of the house that like the conservatory at 'Hawthorns', stretched the length of it, and looked onto gardens.

Marcus asked us to sit, and Gina asked if we would like coffee or a cool drink.

All the time Bartholomew was smiling and let out little sighs, but they were obviously in happiness as his eyes were sparkling and full of laughter.

Orlando was smiling too. "You must forgive us if we seem a little strange. It's because we are all so happy, and excited to find each other, that it's hard to take a smile from our faces. I keep having the urge to laugh aloud in excitement."

I nodded. "We understand perfectly, don't we Oliver?"

Oliver grinned. "I get it completely," he said.

Gina came back with the coffee and placed it on the low table nearby.

She started to speak for everyone.

"We've lived here for many years. We hold art and craft lessons in our workshops at the back of this house, and we sell our artwork at markets, on the internet, and to shops to sell on for us. I'm also a music teacher at the local college. We hide our ages by changing who we deal with and what we look like every twenty years or so. It's been easy, if I am honest, to make a good life in the last hundred years. I understand that you are all connected by some kind of magic and are close to the arts and nature."

She looked at Oliver as she said this, and I guessed that was because he could read their language, and especially Bartholomew's magical language.

Oliver nodded imperceptibly and glanced at me. It seemed he didn't want to tell them our exact circumstances and I think that's a good idea.

He didn't lie but he didn't tell them everything.

"Tristan, Chloe, and I, have been in touch with magic because of a few time travel adventures for the last two years, and we think some of it possibly rubbed off on us. Tristan is especially able to communicate with natural things, plants, trees, and such. Chloe is very arty. She designs stained glass windows. I found myself able to recognize the pattern in your language when Tristan found the artifacts in his attic, and then it progressed to bonding with them. We're very lucky to have these gifts aren't we Tristan?"

He invited my contribution and I nodded in agreement and said,

"You know I'm very old. It's because of the waterfall magic. I can't say exactly how, but who knows, it may be to do with Bartholomew and Evangeline passing through it." I looked around at their happy faces and thought when we really get to know each other we can share more information.

Pia grinned. "No Tristan, from what Bartholomew has told us that whole area is full of natural magic, they may have enhanced it momentarily, but not made it. We have known about 'White Witch woods', but we are nothing to do with that either, the magic is ancient, older than time."

I smiled gently at them all because it was okay for them to believe anything. I needn't tell them I had been given a magic potion, which must have fused with the natural magic of my waterfall to save my life, and make my blood immortal.

I was happy they had found each other.

"What will you do now, Bartholomew?" I asked.

"Move up the country to be with Evangeline. She doesn't want to change her life with your family and I understand that. I can easily sell my house where I live presently, and will bring only what I love. The rest I'll give to charity, that's my usual practice. I'm in the arts myself and can work anywhere. It's wonderful to have access to my objects of healing and enlightening. I'm very keen to use them for good. We must all talk about how we can use the gifts we have for good, when we're settled. I'd like to make sure you still have access to them, Oliver, as clearly they resonate with you." He paused for a moment, and looked at the four people to include them in what he said to us.

"We'd very much like to call you friends and see you all often, and very much like to work with you when possible, isn't that right?" The others nodded in agreement.

Oliver smiled. "That's great," he said.

I added, "It is great."

Bartholomew began talking again. "Tristan, when I move to Evangeline's house with Claudine I would like Gaston to come there to live, Evangeline thinks that will be a good idea. What do you think?"

I smiled. "I think she'd like that. It will be good not to split up the two friends, but is Evangeline's home big enough for you all?" I was thinking if need be to offer them 'Hawthorns'.

"Oh yes. She says it's too big, and when she is there, she feels its emptiness. Now she'll have us to live there, and travel to work in the Dearing house."

We all smiled at each other, and I could feel that a peace was descending. They felt at peace and it emanated from them.

Orlando spoke. "We want to thank you, Oliver, for activating the beacon. We want to thank you, Tristan, for the way you went to rescue Gaston and so brought Evangeline, and Claudine to us. It will be an honor to count you both and Chloe as part of our people. I hope that we become the best of friends."

I shook my head. "No thanks are needed for anything. We get up to all kinds of things."

Oliver agreed. "We didn't do it for thanks, only because it was right."

I sighed thinking how weird it all was in reality. Fate had to have had a hand in it somewhere along the line for me to go rummaging through the attic in search of a house name plaque and spark this all off in the first place.

I realized Oliver was talking again, as my thoughts had turned to Dale, and how I felt so drawn to her.

"I hope I'm not being intrusive but are you couples? Are you married to each other, you seem so very close and dear to each other?" He asked, and I was surprised he asked this.

Pia laughed. "We are close. We hold each other dear, but Marcus and I are friends. Gina and Orlando are married."

Oliver smiled. "Sorry it's just that I was thinking how romantic it all is with Evangeline and Bartholomew finding each other." He seemed to me to be covering some other reason, but then I knew him well and they didn't.

He glanced across at me. "Tristan does need to go back to work, but it's been great to get together. We'll get together again soon because Chloe thinks like Bartholomew that we should use our gifts for good somehow."

I looked around the happy faces now looking at me.

"Yes, I do need to go back to work, but I'm really happy we've all found each other," I told them.

We left with promises to call each other soon.

"They're lovely people aren't they Tristan?" Oliver asked me as I drove us back to his place.

"They are Oliver, and I think they find you especially interesting. Setting off that beacon makes you very special to them I think," I told him.

He laughed. "Well as I told Bartholomew I'm nothing special. Let's face it, Tristan, the information they are all missing is that Chloe and I were made different by your magical, immortal blood. You started it all, Tristan. I don't think that we need tell anyone that for a long time, not even Dale. I hope you agree, Tristan, even if you fall in love with her."

I glanced at him as I stopped at traffic lights. "I agree Oliver. That is our final secret. We need to keep it between us three."

I dropped him off at his place and drove off to the estate where I needed to pick up and deliver little topiary pots for a society dinner the next night.

Chapter Thirty

Tristan and Dale

I was at the greenhouses in the 'White witch woods' and loading the topiary pots onto the back of the truck. I had half the plants loaded carefully in little cardboard trays so that they wouldn't fall around. I walked around the side of the greenhouse with a couple of big pots and came face to face with Dale.

I couldn't help the smile that came to my face and the way my heart lifted when I saw her.

"Dale, what are you doing here? Where's Gaston? You're a bit off the beaten track here. Do you know?" I asked, and I was smiling the whole time.

She smiled back.

"Gaston has gone shopping with Laura and Corbett. I wanted to find you and I asked at the other greenhouse where you might be. I came to find you. I want to be with you. Since I have been here, my dreams are not the same. You are not there in them with me. I miss you dreadfully, Tristan. I came to tell you this. I came to throw my heart open to you."

I firstly had started to laugh at the fact that Laura had already taken Gaston shopping, and then as Dale continued talking, I stopped. My heart started thudding in my chest and I felt overwhelmed by an emotion I couldn't completely identify, but I knew it included love. Warmth, kindness, and a longing to comfort her flooded through me.

I put down the plants and ran my hand across my forehead. I looked into her blue eyes and actually felt the emotion I saw in them. I could feel her need, her sadness, and her love.

I stepped forward and opened my arms to her. She came to me and held me very tight, and then she held my face and kissed me. It was a kiss full of love and longing. I started to respond to her and as I kissed her back, I knew that it had started. I was falling in love with her. I cared about her so much my heart almost hurt, but I stopped kissing her. I needed to tell her about Chloe.

"Dale, I feel so much for you. I think I am falling in love with you, but I need you to know, I already feel love for someone." She didn't let me finish.

"I know its Chloe. I see that love between you, and I see it between her and Oliver. I find it strange. I already love you. I have loved you for months."

I stopped her, as she seemed to be tearful.

"Don't cry Dale. I've told Chloe that I feel as if I am falling in love with you. She understands and I think she knows we will be together."

Dale took a ragged breath. "She will let you go? She will understand?"

I held her close and stroked her hair down her back, and took a stray strand behind her ear. I left my hand against her cheek and bent my head to kiss her. She was so happy when she said that, but I had to make her understand.

"She will not stop loving me, neither will I stop loving her, it will always be there. We have a special connection, but Dale, it does not mean you and I can't be together. What Chloe and I have now can be different." I told her. I knew in my heart that I wouldn't be able to make love to both of them. I instinctively knew Dale wouldn't be able to cope with that and I wondered if Chloe could. It would have to change between Chloe and me if I went ahead with a relationship with Dale.

Dale had pain in her eyes.

"What do you feel for me?" she asked me, and I took a deep breath. I wanted something with Dale. I wanted her love and she was offering it.

"I think I love you. I feel so much for you. I'm surprised by it, but I want it. I want your love." I heard myself say, and when her blue eyes filled with tears, I started to kiss her and couldn't stop.

We stayed clasped together kissing each other for a few minutes. I think at the end of them, I knew that I loved her, and I knew that she loved me. There was a rightness about it that was inexplicable. As sudden as this all was, it felt as if we had always known each other, and I felt as close to her as I did to Chloe. I would tell Chloe as soon as I could because I needed everything to be out in the open. I needed truth because I still loved Chloe and she deserved to know what was happening.

I cuddled Dale to me and she said, "I wish I could stay with you now, for the rest of the evening. Mama knows where I am. Can I Tristan, just be with you?"

I kissed her cheek, and her nose, and then her lips again. I felt as if I was drowning in love for her, and I told her that yes she could stay with me for the rest of the evening.

Chapter Thirty-One

Chloe and Oliver

Kim had arrived. It had been good to see him and as we all had an early supper amongst his conversations with mom, he told me I looked very different and seemed very grown up.

I smiled at him. "I have changed and it's more than two years Kim. I do feel as if I have grown up you're right."

It was not long before he and mom were talking shop and sitting down in her study with rows of code on one of the computer screens. I made my excuses, went up to my room to call Oliver, and find out how the visit with Bartholomew's people had gone.

"Hi Chloe, the visit was good. We didn't say too much really and I think it was just a sort of initial bonding session. They are nice people though, extremely polite, and I found out for Gaston that Marcus is single," he told me.

I laughed at that.

"Oliver, did you just come out and ask?"

"No I was more subtle than that. Chloe, what are you up to? It's not late, do you want to come over, or shall I come over to you?"

I felt a wave of complete need to have Oliver with me and smiled as I answered.

"Come over Oliver, I'd love to see you again. Mom and Kim are working already and he's only just arrived."

As I waited for Oliver to come over, I checked my emails, and my new designs for the two stained glass windows I had shown to Joshua Glazer. As I looked at the designs, it occurred to me that it might be a lovely idea to incorporate some kind of healing patterns into them. I would ask Bartholomew if that was possible, I decided.

I knew Oliver would arrive soon and I went downstairs to meet him.

It was still light and I wandered out onto the garden. The air was soft and warm, and the flowers out there were heavy with pollen. I looked across the garden to the woods where I used to see Tristan standing watching the house over two years ago when I'd first moved here. I looked across the other way to the top path where you could get down to the waterfall and smiled to myself. What a trip this last two years had been. What an unbelievable privilege to have met Oliver and Tristan, and his family. How amazing that we were now friends with Aristide who had once encased Tristan in glass, in my stained glass roundel. How incredibly lucky I'd been. I had more than anyone could ever wish for, and I felt as if I needed to spread it around, this happiness, this privilege.

Oliver was ringing the doorbell and I suddenly heard it through my thoughts.

I ran around the side of the house. Oliver stepped back from the front door out of the big porch and smiled at me.

He opened his arms and I ran into them. We hugged each other tight. It felt so good. I looked up into his eyes and he kissed me. I could feel the usual desire to get closer to him start and the melting feeling that meant I would make love to him if possible. It made me smile. Oliver smiled too.

"Is something funny Chloe?" he asked, and I smiled more.

"Only that every time I see you these days I feel like making love to you," I told him.

He gave me a mock hurt look. "Only these days, I thought it had always been that way?"

I kissed him. "Yes, but it's more intense now. I hope it's reciprocal," I told him, with a sudden shiver of something like fear hitting me.

He held me tighter, and then moved his hands to hold my face and kiss me.

"I love you. I want you. I'll never let you go," he whispered against my lips.

I hadn't told him about Tristan's confession that he might be falling for Dale, because I didn't want Oliver to think I was influenced by it to want him more. The truth was little by little over the last month, or perhaps two, that whilst I still loved Tristan, I felt more peace with Oliver. I was incredibly happy when I was with him. I took his hand.

"Let's go inside, get you coffee, and talk," I said, but he pulled me back into his arms.

"Wait I need to kiss you again." He kissed me until I couldn't breathe and then he stopped and took a few breaths himself smiling. I leaned against him and closed my eyes wondering if he could stay the night.

After a minute, we went inside and Oliver started to make coffee. He did it with one hand, holding onto me with the other and I grinned at him. It reminded me of when we had first made love to each other, and couldn't touch each other for the hour afterwards without kissing, or getting a wave of desire as our fingers brushed on a cup, or spoon.

As the kettle boiled, he held me close and I started to tell him about wanting to do something good with my abilities. I told him about my plan to ask Bartholomew about putting some kind of healing design into my stained glass pictures.

"Wow, that's a great idea if it can be done, Chloe. I have to admit to thinking about that older woman and her furniture that now resides in my mom's back dining area. I keep wondering why she was crying and if it was because she was losing that furniture. I mean to say, if so, I would give back to her. I would tell mom it had woodworm or something, and take it back to her."

I stood back from him a little in surprise and looked into his lovely eyes. He seemed so moved by the picture he had painted of the old woman losing her furniture, and I kissed his lips softly to comfort him.

"Oliver, we could find out if you wanted to. We could go to where it was auctioned and inquire about it." I wanted to comfort him. Oliver felt things deeply I knew that, but he often had a surface air of being easy going, or of lightheartedness, which could hide just how deeply he felt occasionally about little things. The older lady losing her furniture had touched him deeply somehow.

He hadn't answered just hugged me to him and so I said it again.

"Oliver we could find out. Let's find out. Let's go to the place tomorrow. Are you working?"

He smiled at me, rubbed his nose on mine, and then kissed me gently.

"Not until the evening shift when your family is having dinner up there. I'd like that Chloe to check about that furniture. It was weird to have that experience and it might be significant. I don't want to discount it just in case."

I kissed him after he finished talking and then said, "In case of what, Oliver?" I was asking myself if he thought it was ominous.

He smiled. "It's just a saying. I meant it to emphasize the idea that it could be significant."

We started to kiss each other again and then finally made the coffee. We left it on the work surface and stayed pressed up against each other standing there.

"I'll pick you up about ten tomorrow morning, Chloe, and we'll go there to where mom bought it." Oliver said, and I smiled.

"You could stay tonight and then you would not have to come back for me," I told him.

Oliver put his lips against mine just touching and it was so sexy. "Okay," he whispered and then he kissed me again.

Chapter Thirty-two

The Bracelet

The morning sun came in and slanted across my face so that I felt as if my eyelids were transparent it was so bright. I turned my face to bury it in Oliver's neck and hide for a little extra sleep. Oliver felt me and kissed the top of my head putting his arm around my waist and hugging me closer.

We snuggled up like that and I must have slept for another half hour before I woke up again as Oliver kissed me gently.

"Chloe, it's later than you might think. We should get up and get going if you still want to that is."

I opened my eyes. "I do Oliver," I told him, and sat up a little.

We took it in turns to use the shower and Oliver said he wanted to call in home and change his clothes. We decided to make a little breakfast at his place and drove off in his Land Rover, both of us with wet hair.

By the time we reached his place, Oliver's hair was almost dry, but mine wasn't at all and as he changed, I used his hairdryer. We had a cup of tea, and Oliver checked with his mom on the whereabouts of the auction house that had sold her the furniture. I heard him tell her he was looking for a bookshelf, and then he grimaced at me over his cell phone not liking that he had to say this to his mom.

We neither of us wanted to eat. I wasn't hungry, and Oliver was excited about going to the auction house. When he put his cell phone in his pocket, he sighed.

"I will have to get a bookshelf now, so I hope I see one I can stand the sight of. I can't lie to her."

The place was not that far away, and when we got there, it was packed. People were spilling out of it. Oliver took my hand walking with me to stand next to one of the auction house employees, who seemed to be waiting to start holding up items on this side of the room for view as they were bid for.

"It's very busy, is it always like this?" I heard Oliver ask him.

"Well we are often very busy, but at the moment we have a whole house full of stuff from up the road. Whalley Manor that is, since the old man died Martha Whalley is selling everything she can because the place is in debt up to the eyes. It's a bad business. The main house has to have new roofing before this winter. The wife and I think she'd be better off just selling the whole place, but then it might not go the state it's in. She's a lovely old thing Martha, and by all accounts she has nowhere else to go, no family, and the son is a useless idiot, head in the clouds type, big ideas, and no follow through."

I listened to this a little surprised he would chatter on so much.

Then he stopped and started holding things up. A painting, an old croquet set, a big vase with a Chinese dragon design, and then he nodded at Oliver as he held up a small coffee table with beautifully carved legs. "There's Martha over there, come to watch the last of her Georgian stuff go no doubt. There'd be memories in that stuff."

I looked over to where he had indicated and saw a few women in the crowd, but Oliver grasped my hand tighter and whispered close to my ear.

"She's the one in the blue dress."

I saw an older woman in a sky blue, linen, shift dress, with a darker blue, silk, scarf just loosely around her neck and I thought that must be her. She had graying hair pinned up in a chignon, and held a small navy blue purse to her side as she watched the bidding on a piece of furniture I thought must have been hers once.

Oliver led me carefully through the crowd around the back of the middle thickest throng of people, and we ended up two people away from the woman.

We stood there watching her saying goodbye to her furniture for about fifteen minutes or more, and then she turned and came towards us. I didn't know how Oliver might approach her and he didn't, he stood aside as she passed. We watched as she left by the back door, but then stood with a small group of people who had stopped to talk to her just outside it. Oliver gave my hand a little tug.

"Chloe, let's go," he said and I started to walk after him. I looked down as I maneuvered around a rolled up carpet and saw the woman's scarf on the floor.

"Wait Oliver, she's dropped her scarf," I called, as he had gone a step ahead letting go of my hand.

He looked back and I picked up her scarf.

"We can't help her after all, Chloe. The problem is too big to solve by giving her back the things my mom bought. Just give her the scarf and we'll leave."

We reached her just as the people she had been talking to left her and I held out her scarf.

"Mrs. Whalley, you dropped your scarf," I said, and she turned to me.

She might have still been a pretty woman apart from huge dark shadows under her eyes and stress lines around her mouth. She put her hand up to her neck, probably instinctively to check on her scarf and then she smiled a tiny smile that did not reach her sad eyes.

"Thank you my dear. Yes it's gone," and then she sighed, but she didn't reach out for her scarf.

Oliver said softly. "Has everything been sold now, Mrs. Whalley? It seems such a shame."

I glanced at him as she sighed again, and nodded her head.

"It's not so much the loss of the things, although as you must know some had been in the family for centuries. It's just that it feels as if my happy times with my dead husband have gone too. It has to be of course, but it somehow prolongs my sadness at his loss, even though we knew for the last two years he was terminally ill." She suddenly held out her hand for the scarf, and as I gave it to her I touched her fingers, and I thought with all my heart to let her sadness lift. I didn't expect it to work. It wasn't a headache or a cold, but as she wound the scarf around her neck, she blinked and smiled at me.

"Maybe seeing it all go has been cathartic I suddenly feel so much lighter and more hopeful. Thank you for finding my scarf my dear, do you live in the village? You have all been so kind." I didn't answer instead I smiled and nodded, so as not to be telling her a lie about living in the village.

Oliver who had given me a meaningful look turned to her and said,

"I hope things get better for you soon." It seemed to finish our conversation and as she took a step away, a woman and child came forward to her pressing a jar of honey into her hand.

We didn't stay close to hear what was said. Oliver held my hand and we went back into the auction. He stopped a row back from the main crowd.

"Chloe, did you just heal her grief?"

I shook my head. "Oliver I thought hard for her to have her sadness lifted as I touched her, but I don't know if I did exactly heal her grief."

Oliver raised his eyebrows. "I think it worked. You must have noticed the lightening of her expression and what she said." He bent his head to mine and kissed me. "Well done Chloe," he told me.

"Oliver, why are we staying? Are you really looking for a bookshelf?" I asked him as he started to look around.

"I will just look around a little. There's still a lot of stuff down this side of the room. Just so I didn't totally lie to mom."

He picked up a discarded auction brochure and after looking quickly at it said, "There are two auctions. There will be a break for people to look around again in ten minutes and then after a half hour the next part of the auction will be held."

I nodded and then leaned back against Oliver, and he put his arms around my waist to hold me to him as we watched the next ten minutes of bidding.

In the break, some people looked around the remaining items and some people dashed off to the café attached to the building at the right hand side.

Oliver held my hand and we walked along looking at items.

We reached a bookshelf about a meter high. Oliver stopped and looked at it.

"I don't want a bookshelf really, Chloe, perhaps I'll tell mom there was nothing I liked," and he picked up a basket with bits and pieces in it that was on one of the shelves. He picked up a marble egg shape that had the face of an owl carved on it and smiled. "I like this. I wonder if it's for sale on its own. He held up the basket to look on the bottom for a price label. There wasn't one, and so we went over to an employee who stood behind a glass case that held jewelry arranged on a velvet display cloth.

"Hi, I wanted to buy this little carved owl," Oliver said to the man and held it out to him.

"You have to buy the whole basket," he told Oliver, confirming what we had thought.

"Could you check what the cost is and the lot number?" Oliver asked, and the man went off with it to find out.

I looked in the glass case as I waited and saw a lovely bracelet there. It was made of gorgeous purple stones and lay next to a ring with the same type of stones set into it. I still wore my bracelet that Tristan had given me most of the time, but didn't have it on right then. I peered into the case trying to see the price of the bracelet as the label was sideways and half hidden.

"Do you like that, Chloe?" Oliver asked me, as he turned back to me and noticed what I was doing.

"It's such a pretty color, Oliver, I'd like to see it out of the case and know the price."

He smiled at me. "I'll ask when the guy comes back."

The man came back a minute or two later and handed Oliver the basket.

"Ten quid no need to bid," he said simply, and Oliver grinned at him.

"Can we look at the bracelet in there with the purple stones please?"

The man took a tiny little key out of his pocket and opened the case. He took the bracelet out and handed it to me. I held it up to the light and then put it across my wrist to check the fit. I was trying to fasten the clip and Oliver began to help me. Suddenly, he let go of the bracelet as if it had burned him and stepped back. I took it from my wrist and looked at the price tag. Too much I thought, and was handing it back to the man with the key when Oliver stepped close to me again.

"Do you know where that might have come from?" he asked, and the man nodded.

"We always know where our sale items come from and keep records, but I can tell you where this came from without looking. Not many people want to know unless provenance is important and sometimes the vendor wants to remain anonymous. In this case, she doesn't mind and it's Marti, she works here, the ring goes with it. If you want to talk to her about it she's over in the café serving teas." He seemed quite happy to tell us this as he put the bracelet back into the glass case.

Oliver seemed distracted and I took money out of the pocket of my jeans and paid for the owl. The man handed me the basket but I picked out the owl and gave him the basket back. I took Oliver's hand and walked towards the back exit where I knew we could walk over to the café if need be.

"Oliver here's the owl you liked and what's going on?" I asked him.

Oliver stopped walking and turned to hold both my hands so that I had the owl pressed into my palm.

Chapter Thirty-three

Oliver's next vision

"I had another vision when I touched that bracelet," he told me in a whisper and then looked around.

"What Oliver? Of what?" I asked him.

"A girl, a teenager, in a hospital I think. She seemed to be attached to a machine. A woman was sitting near her and holding her hand. It seemed sad. It was so vivid the vision, so real, and it was just for a few seconds like the last one, but so clear, Chloe."

He was understandably shaken by it, and I let go of his hands to put an arm around his waist.

"Oliver, let's go and ask the owner about it. You didn't get a vision from the owl?" I asked him and he smiled at that.

"No just the bracelet." He took the owl and kissed me. "Thanks Chloe, I very nearly didn't buy it after the vision."

We walked over to the café and joined the queue of people still taking the time to have a cup of tea before the next auction. I saw Marti as I reached the middle of the queue. She was a round-faced woman with a thatch of mid-brown hair that made her look happy although she, like Martha Whalley, had big dark circles under her eyes, and a downward slope to her lips at the corners. Her name badge stood out in red on her white coverall. I was in luck, and she was free when it was my turn to be served. I asked for tea and coffee for Oliver, and then threw in a question about the bracelet.

"Marti, I was just looking at the bracelet you have for sale. Is it yours? Can you tell me what the stones and metal are? I do like the color."

She glanced at me as she put hot water in a little tea pot and stood it on my tray.

"It's amethyst and white gold. Unusual combination I think. Yes, lovely color stones. I liked it, but I need to sell it you see my daughter is sick." She brought the coffee she had made whilst talking to me over her shoulder and put that on the tray.

"I'm sorry to hear that. Will she be okay?" I knew it was a bit intrusive but she seemed as if she wanted to talk about it.

"Kidneys, kidney disease. They started her on dialysis. I have to take her into the city three times a week. Is that all then?" She asked presumably about the order and I nodded.

"Yes thank you. I hope that your daughter gets better."

I took the coffee and tea over to Oliver who stood watching me from the table he had found for us. I put the tray on the table and slumped onto the chair.

"Oliver, the bracelet is hers and she's selling it to pay for her daughter's kidney treatment. I feel mean now about not buying it."

Oliver brought his chair around to mine and said softly.

"You don't need to buy the bracelet you can just go and cure her daughter, Chloe."

I turned my face to his. "Oliver, that's a cool idea except we don't know where she is and she could be anywhere."

He kissed me quickly and nodded. "We'll find her. If you want to do it that is."

I took a deep breath. "I do. She told me she has to take her daughter into the city three times a week for dialysis. I don't imagine there are too many hospitals to choose from, as she wouldn't be a private patient would she? Do you know what the nearest city is, Oliver? She must just mean that she goes to the closest city to this village area."

He smiled. "I bet it's the famous hospital, nearby. We need her name Chloe. It might prove difficult. Maybe we should just follow her."

"What. We can't do that. We have no idea when she leaves work, or what days she takes her daughter for treatment. It might be impossible Oliver. We can't just drop everything and set up camp outside her house or this place."

Oliver drank some coffee. "Ugh that's horribly weak," he said.

"You've probably just got used to the treacle Tristan makes," I told him, and took a sip of my tea. "The tea is fine, Oliver. We could share it, or go and get something else for you."

He shook his head slightly. "Chloe, I'm going to buy the bracelet. I have an idea. You stay here and keep an eye on Marti."

He was gone as I asked, "What's the idea?"

He was not gone long and came back with small two boxes, both were a purple-blue color, he put them on the table and sat down.

"We follow her home today and then go knock on the door. With any luck her daughter will answer the door, and you give her the things touching her hand in the process, and cure her." Oliver grinned at me.

I sighed. "Oliver that's simplistic. The girl may not open the door. She may not be there. It's too risky. What will we say about the jewelry anyway?"

He shrugged. "We say we are inclined to give her the stuff back as an act of kindness. I don't know, say your aunt has the same disease and we are used to fund raising or something. You could save her life. Isn't it worth the risk? I found out the girl's name too."

"How Oliver?"

"I just said to the guy selling me the jewelry that I knew about Marti's daughter Sally, and what a shame it was. The guy corrected me. Do you mean Rachel he said, and I said, oh yes the girl with the kidney problem my brother goes to her school."

I looked at him frowning. "Oliver, I'm amazed at that. It just goes to show you that with the tiniest bit of knowledge about someone you can find things out by pretending to know them. Although we don't know her surname nor where she lives so what's next?"

He looked over at Marti still serving tea and coffee.

"We follow her home from here and play it by ear to get to Rachel."

I made an mmm noise and looked over at Marti. "She could be here for hours, Oliver." I was thinking about having to go to dinner that night with mom who hardly asked me for anything and so was hard to let down when she did.

"She isn't. The café closes when the next round of auctioning starts in five minutes. She will probably help clear up and then go home. We can follow her." He smiled then as if the deed was done already. I still thought we might run into trouble.

We walked over to the staff car park. It was labeled 'staff car park', and was a little gravel area separated by a hedgerow from the main customer car park. We stood by the hedgerow.

"Oliver, why not move your car closer so that it will be easier to follow her. You know by the time we identify her car, and then get to yours and start it, she might have driven off into the distance." I said watching the café area just in case she came out as we stood around.

That very moment she did come out and didn't come to the car park, instead she set off walking down the lane.

"Oliver she's walking home," I said, and grabbed his hand.

He laughed at me. "We'll follow her."

We did follow. It was not far down the lane, she turned right, walked down another lane halfway, and then she went in through a white, wooden gate, up the path and inside a cottage.

We stood back and I looked at Oliver.

"Should we knock?"

"Give her a couple of minutes. She might do something that means her daughter will answer the door. You know go take off her uniform that kind of thing."

I nodded silently as Oliver gave me the two little boxes of jewelry.

He suddenly said, "Okay let's chance it," and tugged my hand a little so that we walked down to the cottage.

We were through the gate when the front door opened and a teenager came out. She had a little dog on a lead and took a step towards us.

Oliver whispered, "That's her."

I sighed and my heart started to beat a little quickly.

I went to her and held out the boxes.

"Rachel we heard from school about your health problem, we have friends there. My aunt has it too. We do fund-raising and we bought your mom's bracelet, but we want her to have it back. To sell again you know. You are Rachel?" I knew it was garbled.

She was looking at me warily, she nodded, and then she turned slightly and shouted through the open door. "Mom, someone here with your jewelry."

I held it out. "Please we want to be anonymous. Take it for her, she's so nice." I grabbed the girl's free hand with both mine and pushed a thought, 'get well now' squeezing her hand and pressing the boxes into it.

She looked at me strangely.

"You just gave me a static shock. Okay I'll give them to her."

I sighed with relief and sent the thought again quickly before I let her hand go.

"Great. We'll go then," I said, and turned. Oliver was right there and I pushed him down the path.

The girl was calling. "Mom," and she turned back, walking through the front door.

Oliver took my hand and we ran down the lane and turned so that we were hidden from view if they looked out of the pathway.

Oliver let up running and we walked quickly the rest of the way.

"Chloe, that was great. Do you think you cured her? That was the girl I saw in my vision."

We had reached the auction house and Oliver stopped. He hugged me to him.

"It was scary for some reason," he said, and I nodded into his chest.

"It was. Let's go home now."

We got into Oliver's car and he leaned over the transmission to kiss me.

"I wish there was a way we knew if you cured her," he said as he leaned away and started the engine.

Oliver dropped me home. He came to the porch with me and hugged me close.

"I love that you are a healer. I love you. I'll see you at the restaurant later," he told me and kissed me. I watched him drive away and thought about what he had said.

I used to think I was a warrior. Just by always having the urge to dive in, rescue Tristan, usually, and sort things out, but maybe I wasn't after all.

Chapter Thirty-four

A plan

The next morning I was in the kitchen. Dinner at the restaurant last night had been good and I was thinking about calling Tristan to check out how everything was going with him. I hadn't heard from him since he told me he thought he was falling in love with Dale. I thought about that as I poured some orange juice.

For so long I had thought that one or the other, Oliver or him, might find they needed to move on and have someone in their life who loved only them. I had been through some strange times with Tristan, loved him, and now I wondered what it would really mean if he loved Dale. I looked out of the window thinking about it. As long as he was still a close friend, as long as we spent some time together, as long as I could hug him hello or goodbye, it would be okay. I hoped then that Dale would be a friend too. I'd like that.

I called Tristan, and Dale answered his phone. I smiled at that and asked if Tristan was around. She said he was in the shower and I had this jolt of some emotion go right through me.

"Dale, when he comes out of the shower will you let him know I called. I thought it might be good if we all got together later," I said to her. I was trying to identify the feeling, the emotion that had ebbed now but had been strong.

"Wait, he's here now," she said, and she must have handed him the cell phone because he was speaking.

"Chloe, the phone was on speaker. I think that's a great idea, what time and where?"

I let the sound of his voice wash over me and pictured his lovely face.

"How about the Kool Kafé around seven?" I asked him, and it was arranged.

I walked out onto the garden and put my cell phone in the back pocket of my jeans. It was loss I had felt. They had to have spent the night together. I should shake myself out of it I thought because it was stupid to feel that way.

I went indoors and up to my room to get some work done. What was I thinking of? Tristan would always be close. I couldn't allow myself to be anything other than happy for him. It was actually better this way, who has two men in their lives the way I've had? Really I had been lucky and should grow the hell up I told myself. My eyes lighted on the stained glass roundel on my desk the one that Oliver had made for me. Tristan, Oliver and me together, and I grinned. I felt better.

Around mid-afternoon, Oliver rang me as we had arranged the night before.

"Chloe, is everything okay?" Was the first thing he said and I wondered if he knew something about Dale and Tristan.

"Great, Oliver. Why?" I said.

He hesitated for a few seconds. "Just checking after yesterday and the healing stuff, I hope I didn't push you into anything."

I looked away out of my window to the woodland out there and said, "No Oliver, you didn't, I just hope it worked."

"Tristan rang me he said you called and we are all getting together about seven at the Kool Kafé. I'd like to come over and we could go together."

I smiled at this. I wanted to be with Oliver, just because he is so lovely, so loving, and soothing. "I'd like that, come over any time, Oliver," I told him and we ended the call.

I finished my work before he arrived and emailed it over to the Glazers.

Steven had let Oliver into the house, and was knocking on my bedroom door. I called "Come in," and turned to him as I sat at my desk.

"Hi Chloe," he said, smiled at me, walked to me, and bent to kiss me.

I put my arms up around his neck and held his head to mine kissing him back.

He smiled as I let him go. "That was a lovely welcome. I came over early because I wanted to talk to you seriously."

I frowned in question and Oliver pulled the stool over to sit next to me.

He took my hands in his.

"I think we should be a team. I get the visions; you do the healing. It can be what we do. You know, to use our abilities. I talked to Bartholomew today and he wants to help in any way he can. He's really cool, Chloe, and I think he would be great to work with."

I smiled at Oliver's enthusiasm. "How will we find the people though, Oliver?"

He grinned. "Well Bartholomew thinks often they will find us. I'm not saying it will be some full scale business, but I think it's the way to go for you and me. I hope you will, Chloe."

I looked into his eyes and saw kindness. That was Oliver. He was so kind.

I leaned forward and kissed him. "I will, Oliver, and I already thought about asking Bartholomew to help me with designs that might help people. Designs that will perhaps lift depression or relax people, things like that."

He kissed me back and then nodded. "That's great. He will help I know it. He came for his spell book today, but he has left the other stuff with me. He said it was in safe hands and that since we are to be the best of friends he knew his people wouldn't mind where the things were. We talked about actually setting up some kind of alternative healing center, cover it maybe with a few arts workshops as well, and use the healing objects the way they are meant to be used. We would do the healing for free and secretly. I don't want anyone coming to find out why you can heal people. It's down the track a little, but I think it would be very cool. I could build us the website too." He laughed at this and I smiled.

"It sounds like a plan, Oliver."

"Yes I think so. I haven't said anything to Tristan about it since he's got his own thing, but I'm sure he'll pitch in when we need him." Oliver gave me a look then and I almost told him about Dale. I didn't though because nothing would be worse than Oliver thinking I was with him because I didn't have Tristan. I had a sudden and unexpected thought. I wished I had chosen, and chosen Oliver. I had been on the verge of it once or twice in the last couple of years. I couldn't do it now. It was too late.

Oliver was watching me. "What are you thinking about, Chloe, you look wistful?"

I shook my head. "Just thinking how much I love you, Oliver."

He smiled again. "I love you too. You're the only one for me, you know that don't you?" I nodded at this thinking that he must know about Dale and Tristan, but I still said nothing. It seemed to me that he was reassuring me ready for when Tristan told me, so he must think I didn't know.

We went off to the Kool Kafé. I wanted to drive us and Oliver parked his Land Rover next to mom's car on our driveway.

On the way there, he leaned over and kissed my cheek every time we stopped for traffic or at the lights. I was grinning by the time I parked in the library car park.

Oliver ran around the Jeep and put his arms around me to get me out and I smiled. "Oliver, what's going on?"

"I just wanted my arms around you" he whispered, and kissed me.

We walked through the churchyard to the Kool Kafé with our arms around each other.

"Oliver, do you remember ages ago, when we had been to the Kool Kafé and stopped to kiss each other back there on the steps, and I put my hands up inside your shirt and you had a meltdown?" I asked him.

"I remember. It wasn't a meltdown. I was in love with you. I wanted you, but it was too soon." He stopped and turned to me. "Why are you asking?"

I didn't really know except that I was thinking of all the times when I had realized just how much I loved Oliver.

"Just remembered it myself since we passed the place a few seconds ago," I said and hugged him.

He hugged me tight and then kissed down my neck and back up giving me goose bumps it felt so good. "We are spending the night together aren't we?" he asked softly, and with his lips against mine, not really kissing me, but driving me crazy with the need to kiss him.

"Always," I whispered and kissed him.

I hadn't thought about that answer, but it pleased Oliver. He picked me up in a hug.

"Always? I'll hold you to that" he said, and then put me down, put his arm around my shoulders and we carried on walking to the café.

We saw them at a table as soon as we rounded the corner. Gaston was sitting at one side of the table, with Tristan and Dale, close together, sitting at the other side. They looked happy and saw us. Dale waved at us and I waved back. I did like her.

Oliver didn't let go of me which was unusual. He kept his arm around me until we were sitting down and saying hi to them.

Tristan looked straight into my eyes and I could see love there.

Oliver opened the conversation with, "I know about Marcus and he isn't with Pia or Gina. Gaston, I thought you might like to know that." We all laughed a little but I saw her considering the comment at the same time.

Dale proceeded to tell us about moving over to Evangeline's house and Gaston was going too. She clapped her hands at this, applauding the fact she had her friend to live with her, and that made me smile. The place was very busy and no one had come along to take our order. I offered to go in and get something to drink because the night was still warm. Tristan stood up and looked pointedly at me.

"I'll help," he said.

We walked into the café and were two steps down the corridor lined with plants when he took my hand and turned me to him.

He kissed the back of my hand and then held it to his heart. "I'll always love you. I have to tell you that Dale and I have talked, well more than talked, and it's something I can't help. I care so much for her and so we are going to give a relationship a try. I want you to know that nothing will change between us, except Chloe, I can't spend the night with you. I still love you. I will hug you and we will be close. You mean the world to me. I might even have to kiss you sometimes, but I hope you understand, I haven't got it in me to make love to you both, it feels too weird. Will it be okay? We must stay close and together, nothing will split us up, Oliver, you, and me, but we can bring Dale and Gaston in too, to our friendship." He was talking softly and quickly as if he had to get it out before we did anything else. I put my other hand up to his face as he still held onto the one he had kissed.

"Tristan it's okay, you will never be anything other than beloved to me, friend or lover. We will always be together, just as you said. Explore your love for Dale. I want her to love you back. Does she?"

He nodded. "She says so. I'm so glad you feel okay about it. I'd hate to lose you. Promise you will treat me the same as always."

I smiled then and nodded. "Except for spending the night with you, yes." He smiled, kissed me so gently, and then hugged me tight. We smiled again at each other and continued on to the café counter to get drinks.

When we took the juice and water out to the others Oliver looked hard at me and as I sat down next to him, he took my hand and held it across to his lap. I glanced at him and he grinned.

We all had a good time talking and laughing about nothing in particular, finally ordering something to eat. We talked about Bartholomew and how we wanted to work with him somehow and this pleased Dale so much she couldn't stop smiling.

"I told you he is the greatest mage that ever lived and you will find out when you work with him that his magic is unrivaled. So much for Esteban, we dealt with him did we not?" She was so excited she took Tristan's hand in front of us all, pulled him closer, and kissed his cheek. He grinned at her and then looked over at Oliver and me. Oliver squeezed my hand and I smiled at Tristan. This was good. I liked it that there were more of us to handle the weirdness, that probably would never stop following magic Tristan around.

Later when we said goodnight and went off in opposite directions to where each of us had parked, Tristan came to me and hugged me close in front of everyone. He kissed my cheek and then went off with Dale, his arm around her shoulders, and she had her arm through Gaston's.

Oliver put his arm around my shoulders. We were halfway through the churchyard when he spoke.

"He told you about Dale when you went to get drinks."

I nodded and squeezed him as I had my arm around his waist.

"You knew already Oliver," I said, and he stopped to hold me closer.

"Yes. How do you feel? Is it okay? Are you okay?" he asked.

We were on the steps of the churchyard path and Oliver was down a step so that I had my face exactly against his. I kissed him and nodded.

"I'm fine with it," I said.

I slid my hands inside his shirt and traced my fingertips along the sides of his body and then up his backbone. It was easy. He never had his shirts tucked in. I heard him catch his breath, and then he moved his hands down to my hips to press me close to his. The night air was warm and felt like satin. I kissed him until all I could think of was making love to him.

He stopped kissing me and put his forehead to mine.

"You notice this time I didn't have a meltdown," he said, and I smiled a little.

"Yes I noticed," I answered.

He moved to put his arm around my shoulders.

"I love you and I want to make love to you. Let's go home," he whispered.

****

'An Ending and a Beginning', the final of the Seven Spell books is now available.

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