“Grayson?” Harper’s voice broke through and pulled him back from wherever he was. “I’m so sorry I didn’t do better.”
His lips slanted upward. “You did better than my own mother. Better than Grandmother. You stayed by my side when everyone else left. You sheltered me in the forest and played your violin for me while I disobeyed my father and danced. There’s no way to repay you for that.”
She smiled and nodded, wiping her cheeks. Watching, Aria wiped hers, as well. Harper deserved all the love and respect that any good mother deserved. “Repay me by never going back.”
He paused and then nodded.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Gray lay inthe dark on Mrs. Darling’s sofa thinking about the last few days with Aria in the twenty-first century. He tried to decide which had been more thrilling, the cyclone roller coaster with its slow, rumbling climb toward the heavens perhaps to meet an extraordinary “plane” soaring through the clouds, only to tip over the top and descend with heart-stopping speed.
Or perhaps watching a movie in a theater was the most thrilling. His ears weren’t used to the extremely loud volume of the various happenings on the “screen”, and even the music bursting forth, but he’d already felt half-deaf from being in the front seat on the roller coaster with someone screaming behind him. He also never thought it possible for people to appear so large that their heads were as tall as his body. And how did the soldiers fly through the skies in their giant contraptions that resembled birds? His multitude of questions had to remain a mystery until after the movie, when Aria could explain it all to him. Ten breaths into the movie he’d found out not to speak when everyone, including Aria, shushed him. He still wasn’t sure how he had felt as if he were there with the “pilot” beyond the clouds in his “jet fighter”, breathing into a mask, and wondering if there would be anything left of him if he fell from the stars.
But lying there in her parents’ living room, Gray knew what thrilled him most. Dancing with Aria in her proper attire of tiny “shorts” that were short alright. They very pleasingly fit her like her own skin, and with her matching lavender colored “crop top”, she danced with more freedom of movement. Gray had believed each time he saw her that he surely had died and gone to heaven. He remembered thinking there was no way his darling could be so beautiful, but there she had been, tempting him beyond reason to reach out and touch her as she told stories with her movement to the hauntingly beautiful music coming from the small box she called a speaker…touch her before she faded away like some fevered dream. Breaking his heart when he let himself think clearly without her on his mind. But she was always there, making him selfishly want more.
When they were escaping Harry Gable, Aria had leaped into his arms. Then, her spine and shoulders were stiff with fear of falling. She hadn’t made the leap again since, even though, now, her bones were unbroken. She had two years of fear to erase. Gray wanted to help her forget. He wanted to dance with her for the rest of his life. But there wasn’t any more time.
He wanted to say that he knew things might end with Aria since last night’s dream, but he’d known before that. It was not by a seer’s power; though that particular “gift” was prevalent on the Blagden side of his family, he, thankfully, did not possess it. He knew he had to leave Aria because he had to go back for the animals—perhaps even for Beatrice, if she wanted to travel to the future with him. He couldn’t leave them all to Cavendish. No matter how much he loved, and lived and breathed for Aria, he couldn’t abandon them again.
There was the risk of being caught and tried and found guilty. Gray didn’t want Aria there if that happened. If he had to leap out of 1795 fast, he might not be close enough to grab hold of her. He’d rather burn than leave her to his enemies.
He didn’t sleep. He doubted if he ever would again, especially after the dream he’d had last night of his friends burning in the forest flames all around them. Kit and his fox mate, Maple, yelped and cried out as they tried to escape the fire with their pups. Matilda the raven and Onyx the alpha wolf from the north tried to escape but Matilda’s wings smoldered, and she scrambled as she fell to the earth. Ash snapped at the embers falling into his fur.
Where is Grayson?He heard a red squirrel squeak.
How did this happen?
Where is Grayson? Has he left us again?
Even now, wide awake as the sun began its ascent, Gray cringed and writhed as one in pain at the memory of the dream and finally sat up. He looked toward Aria’s bedroom door. He wanted to wake her, promise to return to her.
Harper had begged him not to return to the past. She’d never come to him with news of worsening conditions under Cavendish’s rule. He couldn’t wait. What if Cavendish was going to set fire to the forest in the morning?
He squeezed his eyes shut. He should have told Aria yesterday. He could have tried to explain to her that he had to save the animals. They were the only family he’d had for a long time. But she would insist on coming with him—and he had to keep her away.
So, as dawn seeped through the curtained windows and bathed the room in a soft rosy glow, he left the sofa, got dressed in his eighteenth-century clothes, and without looking back at her bedroom door, focused all his thoughts on the forest around Dartmouth castle. Just this one last time, he swore in his heart.
This was no cause for a broken heart or tears. He would be back. Or he would die trying.
*
The phone rangin her ear, along with her pumping heart. The person on the other end picked up.
“Hello, Harper? It’s Aria. He’s gone.” As the words left her mouth and settled on her ears, Aria brought her shaking hand to her nose to wipe it. She wanted to cry, to scream, to swear. “I saw him. I woke up and went to him. I saw the forest where my living room wall was supposed to be. He had stepped over and…and he didn’t even look back. Then the wall returned, and he was gone. Did he leave me? I think I’m going to be hysterical. Please find him and send him back, Harper.”
Aria hung up and looked around. She couldn’t stay here and fall apart in front of her parents.
She could barely think straight. He left. He left. He went back without her.
She pulled on a pair of jeans and a lightweight sweatshirt. Slipped on a pair of sandals and grabbed her sorely missed favorite bag. But not even the ease of dressing without the help of a servant made her happy to be in the twenty-first century without him.
She walked the streets painted amber in the morning sun, wiping tears from her cheeks. He was long dead in her time. So was her brother. The idea of it made her burst into a fit of tears. She thought these last few days of visiting the amusement park, the Empire State Building, the movies, would make Gray want to stay. She had so much more to show him, but he hadn’t even given her the chance. Why? Why had he run home? Why hadn’t he said goodbye? It wasn’t like him. He wasn’t a coward. Had he gone back for Conn?
“Gray,” she said softly, hoping, praying that he could somehow hear her. “Just send me word that you’re coming back to me. Come back to me.”
But no word came.
She remained in bed the next day and refused to eat or speak to anyone when they tried to ask her where Gray had gone. What could she tell them, that Gray had abandoned—?