The Night Mark(32)

“Will...” she said, pleading. She would wake any minute, any second. They had no time to lose.

“Will I what?” he asked.

The question puzzled her.

“Faith? What’s the matter?” he asked. Faye narrowed her eyes at him, slid back on the bed a few inches to put some distance between her and him. He looked at her, confused, and she saw he had a scar on his rib cage, reddish pink and about six inches long. Will had no such scars. No scars and no beard and no crow’s-feet.

For all that he looked like Will... Faye had the sudden sinking sensation that he wasn’t Will at all.

She remembered something. Another name. A familiar face but another name.

“Carrick,” she said.

“Aye, lass?”

Faye clamped a hand over her mouth, silencing a scream.

“Love?” he said. “What is it? Say something. You look half-sick.”

“I...” Faye didn’t know what to say. Her body shook as if she were freezing, and yet a sheen of sweat covered her from head to toe. The urge to vomit was nearly overwhelming but her mouth was dry and her stomach empty.

Carrick.

Carrick Morgan.

This man wasn’t her Will. And this wasn’t 2015. And this wasn’t happening.

But it was happening.

Faye started at the earsplitting sound of an old-fashioned windup alarm clock ringing madly in another room.

She gasped. Her heart was caught halfway between her throat and her mouth.

“It’s just the alarm,” he said as if she should know. “You know, for the clockwork.”

“The what?”

He stood up and pulled the covers over her legs.

“I’ll be right back—promise,” he said. “Just rest. You had a rough night.”

When he reached the door she said his name again, practicing it.

“Carrick.”

“Yes?” He turned in the doorway to face her.

“When someone hits their head you’re supposed to ask them to name the year and the president and that sort of thing.”

“Are you?” he asked, skeptical.

“Yes. But I don’t know my name or the year or the president. Tell me.”

He came back to the bed and sat down in front of her.

“I can’t blame you for not knowing your name. I keep forgetting it myself. But you’re Faith Morgan now. It’s ’21. And you’re better off not knowing who the president is. I wish I didn’t know.”

Faye racked her aching brain. She’d majored in American studies in college. She should know. Better off not knowing? A bad president, then. And 1920s?

“Warren Harding,” she said.

Carrick smiled. “That’s it.”

“And I’m Faith Morgan. And it’s 1921.”

“See? You’re all right. Now stay here and rest. I’ll be back in a flash.”

She sensed he wanted to kiss her again but held back. From the doorway he gave her one last look before walking away into the darkness of the hallway beyond.

He’d left the hurricane lamp on the bedside table and Faye saw a pile of wet clothes on the floor. She left the bed and knelt on the floor. These weren’t her clothes. She’d been wearing a black tank top and jeans. In her hands she held a long skirt made of heavy cotton and a fussy white blouse with a collar that would cover her all the way to her throat.

The room might have been lovely had it been a room in a bed-and-breakfast in Charleston, but in her present circumstances it horrified her. No television. No radio. No electric lamps. No cords. No outlets. She opened the side table drawer and found it packed with delicate lace handkerchiefs, a small Bible, and some matches. She took one handkerchief from the drawer and studied it. The edges were embroidered with pink-and-yellow flowers, and in one corner she saw someone had starting sewing a monogram into the fabric.

An F and then part of an M.

Faith Morgan.

This was Faith Morgan’s handkerchief.

And this was Faith Morgan’s bedroom.

And that man, the man who’d kissed her, was Faith Morgan’s father, Carrick Morgan.

And Carrick Morgan had kissed her.

No...

Faye shook so hard she couldn’t stand. She sat on the bed again because if she didn’t, she would faint. Yet she also wanted to faint, to slip into oblivion again in the hopes when she woke up this nightmare would be over.

“I hit my head,” she whispered to herself. “I went to the lighthouse, and the wave hit me, and there must have been a rock. There must have been a rock under the water. The water dragged me under, and I hit my head. And now I’m in a coma or hallucinating or delusional. This isn’t real. None of it is real. It’s not 1921. That’s not possible. Head injuries are possible, and going back in time isn’t possible. This is a fantasy. This is a dream. This is a hallucination.”

On the bed Faye rocked back and forth, back and forth, trying to soothe herself. She put her hands into her hair and touched her scalp all over, looking for a wound, a bump, proof of an injury that would explain why she was seeing what she was seeing. She didn’t feel anything, but that meant nothing. A bump might not have come up yet. She could have intracranial bleeding. Her brain could be swelling right now, and any minute she’d slip into unconsciousness and die.

“Am I dying, Will?” she asked. “Can you hear me, baby? Are you there? Am I going to die?”