Bitter Oath (New Atlantis)(12)

‘She followed you? How?’ This was Julio, who had joined them on the dais. He seemed as befuddled as Rene felt, standing there, unsure what he was there to do.

‘I… I do not know. I was locked in my bedroom. I was alone… and then I felt her behind me as I came through.’

The Portal had closed, and the echoing hum was gone. It relieved some of the auditory discomfort.

‘Let’s get her somewhere quiet and gadget free,’ Jane suggested, as she helped Liv down the stone stairs. His Regency Miss walked like a mechanical doll, her head down, watching each step she took, as she made her way across the marble floor. A floor lit by the same undulating lines of light that covered the walls of the cavern.

‘I’ll contact Jac. Maybe we should take her to the surface. To the garden we set up for the kids from the train?’ Julio offered, a little more in control now.

‘Fresh air, sunshine and flowers. Perfect. Come on Livianna, let’s get you out of here. I am assuming this is your Livianna?’ Jane looked over at Rene for confirmation.

‘She prefers to be called Liv. Come on Livy, let’s get you somewhere that makes sense…’ He had locked on to Jane’s wisdom, just as Julio had, and now had a course of action to follow. The panic began to recede.

Rene tried to tune out the shocked expressions all around him. The technicians who worked at Start Point were used to people transiting this place in strange costumes, but the arrival of this unexpected young lady, from five hundred years in the past, had them all dumbfounded.

Jane and Rene led the unresisting woman into the lift, and she seemed unaware of the upward sensation that brought the three of them to the surface. Step by slow step, they led the stranger around the side of the building to a large, perfectly laid out garden at the rear. Here, the only part of New Atlantis to be seen was the columned portico, which would have fitted well into Regency England. The rest was natural – the mountain in the background, the orderly pattern of colourful flowerbeds, green grass, and peerless, blue sky stretching overhead.

Liv seemed to relax a little, and took a deep stuttering breath when she sat down on the park bench. Jane sat down on her right, and Rene sat down on her left. Following Jane’s lead, Rene picked up her limp left hand, and held it tightly between his own.

‘It’s pretty here, isn’t it, Liv? Look at that sky. You don’t get to see much sky like that back home, do you?’ Jane started rambling, and Rene wanted to correct her English so it wouldn’t seem so strange to Liv. Her abbreviations were jarring for him on occasion. And he was used to them. For Liv, it would just add to the strangeness of what she was experiencing.

‘Formal English, Jane,’ he said, as gently as he could. ‘She is not familiar with …’

‘I understand well enough, Rene, thank you,’ Liv interrupted in a stiff, little voice. ‘Your lady is kindness itself. Do not correct her.’

‘Not my lady…’

‘Not his lady…’

Jane and Rene both corrected her perception at the same moment, and then laughed.

‘And if Julio was here he’d have drowned us both out with that same clarification,’ Jane said, between waves of nervous laughter, as she watched a frown wrinkle Liv’s brow.

‘You are both so beautiful… and well suited… I assumed… I do apologise.’

‘No apology necessary. Rene is my friend. The Latino down in the cavern is my … husband.’

‘Latino?’ Liv’s frown deepened.

‘Portuguese. Julio is Portuguese.’

‘Oh yes, the one who asked how I came to be here… wherever I am…’ Her voice faded out, as if she was lost in confusing thoughts.

‘Do not think about it,’ Rene advised. ‘Just enjoy the sunshine and the flowers. Can you smell the roses? They bloom all year long, here…’

‘Where is here?’ Liv asked in a singsongy voice.

‘It does not matter now. Just smell the roses, Liv. The rest will come with time.’

‘Very well, I will try. But are my family safe? That light and noise did not hurt them did it?’

‘No. Your family and Foxmoor Manor are just as you left them.’

‘Have I lost my mind? Will my father have to place me in a lunatic asylum?’

‘Your mind is just fine. You’ve just had a bit of a shock, that’s all. In a little while you will start to feel better. Until then, just let everything here wash over you like water off a duck’s back,’ Jane advised, pressing Liv’s hand reassuringly.

‘Am I in the New World? This is your home, is it not, Rene?’ Her voice was still spacey, but her mind was obviously drawing conclusions from the information that had been presented to it.

‘Yes, the New World, Liv. This is my home. You are visiting for a little while, and then you will go back to your home.’

Liv nodded like a child who is trying to understand a complex matter. ‘It is lovely here. I can understand why you love it so much. But my grandfather never described this place. It feels as if I am on a Greek Island where the ancient ruins have been rebuilt.’

‘Not far wrong. Have you ever heard of Atlantis?’ Jane asked, and Rene shot her a quelling look. She ignored him.

‘Oh yes. Homer wrote of Atlantis. But it sunk, I believe.’

‘Yes it did. And then it rose again, and we have rebuilt the city. We call it New Atlantis.’

‘New Atlantis… hmm. How interesting. Is there a Fountain of Youth here?’

Jane and Rene exchanged confused looks. It was Jane who replied. ‘No, why do you ask?’

‘I reread my grandfather’s journals before your arrival, Rene. And you were there on that expedition, looking just as you look now. So I thought, mayhap, you had found the Fountain of Youth.’

Rene groaned, and rubbed his hands through his hair. The length was annoying him. Longer than what he was used to here and yet much shorter than what he wore when he was in-situ with the aboriginal tribes.

He looked around for the journal he had brought through the Portal with him. It was gone. He must have dropped it on the dais when he reached for Liv.

Later, he would have to go find it. Liv would want it, and the Committee might want to see it. Although, being discovered was a moot point now that his neglect had allowed Liv to experience New Atlantis for herself. When she went home, and if she stayed sane after this experience, the temptation to tell her sisters what she had been through would be great. How did you contain such a leak, once it was out?

They could try clearing her memory, but that process was haphazard at best, and she might go home having forgotten he existed at all. Then what would Portia and her father make of it?

What a mess!





CHAPTER SEVEN





For Liv, the next hour passed like a beautiful dream. All of the strangeness she had experienced seemed to fade away. There was just the handsome Rene holding her hand like he never wanted to let it go, and the beautiful Jane, whose comforting presence made the strangeness less threatening.

What had possessed her to hide in that wardrobe when she heard footsteps approaching Rene’s bedroom door, she had no idea. Neither did she know what drove her to dive out of the wardrobe, and follow him into the bright light that had appeared in the room. It had all seemed preordained somehow, as if she was simply following her destiny, without the need of rational decision-making. ‘Following your heart’, Portia would have called it. And that was what she had done, as she saw the first man she had ever felt affection for disappearing into who-knew-where. She couldn’t let him go alone. Her destiny and his were somehow bound.

Those had been the insane thoughts that had passed through her mind as she entered that blinding white-light that had hummed so loudly she thought her head would explode. For several terrible seconds, she had thought she had lost him. There was nothing there but her, and yet she couldn’t even see her feet beneath her. Then, she’d finished the step, and instead of the Persian carpet underfoot, there had been sandstone. And, instead of a bedroom at Foxmoor Manor, there was a vast, underground cavern filled with twinkling lights, and a massive stone doorway with ancient symbols engraved into it.

But, for all the strangeness, there had been a sense of peace, too, because she could now see Rene, and he was holding onto her as if she truly mattered to him. His blue eyes had been wild when he looked at her. And he’d clung to her arm as her legs gave way under her. Shocked, horrified and distressed as he was, he didn’t reject her. Instead, he seemed protective of her, as if she was his responsibility now.

When the beautiful goddess had come to her side, she had thought the familiarity between them meant they were lovers. But that had been cleared up later. The beautiful goddess was called Jane, and her husband was the handsome Portuguese man who had demanded answers from the shocked Rene.

She didn’t remember much after that. Somehow, they had brought her up here to this garden, and for the first time she’d felt as if everything was going to be all right. The world would stop spinning off its axis, and right itself in time, just as Jane said it would. Then she would be able to make sense of it all.