Page 206 of A Sanctuary from Shadow
“The time tunnel you stitched was so strong, it’s held fast to you for 16 years,” Morus said. “I simply had to think of you, then I scurried right on through to your time.”
I frowned. “So, I’m the one who took us to Pennsylvania in the ‘90s?”
Myrrdin nodded.
“Why? Why there? Why that time?” It all seemed so random, yet perfectly designed.
“Pennsylvania was your father’s suggestion,” Myrrdin said. “He had a fondness for the birthplace of liberty—as he called it.”
The former resident of that birthplace guzzled another mugful.
“But we didn’t go to Philadelphia—where they signed The Declaration of Independence. We went to Pittsburgh.”
Myrrdin lifted a hand. “Your uncle thought Philadelphia too obvious a hideout—if Gentian were ever to track you—given your father’s known affinity for the place. But the timing, Amy—that was all you.”
I shook my head. “They let afour-year-old make that decision?” No wonder it made no sense.
“They hadn’t much of a say. You’d decided where you wanted to go, and no one, not even the king himself, could change your mind. You told your muse that you were ‘following your music.’”
I gasped in disbelief.
“You were waving around some odd plastic tome.” Myrrdin tapped his smile, eyes dancing. “With lyrics and a disc inside—”
“A CD jacket,” I murmured, somehow recalling the exact one—Bayview BoysMillennia Men. “How the hell did I get that?”
“Your step-grandfather, I believe. Your mother’s stepfather. He reveled in spoiling you. Every visit, he brought a new bauble for you. One time he brought you that little tome, and it became your very favorite belonging—your Bayside boys from Earth.”
“Bayview,” I corrected him. “Bayview Boys.”
He bowed his head. “As you say.”
“But wouldn’t I still have gone straight to 1999? When the CD premiered?”
“Surely, had your muse—a beyn who’d witnessed Beatlemania—not suggested you choose an earlier year, so you’d be a stripling for this music sensation on Earth. A more appropriate age to appreciate its allure.”
I wanted to thank that muse. “So, Ichoseto be almost 13 whenMillennia Mencame out.” A laugh stuttered out of me. Then another. “I chose to take myself, my entire family, and hundreds of other Dananns to Pittsburgh in 1992—because I liked the Bayview Boys.”
Myrrdin smiled. “I believe so.”
I buckled in on myself, clutching my stomach, as profound and fear-laden amusement plumed out of me in hysterics, disconcerting everyone but Myrrdin.
All this time, I’d thought Uncle Neel and Aunt Aylie had plotted out my entire life. In reality, I’d chosen the life I’d wanted when I was a faelet—a faelet enamored with poppy poetry who’d sensed a world she belonged to—and I’d taken my chance to join it, no hesitation. Aunt Aylie and Uncle Neel had been relegated to damage control over a lifeI’dchosen that didn’t fit my “acceptable” path. A life with progressive values and freedoms that they’d never wrapped their antiquated brains around. And now I understood their frustrations, their manipulations—the only way they could mold me into a fairy princess in a time and place where few believed in magic, fairies, or gender inequality. They’d failed miserably, and I was ecstatic.
Wiping my cheeks, I sat back up. “How—how did you know at that time that I was—a chronopath?” I managed between residual hiccups. “Had I done something to tip you off?”
Myrrdin expelled a heavy breath, moving onto much heavier discourse. “No, you hadn’t, Amy. Your mother told me you were a chronopath.” He crossed his long legs at his knees, clasping the one on top. “She’d seen so in a premonition before you were born.”
My throat strangled any further laughter. “Did she see anything else about me?”
“Certainly, but not all of what she saw made sense. As you know, nocturnal premonitions have a way of being ambiguous, misleading.”
Damnit, Myrrdin.
Sheepish, I risked a glance at Pete. “Yeah—I get nocturnal premonitions sometimes.”Mostly involving you.“Sorry I didn’t tell you. It seems like such a minor power compared to the others I have. Sometimes I forget it’s a thing.”
Pete took a hard swig from his mug.
“Are premonitions like that in general?” I faced Myrrdin again, blushing now. “Or are just nocturnal ones that annoying?”
