The Loved and the Lost (47 page)

When Hansum opened his eyes he was still kneeling by Guilietta's body, but it was now very dark. The Master was gone and, as Hansum's eyes adjusted, he could see a single linen sheet covering the form that was his beloved, a blue light glowing beneath.

This was the original time when Father Lurenzano got Agistino very drunk and stole the strong box with all the money. Right now the younger Hansum and Lincoln would be sneaking up to the house.

“Okay, this is the deal,” the older Lincoln began. “We've got to wait till . . .” He stopped when they heard the sound of the door opening downstairs. “We're here. Our younger selves are here. Soon, my friend, soon,” Lincoln said encouragingly. There was the creaking of footsteps coming up the stairs and shortly the light of an oil lamp glowed through the curtain door. A hand appeared and moved the fabric aside and then . . . in stepped eighteen-year-old Hansum. “This is the time . . .”

“I know,” Hansum said. How could he forget? This was when Hansum had come and found his wife dead.

The young man took a tentative step into the room, the dim light from the lamp throwing confusing shadows. At first the poor youth thought the bed was empty, but then realized the cover was pulled over a still form.

“Guil,” he said quietly, coming forward and falling to his knees. He touched the form's shoulder and his face morphed into a ghastly mask of pain. When he pulled the cover down, exposing Guilietta's hair and delicate face, the older Hansum remembered how he couldn't breathe, not until a rasping breath forced itself down into him and a wail of pain came back up. Now he was watching it, exactly as before.

“Guiiiiiil. Oh . . . my . . . Guil. I'm sorry, Guilietta. I'm sorry.” And he broke completely.

A hand went onto the younger Hansum's shoulder. “I'm sorry, man,” a young Lincoln said softly. “I'm really . . .” The sound of crashing furniture downstairs and the guttural sounds of a creature in mortal pain. “The Master,” Lincoln said. “Hey, man, we've gotta go. We can't help here any . . .”

“ROBBERS!” the Master's hoarse voice shouted. “THIEVES!”

The older Hansum and Lincoln watched the young Lincoln run from the room. But the younger Hansum was frozen on the spot, afraid to betray his wife by leaving.

“DEVILS!” Agistino's voice boomed. “You ruin our lives and then steal what's left!”

“Master, we didn't steal,” Lincoln's voice shouted back. “We just saw Ugilino and Father Lurenzano running down the street with the strong . . .”

“LIAR! I'll kill you. I'll kill . . .” and that's when the end began again. Agistino della Cappa collapsed from a heart attack, knocking the brass oil lamp and starting a fire.

“Hansum, help!” the younger Lincoln shouted and the young Hansum finally bolted from the room.

The older Hansum watched as the darkness in the hallway exploded into dancing flames. He heard the voices of the boys as they struggled to move the Master's body, and then saw the silhouette of the Signora stumbling from the other bedroom toward the steps.

“DEVILS,” she began to scream from the stairs. “DEVILS! You've killed my whole family!” And she ran back up the stairs and right into the bedroom with the older Hansum and Lincoln. She fell to her knees over Guilietta's body and started to pray.

“Not yet,” the old Lincoln said, and the tragic scene continued. The Signora cried for help from her angel. The butcher and his sons came and seized the boys. The flames started to eat their way through the floorboards.

“Help, Michael,” the Signora cried. “Take me to Heaven to be with my beloved daughter and husband.” Then she screamed. “They've killed my husband! Devils!”

As the noise of the fire began to dominate, what was happening on the floor below and outside became muffled. But this was the time when the younger Hansum and Lincoln begged the neighbors to save the Signora and Master. When they finally agreed, it was too late. The house was consumed with flames.

“Save me, Archangel Michael,” the Signora prayed as the flames licked up from the floor and lit her gown. She cradled Guilietta's head in her arms and prayed. “Take me, take me to your bosom, Michael, so I may be with my beloved daughter and husband. Oh, Agistino, I'm coming,” and she collapsed over her daughter.

“Now,” the older Lincoln shouted, reaching out and touching the Signora. Immediately her body glowed blue and ‘pop', she was out of phase.

Hansum touched Guilietta and she too moved between dimensions. They were all now safe, out of phase. Lincoln knelt down and grabbed the Signora's singed fabric, smothering the fire. He took out the tear vessel and poured a single drop onto the unconscious woman's burned calf.

“She'll be fine,”
Medeea said.
“Poor soul . . . Oh good Gia,”
she exclaimed with a look of surprise.
“My nano bits. They're not just boosting her immune system. They're actively healing her. I don't know why . . .”
and then she realized,
“Now that they're out of phase, the technology must see them as of our time.”

“Then Guilietta,” Hansum began.

“I'm already on it,”
Medeea said. Guilietta, pallid and still a moment earlier, convulsed alive. She shook for a second and then started breathing quickly. Hansum looked on, confusion and fear still apparent. Then Medeea's look of concern was replaced by a huge smile.
“She'll be fine now. It will take a few minutes, but, I promise, she'll be fine.”

Hansum wanted to cry again, this time from relief. But it wasn't over. They weren't back in the future yet. He steeled himself for anything that was yet to come.

The fire raged all around them, the voices of the arguing younger Hansum and butcher barely audible.

“I'll take the Signora with me,” Lincoln said, pulling the unconscious woman to him. “Zat, take us to get the Master. Hansum. Take Guilietta to the end of your younger self's stay in the Arena. It's important we don't take her back till after that point.” Hansum, now connected completely, understood why. “Collect your younger self and meet us on the wall.” Zat winked an eye and they were gone.

Hansum watched the bedroom window blow out from the growing pressure of the fire. As the airflow increased, the light became even brighter. Then, as the wooden walls and floor exploded into total combustion, everything took on a polarized glow. Hansum looked over at Guilietta, safe among the flames, her breathing more regular and her skin closer to its natural, healthy hue. She was still unconscious, but her eyes were moving under their lids, as if she were dreaming. The old Hansum reached down and put his arms under Guilietta, picking her up and cradling her like a baby. Sideways's cloak grew around her, like a comforting blanket.

“All right, my friend,” Hansum said to Sideways. “You know where to go,” and the Sands of Time took them.

From the blinding brightness of the fire to the dank dimness of the Arena prison, it took Hansum's eyes some moments to readjust. There was only a single lit torch, and it was held by the collector of the dead. Now Hansum knew it was Arimus and his rescue team in disguise, but back then it was four men heaving up dead bodies onto a cart.

The old Hansum stood there with Guilietta in his arms. She was breathing easy now, fast asleep as the nano bits worked to heal her. Hansum looked around as the scene before him played out.

The young Hansum was sitting on the floor of the dungeon, cradling the head of the almost dead Shamira, surrounded by a small mountain of bodies. The death cart was there to remove the corpses and take them to the fire pit.

“Make way then, move aside. The best man's here for the Devil's bride,” Arimus as the collector of the dead chimed, and ordered his assistants to begin piling bodies on the cart. Women, men, old and young, children and babies.

“What's taking so long?” a jail guard shouted as he walked up waving a staff. “The live ones are getting hard to handle again. Begone quickly.”

“A few moments more, Signor,” the collector smiled.

“What about this one?” the guard asked, referring to Shamira.

“The young signor is tending to his friend. Not to worry. I'll no doubt take her in the morning.”

“Take her now. I don't want her rotting corpse in here all night.”

“She's not dead,” the young Hansum wailed.

“I said out with it!” retorted the guard.

“NO!” Hansum screamed, pulling Shamira closer to him.

When the guard left, the collector looked down at Hansum with compassionate eyes.

“I'll take good care of your familiar, my friend. I won't bury her until she's at an end.”

But Hansum didn't want her buried in the pit and gave up the last of his money, the gold florin Mastino originally tempted him with. The old Hansum still had that coin back home.

Hansum watched the scene end with the near-dead Shamira being placed on the cart with the cadavers. As the cart was pulled from the cell, the young Hansum sat down with his back against a wall, pulling his knees to his chest. The old Hansum, still out of phase, sat down opposite him. With Guilietta body's warming and her breathing now normal, she cuddled in his arms, reminding the old man of a sensation he hadn't thrilled to in the better part of a century.

“Soon, my love, soon,” and he looked over at his younger self, cold and dirty against the wall. “Sideways. Please cover her face for a few moments,” and the blanket gently grew, concealing the sleeping girl's face. The old Hansum reached forward and touched his younger self. There was a blue glow and the younger one sat up with a start.

“Who?”

“We've come to rescue you,” the old Hansum said quietly. “I'm from the future.”

He could tell his younger self wanted to smile, but couldn't.

“Now you come? Don't you know what's happened?”

“Yes. We're sorry it took so long.”

“SORRY!” Hansum yelled, and then realized he might be heard by others in the cell.

“Don't worry. You are what's called out of phase. Nobody can hear you.”

There were daggers in young Hansum's look. “Couldn't you come yesterday? Or last month? Shamira and Lincoln . . .”

“They're fine. Already home. It's just you now.”

The young Hansum's eyes went wide as he tried to take it all in, tried to figure it out.

“But Guilietta and her family . . .” His face twisted in a knot.

“Shhhhh,” the older Hansum soothed. “Look here, my boy. Look what I've got,” and he smiled down at the blanket on his lap. “Sideways, if you please,” and the blanket drew back off Guilietta's sleeping face.

“Guilietta!” the younger Hansum cried. He fell forward, his arm extended, almost afraid to touch her. “Is she . . .”

“She's sleeping. Healing.” The young Hansum brushed his fingers along Guilietta's cheek and she smiled. “It's a long story,” the elder continued, “but it's not quite over. We must leave here. Are you ready?”

“Yes, but how?”

“Leave it to me. Stand up then. Can you carry your wife?” Young Hansum picked Guilietta up in his strong arms and kissed her forehead. “Oh, to be young again,” the old Hansum groaned as he struggled to his knees.

“What's your name, sir?” the young Hansum asked.

The older one laughed. “I guess I can tell. I . . . am an elder you.”

“Elder Yu. I'm not familiar with that family name.”

The elder chuckled. “I guess that can wait too,” he said taking the other's arm. “Sideways. To the wall.”

The full moon was barely visible through a heavy, churning fog. Wispy tendrils of the low-lying cloud wafted over the walkway of Verona's city wall. The Elder Lincoln was standing, a serious, worried look on his face, watching his time's Shamira, who was again hidden within a nun's habit and veil. She was kneeling over the Master and Signora. They were sitting next to each other, Medeea's nano bits helping them recover from smoke inhalation, burns and their other various maladies. Lincoln's serious look vanished as the older and younger Hansums appeared next to him with Guilietta.