Part 12 (1/2)

”Medication. Muscle relaxants.”

”Froma the future?”

She ignored his barb. ”Yes.”

”And why should I trust you?”

”You think I plan to drug you or something? That maybe I have evil designs on your body?”

”It depends on what evil designs you mean.”

”You're a very sick man, O'Shea. You'd better take these pills.”

He hesitated, but only for a moment. And as he took the pillsa”dry, she noteda”he held her gaze without blinking. A challenge and a question. She didn't even know the answers herself.

She rose and pushed the chair back against the desk. ”Maybe I can give Fernando a hand. He and I do pretty well, together, all things considered.”

”I can only hope he stays in his right mind.” Liam folded his arms and made all the appropriate motions of someone preparing to sleep.

A victory, of sorts, in their little skirmish of wills; he'd be out soon enough. She made a strategic retreat. Fernando was still waiting outside. He gestured for her to come near.

”Seorita,” he said. ”We talk.”

It was probably more English than she'd heard him speak to date, but she was willing to give it a try. He walked to the champas, well out of earshot of the tent, and she followed.

”Two things I tell you,” he said, searching for each word with grave concentration. ”Unoa The seor is un hombre orgulloso. He walks alone. He does nota like taking help from people. Needing una mujer, not good for his pride. Makes him weak. He must be strong. Others need him.”

Mac listened carefully to his earnest statements, piecing them together. She repeated it back to Fernando. ”Liam is a proud man, a loner who doesn't like to take help from people, especially not women. It makes him feel weak, and he has to feel strong, to know others need him.”

”Bien. Understand.” Fernando smiled with that same grave mien. ”He likes you, seorita. You like him.”

That nonplussed Mac too much to summon an immediate response. If Fernando knew that much about Liam O'Shea, they must have been together a long time indeed.

”You are mujer muy valiente,” Fernando said into the gap. ”Like the seor.” He put his two hands together, interlacing his fingers. ”Good thing. But he needs more than he say.”

Does he? Mac rolled these observations around in her mind, her heart beating a little harder than it should. After all, why should it matter to her?

”There is more, seorita.”

Mac focused on Fernando again. ”Yes?”

”You came here from very far.”

She went still. ”Yes.”

”And you want to get back. But the way is not easy.”

s.h.i.+vers had begun racing up and down Mac's spine. ”What do you mean?”

”I know the sacred place. I know la Have. The key. It has been broken. Only when it is entero, whole, can the way open again.

”Only then can you return.”

Chapter Eight.

Thus we play the fools with the time, and the spirits of the wise sit in the clouds and mock us.

a”William Shakespeare ”RETURN?” MAC CROAKED.

”By the path through Xibalba. The way you came.”

Xibalba. The Maya Otherworld, which the ancient Maya had believed could be reached through the mouths of cavesa”or the entrances to the temples they had built to their G.o.ds.

And broken keys. Mac remembered to breathe again. Keysa”the two halves of the pendant. The ones she'd lost coming through, on the other side. The keys that had opened a tunnel through time.

And on this side of time, Liam wore one around his neck, while the othera The other was Peregrine Sinclair's. In San Francisco. The one Homer would bequeath to her with stories of a curse that must be appeased.

”You know,” she said dazedly. ”Who I am. All of it.”

He only gazed at her. ”The key must return. The danger is great. You must bring it back, for you and for the people.” Without warning he turned to go.

”Wait! Fernando, I need to knowa””

But he had vanished as he seemed so p.r.o.ne to do, leaving her thoughts muddled and her legs weak with shock. She just managed to make them carry her back to her palmetto shelter. She sat down on the ground as the implications raced through her mind.

Fernando had told her that the two halves of the pendant were a key. A key to the templea”to the tunnel that had carried her across time. That she must have both halves, both pendants to make the tunnel work again.

It didn't matter how he knew how she had come here. She knew he was right. She'd unknowingly held both halves of the key to the wall in the tunnel, and activated whatever mechanism opened the path through time.

Now she had only one pendanta”or access to only one. Liam's, which he wore around his neck. Only half of the key. And that meanta That meant she was trapped in the past until she found the other one. ”You must bring it back, for you and for the people,” Fernando had said. His people? The Maya? And why? Did they understand the full wonder of the miracle inside that temple?

They would, if anyone could. The ancient Maya'd had an obsession with time. They'd calculated back thousands of years before their civilization began, and centuries beyond its death. Who better to build a time machine?

But how did such a machine work, if machine it was? Did it pa.s.s through some other dimension between past and future?

And what about the consequences of her traveling through timea”of saving Liam's life? He could marry, have children, impact other lives. Yet surely Liam O'Shea couldn't be so crucial in the grand scheme of things that his living would alter the course of history.

So maybea she sat up. Maybe she was making entirely too much out of this. She knew what she had to do. She had to get back to her own time. She had to find the key that would open the time-gate. And that meanta The palmetto wall sagged as she leaned against it. That meant getting the other pendant, a.s.suming she could beg, borrow, or steal Liam's. And that meant traveling over a thousand miles away to a certain famous City by the Bay. In the year 1884.

How could she hope to accomplish that? There had to be another way. Maybe one half of the pendant alone would work.

It was worth a try.

One step at a time. The first was getting Liam's pendant. She'd wondered why he was wearing the symbol of a severed friends.h.i.+p, but now she was grateful. At least she knew where it was. If he hadn't taken it off when he'd dressed, maybe she could steal it while he was out. If the pills had worked the way they always had with her.

First things first. She'd have to make sure Liam was asleep before searching for the pendant. Another hour should do it. The less she saw of him between now and her next attempt to time-travel, the better.