Excerpt: The Crossroads of Time

All around her were burning houses, but not like any houses she had ever seen. It was a rural village in a country she had no present knowledge of, but so much familiarity with that it made her feel ill to see it set to flames. And oh, but there was fire – so much fire. She could see it and smell it all around her. The daylight was gone, but the whole area was lit up by bright orange flames, thick and tall and dancing from roof top to roof top as those inside the crumbling structures did their best to get out what they could, while they could. Children were screaming, mothers were crying, and in the distance she could hear the clash of swords and the voices of men fighting. The horses were uncontrollable; the sight of fire was more than enough to set them off, but the soldiers were making the terror even worse for the poor creatures. The whinnying of the horses was even worse than the fire alarm as they burst free from whatever ropes were holding them and crashed through the stable doors, one after another. The horses ran free, only stopping when they were hindered by large groups of village folk, causing them to rear back on their hind legs and continue their attempts to escape. There was chaos all around her in a place she knew, but did not know, and the burning building of her own had long since faded from her vision and conscience.

Everything came rushing back to her. Mairead knew why she had fallen that morning and why she was gone even now. The dream – it was all the dream. She remembered it so vividly now, being in this place, and seeing these things through her own eyes once before. Only… last time, during the dream, she was on a horse. She remembered looking down over the village from the hill at the edge of the forest. Mairead’s gaze jerked to her left; her eyes widened as she saw the very hill she remembered and the thick line of trees of a very old forest just beyond it. She remembered being on that hill and feeling her heart sink in her chest with worry and terror for people she knew, people she loved. But who did she know or love here? This place was not hers.

“Hurry! Everyone, quickly, to the river! We must put out the fire before it spreads!” The commanding voice was that of a young man; there was no panic and no tremble to his words. No matter where she turned or how hard she looked, she could not place him. The voice sounded disembodied in a way she did not understand, especially since no one else around here seemed to notice it.

“Faster now, faster! We must do this together!” The voice rang out once more, echoing around her until it fully surrounded her.

She spun around, but only felt sickly dizzy as she searched again for the voice’s owner. The voice faded away and her vision blurred and beneath her, she could feel her feet moving steadily, but the ground no longer sunk in like a mound of dirt paths, grass and weeds. The edge of the village blurred and blackened, as if the night had suddenly grown darker, or the sunrise was coming too soon. Bright light spread across her vision, briefly blinding her as a gust of fresh air whapped against her face. Mairead blinked, another stab of panic making her whole body go tense as she tried to figure out what had just happened to her.

Where was she? What was that? Nothing made sense as she found her thoughts disconnected and distant and her vision still blurry from… whatever had just happened. There were bodies packed in all around her, to the point that she could barely tell where she ended and another girl beside her began. She shivered, immediately uncomfortable with the position she was no doubt stuck in. Her head whipped from left to right as she sought out answers, but found the world around her lacking. Finally, she managed to turn around and came face to face with the outside of Grey Hall, where she vaguely remembered just having class only a few minutes before. As the feeling and sight of a village burning slowly began to recede in her mind, memories of class, a fire alarm and billows of smoke quickly came to the forefront.

Yes, yes, it all came rushing back to her, but now she had two memories of smoke – one that made perfect sense and one that she was not quite sure really belonged to her. Another cold shiver ran down Mairead’s spine as she turned away from the building and followed the flow of the crowd down the left hand side of stone steps and out to the sidewalk. As she hit the safety of the cement, she paused to look up at the building, mirroring the position that many others took. From a window a few flights up, she saw smoke spilling out into the air in great puffs. There were fire trucks in front of the building now, but she did not remember them arriving. Hundreds of students trickled out to the sidewalk and into the street.