Torn Between Two Worlds
Day Two, June, 1867
En route to Salisbury
Early Morning
The sound of the train was louder in the tiny vestibule between the cars but Josephine barely noticed it. She opened the outer door and stared sightlessly at the countryside flashing by. A stiff breeze whipped at her skirts and hair.
She welcomed it. More than anything, she needed the air. She braced against the rocking of the train with a hand on the walls at left and right and forced her upset down. She would only be a moment, she promised herself. Just another moment to pull herself together and she would rejoin the others.
They would be thinking of a way to set the world right, of unmaking the world they now were in. She fervently, desperately, hoped that she and the others walked through an illusion as insubstantial as a dream, one that harmed no one in its destruction. The weight of the innocent lives on her soul should that not be the case ...
Dear God, Father. Am I to be the death of you ...?
Her heart stabbed anew, a thin cry escaped her throat, and Josephine gave up the battle for composure. Wracked by sobs, she mourned her father as he might have been. However much her heart cried for him, she knew, deep down where words no longer mattered and logic lost its sway, that he would never be hers.
It was not in her nature to love a lie and it was not what her father would have wanted. If she embraced Vars's illusion, that way led to madness and a betrayal of everything she believed in as well as a betrayal of the very man she so badly yearned to see once more. Josephine would rather die than give in to the honeyed trap Vars had set for her but nevertheless she could acknowledge the cruel bittersweet irony of it.
So she did ... and wept.
Katherine made her way with ease despite the swaying of the cars. She realized, with no little irony, that if they failed to correct this world, she'd be hunted down by Henry and her father. The best she could hope for was exile to Australia or the Americas. But she knew that would never happen.
Spelled by her father's wizards and drugged with enough laudanum to keep her compliant, she'd only watch as Ezekiel was shamed and his business interests destroyed. Josephine would be committed if she tried to protest, especially if she swore that her husband was an American in Virginia. Henry would accept no less; her father would demand no less.
She found Josephine on the platform, her body hunched as she so clearly wept. Katherine's step only faltered a moment. She was her father's daughter. Regrets were the luxury only of long nights in the aftermath.
Josephine heard the passage door open and there was no hiding her presence or distress. The vestibule barely held one person with ease. It was cramped with two. She could only turn her back and hope whoever it was would pass through. Josephine pulled a handkerchief from her sleeve to dry her face and it felt strange not to pull one of her beloved knives instead. Her heart lurched as she realized just how real her false life had been whilst under Vars' enchantment. Aware the newcomer had not moved on, Josephine gave her eyes a final wipe and turned around.
"Katherine?" Shame and embarrassment gutted her on the spot. Ezekiel … Sagging against the wall, Josephine could only offer a wan smile. "You've caught me. Say what you must."
A myriad of emotions went over the Eldren's face before she settled on concern. "Why do you weep?" she asked.
Even when upset, Josephine couldn't help but keenly observe everything she saw in Katherine's expression. Knowing her friend would not have overlooked the implications of Josephine's marriage to Ezekiel, Josephine dreaded the inevitable moment when she would have to answer for her transgression. But perhaps that is not why Katherine is here. Josephine took a deep breath and answered.
"I saw my father, Katherine. In this world, he's alive. My mother is alive. They're happy. They're together. I …." Josephine couldn't bear Katherine's glittering green gaze and she spoke to the floor at her feet. "I lost them both once before. He lost her. If we tear down this world, we tear him and her down, too. I can't do this again. Not to him. Not to her." Not to myself, she didn't say. It was a child's selfish plea and Josephine could not share it with Katherine, not when she stood so thoroughly ruined before her friend already.
A wisp of hair had fallen out of Josephine's coiffure; distracted, Katherine gently brushed it from her forehead and caught the last crystal tear on her finger. "Do you know what happens tomorrow?" she asked softly, seeking the other woman's eyes. She suspected that she knew why Josephine couldn't look at her fully, saw it in the blush that had immediately colored her friend's cheeks as Rebecca had broken them free. I am just as guilty, my dear, she thought bitterly, feeling the touch of Henry's lips on her own. The tear tickled wetly down her forefinger and she twitched her fingers to wipe it away.
Josephine froze at Katherine's touch, but the question allowed her to breathe again."Not entirely, no," Josephine admitted, though her speculation was the cause of her distress. It made her voice thin when she asked, "Do you?"
Katherine bit her lip with a silent, mirthless laugh. "No, darling, I don't. Which means many things, one of which is that I don't know if any of will be alive tomorrow to worry about such things." Sighing, she looked at the passing scenery. "I won't pretend to understand your pain. I have the fortune to still have my father. And I've always had my mother in a way. I can touch her in my dreams. We can talk sometimes for a little bit. Small messages, ghostwriting. I wake up to cards I've written myself to myself. In this life, it made my father furious. He didn't have what I had. His loss was complete here and so was his hatred of me. I didn't have him in this life, either."
Her hands bunched her dress and then released the chestnut folds. "I miss my children, Josephine. I cannot stand a future without them, without Ezekiel. I don't know what happens to your parents if we defeat Vars. I want to believe that God in his mercy, allowed this to happen so that they and maybe others could have those moments of joy that they were denied before. They saw you grow up and they saw you married to a wonderful man." Her brow furrowed as her lips slipped into a tiny smile.
"I remember you being happy and me being happy for you. Maybe that's all that they wanted or needed. This life before they get old and sick. This life to see you happy." Her head bowed, her shoulders slumped. "I want my family back, Josephine. I'd face the Devil himself for them. I have Ezekiel, but only by your grace. I want to know that Samuel and Rachel were born, will have lives of comfort and joy. No matter what it takes."
"Only by my …?" Josephine gasped, gutted anew by the pain in Katherine's words. Oh God, I think I shall be sick. Josephine clapped her hand to her mouth and swallowed the sudden tide that rose in her throat. Oh, Katherine …
"He was never mine," she said past her fingers. "You've always had him, in this life and every other, because your souls are meant to be together. Were they not, I would never have woken to the lie. I …," she faltered and visibly pulled herself together. Her voice was thick with shame when she continued. "Yesterday morning, I woke to Ezekiel beside me and I felt someone walk over my grave. It was as if God had thrust His finger through my heart to tell me how wicked I'd been. Even if He had not, I would not keep Ezekiel from you now. How could I?" she implored, despairing of making Katherine understand how she felt. "I swore an oath, I gave you my word, under your roof that I would not trespass on his affection for you. My vow held unbroken until Vars worked his magic and now I am damned for it. If anyone has been granted grace by another, it is you who has lent me grace, Katherine. I don't know how you can even bear to look at me."
Josephine slid down the wall, hugged her knees to her chest, and hid her face, utterly wretched. "Not you. Not Ezekiel. Not Quentin if he but knew. Not even my parents, no matter which world they trod, would have me now." Her voice cracked and she steeled herself to look into Katherine's eyes. "I will do everything I can to bring your family back, Katherine, even if it costs me mine. Ruined though it is, I give you my word."
Katherine closed her eyes, not certain how to answer the misery puddled at her feet. Kneeling, she pulled the other woman to her feet. "Did you love him?" she asked sternly, grasping Josephine by the shoulders, willing her to look. "Say truly, did you love Ezekiel? In those memories of this life, do you remember joy on your wedding day, joy in waking with him before this morning? Joy in the small things that he did, those little moments together?"
Yes, Josephine mouthed silently, her tears spilling as she swallowed back a sob.
"Then darling, why are you ruined? Two people, joined in love, are a blessing. Would I want Ezekiel with someone who did not love him? No." She shook her head. "It seems that Vars has put us at cross purposes. I sacrifice my future to save your past or you sacrifice your past for my future." Letting her friend go, Katherine pulled the pins holding her hair, letting the flame waves fall, before rubbing the back of her neck. Neecy would have been on the floor that she was on a train, freeing her hair, she thought with muted amusement. He would have been unconscious for days knowing she would sleep cradled in the arms of a man who was not her husband in this reality. She took a long breath, frustrated and sad, knowing that her only hope was that all would heal in time.
"We need to rest, you and I and the others, before Stonehenge. If you don't mind, darling, I beg the use of your husband's shoulder for now. If you want, I will do everything in my power to find Quentin. Most likely, if we fail and do not die, Ezekiel and I will become fugitives. The Americas will hopefully welcome us. That is where he is from, yes?" She gave Josephine a rueful smile. "You're hardly damned, Josephine. You are a woman torn unfairly, tormented with honor, and all too human. And as to vows, well, you vowed to marry my husband in one world and vowed to not desire him in another. If you want my advice, I'd stop making vows. They seem to only paralyze you with guilt." Gathering Josephine in her arms, she hugged her tight. "I'm sorry, darling," she whispered, her voice leaden with grief. "If I knew a way, I'd bring them with us. But I don't know how. We just have to have faith."
"You need not beg, Katherine. You need not even ask," Josephine whispered into her friend's hair. "Ezekiel is yours. I will not stand in your way. As for my family and my husband … " Josephine knew Katherine spoke only the truth. Her head accepted it, even if her heart for the moment could not. It still keened for what it had lost and would yet lose. But that is my burden to bear, not Katherine's. She stepped back and dredged up a watery smile. "You are right. We must have faith. Let us go back inside." Josephine moved for the door, aching head to toe and gently linking arms with Katherine, where the others waited within.
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