Anna took several deep breaths to calm herself, and watched warily as Roxton and Marguerite set up camp. She was careful to keep quiet, but her eyes hungrily took in every movement her father made. She'd forgotten small details, such as the efficient way he started a fire, or the way he playfully bantered with Marguerite, or the way his eyebrow raised just so when Marguerite got in a particularly good dig. Anna branded every small thing into her mind, just in case. Darkness fell just as Veronica dragged a protesting Challenger into the clearing.
"But Veronica, there were still many things to document about that plant, and-"
"Yes, yes, Challenger, of course, but that plant will still be there in the morning, and I'm not about to be out in a unfamiliar field at night without a campfire." Veronica rolled her eyes comically at Marguerite, who stifled a giggle as the blond led Challenger to the opposite side of the fire. They waited as the meat and vegetables roasting over the fire slowly browned. Finally Veronica pulled the meal off the fire and split it among the four.
"Honestly, Marguerite, how you can make such tasty meals on the trail and such disasters at home is a mystery to me," Challenger commented as he lifted another piece of meat to his mouth.
Marguerite made a face. "It's not that hard to shove a stick through meat or sprinkle herbs on a few vegetables, George, especially since Veronica made up those seasoning packets for me. Besides, the trail gives you a healthy appetite, and you never expect meals of any complexity like you do at home."
In the darkness, Anna grinned. It was true. Marguerite was a perfectly adequate cook, as long as they were not at home. Even ten years after this time had not much improved the brunette's culinary skills. Anna sighed softly and took a practiced look at the night sky. She scowled. It was starting to get late, and she still had a few traps to set up outside the clearing.
She moved quietly around the edge of the campsite, setting her small traps here and there. She wasn't sure if it was the unfamiliarity of the place, or her own nerves, or a combination of the two, but she could hear the small sounds she was making. Gritting her teeth, she stopped for the fourth time as she disturbed yet another patch of undergrowth, and Veronica and Roxton again swiveled towards the sound. It was uncanny how well they could hone in on her movements.
"I'm sure I heard another sound, John," Veronica said, her voice drifting to Anna. "There's something out there."
"It's probably just an animal, Veronica. If it hasn't shown itself yet, then most likely it's not going to come this close to a fire."
Anna held back a sigh. She would love to come close to the campfire. Jungle it might be, but the temperature had dropped, and she was also rather hungry. She waited until Veronica assented to Roxton's opinion, and with a grumble settled back down. Anna continued even more carefully, finally finishing with yet another tiny pile of gunpowder a little further into the jungle. She sighed in relief and crept closer to the camp, settling down in hollow created by a small slope of the ground. A smallish log provided some cover from prying eyes around the campfire. She leaned her head back and closed her eyes, only to have them fly open as she heard two people settle down against the log. To her dismay, she recognized Marguerite's light lavender scent, and knew that she had managed to pick the one spot around the clearing where her parents would choose to spend the night. She clenched her fists in frustration. Nothing was going right.
Anna crouched down against the base of the log, acutely aware of how close she was to her parents, and the even more urgent need for silence. She concentrated on keeping herself still and her breathing slow and soft. Her parents were talking, their soft murmurs a background hum, until a tone in Roxton's voice brought Anna to full attention.
"How do you feel?" he was asking Marguerite. Anna recognized the loving concern as what had caught her ear. Roxton reached up and gently caressed Marguerite's cheek. For an instant she leaned into his touch, before making a little face and gently swatting him away.
"How would you feel?" she said tartly, raising one eyebrow. "After all, this is as much your fault as mine." Anna risked a peek and caught a flash of chagrin on her father's face. Marguerite caught it as well, because her voice abruptly softened.
"Honestly, John, I'm fine," she said. "Just a little tired."
"And nauseous," her husband added. "I don't think it was like this with Anna."
Marguerite shrugged. "She didn't cause me much fuss. This one obviously takes after you."
Roxton grinned. "Funny. Don't you think we should tell the others soon? I know that Veronica suspects it already."
Marguerite shook her head. "Just a little while more. I want to have this just to us for a little bit more. I'm only about a month and a half now. And we should tell Anna first. She's been the princess of the castle for so long, I want to make sure she'll be all right with it."
Roxton reached out and gently drew Marguerite to him. "She'll be fine, love. I'm sure she'll be just as excited as we are." Marguerite's only response was a contented sigh as she leaned against Roxton's warmth.
Anna sat back with a fist pressed to her mouth. Oh God, oh dear God. If that talk meant what she thought it meant, then it meant that her mother was pregnant. Marguerite was pregnant? Marguerite was PREGNANT? Anna's thoughts whirled around her head. She didn't have any siblings! There was only her and her "cousins," twelve-year old Arthur and nine-year-old Abigail. She was her mother's only child. Her eyes widened as a memory crept back to her…
It had been about two weeks after her father's death. Anna had been sitting in her room, surrounded by the gifts her father had given her over the years, when she had heard a noise. She immediately identified her mother's voice. Marguerite was crying. And Anna heard another voice. It was Aunt Veronica. She crept out of her room and made her way over to her mother's room.
She crouched on the stairs leading to her parents' room and peered inside. Marguerite was sitting on the bed, crying, and Aunt Veronica had her arms wrapped tightly around her. Anna listened.
"Shh, Marguerite. It wasn't your fault. There was nothing that could've been done. It just happened."
Marguerite shook her head. When she spoke, the anguish in her voice speared Anna where she sat.
"I wasn't thinking, Veronica. I wasn't thinking at all. If I'd taken more care…" The last words dissolved into another sob. Veronica gently smoothed Marguerite's hair.
"Marguerite, it WASN'T YOUR FAULT. And you still have Anna. Don't forget that."
Marguerite nodded, but her crying didn't abate. So Anna had crept back down to her room and sat there, holding the stuffed cat her mother had made her, and thought of her father.
Looking back, Anna realized that what she had thought was all wrong. She had thought that Marguerite was blaming herself for Roxton's death, and that Veronica was reminding her that she still had part of her family. But now, if this revelation was true, there was another explanation. She bowed her head as the truth became blindingly clear.
Marguerite had been pregnant, but she had miscarried the baby. Anna remembered that one of Marguerite's hands had been resting on her abdomen, a gesture that the young Anna had dismissed. Marguerite was blaming herself for the loss of the baby, saying that her lack of care for herself had hurt the baby. And Veronica had been reminding her that she still had one of her children, not just that she still had a daughter to look after. Anna put her hands over her face and rocked silently in grief.
The attack that she had come here to prevent had cost not one life, as she'd thought, but two lives. Her father, and the child who'd existed for just a moment in time. She wondered if the baby would have been more like Marguerite or Roxton. She felt a spurt of anger at the people who had cost her a sibling, and her mother another child. She also felt an increased admiration for her mother, who had not let this burden of grief pass to Anna herself. She clenched her fists and blinked back the tears. She would not allow these animals to take away her father and her baby sister or brother. No matter what, this would not happen again.
She knew that she needed to move away from her hiding place. She needed to be out a little more into the jungle to try and head off the attackers and get some sort of warning out to the group. She cautiously, carefully, rose and started to creep away from the camp. Again her luck failed her, and the snap of a twig under her boot was sharp as a gunshot, in the quiet jungle. Her heart thudding in her chest, she froze.
At the campsite, both Roxton and Veronica stood up as the sound faded, heads turning to find the source of it. Their trained eyes scanned the dark jungle, looking for anything out of place.
"Now do you believe me?" Veronica hissed, reaching behind her to smoothly draw out her hunting knives.
Roxton grimaced back at her and pointed to their supplies.
"Bring the lantern over," he said quietly, gesturing for Marguerite to stay down. She stared up at him, showing him the pistol she'd drawn out, and he shook his head. They didn't know quite what the problem was, and he didn't want to make it worse by starting off shooting. Veronica brought the lit lantern over and handed it to Roxton, who took it in one hand and lifted it high to scan the jungle near the edge of the camp. His other hand gripped the rifle that had lain unseen at his feet.
Anna watched in desperation as Roxton slowly moved the lantern. The light was coming closer and closer. She felt the nervous sweat slip down her face, fighting to keep herself still. The light inched nearer, and nearer still. Finally it started to touch the edge of her sleeve, and she panicked. She took off into the jungle.
Roxton saw the movement, and his eyes widened. He yelled at the others to stay put but to stay alert, and then ran after the fleeing figure. He held the lantern high, and it miraculously did little to hamper his speed. He chased the elusive form for nearly a quarter mile before he got close enough to see that he was chasing a female. He called for her to stop. She faltered briefly at his words, but tried to run again. He was having none of that!
"Stop!" Roxton yelled again, cocking his rifle to emphasis his words.
The woman stopped abruptly, her back stiff and radiating a tension that Roxton found somewhat odd, under the circumstances. Sure, she had been running away from the campsite, and Lord knows what she had been doing there in the first place, but his trained eyes detected something more than that. She was poised as if to run the instant his concentration shifted, her hands fisted at her sides and clenched so hard that he could see the whiteness of her knuckles even in the gloom of the evening.
"All right now, let's have a look at you, and see if you can explain to me what you were doing skulking around the bushes."
She didn't turn around, and that unusual tension seemed to notch itself even higher.
"Turn around," he said, a bit more loudly.
"No."
The word was delivered softly, but steel edged her tone. Roxton's eyebrows drew together. That voice reminded him of someone…He raised the small lantern higher and again told her to turn around.
"Please," she said, a hint of desperation entering her voice, "please don't make me do this."
"Now!" he barked, though her words had raised an unaccountable uneasiness in him.
She stiffened even further, but slowly she turned to face him. The woman-no, rather, more girl, really-met his eyes with bravado, but it only lasted a few seconds before it broke.
Roxton, now getting his first good look at the girl, simply gaped. She resembled Marguerite so strongly that, for a moment, Roxton wondered if the Plateau's mysterious time ripples had struck again and brought Marguerite's younger self forward. Then he took a closer look at the girl.
There was a difference from Marguerite in the line of the girl's patrician nose and in the curve of her jaw, and there were her eyes. Even with only the light of the moon and the lantern to see by, Roxton noticed that they were not Marguerite's eyes. Instead of being a bewitchingly silvery green, they were a little stormier, a deeper hazel green. In fact, they looked uncannily like his. Very much…like…his. His jaw dropped.
"A-a-anna?" he stuttered in shock, feeling very much like he had been pole axed. His rifle dropped from his lax fingers. "Anna, is that you?"
She didn't say a word, but those eyes filled with tears. Roxton took a few steps forward, until he was right in front of the girl. Still she said nothing, only stared up at him.
"Anna?" he asked again, reaching up to see if she was really real. The instant his fingers touched her cheek, her control broke.
"Daddy!" she wailed, and the next thing Roxton knew, she was in his arms, crying and trembling so badly that Roxton himself was shaking. He gently stroked her hair, making soothing noises. He was stunned. It seemed to be Anna. But his Anna was an eight-year-old child. This Anna was an adult. How and why was she here? He waited, holding her, until her sobs tapered off.
He drew back and looked at her. She raised her eyes to his, and he saw that they were still swimming in tears. He shook his head.
"How-how can you be Anna? My daughter is eight! My daughter is home with Finn and Ned!"
"Yes, and Arthur, the boy not the bug," Anna retorted, her voice still choked with tears. She was on edge, and her words slipped out without her meaning them to. It had all been too much for even her control.
Roxton raised an eyebrow. "You could have seen that. You could have been watching us for a while, could have followed us from the treehouse."
"And you not notice! Or Aunt Veronica? You two notice if there's a leaf out of place! How could you not notice if I'd been behind you?"
"I've seen too many odd things on this Plateau to just accept this," Roxton said. She was right, there was no way both he and Veronica could have missed this girl trailing them, but…He frowned. "I saw a double of Marguerite once that-"
"You danced with me," Anna broke in softly. "You would play the gramophone and dance with me. Just me, and then Mother if she decided to join us. You would hold me between you and then you'd carry me up and tuck me in. But you always, always danced with me." A tear slipped down her cheek.
Roxton stared at her, trying to make sense of her words. They had the ring of truth in them, and he knew perfectly well that she was describing something personal between himself and his little girl. Her gaze didn't waver from his, though the tears continued to slide gently down her flushed cheeks. Could it be? He'd certainly experienced stranger things on the Plateau…
Again he reached out and touched her cheek. She trembled at the contact.
"Snow White was…"
She swallowed. "Silly. She should've recognized the witch after two attempts on her life. The little mermaid was braver. She loved better."
Roxton closed his eyes briefly. Anna had come up with that opinion shortly after hearing the two fairy tales, and had never wavered. He opened his eyes.
"Anna," he whispered, pulling her into his arms. This time she didn't sob, but she trembled no less than before. He gently patted her back, allowing her a few moments to compose herself. Roxton marveled at the bravery he knew she had to have to come back to this time. And, by God, his girl was beautiful! He allowed that moment of parental pride before his mind turned to more serious thoughts. How had she gotten here? And most important, what would make her risk her life jumping through time? He pulled back and gripped her shoulders.
"Anna, what are you doing here? How did you get here? Why did you risk yourself to come?"
She stared at him for a long moment, considering her words. Finally she decided to tell the plain truth.
"You died when I was eight," she began, her voice barely above a whisper. "You left me when I was only eight years old! I spent the next ten years wishing on every birthday and on every shooting star that you'd come back. I missed you so much. Everyone missed you, especially Mother. I came back, because if I can't find a way to stop it, you will die tomorrow morning, at dawn."
Roxton gulped a breath. He died? He would die? He'd leave his wife, his daughter, the child he and Marguerite had yet to meet…no! But that would explain why Anna had come back, why she would take such a risk. He knew that if he lost Marguerite or Anna, he would move heaven and earth to find a way to save them. Yet his brow furrowed.
"You're eighteen then? Still so young."
Anna shook her head. "No. I stopped being young the day you died."
He gently ran his hand over her hair. She sighed.
"I had to come back. I had to save you. Uncle George went to the future and brought back Aunt Finn. Once I was sure that I could affect it, I came back here, to this time, this moment."
Roxton shook his head. "I don't know, Anna. Perhaps it was meant to be. I've cheated death so many times, both here and in my life before, that if I really did die, then maybe I was supposed to die. And what if you save me here and I die a few days later in another accident?"
"No!" she said fiercely, the tears in her eyes erased by the anger that suddenly blazed in them. "You were not meant to die at this time. I don't believe that. And it doesn't matter, Daddy, I must save you now. This time is what I know already happened. Besides, if I don't try and change the past, then why bother with Aunt Finn? Why try and help her change her future? If you think the future is just meant to be, then you might as well send her back immediately."
"But her future affects the whole world, Anna."
"What if yours does too? What if you're just as instrumental, if not yourself, then for what you give to me or pass on to someone else?"
Roxton chewed on his lip. She was convincing, certainly, but he still felt uneasy about her interference in something that, in spite of her convictions, he was sure would only affect their small group. Anna saw his indecision, and threw in her trump card.
"In my future, I'm all my mother has. I heard you at the camp; I know that Mother is pregnant. But I have no siblings. It's just me. You died, and Mother was so devastated that she lost the baby. I never even knew she was expecting. If I can't keep you alive, then I lose a father and a brother or sister, and Mother loses her husband and a child. I can't let that happen, Daddy, I won't. We need you too much."
Roxton drew his hand over his mouth. Marguerite lost the baby? His death sent his brave wife into that kind of grief? He let go of Anna and pushed his fingers through his hair. If he didn't listen to her, then he could very well be consigning his unborn child to death. And Anna…looking into her eyes, he saw a young woman who was far older than her years. What had she said, that she stopped being young the day he died? He made a decision. It was one thing to accept that he would die; it was quite another to know that his death would rob Anna of her childhood and Marguerite of their baby. He nodded.
"Tell me."
So what happens in Chapter 4? Will Anna be able to save her father? Will it all be in vain? Keep watch and find out!