Celtic Rose

Three years had passed since Rhosyn's adventure with the Iceni. Some days she felt she would burst if she couldn't tell someone about it, but she never did – no one would ever believe her, not without a demonstration of the time jumper, and that was one thing she never felt safe doing. No, the entire thing remained her little secret, even as those around her – especially her mum, Jackie – wondered at her sudden new-found self-confidence.

She hadn't quit her job in that dreary shop right away – though she'd certainly had to scramble home that morning to change clothes, making her late for work and gaining a lecture on punctuality (she didn't quite trust her meager understanding of the time jumper to use it instead) – but had bided her time, making plans. The idea of what she wanted to do had slowly crystallized back there in the primeval forests; the steps weren't easy, but doable. She signed up for evening classes in business and accounting, first – and let Ciaran, her good-for-nothing boyfriend, drift away complaining she was always too busy for him between work, classes and studying. No big loss there, and he was soon happily ensconced in a relationship with a new girlfriend in the next neighborhood over.

She also returned to the dojo where she'd learned akido, rekindling her friendship with one of the masters, Kiersten, informally assisting her during classes and trading that for equally informal lessons. She began showing her the things she'd learned back in the past, never telling where, and together they began quietly working up a new style of self-defense incorporating all they knew.

Then, the day she graduated from night school, degree in hand, she returned to the dojo and made Kiersten a modest proposal: "Let's open our own dojo and teach this stuff to others. You teach; and I'll manage the business." Kiersten stared for a moment, startled, then slowly nodded her head, and a wide grin captured her mouth.

"Let's do it."

They found a suitable storefront not far away, at reasonable rents, and Kiersten plunked down enough from her meager savings to get them started. The next few months were frantic with activity, plastering advertising flyers all over the place, calling schools and organizations offering discount rates. Before long, business was booming, as the word spread of this new style. The White Wolf Way – named for the mystical spirit said to have guided the legendary warrior queen, Boudicca, as she fought off the Romans back in ancient history (which always gave Rhosyn a small, private smile, which she never explained) – was suddenly hot, and competitors were soon attempting to copy them.

But most important to both women, however, was the attention they paid to each individual student, helping him or her face and overcome their personal difficulties, whatever they were. To that end, they were especially proud and attentive to the contract they signed with the local child protective services branch, giving lessons to orphans and foster kids at a steeply discounted rate – as low as they could manage and stay afloat.

Then came the day when a new boy arrived from the nearby orphanage for his first lesson. Rhosyn looked up from her desk to see him hanging shyly around the front door, peering up through shaggy bangs at the other kids uncertainly, and something about him caught her attention. Skinny as a reed, he looked almost malnourished, maybe ten or eleven years old – and something about his manner spoke quietly of past physical abuse. She got up and walked over to him to introduce herself and welcome him to the dojo – and got the shock of her life as he turned to stare at her.

His eyes were a brilliant sea-green. "I'm Paul," he said, desperately trying to project some tissue-thin confidence, stuffing his hands deep into his jeans pockets – but not before she glimpsed the distinctive birthmark on the back of one of them. "Paul Corvantes."

Rhosyn took him under her own wing immediately, tentatively reaching out to him with words of welcome and reassurance. He skittered for a bit, unsure of her, then latched on with all the raw need of the frightened, lonely orphan he was. She worried sometimes that she'd taken on more than she could handle, but she'd had a glimpse (though not well understood due to the language difficulties) of how he might turn out without guidance.

It quickly became apparent that she was wrestling for his very soul with the worst of the street. Even egalitarian, sensible Britain wasn't immune to street gangs and organized crime, and the one operating in his neighborhood was tugging hard on him to join. In turn, she urged him to stay in school, helped him with his homework, and encouraged him to spend all his spare time at the dojo, even giving him odd jobs (sweeping, running errands) to keep him occupied when he wasn't practicing, as well as giving him a bit of pocket money – a pittance compared to the riches touted in the crime trade, to be sure, but at least it was something. It worked for almost three years, and then, when he slipped hard into the grip of gangly, hormone-ridden adolescence, he started coming around less and less, making excuses for his increasingly frequent absences.

She knew she had to do something. Against all her better judgment, she finally decided to tell him everything, the whole story of her adventure in the past, to try to show him that there was a better way to live, that even a nobody shop girl – and even an orphan from the street – can make a difference, can even change the world. So one evening, when again he didn't come to the dojo, she pulled the time jumper back out of its shoe box in her closet, put it on and covered it with the sleeve of her hoodie, and went out looking for him.

Two hours passed as she wandered the streets with no sign of the teen. She stopped to sit and think for a bit in the quiet, tree-lined courtyard at the library – closed for the day hours ago, and eerie this late at night with ghostly stirrings and rustlings from the bits of garden in the big planters all around. On impulse, she flipped up the jumper and turned it on, looking at the readings for the current time and location, and carefully storing the latter (she had spent some time carefully fiddling with it during the years since, and learned how to do at least that much). Somehow she thought she might need a quiet, secure bolt hole.

Back on her feet, she hit the streets again, circling around in a wide arc back to the gang's known hideout, an abandoned building behind the sprawling high school. It had been empty when she checked earlier, but now the noise level from inside told her it at least some members had arrived. Taking a gulp of air and trying to calm her nerves, she stepped inside –

– and found herself in deep trouble.

She'd blundered into a gang initiation – and the initiate was Paul. He was standing in the middle of a circle of thugs, a pistol held in one shaking hand, pointed at the floor, while before him, on his knees, was a bound and gagged prisoner – a street bum, from the look of him. The bum was utterly terrified, his enormous eyes staring mesmerized at the pistol as if it were a cobra about to strike. Rhosyn took it in at a glance, even as the gang turned as one to stare malevolently at her; she'd interrupted a ritual execution.

"Paul!" she cried, though her voice came out in a strangled whisper. "Don't do this!" Shoving all thoughts of her own safety aside, she managed to make her feet move, and pushed through the circle to stand between him and his proposed victim.

Paul's eyes were glowing, vivid green against his pale face. She wasn't sure if he was terrified or exhilarated, nor if he knew himself.

"This isn't the way, Paul," she whispered, shaking. SHE was certainly terrified. "You don't have to do this."

"Yes, I do," he replied, and a small part of her seized on the slight quiver in his voice in relief – he wasn't completely out of reach yet. "I have to do this," he went on, a bit stronger, as if convincing himself. "There's no other way."

"Of course there's another way! Haven't I been showing you that?" The other gang members were getting restless, unwilling to let this interruption continue much longer. Their growls and shouts were getting steadily louder and more aggressive.

Paul's eyes flickered, and a tiny sob escaped his mouth, his mask beginning to slip so that she saw the fear getting stronger. She held out a trembling hand. "Give me the gun, Paul. Please. Give me the gun."

Before he could blink, they ran out of time. "Enough of this!" the gang leader, a hulking young man barely into adulthood, snarled in fury. He stalked forward and grabbed the gun out of Paul's hand, then pointed it directly between Rhosyn's eyes. "You interrupted our business, bitch. This time you'll pay the price."

"No!" Astounded, her heart thumping wildly, Rhosyn realized the word had come from Paul. The boy swiveled around to face the leader, his eyes fierce and narrow. "Let her go."

This rebellion from what he'd thought was his latest recruit only served to infuriate the leader further. He swung the pistol over from Rhosyn's forehead to Paul's. "So much for your test, punk. You lose."

His thumb swung up to cock the pistol, but Rhosyn was moving, too. Faster than she'd ever moved in her life, she grabbed Paul's hand in hers – the one wearing the time jumper – simultaneously flipping the jumper open with her other hand, and stabbing Recall and Execute at lightning speed.

The pistol roared as the two of them flashed out, the bullet slamming through empty air where Paul's head had been a millisecond earlier. They stumbled together out of the transport flash and into the library courtyard, lit now by an enormous, brilliant full moon.

"Holy SHIT!" Paul screamed hoarsely, his adolescent voice cracking uncontrollably. His legs collapsed, and he sat, hard, on the edge of a planter, ripping his numbed hand from hers. His eyes swung around the courtyard frantically, as if expecting it to disappear, or the gang to burst out of the bushes at any second, before finally fastened on Rhosyn, utterly bewildered, and still terrified. "What the HELL just happened?"

She wanted to go sit beside him, but her legs, as rubbery as his must have been, wouldn't move just then. "It's OK, Paul, it's OK. I transported us out of there, with this."

She moved to hold up her arm with the jumper on it to show him, but all of a sudden she got a tremendous shock from the device, lancing through her wrist and forearm. "Ouch!" Flipping open the lid, she peered closely at the dim light skittering across the display, not at all what it usually showed, pre- or post-jump. The tiny screen was clouded over as if fogged. She used her forefinger to try to wipe it off – jumping a little as another tiny electric shock sparked between device and finger, like static electricity.

And then, without warning, a brilliant, unearthly white light hit her face.