Twenty-seven – 05

“Hell,” Thom breathed, shaking his head and pressing long fingers to his temples.  “This is the last thing we need.”

Their breath steamed in the air as he and Phelan trudged out toward the barrow—J.T. and Marin were still out there, still doing whatever they were doing.  Thordin was trailing a few dozen yards behind the men, still leery of the werewolf they’d left back in camp under Matt and Cameron’s watchful eyes.  Thom didn’t think that Gwilym represented any threat, but Thordin clearly didn’t share that assessment.

Phelan’s jaw tightened and he shook his head slowly, his eyes on the footprints that marked J.T. and Marin’s passage before them.  “You don’t have to tell me that.  I already know it.  There’s nothing I can do to change that, though.  We have to be prepared to deal with whatever’s about to come our way.  There’s not a choice.”

“How long do you think we have?”

“I just record the stories, Thom.  You’re the one who sees the future.”  Phelan sighed, fingers flexing around his staff.  There was a tense, tight set to his shoulders.  “Have you and Mar…?”

Thom took a ragged breath and glanced to his right, toward the clock tower, silent all these months since the end.  It had been Marin’s vision of the cloud and that tower that had been their first and only clue.  He stared at it for a long moment, at the orange brick and green roof silhouetted against the snow and sky.  “I don’t know,” he said after a long moment.  “It’s hard to tell anymore, when we’re seeing—how long in the future it might be. It’s only easy when we can see the kids. When Angie’s in them, or my—” His voice faltered.

Phelan reached over and squeezed his shoulder.  “It’s all right, fear fiach.”

“I see him a lot,” Thom said softly. “My son.  Our son.  He’s…”  He squeezed his eyes shut against the sudden sting of tears. “He’s a teenager when whatever happens to Mar happens.  I know that something’s going to happen, Phelan.  I know something bad is going to happen when he’s a teenager.  I still don’t know what it is, but we’ll have to leave him.  I think she knows it, too.”

“Are you two at least talking about it?”

“Sometimes,” Thom said, tearing his gaze away from the clock tower.  “But we don’t if we know it’s going to lead to one of us lying to the other.  It is what it is. I’m not sure how much we’ll ever have a hope of changing.”

“Nothing’s set in stone,” Phelan reminded him.

“Apparently, some things are.”  Thom shook his head.  “We’ll have to ask Marin if she’s seen new monsters, new threats. I don’t know that I have.”

If I have, it could be that I just didn’t want to remember.  He shoved his hands into his pockets and stared at the sun glinting off the snow.  It wouldn’t be the first time and it probably won’t be the last.

Maybe someday I’ll stop seeing things I’d like to forget.  Someday.  That’d be nice.

                Probably won’t ever happen.  But it’d be nice.

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