A Witch in Time
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Cherry Redwood
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90,7K
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56
1: Chapter 1
“Just…just hold on a sec.”
Sounded like a woman speaking, some distance away.
Everything was black. My head pounded.
“If you need to set it down—”
A man’s voice, equally distant.
“No! I’m fine!” The woman was irritated.
Everything felt so heavy. I couldn’t move.
“Lan, I told you, I can just carry it myself—”
“Shut up, Kai.”
Shuffling noises. Crunching little rocks. Grunts.
I could feel my face better than before. I lay on my stomach, my cheek pressed against something hard and gritty. The air was damp.
“Over there. Just a few more feet,” the woman said.
A big thud.
“This thing is a what, now?” he asked.
“Ouch!” the woman exclaimed. “Shit, that hurt.”
“Sorry.”
She blew air out loudly. I could picture her indistinctly, perhaps nursing a pinched finger or testing the soundness of a turned ankle.
“It’s a pigeon house,” she said.
A muffled snort.
“What?” she demanded.
“Well, it’s just that, when people talk about Valentine’s gifts…,” the man said, laughter in his voice.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is Cami we’re talking about.”
“Far be it from me…”
“Shut up, Kai.”
Steps. The sound of something heavy dragging a little over grainy ground.
“That’s better,” he said. “Lines up with the chimney stack.”
My head swam. I tried to open my eyes, but my eyelids were heavy as lead and twice as cold. The coarse ground dug into my cheek, leeching away the little warmth my body still retained.
A yelp.
“What?” he demanded.
“Oh my god. Oh, holy shit, Kai.”
“What?”
“There’s a body up here.”
The woman was closer now.
Steps. A soft gasp.
“What the fuck,” he said.
I really must open my eyes.
They didn’t sound dangerous, but every alarm bell inside me was ringing all of a sudden. They’d discovered me, and I couldn’t get away.
A shriek. “She moved!”
I could feel the whole length of my body now. I lay on a surface most uncomfortably coarse, minute gravel prickling against every inch of my person. Just as though I hadn’t a stitch on me.
Oh, damnation.
I’m nude. Heaven help me.
How did I get here? Where was here?
“Don’t touch her,” the woman said sharply.
“She needs help.”
“Okay, well, I’m calling nine-one-one.”
That meant nothing to me. What was “nine-one-one”? What was she calling for? Help, for me, I supposed, based on what the man had said.
I managed to shift my head a bit, pressing with what little strength I had into the ground, attempting to turn on my side. Tiny sharp rocks dug into my palms.
“Whoa there, easy,” the man said. His voice was deep and had an underlying rumble that felt soothing.
“Uh,” I uttered, trying again to blink my eyes open.
A wild panic flared through me, electric as a bolt of lightning. My body shuddered with it.
“She’s waking up,” he said.
“I’m on the roof of a building. It’s 3554 Powell Street, in North Beach,” the woman was saying. “There’s a body here—”
“Lan, she’s alive, she’s not a body!”
“I mean, there’s a woman here, she’s unconscious—”
“She’s waking up.”
Some of the panic receded enough to allow my muscles to ease.
“She’s unconscious, but she’s showing signs of waking up,” the woman said.
I cracked my eyes and tried to look around me, but I lay almost entirely on my stomach, my efforts to roll to my side having failed.
Fear flared again.
This was wrong. This was all wrong.
“Are you hurt?” the man asked me. Then, to the woman, “We need a blanket!”
I felt something warm and soft cover me then.
“They say don’t move her,” the woman said.
“I’m covering her, I’m not moving her.”
“Uh,” I managed again. My throat felt incredibly dry.
Where am I? How did I get here?
What happened?
“Yeah, I’ll stay on the phone.”
Phone?
Telephone. There was a telephone here?
I squinted at my surroundings now, and it appeared that I was on the roof of a building. The texture I felt under me was rough and gravelly, but beneath the rocks it was also very strange. I’d never seen anything like it. It almost seemed waxed.
This place! I recognized it, as if the place were known, yet altered in a manner I could scarce define.
The man moved away.
I peered to the left. There were large planters with greenery sprouting from them. I at last managed to roll to my side and had a better look. The two people hadn’t found me before, for I lay behind a large planter with multiple levels. It had a variety of leaves growing out of it.
I had most certainly never seen it before.
The thudding of my heart was dreadful.
The sky above was whitish gray. I closed my eyes against it, and it felt unpleasant to open them again.
“She rolled over,” the man said, returning.
I opened my eyes then to look at him.
He was a very large man, very broad, although not fat. Perhaps only a few years older than I was. He had a trim beard and dark hair that fell to his shoulders, with arched eyebrows over dark eyes that made me think of Chinatown.
Somehow the sight of him eased my fear.
“Hey,” he said to me. Amusement danced in his eyes as he gazed down at me. “Rough night?”
I tried to clear my throat, but it was useless.
“She’s awake, but she’s not talking,” I heard the woman say.
He glanced over at her and then looked back down at me. “Don’t worry. The paramedics’ll be here in a few minutes.”
What in heaven’s name is a paramedic?
“I wish I had my water bottle,” he said to the woman. She entered my field of vision, peering down at me. She held something small and flat to the side of her head.
She was pretty, with long dark hair and eyes like his. They both had golden skin and high cheekbones. They must be related, for they resembled each other a great deal.
“I’m Kai,” he said to me. “This is Lan. Well, Alani.”
Alani frowned as she stared down at me. “Do you think she ODed?”
Kai gave her a nonplussed look. “Maybe.”
She crouched down, grabbing my wrist and lifting my arm. “No track marks on her arm.”
“Could be pills,” Kai said.
I saw, at that point, that I had a garment of some sort draped over me. She lifted it to look at my body, which was distressing, but I hadn’t any choice but to allow her scrutiny.
“No marks on her at all.”
“You want me to help you put the jacket on?” Kai asked me.
I nodded—which made the throbbing in my head double—and he assisted me in sitting up and slipping the sleeves, which were wide and long, over my arms.
Then he did the most startling thing—he put the flaps of the front of the garment together and with an alarming buzz he joined them, running his hand up the edges as they came together.
“Oh,” I gasped.
“What’s your name?” he asked as he cradled me in one arm.
I opened my mouth to answer.
That’s when I realized.
I hadn’t any idea.
