Regardless, it doesn’t stop me from watching.
I wasn’t lying when I told Zen it was the same dream. It’s always the same dream.
They come in the night. Capture me and transport me, kicking and screaming, back to their lab. They strap me to a chair with thick steel clamps that are impossible to bend. A large intricate contraption protrudes from the ceiling. Its clawlike arm, complete with razor-sharp teeth, pries open my mouth, reaches down my throat, and pulls out my heart. Then another machine takes over, working quickly to disassemble the still-pumping organ on a cold, sterile table. Half of it is carved off, placed in a jar, ushered away, while the other half is returned to the claw and replaced in my chest cavity by way of my throat again.
The partial heart settles back into its home behind my rib cage. I can still feel it beating, compelling blood in and out of my veins, keeping me alive. But the process no longer holds meaning. A perfunctory action done out of routine, nothing more. I am now forever incomplete. Half a person. A hollow casket that will be forced to seek the other half for the rest of eternity.
A dream.
Not real.
The problem is, dreams are supposed to get fuzzier the longer you’re awake. But this one only becomes clearer with each passing second. Crisper. As though I’m moving toward it. Getting closer.
As though they’re getting closer.
I close my eyes, take a deep breath.
“They don’t know where we are.”
“They can’t find us here.”
“We are safe.”
“I am safe.”
I recite the words over and over again, hoping that today will be the day when they no longer feel strange on my tongue. When I might start to believe them.
“They don’t know where we are.”
“They can’t find us here.”
“We are safe.”
“I am safe.”
But then, like clockwork, the bleak reply comes from the back of my mind. The shadowy version of the truth that’s much easier to believe.
I’m not safe.
I’ve never been safe.
They will never stop looking for me.
I reach down the collar of my still-damp nightdress and feel for my locket, rubbing my fingertips gently over the black surface of the heart-shaped medallion and the swirling loops of the silver design emblazoned on the front.
The eternal knot.
It’s an ancient Sanskrit symbol that, according to Zen, represents the flowing of time and movement within all that is eternal.
To me it represents Zen.
I insisted on wearing it here even though Zen suggested I take it off. Apparently people in seventeenth-century England don’t look kindly upon unfamiliar symbols that can’t be found in something called the Bible—a book everyone here seems to live by. So I agreed to keep it hidden under my clothing at all times.
But right now I need it.
I need it to soothe me. To erase the grisly images from my mind.
I hear careful footsteps behind me and I jump, scrambling to stuff the locket back under my nightdress. My head whips around to find Zen standing there, fully dressed—minus the doublet that I stole—and I let out a puff of air. He tosses his hands up in an apologetic gesture. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to scare you.”
He sits down beside me. Even though the show in the sky is over, I turn my gaze back in the direction of the sunrise. For some reason, I can’t look at him right now. I am ashamed of my weakness. Every nightmare—every fear I let overtake me—is like a drop of poison in this new life that Zen and I have worked so hard to create. This paradise that we promised each other.
“Do you want to talk about it?” he asks.
I laugh. It sounds about as fake as it feels. “I told you. I’m fine. It was only a bad dream.”
Zen cocks his head and raises his eyebrows. It’s the look he gives me when he knows I’m lying. I cast my eyes downward and lazily pick at a patch of grass.
“They don’t know where we are,” he offers. “They have no idea.”
I nod, still refusing to meet his gaze. “I know.”
“And if they did, they would be here by now.”
I nod again. His logic is sound. If they had somehow figured out that we escaped to the year 1609, they would have appeared instantly. They wouldn’t delay. Which means the longer we live here without seeing one of them, the more likely it is they have no clue where we are.
The only other person who knew we were planning to come to the year 1609 was Rio. And he’s …
I watch his helpless body writhe violently, arms flinging, eyes rolled back in his head, before he collapses to the ground with a horrific cracking sound. And then …
Stillness.
I shake the horrid memory away, trying to fight off the familiar guilt that comes every time I think about him.