Time Crossed: A Time Thief Novella (A Penguin Special from Signet) Read Online Free

environment cannot be underrated, is that not so? I presume that there must also be a father somewhere in the picture?”
    “You’d assume wrong.” She crossed both her legs, and her arms over her chest, a sure sign she was locking down both her flow of information, and her emotions.
    “Indeed.”
    “There’s nothing wrong with my moms,” she continued rather hotly. “And you can’t make me say there is. My mothers are great. Well, most of the time. Every now and again they get into trouble, and I have to come to the rescue, but they’ve been pretty good for the last few years. Kind of. Recently, though . . . well, that’s neither here nor there.”
    I consulted the application form that had been included in her file. “I see your mothers are Wiccans and run a school?”
    “Why do you make everything a question?” she asked, her eyes narrowing as she sat forward.
    “Do I?” I smiled reassuringly. “It is my job to help people, Gwen. And I can’t do that unless I understand what is bothering you, now, can I?”
    “What’s bothering me is the implication that there is something wrong with my relationship with my moms.” She sat back again, her body language once again making it quite clear she wasn’t willing to discuss the matter any further.
    “What happened yesterday?” I asked, changing the subject.
    She looked startled for a few seconds, then her chin lifted in a slightly belligerent manner, as if she expected censure or disbelief. “I died and went to hell.”
    I raised my eyebrows in a signal for her to go on.
    “Well, not so much hell as the afterlife. Anwyn, to be exact. You know what Anwyn is, don’t you?”
    “It is one of the many afterlives that various beings utilize as way stations before rebirth or transportation to another realm of consciousness. Many mortals think of them as heaven. I thought, however . . .” I typed in a phrase on my laptop, read the result, and nodded. “Yes, I was correct. I thought that the Wiccan afterlife is Summerland?”
    “It is. But I’m not Wiccan. I’m an alchemist.”
    “So when you decide to move on from this plane of existence—”
    “Or I’m killed, like I was yesterday.”
    “Or, as you say, you are killed, not that I believe such a task is easily accomplished with regard to one who is immortal like you, then you will retire to Anwyn, while your mothers will go to Summerland?”
    “Basically, yes. And you might not think it’s easy to kill me, but I can assure you it’s entirely possible. Anwyn isn’t quite like Summerland, though. That’s all happy Wiccans and picnics and stuff. My moms took me there a few years ago to see my grandmother. Anwyn looks similar, but it’s different. Or at least so I’ve heard.”
    “I see. Perhaps you would be so kind as to go over the sequence of events for me, so that I might have it straight in my mind?”
    “Sure thing. But you have to promise to tell my moms I’m not crazy, because they think I’m making this shi . . . er . . . stuff up.”
    “We don’t use the word ‘crazy’ at the Gently Does It Centers,” I said with another reassuring smile. “Go ahead and tell me what happened. In your own time.”
    “Well, yesterday I was happily getting ready to go home—I live in a small town in Colorado, in the States, even though I was born here in Wales. I come back to Wales to visit my moms every couple of months, mostly to see them, but also because I’m an alchemist, and the best alchemical auctions happen in London. Anyway, I was just wrapping up a month-long visit when it happened.”
    “Forgive me for interrupting,” I said, lifting an apologetic hand. “Do you wish to tell me how and why the scribe Seawright become your shadow?”
    A dark look came over her face. “No.”
    “Very well.” I made note of the rapidity of her response, and her general body language, and then urged her to continue.
    “So I’m packing up my things to go back home, and a call comes in on