As she drove the Lowlandian women out of Maddie’s tent Brandyn, momentarily stunned by Dani’s inexplicable outburst, recovered his wits and body slammed her to the floor. They crashed into a brassier and knocked it over spilling cold ash and chunks of charcoal over furniture, cushions, carpet, and both of them. Brandyn wrestled with her while she screamed and screamed her wordless rage. She escaped Brandyn’s hold twice. The first time he grabbed one leg and pulled sharply on it, dropping her body hard but then she rolled over and kicked free landing her bare heel on his chin. He scrambled after her as she pulled her body up using cushions and furniture to give her something solid to lean on while she got her feet under her, but he stopped her, scooping her into another body hug and knocking her to the floor again. He pushed her face down into the carpet, got a hold of her arms and yanked them to the small of her back, where he planted his knee with force and with one hand pressed her head to the peapod littered floor.

He shouted for a medic.

Whatever for? The rational part of Dani’s brain wondered even as she shrieked with rage and contorted her body in order to escape, but Brandyn was having none of that. His full body weight held her down but she was too far gone to feel the physical discomfort to her arms, her face, her back. She could not stop screaming. Theo wanted to leave her. He wanted to be rid of her. He wanted to be free. Free of everything and her heart just about exploded with the pain of that rejection. She wanted nothing more than to march over there and slap him around until he came to his senses. Did he not understand that she would go mad without him? He had to know she would go mad.

“What goes on here?” Maddie was behind them. At the same time a medic appeared and knelt beside Dani, the same medic who had several days ago agreed affably with his fellow medic that soon, very soon Theo would be dead so why bother treating him well?

Even in the midst of her rage Dani wondered how she could know that? Of course, she thought, a lingering memory from her recent psychic connection to Theo.

“She woke up and went berserk.” Brandyn answered Maddie even as he decreased the pressure on Dani’s head to give the medic access. As soon as the medic’s hand was within range she lunged and bit it. Latching on she refused to let go. For the moment her screams cut off. But now the medic screamed and impulsively yanked his hand, to no avail. His meaty palm tore and blood filled her mouth.

She would teach him. The bastard! Yes, she would teach him to threaten her In Between. Above the commotion she was causing, Maddie, Brandyn and the medic struggled to get her to release the medic’s hand, while she twisted her body and kicked her feet hoping to break free, but to no avail.

“Danielle,” Maddie’s tight voice came from behind her and ordered her to release the man’s hand. Dani refused to comply in fact she sank her teeth in further. The medic shrieked in agony. Maddie’s hand came down on her forehead and smoothed her hair away from her sweaty face. She forcibly calmed her voice, tried but failed to produce a facsimile to Theo’s skill. “Danielle, calm down before you hurt yourself.”

It did not work. But Dani spat the man’s hand out of her mouth and her voice came out course and wretched, panting. Immediately Brandyn’s hand forcibly slapped her head against the rug.

“I told you not to call me that. Get Theo. I want my Theo right now.” Only Theo could calm her down. She could feel him in his tent not far away struggling to come to her aide, but of course his shackles would not let him

The medic scrabbled back on his butt cradling his hand against his chest until his back came up against the divan. He reached into his pouch with his uninjured hand and withdrew something Dani could not see. His expression was pain filled but grim.

“I am sorry, Little Sister.” Maddie said in a tight voice. She held her hand out and the medic slapped whatever it was into Maddie’s palm. “This ends here and now.”

She juggled whatever it was in her hand and with surprising swiftness slapped her open palm against the side of Dani’s exposed neck. She felt a pinch as more rage boiled up this time directed at Maddie and then suddenly her body went limp and an instant later she felt nothing.

Several hours later Dani woke feeling depleted and wretched. She could do no more than lay in her weakened state and stare at the layers of fabric that served as wall to the bedroom shift lazily and gleam in the light from the nearest brazier.

She wondered what was happening between her and Theo. Was this foul, wretched flow of thoughts and memories the bond? Why did there have to be a bond? From the moment she had put the sapphire necklace around her neck she had unconsciously felt it changing her inexorably, had felt its power and its connection to something exceedingly unpleasant. When it had gone missing she had not been all too broken up about it because truth be told she hated it. She hated that it represented her connection to the King and she hated the way it made her feel: uncertain, unclean, and unjustified. Her sole concern was that the medallion was the key to her returning home. Now she wondered how she would ever get back home when getting home involved putting that thing around her neck.

Did she regret putting it around Theo’s neck? No. If it caused him even one tenth of the pain it had caused her in the brief minutes it hung around her neck, then good. GOOD! She wanted him to suffer. He had lied to her. He had stolen her key to get home and let her believe it was lost for good. If anyone deserved to suffer it was Theo.

Now because of it she had firsthand knowledge of Theo’s crime in all its folly, its implications about who he was and his own self recriminations. Anger, sorrow and satisfaction churned inside her in one confusing mass. Be careful what you wish for. That age old warning circled round and round in her head. She had wanted to know.

She longed to see Theo. She wished she never had to see him again. She hated him. She loved him. He was her friend, he was her enemy, and he was her In Between. She needed him but he needed her more. The Keeper had approved him, despite Maddie’s belief that it would not, and now what was Dani supposed to do? She had to keep him from getting away from her. She had to save him from his own sordid past, from his own desperate desire to get it all over with, to finish what he had started so long ago.

She had no idea what time it was, only that it was late. Brandyn stood at attention outside the curtain barrier. Maddie was reclined on her cot staring at Dani with a pensive expression. Without a word Maddie poured water from a ceramic pitcher into a matching cup and, squating at the side of Dani’s bed, forced the cup of water down her throat, which Dani was happy to drink. The cool water soothed her tortured throat, and it made the headache receded a little. A second and then a third cup all but eliminated the headache.

“I am here now, Little Sister.” Maddie soothed Dani’s unruly curls away from her forehead. “Everything is going to be fine.”

Dani scowled at her and shook her head to get Maddie’s hand off. “I hate you.” It came out before she could stop it, not that she wanted to stop it.

Maddie remained unaffected by her sentiment. She spent the next several minutes explaining to Dani what lay ahead.

In just hours the King and Queen and the victim Ruby were due to arrive and the trial was scheduled to start after midday and by this time tomorrow Theo’s fate would be sealed. Nothing could stop it. The plan was set. They were all determined to separate Dani from Theo permanently and Maddie spent an hour telling Dani to save herself and take the Medallion back from Theo. Whether Dani took the stone back or not, when the trial was over she would return to King’s mountain with Mama and the King. Ready or not like it or not. She would receive the excellent care of their Prime physician and with time she would heal from the separation with Theo. Maddie made no bones about it. Taking the necklace back from Theo would hurt but with training and a better choice for her bond she would recover and would eventually learn to view these horrible first weeks in Haven as a tragic misstep.

Dani could not escape the bond with Theo so easily. The idea that the Keeper had approved Theo captured her imagination even as it made her feel trapped, angry and confused. That she had no idea who or what the Keeper was only accentuated her confusion and heightened her curiosity.

What about Theo? No one cared that the separation would cause him pain. He had, Maddie admitted at Dani’s violent insistence, tried to escape and get to her during her fit. But, Maddie warned, he was acting on behest of the Keeper of the Stone and his behavior did not in any way suggest that he had any feeling for Dani outside the already expected usefulness she was to him in saving him from his fate. The more Maddie said against Theo the more deeply Dani hated her. How hard had he struggled? Dani asked. After several minutes of argument, Maddie relented and finally admitted he had injured his feet attempting to free himself of his shackles. He too had been sedated which in Maddie parlance meant they had whacked him a good one upside the head. One more knot on his skull; who cared?

Dani, that’s who. How could she? Why did she still care? Theo had dragged a girl from her home in the dead of night he had taken her into the forest and raped her.

Dani could not stop thinking about that, nor could she reconcile Theo’s gruesome memory of returning the battered girl to her people, knowing full well if captured the Lowlandians would think her wretched condition had been his doing. That had to count in his favor.

“You have to let me speak on Theo’s behalf.” Dani was as stunned by what she said as Maddie was upon hearing it, judging by the incredulous look on the woman’s face.

“To what end? You cannot know anything about Theo’s crimes, Sister, you were not there.”

“You have him convicted already.” Dani spat.

“We have eyewitnesses. We have proof.”

“You do not have proof of everything. Who will defend Theo? Who will represent him in court; see that all the facts are considered?”

“He will have his opportunity to speak on his own behalf; the King will be in attendance to insure that the criminal is given every chance to defend himself.”

“What about what he did to protect Ruby? Who will tell the court about that?” Dani knew Theo had no desire to do it.

“Protect Ruby? He may have told you some warped version of what happened to get you to rise to his defense, but I can assure you that if such a thing had happened, Rubie will speak to the truth of it. His fate is out of your hands, Sister, the sooner you accept it the better off you will be.”

Maddie did not want to hear that Rubie’s battered condition was not Theo’s doing or that he had tried to save Ruby from her ultimate fate – he had failed, but the point was he had tried. No one cared. They were out for blood. Ruby, the unknown quotient, could say anything and they would believe her. Why would she speak in a manner that would benefit Theo? She could accuse Theo of things he had not done and no one would question her. The worst part of all was Theo himself. He wanted to be punished. He wanted to die. Death would be a sure way to disconnect from his remorse and ultimately the surest way to disconnect from Dani.

The very idea made her seethe.

She could not afford to get herself worked up into another fit and for some reason her ability to slip into denial would not work. Her thoughts cycled around and around the prairie dress dream; Theo’s memory; Maddie’s hate; Ruby the marionette and Ruby the unknown threat; Theo willing to die to escape the bond and Dani helpless to stop it; and the king and queen to take her home tomorrow into an unknown future. But it would not be her home. It would not be Ethan and Aunt Angie or Barb she would return to but a strange unknown kingdom where the king and queen dwelt.

When she was alone she took up her mother’s journal in desperation and sank into it, reading the words at first without comprehension but using it to connect with its references to earthy things and habits, the context alone reminding Dani of all the things about home she missed the most, all the things that gave her comfort and took her mind at least temporarily away from this Godforsaken planet and this wilderness of trouble. At the moment there was nothing she could do about Theo’s past and nothing she could do for him. How could she stop the juggernaut of Lowlandian justice? Dani’s sank into the familiar voice of Mama’s childish English, to earth and another time and another place to her home that was so very far away

There were entries about mama’s first dates with Walter, all about being met after school and riding around in his truck at breakneck speeds on the back roads – both thrilling and nauseating -- like riding the Cyclone at Riverside Amusement Park. There were movies and make out sessions, fast food, bowling and more rides ending in make out sessions in his truck in remote wooded locations like Maple Hill Cemetery where he tried to scare her with tales of the Maple Hill Ghost. She admitted she liked him even more because her mom disapproved so much, because Angie insisted she could do better – was that jealousy? Her dad complained that Walter would not walk to the door but honked his horn and made Sara run down to the street to meet him. Her brothers were another story. She thought if they encountered Walter in a back alley, they would probably beat him to within an inch just because. They all treated her like a baby. She would show them she was capable of making her own life decisions.

There had been a three page break from her Walter narrative – and by then Dani was ready for a break; she had come so close to throwing the journal into the nearby brazier – to tell Grammy about a breakthrough in building the frame work of the story they had begun together. She had made contact with the main character, Prince Ryan.

I was in study hall, writing questions, ideas and making observations, all the while thinking about the prince when all at once he was there. It was just like you said it would be, and when I closed my eyes I could picture him, clear as a bell, sitting next to me, watching me writing my notes. He was twelve or thirteen – they call it the Thrithing Year – and he was wearing the Thrithing Stone. He was a very mature thirteen, Grammy, intelligent and sharp. He seemed curious about me but answered all my questions, listened to my observations and corrected the errors!!

I was writing everything down furiously fast, I can barely decipher my own notes I was that afraid I’d forget something important. When the final bell rang I just invited him along and we walked home together and when Walter came and honked I just couldn’t move. I was afraid to lose the moment but of course the spell was broken and Prince Ryan was gone.

So I waited for Walter to come to the door because I still had so much I had to get down before I forgot it. And I wrote 100 pages Grammy, 100 pages of narrative, dialogue, character sketches a thin plot and questions I want to ask when I see him again. And other characters just came to life: Evan, Gage, the Duke and Duchess, and Ryan’s sister, Thera!

Included was a vivid full page description of Prince Ryan, including the information that his family was at the summer palace and that he had just come from the pool where he had been swimming with the dolphins. She had also observed that his hand often wandered to the amulet and that seeming innocuous habit had triggered an idea that had fleshed out enough to show motive, conflict and even the ultimate denouement of the book. On one page she had sketched the image of the Thrithing Stone -- the gold version of Dani’s silver amulet -- at the bottom of the page with her script wrapped around the image. On another page was a sketch of, Dani supposed, his family’s Crest.

In spite of herself, Dani felt drawn in, she wondered again, what was the reason for her failure to read Mama’s trilogy?

There followed another several entries about Walter interspersed with fights with her friends over the time she spent with Walter; a note about final exams; a rare F-1 tornado that touched down in North Bennington, and her anticipation of the approaching Fourth of July celebration – her first Independence Day without Grammy. Walter had finally agreed to meet her at the lake and put in an appearance because it was the only way the family would let her go to the fireworks alone with him, but he had his own family obligations to fulfill first so she expected him to be late.

Dani fell asleep with the journal open upside down on her chest and dreamed about the family Fourth of July Picnic held at the state park and doubled as their yearly family reunion where every Allen and McHugh that had ever existed showed up and drove the wild geese and the park rangers crazy, filled the lake with paddle boats, rowboats and canoes, took up the whole of the green and stayed under their choice pavilion until that last ember died in the grates while the children roasted marshmallows and the adults told tall tales, leaving with just enough time to make it to Grandmother Allen’s clapboard Farmhouse on the hill overlooking Willow park where they watched the fireworks and drank themselves silly while setting off cherry bombs and waving sparklers and cheering the limpid grand finally.

It must have taken some fancy cajoling on Mama’s part to get the family to agree to let her leave the family on Holy Reunion Day in order to watch fireworks with Walter Knapp.

Dani woke up and started reading again.

There was no entry describing July Fourth.

The next entry was dated simply 8/15/85: I’m pregnant.

Three lines down, 9/30/85: Married today.

A final three lines down, April 2, 1986: Danielle Evelyn Knapp was born today.

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Next Chapter: Chapter 22