19
July 20, 1193, a few hours before dawn
Sherwood Forest
Robin woke Jill long before she’d had enough sleep. One thing was true in both 1193 and 2009—morning always came too quickly. The early hour today was necessary so that the villagers would wake to find the money at their doors without a clue where it had come from. They needed plausible deniability if they were questioned by the sheriff’s men. Will and Little John had divided the money and households between the men for efficient distribution. There was one villager, though, whom Robin insisted on handling himself—the Widow Tinsley.
“She’s the kind who won’t take it without knowing where it comes from,” he explained. “It had better come straight from me or she’ll send it back and call me a coward for not visiting her myself.”
Jill thought he overreacted and said as much.
“Believe what you like. You’ll meet her and judge for yourself.”
“I’m happy to go with you, but why do you want me to?”
“If I had my preference, you wouldn’t. But she’ll want to see you.”
Now, as Jill followed Robin through the underbrush, marveling at how easily he divined his way through the dark forest, she wondered about the reason for the widow’s interest in her. She needed to know more about this old woman and asked Robin to share what he knew.
“She’s small and frail, very old. I doubt even she knows how old she is. There’s something about her that’s otherworldly. I feel a little silly sharing this with you, but I’ve seen her appear out of nowhere and disappear into thin air. Some people think she’s a witch because she can look into the future and tell you what’s going to take place.”
Jill stopped, so surprised by this supposed ability that she couldn’t process the information and walk at the same time. “The future?”
“Yes. She told me things once, and they came true.”
“What did she tell you?”
“She said that you would come and we would fall in love.”
Jill felt a chill run down her spine, but she wasn’t sure if it was due to the widow’s prediction or Robin’s mention of love. “I don’t understand. What did she say, exactly?”
“Let me start at the beginning. When Marian and Guy married, I was beside myself with grief. I had lost everything important to me, and I didn’t even have the strength to think about revenge. I was ready to turn myself in to the sheriff and let him kill me. I was walking to Nottingham Castle when the Widow Tinsley appeared in the middle of the forest. When I say appeared, I mean that one moment I was looking at the empty road and the next moment she was standing in the middle of it. She asked me to see her home safely. I couldn’t turn down a frail old woman, especially one who might be a witch, so I helped her back to her hut. I thought I knew most of the villagers in Edwinstowe, but I’d never seen her before. When we arrived at her home, she invited me inside, and then she said, ‘The pain of your loss has turned you to stone, but a mason will mend your broken heart.’”
Jill shivered at the word mason.
“At the time, I wasn’t impressed,” Robin continued. “A good prophecy is supposed to be poetic, but this one obviously wasn’t. I also assumed when she said mason she was referring to a man who works with stone, and I couldn’t see how that was going to help me at all. It wasn’t until a few days ago when I saw you and you called yourself a mason that I understood what she meant.”
Jill inwardly debated to what degree Robin might have romanticized the facts of the encounter over the years.
“Everything she said has come true,” Robin continued. “You taught me to love again.”
“Did she say anything else?”
Robin got a strange look on his face. “We should be quiet. We’re almost there.”
After a few more steps Robin parted the brush to reveal a solitary cabin in a little clearing. The hut was made of wattle, thin sticks woven together to make a crude wall. Wisps of smoke floated into the starlight over the thatched roof. Jill saw a small, neglected garden and stack of firewood.
As they approached the door, Robin pointed at the chopped logs. “I make sure she has what she needs,” Robin whispered. “If she is a witch, I want to be on her good side.”
Robin lifted his hand to knock on the door, but before his knuckle touched the wood, the door jerked open and a tiny, bent figure wearing a hooded cloak poked her twisted walking stick at them. Jill instinctively backed away. The inside of the cabin was dark behind the widow except for a fire in the middle of the room. The flickering light revealed the silhouette of a short, tiny woman draped in heavy cloak that was too large for her. Long, wiry gray hair spilled out of her hood at the neck in greasy ringlets. Her eyes were shaded, her face obscured. Jill felt a tingling sensation at the back of her neck that might have been fear, might have been foreboding, and might have been the chilly night air.
“Only trouble comes at this time of the morning.” The Widow Tinsley’s voice was harsh, even when she spoke in a whisper. “Better come in before you’re seen.”
Robin followed her in the door, drawing Jill after him. The small fire illuminated the room enough for Jill to notice through the smoky air the shutters drawn at the window and the daub on the inside of the stick walls to keep out the light and the cold. The widow moved to stand between Robin and Jill, cocking her head at Robin expectantly.
Sensing his cue, Robin retrieved the small bag of money from his belt and held it out to her. “A gift from us to pay your taxes.”
“Put it down there.” A claw-like hand emerged from her cloak and pointed to a spot on the ground where Robin hesitantly left the money. “You’ve brought me a visitor.”
“Yes, this is—“
“Jill Mason,” the widow snapped.
Jill was about to be impressed at the widow’s knowledge, but Robin or any of the men might have mentioned Jill to the widow before today. “Nice to meet you.”
“That’s a foolish thing to say unless you mean it.”
Jill shifted uneasily. “I was trying to be polite.”
“Waste of time,” the widow scoffed, “especially when we have so little of it. Robin, keep watch. I need to speak with Jill alone.”
Robin rubbed the back of his neck but attempted a reassuring smile at Jill as he slipped outside. When the door closed behind him, the widow settled on the floor and motioned for Jill to sit across from her. When the Widow Tinsley pulled back her hood, the firelight clearly revealed her face. It was a visage Jill had seen four days before back in 2009—the horse lady!
Jill put her hand to her mouth. “You were at the horse stables! How—”
She stopped herself before she finished. She had so many questions that she wasn’t sure what to ask first.
“Not all who come out go back,” the old woman said. “But some do, and they find great adventure. If you’re looking for a scientific explanation, you won’t find one. There aren’t any magic wands, talismans, or machines either. There are only those seeking adventure, and as you’ve now experienced, those who seek, find.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Of course not! You’re an engineer. You plan, experiment, follow the scientific method. But that foolishness keeps you from the business you have to attend to.”
Jill had no recollection of ever telling this woman anything about her profession. Maybe Joanna had said something when the old woman was leading her horse.
The widow snapped her fingers. “Focus! Now ask me what business you’re supposed to be attending to.”
“What—”
“You were brought here to save a life, and that life is still in danger.”
Jill felt her throat go tight. “Joanna.”
With a hrumph the widow stood, looking miffed, and shook out her cloak. “You don’t need me if you have it all figured out.”
“Wait,” Jill protested. “Once I save her, will you help us get back to 2009?”
“I have my own affairs to ha
ndle.” As she said these words, the widow cast off her cloak to reveal a calico dress that reminded Jill of how women might have dressed in the American West in the 1800s. Around her waist she wore a gun belt with a small-caliber revolver in its holster.
“What the—?”
“Once again, you’re asking the wrong questions.”
Jill paused and tried to clear her head. There was too much to process, and none of it made sense. “Okay…how do we get back to 2009?”
“You go back exactly the way you came.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
The Widow Tinsley let out a sharp breath that sounded impatient. “Don’t you have any imagination?” She nodded toward the door. “The sheriff is coming.”
Jill followed the widow’s gaze to the closed door. When she didn’t see anything, she looked back to find the old woman was gone. The little bag of tax money lay on the floor where Robin had left it. How had the old woman disappeared? Why was she wearing a pistol? Jill bent over, trying to get her head between her legs before she passed out.
“Jill!” Robin’s face peaked in the door. “We have to go.”
She nodded.
“Are you all right?” Robin’s voice was full of concern. “Where’s the Widow Tinsley?”
Jill pointed at where the old woman had been standing. “She vanished.”
Robin nodded. “That’s how I felt, too, when she did it to me. The shock will pass in a bit. Come on, we need to go.”
Robin and Jill had just taken cover in the forest when the first of the sheriff’s men rode into the village. Staying to watch increased Robin and Jill’s risk of exposure, so they headed back toward camp, slowly at first as Jill recovered from her surprise at everything she had seen and heard from the Widow Tinsley. Nothing made any sense! Jill had so many questions, even more than she had four days ago, but no one could answer them.
However, one thought rose to the surface of her consciousness and for the moment obliterated all the others. Jill had come back to the past to save Joanna, and now Joanna’s life was in danger—probably because the killer was still loose in the castle. Jill had to get to Locksley and pull Joanna out kicking and screaming if necessary.
“Are you going to tell me what’s bothering you?” Robin asked.
“There’s a lot,” Jill conceded, “but the most important thing is that Joanna’s life is in danger.”
“That’s what the widow told you?”
“Yes.”
Robin breathed what looked like a sigh of relief. “That’s good—no, no! I mean it’s bad, obviously…very bad. We’ll need to regroup at the camp and then go to Locksley as quickly as we can.”
Jill gave Robin what she hoped was a very dirty look.
“It’s tax day, though,” Robin reminded her. “The sheriff’s men will be visiting all the surrounding villages to collect the money. We’ll need to tread carefully if we’re going to avoid them and that might slow us down. But don’t worry, Jill. I won’t let anything happen to Joanna or to you. We’ll get her out if I have to give my life in the process.”