Gift of Gold

it.”
    Verity hugged herself and nervously rubbed her upper arms. “And you think that some bits and pieces of time enter this corridor?”
    “When I handle an object that carries a strong load of emotion from the time frame I seem sensitive to, those emotions seep into the corridor. It’s as if they’re trying to relink with the object itself through me. It’s hard to explain, Verity, but it’s real.”
    “There’s another explanation,” she said defensively.
    “What’s that?”
    “We might both be going crazy.”
    Jonas shook his head. “Believe me, I’ve considered that possibility. But we’re not going crazy. Come with me. I want to see what happens when we face the emotional junk connected with the pistol.” He held out his hand.
    Verity hesitated and then gave him her hand. He circled her wrist and tugged her gently down the corridor. He felt her flinch, but she made no protest. She was going to go through with this, just as she had promised. Jonas felt a wealth of gratitude and admiration well up in him.
    They didn’t have to go far in the corridor to find what Jonas sought. They hadn’t gone more than a few steps into the swirling mists when the colorful, snaking tendrils appeared and began to curl hungrily around them.
    The multicolored ribbons headed first toward Jonas like a pack of dogs cornering a fox. But then something happened. They slowed, veered aside, and slowly turned toward Verity.
    “Jonas? What’s happening?” Verity shifted anxiously as the multicolored manifestations swirled around her. She batted at them with a free hand.
    “They won’t hurt you. You’re not sensitive to them in the same way I am. But for some reason you’re a magnet for them. Your presence frees me, Verity. Together we’re a lot stronger than they are. Feel anything?”
    “No,” she said quickly and then changed her mind. “Yes. I don’t know. It’s weird, Jonas.”
    “I know. Don’t worry about it. I’m the main contact.”
    “What’s it like for you?” she asked in hushed tones.
    Jonas concentrated, enjoying for the first time the glorious sensation of really being in control of what he was facing. This wasn’t a firefight, for once. He didn’t have to battle these twisting, writhing things; he could handle them. This time he was the dominant force in the corridor.
    Slowly he reached out with his free hand and touched one of the tendrils, a golden streamer that pulsed invitingly. The moment he made deliberate contact with it, it freed itself from the tangle surrounding it and leaped to coil around his arm.
    Adrenaline pumped through Jonas’s veins. And then a new sense of awareness. It was someone else’s sense of awareness, not his own. He was standing on a grassy field at dawn, dressed in polished Hessian boots and pale fawn trousers. He was in his shirtsleeves. A manservant standing near the carriage held his green frock coat and black felt hat. There was a pistol in Jonas’s fist. The same pistol he was holding in the cabin.
    A short distance away another man, similarly attired, held the mate to the weapon Jonas had. Both men were waiting for a signal from the man who stood between them. Somewhere in the distance a horse stamped and blew in the cold dawn air. Harness metal rattled. A few men stood at the side, observing. One of them was Jonas’s second, the man who had made the formal arrangements for this morning’s confrontation.
    Jonas was aware of fear but it was held at bay by the surge of cold anger and adrenaline pumping through him. His only goal this morning was to draw blood from the man who had insulted Amanda. He would teach the bastard a lesson.
    The signal came. Jonas lifted his pistol in a smooth, sure motion. But even as he did so, he knew somehow that the action wasn’t his. He was still an observer. His opponent’s hand also swept upward. But Jonas was already tightening his finger on the trigger of the heavy pistol, confident of the gun’s sure aim.
    Then, without any warning, Verity screamed and yanked at his arm. For an instant all the images blurred. Jonas was both the man on the grassy field and the observer in the corridor. Furious at the distraction, Jonas tried to jerk free of Verity’s compelling grip. But she clung to him, yelling at him.
    “Stop it! Do you hear me? Stop it this instant. I won’t have this foolishness carried any further.” She grabbed the golden ribbon and pulled it free. It slithered back into the tangle at her