The River of No Return

shrugged. “Never. I am your brother! But the point is not this foolish movie. The point is that you will come back.”
    “Dead or alive.”
    “Yes.”
    Nick shivered in his stiff clothes and thought about his warm, living body underneath them: scarred, yes, but strong and still relatively young. He didn’t want to die for Arkady’s cause. He had jumped forward two centuries rather than die for England’s cause. Cowardice. Treason. Words he used to excoriate himself. Was this cowardice that he felt now, this reluctance to follow Arkady into the River of Time, into this war against the Ofan? Nick packed that thought away. This was no time for memories and no time for self-doubt. He was about to step lightly across an abyss that was centuries deep. He was about to go home.
    They followed the bend in the drive, and the house was lost from sight. Arkady stopped and looked around. “Behind this tree,” he said. “In your time, would there be anything over there, a building where people might see us?”
    “There might always be someone about. Scything the lawn, tending sheep, walking or riding across the land.”
    “Hm. Perhaps we jump to nighttime.”
    “It’s probably best. But not too late in the evening. I don’t want to wake my mother.” Nick laughed without humor. “That’s a sentence I never thought I’d say again.”
    “You are about to say many things you never thought you’d say again. Do many things again.”
    Nick didn’t reply. He was thinking about dark eyes, trying to stay calm.
    “Now then,” Arkady said, stepping off the path and behind the tree, being careful not to get dirt on his shining black boots. “Are you ready?” He held out his hands. “Hold tightly.”
    Nick gripped the Russian’s hands. “What am I supposed to do? Lie back and think of England?”
    “No, you do nothing,” Arkady said, missing the joke. “I will think of England. You will come along with me as I think. You do not know in your conscious mind how to jump, but deep inside, in the heart of you, you know. I could not touch the shoulder of a Natural and drag him with me down through history. But you, you are already a time traveler.”
    “Okay,” Nick said, dubious.
    “Little priest. You must trust me.” Arkady’s smile was probably intended to be reassuring, but it was a trifle too wide; with his wild white hair sticking out from under his curly-brimmed beaver hat, he looked slightly manic, like Christopher Lloyd in Back to the Future , a film Nick had finally stopped renting after the girl in the video store started calling him “Marty McFly.” “When I reach out to the past, I will feel for it with my heart. I will sense it. When I have found the past in my heart, I will begin to pull myself back. You too will feel it, through my hands. Your heart will open to the feeling. It will come in like the flood. You will come along with me. Do you understand?”
    Nick nodded, though really, they were probably both insane: two grown men dressed up like Mr. Darcy, holding hands behind a tree, trying to pull themselves by their heartstrings back to the long ago. Mad.
    “Close your eyes, then, my friend. Yes, good.”
    Immediately Julia Percy was there behind his eyelids, as if she were waiting for him. Closer than usual, emerging from the trees in her yellow dress . . . Nick felt a tug, then a sharp pull backward. It felt as if his stomach were trying to burst through his spine. He opened his mouth to breathe and found he couldn’t. Only the feeling of Arkady’s hands and the image of those dark eyes kept him from screaming. Then, abruptly, it was over. Before opening his eyes he breathed, and immediately he was weeping. The air was sweet, sweeter than any air he had breathed in ten years, and it smelled so powerfully of home that Nick began to sink to his knees.
    “Goddamn it.” Arkady hauled him upright. “Do you want to ruin your trousers? Pull yourself together.” He shook Nick by the shoulders. “Now!”
    Nick gasped and opened his eyes to a night so black he could hardly see Arkady beside him. He put out a hand to steady himself against the tree and stumbled as his hand fell through a foot of air; the tree was smaller. It was no longer winter; tiny new leaves were rustling in a slight, cool breeze. Plowed earth and freshly cut grass and wood smoke . . . He took a few deep breaths.
    Arkady spoke more softly. “Are you all right?”
    Nick nodded. “Yes. I’m sorry. The