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Divine by Choice

“Bring a goblet too.” I shouted at her back as she (literally) ran across the room to do my bidding.

“Of course, my lady!” she shot back over her shoulder before she disappeared through the arched door that led to the kitchens.

Sometimes it was just damn nice to be Goddess Incarnate and Beloved of Epona. OK, I’ll admit it – it was more than sometimes nice. Please – I was surrounded by opulence and loved by the populace. I had a veritable herd of eager handmaidens whose sole purpose in living was to see that my every need was met, not to mention wardrobes filled with exquisite clothing and drawers brimming with (be still my beating heart) jewellery. Lots of jewellery.

Let’s face it – I was living well beyond the means of an Oklahoma high school teacher’s salary. Big surprise.

THE GODDESS OF PARTHOLON series

New York Times best-selling author

P.C. CAST

DIVINE BY MISTAKE

DIVINE BY CHOICE

DIVINE BY BLOOD

And coming in 2010 from MIRA Books:

ELPHAME’S CHOICE

BRIGHID’S QUEST

Find out more at www.mirabooks.co.uk

Divine by Choice
Book Two of the Goddess of Partholon series
P.C. Cast

This is another one for my dad, Dick Cast (Mighty Mouse – the Old Coach). With all my love (Bugs).

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Thank you to the wonderful team (especially Mary-Theresa

Hussey, Stacy Boyd and Adam Wilson). It’s a pleasure

to work with all of you.

Much appreciation to my agent and friend,

Meredith Bernstein.

Thank you, dad, for letting me use your terrible break-through-the-ice-and-almost-die accident, even though

seeing it in print gave you the heebie-jeebies.

and a special and loving THANK YOU to the

Divine by Mistake fans who have been waiting five long years to get this sequel. My fans are the best!

Dear Lovely reader,

Right now I’m writing my twenty-first novel, and I can tell you without any hesitation that out of all those books the heroine with whom I most easily identify – the heroine I like the very best – is Shannon Parker. I’ve been thinking about why that is and, oddly enough, it isn’t her strengths that endear Shannon to me. She’s certainly funny and smart and honest. That’s nice – but that’s also like a zillion other heroines. What I like best about Shannon are her flaws. She messes up. More than once. She gets pissed off and says things she’s sorry about later. She gets overconfident and stubborn, all of which make her delightfully real. I’d like to have a glass (or twelve) of wine with Shannon. If someone’s made me mad, I’d like to call her and have her get pissed off on my behalf. Shannon would be a loyal friend, and she damn sure would never be boring or spineless.

In Divine by Choice Shannon has several very difficult decisions to make, and while she doesn’t always make the perfect choice, she makes the real choice, and she does it with a sense of humour and an exuberance for life and love that I hope you, too, will find endearing.

Welcome to Divine by Choice, and another grand adventure in the magical world of Partholon.

Cheers!

P.C. Cast

PART ONE

1

Like ink running down a sheet of black paper, the darkness at the edge of my vision wavered, sending a chill of foreboding shivering across my skin. What the hell? I peered into the shadows. Nothing. Just an empty, starless night that had turned cold and windy.

Clearly I was losing my friggin' mind.

The Fomorian War had been over for months. No winged demons lurked about waiting to pounce on me. I mean, please, I was in the middle of my own temple, which, despite its beauty, had been built as a fortress. Even had some kind of freaky monster been loose upon the world (and in this world, one never knew), I was more than perfectly safe. Seriously, I was in more danger of being pampered and adored to death than I was being monster-grabbed. Yet I still had the awful “someone just walked over my grave” feeling. And tonight wasn’t the first time I’d felt as if something was wrong.

As I followed the marble path that led to the monument I thought about the weird sense of foreboding I seemed to be carrying around with me. Had it been weeks? Damn! Now that I really thought about it I realized that it had been at least two or three weeks that I’d been feeling off. I’d definitely been off my food, which was bizarre in its own right because I seriously love food. But a lingering stomach virus and/or stress could account for that. What was most odd was the way I’d been jumping at shadows. And the shadows seemed dark and thick and filled with something definitely malevolent.

Okay, yes, I’d just been through a truly awful war in which the good guys (naturally, the ones on my side) had to battle horrid demonic creatures and save the world from enslavement and annihilation. Literally. And yes, that could make a girl slightly jumpy. Especially if the girl was really a high school English teacher from Oklahoma who had accidentally been exchanged for the Beloved Incarnate of a Goddess in a world that more closely resembled a weird mixture of ancient Scotland and mythological Greece than Broken Arrow, Oklahoma (a lovely suburb of Tulsa). All true. But the war was over. The demons extinguished, and (supposedly) all was right with the world. So why did I feel like the damn booger monster was out there in the darkness waiting to leap on me?

Jeesh, I had another headache.

When I got to the MacCallan’s memorial I tried to still my roiling thoughts by breathing deeply and savoring the peace and serenity that always blanketed me when I visited it. Tall, graceful columns ringed a three-stepped marble dais, whereon an ornately carved pedestal stood as the resting place for a weighty urn that was kept perpetually filled with sweet-scented, forever-burning oil.

Tonight the silver-gray smoke curled lazily up through the circular hole in the domed roof. I walked slowly toward the urn, enjoying the way the brilliant yellow flame contrasted with the backdrop of the starless night’s sky. I had specified that the monument be built with no walls, just columns, a dome and this ever-burning flame. I believe the man memorialized here would have liked the freedom it symbolized.

A breeze stirred my hair and I shivered. The cool air was almost moist. I was glad I’d let Alanna bully me into wearing my ermine-lined cloak, even though the memorial was only a short walk from my chambers.

“Lady Rhiannon!” A young maiden rushed between the columns on the far side of the edifice. She paused long enough to drop almost to the floor in a fluid curtsy. “May I bring you some warmed wine? The night has become chilly.”

“No.” Distracted, I barely glanced at her, quickly searching my memory for her name, “Maura. I don’t need anything. You may go back to bed.”

She smiled at me shyly. “Yes, my Lady.” Then she blurted, “But you will call if there is anything you require?”

I returned her smile with a tired one of my own. “Yes, I will call.”

She bounded away.

I looked sardonically at the urn and rolled my eyes. “The annoying exuberance of youth,” I muttered at the smoking flame. “But I’m probably preaching to the choir here. Heck, you’d probably consider me filled with youthful exuberance.” Getting no audible answer, and, of course, expecting none, I climbed to the top level of the dais and sat down with a sigh, tucking the thick folds of my cloak around my knees before I rested my chin in my hand. “But then I don’t really know what you would think. I never actually knew you.” I sighed again, plucking irritably at the escaping curl that was tickling my cheek.

I had hoped visiting the monument would lift my spirits as it usually did, but tonight I couldn’t shake the depression that threatened to engulf me. I rubbed my right temple where the needle prick of a headache throbbed with each beat of my heart.

Another wisp of breeze ruffled my cloak. Again, the hair on the back of my neck lifted eerily. I turned my head to check the leather tie that knotted my thick tresses back from my face, and my eyes caught the movement of something liquid and dark as it skittered just outside the line of my sight. Forgetting the escaping hair, I sat up straighter, ready to chastise whoever was encroaching upon my privacy.

“Who is it?” I demanded imperiously.

Silence.

I studied my surroundings. The low-hanging clouds curtained the night sky. The only illumination came from the flame burning steadily before me. I could see nothing out of the ordinary—except that the darkness of the night mirrored my mood. Nothing sinister stirred or skulked or crept in the dim non-shadows.

Jeesh, Shannon. Get a grip, girl!

It was probably just the wind in the nearby trees, mixed with a healthy dose of my always-active imagination. That was probably it. Nothing was really wrong…

…Then another movement caught at the edges of my vision. I turned my head quickly, but all I could see was darkness on darkness—more ink running across a page of black paper. I shivered again and my memory stirred. What was it Alanna had told me not long after I’d come to Partholon? Something about dark gods who were better left unnamed. My stomach clenched in an unexplained spasm of fear. What was wrong with me? I definitely didn’t traffic with dark gods. Hell, I didn’t even know anything about them. Why should just the thought of such beings cause me to be afraid?

Something was definitely not right.

As it had been for weeks, a feeling too deep to call sadness and too thick to call loneliness nagged at the edges of my mind. I put my face in my hands, stifling a sob.

“I wish you were alive, Dad. I need to talk to you about what the hell is going on inside of me.”

He’s not really your father. My errant thoughts taunted me. And this is not really your world. Interloper. Usurper. Fraud.

“It’s my world now!” I yelled before I spiraled down into an endless wash of tears. My voice split the night with its strength. The sound echoed eerily off the columns like a tolling bell, which made me start in response. My unexpected reaction caused me to laugh out loud at my own foolishness.

“What the hell am I doing sitting here yelling at myself and imagining the booger man in night shadows?” The humor in my voice helped to ease my morose mood. As I wiped the tears from my eyes and took a deep breath, I watched the almost full moon suddenly break through the misty sky and appear over the trees. I smiled in pleasure at the ethereal beauty of the timeless orb.

“I don’t care if I wasn’t born into this world. I love it here. This is where I want to be, and it’s where I belong.” I said resolutely.

And, of course, it was true. Rhiannon, the original Incarnate and Beloved of the ancient Celtic horse goddess Epona, had jerked me out of twenty-first century America—Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, to be specific—where I had been content to be Shannon Parker, an incredibly attractive, witty and broke high school English teacher. Rhiannon had succeeded in casting a spell that caused us to exchange places. Almost six months ago I had awakened from what I’d thought was a horrible car accident to find myself in Partholon, a parallel world where mythology and magic lived. To add to my initial confusion, some of the people of Partholon mirror those of my old world. In other words, people looked familiar, they even sounded and maybe acted familiar, but in actuality they weren’t. Which is where the monument to the MacCallan (my dad/non-dad) came in.

For a moment I felt a wave of sadness, not just because my beloved father was a world away, but because his mirror image in this world, Rhiannon’s father the MacCallan, had been brutally killed not long after I had arrived here. The power of my Goddess had allowed me to witness Rhiannon’s father’s death so that I could warn this world of an encroaching evil. My mind told me that the man whose death I had witnessed, Lord MacCallan, Chieftain of his Clan, was not actually my father, but my heart whispered something else. The MacCallan had been a leader and a warrior. My father, too, was a leader of men—mostly young men. His chosen field of battle was the football field. I couldn’t help feeling unalterably bonded to the dead man who so closely resembled my father.

“It’s damn confusing sometimes,” I said as I rose and gave the side of the urn a pat. MacCallan’s body wasn’t entombed here. He lay with his men within the charred ruins of Mac-Callan Castle. I had felt the need to erect this monument to him, to show him the respect I would want accorded to the memory of Richard Parker.

There were a lot of things I had learned about Rhiannon that mortified and embarrassed me, but her love for her father was not one of them. Now I enjoyed having the status of Lady Rhiannon, High Priestess of Partholon, Beloved of Epona and Goddess Incarnate in her place. And I supposed that she “enjoyed” being an underpaid Oklahoma public-school teacher.

The thought made me laugh as I walked toward the path that would lead me back to Epona’s Temple.

“Yeah,” I whispered sarcastically. “It was obvious how much she had been enjoying her change of status when she attempted to re-exchange places with me a few months ago.”

The memory of that failed attempt sobered me. Even though I hadn’t been born to this world I had become bound to it. Partholon was my home now; these people my people—Epona my Goddess. I closed my eyes and sent a quick prayer to her. Epona, please help me to stay.

My stomach lurched and I swallowed hard. Maybe that was what was wrong with me. Maybe Rhiannon was up to her old tricks and was trying to pull me away from Partholon and back to Oklahoma so that she could return here, and this creepy, bullshit sick feeling was Epona sending me a premonition of trouble so that I’d keep my eyes open. Ugh. Just thinking about losing Partholon—and the husband and people I’d come to love here—was enough to cause another wave of sickness to wash over me. Damnit! I was completely tired of feeling like this! I shivered again as a breath of chilled wind caressed my cheeks and slipped within my cloak. I thought of the weird, running darkness I kept imagining around me. Now it seemed I had started hallucinating.

Great—my husband was gone for one month to make sure the land was recovering from battle and I go totally nuts.

Squaring my shoulders, I told myself to knock it off. Rhiannon was in Oklahoma. I was here in Partholon, which was how things were going to stay. I’d just be on my guard against unusual weirdness (easier said than done, but still). And about the sick feeling in my stomach…well…I had probably just caught a nasty flu bug, which was adding to a bad case of the I’m-a-newlywed-and-my-husband-went-on-a-trip blues. Anyway, he was due home any day. Things would get back to normal then.

At least that’s what I told myself as I ignored the crawling night shadows. The lights of the temple beckoned and I picked up my pace, whistling the theme to The Andy Griffith Show. Loudly.

2

Unfortunately, the next day didn’t get any damn better.

“Oh, yuck!” I spit the piece of chocolate-dipped strawberry into my hand. “There’s something wrong with it.” I sniffed suspiciously at the semichewed lump in my palm. It looked disquietingly like a hunk of raw flesh. I grimaced at my friend, who also served as this world’s equivalent to my girl Friday. In other words, Alanna knew about everyone and everything in Partholon, which helped me look less like a fish roosting in a tree and more like a real Goddess Incarnate. “I think it’s rotten.” After spending yet another sleepless night, what I didn’t need was a tragic and messy episode of food poisoning on top of my already weird upset stomach.

Alanna chose a different strawberry from the artistically displayed setting, sniffed it, then nibbled carefully.

“Mmm…” She licked her lips and threw me a quick, creamfilled kitten smile. “It must have just been that one—this one tastes wonderful.” She popped the rest of it into her mouth.

“That figures,” I grumbled. “The one I grab is the only yucky one on the whole damn plate.” I picked around the platter until I found an especially lovely, plump chocolate-dressed berry, then I bit carefully into the delicious-looking end of it.

“Ugh!” The half-chewed tip joined the other piece of mush in my hand. “Okay, this is getting ridiculous! This one is nasty, too.” I offered the unchewed part of the offending fruit to Alanna. “Please taste this and tell me I’m not crazy.”

Alanna, being a good friend and, coincidentally, the person who was in charge of the upcoming gala celebration, gingerly took the strawberry from me, sniffed it and nibbled a bite from its sun-kissed side. I waited for her expression to change and for her to spit the berry into her own hand (I pulled my yuckfilled hand out of her range of fire).

And waited.

And waited.

She swallowed and looked at me with doe eyes.

“Don’t tell me it tastes fine.”

“Rhea, it tastes fine.” She offered it back to me. I got one whiff of the rich chocolate/berry smell and cringed.

“Uh, no, keep it.”

“Obviously you are still unwell.” Alanna’s eyes were filled with concern. “I am pleased that Carolan returns with Clan-Fintan tonight. This stomach sickness of yours has gone on entirely too long.”

Yeah, I’d look forward to our “doctor” checking me out—sans penicillin, blood tests, X-rays, etcetera, etcetera. Of course, I couldn’t share my trepidation with Alanna because not only was Carolan this world’s leading doctor, he was also her husband.

A little nymphet-servant scampered up to me.

“My Lady…” She dipped down in an adorable curtsy. “Please allow me to clean your hand!”

“Thank you,” I took the wet linen cloth from her, “but I think I can clean my own hand.” Before she could give me a look that said I had just crushed her little ego, I added, “I would really appreciate it if you could run and get me something to drink.”

“Oh, yes, my Lady!” Her face radiated pleasure.

“Bring a goblet for Alanna, too.” I shouted at her back as she (literally) ran across the room to do my bidding.

“Of course, my Lady!” she shot back over her shoulder before she disappeared through the arched door that led to the kitchens.

Sometimes it was just damn nice to be Goddess Incarnate and Beloved of Epona. Okay, I’ll admit it—it was more than sometimes nice. Please—I was surrounded by opulence and loved by the populace. I had a veritable herd of eager handmaidens whose sole purpose in living was to see that my every need was met, not to mention wardrobes filled with exquisite clothing and drawers brimming with (be still my heart) jewelry. Lots of jewelry.

Let’s face it—I was living well beyond the means of an Oklahoma high school teacher’s salary. Big surprise.

I finished wiping my hand and turned back to the table to find Alanna watching me closely.

“What?” My tone said I was exasperated.

“You have been looking decidedly pale lately.”

“Well, I’ve felt decidedly pale, too.” I realized I sounded grumpy, and attempted a smile and a lighter tone. “Don’t worry about it, I just have a touch of the…the…” (think Shakespeare) “the, um, ague.” I finally finished, pleased with my grasp of the vernacular.

“For two seven-days?” I swear she sounded more like a mother than a best friend. “I’ve watched you, Rhea. Your eating habits have changed. And I believe you’ve lost weight.”

“So, I’ve had a cold. And this weather hasn’t helped.”

“Rhea, winter is almost upon us.”

“And to think when I first arrived here I thought that it must never get cold.” I looked pointedly at the wall closest to us, whereon a lovely painting depicted someone who looked exactly like me riding a silver-white mare, breasts bared to the world (mine, not the mare’s), while a dozen scantily clad maidens (or at least they were supposed to be maidens) cavorted around me, indiscriminately strewing flowers.

Alanna’s good-natured laughter tinkled. “Rhiannon always chose the frescoes to be painted from scenes of spring and summer rituals. She reveled in the lack of clothing.”

“She reveled in more than that,” I muttered.

I hadn’t been here long when I realized that even though many of the Partholonian people who mirrored people from my old world were alike in personalities (like Alanna and my best friend, Suzanna), Rhiannon was, quite frankly, not a nice person. Alanna and I surmised that one of the reasons she and I were so different could be because Rhiannon was raised as an indulged, totally spoiled High Priestess, and I was raised to act right by a dad who would have knocked the Oklahoma crap right outta me if I’d acted like a brat. So I’d grown up to have some self-discipline and a pretty decent set of morals. Rhiannon, to put it in twenty-first century terms, had grown up to be a raving bitch. Everyone who knew her either loathed her or feared her, or both. She had been self-indulgent and amoral.

And, yes, it had been a mess to step into her friggin ruby slippers (so to speak).

There were only three people in Partholon who knew I was not the original Rhiannon: Alanna, her husband, Carolan, and my husband, ClanFintan. Everyone else just thought I’d made an amazing personality change several months ago (about the same time I’d adopted Rhea as the shortened version of my name). I mean, it really wouldn’t do to let the masses know their object of worship had been snatched from the twenty-first century. And not only that, to my utter and complete surprise this world’s Goddess, Epona, had made it clear that I was, indeed, her choice as Beloved of the Goddess. Huh.

The delicate clearing of a throat swung my attention back to the present.

“The maidens said you spent more than your usual amount of time at MacCallan’s tomb again last night.” Alanna’s voice sounded worried.

“I like it there. You know that.” Thinking of the skittering, inky darkness, I couldn’t meet her eyes. “Alanna, do you remember that you told me that Rhiannon’s lackey, uh, I think his name was B-something.”

“Bres,” Alanna said distastefully.

“Yeah, Bres. Didn’t you say something about him worshipping dark gods?”

Alanna’s eyes narrowed with concern. “I do remember. Bres had powers granted him by evil and darkness. What would make you think of him?”

I shrugged, trying to sound nonchalant. “I don’t know. I guess something about the cold, cloudy night must have creeped me out.”

“Rhea, lately I have been concerned that you—”

Thankfully, Alanna was interrupted by the sound of approaching feet pattering against the marble.

“Your wine, my Lady.” The nymphet had returned bearing a tray on which rested two crystal goblets filled with what I assumed was my favorite merlot.

“Thank you,” I mentally searched for her name as I took one of the goblets and handed the other to Alanna, “Noreen.”

“You are most welcome, Epona’s Beloved!” She skipped away—her red hair flying in a breeze of her own making.

God, she was perky.

“To our husbands returning.” I offered the toast, hopeful that it would change the subject. Alanna clicked her glass to mine as she blushed a sudden, dazzling pink.

“To our husbands.” She smiled softly at me over the top of her glass as she took a drink.

“Ugh!” I could barely swallow my own sip. “This stuff is awful!” I sniffed at the glass, and cringed as the scent of rancid wine met my nostrils. “Does being Beloved of Epona not mean anything anymore? Why do I keep getting everything that’s rotten?” I realized I sounded uncharacteristically petulant, and somewhere inside my mind I was shocked at my own outburst. Why in the hell did I constantly feel on the verge of tears?

“Rhea, let me taste it.”

Alanna took my goblet, smelled the wine, then took a long drink.

And another.

“Well?” My voice reflected my frustration.

“It is fine.” Alanna’s eyes met mine. “There is nothing wrong with the wine.”

“Oh, shit,” I collapsed onto a chaise that sat near the laden banquet table. “I’m dying. I have cancer or a brain tumor or an aneurysm or something.” There was a burning in the back of my throat that signaled I was close to tears. Again.

“Rhea—” Alanna sat next to me and took my hand gently in hers “—perhaps you have become choleric. You have gone through much in the time you have been in our world.”

Oh, sure, “choleric.” What the hell was that? Next she’d want to bleed me or drill holes into my skull to let out the “bad humors” or something equally medieval. My mind frantically tried to recall how penicillin was made from bread mold.

“Carolan will know what to do to help you.” She patted my hand, trying to comfort me.

“Yeah, Carolan will know what’s wrong.” Like hell. There was no technology in this world. That meant no medical schools. He would probably want to chant some kind of offtune song over me and make me drink something made from frog snot.

I was friggin doomed.

“A long bath always makes you feel better.” She stood, pulling me up with her. “Come, I will help you choose a lovely gown—with matching jewelry.” She paused as I got reluctantly to my feet, then added, “The jeweler was here this morning while you were busy with Epi. I had him leave all of his new pieces. I think I remember seeing a lovely pair of diamond earrings and a gorgeous golden brooch.”

“Well, if you insist.” We smiled at each other as we left the banquet room. Alanna knew my weakness for jewelry and knew that it could coax me out of just about any dreary mood, almost as easily as could spending time with my extraordinary mare, Epi, who I had nicknamed after the Goddess, Epona, and rightly so. Epi was the horse equivalent of me. She, too, was Beloved of the Goddess. She and I had a connection that was as magical as it was strong.

“Hey!” Inspiration hit me halfway to the bathing chamber. “Maybe I’m having a bizarre reaction to what’s going on with Epi.” The mare was going to be bred on Samhain night, the eve of the first day in November, as was traditional each third year. In Partholon three is a “magic” number, as Alanna had explained to me, and when the third year rolled around, the equine incarnation of Epona was bred to insure the land’s fertility in the coming harvests. November first was in a couple days, and Epi had been acting fretful and uncharacteristically temperamental ever since the arrival of her future mate the week before.

“Rhiannon never behaved any differently during Epi’s breeding cycles.”

“I wonder if that was the norm for Epona’s Chosen, or was Rhiannon such a selfish hag that she wasn’t sensitive to the mare’s moods?” Before Alanna could answer, I continued, “Or maybe since Rhiannon was always in heat herself, she didn’t notice a difference.”

We both laughed and I felt a little of my tension release. The door to the bathing room was guarded by two of my scrumptious warriors. There were several positive things about the Goddess I’d begun to serve; the fact that she was a warrior goddess and had a hundred handsome, virile men “on staff” was just one of the perks of my new job. I noticed that the guards had added leather tunics to their hot-weather uniforms of, well, virtually nothing except well-filled loincloths. I couldn’t help sighing in disappointment at the thought of all of those muscles being covered.

Yes, I’m married, but I’m not a corpse. Jeesh.

The warm-mineral smell of the candlelit room enveloped me. Steam rose invitingly from the deep, clear bathing pool. The bubbling of the water as it continually filled the bath, and the gentle sound of the waterfall as the overflow left the pool coupled with the moist warmth, beckoning me to relax in its depths and soak away the soreness in my unusually achy body.

I ducked my head out of the cowled robe I wore to keep out the prewinter’s damp cold, and winked my thanks at Alanna as she unwound me from my silky underwrap. Slowly, I immersed myself in the warm mineral bath, reclining against the smooth sides of my favorite rocky ledge. I closed my eyes and listened to Alanna send another nymphet for a cup of herbal tea—then felt my face grimace in self-disgust at my sudden unfortunate aversion to wine—until recently, a glass of rich, red wine had been one of my favorite things.

Maybe I was getting old.

No, thirty-five and a half couldn’t be old, and anyway, I had always planned on being one of those eccentric old ladies who wore lots of big jewelry, had chic, funky hair, drank wine knowingly and died suddenly of an Old White Woman’s Disease (preferably a painless aneurysm after an especially sumptuous dinner). I enjoy practicing for my future golden years.

I tried to convince myself for the zillionth time that I just had a stubborn flu. It was making me depressed and making me imagine things. Of course, now that it was daylight, last night’s dark images seemed distant and more than slightly ridiculous. ClanFintan would be home tonight. Just thinking about being with him again made me feel better, or at least that’s what I told myself. He’d been gone almost a month, and this world’s lack of telephones and e-mail had really worn on me. We’d been married less than six months, but with him gone I felt strangely hollow, like a bell without a clacker. Which was a disconcerting feeling for someone who had changed worlds recently. Actually, it made me feel a little like I was trapped in one of the alternative-dimension Star Trek episodes (minus Kirk and whatever alien bimbo he would be boinking).

“Try this.” Alanna handed me a thick mug filled with fragrant tea. “It will settle your stomach.”