The Other Side of Heaven by Morgan O'Neill Read Free Book Online Page A

or did the stars look different here, as if an age had vanished, as if she were now on the other side of heaven?
    Gwen closed her eyes. Everything would make sense; everything would fall into place if she accepted the impossible. Was she feeling the past now? Yes. Undoubtedly. Inescapably. She felt it. She was in it. The Latin. Even the so-called common language everyone spoke. She hadn’t fully recognized it at first, because it was a dead language. The accent was so different from what she’d heard in her head when reading old texts. Yes, she was here. The proof was all around her.
    And that means I’m gone. They must think I’m dead. Vaporized in the ruins of the church.
    Gwen pictured her family, her friends, horrified, grieving, as tears ran out of her eyes and soaked into her bedroll. Had they heard yet? Oh, this would kill her mother. She thought of her family’s home in Santa Monica and her own apartment, just blocks from the pier. Everything, everyone Gwen cared about was gone, forever gone, as good as dead.
    Gwen wadded up her blanket and forced it against her mouth, her eyes. She couldn’t stop crying. Hopefully, the blanket would block the sound of it from carrying across the campsite.
    Home, she wanted to go home, but how could she? She didn’t even know how she’d gotten here.
    In the midst of her grief, how odd to suddenly have one of her beloved poems enter her thoughts. She wiped her tears, gazing at the starry mantle of night, remembering evocative lines from her favorite poet, Tasso, which spoke of mourning and loss.
     
    What weeping, or what dewfall,
    Whose then were those tears,
    Flung from night’s cloak, I saw,
    And the white face of the stars?
    Why was the white moon sowing
    A pure cloud’s crystal mass
    In the lap of fresh new grass?
    Why were the winds heard, blowing,
    Through the dark air, round and round,
    Till dawn, with mournful sound?
    Were they perhaps the strife
    Of your going, life of my life?
     
    Gwen finally fell into a fitful sleep, awakening before dawn. More tears threatened, her emotions raw. The strife of your going, life of my life. She took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. She had to get it together. No more self-pity.
    They broke camp and started traveling just after daybreak. The weather was misty and gray, the horses fidgety. Exhausted, Gwen rode closer to Father Warinus and Lord Alberto, wanting to listen to their conversation, to learn where she was, and when .
    She realized Stefano must have time traveled, too. She vowed to continue her search for him, hoping he was safe, hoping he was coping better than she.
    Maybe somehow, some day, after she found him, they would return to Santa Lucia and figure out how they got here and then find a way to get back home.
    Steeling herself, Gwen sat taller on her horse. She’d spent the night thinking of all she had lost. Now it was time to find a way to survive.
    *
    The morning’s ride was well begun. Alberto now felt intimately familiar with his surroundings. Every rock, every tree and rolling hill spoke of his homeland, his life’s blood, his cherished burden. He glanced at Father Warinus. Soon, they would part ways, for the roads they each needed to follow diverged at the Enza River.
    It was three days gone since they had rescued the itinerant monk. Alberto’s sense of vexation toward the Benedictine had not abated. Why does he ever dog my thoughts?
    “My lord, a word?” Warinus nudged his horse alongside.
    “Yes, Father?” Alberto groaned inwardly. He knew what the priest would ask of him. He’d brought it up several times already.
    “As you know, I too feel uneasy about Brother Godwyn,” Warinus said, “and I would ask you again to reconsider. Is it not wiser for you to keep him close at hand, where you might watch him? If he travels with me, he would be free to pass messages or run off––”
    “We have no proof whatever he is a spy,” Alberto interrupted. “Also, with you, he has knowledge of only one