Heart Dance Read Free Page B

with, Dufleur Thyme.
    Yet still he wondered what other traps his MotherDam had set for him.

Two
    Weary from the workday, Dufleur leaned against the thick doorway opening to her laboratory, looking at the windowless blocks of light gray stone, measuring the room.
    Coming home from work on the public carrier, she’d fallen into a doze and had nearly slipped into a nightmare. This one wasn’t of the lab explosion and her father’s death a year and a half ago. Thankfully, it wasn’t of her kidnapping and attempted murder two months and a day ago. This dream that had begun to suck her down into terror was of her own negligence and the destructionof Winterberry Residence.
    More often she’d been moving in the Time Wind and finding herself on that flat, gray plain. Using the Time Wind as if it were an extension of her personal Flair rather than a scientific phenomena. Her father hadn’t done that. She didn’t know if he could move through time.
    In any case, huge doubts had arisen in her mind, and in good conscience, she couldn’t continue to work in this place if she endangered people or the Residence. She had a small place outside city limits, but it was only four canvas walls and a roof. Not somewhere she could work in the winter.
    She had several options. She could quit experimenting. That thought knotted her stomach. She wanted to clear her father’s reputation! The Thymes had been studying time for generations.Why, everyone on Celta had a no-time storage, where food placed inside a properly tuned cube remained exactly at the same temperature and freshness until it was withdrawn. That had been a Thyme invention.
    The new laws against time experimentation had been generatedby one source, the late D’Willow, who’d convinced the FirstFamilies Council that “messing with time” was too dangerous.Dufleur’s temper went to slow burn. There were certainlyother scientific Families that had an explosion or two in their laboratories. Dufleur had surveyed the ruins of their house and land and sensed no temporal discrepancies. Not that anyone would believe her if she told them. The land had gotten a reputation for being haunted and perilous and thus would not sell.
    She slid a portion of the wall back into place to stop temptation.She’d want to try one simple experiment, despite the fear. Then she might get engrossed and continue through the night. She went and laid down on her narrow bed and stared at the ceiling. Dark had already fallen, and the ceiling with the well-knowncracks was lost in shades of gloom. Every few weeks the cracks became boring and she moved her bed to where she could map new landscapes.
    Thinking mode.
    Deciding mode. Her lips quivered. She didn’t want to give up her experiments. They were the only things that gave her life purpose. How could anyone deny her the right to use and train and expand her Flair? As long as she harmed none.
    Her father had only killed himself.
    She had singed Fairyfoot’s whiskers.
    Her eyes stung in fear and failure.
    With a clatter, Fairyfoot entered the cat door set into one of the high windows and hopped down to land on an old-fashioned chest of drawers.
    “I’m sorry I hurt you,” Dufleur said.
    Fairyfoot sniffed.
    “Since the experiments aren’t safe, I’m giving them up.”
    “Rrrow!” What? You can’t stop. I want to be the Time Cat.
    Dufleur stared. “What do you mean?”
    Other Cats have titles. Ship’s Cat Samba. Flying Cat Meserv. Healer Cat Phyl. I want to be Time Cat.
    Even in the dim light, Dufleur could see Fairyfoot’s thrashingtail.
    Clearing her throat, Dufleur said, “I do have a couple of other options.”
    Another sniff.
    “I could find some way to shield the room—make a room within a room with shields, then if anything goes wrong only I would die.”
    And Me. I watch. But I am an adventurous Cat and have many lives.
    “Huh.” She didn’t want to go into that. Not her specialty. “But such shields would be unusual and expensive.