The Timeless Verse

Copyright © 2024 by Sophie Grant.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any form whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations in critical articles or reviews.

First Edition : April 2024

Content

Chapter 1: A Verse Across the Ages

Chapter 2: Poetry in Motion

Chapter 3: Whispers of the Wayward

Chapter 4: Bound by Desire

Chapter 5: Sins of the Sanguine

Chapter 6: United We Stand

Chapter 7: Sands of the Celestial

Chapter 8: He Dwelt Among the Untrodden Ways

Chapter 9: The Grail of Guinevere

Chapter 10: Babylon's Dust

Chapter 11: Love Beyond the Veil

Chapter 12: The Lost Orphica

Chapter 13: Woven in the Crimson Web

Chapter 14: A Lengthening Shadow

Chapter 15: The Cauldron of Eternity

Chapter 16: By My Soul Secure

Chapter 17: When Our Eternal Rays

Chapter 18: Amor Perpetua

Chapter 1: A Verse Across the Ages

THE ANCIENT FLOORBOARDS creaked beneath Amelia Blake's worn sneakers as she wound her way through the labyrinthine stacks of the Cloverdale Public Library archives. Specks of dust swirled in the dim yellow beams cast by the overhead lights, the only illumination in this forgotten corner of the centuries-old building. Amelia brushed back a stray lock of chestnut hair, adjusting her glasses to peer at the next shelf of musty tomes awaiting her attention.

Dickens...Dostoevsky...Dumas... She murmured the authors' names like a bibliophilic rosary as she scrutinized the faded spines. At twenty-seven, Amelia much preferred the company of these bound volumes to the bustle and social superficialities that lay beyond the library's thick stone walls. Books were uncomplicated, illuminating, loyal - qualities often lacking in the flesh and blood patrons she was obligated to assist during her daily duties. 

Not that Amelia was a misanthrope by nature. Quite the opposite, in fact. Beneath her reserved exterior beat the heart of a deeply compassionate soul who wished for nothing more than meaningful connections untainted by artifice. But a lifetime spent as the perennial odd one out, the bookish misfit more at home in imagined worlds than the real one, had left her with protective armor of detached politeness and a crippling aversion to risk.

Amelia sighed and continued her reshelving, finding solace in the Sisyphean routine, when an unfamiliar volume caught her eye. It was an aged, leather-bound manuscript stuffed haphazardly between a Nathaniel Hawthorne story collection and Homer's The Iliad. Unlike its published brethren, this book had no title emblazoned on its weathered spine. No library identification stickers or barcodes marred its vintage exterior.

Now where did you come from? Amelia mused aloud, gently extracting the text as if handling a holy relic. The manuscript felt surprisingly hefty in her slender hands. Up close she could see that the leather was intricately tooled with faded fleurs-de-lis and what appeared to be ...were those astrological symbols etched along the borders?

Her curiosity piqued, Amelia balanced the book in one palm and gingerly opened the tarnished brass clasp with the other. The stiff vellum pages within were laced with an oddly acrid yet not unpleasant scent reminiscent of centuries past. Someone had filled the thick parchment with line after line of flowing script that Amelia quickly identified as 17th century penmanship. So, this was no late 20th century replica, but a true original antique.

Excitement thrummed through the young librarian as her eyes scanned the first yellowed page. It appeared to be an anthology of poetry authored by one William Sanderson. The name rang no bells of recognition in her well-read mind, which was an increasing rarity in this stage of her career. Who was this mystery wordsmith lost to time?

"In Faith's Eternal Spring, enraptured I, 

With Muse's flame, my quill in passion flies. 

To weave in ambered verse, my heart's true cry, 

From present woe to Fate's untrodden skies..."

Without meaning to, Amelia had begun reading the opening lines aloud, her clear alto echoing through the deserted aisles. The archaic language was imbued with a raw, entreating power quite unlike the flowery, romanticized verses typical of Renaissance poets. This William Sanderson had possessed an almost otherworldly gift for metaphor that transcended the stilted formality of his era to tap into something primal and urgent.

As she continued to recite his words, Amelia felt a peculiar energy begin to gather around her. The air seemed to hum and oscillate with each syllable that passed her lips, sending prickles of static electricity skittering across her skin. Stray strands of hair lifted from her shoulders to waver in an unfelt breeze. From the corner of her vision, the stacks appeared to undulate like reflections in a funhouse mirror. 

"My heart doth burn, a flame of auric light 

To rend the veil 'tween dawn and darkest night 

Oh Muse, pray hark! Breathe life to wretched quill 

Heed now thy faithful servant's utmost will!"

On the final word, the manuscript erupted with an explosion of blinding white radiance. Amelia cried out and collapsed to her knees, the book tumbling from her hands. She couldn't see, she couldn't breathe! The searing luminescence seemed to coalesce into a vaguely humanoid shape directly in front of her.

Squinting against the glare, Amelia thought she glimpsed the figure of a tall man garbed in antiquated finery - an emerald, green just corps jacket, frothy lace cravat, and polished leather boots that ended just below the knee. But it had to be a trick of the light, a hallucination brought on by fatigue or fumes from the rotting pages. Didn't it?

As abruptly as it had ignited, the glow vanished, plunging the archives back into sepulchral dimness. Amelia blinked hard, neon afterimages seared into her retinas. To her utter shock, the apparition remained. A man who had no earthly business existing in the 21st century stood mere feet away, his handsome face a mask of aristocratic outrage.

Who dares summon me to this...this hovel? His baritone voice was a clap of thunder in the tomblike hush. I demand you show yourself, sorceress!

Amelia gaped at him, trying to reconcile the impossibility before her eyes. He was young, perhaps in his early thirties, with an aesthetic that would have been right at home gracing the cover of a bodice-ripping romance novel. Lustrous chestnut hair fell in a fashionable shoulder-length style framing an angular, nearly too-pretty face saved from effeminacy by an aquiline nose and strong chin. His eyes, God his eyes...they were the piercing celadon of bottle glass, at once vivid and soulful and seething with mercurial temperament.

I...I'm not... Amelia's tongue felt thick and unwieldy as she struggled to form a coherent response. Her rational mind simply could not accept what her senses were reporting. This was a prank. An elaborate cosplay by an unhinged grad student. A psychotic break. Anything but reality.

The man's hawkish gaze fixed on her and his scowl deepened. You there, wench. Was it you who spoke the Words? Answer truthfully, for I'll not brook deceit.

My name is Amelia, she managed to croak. Amelia Blake. I'm a librarian. And y-you...?

Sirrah, you have the questionable honor of addressing William Sanderson, Viscount of Moorton and First Poet to His Majesty King Charles II. He executed a stiff, perfunctory bow, never taking those unnerving eyes off her. Though I suspect you knew that already, having liberated my private folio from whichever bastion saw fit to imprison it.

William Sanderson. The author of the very book that had somehow summoned him into existence. Amelia shook her head in dumbfounded wonder. But that's not... you're not...

Not what, pray tell? Speak up, girl! I've no patience for your provincial dithering. He took a threatening step closer and Amelia finally shuffled to her feet on legs gone watery.

You're not real! she blurted, holding out the manuscript like a protective ward. You're a character from another time. A figment. I don't know how this is happening, but it cannot be happening.

William's eyes widened at the sight of his opus clutched in her white-knuckled grip. So, it is you. The Oracle prognosticated that an adept would one day speak the Words and bridge the ageless rift. I dared not believe...

He trailed off, reaching out with an elegant, long-fingered hand to brush the weathered leather. Amelia flinched but held her ground. His touch on the book was reverent, a pilgrim confirming the truth of a long-denied relic.

The secret verses, William murmured, seemingly to himself. The ones bestowed through the ether and branded upon my eternal soul. Only they could span the essential gulf to deliver me to the one destined to walk beside me in the coming conflagration.

His gaze lifted from the manuscript back to Amelia's wary face. The undisguised awe and appraisal in their peridot depths made her shiver. He looked at her as if she were the answer to a question he'd been asking his entire life. As if she, mousy little Amelia Blake, were somehow the key to mysteries beyond mortal ken.

This cannot be happening, she insisted again, but with far less conviction this time. Time travel is a scientific impossibility. You're an anachronism. A delusion.

I assure you, madam, I am quite real. William's arch tone was almost amused, a jarring shift from his earlier imperiousness. More real, I'd venture, than anything you've ever known. The prosaic mundanity of your existence has ill-prepared you for the great work that lies ahead.

Amelia bristled at the casual disparagement, momentarily forgetting her existential crisis. Excuse me? My existence may be prosaic but at least it adheres to the basic laws of physics! You...you should not be here.

Yet here I stand. He spread his arms wide, a showman revealing the undeniable truth of his presence. Brought forth by your voice, your faith, your emergent belief in that which the arrogant and close-minded would decry as delusion. The Words are the key and you, Amelia Blake, are the hand chosen to turn it in the lock.

Emotions cycled through her at dizzying speed - confusion, awe, skepticism, and perhaps most unsettling of all...an electric thrill of validation. Of acceptance. Of finally, blessedly, clicking into place like a long-lost puzzle piece. Some part of her, untouched by logic or cynicism, recognized William as surely as he seemed to know her. As if the universe itself had ordained their impossible meeting.

I don't understand, Amelia said helplessly, hugging the manuscript to her chest. Why me? How are you even here, in 2024? What is happening?

William's smile was a slow, beguiling phenomenon, transforming his imperious mien to that of a co-conspirator. For now, just know that the uncanny is rarely a cage, but rather...an open door. One that we shall step through together, into an arena of marvels and perils beyond your most untrammeled imaginings.

He held out an inviting hand, palm up. The other he placed over his heart like a cavalier swearing an oath. "Will you walk this path with me, Amelia Blake? Will you trust in what your most secret self already knows to be unassailable fact?

That our fates are now inextricably entwined by the sacred weft of the Words. That I am yours...and you are mine...for all eternity.

In that moment, Amelia realized this was a choice from which there could be no return. William was offering her a doorway out of the staid, solitary prison she'd erected around her too-tender heart. He was promising adventure, purpose, the breathless union of destiny-locked souls. How could she say no to the future suddenly unfurling at her feet like a carpet of infinite possibility?

Heedless of the repercussions, Amelia placed her trembling hand in William's. His fingers closed around hers, astonishingly solid and warm. Real. She met his luminous gaze, pulse hammering behind her breastbone, and nodded once.

Yes. I don't know why or how, but...I trust you. I trust this.

His exultant grin outshone the sun. Then let us begin.

Hand-in-hand, Cloverdale's unlikely saviors stepped across a threshold beyond time's reckoning, the ancient words of William's reality-bending verses lighting their way into legend.