The Time Travelers: Volume One Page 13

  Clearer than any of them, clearer even than Strat, she saw Aunt Ada: toothless mouth and envelope lips, eyes glittering with secrets. She could actually feel, like velvet or silk, the emotions that had roiled through that elegant ballroom, jealousy and greed filtering through the lace of hope and love.

  “Oh, Annie! Pay attention for once! You’re so annoying,” said Heather. She pointed down the beach, where Sean had joined Cody in the water. “He’s better than nothing! What are you going to replace him with?”

  “Sean isn’t a mug. He didn’t fall off the shelf and break, so I don’t need to replace him.”

  But could I go back for love? I love Strat. Strat loves me. Is that a good enough reason to hurt two families? It’s good enough for Miss Bartten.

  Heather, who didn’t have a boyfriend, was very into other girls’ boyfriends. “Summertime, and you throw away a handsome popular interesting guy?”

  Annie pointed out an unfortunate fact. “Sean is only handsome and popular. He isn’t interesting.”

  “So who were you with all night at the beach?” said Kelly softly, coaxingly.

  A odd distant boom sounded. Kettle drums, maybe? The beginning of a symphony? But also like a car crash, miles away.

  Hundreds of beachgoers turned, bodies tilted to listen. Cody and Sean and the rest took a single step back to dry sand.

  The boom repeated: this time with vibration, as if some giant possessed a boom box loud enough to fibrillate hearts. They felt the boom through the bottoms of their bare feet.

  “The Mansion!” yelled Sean, first to figure it out. “They’re ahead of schedule! They’ve started knocking it down.” Girls moved to the back of his priorities, the way girls should. “Come on,” he yelled. “Let’s go watch the demolition.”

  * * *

  Annie Lockwood screamed his name once, the single syllable streaking through the air like the cry of a white tern protecting its nest. “Strat!” And then she was running. She fought the sand, which sucked up her flimsy little sneakers, and she made it to the pavement, and ran faster than she had ever run anyplace. Against her white shorts and shirt, her bare legs and arms looked truly gold.

  If the Mansion came down … if there was nothing left … how would she ever get back?

  “Strat!”

  The wrecking ball, a ton of swinging iron, was indifferent to the shrieks of a teenage girl on a distant path. Massive chains attached it to a great crane. It hit the far turret, from which Harriett had once looked out across the sand and watched Strat fall in love. The tower splintered in half but did not fall, and the wrecking ball swung backward, preparing for its next pass.

  Annie felt as if it hit her own stomach. How will I get back if there is nothing left but splinters?

  Blinking lights and sawhorses stood in her path. Signs proclaimed danger. “You can’t go no further today,” said a burly man in a yellow hard hat. He was chewing tobacco and spitting. “It’s dangerous. No souvenirs.”

  I don’t want a souvenir. I want Strat.

  She had never wanted anything so much in her life, or dreamed of wanting anything so much. She could have turned herself inside out, peeled herself away from the year, thrown herself like a ton of swinging iron a hundred years away.

  “Strat!” she screamed.

  Strat ripped open the carriage door and leaped out while the four horses were still clippy-clopping along. Robert, the driver, yanked them to a stop. Strat was yelling incoherently, dancing like a maniac in the middle of the road.

  Walker Walkley was pleased. If Strat were to go insane, he, Walk, could not only marry Devonny, but he could become the replacement son. They were barely a few hundred yards from the Mansion. Robert was a solid witness and would testify to young Mr. Stratton’s seizure. This was good.

  Devonny was frantic. If Strat were to go insane, she, Devonny, would have to protect him. And how was she going to do that, when she had failed to protect either Bridget or Florinda?

  Through the open swinging carriage door, Walker Walkley saw it happen. Anna Sophia Lockwood. Transparent. And then translucent. And then solid.

  His hair crawled. His spine turned to ice and his tongue tasted like rust. There are ghosts.

  “Annie!” said Strat, laughing and laughing and laughing. He swung her in a circle, while he kissed her flying hair. “Robert!” he yelled, remembering the trouble he was in. He almost threw Annie into the carriage with Devonny and Walk. “Hurry on, Robert, forget this, you didn’t see a thing.”

  Robert, probably knowing what a large tip he would get, obeyed.

  Devonny shrieked, “Strat! She’s naked. And she may be a murderer. Don’t you put her in here with me. Where did she come from? Where are her clothes?”

  “She isn’t a murderer, Dev. I don’t know who did it, but it wasn’t Annie, she wasn’t here yet, I saw her coming the last time and I know.”

  “Saw her coming?” repeated Devonny.

  Walk, who had just seen what Strat meant, scrunched into his corner, unwilling to be touched by the flesh of a ghost.

  “She did travel over the century?” whispered Devonny.

  “Of course,” said her brother.

  They’re all insane, thought Walker. Do I really want to marry Devonny and have that insanity pass to my children?

  “Well!” said Devonny, gathering herself together. “She can’t sit here with nothing on. Walk, close your eyes. Strat, turn your back. Thank goodness I have a valise in here.” Devonny undid the straps of a huge leather satchel and pulled out a gown to cover the girl up.

  Walk put his hands over his eyes, but naturally stared through his fingers anyway. Every inch of her was beautiful. All that skin! Husbands didn’t see that much of their wives. Nevertheless, Walker did not envy Strat. Nothing would have made him touch a female who came and went by ghost.

  * * *

  Sean of course had taken his car.

  He wouldn’t waste time floundering over sand and grass when he could drive. He saw his girlfriend running and tried to clock her, because she was really moving. She should take up track. When ASL twisted through the woods, he could see her no longer. But he knew the name now. The guy she’d spent the night on the beach with. Scott or Skip or something. Whoever it was, Sean would beat him up. No Skippie or Scottie was fooling around with Sean’s girl.

  Sean felt great.

  He’d show Skippie a thing or two.

  His car came around the long curve from which the Mansion was most visible. He saw the wrecking ball hit the square turret and stopped his car in awe. There was nothing like destruction.

  And he saw Annie Lockwood.

  Her dark hair, half braided, and now half loose, was oddly cloudy. He meant to drive toward her, but he had the odd, and then terrifying, sense that the road was full. He could see nothing on the road. Only he, Sean, occupied that road, and yet it was full.

  He half dreaded a collision, and yet there was nothing there with which to collide.

  He half waited, and half saw Annie slip through time, and had half a story to tell when people demanded answers.

  CHAPTER 12

  It had been hard to believe when it happened before—centuries grazing her cheeks and swirling through her hair. But this time—as if a godmother waved a wand—time simply shifted. There was no falling, no rush of years roaring in her ears.

  I didn’t touch anything magic, thought Annie. There was nothing to touch. So what does it? Is it true love? Did he call me back, or did I call him back?

  She was wild with joy, and did not want to let go of him. His lovely neck, his perfect hair, his great shoulders—but here was Devonny demanding to know why she was naked. “I’m not naked. I’m wearing plenty of clothes,” she protested. “Shorts and shirt, clean and white.”

  “You are disgusting,” said Devonny. “But I suppose murderers are.” She pulled out an Empire-style dress of pale blue, embroidered with darker blue flowers and white leaves, a dress so decorative Annie felt she had turned into a painting
to go over a mantel. It was very tight by Annie’s standards, but these people wanted their clothes to be like capsules.

  “I’m not a murderer, Devonny,” said Annie. I’m so happy to see her! thought Annie. Has it been a hundred years or ten days since we talked last?

  Devonny gave the boys permission to look again.

  Strat and Annie looked at each other with smiles so wide they couldn’t kiss, couldn’t pull their lips together long enough to manage kisses. For once Devonny actually met Walk’s eyes, and together they squinted with a complete lack of appreciation. Strat should not be in love with a possible murderess, lunatic or century changer.

  “Strat and Devonny and I are quite frantic to see the Statue of Liberty, Miss Lockwood,” said Walker Walkley, to interrupt this unseemly display, “and are going into the city for a change of air.”

  Devonny produced a large oval cardboard box, papered, ribboned and tied like a birthday present. From this she drew out a truly hideous straw contraption, with tilted double brims, decorated with wrens in nests that dripped with yellow berries.

  “I have not been frantic to see the Statue of Liberty,” Strat corrected. “I have been frantic to see Anna Sophia.”

  Roughly Devonny pinned up Annie’s hair, stabbing her head several times, just the way Annie would have if she’d been as irritated with her brother’s choice of girlfriend. Slanting the grotesque hat on Annie’s head, Devonny flourished a pin with a glittering evil point. Annie flinched.

  “Don’t worry. People hardly ever get killed with hat pins,” said Strat, grinning. “It is essential to be in fashion.”

  “No wonder your courtship has to be so formal,” said Annie. “We can’t both get under the brim of the hat to kiss. I refuse to wear this.” She was sure Strat would hurl the hideous thing out the carriage window, but instead he tied it beneath her chin and secured the veiling that hid her neck, throat and cheeks.

  “No way!” cried Annie. Trying to see through the veil was like holding a thin envelope up to the sun to try to read the contents.

  But Strat would not let her take the hat and veiling off. “I’m thinking as fast as I can,” said Strat, his mood swerving from love to responsibility. “Father is in a terrible mood. Finding you will make things worse, so we won’t let him know. You’ll come into the city with us, that’s how I’ll protect you. You’ll be a friend of Devonny’s. We’ll smuggle you into the railroad car, and—”

  “She won’t be a friend of mine,” said Devonny. “She killed Matthew.”

  “Devonny, will you be quiet?” said her brother. “She did not kill Matthew.”

  “Then who did?” demanded Devonny. “Bridget was in the garden with Florinda when Matthew was pushed down the stairs. Mr. Rowwells saw some young girl do it, and it wasn’t Bridget, so it had to be her.”

  Behind veils and ribbons and straw and birds’ nests, Annie tried to think. But they planned their fashion well, these people who did not want women to think. The heavy gloves, the tightly buttoned dress bodice, the pins and ties and bows—they removed Annie from Strat, removed her from clear thought, made of her a true store-window mannequin. Merely an upright creature on which to hang clothing.

  “They’ll hang you,” said Devonny to Annie, “but at least you’ll have clothes on.”

  “They’ll hang me?” For a moment Annie had no working parts. No lungs, no heart, no brain.

  Strat flung himself around her. “I won’t let them touch you. They have no proof, and I saw you come through, so I know you didn’t do it. I will save you, Annie.”

  “Strat, this isn’t a good idea,” said Walker Walkley. “Your sister has undoubtedly guessed correctly. Your father forgave you for what happened with Harriett, but he won’t forgive you for sheltering a murderess. Put this female out on the road and let the police find her.”

  The police? thought Annie. If they were that mad at me for wasting their time on a search, how mad will they be if they think I murdered somebody? Would they really hang me? What would I say at my trial? No, at the time I was a hundred years later. Not a great defense. I sort of saw what happened, it was very dark, and the blackness rasped around me, and … Oh, the jury would love it. All the way to the gallows.

  Her mouth was terribly dry. She had no corset this time, but even so, she could not get enough breath. She had thought only of love, not of consequence.

  “We need to go into New York on schedule, Strat,” said Walk, “and not refer to this again. Your father will lock you up too. You must think clearly. There is a lot at stake here.”

  “Annie’s life and freedom are at stake,” said Strat intensely. He moved her forward on the seat, putting his own arm and chest behind her, so he was protecting her back, even in the carriage.

  He meant it. Her life and freedom. At stake.

  Stake. Did they use stakes in 1895? Did they tie women to poles and burn them? Surely that was two centuries earlier.

  Nothing felt real. Not her body, not her hands inside the heavy gloves, not Strat on the other side of the veil.

  “Would they really hang me?” whispered Annie.

  “I won’t let them,” said Strat.

  Which meant they would … if they caught her.

  Harriett was wearing a similar hat. By tying the veil completely over her face, claiming fear of sun, she could prevent Mr. Rowwells from touching her skin. It was very hot, yet not a single inch of Harriett’s skin was exposed. She wore long sleeves, hat, veil, gloves and buttoned boots.

  How could Devonny and Strat leave me here like this!

  Tears slid down her face behind the veil.

  But by accepting a marriage proposal, she had become a different person; property instead of a young girl. Until the agreements were settled, she could not be taking excursions. She must stay here with her guardian and her fiancé.

  When Harriett had asked about college, Mr. Stratton simply looked at her. “You made a decision, Harriett, of which you knew I would disapprove. College is not a possibility.”

  She wanted to throw herself on his mercy, and say she was sorry, and she was afraid of Mr. Rowwells, and she loved Strat, and she would give all her money to the Strattons forever if she could just cancel this engagement, but something in Mr. Stratton’s eyes filled Harriett with anger: that this should be her lot in life, to obey.

  So she let it go on, when the only way it could go was worse.

  “I wanted to do the right thing by you,” said Jeb through the bars. “So I came to say good-bye.”

  “And how is that the right thing?” said Bridget, her temper flaring. She did not come close to him. She was too filthy now, and could not bear for Jeb to see her like this, especially when he was not coming from love, but duty.

  “I was wrong to step out with you,” said Jeb. She thought perhaps his cheeks colored, saying that, but there was so little light from the lantern the jailer held that she couldn’t be sure. “My father and mother are giving me the money to head West. I’m going to try California. I have my train ticket.” Jeb forgot he was a man leaving a woman, and said excitedly, “You can go all the way by train now. I’ll see buffalo and Indians, Bridget. I’ll see prairies and the Rocky Mountains and the Pacific Ocean.”

  “Yes, and I hope you’ll see the devil too,” snapped Bridget. She was crying. She wanted to stay strong, but he was leaving her and she did not have a friend in the world who could get her out of this. The other servants had crept by, one by one, bringing better food and trying to bring courage, but they could not bring hope.

  After all, Bridget came close to the boy she had loved, overcome by terror and loneliness. “Jeb, please! Go to the Mansion and—”

  “Bridget, I’m taking the next train. You attacked Matthew, and there was no reason but your Irish temper, and you have to pay now.”

  And he was gone.

  And with him the jailer, and the lantern, and the last light she ever expected to see before her trial.

  Florinda and Harriett circled the garden. Fl
orinda was wearing less protection from the sun than Harriett, but they were both gasping for breath. “I have just learned something dreadful,” said Florinda.

  Everything was dreadful now, so Harriett did not bother to respond.

  “He lied,” said Florinda. “Hiram told us he went to the police and explained about Bridget, but Hiram didn’t go at all. Bridget is still in jail and nobody in authority knows that she was with me when Matthew was murdered.”

  Harriett stared at Florinda. “He lied? But why, Florinda? Why would he lie to us?”

  “I expect because it’s easier. Bridget is just a servant and we are just women.”

  “I don’t want to be just a woman!”

  “You have money of your own,” Florinda pointed out. “You could choose not to marry and never have that cigar-smoking lump touch you.”

  Harriett did not argue with this insulting description. “I gave my word.”

  “Yes, well, they break their word all the time, don’t they?”

  The gentlemen appeared on the veranda.

  How frightening they were, in those buttoned waistcoats and high collars, with those black lines running down the fabric, as if attaching them to the earth they owned. Like judges at the end of the world, thought Harriett. If only I could be permitted to judge them instead!

  Mr. Stratton actually snapped his fingers to call Florinda. He was having a brandy, and wished her company. Briefly. He just liked to look at her, and then would dismiss her. She was a property, a nice one, but on trial herself now, and might soon be replaced.

  Florinda bowed her head and obeyed.

  Harriett was getting a terrible headache. Far too much heat trapped in far too much clothing. Far too many terrible thoughts in far too short a time.

  For who had the worst temper of anyone on the estate?

  Mr. Stratton.

  Who struck people who could not strike back?

  Mr. Stratton.

  Who had lied about rescuing Bridget, and was allowing a young girl to carry the blame for a murder?