18. The Final Test
18
THE FINAL TEST
He knew. Or rather, while Samuel Wilcox couldn’t know exactly who Seth and I were, he must have caught enough of a glimpse — whether it was the two of us holding hands, or leaning in close to share a comment — that told him our behavior toward one another was anything but familial.
In worried silence, we’d walked back to the hotel, neither of us daring to comment on what Samuel had just said in case anyone else around us was paying a little too much attention. And I didn’t head into Seth’s room to discuss our day the way we normally would, fearing that the slightest wrong move might send the local villagers after the incestuous couple with their torches and pitchforks.
Okay, that probably wouldn’t happen. But if Samuel really started flapping his jaw, he could make the remainder of our stay here just a wee bit uncomfortable. And although part of me wanted to say that I didn’t care how many bridges we burned here, I knew it was just smart to keep our heads down until we knew for sure we could get safely away.
Seth, bless him, had immediately picked up on the vibe, and only said, “Dinner downstairs at six-thirty?”
I nodded and murmured, “I’ll meet you down there.”
Maybe that behavior would look equally odd, considering the way we’d always shown up together before this, but I was feeling just enough rattled that it seemed safer for us to appear separately.
We went into our rooms, and I closed the door and locked it, aware of how fast my heart was beating under the confining corset. How I wished I could rip the damn thing off and fling it into the fire!
That wouldn’t be a very good idea, though, considering it was the only one I had. No, I’d have to force myself to deal with it, just as I had for the past ten days.
Ten days. It seemed crazy that we’d been trapped in 1884 for that long.
And we’d be stuck here a lot longer if I couldn’t figure out a way to get my act together.
Holding back a frown, I went over to the dressing table and used the brush I’d left lying there to smooth my hair as best I could, then set it down so I could slide in a few more hairpins to make sure the complicated style would hang together through dinner. Honestly, the thought of consuming anything made my stomach turn over, but I knew I needed to eat. If nothing else, Seth and I had to keep up the pretense that everything was perfectly normal in our world.
Satisfied that I didn’t look like an utter wreck — and actually appeared a little rosy in the cheeks, thanks to a day spent out in the wind and sun — I turned away from the mirror. I’d pulled the curtains closed before I left this morning, and now I went over to the window and drew them aside just the slightest bit so I could look out at the street below.
What I was expecting to see, I had no idea. It wasn’t as if Samuel would be foolhardy enough to be standing down there, staring up at me like the boogeyman from a teen scream fright flick.
No, he was scary enough working at the edges of things, through innuendo and implication.
By then, it was a little past six-thirty, so I figured I could go down to the restaurant now. I had a feeling Seth would already be there; during our time in Jerome, he’d always been punctual, and I had no reason to believe he’d be acting any differently now.
Sure enough, he stood near the entrance, waiting for me. As I crossed the lobby to be with him, I was struck all over again by how handsome he looked in that black frock coat and blue brocade vest, how a woman passing by to rejoin her table gave him a lingering look, clearly pleased by what she saw.
He’s mine, honey, I thought, although I hoped my expression didn’t betray anything except mild anticipation for another fine dinner.
Apparently not, because she didn’t have a spare glance for me as the front desk clerk came over to guide us to a table in the corner. Seth and I thanked him as he handed over the menus — although by that point, we’d pretty much memorized them — and we exchanged a few empty words about what we were thinking of eating before the waiter showed up to take our orders.
After he left, an excruciating silence fell. I knew deep down that none of our fellow diners gave a damn what we were talking about, but after what Samuel had said to us at the depot, I felt as if I had to watch every word, every gesture.
Seth appeared to realize we needed to talk about something, so he said, “It seems Williams didn’t work out for us, but perhaps tomorrow we could try taking the train to Winslow. If Eliza truly did head east, that would have been her first stop.”
A logical assumption to make, and if we really had been looking for our lost sister, then that probably would have been our next step.
However, with Jeremiah expecting us at one o’clock, a jaunt out to Winslow wasn’t in the cards.
“Perhaps,” I said. “I will have to see how I feel. I’m a bit tired after being outdoors today and riding the train.”
An utter lie, but I had to hope Seth would understand why I’d publicly shot down his suggestion to take another day trip.
Since his head tilted toward me for just the barest fraction of a second, I had to believe he’d gotten the point. “Of course, Deborah,” he said politely. “Considering so much time has already passed, it’s not as if another day is going to make much of a difference.”
No, it wouldn’t…well, at least not in our pursuit of our elusive “sister.”
On the other hand, I had to hope the coming day would make all the difference in the world when it came to leaving this time and heading into the future.
Another night, another chance to have my sleep plagued by more disturbing dreams. The same elements showed up in them, but even more blurred and hazy, and if I hadn’t already seen them in previous nightmares, I might not have been able to even recognize the black car or the tall frame of the black-haired man.
The only thing that remained clear was the sky, that black expanse cold with flickering stars. Usually, I loved to look at the night sky — one of the many blessings of living in northern Arizona was how little light pollution there was, since all the cities there followed the guidance of the International Dark Sky Society and did their best not to interfere with star-watching — but something about the sky in these dreams felt almost inimical, as if some alien intelligence was staring down at me.
Even in a dream, I realized that was silly. My world couldn’t be exactly ordinary, filled as it was with witches and warlocks and magic powers in all shapes and sizes, but even I knew aliens weren’t real.
After tossing and turning for a bit, I managed to sleep the rest of the night, though, and when I got up, I thought I looked more rested than I had for the past several days.
I chose the green wool gown to wear, partly because the world outside was decidedly grayer than it had been the past couple of days, the skies heavy with the threat of snow, and partly because it was one of the simpler dresses in my wardrobe, one that was a bit easier to move around in, with a modest train and a bustle that, although fashionable enough, wasn’t weighed down with unnecessary frou-frou.
And the high neck of the bodice also helped to hide the amulet, which still hung around my throat.
Seth and I had already agreed to meet in the restaurant for a late breakfast at ten-thirty, since we thought that might serve as a kind of brunch and remove the necessity for having another meal at midday. I didn’t know how much of a workout Jeremiah planned to put me through, and it just seemed like a good idea not to be weighed down with too much food.
Because we were eating so late, the dining room was nearly empty. All the same, I couldn’t help sending a worried glance around us, as though my subconscious was worried that Samuel Wilcox might pop out from behind a parlor palm.
Of course, he didn’t materialize, and we ordered our food without any complications, steak and eggs for Seth, pancakes and bacon for me.
“Did you sleep well?” he asked politely, and I nodded.
“Quite well. I think all that fresh air yesterday did me a world of good.” I paused there and reached for my tea. I hadn’t mentioned the dreams to him this morning, partly because we hadn’t had much opportunity to speak in private, and partly because I wasn’t sure they meant anything. Recurring dreams weren’t that strange — when I was in high school, I’d had the same dream over and over again about being in a sailboat out on the ocean, with no one around for hundreds of miles. Never mind that I’d never been to the beach in my life, let alone gone sailing.
The dream had gone away, as those things almost always did, and I had to believe these half-nightmares would depart once they’d run their course as well. I wouldn’t even try to decipher their meaning — a black-haired man didn’t seem so strange, considering I’d been surrounded by black-haired Wilcoxes for most of my life, and as for the car, I was probably just yearning to be back in a place where the main form of transportation didn’t have four legs.
“Yes, it was interesting to go to Williams, even if our search there didn’t yield much fruit.”
No one was sitting nearby, and yet I still thought we should keep up the fiction about looking for our lost sister. “All the same,” I said, “I think I would like to stick a little closer to home today. All that travel yesterday was a little more taxing than I expected.”
“Of course,” Seth responded at once. “But perhaps you would still be willing to go for a walk later today?”
“That sounds like a good idea,” I said, because it was. We needed some pretext to head out early this afternoon, although obviously, we couldn’t let on that we planned to go anywhere near Jeremiah Wilcox’s house.
Seth inclined his head, then picked up his knife and fork to cut himself a piece of steak. I was still a little surprised by the ready availability of red meat here, but I knew ranching was a big part of the local economy, and we were reaping the benefits of that.
The rest of our breakfast passed quietly enough, and when it was over, we went back to our hotel rooms, with him saying in an undertone that we could meet out front at a little before one o’clock.
A flicker of nervousness went through me, one I did my best to quell. After all, this wasn’t the first time I’d practiced my time travel skills with Jeremiah Wilcox.
I just had to hope it would be the last.
Once again, Park Street was quiet and serene, with no one around to see Seth and me making our way up the front steps at Jeremiah’s house. The sky had grown darker, though, and while I hadn’t seen any flakes falling, the air had that heavy, damp feeling to it that told me snow was on the way…and soon.
Jeremiah ushered us inside as soon as we knocked. Just like the last time we were here, the house was quiet, signaling that we were the only occupants.
Once I’d hung up my cloak and Seth had removed his overcoat, I blurted, “Jeremiah, has Samuel said anything to you?”
Immediately, the primus’s black brows drew together. “Said anything to me about what?”
As quickly as I could, I explained how Seth and I had gone to Williams the day before, and how we’d seen Samuel there.
“Yes, he went to deliver a new wagon to our ranch outside town,” Jeremiah said. “It was something one of our foremen could do, I suppose, but it seemed as if he wanted to have a day away from town, so I told him he could handle the errand if he liked.” Frown returning, he added, “Did something happen?”
“We noticed him at the depot,” Seth replied. “But we thought he hadn’t seen us. When we got to Flagstaff, though, he made a few comments that sounded like a veiled threat, as though he knew we weren’t really brother and sister.”
The primus’s frown deepened. “That is…not good.”
“We’ve been really careful,” I broke in. “The only thing he could have possibly seen was Seth and me holding hands, but I don’t think that’s terribly incriminating. It’s not like he could have caught a glimpse of us kissing or anything like that. We’re not that stupid.”
Jeremiah was silent for a moment, and I wondered if he was going to give us grief for even that one small indiscretion. But then he shrugged and said, “My brother, as the saying goes, likes to stir the pot. I have no doubt that you’ve been careful, as you’ve said. He was already suspicious of you, so anything that didn’t feel quite right would be magnified much more in his mind.”
I had to hope so.
“At any rate,” the primus continued, “I can handle my brother. For now, I think it’s best to proceed with our plans for today.”
“Which are…?” Seth said. He didn’t look exactly relieved, but he also didn’t seem as tense as he’d been a few minutes earlier, as though Jeremiah’s reassurance that his brother wouldn’t be a problem had been enough for him to shove that unsettling exchange with Samuel to the back of his mind.
“More tests of Devynn’s time travel abilities,” the warlock replied. “Unfortunately, we will need to work someplace a little less comfortable than my study, just in case we go past the time when I need to leave for my nephew’s birthday party. Follow me.”
Talk about a vote of confidence, I thought as we followed him upstairs to the second floor…and then up another narrow flight of stairs at the back of the house that led into the attic.
Then again, I hadn’t been exactly consistent in my time travel, so I could see why Jeremiah had thought he needed to take certain precautions so I wouldn’t appear to pop into being in the dining room just as Mrs. Barton was passing through.
I would have expected the attic to be chilly and not very well insulated, but, contrary to what the primus had just said, it seemed comfortable enough up here.
“A small warming spell,” he said in answer to my questioning look. “I didn’t think you would be able to focus very well if you were too busy shivering. It is quite a cold day.”
That it was…with snow on the way, if my Flagstaff-honed weather sense was any good at all. But we were safe and snug enough in here, and if it turned into a blizzard, Seth could just blink the two of us back into his hotel room, gossip be damned.
The attic was just as tidy as the rest of the house. Sure, it contained some trunks and a few pieces of furniture that appeared to have been sent up here when they’d outlived their usefulness, but it was noticeably free of cobwebs and dust and half-exploded boxes of Christmas ornaments, unlike the attic of the old Victorian where I’d lived for the first five years of my life.
“You can sit over there,” Jeremiah said, directing those words to Seth as he pointed toward an armchair whose shabby upholstery showed that it had been much loved before being relegated to the attic. “It will be more comfortable for you in case Devynn doesn’t come back quite when we planned.”
Which sounded like a polite way of saying that he fully expected me to overshoot the mark again. I couldn’t even be angry with him, not when I knew the chances of my doing so were at least fifty-fifty.
The primus turned back toward me. “Today, Devynn, I would like to start small.” He pulled a handsome gold watch out of his waistcoat pocket and glanced down at it. “Currently, the time is 1:14. I want you to travel to 1:30.”
Such a minor jump in time that I wasn’t sure it would even be worth the effort. On the other hand, I thought I could see where Jeremiah was going with this. He wanted me to do small leaps forward in time at the beginning and then work up so he could see where things began to go sideways and I started to lose any kind of accuracy.
But sixteen minutes should be easy…especially when I had the amulet to help me out.
“Got it,” I told him, and visualized the slender minute hand on his watch moving to the half-hour mark.
As always, the slip in time was just a blink. On the other side of that tiny glitch, Seth didn’t seem to have moved, but the primus was now standing closer to the armchair where he sat, as though the two of them had been chatting to fill the time until they caught up with me.
Jeremiah pulled out his pocket watch and gave an approving nod. “One-thirty on the dot. Very good, Devynn.”
A pleased little flush touched my cheeks. After everything that had seemed to go wrong over the past couple of days, it felt good to finally have something be right.
“Well, it was a very small jump,” I said deprecatingly. “Now what?”
“You jump again,” he replied. “Try going to two o’clock this time.”
Again, not very much. However, I wasn’t about to get cocky.
No, I held the image of his pocketwatch in my mind, of the big hand on the twelve and the small hand on the two.
Another blink, and this time both men were standing, as if Seth had gotten tired of sitting down and needed to move around a bit.
“Three minutes after two,” Jeremiah said after another glance at his watch. “A bit of slippage that time.”
“I don’t think three minutes matters all that much,” Seth remarked, then looked over at me. “That’s really impressive, Devynn.”
Maybe three minutes mattered…and maybe it didn’t. Although we were still in the early stages of testing my talent, I couldn’t help thinking that the more I got away from the original five minutes that had been the hallmark of my mother’s talent for traveling in time, the greater the likelihood that I’d miss the mark and overshoot.
Not exactly the sort of thing I wanted to be thinking when I knew I’d need to send Seth and myself ahead in time by nearly a hundred and fifty years.
Jeremiah’s expression was thoughtful, and he didn’t directly respond to Seth’s comment. “I would like to try an hour this next time,” he said. “Do you think you’re up to that, Devynn?”
“Piece of cake,” I said, although I knew I sounded much more confident than I actually felt.
But if Jeremiah and Seth were willing to sit here and cool their heels for an hour while waiting for their timeline to catch up with mine, then I knew I needed to at least try.
“So…five minutes after three?” I added, since I realized a few minutes had ticked past while we were talking.
“Yes,” Jeremiah said. He looked serious enough, although a certain glint in his dark eyes told me he wasn’t worried about me hitting the mark.
Well, that made one of us.
This time, I didn’t need to see the pocketwatch, since I knew its details well enough by now — the Roman numerals, the delicate filigree at the ends of the minute and second hands…the embossed enamel of the watch face. A practical piece of art from a world that had vanished long ago.
I held the image in my mind.
Five minutes after three…five minutes after three….
For me, it felt like nothing, just a tiny moment where I closed my eyes and opened them once again.
For Seth and Jeremiah, it must have been much more, because they looked visibly relieved when my world caught up with theirs.
“Thank God,” Jeremiah said, visibly relaxing, and I shot him a worried look.
“Am I late?”
“By almost an hour,” Seth told me. He also seemed tense, although he came over to me and took my hands in his.
“Damn it,” I said, then glanced over at Jeremiah. “I don’t understand how I could have overshot by so much when I was only going for an hour.”
“I don’t, either,” he replied. “I was hoping that there might be some sort of logical progression to these misses — adding an extra minute for every fifteen, or something along those lines. But it doesn’t seem to work that way at all.”
No, it didn’t. Then again, what had I been expecting? For all my woes with my supposed “gift” to suddenly vanish just because I had Jeremiah Wilcox helping me?
Maybe I had, deep down. Or maybe I’d thought that now I had the amulet to give an assist, things would go more smoothly.
I’d probably been asking too much.
“So…now what?” I asked.
“We’ll have to keep working at it,” Jeremiah replied at once. “I know this is discouraging, but you can’t give up. One way or another, we’ll figure out a controlled way to get you back to your own time.” He paused there. “But I fear we’ll have to postpone any further experiments — I’m already late for Clay’s birthday party and — ”
“It looks like you’re already having a party,” Samuel broke in, and we all froze.
He stood on the top step of the narrow stairs that led down to the second floor, his expression one of enormous satisfaction.
And while it felt as if my stomach had dropped somewhere to the region of my lace-up boots, Jeremiah didn’t even miss a beat.
“None of this is any concern of yours, Samuel,” he said calmly. “I’m just finishing up my business here and will be over to your house directly.”
“‘Business,’ huh?” Samuel returned, and then mounted the top step so he blocked the entrance to the staircase. A few snowflakes dusted the shoulders of his black coat, telling me that my instincts had been correct about the storm. “What kind of business would you have with the likes of them?”
Jeremiah only stared at his younger brother. I knew if I’d been on the receiving end of that baleful, black glare, I probably would have backed down.
Samuel, on the other hand, seemed utterly immune to the primus’s glare, and only went on, “I thought you’d been acting sort of strange the past week, but I told myself maybe it was just because you didn’t like having these two snooping around. Kind of strange to see them here and you talking with them like they’re your best friends or something.”
As he was speaking, Seth shifted slightly. Not in a way that Samuel would probably have paid much attention to, considering how focused he was on his brother, but enough that I could tell exactly what he was doing.
He was making sure that if anything terrible happened, it would happen to him first.
A suspicion that seemed warranted, because right then, Samuel planted his hands on his hips, shoving his black frock coat aside and revealing the pistol he wore at his hip.
Was it the same gun he’d used to shoot my father?
“Samuel, go home,” Jeremiah said, and now there was a note of command in his voice I’d never heard before, one so compelling, I almost took a step forward even though those words hadn’t been directed at me.
Some kind of magic, I guessed, and I knew he must have been pushed to his limit to use that kind of enchantment on a member of his own family.
For just a moment, the other man wavered, his face almost blank. But then his jaw set, and he shook, reminding me of the family dog when she was upset about something.
“Nope,” Samuel said. “You’ve already caused enough trouble by not taking that Rowe bastard seriously and then dangling after the Prewitt woman. I’m not going to let her relatives come here and finish the job.”
And he pulled the gun out of its holster.
A blur as Seth stepped directly in front of me. His arms went around my waist, and his whisper came in my ear, urgent.
“Jump, Devynn — take us home!”
The last thing I heard before the world became a blur was the pistol going off.