Chapter 34
CHAPTER 34
Adeline awoke in darkness. Not the snowy morning gloom of her island paradise, but the black of true night, peppered with starlight. Only a sliver of moon offered any light to see by, but it wasn’t her eyes that told her she was back in her own time—it was her nose. From somewhere nearby, she could smell gasoline.
Slowly, she sat up… and instantly regretted it. A blinding headache split her skull in two, her hand flying up to her forehead to somehow squash the pain back inside. Dizziness blurred her vision, prompting her to take deep breaths until she felt steadier.
Glancing down at her legs, she saw the petticoats and dress that Sophie had lent her. Never to be returned. And there was sand beneath her, cold and damp.
She tried to get her eyes to adjust to the darkness
I might be wrong . I might be imagining the smell of gasoline.
Nothing looked familiar, but then again, it did appear to be the middle of the night, and since she wasn’t in her apartment, she could’ve been anywhere. She was pretty certain she’d wished to go back home, Dorothy-style, but what if the powers-that-be had landed her somewhere else, like her old home? Her childhood home.
“I don’t have any money,” she realized aloud.
If she had overshot her landing, winding up back at her childhood home, she had no way of getting back to her apartment in New Jersey.
She patted her skirts, just in case, and dug around in her apron pocket, forgetting that the shiny opal egg wasn’t there anymore. She’d had it in her hands, but her hands were empty. Still, that didn’t stop her from feeling around in the sand, thinking she might’ve brought it with her and dropped it somewhere.
It’s gone .
Her heart sank.
But one thing remained, tucked into her sleeve. She’d mistaken it for a piece of the sleeve itself, but upon closer inspection, it shone silver in the dim light.
“How the…”
She opened the square of silver cloth, turning it this way and that to try and reveal the sewn-in words. No matter how many ways she tried to get it to catch the moonlight, the conclusion stayed the same—the words had vanished.
I’m never going back, am I?
Understanding hit her like a tidal wave, knocking the air out of her lungs. It was a delayed reaction, but then she’d just traveled three-hundred-plus years through time and space, leaving behind the man of her dreams. A few things were bound to need a minute to catch up.
She pulled her knees up to her chest and hugged her legs, burrowing her face in the gap between. Rocking slowly, not caring if anyone thought she was a weirdo, she let the tears come. They poured out of her, her chest racked with aching sobs that threatened to shrivel her lungs into a pair of raisins. Before she knew it, she was wailing, alone on a strange beach, far away from the place she wanted to be.
It was an acute pain that no medicine could treat. An agony she’d felt once before, when her grandparents had sat her and Jane down to tell them that their mom and dad were gone. A ten-car pile-up, no survivors.
“Hey!” a voice shouted, jolting her out of her misery. “Hey, are you okay?”
Rubbing her eyes, Adeline squinted in the direction of the voice. Two figures were making their way toward her, walking a small terrier that nearly made her burst into tears all over again.
“Miss, are you okay?” a young man repeated.
The woman at his side, presumably his girlfriend, looked deeply concerned. “Have you been drinking? Do you want us to call someone for you? Do your friends know where you are?”
They were all good questions, but Adeline had some of her own.
“What date is today?”
“April 1 st .”
Adeline stared at the woman. “You’re joking?”
“No, it’s April 1 st .” The woman checked the smartwatch on her wrist. “Well, technically, April 2 nd . It’s just past midnight.”
Adeline took a steadying breath. “And where am I?”
“Keansburg,” the woman replied, frowning. “Seriously, can we call someone for you? You look like you’ve been through it if you don’t mind my saying so.”
Adeline snorted. “You don’t know the half of it.”
Somehow, she’d been gone for three months.
“Did you get mugged?” the man asked.
Adeline shook her head. “Not that I know of.”
And not unless you count having your heart ripped out…
“I think we should call the police, anyway,” the woman insisted. “You might have hit your head or something.”
Adeline peered up at her. “No police, but there is someone you can call for me.”
It was one of the only two numbers she knew by heart. Emma had sat her down one day and demanded that she memorize her phone number, just in case she ever got her phone stolen.
Adeline had never suspected it might come in handy, but nor had she expected to be sitting on a beach in 1700s clothing, missing a dead man that she’d kissed goodbye only minutes ago.
How long had already passed in his world since she’d left? A few hours? A day? A few days?
The woman dialed the number and wandered off a short distance. Meanwhile, the terrier approached Adeline, sniffing her curiously.
“Hello, beautiful,” Adeline croaked, thinking of Weasel.
The terrier nosed her hand, and fresh tears welled up in her eyes.
“She’s on her way,” the woman announced, walking back. “Said she’s going to break every speed limit, since you’ll be headed to the police station anyway.”
Adeline stroked the terrier. “I hadn’t thought about that,” she mumbled, mostly to herself. “I guess they’ll want to know where I’ve been for three months.”
Frankly, she had no idea what she was going to tell them. It might not have been April Fool’s Day anymore, but who would believe a story like hers?
Dead on her feet, with the taste of weak coffee clinging to her tongue, Adeline allowed Emma to half-carry, half-drag her toward the waiting car. She’d been at the police station for what felt like hours, going through the same questions again and again.
Not because the story she’d made up didn’t sound believable, but because when people went missing for three months, there was usually more to the story. Or so the police kept telling her.
“My boss was a creep, I got fired, I couldn’t bear the thought of being stuck in my apartment until I found a new job, so I took off,” she’d explained calmly. “I left a note, but it must’ve gotten lost. And, stupidly, I didn’t realize I’d left my phone behind until I was about five states away.”
“But… surely you took your own car?” the policewoman had asked, incredulous.
Adeline had shrugged. “I’ve always wanted to hitchhike, so that’s what I did.”
At last, probably realizing that they’d never get anywhere with her, they’d signed her out and let her go with a warning not to just “take off hitchhiking” again. Even to Adeline’s ears, it sounded ridiculous, but not as ridiculous as the truth.
The second they were inside the car with the engine running, Emma turned to her. “Are you going to tell me what really happened, or are you going to keep feeding me the same crap you told the cops?” She grabbed Adeline’s hand. “You’ve had me worried sick, Addie! I’ve been waiting for three months for the cops to call me up and tell me that they found your body buried in some ditch. The least you owe me is an explanation.”
“You wouldn’t believe me,” Adeline said quietly. “Neither would the cops.”
Emma leaned in, her brow creased with concern. “Was it a cult, Addie? Did they kidnap you?”
“A cult?” Adeline had to laugh.
“It’s the only thing that explains the clothes. Like, I know you don’t give a damn about fashion, but this…” Emma gestured to Adeline’s dress, “I don’t get it. Not to mention the fact that you can’t stop crying. What the hell happened, Addie?”
Adeline touched her cheek. It was wet again.
“Come on, you can tell me,” Emma urged. “Then, you can tell your sister. She’s been calling every day for news. Keeps threatening to come back from Scotland, but I told her there was no point, since no one had any news.”
Adeline smiled at that, wondering if she should fly out. Maybe if she did, she wouldn’t feel so far away from Logan.
“For real, Addie.” Emma’s tone had an edge to it, her patience waning. “It was like you just vanished off the face of the Earth. They checked all the CCTV around your apartment, but you weren’t in any of the recordings. There’s one bit where it showed you coming home from the hospital, right before you called me on Christmas Eve, but then… nada . The cops said it must’ve been the storm messing with the cameras, but I’m not buying it. A storm can’t knock out every camera.”
Adeline gave her best friend’s hand a nervous squeeze. “Take me home, if I still have one, and I’ll tell you everything on the way. I think there’s still a bottle of wine in the cupboard—we’re both going to need it.”
“If you still have one?” Emma scoffed. “Who do you think has been paying your rent while you’ve been goodness knows where, getting brainwashed by the freaking Manson Family?”
Adeline grimaced. “I’ll pay you back, I swear.”
“You can pay me back by starting at the beginning, and not stopping until you get to the part where some stranger called me, telling me you were on Keansburg beach in a Halloween costume,” Emma huffed, pulling away from the curb.
So, Adeline did, staring straight ahead at the road so she wouldn’t have to see her best friend’s face change, no doubt sagging with the realization that she had lost her mind.