20. Chapter 20
Chapter 20
T he sky was way too bright. The sun shone a pure white, small and intense. And the ground beneath her—it was too soft, and it was shaking.
Not right.
Something was beeping. More shaking. A voice. “… pulse rising. We have her back!”
A warm, steady hand touched her shoulder. Emily gasped against the oxygen mask covering her mouth and sat upright.
She was no longer in the nook between the houses, the place where she’d left Boston. The white sky was the roof of an ambulance vehicle, and the sun only a light. Devices buzzed and beeped around her.
“Miss, remain calm.” A man in a white shirt with paramedic patches on the sleeves pulled her back. “You’ll have to help me restrain her,” he barked to someone else.
“Her breathing is normal now,” a female voice behind Emily responded .
“I’m fine. I’m fine!” She tore the mask off her face. “Wh—what happened?”
“Emily?” In the corner by the door, Sarah leaned forward on the narrow bench.
Emily blinked. How the hell did she get into an ambulance? Why was Sarah here?
“You’d been unconscious for at least fifteen minutes,” the female paramedic explained. “Please, remain seated. We’re taking you to the hospital for further exams.”
Fifteen minutes?
“You didn’t get back for dinner.” Sarah came over and held Emily’s hand. “So I got worried and went searching for you. I found you sitting unconscious between two buildings in South End.” She glanced at the paramedics and lowered her voice. “What the hell?”
Missed dinner? So she’d been gone for longer than fifteen minutes. Hours . She’d messed up her calculation at getting back.
“How did you find me?” she asked Sarah.
Her friend coughed awkwardly. “I may have tracked your phone.”
“You did what ?”
“Look, if anything, it confirms the government does spy on us. And god knows what they did to you in the meantime!”
Oh, boy.
“Miss, please sit back while I check the patient.” The male paramedic shooed Sarah back to her seat. Emily thought she saw her mouth “aliens” before her attention was taken away by an eye exam.
Since all her functions had returned to normal, and she had no pre-existing conditions that would pose a danger, Emily was dismissed from the hospital shortly after her arrival. Save for a few awkward questions about drugs, overindulgence in alcohol, and pregnancy, she’d made it out unscathed. A more immediate worry was that her watch and the almonite bag were not in her purse nor delivered with her to the hospital. Emily was doing another round of check-ups, turning the pockets of her jeans inside out, when Sarah approached her in the waiting room.
“Looking for this?” She held up the watch in one hand and the almonite bag in the other.
Emily slumped in relief. “Yeah. Thanks.”
She reached for the watch, but Sarah yanked it back.
“Now, if I remember correctly,” she began in a tone that left no doubt of her memory, “this is the same thingamajig you’d randomly shown me some time ago, spouting nonsense about headaches and aliens probing you.”
“The probing was your addition.”
“Anyway, would you like to tell me what it’s doing here?”
Emily shrugged. “It’s my lucky charm. Can’t I carry a watch?”
“If you were a freaking Victorian gentleman, sure,” Sarah responded, sending Emily’s thoughts to the task at hand.
Her insides began curling up again.
“In any case,” Sarah continued, “I could understand the watch, but I don’t understand what’s up with this strange bag, some piece of … something in it”—she pulled out the fauxmonite barrel—“and a bunch of banknotes with the date 1888 on them?”
Emily chewed on her lip. All of that could be explained—maybe the old cat lady she’d made up to justify her time gone was a collector—but …
“Sarah, have you told Nicky of any of this? That you found me unconscious? ”
“No. Not even Grandma knows. I told her you probably got caught up chatting with that lady you’re visiting.” Sarah handed her the items. The watch was warm to the touch; as Emily turned it around and shook it gently, a tiny wisp of smoke rose from the joint. Shit. The first fauxmonite barrel only lasted for one trip.
“There’s no cat lady, is there?”
When Emily first found out about time travel, she wanted to investigate it and know for sure what it was before she told Sarah. She didn’t want to spur her friend’s already vivid imagination. Then Will came, and he was sort of her secret, and so many things happened, and then the watch stopped working, so Emily found no reason to tell Sarah after the fact. Hey, I’m a time traveler. But I can’t currently prove it because my watch is broken.
Now was different. She was back in the game. And currently, she was struggling with playing the game. It was easy to tell Will and James she’d pop over to Boston and save Sylvia. How was she really going to do it?
They left the hospital and headed to the parking space for the taxis.
“There is no cat lady,” Emily confirmed.
“Have you been taking drugs? Because you surely looked—well, you didn’t look good back there.” Sarah paused, then admitted in a small voice, “I’m worried for you.”
“I’m a time traveler,” Emily blurted out.
Sarah’s shoes screeched as she stopped.
“The watch does time travel. Well, I do it, but the watch helps me. When I first showed it to you, I was only starting to realize it. So, no, I haven’t been meeting an old lady, and I haven’t been taking drugs. You found me unconscious because I was in the past.”
Sarah’s jaw slowly crept open, eyes widening along with the movement. Then she turned away and punched her fists in the air. “I knew it! ”
“You knew I was a time traveler?”
“No.” She turned back. “But I knew time travel existed. It’s got to, right? Remember when I told you about that man that showed up naked in the middle of NYC, and they took him to psychiatry because he was spouting nonsense, but he said he was from the future?” Sarah jumped excitedly. “Or when they found a weird unexplainable machine in a secret basement of a man that’d died, and the notes said it was for time travel—”
“It doesn’t work that way.”
Sarah calmed down. “But you swear it’s true? You’re not just whistlin’ Dixie?”
Emily nodded. That unleashed the rest of Sarah’s energy, and she practically skipped along as they resumed their way to the taxi. “You have to tell me everything. How’d you do it? Does it hurt? What did you do in the past? Did you go to the future too?” She gasped. “Why did you never play the lottery numbers? I’d do it for sure if I could time travel …”
Emily sighed. She hoped Will would explain the same things to James because she couldn’t bear to do this twice.
The conversation about time travel went on long into the night. Emily continued from the basics on to her first mission and meeting Will, and then explained what she’d been doing lately.
“Wait.” Sarah stopped pacing Emily’s room and sat on the bed, her face half in shadows. “You’re saying you actually got married?”
“It doesn’t count,” Emily repeated.
“How can you dismiss it like that? Geez.” Sarah bit her lip. “It’s weird.”
“Yeah.”
“To a cowboy?”
“He’s a mix of multiple things. ”
Sarah chewed on more. “Is he hot?”
Emily hit her with a pillow.
“What? In the movies, they’re always hot. A bit dirty, but sexy.”
“Let’s not discuss him.” It was bad enough she’d have to face James eventually—and she had no idea how to handle that. How he’d handle it.
What were feelings, anyway?
“Listen.” Emily clutched the pillow in her lap. “I need to go back. I have to save Sylvia.”
“She’s the hot cowboy’s sister, right?”
“I didn’t say he was—” Sylvia. How did she forget? Emily reached for her phone and navigated to the picture of the family tree. Down, down, down … her heart pumped wildly. Fabienne. Will.
Sylvia Winters.
Emily slapped the phone on the bed.
“What?” Sarah asked.
“There’s a chance …” Will looking at Sylvia with that half-tortured, half-lovestruck expression on his face when she danced with another man. Sylvia asking Will to kiss her. “Quite a big chance that she’s my great-great-great-grandmother.”
“But that’s awesome!”
“You haven’t met her,” Emily muttered.
Sarah raised a questioning eyebrow.
“She’s spoiled, and snooty, and judgmental—she’s called me a savage like two times—and she …” Emily threw her arms up in frustration. “She’s not how I imagined Will’s wife would be.”
“She doesn’t need to be who you want,” Sarah said. “Only what he wants. Are you sure she doesn’t seem more extreme because you come from different times and circumstances? ”
That was what Will had said, too. Emily sighed. “When did you get so smart?”
Sarah shrugged. “I got into Boston University somehow, right?”
Emily laughed, but sobered as Will and Sylvia’s potential relationship invaded her mind again. Perhaps she should stop worrying about it. Back when she had the wrong idea about who Will’s parents were, she also wanted to meddle—and that would’ve done more harm than good. Hell, she even considered reconciling her parents when she thought she could still save Mama. She wanted them back together—not because that would necessarily be the best thing, but because she wanted it to happen.
Maybe it was time to admit she wasn’t that good at judging relationships. She didn’t even know what to do with her own.
“So,” Sarah said, “how do we save your many-times-great-grandma?”
“No idea.” With only one fauxmonite barrel left, she had little room—perhaps none at all—for error. Maybe one travel back was all she could afford. She’d have to be successful on her first try; if she missed Ross, there’d be no going back and taking a different approach.
She needed to know where he’d be arriving. Would he take the train to Boston or exchange it for something sneakier on the way? How was she to follow him? If things went awry, where would she find a phone?
Life in the past had been easy, with Will guiding her. What would she do now?
Sarah watched her with concerned eyes. “I’m afraid I don’t know a lot, either.”
“But you can cover for me while I’m in the past. Will you stay by me?”
Her friend nodded.
That only left the rest of the plan to figure out. All the crucial points. She’d need a damn history professor for the advice .
Or … one that studied history as a hobby. One who lived in Boston, and therefore should know a lot about the place.
Fenn.
Fenn’s studious living room was stuffier than Emily remembered, but he welcomed her with open arms and a friendly smile. Emily was itching to get down to business, but Gracie was in the room as well, bundled up on the sofa with a book in her hand.
“You needn’t worry about my niece,” Fenn said. “Gracie knows of time travel. I told her about you.”
Gracie put down the book. “It’s exciting to know there’s someone else who can do it.”
“You …?” Emily turned to her with a questioning glance.
“Oh, no, I only—”
“She knows what I told her. Only theory. Gracie has never traveled,” Fenn said.
Gracie gave Emily a slightly awkward smile.
“Do you have any news?” Fenn asked.
“Uh, yeah. Lots.” Emily gave him a quick recap with the crucial details—that she’d found a way to fix the watches, but it was still a work in progress. “And I came today because I need help. I’ll have to make another trip to the past, but I’m not sure how to get around old Boston. Do you have any maps I could borrow? And do you know, is there the one train station, or were there more back then—and how would I go around observing one so that I don’t miss anything—and where is a train from Chicago most likely to come from—”
“Hold on, hold on.” Fenn chuckled and stepped over to the bookshelf. “Maps are no problem. The stations … they’d be different from what you se e today. There was no South Station yet. If we’re talking arrivals from Chicago, your best chance is the Boston and Providence depot at Park Square. It’s a large brownstone building with a clock tower in the front. Hard to miss.”
Emily’s shoulders relaxed. That was better already. Thank god she had Fenn.
In the next half hour, Fenn dragged all sorts of books from the shelves and spread them across the coffee table. Emily made notes more diligently than she ever had at school and had soon filled half the notebook Sarah dug out of her grandma’s old stash.
“And that covers the cabs,” Fenn concluded. “Anything else?”
“Thank you. I think I got it all.” Emily smiled at him and Gracie, who’d left her book at the side and had since joined the research.
“Oh, if you want faster travel, you should catch a cab on this side of the Commons.” Gracie pointed to a street on the map. “It’s—uh, back then, it would’ve been less busy than the street right next to the station.”
“You study history, too?” Emily asked.
Gracie looked at her uncle. “Occupational hazard of living with me,” Fenn explained with a smile.
“Actually, there is one more thing, but it doesn’t relate to my problem,” Emily remembered. “When you gave the serum to my dad, you had to find it somewhere. Is there a chance there’s more where it came from? I know the Watchers destroyed everything they had, but I thought maybe …” She trailed off as Fenn shook his head with a regretful smile.
“I’m afraid there’s none left. Yes, I did track down an old stash, but those three vials were all I had. ”
That was fine. They had the pendant as an emergency source of almonite. And Will didn’t like the thought of more secret supplies of almonite still existing, uncontrolled.
“Then that’s all.” Emily stood. “I’d better get going. My friend will be waiting.”
“Gracie, you should go and stretch your legs, too,” Fenn said.
“I’m perfectly fine,” Gracie gently objected.
“You’re cooped up in here every day. That can’t benefit your health.”
“Because strolling outside in ninety-five degrees is so great.”
“It’s not as hot today,” Emily said. “My friend and I are going to the movies. You can join us if you wish.”
Fenn made a shooing motion at Gracie, who laughed and tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear. “I’d like that,” she said to Emily. “But no horror, please.”
***
He waited for the living room door to shut and the steps to fade until he slowly creaked open the hidden bookshelf door and stepped out of his secret nook. Fenn sat in the armchair and twitched his head to the side to acknowledge his arrival.
“Would you mind explaining why I had to help her,” Fenn said slowly, “when it’s going against all of our plans?”
“Not all of them.”
“She’s going to save Sylvia.”
“When are you going to learn that’s only one battle we have to lose to win the war? ”
“And it has to be exactly my battle.” Fenn’s voice was full of bitterness.
He sat down and casually crossed his ankles on top of the yellowed book pages. “Relax. It will all work out.” At least for him, it would. Fenn—whether he got what he wanted or not was irrelevant. Only Emily mattered—and he would get to her. He checked his pocket; the vial was safely stored there. She’d been so close—he could’ve used it today if he wanted to.
But he shouldn’t. He had to let things play out as they were meant to, even if Fenn would rant about it. Every piece had to be in place first.
“You’d better know what you’re doing,” Fenn muttered.
“Don’t you worry, my friend. Don’t you worry.” He observed the few specks of dirt his sole had left on an old map of Boston. They looked like little blemishes on history.
How fitting.