21. Chapter 21
Chapter 21
E mily stood on the second-story balcony of the entry hall of the train station. Beneath her passed a mass of bowler hats and frilly, plumed, and colorful women’s confections. She scoured the crowd systematically, from the exit to the outside to the entrance to the platforms, zigzagging left to right, right to left. Brown hair, brown hair, all men, blond, brown— red ! But not Sylvia. She’d searched for her brown plumed hat occasionally, but quickly reminded herself Sylvia probably wouldn’t have been wearing that when Ross took her.
The crowd from the arriving train cleared, and weariness seeped into Emily’s bones, together with disappointment. Another train gone, and still no trace—one option less, and an increased chance she’d messed up her predicaments. The current fauxmonite barrel hasn’t fried yet, but Emily was still on edge.
A shot of bright red caught her eye. Coming in after the crowd was a couple—a man dressed in dark clothes that matched mostly everyone else’s and a petite woman. Sylvia. Emily couldn’t see the man up close, but it had to be Ross. At first glance, they appeared ordinary; it was only when Emily calmed her thumping heart enough to observe them closer that she noticed the mud and dirt tracks on the bottom of their clothes and the slightly unnatural way Sylvia held herself; Ross was squeezing her arm too hard.
This is your chance. Emily pressed a hand to the wild beat of her heart and ran through the mantra. What if it doesn’t work? What if I fail? But the voices stopped, and the people below halted. The time freeze worked. Of course, it would—that little mishap in the woods was just that, a mishap.
Emily ran outside and positioned herself with a clear view of the entrance, near a cab. She released the stop and waited until Ross led Sylvia out of the building. He walked in the other direction and raised a hand for the black, box-like cab to halt. Emily ran to her transport of choice and waved to the driver. “Follow that one,” she ordered and jumped into the tight, leather-bound interior.
Both carriages headed east, around the sprawling green area of the Boston Commons, and into the streets of Back Bay. Emily stared through the window, occasionally keeping an eye on the other cab, occasionally on the buildings passing by. The red and white one with the fancy windows—didn’t she see that one yesterday? Well, yesterday in her time. She and Sarah went to a seafood restaurant right by it.
After another few turns, Ross’ cab halted in front of a brownstone house. Emily signaled her driver to stop, squeezed a banknote into his hand, and headed onward on her own. She stopped by a nearby house and pretended to muck around the front door while, from the corner of her eyes, she observed Ross as he dragged Sylvia to an entrance two houses down. Only at the click of the door behind them did Emily realize her first mistake—she hadn’t done the freeze in time .
And now they were already inside.
She strolled past the house, trying not to be too obvious as she focused on the entrance. Sturdy and probably locked, like a fancy house here would be. If only Will had shown her how to lockpick.
But even that would be risky. She didn’t know what awaited her on the other side.
She waited for two more hours but caught no movements through the windows, and no one came out. It was getting dark, and Emily was becoming uncomfortable after an already long day at the station. At least Sylvia was alive. She could hold on for another day, surely. Emily would be of no use half-starved and sleepy.
Just hold on until tomorrow.
Emily spent the night in the meager shared lodgings she’d hired and headed for Ross’ house first thing the next morning, somewhat rested, approximately fed, but definitely prepared. Nothing like a good night’s sleep on a mattress of dubious origin to make a girl ready to take on the world.
It was her lucky morning, too. She hadn’t been at the house for twenty minutes—hiding behind a nearby tree—when she spotted Ross coming back. Out for a morning stroll already? She waited until he unlocked the door and quickly froze time. He’d left enough of a gap for her to squeeze into the narrow entry hallway of the house. Now what? Her heart beat loudly in the eerie silence. Stopping time didn’t make her invisible.
A drawing room opened to the left, empty. Emily hid around the corner of the archway and ran through the plan in her mind. Unfreeze. Get ready if he comes in here to freeze again. If he doesn’t, let him go—or follow him to Sylvia .
The quiet ticking of the mantel clock resumed as she released the stop. Ross paused in the hallway, taking his coat off based on the rustling noises, then headed downstairs. Of course, it would be a basement. What was a horror movie without it? Emily waited a minute more, then followed him.
The small space under the stairs was dark and featureless, hosting only an empty, dusty bookcase and a door. Emily approached on trembling legs and put an ear to the door while keeping her time-stopping mantra in mind.
“… only this much … will have to do for now …” a muffled male voice said. After a few seconds of silence, there was a yelp and a louder scream. Sylvia.
“Don’t fuss. There, this will calm you down.” The voice neared the door. Emily tiptoed to the bookcase and flattened her back against the wall just as the door opened. Ross stepped into the dark of the hallway. Freeze.
Emily held her breath, feeling like a wooden block in a Jenga tower—one wrong move, and it would all fall apart. This man knows of time travel; he’ll suspect something if I make a mistake.
She barely paid any attention to the room behind the door—a low-lit, rectangular space the size of a bedroom—as she ducked behind the nearest cabinet and continued holding her breath until she released the stop and the door closed behind her.
She’d made it.
The room looked like an old, creepy lab. The walls were gray, imbued with a sickly green tint that couldn’t possibly be intentional. They were stacked with cabinets and shelves, all filled with books, folders, and various crazy-scientist objects Emily imagined would suck one’s brains out.
Speaking of horror movies …
In the middle of the room was the scariest contraption—an operating table with a bunch of metal appendages, raised to a forty-five-degree angle, with Sylvia strapped to it.
A sleeve of her blouse had been ripped off, and one of those metal appendages covered her entire arm. A sequence of tubes ran from it to a box with a number of buttons and counters. At the bottom of the box, a dark blue liquid seeped into an enclosed cylindrical container.
Sylvia stirred, blinking slowly before focusing. “Emily?”
“Hey.” Emily stepped to the contraption.
“I’m dreaming.” Sylvia’s voice was weak, her face paler than usual.
“Nope, sadly not. I really am here to haunt you. Now, how do we get you out?”
Sylvia only shook her head. “You can’t—how did you—surely you can’t be—”
“Maybe it unstraps on the back or something.” Emily stepped around the table. The metal appendage was locked in place—but the one for the other arm was still open, pushed to the side. “It looks like it snaps down the middle. Well, I’d chewed all my nails already.”
Sylvia suddenly snapped to attention. “Emily—”
The door behind creaked open.
Heartbeat—
Darkness.
Emily came to with a pounding head and nausea in her stomach—though the last one was probably because of that disgusting wall. She started to her feet, only to be yanked back with a set of manacles that chained her to the wall cabinet.
Sylvia was still restrained to the table, looking mildly drowsy .
“What happened?” Emily asked.
“He came. He must have heard you. Hit you on the head …”
Emily angled her head so she could touch the top. She winced at the delicate bump already developing. “Ross came?”
“No, the other man, his partner. He called him Ralkin. This is his lab, his house.”
Two of them. Two evil, mad-scientist-like time travelers. Of course, Ross would have a partner.
Emily twisted and turned her wrists, but getting out would be a hopeless endeavor without a key or a magic trick. The watch. She felt the pockets with her elbows. No watch.
“Sylvia. Hey, Sylvia!” she barked. “I’m sorry, I know you’re tired from … whatever they’re doing to you, but we gotta get out. Did you see the guy take a golden pocket watch from me?”
Sylvia nodded wearily. “Locked it in the cabinet over there. All your stuff. In the drawer.”
Oh, foot. She couldn’t blink out of the manacles—and this era—without the watch. And she couldn’t get to the watch without first getting out of the manacles.
Emily stood, hunched from the pull of the chains, and yanked hard at the cabinet. The heavy metallic structure didn’t move an inch.
“Come on, asshole. Come with me.” She yanked again, then pulled, then yanked, but all she’d succeeded at was nearly dislocating her shoulder. Tired, she collapsed by the cabinet.
“I’m sorry,” Sylvia spoke. “I got all of you in trouble.”
“ He kidnapped you. Not your fault.”
“Where are James and Mr. Marshall? How did they let you come here alone? ”
“I took an express route. They’re behind.” They’d be going to Hartford. And she had no way of notifying them. She couldn’t time travel. What good was she, if she couldn’t do that?
Hot tears rushed to her eyes. They’d kill Sylvia, suck the life out of her, or whatever they were doing, and then … what would they do to her? What did it help if her injuries here didn’t matter when she couldn’t get back? And what if they killed her, too?
Would she be trapped in nothingness forever?
“Mama always said crying was unladylike,” Sylvia whispered.
Emily sniffled.
“Mama said a lot of things that aren’t necessarily true.”
Emily managed a pale smile, viewing Sylvia through a curtain of tears. Sorry, Grandma. I couldn’t save you. I couldn’t save myself. What would happen now? Was her present collapsing at this very moment?
Fenn had treated her like she was a hope for the future. A true Leader. He’d be disappointed to see her fail like that. One stinky Leader, she was. Take away her watch, and she was useless. Surely her captors would be careful, not allowing her to freeze time.
“Did you at least get the forward-facing window seat on the train?” she said.
Sylvia’s lips quirked for a brief moment, indicating she understood Emily was only teasing her. “I did.”
“Good on you.”
Sylvia paused—Emily wasn’t sure whether it was from her exhaustion or just thinking. “I am sorry about that. I don’t actually get sick if I’m facing backward.”
“I know. My sister pulls that trick all the time.”
“I didn’t know you had a sister. Older?”
“Younger. By three years.”
Sylvia hmmph -ed. “I’m not sure what it says about me to use the same strategies as a young teenager.”
Emily laughed. “I’m sorry. For what I said in Richling Creek …”
“You had some points.”
“Yeah, but …” Ah, what the hell—they were going to die, anyway. Who cared if her ego was bruised? “I could’ve gone around it in a better way. And I shouldn’t have meddled in your business, anyway.”
Sylvia shrugged as much as her bindings allowed. “I meddled, too.”
“Let the train seats go.”
“Not that. You could pull off wearing a yellow-and-pink dress, and I hate it.”
Yellow-and-pink … Emily’s mind flashed back to their shopping day. “That’s why you said we shouldn’t buy it? You were jealous?”
Sylvia remained silent.
“We are the worst, aren’t we?” Emily said after a while.
“I don’t quite understand those words, but I think I get the sentiment.”
Emily slumped, trying to find a more comfortable position with the manacles biting into her wrists. God-freaking-dammit. There had to be a solution. Was she really going to go down like this?
She could try to time travel on her own. Will had mentioned it once, but no one had practiced it for centuries. How would she even go about it? She clenched her teeth and strained her muscles. Unsurprisingly, it didn’t pop her to the future.
Once again. Close your eyes, focus. There’s almonite in your body, make it work !
The air changed. Emily opened her eyes, only to find herself still in the lab, still in the same time. But the barely perceptible hissing of the machine Sylvia was strapped to had stopped—and so had Sylvia.
She’d only frozen time. Nothing new—and in this case, nothing useful.
But stopping time was using the almonite in her body, too. And she knew how to do it without the aid of the watch. Instead of releasing the freeze, she focused again, more and more, not knowing what feeling she was striving for, only that something had to happen. Squeeze the muscles. Squeeze.
She lost her balance and stretched out her arm to catch herself before she hit the floor. She stared, dumbfounded, at her outstretched fist.
Her hand was out of the manacles.
Emily looked at the other hand, still cuffed, and wiggled it. Her skin sank into the manacles.
What the hell?
She continued wiggling it until the entire hand passed through the cuff, and she was free.
Then her head spun, and her stomach roiled, and she unceremoniously dumped the remains of the morning’s breakfast on the floor as the freeze passed.
“Good Lord,” Sylvia remarked from the operating table. “Wait. How did you get out?”
“If I knew, I’d tell you.” Emily pulled herself up by leaning on the cabinet. “Where did you say my watch was?”
Sylvia motioned with her head. Emily bounded for the other cabinet, nearly collapsing on her shaky legs by the time she’d reached it. “Which drawer? This one?”
Sylvia guided her, and Emily tried the knob. Predictably, it didn’t turn .
There’s no way I can do it again, can I?
She laid her hand on the metal and concentrated. Freeze time. Focus more. Feel the almonite.
Her fingers slid through. A wave of cold washed over her, and an acidic, metallic taste filled her mouth. Then she was inside the small compartment, and felt the roundness of her watch and the slippery fabric of the almonite bag. Feel the almonite. A buzzing spread through her arm as she grabbed the watch and the bag—almost like an elongated static electric contact—and in one smooth movement, she pulled both out. The bag, however, was empty now—but she’d felt its contents, the remainder of the money, while it was still inside.
Could it not pass through because it wasn’t almonite?
She had no time to mull over that because the freeze stopped again, and Sylvia exclaimed something, and Emily collapsed by the cabinet, feeling like all life had been leeched out of her. She didn’t know how many minutes passed before she gathered enough strength to stand and even more to go over to Sylvia and find the mechanism that released her restraints. In the end, it was Sylvia who held up Emily.
“Did I see you pass your hand through the drawer?”
“Long story,” Emily breathed. “We need to get out. Can you find something to hit the man on the head?”
Sylvia looked horrified but nodded and rifled through the lab while Emily rested by the table.
“This?” Sylvia returned with a metal rod with a rounded ball at the top.
“Good enough.” Emily reached up with her arm, and it fell right down like a limp noodle. “You’ll have to hit him. I don’t have the strength. ”
“But I—”
“Lady,” Emily panted, “I came all this way, and I think I literally phase-shifted into a different reality so I could save us. Please, hit him on the head when I say so.”
“All-all right.”
“Go stand by the door. The other side, where he won’t see you.”
Sylvia obeyed her orders, and Emily positioned herself in front of the door. “Ralkin …” she began with a weak voice, paused, and gathered more strength for a shout. “Ralkin, you asshole! You think these cuffs can stop me? Come down here and face me mano a mano !”
She winked at Sylvia. “That’s my high school Spanish paying off.”
In a minute, loud, fast steps sounded from the outside.
“Get ready. Hit him as soon as you see him.”
Sylvia nodded, nervously gripping the rod.
The door opened, bringing forward a dark-haired, middle-aged man. His eyes widened at seeing Emily, but only for a second before Sylvia hit him with a might that reverberated through the small room, and he collapsed on the floor.
Sylvia yelped and dropped the rod. “Is he dead?”
“I don’t think so. He’ll just have the hangover of his life.” Emily nudged the unconscious Ralkin with her foot.
“And now? My husband is still here.”
“We’ll leave the reunion for later. Right now, we run.” At the last second, Emily remembered the liquid and grabbed the container attached to the box. She leaned on Sylvia, partially for support, partially to encourage her up the stairs. There was no Ross in sight as they ran through the front door, and still none as they signaled a cab and crowded inside. Emily shook from the used strength and adrenaline, while Sylvia shook probably from fear .
“I don’t understand anything,” she moaned. “Sir Richard said he needed me. He and the other man—they wanted something from me, out of me.”
“I know.” Emily inspected the few drops of blueish-black liquid inside the container.
“Well, what is it? What is going on?”
“I have no idea.” Emily let her head fall back as she stared through the window and the brownstones whizzing past. “But we can let the others figure it out. We’re going to Hartford.”