13. An Unexpected Invitation
13
AN UNEXPECTED INVITATION
Although Seth was relieved to see Devynn come back to the hotel a good twenty-five minutes earlier than he’d expected, his relief was short-lived after hearing what she had to report about her disturbing conversation with Samuel Wilcox.
“We should tell Jeremiah,” he said, but she immediately shook her head.
“What good will that do? The two of them already aren’t on good terms — ”
“To say the least,” Seth cut in, and her mouth pursed.
“Exactly. We already know Jeremiah is doing what he can to keep the other members of the clan from suspecting that he’s working with us. If I go running to him to let him know that his brother is up to his old tricks and he does or says something about it, then that will let Samuel know we’ve been communicating with Jeremiah. Best to let it go. Honestly, I think some of what he does is just to get a rise out of people.”
Seth had never heard the phrase before, but he believed he understood what Devynn was trying to say, and thought maybe it was true. However, she of all people couldn’t deny that Samuel Wilcox was a lot more than mere talk, or he would never have kidnapped her mother and shot her father in the chest.
“Well, whatever else happens, Samuel was right about one thing,” Seth remarked. “This town isn’t safe for you to be walking around by yourself, and even if Jeremiah thinks he needs to work with you alone, I’m still coming along. I can wait in the back parlor if necessary.”
Her expression shifted then, and now seemed almost diffident. “That’s something we need to talk about,” she said. “Seth, using the amulet, I was able to move in time with just a little slippage, only a minute.”
He’d been wondering what she was up to during the time they’d been apart. It hadn’t been so terribly long after all, but he’d be lying to himself if he didn’t acknowledge how worried he was that she might travel in time without him, would make a much bigger jump than she’d been planning and not know how to come back.
Hearing that she’d been able to get it under control in such a way made him hopeful that they might have a real chance of returning to their own time.
“That’s amazing,” he said. “Do you have the amulet with you now?”
Because as much as he knew it would be rude to duck out without even a simple goodbye to the Wilcox warlock who’d helped them so much, Seth was still aching to get out of 1884 as soon as possible.
“No,” Devynn replied, dashing his hopes. “Jeremiah thought it better to keep the amulet at his house, since it would be so much safer there.”
Seth would have liked to argue with that stance, but he knew the primus was right. The Goddess only knew what kind of warding spells Jeremiah had placed on the office and the house itself, subtle enchantments that served to keep intruders far away. A hotel room — hell, even the safe they probably kept in the hotel office to store guests’ valuables — would be nowhere near as secure.
But even though he was forced to acknowledge that the amulet was much safer where it was, he still didn’t completely like the idea of it being in someone else’s hands.
Especially when that someone was Jeremiah Wilcox, although Seth had to admit the man had been nothing but helpful so far.
“Anyway,” Devynn went on, “because I did so well when I was working with the amulet, Jeremiah wants me to try to travel a little farther next time, maybe as much as six or eight hours. But he also thought I should check with you first, just because there’s more chance that I might go past my target again when I’m working with a larger span of time.”
Well, Seth supposed he should give Jeremiah some credit for making sure he was included in the decision-making process, rather than going ahead with Devynn’s experiments in time travel without bothering to check what her companion might have to say on that matter.
In the end, though, it was her gift and therefore her decision.
“What do you think?” he asked.
She released a breath and glanced toward the window. While he waited for her, he’d gone ahead and opened the drapes since he hadn’t known exactly when she would be back and didn’t want to sit in a dark room for what might have been several hours. The day outside was beautiful, the sky a pure, clear blue with a few billowy clouds floating past, but more clouds obscured the tops of the San Francisco Peaks, telling him they might have some real winter weather soon.
Not that he had much say in the matter, and yet he hoped he and Devynn would be gone before then.
“I think I have to try,” she said. “Honestly, after that first successful experiment, I was ready to head over here, scoop you up, and beam us back to the twentieth century.”
“Or the twenty-first century,” he replied, and her shoulders gave an odd little hitch, as if she wasn’t quite sure how she was supposed to respond to his comment.
“Whichever,” she allowed. “But Jeremiah convinced me that wouldn’t be very safe…or smart. On the other hand, that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t be doing whatever I can to safely expand my range so I know we’ll end up where we need to be.”
Baby steps, as his mother might have said. True, sending yourself forward in time for the greater part of a day was probably a little more than a baby step, but it was also nowhere near the same as trying to travel decades…or even a century.
“All right,” he said. “I can see why you should try that next. What’s the plan?”
“Jeremiah told me we could send him a note when we’ve decided what we want to do.” Devynn paused there and sent him a brilliant smile. “First, though, I want to get something to eat. Experimenting with time travel can work up a real appetite.”
They had a quiet meal at the hotel restaurant, one uninterrupted by any Wilcoxes…or by anyone else, for that matter. Devynn obviously hadn’t been joking about her appetite, because she consumed much more food than anyone in that wasp-waisted corset should have been able to manage, although by the time she was finished with her plate of ham and scalloped potatoes and green beans, she decided against dessert.
“Maybe with dinner,” she said, a twinkle in her blue eyes, and Seth could only smile. She was clearly cheered by her success that morning, and she had every reason to be. They had much farther to go, of course, but he thought that maybe…just maybe…they were beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel.
To that end, they went up to his room after lunch and composed a quick note to Jeremiah, one that told the primus they were ready to go on to the next step and that he should let them know what a convenient time might be. The wording was vague enough that Seth was confident no one would be able to glean any real information from it, even if they had the temerity to open the envelope and peek at its contents.
Of course, they would still do their best to avoid that situation, which meant hiring the boy who loitered around the hotel lobby in the hope of being able to shine some shoes for the princely sum of five cents, their payment of a whole nickel accompanied by a stern warning that Mr. Wilcox would certainly know if the envelope had been tampered with.
At those words, the boy — who looked like he was probably eleven or twelve, with messy blond hair and quick hazel eyes — blanched a little, although he said stoutly, “I won’t touch it, sir. Mr. Wilcox will have this letter in a flash!”
And he hurried off, envelope clutched in one hand, his speed showing that he was more than happy to be paid such a huge sum for what was, after all, an easy enough task to perform — especially since Seth guessed the boy would hand off the note to Mrs. Barton rather than confront the fearsome Mr. Wilcox in person.
“Now we wait,” he told Devynn after they went back upstairs.
She nodded…but also looked almost impatient.
“I’m tired of waiting,” she said. “I want to be done with all this and back where — well, wherever we’re supposed to end up. I suppose it was interesting for the first few days, getting to see what my hometown looked like all these years ago, getting to meet Jeremiah Wilcox in person after everything my mother told me about him, but we don’t have a life here. We’re just sort of in limbo.”
Because they were alone, Seth allowed himself to reach over and take her hand in his, although he forbore from kissing her because the draperies were still open.
“It’s hard,” he agreed. “But we’re working toward fixing this. Right now, the important thing is to not let ourselves get discouraged.”
Her fingers tightened on his. “I know,” she replied, then gave him a lopsided smile. “I suppose I’m just tired of wearing this corset.”
Understandable. “You’re doing amazingly well,” he said. “And who knows? Maybe all you’ll need to do is one or two more trips in time, and after that, Jeremiah will think you’re ready to go back where we came from.”
“Here’s hoping,” she replied, then paused. “What do you think we should do with the amulet once we’re back?”
“Put it in a safe and forget about it,” he said at once, and knew he wasn’t joking. While it might help them get back to his time — or to hers, since they still hadn’t made any kind of real determination about that — once they were safely there, the thing needed to be locked up and forgotten about. The artifact was far too powerful…and too much of a temptation…to be left lying around where someone might try to use it.
For a moment, it looked as though Devyn wanted to argue with him, since her lips parted and it seemed as if she had something to say. But then she released another breath. “You’re probably right. I’d like to think no one in my clan would misuse it, but I can’t say that for sure. I’ve got hundreds of relatives I barely know, so it’s really hard for me to say what they would do if they found out something like that amulet existed.”
The McAllister clan of his era was much smaller than that, of course, but Seth was equally uncertain.
Actually, as much as he hated to admit such a thing to himself, he doubted very much that his brother could be trusted with a relic like the amulet. He’d already shown how he would go to great — and illegal — lengths to achieve his ends. Maybe he no longer had to worry about impressing his lost love now that he was engaged to the prima -in-waiting, but Seth still knew Charles would come up with some way to use the amulet to improve his life, whether that was gaining greater personal wealth or merely enhancing his powers so they might be more on a par with his soon-to-be wife.
Either way, it was a scenario Seth had no wish to see play out in his clan.
“Then we’ll make sure to lock it up no matter where we go,” he said.
Devynn leaned her head against his shoulder, obviously not caring whether anyone could look inside the window to see what they were up to. And really, he supposed that was the sort of thing a younger sister might do with a brother she trusted and looked up to. He couldn’t know for sure, not when Charles was his only sibling. When he was a small boy, he’d asked his parents for a little sister, and they’d only smiled and said their family was perfect as it was.
Now that he was older, he knew they were only doing what everyone in his clan did — keeping their families on the small side so they wouldn’t completely overrun tiny Jerome. True, there were plenty of McAllisters in the neighboring towns and much more far-flung places like Prescott and Payson and Wickenburg, and yet those who had the good fortune to have remained rooted in the little mining town generally did whatever they could to stay there.
But it was good to have Devynn this close to him, to be able to smell the sweet perfume of her hair and merely enjoy how alive she was, how real…how precious.
Just a few days earlier, he’d almost lost her forever.
Someone knocked at the door, and immediately she lifted her head from his shoulder and hurried over to the writing desk on the other side of the room so she could sit in the small chair there and make it look as though she’d never been anywhere else.
Feeling somewhat mystified, Seth went to answer the knock, and opened the door to see one of the hotel’s chambermaids standing outside in the hallway.
“A note for you, sir,” she said. “Billy gave it to me to deliver to you — he’s not allowed upstairs.”
Although the boy had never given his name, Seth assumed that “Billy” was the child who’d taken their original note to Jeremiah Wilcox. He hadn’t been expecting a reply quite so soon, but then again, the Wilcox primus didn’t seem like the kind of man who wasted much time on deliberations.
“Thank you,” he said, fishing a penny out of his pocket so he could give it to the girl. It wasn’t a lot, but he thought a nickel might be too much when he’d paid the same thing to Billy so he could run halfway across town to deliver his message.
The girl bobbed a curtsey, looking absurdly pleased, so Seth decided he’d done all right by her.
“No, thank you, sir,” she replied, and dipped her head one more time before retreating toward the stairs.
“A note from Jeremiah?” Devynn asked after he’d closed the door.
“I think so,” Seth replied, since the heavy black handwriting on the envelope — addressed to Mr. and Miss Prewitt — looked vaguely familiar.
“It sounds like he wants to get on with all this as much as we do.”
Maybe so. After all, it was probably a little tiring to have to keep running interference between the two of them and the rest of his family. Once they were gone, peace could be restored.
However, after reading the contents of the note, he couldn’t help frowning. If Jeremiah was trying to keep them separate, he wasn’t doing a very good job of it.
“What’s the matter?” Devynn asked, rising from her chair. “Does he not want to try another experiment?”
“No, it’s not that,” Seth replied as he walked over to her. “He says that on Wednesdays, Mrs. Barton goes to visit her sister in Williams and doesn’t get back until late, so that will be the perfect time for the two of us to come over and for you to attempt a longer journey into the future.”
Devynn’s brows pulled together. “Well, that’s good, isn’t it? I mean, I’d rather go tomorrow, but Wednesday isn’t that far off.”
“No, that part’s fine.” He handed her the note, figuring she might as well read it for herself. “It’s that he also wants us to come have dinner tomorrow night at his house with the rest of the family.”
She glanced down at the note, her frown deepening. “So…what happened to keeping us as far away from the Wilcoxes as possible?”
“I have no idea.” However, even as he spoke, he remembered how the Wilcox ladies had stopped by their table at the restaurant in the Bank Hotel, and the way they’d murmured amongst themselves as though they had an agenda of their own. “But I can guess. I think some of his sisters-in-law must have told him that it didn’t feel right to have people who are witch-kind visiting their town and not invite them over for dinner, and even leaving that part out, he should really be entertaining Eliza’s relatives, seeing as he’s one of the trustees at the school and it sounds as though they’d had her over for dinner several times.”
Devynn appeared nonplussed by that explanation, but she didn’t argue, not when the evidence of the invitation was right there in the note Jeremiah had just sent over. Instead, she looked down at herself, forehead puckering once again.
“What if they recognize my dresses?” she asked, and now she sounded worried. “After all, my mother dined with them more than once, and it’s not as if I have dozens of gowns to choose from.”
No, she didn’t. Maybe four or five, it seemed like, if you included that spectacular teal dinner dress she’d worn to the Sundown Theater. However, it was far too fancy for a quiet weeknight dinner at a private home — well, unless that dinner was in New York City or Boston or someplace similarly highfalutin, as his cousin Elmore might say.
“I suppose that could be a problem,” he replied, even as he wished one of them had a talent for illusions, something that would allow them to disguise the details of Devynn’s borrowed wardrobe and make it look like something completely different.
But neither of them had a magical gift remotely like that, which meant they’d have to come up with a more mundane solution to the problem.
“They don’t sell ready-made dresses at Brannen’s, do they?” he asked, and immediately she shook her head.
“Only yardage,” she said. “And there’s no way in the world I could possibly get a seamstress to make me a dress in a day. My mother said Mrs. Adams was pretty fast, but she’s not that fast.”
No, probably not. Although he’d seen several of his cousins whip up a dress in an afternoon with their sewing machines, that was a lot easier when you were dealing with something as simply cut as the clothing in vogue during the 1920s. A gown as complicated as the one Devynn wore, with its elaborately draped bustle and self-fabric ruching on the sleeves and bodice, would take quite a while longer.
But even as that discouraging thought passed through his mind, another one occurred to him. “Maybe the seamstress can’t make you a dress in time. On the other hand, maybe she has some ready-made gowns on hand, maybe things people commissioned and couldn’t pay for?”
Devynn’s expression grew thoughtful. “I suppose that’s possible. And there might be a secondhand store where I could find something as well, but I’m not sure how I feel about buying something used when it hasn’t been properly dry-cleaned beforehand.”
He’d vaguely heard of that method of cleaning clothing, but there definitely weren’t any dry cleaners in the Verde Valley, so he had no idea of what might be involved in the process.
“Well, let’s check with the seamstress first,” he said. “I suppose wearing a secondhand dress is better than showing up to dinner in a gown the Wilcox ladies might recognize, but still, something new would be better.”
“Especially if that secondhand dress turned out to be something the Wilcoxes themselves put up for sale,” Devynn remarked, an amused glint in her eyes.
Seth had a feeling that the Wilcox women would never lower themselves to do such a thing, and probably donated their clothes to charity once they were too worn or had gone out of style, but it wasn’t worth worrying about now.
No, the important thing was to find out if the seamstress actually had something that would work for Devynn.
Except….
“Why weren’t you worried about them recognizing your dress when they stopped to chat with us at lunch the other day?”
A dimple showed on her cheek, and the look she gave him was positively indulgent.
“Because I was sitting down at a table, and they couldn’t even see most of it. Also, it was drafty in there, so I kept on my shawl.”
That’s right — she had been wearing a flowered shawl of fine wool challis, one colorful enough that it probably would have distracted a casual observer from paying much attention to the gown underneath.
But when they went to dinner, she wouldn’t be hiding behind a table…at least, not at first. Seth still wasn’t clear on exactly how much time her mother had spent around the women of the Wilcox clan, and yet he could tell Devynn was worried.
Which meant he should be concerned as well.
“All right,” he said cheerfully. “It looks like it’s time to go shopping.”