Chapter 3 #2
I concentrated on kneading the bread dough and did my best to keep my expression neutral. “They’ll work it out,” I said, even as I hoped I wasn’t being overly optimistic. Something about Charles McAllister had always set my teeth on edge.
Molly picked up the roast, now properly seasoned, and set it in a big cast-iron pan. “I hope so. Seth’s always been so determined — even as a little boy, if he set his mind to something, there was no stopping him. But he doesn’t hold grudges, not really. He just needs time to process things.”
Yes, that sounded just like Seth, so I nodded…even as I wondered if this was the one time when he actually would find it difficult to forgive.
The rest of the afternoon was pleasant enough, though, with more cheerful anecdotes and preparations for the evening meal.
Molly showed me the family’s collection of Christmas ornaments, each one with its own story.
There was the delicate glass star that had belonged to Seth’s grandmother, the wooden angels that Henry had carved during his and Molly’s first Christmas as a married couple, and the slightly lopsided clay ornaments that Seth and Charles had made as children.
“Seth was so proud of this one,” Molly said, holding up a lumpy clay reindeer that was missing one antler. “He was six, and he worked on it for hours. When it came out of the kiln at the schoolhouse, he ran all the way home to show it to us.”
As she spoke, I found myself studying her face, trying to memorize every detail.
I’d met Molly McAllister in the past, of course, but we hadn’t spent enough time together for me to truly know her as a real person.
Now I could see where Seth got his determination, his friendliness, and his love of family.
Molly was slight and slender, a few inches shorter than I, and didn’t seem like someone who could have borne two such tall sons, but she had a spine of iron.
As five o’clock approached, however, my stomach began to knot with apprehension.
I’d been dreading this reunion between the brothers ever since we’d decided to make this trip.
Seth had told me some of what had transpired between him and Charles before that near-fatal encounter at the mine shaft — the bootlegging, the pressure to take over more responsibilities than Seth should have had to shoulder on his own.
The way Charles had used family loyalty to manipulate him into taking risks he otherwise never would have even contemplated.
And I couldn’t forget how Charles’s actions had led directly to me being shot, to the desperate time jump that had changed both our lives forever.
Seth might have forgiven his brother, but I wasn’t sure I had.
Every time I thought about that moment as Lionel Allenby’s bullet lodged in my gut…
the pain and terror and the certainty that I was going to die…
a burst of rage would flash through me all over again.
Still, I knew I needed to put all that aside if I was going to get through tonight.
Charles arrived right on time, with Abigail on his arm.
She looked pretty much the same as she had the time I’d encountered her right before her twenty-first birthday, with pale blonde hair knotted low on her neck, although today she wore a dress of soft blue wool that somehow managed to make her seem even more fragile, rather than the lacy white summer frock she’d had on during our first meeting.
Her pale eyes seemed to survey her surroundings with a kind of distant regard, as if her thoughts were somewhere else entirely.
“Seth,” Charles said, his voice too neutral. “Mom told me you were back.”
The two brothers stood facing each other in the living room, and I could practically see the tension crackling between them, sharp and hot as the sparks flying in the hearth.
“Hello, Charles,” Seth replied evenly. “I’d like you to meet my fiancée, Devynn Rowe.”
At those words, Abigail’s pale eyes widened dramatically, and her gaze darted between Seth and me with something that looked almost like envy. I remembered then how he had been her first choice, how she’d wanted him to be her consort, even though the universe clearly had different plans.
Hopefully, she wasn’t still carrying any kind of a torch for him, or this evening might turn out to be even more awkward than I’d feared.
Charles’s mouth actually fell open for a moment before he managed to recover his composure.
“Miss Rowe,” he said, his tone stiff. “A pleasure.”
“Likewise,” I replied, although we both knew that wasn’t entirely true.
Molly, bless her, jumped into the silence before it could get too awkward. “It’s a wonderful surprise, isn’t it? Our Seth, engaged! And at Christmastime, no less. Come, everyone — let’s sit down to dinner.”
We all headed into the dining room, which felt even smaller with all of us crowded around the table.
Although I did what I could to concentrate on the wonderful food, the undercurrents of tension at the table made every bite difficult to swallow.
Nothing Charles said could exactly be called hostile, and yet something in his tone and the sideways, almost irritated glances he sent in his brother’s direction told me he was less than thrilled that we were there.
Seth did his best to ignore the little jabs and instead complimented his mother on the food, but I could tell from his ever-tightening jaw muscles that he wasn’t happy, either.
To be honest, I didn’t even know what Charles’s game was.
He’d been there at the mine — he’d seen me get shot and the two of us disappear.
Sure, he’d probably been a little stumped about what had actually happened, just because in general, Seth’s gift wasn’t strong enough to teleport two people at once, but maybe he’d thought in that moment of extremity, his brother’s translocation talent had strengthened enough to send us both somewhere else.
And also, Charles hadn’t known about my ability to travel in time.
“So…I’m curious how you could disappear someplace where there weren’t any phones or even telegraphs,” Charles said as he cut his roast beef with unnecessary force. “It would have been nice to know whether you were alive or dead.”
“Charles,” Henry said, his tone quiet but full of warning nonetheless.
“No, Dad, I think it’s a fair point,” Charles continued, and didn’t even look at his father. “The least you can do is let your family know you’re all right. Don’t you think so, Miss Rowe?”
Seth tensed beside me, and under the table, I laid a quelling hand on his knee. “I think,” I said carefully, “that sometimes circumstances are more complicated than they appear from the outside.”
“‘Complicated.’” Charles chuckled, but there was no humor in the sound. “That’s one word for it.”
Abigail had remained largely silent throughout the meal, picking at her food with birdlike delicacy.
But now she spoke up, her voice soft but carrying clearly across the tense silence at the table.
“I’m sure Seth had his reasons for leaving,” she said.
“Although it does seem rather sudden, this engagement. I’m sure I had no idea you’d formed any kind of attachment while Miss Rowe was in town. ”
Seth’s eyes narrowed. “That’s because we didn’t believe it was anyone else’s business.”
Molly made a warning sound, and he pulled in a breath and picked up his knife and fork so he could cut another piece of roast beef.
Apparently, Abigail didn’t seem to notice the exchange between mother and son, because she went on, “It’s just that when someone disappears for months and then returns engaged to a woman he barely knows….” She gave a delicate shrug. “Well, it raises questions, don’t you think?”
I suppose it did. However, I knew Seth was still deciding what kind of answers he could give…and also knew he had no intention of uttering them anywhere near Abigail McAllister.
Henry and Molly tried valiantly to keep the conversation on neutral topics — the weather, the Christmas decorations around town, plans for the New Year, and Charles and Abigail’s upcoming nuptials — but the undercurrent of tension at the table was impossible to ignore.
I found myself watching Charles carefully, trying to reconcile this fiery man with the bitter, careworn person we’d encountered in 1947.
That Charles had been worn down by decades of an unhappy marriage and the weight of believing he’d caused his brother’s death.
This Charles was much more volatile, and I wasn’t sure what to expect from him.
Finally, Seth pushed his chair back from the table with a loud scrape. “Charles, I think you and I need to talk. Outside.”
His brother set down the fork he’d been holding. “I don’t think that’s necessary — ”
“Yes, I think that’s a discussion you can leave until a later time,” Molly cut in. “It’s Christmas Eve!”
Seth’s expression softened. “I’m sorry, Mom, but I know Charles and I need to do this.
” His tone was firm enough that it appeared Molly realized there was no point in arguing with him.
Then he turned to me, and I could see the determination in his clear blue eyes.
“Devynn, would you come with us? We don’t have any secrets from each other. ”
Charles’s face suffused with anger — right then, I was glad this had been a dry dinner, thanks to Prohibition, since I didn’t want to think what he would have been like if he’d actually been drinking — and Abigail’s mouth pursed with what might have been disapproval.
But neither of them protested, so the three of us excused ourselves and stepped out onto the landing, and Seth closed the door behind us.
“All right,” Charles said as he crossed his arms. “Let’s have it, then. Where the hell have you been for the past six months? And don’t give me any more nonsense about ‘traveling.’ I’m not an idiot, Seth. I saw you and Devynn disappear after Allenby shot her. Where did you go?”