Chapter 12 #2
Annabel sat down with her eyes pinched closed, waiting for what was to come. And come it did, after a faint but chipper “rise and shine” from Mary, when Billy yelled, “Jee-zus!” after which he pounded down the stairs, clutching his unbuttoned white shirt, hair wild as ever, calling Annabel’s name.
“In here,” she said with a weak tremolo.
He followed her voice, took one look in the drawing room, and shrieked. “The Hepplewhites! They’re back!”
Annabel stood up, as if in a trance. “They are.”
Billy rubbed his hair. “And there’s an extra one!”
“It’s the lost sister,” said Annabel, walking past him to look into the dining room, where the cherry double demilune dining table sat, not a nick or a water mark anywhere.
Billy was on her heel. “And there’s some woman! In my room!” He was vaguely pointing. “Making me a . . . bath!”
“Her name’s Mary.”
“You know her?”
“Just met.” Annabel stopped outside the closed kitchen door.
“Well, who the hell is she?”
Annabel looked at him, trying not to wince. “A . . . servant.”
“Whoa, what?”
“Lady Gidding-Wedmore sent her. Who apparently has ‘servants to spare.’ Her words, not mine.”
“Man, they really take this shit seriously. Did she send the Hepplewhites too? I mean, are they just fucking with us now?”
Suddenly, there was the unmistakable sound behind the door of clucking and squawking. Annabel turned the knob slowly and opened it, to find two chickens fighting over the top spot on a long pine table with a marble slab, among rolling pins, various pottery, and flour sprinkled everywhere.
Slack mouthed, her gaze swept the room. On one side was a fire burning in a large hearth with a spit and posts that dangled black pots, including a kettle, the wall above it blackened by smoke.
On another were cupboards; to the left, a hutch full of dishes, open shelves with copper pots, hooks with iron ladles and spoons.
No refrigerator, no oven, no sink, no tap.
“What is happening, Annabel?”
“I-I-I honestly don’t know.”
“What the fuck!” Cassie stood in the doorway, batting away a chicken that flew at her head, escaping into the hall with its partner. “Chickens?”
Billy and Annabel nodded.
Cassie’s gaze rolled around the kitchen too. She was still in the red gown, bedheaded, hungover. “What is this place? Where are we?”
Annabel opened her mouth to answer, but nothing came out.
“And what’s with the Hepplewhites?” Cassie pointed in the general direction of the drawing room.
Annabel and Billy shrugged. Neither had words for whatever this was, just a shared whiff of bewilderment.
Hearing footsteps and whistling on the stairs, they all froze. The chickens were loose in the foyer, clucking and squawking, followed by the sound of a scuffle.
“Who is that?” Cassie whispered.
“Some lady,” Billy whispered back. “Who’s making me a bath!”
When the whistling started up again and the footsteps were coming toward them, Cassie flattened herself against the wall.
Mary walked in with the empty buckets, and a dead chicken under an arm.
“’ope yer stayin’ in tonight. Looks like we got chicken on the menu.” She set the buckets down and laid the dead bird on a butcher block. “Other one escaped out the front, but never mind.” She picked up a cleaver and chopped off the bird’s head.
Annabel covered her eyes. Cassie flinched. Billy took it like a gut punch.
Mary carried on, cheery. “’ow d’ya like it then? Roast on the spit? Nice fricassee? Maybe a chicken pie!”
“Oh. My. God.” Cassie was wide awake now.
Mary turned to her. “Why, you must be the elder Miss Blake. Aren’t you a sight?” She looked at Billy. “Bath’s good ’n’ ’ot, sir. I’ll fetch some more water. But you pop right in.” She pointed at his hair with the cleaver still in her hand. “I’ll soon be up to tame that unruly mop.”
Billy’s hands flew to his hair, which caused his shirt to fall open. He clutched it closed, suddenly modest.
Mary picked up the buckets and stepped out the kitchen door that led to the outside.
“Who the hell—?” Cassie asked.
“That’s her.” Billy pointed at her. “The bath lady!”
“Lady Gidding-Wedmore sent her,” Annabel said. “She’s a . . .”
“Servant!” said Billy.
“Wait, what?
“Apparently, you told her we didn’t have any?”
“We don’t have any!”
“Well, Lady Gidding-Wedmore wouldn’t hear of it. So she sent us . . . Mary.”
Cassie was still trying to process. “That is so wrong.”
“I don’t think they know that.”
“Well, somebody should tell them.”
“She looks so real,” said Billy.
“She is real.” Annabel turned to them. “Not pretend.”
***
Cassie and Billy sat rigidly across from each other, one on each settee, watching Annabel pace in front of the hearth. She was putting the pieces together, trying to think how to tell them what she was about to tell them while fending off her own frantic breakdown.
“Somebody say something,” said Cassie.
“Okay, maybe we’re like, totally still drunk?” Billy said.
“Or they slipped something into our drinks. Like, we got roofied at the ball?”
“They don’t seem like the roofie-ing type,” said Annabel.
“Then, are we dreaming?” said Cassie, her breath quickening.
“But having the exact same dream?” said Billy.
“So, okay, there are no lights,” said Annabel. “Which is why we couldn’t find the light switch last night. There’s no electricity. No running water . . .”
“That’s why I couldn’t find the toilet!” said Billy. “I had to piss out the window.”
“No toilets, no faucets . . .”
“And that’s why that woman, the buckets, the bath?”
Cassie shot him a panicked look. “Let her talk.”
“That’s why Mary, and James, and the carriage, the assembly rooms, Norwood Manor, the chandeliers, the chamber pot, the claret . . .” Annabel looked right at Cassie. “That’s why their teeth . . . are like that.”
“I’m not following,” said Cassie.
“They haven’t heard of veneers.”
“O-kay.”
“Because veneers don’t exist.”
Cassie and Billy traded a worried look.
“Which is also why they don’t know the Heimlich.” She looked between them. “Because it’s . . . before the Heimlich.”
“What do mean, ‘before’?” said Cassie.
“I mean, the Heimlich hasn’t been invented yet.”
Cassie giggled nervously. “So, like, how much before?”
Annabel steeled herself to say it. “1815.”
“1815. Like the year?” said Billy.
“Yes. The year.”
Billy clasped his hands on top of his head, as if it might help him think.
Cassie moved to the edge of the settee, holding her arms tight, rocking a little. “Okay, so, you’re saying, you’re actually saying, like, you’re saying out loud, with actual words, that we’re . . .”
“Time traveling!” Billy stood up.
“Okay, I wasn’t going to say that,” said Annabel. “But since you said it . . .”
Cassie stood too. “Ohmygod, ohmygod, ohmygod.” She was shaking her hands fast. “I need one of those little paper bag thingies.”
“There probably isn’t a little paper bag thingy,” said Billy.
“Just take a deep breath,” said Annabel. “We all just have to breathe for a minute. Can we do that?”
Billy managed two jagged breaths, but Cassie only tiny sips of air.
“I think I forgot how!” she said.
Annabel closed her eyes and tried one long calming breath to steady her own racing heart.
When the first one seemed to work a little, she took another, then opened her eyes to find Mary passing back through the foyer with now full water buckets.
Annabel put a finger to her lips to signal to Cassie and Billy they should be quiet.
They froze in place until Mary was well up the stairs, whistling her tune all the way.
“What is she so fucking happy about?” Cassie whispered.
The question rang in Annabel’s head, begging an answer.
When Cassie and Billy crept to the foyer to watch Mary disappear upstairs, she stood very still, slowly surveying the drawing room, the whole and its parts, now restored to its pristine state.
It had symmetry and graceful proportion, the length of the room just right for its width, repeated in the windows, whose clear panes invited light in all the right places.
Beautiful paintings graced the ivory walls.
There were sconces, candlesticks, vases on every flat surface teeming with fresh-cut flowers.
The chaise longue in green silk velvet lacked only a book and its reader, a tulipwood card table only players.
A variety of side tables sat around the room, not cluttered at all, but hosting a tasteful display of curiosities and collectibles: a glass decanter, a tea caddy, a tortoiseshell snuffbox, lacquered letter holder, a piece of pink coral . . . a carved jade frog.
There was a tiny place in Annabel’s being where she realized she was happy too.