The Girl Out of Time (Mine Through Time #3)

Chapter 1

“Ithink he’s wonderful.” Emmeline absentmindedly smoothed her braid as she gazed upon the grayish-blue sea and its curling waves, foaming as they hit the beach. “He retrieved the scarf from the ocean. He likes music. He always listens.”

She could almost see it: her shawl blowing away in the breeze; him, fearlessly trudging into the waves to retrieve it amidst the scandalous gasps and whispers of an imaginary audience of beachgoers. Anything for a lady to not get wet, of course.

With the vision disappearing, she lowered her eyes to the picture frame showing her aunt, which she’d carefully positioned on the low wooden portable table her family had brought to their outing.

“Just to be clear,” Aunt Emily’s voice came from the picture frame, “this is still about a fictional man, right?”

“Yes, we’re talking about Raoul.”

Emily blew through her mouth. “Personally, I’m team Phantom. He’s got a sexy lair.”

Emmeline glanced around in alarm. Her mother, luckily, was out of earshot, scrunched up under a parasol in her full, buttoned-up-to-the-neck day dress. The day was as sunny as Emmeline had come to expect a spring day in England to be—not at all. “You can’t say that word!” she whispered to her aunt.

“It just means attractive.”

“In Connecticut, maybe.” Emmeline wasn’t sure how, but a lot of words were different in Emily’s neighborhood. It seemed innocuous enough, but when Emmeline said Mr. Parrish—Father’s young apprentice—was “sexy,” her parents threw a fit and prohibited her from going to any balls for three months.

And to ever visit Father at work again.

“Plus,” Emily continued, “he’s tall, dark, and handsome.”

Right—the Phantom. “But you wouldn’t want to marry him, would you?”

“I wouldn’t marry anyone except your uncle,” Emily said matter-of-factly.

“I know that.” Emmeline leaned back, digging her hands into the sand. “I suppose there is an argument for the tortured, mysterious hero.”

“How come every time we talk, I get dragged into a literary discussion?”

“We could talk about different things if you … Well …” Emmeline tugged on her braid.

It wasn’t fair to complain that Emily had nothing else to talk about when she was too sick to leave the house.

Perhaps one day, they’d make motion picture devices people could have at home.

Perhaps Father could invent one. He was the smartest person Emmeline knew, and if he could invent this picture frame—a telephone-like tablet that allowed Emmeline not only to speak with, but also to see her aunt across the ocean—well, then not even the ocean was the limit.

However, Father didn’t patent the tablet, and forbade Emmeline from talking about it to others.

It didn’t look that strange; like a miniature motion picture screen wrapped in intricate metal pieces, with a clock-like dial used to make calls, which Father always handled.

But perhaps, it was secret technology. Perhaps, it was all a part of a grand conspiracy. Perhaps …

Perhaps she was getting carried away again.

“I know, Blue.” Emily gave her a sad, empathetic smile. “We’ll see each other in person one day, I promise. And then I’ll take you to the movies.”

Emmeline took the tablet into her hands—the only way she could be closer to her aunt. “All right. I can’t wait.”

“That being said, that Raoul guy is a wimp—”

A crash near Emmeline sent the fine beach sand spraying in a wide arc, ending up partially on top of the tablet, but mostly in Emmeline’s hair and face. She spat and shook her head, clearing the grains off her eyes. “Tristan!”

Her youngest brother lay in the sand, clutching a small leather ball. Ignoring Emmeline, he stumbled to his feet and raised the ball, looking down the beach. “Got it! I win!”

“Foul!” Brendon called from a hundred feet away.

“You didn’t say there were rules!” Tristan stomped off, sand slipping off his dark hair.

“There are always rules. You just didn’t read them.”

Emmeline cleared the tablet.

“The boys, huh?” Emily said.

“The boys,” Emmeline muttered. She replaced the tablet on the table as she undid her braid, trying to get rid of the rest of the sand lodged in her raven curls.

Thank God she only needed to put up with her brothers for a few more weeks.

She wasn’t looking forward to the finishing school—learning how to pick out correct cutlery sounded like torture from a twisted nightmare—but at least it had one perk: no Brendon and Tristan, and none of their antics.

“Hey, can you turn me so I can see the ocean?”

Emmeline did so while continuing to run a hand through her hair.

“Oh, yeah, mighty gray, mighty British-looking. Sylvia knows how to pick her vacation spots.”

“It’s only because Cousin Reggie’s house is here,” Emmeline said. “And I’m told it’s prettier in summer. The coast gets more interesting farther down. There are these dramatic cliffs …”

“Em-me-line!” a voice came from behind.

“Speak of the devil,” Emily said.

Mother walked up and put her hands on her hips. “Put your hair back up, darling. Just because we’re alone on the beach doesn’t mean you can afford such liberties.”

“But I wasn’t—it was Tristan!”

“Your brother unbraided your hair?”

“No—”

“Then don’t shift blame to others. It is very unladylike.”

Emmeline blew a strand of hair off her face. “Yes, Mother.” She turned the tablet back once Mother walked away.

“Yeesh,” Emily said. “I’d say Sylvia got up on the wrong foot today, but I think that is her default foot.”

“She’s still upset over the maid disguise incident.”

“That was three weeks ago.”

“Six months,” Emmeline corrected her with a rueful smile. It wasn’t the first time her aunt had mistimed an event, but she supposed it was easy to lose track of time in her confinement.

“I told you to take the servants’ entrance,” Emily said.

“I tried! It’s not my fault they chose that exact day to make the year’s supply of jam.

” Emmeline would never forget her shameful walk back into the foyer, covered in the very fresh, very hot plum conserve from head to toe.

But she’d learned two valuable lessons that day: don’t put on maid’s clothes if you want to sneak out, and don’t try using the doors.

“Anyway, for now, further arguing is useless.”

“I know how you feel, Blue. Have I told you about that time when your mother, father, and I went on a train—”

“Fourteen times, yes.”

“And she absolutely needed the front-facing seats …”

Emmeline gazed back at the ocean as she let her aunt recount the story for the fifteenth time.

Aside from it being how Emily had met Uncle James and thus ended up marrying into the family, Emmeline knew most of the tale had to be dramatized and inflated beyond belief; her prim and proper parents would’ve never gone on an adventure.

And with such prim and proper parents, she would never see an adventure, either.

Holding the tablet in one hand, she started drawing in the sand with the other; nothing specific, although the first few swirls vaguely resembled a stormy ocean. She bit her lip as she followed the idea, adding more and more swirls—

Her pointer finger colored blue, as if an ink stain had spread underneath her skin. Emmeline raised her hand, inspecting the finger, when a sharp pain pierced her temples. She winced, swallowing a cry, then took a deep breath.

The waves she’d drawn in the sand swirled, as if transforming into the ocean.

“What the—”

Another burst of pain. She cried out, then clenched her teeth, grabbing a fistful of sand.

Her fingers grazed something cold, smooth, metallic, and she clung onto it as a pain absorber until the headache passed.

Tentatively, with the spots in her vision subsiding, she lifted an oval locket, attached to a fine silver chain, from the sand.

“Hello? Blue?” Emily said as the tablet’s grainy, line-interrupted picture cleared up.

“Huh?”

“Are you okay?” Emily almost pressed her nose against the screen. “I couldn’t see you for a second there.”

Was she okay? The headache was gone, and her head felt clear, as if nothing had happened at all. She checked her finger, the silver chain still wrapped around it. No blue stain. “I’m fine.”

“It’s like the air rippled. Must’ve been a glitch in the camera.”

“Yes,” Emmeline said after a moment. How strange. She’d never had a headache this sudden and concentrated before, and for it to make her hallucinate things, like that shifting sand …

“Emmeline.” Father approached. “Come. It’s time for us to go.”

“Already?”

“We don’t want to be late for lunch.”

“Will! Check the tablet. It’s glitching,” Emily said.

“Is it?” Father took the tablet—to Emmeline’s mild complaint—and turned it around in his hand. “Looks fine enough on the outside, but I’ll inspect it later. It probably needs to be recharged.” He looked at Emmeline. “Come now.”

“But we didn’t—” Emmeline started.

“Gramps, I didn’t get to say goodbye to her!” Her aunt’s protest grew quieter as Father walked away with the tablet. “When are you coming back, again?”

“We have passages booked on the Lusitania in May,” Father responded.

“Okay. Don’t forget to call me!”

“I will. Send my regards to James.”

Emmeline grumbled, stood up, and shook the sand off her skirt.

One of Cousin Reggie’s servants came and folded up the table, and Emmeline ambled after her family, funneling onto the gravel path leading from the beach back to the mansion.

She raised the locket to her eye level. It was rather simple: no embedded gems, just a stylish embossed border and the initials JCB engraved at the center.

Hmm. Nobody in Cousin Reggie’s household matched the initials.

And it wouldn’t be a servant or a villager; the locket wasn’t ostentatious, but it was still fine enough that it had to belong to someone of the upper class.

A giggle behind her brought her out of her thinking.