26. Chapter 26
Chapter 26
C 'est moi qui les ai découverts. Alright, something about ‘me’. By now, Emily had gotten familiar with the most frequently used words and phrases in the diary. But there was still a lot to translate. She didn’t assume the last word had anything to do with decorations. French didn’t necessarily make sense.
The diary and her laptop were herded closely together on her desk. Study hall should’ve been the perfect time to get more translating done, but she kept being distracted by three students in front of her—Lilianne, Michael, and Cory. All of them were Mrs. Spencer’s pets, quizzing each other for the history competition. Again . At least Mrs. Spencer was focused on that, and not how she should have a word with Emily about her lacking school performance.
“Five provisions to the Treaty of Versailles,” Michael asked Lilianne. Emily rolled her eyes and went back to translating as Lilianne listed them off.
Discovered. That was the word. Fabienne had discovered two men hiding in the woods. It was like reading a slowly evolving thriller—the slowness only because of Emily’s translating issues.
Well, she could be quicker if not for—
“McKinley, Harrison… and Grant!”
Why did they have to take those two desks on the right? One of them should’ve been Sarah’s. But she had a cold and was staying home this week—another reason why Emily thought it safe to bring the diary here.
Moving on. She needed to know what was up with those men. There was another word she recognized: Confédérés . Fabienne had used that one often enough. Were they Confederates? A thriller, indeed.
“Name five sports popular in the late nineteenth-century America.”
Confédérés, Confédérés…
“Baseball, football, boxing, cycling…”
Confédérés, focus on them…
“Uh, cycling and…”
Emily closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “Rollerskating.”
Three heads turned toward her, like predators sniffling out prey. Non-threatening, nerdy predators.
“Rollerskating… was a sport that evolved,” she added, her confidence slipping away.
Lilianne blinked, reminding Emily of a stuck wax doll.
“Y-you’re not part of this,” Michael said.
“I’m trying not to be.”
“How did you know?” Lilianne asked.
“Beginner’s luck? Just keep it down, yeah? Some of us are trying to study.”
Emily smiled at their dumbfounded faces before she returned to work. The book had flipped closed, but she’d kept a finger in it to mark the place. More than two thirds through.
“… a whole week before the test. You’ll be fine. It’s just a formality. We’re practically set for the team,” Lilianne said to Cory.
Emily tuned them out as she stared at the diary, and, on impulse, flipped to the last page. Confederate soldiers were interesting and all, but what about Fabienne’s mission?
The last date was in March 1865—only a few months later. Emily scanned the pages for mentions of names, the quickest way to determine what was going on without translating. If Fabienne had succeeded and returned home, as the family tree hinted, she’d see various names from France. But there was no Marion and Antoine or even Gaspard the Sleazy. Only… Gertrude?
How the hell did this end? With Fabienne killing Gertrude? The way those two clashed, Emily wouldn’t be surprised. She quickly translated the last few sentences, sat back, looked at them, and translated them again.
It was worse than killing. It was… nothing. Just something about a chat. The ending to Fabienne’s diary wasn’t an ending at all. She’d run out of space.
Oh, foot.
“Stop staring at their legs,” Emily murmured as she steered Will on a pathway under the low-hanging, silvery-green Spanish moss of Forsyth Park.
Will tore his eyes away from two women in front of them, blushed, and looked at the ground. “I apologize. I am not used to seeing women displaying their limbs.”
“What?”
“Wearing inexpressibles. All of them.”
Emily scrunched her nose. “Oh. You’re not used to seeing women’s legs.”
Will coughed, the burning now reaching his ears.
Poor guy. Emily decided to switch back to the topic of time travel. That seemed to go down better for him. “So, you said that people like us are pretty rare. But were there ever more of them at the same time?”
“There were two Leaders at the same time, once.” Will’s eyes lit up. He loved to explain stuff. “A French and a Japanese one. They resolved the matter by having them lead the Western and Eastern branch, respectively. It served as a basis for more branches later on. Like the American.”
“We don’t like to answer to other authorities,” she mused.
Leaders were what the Watchers called the special time travelers—those like Emily and Will, who could travel beyond their lifetime. The name was appropriate, since those people led the organization. Emily was still debating how appropriate that idea was. She definitely wasn’t fit to lead a secret group.
“So did Leaders just sit and order others around? Unlimited travel is nice, but I can’t imagine the head of the organization appearing somewhere buck naked—” She gasped. If her clothes didn’t transport when she traveled—did the same happen to Will? Forcibly, she shooed away a mental image that crept up in the corner. Nope.
He cleared his throat. “These clothes travel with me.”
Thank god. Wait — “Then why did I have to suffer? Where do you get them?”
“The Watchers made a few sets for the Leaders. The fabric has almonite woven into it. It replicates the clothes when we travel. If you wish, I can provide you with a set.”
“That’d be nice. The Watchers were pretty cool with tech, huh?”
“Some. They found many uses for almonite, in various forms. Like this.” From the inside pocket of his jacket, he retrieved a shimmery, dark blue fabric bag. “It can transport smaller objects.”
“That’s how you got your box of tools here.”
They sat on a bench, the smell of freshly ground coffee from a nearby restaurant floating past them. The soft rush of the water from the fountain soothed her, and Emily leaned back. By a tree, a woman had set up her easel and was halfway through painting the scene, the canvas a mix of greens, grays, and blues.
Will looked at the painting with a shy smile Emily recognized as a sign of interest.
“They do it all the time,” she said. He twitched his head to attention. “The artists. They’re probably from the college.”
“It’s a very artistic city.”
“I suppose it is. I’m not much for art myself. I usually give up after ten minutes.”
“So quickly?”
“It’s not worth it.” She leisurely extended one arm across the back of the bench.
“Perhaps if you dedicated more time and effort to it, you would have found it worthy.”
“Are you criticizing my approach or defending art?”
“A bit of both, I suppose.”
“Take it easy, Gramps. I’ve nothing against your precious art, only that it’s not useful to me.”
“Why do you keep calling me that?”
“Gramps? Well…” she waved her hands, motioning at his entire person. “You dress like a grandpa, you behave like a grandpa.” She wiggled her eyebrows. “Should I call you ‘sugar’ instead? Sweet Pea? Honey?”
“Please, no,” Will said, close to laughter—or at least an open smile. He didn’t laugh much. Probably considered it impolite.
“Do you like drawing, then?” she asked.
“I am partial to it.”
For someone who sought Emily out, it was damn hard to get Will talking. At least talking about anything more personal than time travel.
Or anything personal related to time travel. Emily blew a stray lock of hair off her face. “Okay, here’s the thing. Before you finally introduced yourself to me, I was about to destroy the watch.”
“Which is why I intervened.”
“But you haven’t made a good case for it since then.” She looked at him sideways. “You’re not giving me anything, Gramps. Yeah, it’s cool that you know a lot about how the Watchers used to work, but how does that help me?”
“You’re not interested? You do not wish to time travel again?”
“I do, I would, but… it’s kind of useless.” She slumped her shoulders. “And it doesn’t always end well.”
“It’s not dangerous if you abide by the rules.”
“That explains it,” she grunted. “I don’t know any rules. All I got was from the diary, and it’s very basic.”
“But you have learned other things.”
“If you mean, the intricacies of nineteenth-century living—hold on.” She turned to face him. “You know about the diary. You already knew .”
Will cleared his throat. “It was written by Fabienne Beaumont. My mother.”
Now they were getting somewhere! Wait… “Your mo—she’s my several-times-great grandmother. And you’re… you’re Guillaume Pelletier.”
He flinched, probably at the botched pronunciation of his name.
Emily shot up. “You’re Gramps. You’re literally Gramps. Oh god.” She clenched her fists in front of her mouth and turned away. “I thought you were cute. Oh, yuck, yuck, yuck.”
“I’m confused.”
“You tell me .” She sat back down, but a little farther from Will than before. “You didn’t know we were related? Then how does all of this make sense?”
Will blushed slightly. “I slipped the diary to you in the library. I thought if you discovered some things on your own, became connected to Fabienne, you’d be more willing to help me out. But how do you know of the relation?”
“Got a family tree.” Emily pulled out the diary and the family tree and spread it out on Will’s lap. “See. There you are.”
Will stared at it for a moment, then pushed it away. “You should not be showing me this.”
“Oh. Right. Spoilers. Okay, that clears up the diary. But how did you get the watch to me?”
He blinked. “I didn’t. I could not. My mother lost it a long time ago.”
“But…” She bit her lip. “That doesn’t make any sense. It’s too big a coincidence.”
“Perhaps it is only fate.”
“Yeah, like me being the Chosen One? Jury’s still out on the usefulness of that one.”
“You are useful.”
“Geez, Gramps. Thanks for the kind, comforting words.”
He gave her a slight smile. “Time travel isn’t easy to utilize. And changes aren’t easy to make. Sometimes, impossible.”
“So I’d figured out.”
“But sometimes…” His gaze wandered back to the painter. “You don’t need time travel to change history. All you need is some flavored accounts and enough time passed for some events to be forgotten and others to become romanticized.”
Their eyes met. “Like the diary?” she asked.
“What do you mean?”
“Fabienne’s life ended up nothing like it was shown in there. She went back to France, she married your dad, she had you. She…” An image of Dad, sitting by Mama’s hospital bed, flashed in her mind, and she swallowed. “They didn’t end up together. She and Brayden.”
A moment of silence passed. “It happened for the best,” Will said. “Emily… they’re alive. My aunt and uncle.”
“She saved them?” Emily twisted on the bench. “How? She has to tell me. I need—I need to save my mama. How can I meet Fabienne? You can tell me, you know—”
“Stop, stop.” Will extended a hand. “It’s better you don’t talk to her. History, the way things happened, it’s fragile. And changes…”
“Right. Dangerous time travel.”
“I can tell you all you need to know. Time travel isn’t tearing a wall down with a hammer to enact change. It’s—”
“More like making a small hole to see to the other side.” Emily smiled. “Fabienne’s diary.”
He smiled back. “Would you like to see her?”
“But you said I shouldn’t. And, to be honest, the last time I tried, I kinda got accused of treason, and maybe drove two policemen insane as I suddenly disappeared in front of them.”
Will’s eyes widened.
“Don’t tell the Watchers,” she jokingly whispered.
“There might be another way. Do you know of the Hartford ball?”
“For Christmas? Yeah. But I can’t get there. I’m not in Hartford.”
“You were.” The smug smile on his face perfectly matched his straight posture with clasped hands.
“I can do that? I can travel back to when I was in Hartford with Dad, then travel from there? Is that safe? Healthy?”
“It’s accomplishable, and as safe as time travel in general. And I believe one can have the beatingest time at those things.”
“I’ve no idea what beatingest means.” She stood up and put a hand on his shoulder. “But count me in, Gramps. Oh, just one thing. You’ll need to get me some clothes. And bring them to a certain spot in the woods.”
“It shall be done.” He nodded. “And I’ll need you to procure some chewing gum.”