Chapter 13
OUR THREE KIDLINGTON VISITORS—IT BEING THE FIRST MORNING of their newly acquired situation—suffered the inevitable shock, confusion, denial, and fear that any unwitting time traveler would, and then back around the dial again.
They were not yet to curiosity, nowhere near acceptance.
Paralyzed by their general state of upset, they let Mary guide them through the rhythms of those early hours.
She seemed to know in what order they should bathe, how to dress, go about their day, but guided all with a gentle hand and appropriate modesty, except where Billy’s “unruly mop” was concerned, which required significant muscle on Mary’s part.
His hair was now combed and orderly, with a nice side part and just the right amount of curl.
“That head massage was hella good,” he said, with a knife in one hand, fork in the other, poised over a full plate of food. “I closed my eyes, and for like a second forgot I was losing my shit.”
“Well, I am still losing mine,” said Cassie, tearing off a big bite of cardamom bun.
They sat in the dining room at the fresh-polished demilune table, bathed and dressed in their first outfit of the day: morning dress for the sisters, according to Mary, who had laid out for each of them a walking-out dress, carriage dress, promenade dress, and afternoon dress, which might be necessary depending on events as they unfolded.
One should always be prepared for any contingency was the general vibe.
Despite their predicament—when it would have been understandable had they picked at their food or pushed crumbs around the plate—they were ravenous instead, and the breakfast was, shall we say, ample.
In addition to the tea and coffee, there was fresh-baked bread, churned butter, plum jam and orange marmalade, poached eggs, a cheddar, a Stilton, cold meats, fruit, the aforementioned buns, and a caraway seed cake.
Annabel mostly listened, relishing as she was the tart plum and bright orange on her toast, as Cassie and Billy debated the nature of time, time machines, wormholes, incantations, and charms, drawing exclusively from movies they’d seen.
“Movies.” Billy knifed a square of cold ham. “I’m gonna miss movies.”
Cassie hit him on the arm. “Do not give up. We can fix this. If we got here, we can get back. Right, Annabel?”
Annabel shrugged. “I’ve never seen a sci-fi movie. Never even once.”
Cassie dropped her forehead into her palm. “This is a disaster.”
“Well, there’s almost always a portal, or a machine of some kind,” said Billy. “That’s how it works.”
“I thought it might be the clothes,” said Cassie. “But when we took them off for our baths, well, nothing happened. Except the bath. Which, by the way, was your used water, Billy. That was gross.”
“Somebody has to go first. And I guess I’m, like, the man of the house now?”
Cassie huffed and served herself a slice of cake. “Plus, all my real clothes are gone. I looked everywhere. Jeans, bras, thongs, shoes, hair product, whitening strips. I mean, how am I even going to brush my teeth?”
“Mary gave me this thing with a wood handle and boar bristles,” said Billy.
“It’s called a toothbrush!” said Cassie. “Why didn’t I get that?” She looked at Annabel. “Can we each have our own?”
“Mmm,” said Annabel, lost in her pillowy cardamom bun, savoring it as slowly as she could.
“Snap out of it!” said Cassie.
Annabel straightened up and hoped she hadn’t been smiling.
Of course, she felt somehow responsible for whatever was happening and that it was contingent on her to get them all safely back.
But if she could be allowed to enjoy this one glorious breakfast, then she could rejoin the task ahead of them. Whatever it was.
“Well, it’s not the clock either,” said Billy. “We know that now.”
While Cassie had been dressing, Billy tried the longcase clock, it being the obvious choice, but there was no lever, nothing to pull, no button to push, no obvious way to stop it ticking. Out of frustration, he punched the clock in the face. Annabel had been shocked.
“You can’t punch a clock! What are you doing?”
“I didn’t hurt the clock. It hurt me!” he said, shaking his hand and blowing on his knuckles.
“But also,” said Cassie now, “if you hurt the clock and the clock ends up being our way back, then we’re really screwed! Don’t mess with anything! Okay?” She turned to her sister. “We need you to think, Annabel. Focus. If it’s not the clock, or the clothes, what is it?”
Annabel wiped her mouth, sated. “Okay, I’m thinking.”
“Shh!” Cassie motioned with a slice across her neck that Annabel should stop talking.
Mary was walking in with another beautiful vase spilling with fresh garden flowers.
“Wot’d I tell ya, miss,” she said to Annabel, setting it on the table. “Blooms and blooms.”
“They’re beautiful, Mary. Thank you,” Annabel said.
Mary looked at Cassie. “Is the elder Miss Blake done with ’er breakfast?”
“I’m finished, thanks.” Cassie swiped the last bite of bun as Mary took her plate away. “These cardamom things, by the way, unbelievable. I daresay.”
“Aw, glad ya liked ’em, miss.” She turned to Billy. “And wot about our dear Mr. Doofus?”
“Um, yes. Indeed. Thank you, Mary,” he said in his good English accent, eliciting an irritated eye roll from Cassie.
When Mary walked out, Annabel folded her napkin, set it on the table, and stood.
“Blooms and blooms . . .”
“What about them?” said Cassie.
“We should look at the garden.”
“We looked outside.”
“Only the front of the house. I mean, maybe it’s not everywhere, maybe it’s just this house, but the rest of the world is—”
Cassie and Billy were already racing down the hall for the library, but Annabel glided slowly behind them, peering into the ribbon of rooms beyond the kitchen—a larder, a scullery, butler’s pantry, wine cellar, beer cellar—finally arriving to find Billy and Cassie standing in the open French doors that led outside.
Billy’s hands pressed the sides of his head; Cassie’s covered her mouth.
Annabel stepped between them to see for herself: the garden in full summer splendor, a painterly wash of color and shape, neat gravel paths, prim boxwood hedges, billowing cut flower beds, a kitchen garden groaning with herbs, rows of fruit trees in the distance, a line of closely cropped yews.
There was an arbor made of grapevines, and against a stone wall, a graceful iron garden bench, just beginning to weather.
Nothing overgrown, out of place. No leaf blower, no buzzing trimmer.
They stepped tentatively outside, eyes following the murmur of voices to a corner where two gardeners in straw hats, breeches, and waistcoats leaned on their spades, talking amiably.
Birds warbled. A light breeze ruffled Annabel’s hair. She closed her eyes to feel it.
“It’s everywhere,” said Cassie. “We’re fucked.”
“Bruh . . .” was all Billy managed to say.
While the two of them took in the garden and the enormity of what it meant, Annabel turned, entranced, and drifted back inside.
She was drawn to the bookshelves on the far wall, same shelves as before, but the cacophony of books shoved in this way and that was replaced by neat rows of leather-bound volumes in autumnal colors with gold-embossed lettering on their spines.
Annabel traced her finger slowly along them, whispering titles to herself.
She stopped with an intake of air and gently pulled a book from the shelf, touched a finger to its lettering, like a blessing.
She turned to its title page, careful to use a light touch, as one would with a hallowed thing.
“Pride and Prejudice . . . A novel . . . In three volumes . . . By the author of Sense and Sensibility.”
“What are you doing?” said Cassie. She and Billy had followed her inside.
Annabel turned to them, tears in her eyes. “It’s real . . . An actual original edition.”
Cassie walked over, took the book from her hands and snapped it closed. “Okay. Annabel. I need you to stop this shit. Right now. We need you to think.”
Annabel nodded and slid the book gently from Cassie’s hand to return it to its rightful place. She faced the room again, hands on her hips, thinking, thinking.
That was when she saw it.
“The desk . . . The writing desk . . .” She walked to the space under the window where the satinwood desk had been. “It’s not here . . . ”
Billy stepped beside her. “Those Sotheby’s guys. They ran out of room in the truck. Remember? They must’ve come back for it. When we were at the ball thing.”
“But it had a pink sticky note.”
Cassie looked between them. “Wait, why are we worried about pink sticky notes?”
“That Patterson guy thought it might be a Hepplewhite,” Billy said to Annabel.
“Pink meant sentimental value, Billy. Which meant it should stay!”
Billy rubbed his hair. “Well, when a dude like that dude is telling you it might be a Hepplewhite, who am I to say, uh, no, bro, I’m pretty sure you’re wrong. Plus, I maybe forgot what pink meant. Or nobody told me. Plus, it wasn’t my job!”
Annabel looked down at the conspicuously vacant spot. “But now it’s gone . . . “
“Please, will someone explain this to me?” said Cassie. “Because this is hurting my head.”
“It all happened here, at the desk . . .” Annabel put a hand on the back of her neck, which she did when worrying a problem through.
“It’s where I found the invitation to the first ball .
. . where I answered it. That’s when the carriage came.
And the second ball, same thing . . . But the desk was here, or there, you know, then, so I could come back. It was the way there and the way back.”
“So, the desk is the portal . . . ” Billy said.
“I think it might be.”
“And Sotheby’s took it by mistake, while we were at the ball?” said Cassie. “Which is why you think we’re . . . stuck here?”
Annabel closed her eyes and nodded.
Cassie looked at the empty spot. “But why isn’t it here, you know, now? Even if it’s gone then?”
Annabel gripped her neck and shrugged. “Maybe they haven’t bought it yet?”
Cassie whacked Billy on the chest. “I can’t believe you let them take the portal!”
“I didn’t know it was a portal. Nobody told me!”
“What were you thinking?”
Billy put his fists against his forehead. “Thinking is so hard.”
Cassie looked out at the garden. “I can’t believe this is happening.” She turned to her sister, lower lip trembling. “I am really losing it here, Annabel.”
Annabel took Cassie’s hands in hers, as sisters in novels often do. “We’ll figure this out. I promise.”
Cassie nodded, as grateful as she was capable of being in that moment. Annabel looked back at the empty spot, tightening her grasp of her sister’s hands in solidarity.
“We just have to find the desk.”