Rose, with the other seamstresses, peered from the open door of the sacristy where the church’s bishop prepared for services.
“Look, they go together, the prince and the princess—a matched pair like eggs and bacon. Needle and thread,” said Thelma, known for her intricate stitchery. “Milk and cream!”
“How romantic.” Rowan giggled.
Sara shot her a dark look.
He might be milk or cream, thought Rose. But not Elizabeth. He was no match for her. She had recovered her beauty and vitality since Rose had last seen her at Hatfield. This prince was weak. And Elizabeth was growing stronger by the minute. She was surveying the crowd gathered for her hated half sister’s wedding. Rose knew what was to come in just a few years. But the princess did not. Yet she seemed to be crackling to get there. She would. She was the Virgin Princess now, but within four years, upon the death of the Burning Queen, Elizabeth would be the Virgin Queen.
But four years seemed forever to Rose, and so many awful things would happen. Of course, it could be just a minute in tangled time. She watched as the wedding ceremony came to a conclusion. The bride turned now to walk down the aisle with her new husband. She caught a glimpse of Elizabeth.
“Uh-oh,” Rose whispered to herself. The queen’s eyes blazed, and for a moment it was as if the tiara she wore ignited into a nimbus of flames. The rose locket that hung from her neck glowered at her throat. Rose was transfixed. A paralysis crept through her. I have to get out! I have to!
Rose blinked. She was standing in front of the graftling. It looked healthier—just a bit. Her cell phone was next to the tray. Darn. She had wanted to try taking it with her and sneaking some pictures. But she had forgotten it. It would have been so cool if she had had pictures of the dress and the wedding. She wasn’t sure how she would have sneaked it out to take a picture with no one noticing, but there were plenty of times when she had been alone. Now, however, she wondered how she had been transported back so quickly. She supposed that was always the way it happened. When she was least expecting it, she was just back! Unlike when she wanted to go the other way, back to the sixteenth century, which she could plan somewhat. She could go to the greenhouse, and if she concentrated on the damask roses, she could get there. But returning was a different story. It seemed very random.
She went back upstairs. Marisol was still sound asleep. Let’s see, Rose thought. It would be another six hours until the alarm clock rang and they’d be off to school. There would be the new word list test. And in science—yuck—they were going to be dissecting a cow’s eye. Before lunch, too. What an appetite killer that would be.
Chapter 27
Living in Two Worlds
“And now, class,” Ms. Elfenbach, the math teacher, said, “I’ve saved the best for the last. Guess what happens today.”
“What?” Susan asked.
“Based on the qualifying tests for Indiana State Middle Grade Mathlete Team, I am proud to say that we have two new members of the team from our seventh-grade class. I’d like to announce their names.”
There was a buzz of excitement in the room. Rose knew she would not be one. Math was not her strong point. Joe leaned over and whispered, “I think we can relax on this one, Rose,” with a chuckle.
“So right!” Rose replied. She knew that there was no way her name would be announced, but she hoped Anand would make it again, and Sayid too.
“So let’s give a big welcome to Susan Gold, on the team for the first time.”
“Hooray . . . go Susan!” the class broke out.
“And . . . our returning team members, Anand, Myles, and Sayid Nassim!” Rose glanced over at Carrie. The color was draining from her face. Carrie was a standout math student. She had been on the team the previous year. And her sister, who was older, had been on the high school team for three years running. “And finally, our last mathlete—and I have to say I am particularly proud to announce this name—Marisol Juanita Esteban.” There was a roar from the entire class. But Carrie’s name was not among those called. “Welcome to the team. Our first practice session will be today after school.”
Rose reached across the aisle and grabbed Marisol’s hand. “This is so great! Listen, don’t worry about the after-school practice. Calvin can swing by and pick you up after picking me up from my riding lesson.”
“Okay. I can’t quite believe it!”
“Me neither!” A scathing whisper. It was Carrie, of course, who gave them both a withering look.
“What’s the problem?” Joe asked.
“Not exactly an all-American team,” Carrie said.
Susan blinked. “What are you saying, Carrie?”
“Oh, you’re okay, Susan.”
“No, I’m not okay. What is your issue now, Carrie?”
“Forget about it.”
Susan stood up. “No, Carrie. Take back what you just said.”
“I never take anything back!” God, thought Rose, Carrie looked just like Sara in that moment. The same predatory light suffused her eyes.
Carrie turned her back and walked out of the classroom.
“There goes trouble,” Susan said. “Come on. Let’s go to lunch.”
When they left the classroom, they saw that Brianna had pulled Carrie over and was speaking intensely to her. Lisa stood beside her. Carrie gave Brianna a light shove. “Just get out of my way.”
“Yeah,” said Tinker Bell, who had just come up to the two girls.
“Ugh!” Rose exhaled loudly. Jenny turned around and looked at Rose.
“Jenny,” Rose said, “you should avoid those girls. They’re toxic.”
“Stay out of this, Rose. Go back to your stupid fashion blog,” Carrie said, then wheeled about and saw Sayid staring at her. “And what are you staring at, Sayid? Why don’t you just go home? As in, where you came from. Syria, Egypt, wherever—in the desert. I’m sure they’re short of mathletes in the desert!” A cold dread flooded through Rose.
Marisol pulled Rose away. “Let’s go to lunch.”
No one talked much at lunch. It should have been celebratory, but Carrie’s toxicity had seeped into the air at their usual lunch table with Anand, Sayid, Joe, Myles, Kevin, Marisol, and Susan.
“She is such a colossal jerk,” Joe said.
A jerk is one thing, thought Rose. She’s dangerous. She had to take Susan aside and talk to her about how Marisol’s papers were coming along. She had a very bad feeling. Time was of the essence.
“I wanted to tell to her that my parents are citizens,” Sayid said. “And I am too. My father pays taxes to the United States government.”
“She wouldn’t listen,” Susan said.
Marisol shook her head. “I don’t want to talk about this.”
Once Rose was in the car with Calvin on her way to Hunter Valley Riding Academy, she took out her cell phone and called Susan.
“So, Susan, what should we do if the immigration people come to our door?”
“Don’t let them in. You don’t have to. Tell Betty, tell your grandmother, tell everyone who works for your grandmother.”
“Wait a second. I’m going to put you on speakerphone so Calvin can hear this.”
Calvin leaned closer to Rose. “Hi, Susan. I’m listening. All ears here.”
“You don’t have to open the door unless they show a warrant. And you can ask them to slide that under the door. And then, this is the most important thing of all . . . if they come in, you can remain silent. That is your right. You don’t have to sign anything or speak until you have a lawyer there with you. I’m going to text you my dad’s office number and cell in case any agents show up. My dad is at your grandmother’s, explaining all this to her.”
“What’s taking so long with all the papers and forms? Why can’t all this just happen?”
“I don’t know. But Dad will get Marisol through all this. Just don’t panic.”
“I’m not panicking, but I am really worried about Carrie. You know how she is.”
“Look, wha
t’s the worst she can do?”
“I don’t even want to imagine, Susan.” She looked out the window. They were turning through the gates of the riding academy. “Got to go.”
Rose turned to Calvin. “You got all that about Marisol?”
“Don’t worry, Rose. We’ve got Marisol covered.”
“Yeah, but I do worry. You know how Gran has those spells. Just the other day she forgot who Marisol was.”
“Well, that might be good. If these agents come to the house and ask for Marisol Esteban and your grandmother says, ‘Never heard of her,’ they might think they have the wrong house altogether.”
“Hmmm . . .” Rose thought. Calvin had a point. It would be like, Marisol who? As if she didn’t exactly exist. The idea of tucking Marisol away in a distant century—at least until the papers could be squared away—was becoming increasingly appealing. Could she persuade Marisol? That was the problem. Marisol wanted to be where her mom was, in a country that was safe, where there was no war. But not a different century. There was not exactly war now in Bolivia, but there were drug gangs and violence and poverty.
Rose was thinking of all this as she walked into the changing room at the riding academy. Just as she opened the door, she heard giggling. She waited a moment and listened.
“Jamie works in the stables. He’s just kind of an assistant to Peter, the riding teacher, but he’s so cute, Jenny. I think maybe he likes me just a little bit.”
“How old is he?”
“Fifteen.”
“That’s so much older than you.”
“Not that much. He just turned fifteen and I’ll be thirteen next week. Oh yes, by the way, I’m inviting you to my birthday party next week. You’re the only sixth grader I’m inviting. Carrie says it’s okay.”
“Really! Lisa. Oh, you’re so . . . so . . .”
“Evil,” Rose said, barging into the changing room. Jenny froze. Then her eyes began to dart back and forth between Rose and Lisa. The glitter sparkled in her topknot. “Oh, and speaking of evil—that glitter’s been declared an environmental hazard. Its microplastic fragments can be inhaled. So, as the saying goes, ‘all that glitters is not gold.’ It’s toxic. You wouldn’t want to hurt a horse, would you?”
“Come on!” Lisa grabbed Jenny by her shoulder, and they ran out of the changing room.
“Oh, Jamie,” Rose heard Lisa cooing. “This is my friend Jenny.”
“Hi, Jenny.”
“She’s going to take her first riding lesson today with Christina.”
“Oh yeah. Christina’s great. But maybe you better put a helmet on or comb some of that glitter out of your hair. Christina doesn’t like that stuff around the horses.”
Yay! Rose pumped her fist into the air and gave a small leap. Vindicated! she thought. It was a word from this week’s word list.
She came out of the changing room just as Lisa and Jenny were coming back in.
“Hi, Rose,” Jamie said. “It’s great to see you again. Seems like forever.”
“Yeah, well, there’s been a lot of snow. We couldn’t get out here.”
“I know—I couldn’t either. This place basically shut down for almost two weeks.”
Whenever Rose saw Jamie, she thought of Andrew. Andrew had worked in the saddlery and the stables of Hatfield. They looked quite a bit alike. Andrew had been perhaps seventeen when Rose first met him. He had taken her for being older, because of her height. But when she had glimpsed him the last time she’d gone to Hatfield, she had been shocked. Like the princess, he had aged. He now looked close to thirty. Still very handsome. He too would have most likely said, “Oh, Rose, you haven’t changed a bit.” It was always awkward, as she never knew what to say back. The truth was that everyone had changed except her. She wondered what it would have been like for her mom to go back and see her father aging while she stayed the same. She had noticed the last time she and her father had met that he had a few more gray hairs in his sideburns. But she pushed the thought out of her mind.
Rose saddled Ivy, mounted up, and proceeded to one of the indoor rings, where Peter, her riding teacher, was waiting. She went through the usual exercises before the jumping part of the lesson began. She heard the clunk of Ivy’s hind hooves on the bar.
“You’re too far forward in the saddle, Rose. You’re hanging on Ivy’s neck. Not good.”
Rose sighed. She didn’t get much better. Her mind was definitely elsewhere. At the end of the lesson she came to the center.
“A little distracted, and a bit rusty,” Peter said to her. “But you’ll get it back. Not to worry.”
It seemed to Rose that everyone was telling her not to worry today. But she was worried—too many people she loved were in danger. Living in two worlds was harder than she would ever have imagined.
Chapter 28
The ICE Men
“I feel . . . I feel . . .” Rosalinda was bent over a tray of seedlings with a magnifying glass. “The beginnings of spring.” She paused. “. . . Or is it a false spring?” Outside there was the soft patter of a drizzly rain
“What are you talking about, Gran?” Rose looked up from the seedlings that she was tying to slender sticks.
“Mud-lucious coming.”
Oh dear, thought Rose. She’s going off again. Tangling words, forgetting names. She had to get her back on track.
“Gran, mud what? What kind of name is that? Who are the mud-lucious?”
Rosalinda threw up her hands. “Oh, my dear girl. You think that’s a name. It’s just a word. So perfect for these almost-spring days. You never heard that poem about just spring?”
“No, Gran. But it’s just February now.”
“Well, there is a poem that is the best poem ever written about spring. It’s by a very famous poet, E. E. Cummings, who died, I don’t know, maybe seventy years ago.”
How could her grandmother remember the name of a poet who died that long ago and not Marisol’s name, who lived right in her own house?
“Do you remember the poem?”
Her gran shrugged. “A bit.”
“Can you say it to me, maybe?”
Rosalinda set down the magnifying glass and, closing her eyes, folded her hands primly in her lap. She took a deep breath.
“in Just-
spring when the world is mud-
luscious the little
lame balloonman . . .”
She stopped abruptly. “Oh, I forget.” She sighed. “I’ll tell you, Rose, getting old isn’t for sissies.”
“You’re no sissy, Gran.”
This might be a good time to test her grandmother. She had been drilling her as to what she should do if the Immigration and Customs Enforcement men came to their door.
“Gran, can we go over what you’re supposed to say if the Immigration and Customs guys come here?”
“Oooh, The ICE Men Cometh. One of my favorite plays.” Her gran always said this whenever they mentioned Immigration and Customs. “Yes, of course. I have the right to remain silent about . . .” She looked up blankly. “What’s her name again?”
“Marisol Esteban, but don’t say her name to them. You just say, ‘I have the right to remain silent until my lawyer is present.’”
“Good, I’ll say that. I have the right to remain silent until my lawyer . . .” Her eyes darted around a bit as if searching for Sam Gold’s name. “Until Thomas Cromwell is present.”
Rose gasped. “No, Gran, Thomas Cromwell was you-know-who’s minister.”
“Oh, of course, Henry, King Henry the Eighth. Ours is Gold, right?”
“Right, Gran. Just remember you can just shut your mouth. It’s not a crime.”
“Not an off-with-your-head kind of crime.”
“No, Gran.”
“And the little girl upstairs—your friend—Marisol Esteban.”
Betty had now shown up to take Rosalinda upstairs.
“Ready for bed, Mrs. A?”
“Not quite. Might you take me into the library? I need to l
ook something up about the old bald men.”
“What?” Rose and Betty said at the same time.
Rosalinda broke into gales of laughter. “Those pests in the potato seedling trays. That’s what we called them way back when. I believe for some unknown reason they were called Jerusalem crickets. Today we just call them potato bugs. Ugly critters. About two inches long, beady black eyes. They attack potatoes and all sorts of tubers. They even attack their own. The females kill the males after mating. Chomp off their heads. Charming, isn’t it?” She looked pointedly at Rose. “Like some monarchs we have heard of.”
“Uh, okay, Gran. I’ll see you in the morning.”
Eventually Rose heard Betty walking toward the library door to look in on Rosalinda and see if she was ready to go upstairs. Rose continued checking the humidity in the seedling trays. She looked out to the back of the greenhouse. A thick fog swirled outside. The single streetlight appeared to float dimly in the shroud of fog like a gigantic pearl. A meow cut the soft patter of the drizzle on the glass panes of the greenhouse.
“September!” She was never sure if September came back with her. It seemed that sometimes she did and sometimes not. She walked over to the windows that looked out on the alley. In the faint illumination from the streetlight she saw a figure. The figure was holding September. But over her shoulder was a pair of ice skates. Brianna! What is she doing here?
Rose didn’t even bother to get a coat. She went out the back door of the greenhouse.
“Why are you here on a night like this?”
“I . . . I have to tell you something . . . something bad.”
Rose looked at her suspiciously and held out her arms for September, who leaped into them.
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