“It’s so calm and peaceful, compared with the war,” murmured Miri. She scratched under Cookie’s ears, forgiving her. Cookie lifted a soft paw and patted her face gently.
“We don’t need calm and peaceful,” Molly reminded her. “We need Maudie.”
It was true. They needed Maudie. They needed her to believe their story; they needed her to understand why they had to have the safe-conduct from General Lee. Then they needed her to smuggle it out of the house and let them depart with it in their hands.
A few moments later, they were standing on the wide, clean front porch, listening to someone play a piano, very badly, inside. In Miri’s arms, Cookie gave a discontented huff.
Molly knocked on the door, and the response was immediate. “Shut up that playing,” snipped a voice from inside. Heels thudded heavily down the hall. “There’s Mr. Gardner calling, and he don’t want to hear any of that racket.”
Flo again. Miri and Molly had time only to look tragically at each other before she wrenched open the door, squealing, “Well, Mr. Gardner! Do—” The toothy smile dropped from her face and was replaced by a scowl. “You! Gypsy thieves! You can just take yourselves right off my porch. I thought I made myself clear last time you came around!”
“We’re not here to see you,” Miri snapped. “We’re here to see your sister.” On a whim, she added, “And you’d better watch out or I’ll put a Gypsy curse on you.”
Flo drew back. “Ain’t no such thing as a curse, you nasty child!”
Miri couldn’t help herself. “See what you think tomorrow morning when your eyes are scabbed shut,” she said, waving her hands in a complicated pattern.
“Stop that!” Flo squealed.
At the sound of Flo’s squeal, Cookie lurched up and scrambled for safety, jumping from Miri’s arms and shooting into the hallway.
“Cookie! Come back!” Miri called after her.
“Eeeew!” squeaked Flo. “Get it, get it!”
“We can’t,” said Molly. “We can’t go inside.”
“You certainly can’t,” sniffed Flo. She squalled, “Mau-DIE! There’s a cat loose in the house! Get it!”
“A cat! Really?” said a light, bubbling voice down the hall. Miri heard Molly draw in her breath. After a moment, they heard, “Oooh, come here, darling; come here, sweetheart.”
“Uck!” sneered Flo.
“That’s it,” crooned Maudie, appearing in the hallway. Under her chin, she cuddled the white kitten. “I think this kitty’s just hungry, is all—why, look!” She beamed at Miri and Molly. “It’s my two favorite Gypsies! Did you come back to tell me my fortune?”
Miri thought Maudie had grown even prettier in the week since she’d seen her. “Hi,” she said shyly. “Can you come outside?”
“Whyn’t you come in?” urged Maudie. “I’ll get you some gingerbread.”
“Absolutely not!” cried Flo. “They are not putting one foot in this house. I just cleaned it.”
Maudie gave her sister a steady look. “They’re my company, and they can come in if they like.”
“Uh. Wait,” Miri said, holding up a hand to stop their argument. “We, um, can’t come in. It’s—it’s against Gypsy rules. Will you come outside?”
Maudie’s face fell. “You feel unwelcome.”
“That’s because they are unwelcome,” put in Flo.
“No! Really, it’s not that. Please come outside,” Miri begged.
“Please!” added Molly, a little breathlessly.
“All right.” She stepped out onto the porch with featherlight steps. The door slammed shut behind her.
Miri looked curiously at the cat in Maudie’s arms. She nudged Molly. “Cookie’s still here. She went inside and she’s still here,” she murmured. It was true. Molly gave the cat a brief, startled stare. But she didn’t have time to ponder it. They needed that safe-conduct. “Maudie,” Miri began.
“Take a seat,” said Maudie in a friendly way. She sat down on the top step of the porch and patted the step beside her. Miri sat.
After a moment, Molly did the same.
Miri took a breath. “Maudie,” she said, “I know this is going to be hard to believe, but please, just listen to me, okay?” Maudie nodded agreeably, and Miri plunged in. “We’re not from here—I mean, we’re not from this time.”
Maudie frowned. “Pardon me?”
Miri tried again. “We’re from another time, Molly and me. We live in this house a hundred years from now and—”
Maudie’s face was worried. She put her hand on Miri’s shoulder and whispered confidentially, “You’re awful young to drink, honey. It’ll stunt your growth.”
“Oh gosh, Maudie, you’ve just got to believe us—”
“She’s joking,” Molly broke in suddenly. “We just have a funny way of talking about time, because we’re Gypsies, and we can see into the future.” She smiled into Maudie’s concerned face. “Do you want to know what I see in yours?”
Maudie’s cheeks flushed pink. “Oh yes!” she said, thrusting out her hand. “Tell me everything!”
Molly took Maudie’s small hand in hers and ran a finger over the lines in her palm. “Well.” She swallowed and looked at Miri. Help me.
“You’re going to be happy,” Miri said. “You’re going to fall in love—”
“With who?” cried Maudie.
“A stranger,” Miri answered. She looked at Molly. “Someone you don’t know yet.”
“You’re going to meet him soon,” said Molly. Her voice trembled a little. “And then you’re going to marry him. You’ll marry him and then you’ll go to Niagara Falls on your honeymoon.”
“Niagara Falls! How funny!”
Miri watched Molly, gazing into the little hand as if she truly saw the future there.
“After you’ve been married for a few years, you’re going to have a baby.”
“Ohh,” Maudie sighed happily. “That’s good. I love babies.”
Molly’s fingers curled close around her mother’s. “It’ll be a daughter. You’ll love her and she’ll love you back.” Her voice fell to a whisper. “You might worry if—if—you have to leave her, but she’ll be fine.” She paused to take a shaking breath. “She’ll find a perfect place, with a family who loves her and takes care of her, and her life will be wonderful. But she’s not ever going to forget you, and—and she wants you to be happy.” She gazed intently at Maudie. “So just please be as happy as you can for as long as you can. Okay?”
Maudie nodded dreamily. “A daughter,” she murmured. “That’s what I’d like. Maybe a boy later, but a girl first. That’s just right.”
Molly looked away, blinking back tears.
“Maudie,” Miri began, trying to keep her voice soft and persuasive. “Last time you said that you’d pay us if we told your fortune.”
“Oh, of course,” exclaimed Maudie, rising. “Let me just run inside—”
“No!” Miri clutched her arm. “No, we don’t want money. We need to, um, borrow something you have.”
“Really? What?” Maudie looked a little wary.
“The safe-conduct signed by R. E. Lee,” Miri blurted in a rush. “Please, please. We need it for a special, uh”—she looked at Molly—“thing.”
“The safe-conduct? Signed by Lee?” Maudie frowned. “That’s all you want? That old piece of paper?”
Miri and Molly nodded in unison.
“You can’t use it anymore,” Maudie warned. “It’s no good.”
“We know. We still need it,” Miri said.
Maudie stood, brushing off her skirt. “I’ll be right back.” She dropped Cookie into Molly’s arms.
They waited in tense silence. “It’s getting late,” commented Miri. The elm was shaded by the house now, and the blue of the sky was darkening. Behind them, the sun was setting in thick stripes of gray cloud and golden light. How many hours do they have left? asked the voice in her mind. Miri began to chew on her knuckle.
“Here.” Maudie came toward them, hol
ding out a brown, battered sheet of paper.
Miri took it carefully in her hands and read the spindly writing. “Bearer must in no way and for no purpose be detained from the pursuit of his duties. Let neither his costume nor his demeanor cause his arrest. He is in my service. General R. E. Lee.” Thank you, General R. E. Lee, she thought reverently. Whoever the heck you are.
Maudie shrugged and bent over Cookie in Molly’s arms. “She’s the very sweetest little thing I ever saw,” she cooed.
“You want to hold her again?” Molly said, and softly transferred the kitten to Maudie. “She likes you.”
At that moment, a shining motorcar rumbled onto the drive at the bottom of the yard. It came to a stop with a great grinding of gears and quivering of tires.
“Must be Flo’s caller,” mumbled Maudie, burying her face in Cookie’s fur.
Once the engine had exhausted itself, a door slammed, and a tall, tanned man strode energetically up the lawn. “As I live and breathe, it’s the Gypsy thieves!” he called cheerfully, waving.
Maudie looked up, startled, and Cookie, seized by a sense of drama, leaped from her arms to streak white across the lawn.
“Oh, goodness!” cried Maudie, laughing. “Can you catch her?”
Pat Gardner grinned. “I don’t have very good luck with this cat.” But obligingly he leaned down and, by some strange chance, scooped Cookie into his hands. “Or maybe I do.”
“Thanks!” said Maudie, hurrying down the stairs to retrieve the kitten.
Pat straightened, and Miri and Molly, standing on the top step, saw his face as the girl came toward him. They saw his smile grow still and his eyes widen.
“Look. She’s wearing a yellow dress,” whispered Molly.
She was. Miri hadn’t noticed it before, but in the glowing sunset, Maudie skimming across the grass looked like light itself.
Fumbling a little, Pat Gardner handed the kitten to Maudie. For a moment, the pair of them stood, looking at each other.
“You see?” said a voice behind them. As Miri spun around, Molly was already hurtling into May’s arms.
“Oh, Grandma,” she cried, nestling her head in her grandmother’s shoulder. “Is it all right? I could’ve stopped them, and I didn’t. I didn’t do anything!”
May’s arms circled Molly and rocked her gently. “Look at them, sweetheart. Look!” she commanded, and turned Molly around to watch as Maudie, blushing now, tried to hold Cookie and shake hands with Pat at the same time. Every movement between them was both awkward and the most graceful thing Miri had ever seen. “Look. They’ve finally met. And they’re about to fall in love,” May said in a low voice. “Without you, it would never have happened. Flo would have seen to that. And sweetheart,” she said, stroking Molly’s hair, “it would have been a sin to stop it. This is what Maudie would choose. If she had to choose between six years with Pat Gardner and a long life without him, she would choose him.”
“Really?” asked Molly anxiously.
“I’ve seen her make the choice before.” May’s bright jewel eyes smiled at Molly. “You’ve given her what she wants most. Pat Gardner and you.”
“What about the rest of it?” Miri begged. “Are we going to save Ray and Robbie?”
May’s face went blank. “There is never only one way the story can turn out.”
Miri’s stomach flopped. “So it depends on us.”
There was a moment of silence. “If you … don’t succeed,” said May, “the boys will not have existed in your lives. Your mother and father won’t feel it. No one will feel it.”
“Except us,” said Miri miserably.
May nodded, her brilliant eyes tender.
“It’s all our fault,” Miri mourned. “If we hadn’t interfered with Jamie and his uncle, Ray and Robbie wouldn’t have been caught by Carter.”
“You mustn’t despair, child. Time is so very, very complicated that it’s impossible to know if you have changed the story or made it what it was supposed to be. Impossible. But”—May closed her eyes—“in any version of the story, you did right for Jamie. His survival is important, not just to him”—her eyes flew open, and she smiled—“but to some others as well.” Gently, she took her arms away from Molly. “I think it’s time now, sweetheart.”
Molly nodded without speaking, and the two girls turned toward the door of the house.
“Wait,” said Miri, stopping midstep. “We don’t have Cookie.”
“Leave her,” said May. “Leave her for now.” She lifted her eyes to the scene on the lawn. “Her job isn’t done.”
Miri began to protest, but Molly interrupted. “She’ll come to visit us, won’t she?”
May smiled. “Of course. You’ll see her all the time. All the times.”
The girls turned for one final look at Maudie and Pat, petting Cookie between them. “Bye,” whispered Molly.
Chapter 15
Molly paused, a carton of eggs in her hands. “They looked happy, didn’t they?”
“Really happy,” Miri confirmed, dumping a pile of energy bars on the kitchen table. “You think eight bars is enough?”
“Yeah. Eight,” said Molly. She smiled. “It was love at first sight for him, don’t you think?”
“Totally,” said Miri. She glanced over the contents of their basket: flashlight, to get them through the woods; eggs, to get them into the Colonel’s presence; Band-Aids, for Robbie’s head; energy bars, because their brothers were always starving; and most precious of all, the safe-conduct, the slim, battered piece of paper that was their only chance against the stupidity of war.
It has to work, Miri said to herself.
There is never only one way the story can turn out.
Molly looked toward the darkening window. “Let’s get going.”
“I need to change into a dress,” Miri said.
Molly, already wearing a dress, nodded impatiently. “Hurry.”
Miri sped toward the stairs. But in the hallway, she stopped suddenly and made an abrupt turn into her mother’s office. There, she clicked on the lamp, revealing a room thick with papers. Papers slid from baskets and off the mountaintops of other papers. Stapled papers met unstapled papers and merged with folders, catalogs, books, letters, and scraps to make vast seas of papers. Miri looked at the mess, trying to think like her mother. Oh. She turned to the bookshelf, to a box labeled HOUSE. She lifted the lid and found herself looking at the yellowed newspaper ad for F. Gibbons’s dining room table and coffin. Quickly, she lifted it and found the scowling woman, the lace-swaddled baby, and—what she was looking for. She peered intently at the picture of the two laughing soldiers. Could it be? Their chins were identical. But their hair wasn’t. It looked like one had dark hair. But maybe it was a shadow. And the smiles, the way they were holding in their laughs and not succeeding. It could be them. It could also be any pair of teenage brothers. But it could be them. It could be Robbie and Ray, unharmed. In the 1860s, in the war, but unhanged and unharmed. Not her brothers anymore, lost to her forever. But not killed. Maybe.
She just couldn’t tell. Because the photo was too dark, the brothers too hidden. And because there was never only one way the story could turn out.
She threw the picture back into the box and hurried from the room.
She wanted her brothers. That was the ending she wanted.
In both of their previous trips, the empty silence that hung over the land had given Miri the creeps, but after fifteen minutes in the woods, she longed for it. The dusky gloom was punctuated by unexplainable noises: sudden pops and cracks, soft scurries and breaths. Things approached, stopped short, and were heard scrambling away. Once or twice, far-off voices seemed to call out. Miri’s ears ached to turn the sounds into something known; a shushing in the distance, and her mind said: car on the road. But there was no road, no car, and some very old part of her knew she was hearing something hunting something else. She longed to run.
They were moving as fast as they could, but no one would call it runnin
g. They couldn’t see more than a few feet ahead, so it was more like hopping. And often, they hopped wrong. “Uck!” Miri detached cobwebs from her face. “Let’s use the flashlight,” she said. “We might never make it there if we don’t.”
Molly flicked it on, and immediately, there was a startled headlong rush in the bushes next to them. Heavy footsteps crashed away through the darkness. When the noise died away, the two girls found themselves wrapped in each other’s arms.
“He was right beside us!” chattered Miri. “Was he following us?”
“I don’t know. Probably not. Probably he was just hiding and we scared him.” Molly gave a long shudder. She snapped the flashlight off, and they resumed their hesitant journey.
“I guess in a war, there are lots of people trying not to get caught,” said Miri. “Northern guys, Southern guys, people who don’t want to fight, people who do want to fight—” She was interrupted by a distant sobbing yowl.
“Animals,” added Molly.
Miri paused, her ears tingling as they searched for information. “I don’t think that was an animal.”
After what felt like hours, there was a light in the distance. Then two. Then several, shining in different spots, different brightnesses. Compared with the woods, Paxton looked like New York City, and Miri had never been so glad to see it. She and Molly burst from the dark canopy of trees, ducking from the shelter of one small structure to another until they were at the same jutting white corner they had peeked around that afternoon.
The scrubby lawn was empty. Though they hadn’t really expected the boys to be sitting there still, Miri and Molly searched anxiously for clues, signs, evidence of their whereabouts. Nothing. Nothing but trees. Where were they? Had they been taken somewhere for safekeeping? Or—Miri didn’t want to think it, but she did—had the Colonel grown impatient? Were they too late?
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