by Rysa Walker
“You have to wonder why she ran for political office if she was shy. Especially back then,” I added, “when most women couldn’t even vote.”
Katherine nodded. “Women could vote in local elections in Salter’s state—Kansas—but she didn’t actually choose to run. Some of the men in the town added her name to the ballot as a joke, and they were very surprised to discover that most of the women and quite a few of the men preferred her to the other candidate. I do have to admire her for turning the tables on them and actually taking the job when she was elected, but that was apparently the extent of her activism for women’s rights.
“A very disappointing trip overall,” Katherine said. “Although I did finally manage a ride on the Ferris wheel. The line was always too long when I went on my few solo jumps, and Saul was never willing to wait for me when we went together—he is terribly afraid of heights. This time we were in the group with the mayor, however, so we were moved straight to the front of the line. A lot of people decided to wait on the ground, but Saul didn’t want to look like he was a coward. So he was green the entire time and nearly hurled on the peanut vendor when we got off,” she added, with a very satisfied smile.
With the date and general location of Katherine’s murder nailed down, we shifted the focus over the next few days to getting me ready—both mentally and physically—to attend the Exposition. The physical side of the preparations involved yards and yards of silk and lace and a corset that I loathed from the first moment it arrived via UPS. Katherine still had her clothes from the planned 1853 jump, but they were forty years out of date. That would hardly do in an era where fashions shifted with the whim of Parisian designers, even though it took several months for news of those changes to reach America from across the ocean.
“So why can’t we just forget all this and let me go dressed as a barmaid?” I asked. “Or one of those Egyptian dancers I saw in the photographs? They looked pretty comfortable…”
Katherine sniffed disdainfully as she sat down at the computer and opened a browser window. “You’ve read enough about this era that you should understand their perceptions of class, Kate. You have no idea where you’ll need to go and whom you’ll need to speak with. A barmaid could never approach the group I was with that day without drawing unnecessary attention. If you’re dressed as a lady, you can ask a question of anyone, regardless of their social class. The proper attire opens doors…”
Katherine ran a search for historical images of dresses from the 1890s and I was surprised to see that there were actual fashion magazines from that era available online. A publication called The Delineator even included tips on how to create the dresses, accessories, and hairstyles.
A local bridal designer came to the house the next day to help design my costume. She raised a well-manicured eyebrow at Katherine’s insistence that the dress be reversible, with a different color fabric on the inside, and that it have two hidden pockets, one in the bodice of the dress and another in the undergarments.
This made sense from our perspective, since I might have to stay an extra day and couldn’t easily walk around the Expo with luggage. I also needed quick access to the CHRONOS key, and Katherine was determined that I have a place to hide a spare medallion and some extra cash, just in case. However, a reversible dress with hidden pockets—heavily lined to contain the light from the medallion—made little sense for a costume party, which was our cover story. After a brief hesitation, the designer simply nodded, showing she was savvy enough not to question eccentric requests by someone willing to pay her outrageous prices.
My role in all this was to stand impatiently as the assistant took my measurements and then to endure repeated fittings, pin sticks, and admonitions to stand straight and stop slumping. The end result was an outfit that, while admittedly the height of 1893 fashion, was going to be hot, stiff, and a royal pain to wear.
When we weren’t engaged in fittings, I read and reread Katherine’s diary entries for the target dates, memorized maps of the Exposition, and combed through dozens of historical accounts of the exhibits and of 1890s Chicago. In addition to the accounts in Katherine’s library, I pulled up documents from the internet.
On two different occasions, Trey rented documentaries about the Exposition and Chicago in the late 1800s. Several were about the Exposition itself, and they really brought the images and stories I’d been reading to life.
One of them gave me the creeps, however. It was filmed like a horror movie, but it was actually a documentary about Herman Mudgett, the sociopathic killer Katherine had mentioned. Posing as Dr. H. H. Holmes, a physician and pharmacist, Mudgett had killed dozens, maybe even hundreds, of young women during the time he lived in Chicago. Several of them were women he had married or simply charmed out of their money, but most were total strangers. He had the perfect setup—a building he owned near the Expo was transformed into the World’s Fair Hotel, catering to female visitors. Some of the rooms had been specifically equipped for torture; in other cases, he piped gas into tightly sealed, windowless rooms through small holes he drilled into the wall, and watched through a peephole as the women asphyxiated. Then he dumped their remains into lime pits in the basement and, in many cases, sold their perfectly articulated skeletons to medical schools for a bit of extra cash.
We didn’t make it all the way through that show. I’m not a big fan of horror movies, even of the true-crime variety, so I ejected the DVD when it became clear that the three little kids Mudgett had been watching for a business partner weren’t going to survive, either. We spent the next hour watching a much more pleasant documentary about Jane Addams and her efforts to help Chicago’s poor. I was still on edge, so we rewatched The Princess Bride to get my mind off the murders. And despite all of that, I had to sleep with the bathroom light on that night.
Most of the history that I read and watched was the same between the two timelines, except for a few references to Cyrist leaders who, like the leaders of all other major religions, had attended the World Parliament of Religions at the Expo in late September. And there were some other oddities, such as a picture of a smiling Mark Twain entering the tethered balloon ride with several young Egyptian dancers—although Twain had, according to Katherine’s history books from the pre-Cyrist timeline, fallen ill upon his arrival in Chicago and never left his hotel room.
Even though I’ve never had a great passion for history, I found the reading more interesting than I would have imagined. It felt less like research and more like reading a tour guide in preparation for an upcoming vacation, even if it wasn’t exactly a trip I would have chosen on my own.
I was also working on the practical side of things, perfecting short, in-house jumps with the medallion. I could now focus on a stable point and set the display in under three seconds. I even showed off for Trey a few times, popping up in the foyer when he arrived for a quick kiss, and then back to the library.
I also set an extra stable point in the living room and confirmed that I could, as Katherine had suspected, jump from point A to point B to point C, without returning to point A first. The restrictions that had limited the CHRONOS historians to round-trip jumps were a safety feature mandated by headquarters, and not something that was hardwired into the medallion. Unlike Saul, Katherine, and the other original CHRONOS crew, I could travel when and where I chose, assuming the existence of a nearby stable point. We also suspected that I could travel back to a known stable point from a location that hadn’t been previously set as a stable point, although Katherine wasn’t keen on having me test that possibility. Connor couldn’t think of any logical reasons why it wouldn’t work, but Katherine insisted that we should consider that to be a last-resort, emergency exit option.
The next test, before attempting a long-distance jump, either geographical or chronological, was a short hop to a local stable point. The nearest location in the CHRONOS system that was easily accessible was the Lincoln Memorial—to the left of Lincoln’s chair, outside the roped-off area, in a section that w
as somewhat obscured by shadows. It was listed as a stable point between 1923 and 2092. I was tempted again to ask Katherine exactly what happens in 2092, but suspected I would still be told that it was none of my business. The memorial was staffed from 8 A.M. to midnight—and was also more likely to have visitors during those hours—so we decided that a 1 A.M. arrival would be a safe bet. Katherine and Connor were both concerned that, this early in the training, I might get there and not be able to lock in the return location, so Trey had offered to be there with a ride home, just in case.
We scheduled my departure for Friday at 11 P.M. Trey was in the library when I left. I gave him a big, brave smile and said, “One A.M., Lincoln Memorial. Don’t stand me up, okay?”
He squeezed my hand and said with a huge smile, “Our first date outside the house? I’ll be there, don’t worry.”
Katherine pressed her lips together firmly, her eyes anxious. “No dawdling, Kate. I mean it. You come straight back, okay?”
“She will,” Trey said. “We’re just joking. No unnecessary risks, I promise.”
She gave him a brusque nod and turned back to me. “You don’t have to be in the exact same spot when you leave—the key has a reasonable range on it—but get as close as you can.”
I released Trey’s hand and pulled up the stable point. I had been practicing the location all day, and had watched hundreds of visitors climb the steps to the memorial, taking photographs and videos, but I now took the additional steps of pulling up the time display and locking in my arrival time by shifting my gaze on the display to the appropriate options and blinking once. It was almost like a mouse click, although I had to wonder what happened if you were trying to select and dust blew into your face. I glanced at the final control, then took a deep breath and blinked.
A warm evening breeze told me that I had arrived before I even opened my eyes. After looking around for a minute, I saw Trey leaning against one of the nearby columns. He was holding a brown bag and a large soda.
I walked toward him, breathing in deeply. “Oh, yum—I smell onion rings.”
“Yes, you do,” he replied. I had confessed a few days before that I really, really missed the onion rings from O’Malley’s, the neighborhood bar and grill where Mom and I often ate on weekends.
I smiled and stood on tiptoe to kiss him. “Thank you. But you’re spoiling me, you know. And two minutes—then I should head back. Not that Katherine would know either way,” I admitted, “but we promised.”
He sat the bag and soda on the steps and pulled me into his arms. “I know, I know. We’ll eat fast—I’m going to make you share those onion rings. I even brought a mint, so if you eat neatly for a change”—he laughed as he blocked my punch to his arm—“and if you avoid breathing in their faces when you return, our secret is safe.”
It was a beautiful night and the romantic glow from the lights and the reflecting pool made me wish we could do ordinary things like this all the time. I was feeling more and more like someone under quarantine.
Trey was apparently on the same wavelength. “Too bad we can’t do this more often. Especially with your birthday this weekend…”
“And how did you know my birthday was this weekend?” I had purposefully avoided thinking about the day, knowing that it would only make me think of past birthdays, Mom, Dad, and everything else that was now missing.
He gave me a sly smile. “I have my ways. Think Katherine would give us a temporary furlough for a night out?”
I sighed. “I think we both know the answer to that. This will probably be our only night out for some time, unless you’d like to come with me to the World’s Fair?”
“Chicago I could probably do,” he said. “Eighteen ninety-three might be a problem, however.”
“True,” I admitted.
I hesitated for a moment, taking another onion ring from the bag. There was one thing I really wanted to know more about—and one person I felt I needed to see—before making the trip to Chicago.
“Maybe you could take me to church instead?”
“What?” Trey laughed for a moment and then stopped. “Oh. Charlayne?”
I nodded. “She’s not the entire reason, but yes, I want to see her.” I turned toward him. “I also want to see what they’re up to, Trey. The Cyrists. I mean, right now, my main motivations for changing this timeline are personal—getting my parents back and being able to leave the house without this damned medallion. But Katherine and Connor seem to think that the Cyrists are…”
“Evil?” he asked.
“Yeah. I guess that’s the right word. Granted, I’ve only been to one service at the Cyrist temple—and that was before the last time shift—but I just didn’t get that sense. And, on top of that, I can’t say I’m totally down with the idea of a future where many of the most important decisions you make in life are decided while you’re still an embryo.”
“I know,” he said. “I can understand why they do it, but it doesn’t leave much room for individual choice, does it?”
“No, it doesn’t. I don’t doubt that Saul’s methods are evil—I mean, he pretty clearly killed Katherine to set this up—but what about the larger movement? I feel like there’s so much that I don’t understand. And, if the Cyrists as a whole are as rotten as Connor and Katherine believe them to be, I guess I want to try and get a better idea of what I’m up against.”
Trey thought for a minute, and then nodded, giving my shoulders a squeeze. “When and where? They have something going on at the temples most days, but the main services are on Sunday mornings, right?”
“They are. Could you pick me up here around seven, before the guards arrive? If I get caught… sneaking out, I’ll just act like I’m practicing a short jump. I do that enough that Katherine shouldn’t think anything of it. And I’ve been to the temple on Sixteenth, so I’m at least somewhat familiar with the layout.”
“Why do you need to know the layout?” he asked, a suspicious look in his eye.
I shrugged. “Well… I mainly want to see Charlayne and I’m probably just going to ask some questions, but I might need to… look around a bit. I don’t know. I’m playing this by ear.”
Trey frowned slightly and then leaned his head down to nibble on my earlobe. “It’s a very pretty ear, too. Let’s just hope we can keep it attached to your head. Those Dobermans look hungry.”
I elbowed him. “They don’t keep guard dogs on the prowl during services, silly. But if you’re worried, we’ll bring a few of Daphne’s dog biscuits to bribe them.”
The onion rings were now reduced to a few tasty crumbs at the bottom of the bag. I gave Trey a good-bye kiss and popped the mint into my mouth as I walked back over to the spot near Lincoln’s chair. “I’ll see you again in just a sec,” I said, pulling up the library stable point with the medallion. “But you’ll next see me tomorrow night for dinner—so drive safe, okay?”
Now that I wasn’t nervous, I accessed the location quickly, and when I opened my eyes again I was back in the library, where Trey, Katherine, and Connor were staring at me, with slightly anxious expressions.
“Lincoln sends his best,” I said with a grin.
A few minutes later, I walked Trey to the door, since he still needed to get across town for our meeting. “Unbelievable,” he said, when I kissed him good night and slipped the last little sliver of the mint into his mouth with my tongue. “You taste like minty onion rings. I was going to surprise you, but it really doesn’t seem like a surprise now.”
“It was very sweet of you and it will be a surprise. Or was a surprise,” I amended. “Take your pick.”
13
Trey left around ten on Saturday, a bit earlier than his usual weekend departures. I wanted him to get a good night’s sleep, since he would be picking me up bright and early the next morning at the Lincoln Memorial. I’m personally more of a night owl, and it would be easier for me to “sneak out” when Katherine and Connor were asleep, so I planned to head down to the kitchen around midnight. It wo
uld have been safer to make the jump from my room, but I was reluctant to add another stable point to the list. I wasn’t exactly sure how to delete them and didn’t really want to draw attention by asking.
I constantly found myself forgetting that my closet and dresser didn’t hold the same contents as their counterparts in my old room, so it didn’t occur to me until shortly after Trey left that I had no appropriate “church clothes.” I sorted through the few outfits that I’d ordered online and selected the dressiest shirt in the bunch, which was a loose floral tunic, and a pair of slim black jeans. My only shoes, other than a pair of sneakers and a pair of sandals, were the black flats I’d last worn to school. I couldn’t entirely remove the scuffed mark from where Simon had smashed my foot on the Metro, but they would have to do.
I put on a bit of makeup and some small gold hoop earrings, then pulled the sides of my hair back with a peach-colored clip that matched the blouse. The pocket copy of the Book of Cyrus that I had ordered a few weeks earlier was on the nightstand, where I’d left it the night before. It was one of two core documents of the Cyrist faith—the other, the Book of Prophecy that Connor so wanted to get his hands on, was an internal document available only to higher-echelon members. Cyrist International was very protective of its copyright on the Book of Prophecy, and the few disgruntled members who had leaked sections of the book online or in exposés about the church’s leaders had landed in the middle of costly lawsuits. In every case, the Templars had won.
The Book of Cyrus, on the other hand, would have lost any copyright battle, were it not for the fact that the scriptural sources it cribbed content from were well past the copyright expiration date. The short volume was a mishmash of quotes from the Bible, the Koran, and other religious texts, with a few original ideas added in here and there. I’d found it much more effective than a sleeping pill—five minutes of reading and my eyelids began to droop.