Tales of the Scarlet Knight Collection: The Call

by P. T. Dilloway

  “Well, good morning to you too, kiddo. How’d you sleep?”

  “Not great.” She forced herself to sit down and act like a grown-up instead of a child.

  “She’s just a little nervous about the wedding.”

  “Well, she’s not the only one,” Daddy said. “Your mother spent all night kicking me.”

  “I did not.” Mom swatted Daddy on the shoulder. “You’d better hurry and eat or you’re going to be late.”

  “Yes, dear,” her father said. He winked at Emma and then turned back to his grapefruit. He made a face as he took a bite. “I don’t know how you expect me to eat this.”

  “Dr. Bouvier said if you don’t, he’s going to have to do a quadruple-bypass on you.” Mom patted her husband’s shoulder. “And you want your tuxedo to fit, don’t you?”

  “Yes, dear,” he said again. With a sigh he ate the grapefruit.

  Mom went over to the counter and returned with a stack of pancakes, which she set down in front of Emma. “You on the other hand need to eat up or you’re going to be too skinny to fit into that gown.”

  “Yes, Mother,” Emma said. She took a bite and made the same face as her father. She’d never liked pancakes; she preferred toast or a protein shake in the morning. Mom set a cup of coffee down in front of her. Emma took a sip and then sighed. She was home again.

  ***

  The black robe made for decent camouflage, Marie decided as she crept along a street lit by dim kerosene lamps. At least from afar it would appear as if she wore a dress; women in the 19th Century did not go around in blue jeans, especially not in a wealthy neighborhood like Veronica’s.

  It was apparently late enough that the houses along the street were all silent and dark. No one plied the streets either, which came as a relief. Her clothes probably wouldn’t pass close scrutiny and even if they did, her 21st Century vocabulary would mark her as an outsider.

  Just get in and get out, she told herself. Besides that she didn’t want to be exposed as a stranger, she couldn’t be sure how long the gateway would remain open. For all she knew it might have collapsed already. In that case, Marie would be stuck here in 1876. That might not be so bad; at least she could stay close to Veronica. She felt in her pocket for the bottle of pills. They should be as effective in the 19th Century as the 21st. But how long before something else happened to Veronica? This century was so dangerous for a little girl with the diseases, lack of proper medicine, and no safety standards for food or water. The 21st Century might be fraught with its own dangers, but Veronica would be much safer there.

  The Windham house was as silent and dark as the others. Marie stared at the house for a moment as she tried to think of how to get inside unnoticed. Then she saw the trellis that ran up the side of the house, the same trellis she used to sneak in and out of the halfway house.

  She scurried up the trellis to the bathroom window. She was relieved to see someone had left the window open a crack. Marie pushed the window up enough to slip through. The bathroom looked different than in the halfway house with a claw-footed tub.

  Marie opened the bathroom door and then paused to listen. She heard only an occasional whimper from Veronica’s bedroom. Marie hurried down the hallway, to the little girl’s door. She opened the door a crack to make sure Veronica’s parents or the maid weren’t inside. She saw only the little girl on her bed, though even she was hard to see with all the blankets piled on her.

  Veronica let out another whimper. This prompted Marie to rush to her bedside. She touched the little girl’s forehead and grimaced; Veronica was burning up from the fever and yet she shivered beneath the blankets. It would probably be a matter of days before she died.

  Marie reached into her pocket for the bottle of pills. She shook out two of the pills into her hand. With her free hand she shook Veronica’s shoulder. “Wake up, sweetie. It’s time to take your medicine.”

  Veronica’s eyes fluttered open. “Marie?”

  “That’s right, sweetie. I’m here now.”

  “Are you here to take me to Heaven?”

  “No, of course not. You’re not going to Heaven until you’re an old, old lady. I’m here to take care of you. First, you need to take these pills. They’ll get rid of this fever.”

  “They will?”

  “That’s right.” Marie pressed the pills into Veronica’s hand. Then she poured a glass of water from the pitcher beside Veronica’s bed. “Go on and swallow them.”

  Veronica did as commanded, without the complaints of the residents at the rest home when Marie had to give them pills. “Very good,” Marie said. “Now you and I are going on a little trip.”

  “Where?”

  “You’re going back with me, to the future. Would you like that?”

  “Can Mama and Papa come?”

  “Not now. We have to make sure you’re all better first.”

  “Oh. Can Lucy come?” Veronica held up her doll.

  “Of course she can, sweetie.”

  Marie gathered Veronica up in one of her blankets, the doll clutched to Veronica’s chest. The fever had stripped Veronica of any chubbiness, which made her easy to carry. The only difficult part was not to hit Veronica’s head on the doorway or the stairwell as they went downstairs.

  “Don’t make a sound,” Marie whispered. Veronica nodded obediently.

  After a year and a half, Marie found it a bit anticlimactic at how easy it was to take Veronica from her house, back to the root cellar of what would become the Watchmaker’s store. As on the way there, Marie didn’t run into anyone on the street. She didn’t know what she would say if she did, especially if a policeman saw them.

  Veronica had fallen asleep by the time Marie crept down the stairs into the cellar. She was relieved to see the pentagram still glowed on the floor. Becky lay where they had left her, arms and legs still bound. Marie set Veronica next to her and then looked around the cellar.

  The Watchmaker was gone. Had he went upstairs to keep a lookout? No, he would have seen them then. She knelt down beside Becky and then tore off the tape over the other woman’s mouth. Marie covered Becky’s mouth with her hand to stifle any screams.

  “Be very quiet,” Marie said. “Where did the Watchmaker go?”

  “Who?”

  “The old man. Where did he go?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe he wanted to kidnap a girl for himself.”

  Marie resisted the urge to slap her prisoner across the face. “I’m not kidnapping her. I’m saving her. She’s very sick, but I’m going to make her better.”

  “Yeah, right. You’re sick, Marie. You need help.”

  “It’s not sick to help a friend. You did the same for Emma, didn’t you? When the Black Dragoon tried to make her go crazy, you risked your life to help her.”

  “That was different.”

  “How?”

  “Because Emma wasn’t a little girl who died over a hundred years ago.”

  “Why does that matter? Veronica is my friend, the same as Emma is your friend. You would do anything to save her and I would do anything to save Veronica.”

  “If you really think that’s the same thing you’re crazier than I thought.”

  “I’m not crazy.” Again Marie had to resist the urge to slap Becky. She took a deep breath and then shook her head. “You don’t understand.”

  “Ah, I see you’ve been successful,” the Watchmaker said. “She is an adorable little thing, isn’t she?”

  “Where have you been? You were supposed to watch her,” Marie said. She gestured to Becky.

  “I had an errand of my own to run.”

  Marie saw the Watchmaker held a burlap sack in the crook of his right arm. “What’s that?”

  “Nothing important. Just a little souvenir.”

  She wanted to press him on the issue, but decided for now it didn’t matter. Instead she picked Veronica up from the ground and then took her place in the center of the pentagram. With Veronica clutched against her body, Marie found it a lo
t easier to relax and focus.

  The pentagram lit up again; the flash of light blinded Marie. She waited a moment for her vision to clear and then stepped out of the light. The root cellar had again become the Watchmaker’s vault. The difference now was that Becky had disappeared. Where had she gone? Would she remember anything that had happened?

  Veronica’s eyes fluttered open again. “Marie? Where are we?”

  “We’re home,” Marie said.

  Chapter 11

  Emma had gotten halfway through the stack of pancakes when she heard the front door open. A moment later came a thump followed by Becky cursing. She limped into the doorway a few seconds later, though Emma didn’t recognize her. For one thing, Becky’s hair was blond. For another, she was as thin as Emma, if not thinner. Her voice was still the same as she said, “Someone left the recycling by the door.”

  “Carl, I told you to take that out this morning.”

  “Sorry, kiddo,” he said. “You need a doctor or you think you can manage?”

  “I’ll be fine,” Becky said. She sat down next to Emma at the table. “You’re still eating? You know we’re supposed to be at the florist by nine, right?”

  “Oh, right,” Emma said.

  “You get any sleep last night? You look like crap.”

  Emma’s mother set a cup of coffee down in front of Becky. “Now now, leave your sister alone. She’s got a lot on her mind.”

  The fork slipped out of Emma’s hand to ring against the plate like a bell. Her sister? That was something Emma and Becky had talked about when they were kids, but it had never been possible. Yet somehow here was this blond, skinny Becky Mom claimed was Emma’s sister. She put a hand to her head and closed her eyes.

  “Something wrong, kid?” Becky asked. In that moment she sounded like the Becky Emma knew.

  When she opened her eyes, she still saw that other Becky. “It’s just a little headache. Stress, I suppose.”

  “You don’t have to come to the florist if you don’t want. Mom can go with me.”

  “I’m afraid not, honey,” Mom said. “I’ve got to see Reverend Mitchell.”

  “That schmuck,” Daddy grumbled. “I don’t see why you can’t let Rabbi Shara marry you like your mom and me.”

  “Daddy, you know Em doesn’t want a Jewish wedding.”

  “Oh, I forgot, you’re converting for him. What’s so good about these Episcopalians?”

  “Carl, stop it. You promised you were going to let Emma get married how she wants.” Mom gave him a light slap on the shoulder. “Don’t forget I converted for you. My father wasn’t happy about it either.”

  “You’re right,” he said. Daddy took Emma’s hand and squeezed it. “I’m sorry, kiddo. I’m sure these Episcopalians are a great bunch of people.”

  “Thanks, Daddy.” She pushed herself back from the table. “I think I’ll go get ready.”

  She hurried back to her bedroom. After she shut the door she sank down on the mattress. She didn’t understand any of this. The only plausible explanations were that she had died and this strange place was the afterlife or else she’d entered some other dimension. Parallel universes were theoretically possible, but no one had ever proved their existence. She thought of that flash of light; maybe that had been a gateway to another world, one in which her parents were still alive, she and Becky were sisters, and she was engaged to be married.

  For a minute she sat on the bed and tried to think of what to do next. She supposed until she figured out what had happened, she would have to ride this out. She looked down at her finger and saw the silver engagement ring. Who had given it to her? She supposed it could be almost anyone.

  With a sigh she got up to look for something to wear. She noted her wardrobe was very different from the one she was accustomed to. The majority of her clothes in the drawers were all very short: tight-fitting T-shirts, tube tops, and low-cut shorts and skirts. She held a pink tube top to her chest and looked in the mirror. This didn’t look right at all. She dropped the tube top into the drawer and searched for something more conservative. She finally found a gray Rampart State University T-shirt that was a size too big instead of two sizes too small like the rest of them. Between that and a pair of jeans, she looked somewhat respectable.

  From the number of makeup tubes on the vanity, she supposed this her wore far more makeup. She brushed aside the mascaras and eyeliners to just put on a coat of lipstick. She did what she could to tame her curly hair so it wouldn’t appear as if she’d just woke up. The end result was that she looked like a stranger.

  Yet when she went back out to the kitchen and saw her parents there, she knew there were some definite advantages to this place. She bent down to give her mother a hug, followed by a kiss on the cheek. “See you later. I love you,” she said.

  “I love you too, baby.”

  In the driveway Emma saw a rusty gray Impala that must belong to Becky. “I think you’d better drive,” Emma said. “I’m so nervous I’d probably wrap us around a tree.”

  “Sure.” Becky waited until they were in the car to say, “You really should stop worrying so much. Everything’s going to be fine.”

  “I guess.”

  “But I suppose I’d be nervous if I were marrying a guy like Dan too. I mean, he’s so gorgeous, not to mention loaded—”

  “Dan? Dan Dreyfus?”

  “What other Dan are you marrying?” Becky waved a hand in front of Emma’s wide eyes. “Are you going to barf or something?”

  “No. Of course not.”

  “If you’re having second thoughts—”

  “I’m not.”

  “Too bad. If you don’t want him, I’ll take him.”

  “I want him,” Emma said, perhaps too quickly. She looked down at the ring again and tried to imagine Dan on one knee to propose. That was something she had dreamed about, even these last eighteen months since Dan had gone. Somehow it was happening, at least in this world. She would get to be Mrs. Dan Dreyfus. She let out a sigh at that thought.

  They arrived at the florist a few minutes later. Emma let Becky do the talking since she seemed to know what was going on. While Becky and the florist went over the arrangements, Emma wandered the shop; she tried to wrap her head around everything. Maybe she really had died and gone to Heaven. This was pretty much the life she had dreamed of as a child, before French and Estima had taken her parents away.

  She didn’t realize she was crying until Becky put a hand on her shoulder. “Are you all right, Em?”

  “I’m fine,” she said. “Just fine.”

  ***

  Less than a minute after she arrived in the future, Veronica fell asleep again. Her forehead still felt warm, but maybe not as warm as it had been. “It’s all right, sweetheart,” Marie whispered. “You’re going to be fine now.”

  “Thank you for your help, my dear. I suppose now you’ll be off to nurse your friend back to health?” the Watchmaker said.

  “Yes.”

  “Then what? Are you planning to raise her as your own? It might seem suspicious for a girl your age to have a girl her age.”

  “I don’t care. I’m not going to let anything bad happen to her ever again.”

  “I see. Well, best of luck to you.”

  Marie nodded to him. She took a couple of steps away from the pentagram and then was blinded by a flash of white light.

  Her vision cleared enough a minute later so that through the green and purple blobs she could see she and Veronica were no longer in the Watchmaker’s vault. Instead they were in an apartment not much bigger than Marie’s room at the halfway house. This wasn’t the halfway house, not with all the posters of rock bands on the walls. The halfway house didn’t let you “deface” the walls with such things; that was in part to encourage you not to think of it as home.

  Between the posters, discarded pizza boxes, and scattered clothes, Marie figured this was a studio apartment. Probably in the Trenches, the kind of place a young person would get as they started out on
their own.

  Veronica stirred in her arms. Her eyes fluttered open. “Marie?”

  “I’m here, sweetie.”

  “Where are we? It smells.”

  “We’re home. My home.” At least Marie hoped this was the case; she hoped they hadn’t wound up in someone else’s apartment or else they might get arrested. The police would put Marie in jail and Veronica would end up in an orphanage as Marie had. She wouldn’t let that happen.

  She saw a bed in one corner of the apartment. It was just a twin-sized mattress and springs set on the floor, but it would do. Marie set Veronica down on the dingy white sheets. She pulled the ragged army blanket up to Veronica’s chin. “I’m thirsty,” Veronica said.

  “I’ll get you a glass of water. You stay right here and rest, OK?”

  “All right.”

  Marie went over to the sink and turned the handle. The “water” that came out was the same brown as the carpet. She let it run, but that didn’t seem to help. She opened the refrigerator to find only an ancient carton of Chinese food inside. She would have to go out soon to get some supplies. In the meantime she filled a cup with some of the rusty water. It was probably still better than the water of Veronica’s era.

  Veronica didn’t seem to notice anything wrong with the water. She took a few sips and then sighed. “G’night, Marie,” she said before she fell asleep.

  “Goodnight, sweetheart,” Marie said. As she watched Veronica sleep for a few minutes, a smile came to her face. In a few days Veronica would be cured and they would start a new life together. She thought of what the Watchmaker had said, about Marie being too young to be Veronica’s mother. She could always claim she had gotten pregnant very young. Or else she could say Veronica was her niece. That might be more believable for the government and for Veronica.

  Marie stopped this line of thought; she had gotten too far ahead of herself. First Veronica had to get better. Marie forced herself to think like a nurse. Her patient needed some basics like clean drinking water. The problem was Marie didn’t have any money on her except the dollar in change she usually carried for bus fare. That wouldn’t be nearly enough.