The Time Traveller's Almanac

by Ann VanderMeer

  Mostly the Fokker is just in its hangar out at the field and you wouldn’t know me from anyone else as I drive out to fly. There is a black cross painted on the door of my truck, but it wouldn’t mean anything to you. I suppose it wouldn’t have meant anything even if you had seen me on my way out the day I saw the balloon.

  It was one of the earliest days of spring, with a very fresh, really indescribable feeling in the air. Three days before I had gone up for the first time that year, coming after work and flying in weather that was a little too bad with not quite enough light left; winter flying, really. Now it was Saturday and everything was changed. I remember how my scarf streamed out while I was just standing on the field talking to the mechanic.

  The wind was good, coming right down the length of the field to me, getting under the Fokker’s wings and lifting it like a kite before we had gone a hundred feet. I did a slow turn then, getting a good look at the field with all the new, green grass starting to show, and adjusting my goggles.

  Have you ever looked from an open cockpit to see the wing struts trembling and the ground swinging far below? There is nothing like it. I pulled back on the stick and gave it more throttle and rose and rose until I was looking down on the backs of all the birds and I could not be certain which of the tiny roofs I saw was the house where I live or the factory where I work. Then I forgot looking down, and looked up and out, always remembering to look over my shoulder especially, and to watch the sun where the S.E. 5a’s of the Royal Flying Corps love to hang like dragonflies, invisible against the glare.

  Then I looked away and I saw it, almost on the horizon, an orange dot. I did not, of course, know then what it was; but I waved to the other members of the Jagstaffel I command and turned toward it, the Fokker thrilling to the challenge. It was moving with the wind, which meant almost directly away from me, but that only gave the Fokker a tailwind, and we came at it – rising all the time.

  It was not really orange-red as I had first thought. Rather it was a thousand colors and shades, with reds and yellows and white predominating. I climbed toward it steeply with the stick drawn far back, almost at a stall. Because of that I failed, at first, to see the basket hanging from it. Then I leveled out and circled it at a distance. That was when I realized it was a balloon. After a moment I saw, too, that it was of very old-fashioned design with a wicker basket for the passengers and that someone was in it. At the moment the profusion of colors interested me more, and I went slowly spiraling in until I could see them better, the Easter egg blues and the blacks as well as the reds and whites and yellows.

  It wasn’t until I looked at the girl that I understood. She was the passenger, a very beautiful girl, and she wore crinolines and had her hair in long chestnut curls that hung down over her bare shoulders. She waved to me, and then I understood. The ladies of Richmond had sewn it for the Confederate army, making it from their silk dresses. I remembered reading about it. The girl in the basket blew me a kiss and I waved to her, trying to convey with my wave that none of the men of my command would ever be allowed to harm her; that we had at first thought that her craft might be a French or Italian observation balloon, but that for the future she need fear no gun in the service of the Kaiser’s Flugzeugmeisterei.

  I circled her for some time then, she turning slowly in the basket to follow the motion of my plane, and we talked as well as we could with gestures and smiles. At last when my fuel was running low I signaled her that I must leave. She took, from a container hidden by the rim of the basket, a badly shaped, corked brown bottle. I circled even closer, in a tight bank, until I could see the yellow, crumbling label. It was one of the very early soft drinks, an original bottle. While I watched she drew the cork, drank some, and held it out symbolically to me.

  Then I had to go. I made it back to the field, but I landed dead stick with my last drop of fuel exhausted when I was half a kilometer away. Naturally I had the Fokker refueled at once and went up again, but I could not find her balloon.

  I have never been able to find it again, although I go up almost every day when the weather makes it possible. There is nothing but an empty sky and a few jets. Sometimes, to tell the truth, I have wondered if things would not have been different if, in finishing the Fokker, I had used the original, flammable dope. She was so authentic. Sometimes toward evening I think I see her in the distance, above the clouds, and I follow as fast as I can across the silent vault with the Fokker trembling around me and the throttle all the way out; but it is only the sun.

  SWING TIME

  Carrie Vaughn

  Carrie Vaughn is an American writer who has written several novels in her New York Times bestselling series about a werewolf named Kitty. She also wrote the young adult novels Voices of Dragons and Steel (which was named to the ALA’s 2012 Amelia Bloomer list of the best books for young readers with strong feminist content), and the novels Discord’s Apple and After the Golden Age. She is a contributor to the Wild Cards series of shared world superhero books edited by George R. R. Martin, and her short stories have appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies. An Air Force brat, she survived her nomadic childhood and managed to put down roots in Boulder, Colorado. This story originally appeared in the June 2007 issue of Jim Baen’s Universe.

  He emerged suddenly from behind a potted shrub. Taking Madeline’s hand, he shouldered her bewildered former partner out of the way and turned her toward the hall where couples gathered for the next figure.

  “Ned, fancy meeting you here.” Madeline deftly shifted so that her voluminous skirts were not trod upon.

  “Fancy? You’re pleased to see me then?” he said, smiling his insufferably ironic smile.

  “Amused is more accurate. You always amuse me.”

  “How long has it been? Two, three hundred years? That volta in Florence, wasn’t it?”

  “Si, signor. But only two weeks subjective.”

  “Ah yes.” He leaned close, to converse without being overheard. “I’ve been meaning to ask you: have you noticed anything strange on your last few expeditions?”

  “Strange?”

  “Any doorways you expected to be there not opening. Anyone following you and the like?”

  “Just you, Ned.”

  He chuckled flatly.

  The orchestra’s strings played the opening strains of a Mozart piece. She curtseyed – low enough to allure, but not so low as to unnecessarily expose décolletage. Give a hint, not the secret. Lower the gaze for a demure moment only. Smile, tempt. Ned bowed, a gesture as practiced as hers. Clothed in white silk stockings and velvet breeches, one leg straightened as the other leg stepped back. He made a precise turn of his hand and never broke eye contact.

  They raised their arms – their hands never quite touched – and began to dance. Elegant steps made graceful turns, a leisurely pace allowed her to study him. He wore dark green velvet trimmed with white and gold, sea spray of lace at the cuffs and collar. He wore a young man’s short wig powdered to perfection.

  “I know why you’re here,” he said, when they stepped close enough for conversation. “You’re after Lady Petulant’s diamond brooch.”

  “That would be telling.”

  “I’ll bet you I take it first.”

  “I’ll make that bet.”

  “And whoever wins—”

  Opening her fan with a jerk of her wrist, she looked over her shoulder. “Gets the diamond brooch.”

  The figure of the dance wheeled her away and gave her to another partner, an old man whose wig was slipping over one ear. She curtseyed, kept one eye on Lady Petulant, holding court over a tray of bonbons and a rat-like lap dog, and the other on Ned.

  With a few measures of dancing, a charge of power crept into Madeline’s bones, enough energy to take her anywhere: London 1590. New York 1950. There was power in dancing.

  The song drew to a close. Madeline begged off the next, fanning herself and complaining of the heat. Drifting off in a rustle of satin, she moved to the empty chair near Lady Petula
nt.

  “Is this seat taken?”

  “Not at all,” the lady said. The diamond, large as a walnut, glittered against the peach-colored satin of her bodice.

  “Lovely evening, isn’t it?”

  “Quite.”

  For the next fifteen minutes, Madeline engaged in harmless conversation, insinuating herself into Lady Petulant’s good graces. The lady was a widow, rich but no longer young. White powder caked the wrinkles of her face. Her fortune was entailed, bestowed upon her heirs and not a second husband, so no suitors paid her court. She was starved for attention.

  So when Madeline stopped to chat with her, she was cheerful. When Ned appeared and gave greeting, she was ecstatic.

  “I do believe I’ve found the ideal treat for your little dear,” he said, kneeling before her and offering a bite-sized pastry to the dog.

  “Why, how thoughtful! Isn’t he a thoughtful gentleman, Frufru darling? Say thank you.” She lifted the creature’s paw and shook it at Ned. “You are too kind!”

  Madeline glared at Ned, who winked back.

  A servant passed with a silver tray of sweets. When he bowed to offer her one, she took the whole tray. “Marzipan, Lady Petulant?” she said, presenting the tray.

  “No thank you, dear. Sticks to my teeth dreadfully.”

  “Sherry, Lady Petulant?” Ned put forward a crystal glass which he’d got from God knew where.

  “Thank you, that would be lovely.” Lady Petulant took the glass and sipped.

  “I’m very sorry, Miss Madeline, but I don’t seem to have an extra glass to offer you.”

  “That’s quite all right, sir. I’ve always found sherry to be rather too sweet. Unpalatable, really.”

  “Is that so?”

  “Hm.” She fanned.

  And so it went, until the orchestra roused them with another chord. Lady Petulant gestured a gloved hand toward the open floor.

  “You young people should dance. You make such a fine couple.”

  “Pardon me?” Ned said.

  Madeline fanned faster. “I couldn’t, really.”

  “Nonsense. You two obviously know each other quite well. It would please me to watch you dance.”

  Madeline’s gaze met Ned’s. She stared in silence, her wit failing her. She didn’t need another dance this evening, and she most certainly did not want to dance with him again.

  Giving a little smile that supplanted the stricken look in his eyes, he stood and offered his hand. “I’m game. My lady?”

  He’d thought of a plan, obviously. And if he drew her away from Lady Petulant – she would not give up that ground.

  The tray of marzipan sat at the very edge of the table between their chairs. As she prepared to stand, she lifted her hand from the arm of her chair, gave her fan a downward flick – and the tray flipped. Miniature daisies and roses shaped in marzipan flew around them. Madeline shrieked, Lady Petulant gasped, the dog barked. Ned took a step back.

  A ruckus of servants descended on them. As Madeline turned to avoid them, the dog jumped from Lady Petulant’s lap – for a brief moment, its neck seemed to grow to a foot long – and bit Madeline’s wrist. A spot of red welled through her white glove.

  “Ow!” This shriek was genuine.

  “Frufru!” Lady Petulant collected the creature and hugged it to her breast. “How very naughty of you, Frufru darling. My dear, are you all right?”

  She rubbed her wrist. The blood stain didn’t grow any larger. It was just a scratch. It didn’t even hurt. “I’m— I—” Then again, if she played this right...

  “I – oh my, I do believe I feel faint.” She put her hand to her neck and willed her face to blush. “Oh!”

  She fell on Lady Petulant. With any luck, she crushed Frufru beneath her petticoats. Servants convulsed in a single panicked unit, onlookers gasped, even Ned was there, murmuring and patting her cheek with a cool hand.

  Lady Petulant wailed that the poor girl was about to die on top of her. Pressed up against the good lady, Madeline took the opportunity to reach for the brooch. She could slip it off and no one would notice—

  The brooch was already gone.

  She did not have to feign a stunned limpness when a pair of gallant gentlemen lifted her and carried her to a chaise near a window. Ned was nowhere to be seen. Vials of smelling salts were thrust at her, lavender water sprinkled at her. Someone was wrapping her wrist – still gloved – in a bandage, and someone who looked like a doctor – good God, was the man wielding a razor? – approached.

  She shoved away her devoted caretakers and tore off the bandage. “Please, give me air! I’ve recovered my senses. No, really, I have. If-you-please, sir!”

  As if nothing had happened, she stood, straightened her bodice over her corset, smoothed her skirts, and opened her fan with a snap.

  “I thank you for your attention, but I am quite recovered. Goodbye.”

  She marched off in search of Ned.

  He was waiting for her toward the back of the hall, a fox’s sly grin on his face. Before she came too close, he turned his cupped hand, showing her a walnut-sized diamond that flashed against the green velvet of his coat.

  Turning, he stepped sideways behind the same potted fern where he had ambushed her.

  He disappeared utterly.

  “Damn him!” Her skirts rustled when she stamped her foot.

  Ignoring concerned onlookers and Lady Petulant’s cries after her welfare, she cut across the hall to the glass doors opening to the courtyard behind the hall, and across the courtyard to a hideously baroque statue of Cupid trailing roses off its limbs. She stopped and took a breath, trying to regain her composure. No good brooding now. It was over and done. There would be other times and places to get back at him. Stepping through required calm.

  A handful of doorways collected here in this hidden corner of the garden. One led to an alley in Prague 1600; tilting her head one way, she could just make out a dirty cobbled street and the bricks of a Renaissance façade. Another led to a space under a pier in Key West 1931. Yet another led home.

  She danced for this moment; this moment existed because she danced.

  Behind the statue Madeline turned her head, narrowed her eyes a certain practiced way, and the world shifted. Just a bit. She put out her hand to touch the crack that formed a line in the air. Confirming its existence, she stepped sideways and through the doorway, back to her room.

  Her room: sealed in the back of a warehouse, it had no windows or doors. In it, she stored the plunder taken from a thousand years of history – what plunder she could carry, at least: Austrian crystal, Chinese porcelain, Aztec gold, and a walk-in closet filled with costumes spanning millennia.

  She dropped her fan, pulled the pins out of her wig, unfastened her dress and unhooked her corset. Now that she could breathe, she paced and fumed at Ned properly.

  She really ought to go someplace with a beach next time. Hawaii 1980, perhaps. Definitely someplace without corsets. Someplace like—

  The band played Glenn Miller from a gymnasium stage with a USO banner draped overhead. There must have been a couple hundred G.I.s drinking punch, crowding along the walls, or dancing with a couple hundred local girls wearing bright dresses and big grins. Madeline only had to wait a moment before a G.I. in dress greens swept her up and spun her into the mob.

  Of all periods of history, of all forms of dance, this was her favorite. Such exuberance, such abandon in a generation that saw the world change before its eyes. No ultra-precise curtseys and bows here.

  Her soldier lifted her, she kicked her feet to the air and he brought her down, swung her to one side, to the other, and set her on the floor at last to Lindy hop and catch her breath. Her red skirt caught around her knees, and sweat matted her hair to her forehead.

  Her partner was a good-looking kid, probably nineteen or twenty, clean-faced and bright-eyed. Stuck in time, stuck with his fate – a ditch in France, most likely. Like a lamb to slaughter. It was like dancing a minuet in Paris in 1
789, staring at a young nobleman’s neck and thinking, you poor chump.

  She could try to warn him, but it wouldn’t change anything.

  The kid swung her out, released her and she spun. The world went by in a haze and miraculously she didn’t collide with anyone.

  When a hand grabbed hers, she stopped and found herself pulled into an embrace. Arm in arm, body to body, with Ned. Wearing green again. Arrogant as ever, he’d put captain bars on his uniform. He held her close, his hand pressed against the small of her back, and two-stepped her in place, hemmed in by the crowd. She couldn’t break away.

  “Dance with me, honey. I ship out tomorrow and may be dead next week.”

  “Not likely, Ned. Are you following me?”

  “Now how would I manage that? I don’t even know when you live. So, what are you here for, the war bonds cash box?”

  “Maybe I just like the music.”

  As they fell into a rhythm, she relaxed in his grip. A dance was a dance after all, and if nothing else he was a good dancer.

  “I didn’t thank you for helping me with Lady Petulant. Great distraction. We should be a team. We both have to dance to do what we do – it’s a perfect match.”

  “I work alone.”

  “You might think about it.”

  “No. I tried working with someone once. His catalyst for stepping through was fighting. He liked to loot battlefields. All our times dancing ended in brawls.”

  “What happened to him?”

  “Somme 1916. He stayed a bit too long at that one.”

  “Ah. I met a woman once whose catalyst was biting the heads off rats.”

  “You’re joking! How on earth did she figure that out?”

  “One shudders to think.”

  The song ended, a slow one began, and a hundred couples locked together.

  “So, how did you find me?” she asked.

  “I know where you like to go.”

  She frowned and looked aside, across his shoulder to a young couple clinging desperately to one another as they swayed in place.