I picked it up and stared at it. Then dropped it and shoved my chair across the floor with a high-pitched screech, and hummed an alarming series of nos.
“Addie!” Elizabeth yelled after me. I rushed through the kitchen and into the main salon where the painting rested alone and waiting. My hands flailed across my cotton pants as I wiped crumbs and tiny bits of stickiness from them. Then I put on the gloves I’d tossed aside earlier and touched the painting.
It was a thin layer, artfully placed and barely noticeable. I pushed it and met its resilience. There was no intelligence placed in the seal, nothing to read.
“It’s covered.” I said to the small crowd who hovered around me. “She put a sealant around it, in case it fell into the wrong hands. Brilliant.”
“What’s a sealant?” Elizabeth ran her fingers across her smoothed forehead.
“Can you break through it?” Philippe’s hand grasped a fat lock of wave at the top of his head.
I shook my head at Philippe. “I don’t know how to undo them. I just know they exist.”
My fingers traveled across the painting, glided over the slick surface of the cushioned seal. “God, she’s so good,” I said. “It’s flawless. Not very thick, but strong, like armor, and there’s no way in as long as it was in place. And I guess, no way out for anyone as well.”
I crossed the painting left to right, top to bottom and I searched for any clue she might have left behind. Halfway down the painting I felt tired and dropped my hands. “Trying to read through a sealant is like trying to focus in the fog,” I said.
“I’ll get you some coffee,” Elizabeth said, and disappeared into the kitchen.
“Just take your time,” Philippe said. “We have time.”
“Blake doesn’t have any time,” I said.
Elizabeth returned with a shot of espresso and my strawberry-sealed toast. I drank the hot liquid bean in two gulps, took two bites of toast, which left the taste of berry on my lips, then I returned to what I very much hoped was a Wentworth.
Slowly, I searched for something genuine to come into focus. I skimmed lightly over the croquet scene and just to the right of the red croquet mallet was something unusual. A minuscule divot.
“I’ve found something.” I backed up and went over it again. I circled the pad of my finger into the center of the tiny spot and found contact with the canvas. Like the magic it was, the pigments crawled up my finger, covered my nail, and kept climbing.
“Philippe!” I yelled.
He and Elizabeth stood over me and watched as colors entwined my hand.
“You’ve got it!” she said.
When the scenery from the painting filled the edges of my view of Blake’s apartment, I withdrew my hand and smiled at Philippe.
“We’ve got our way in,” I said.
Chapter 53
Sharply re-dressed in our 1920s finest, Philippe and I stood once again in front of a Wentworth and prepared to make our sojourn into my once and future past. Philippe checked to make sure we still had our money, and that we’d eaten a solid breakfast of eggs, bacon, and toast.
“The trip takes more out of you than you’d think,” he’d insisted.
I spoke to Grace, Isabella, and Lexie to let them know the latest. I also gave them Anya’s and Elizabeth’s phone numbers.
“Well done, precious girl,” Grace said. “And be careful. The world inside of a Wentworth is not your own.”
I tried not to think about that, but I knew she was right. Still, I had Philippe, who would get us to the right spot and the right time. Memories of the confusing paths within the Monet haunted me, as well as Grace’s stories about how her cousin had gotten forever lost.
“Be careful,” Elizabeth said. She stood next to me and primped my hairstyle and dress.
“Oh!” Anya took an envelope from her purse and handed it to me. “Maman wanted you to have this.”
My Dear Addie,
If you’re reading this, then I’ve gone back with Otto.
Please don’t worry for me. I’ve known for some time that he wanted to return to the past. Though I hoped and prayed he would not, I’ve deliberated as to what I would do if he did. The ramifications on the present could be disastrous.
However, when I heard he sent Blake, I knew what I had to do. Blake won’t know how to get back on his own. And though Blake would not want me to do this, I’m leaving this Wentworth with you so that you can help him.
Get Philippe to help you travel, if he has not already recruited you. You’ll find him to be a most loyal ally.
We will probably end up on this day in 1920. I understand that’s where your father and grandfather are as well. Based upon the painting that I think Otto still has, it is my best guess that this is where he took Blake.
It will be up to you and Philippe to find Blake and bring him back. Safely. As I know you can.
If you get lost, come back to what you know how to do.
I realize this may not seem helpful now, but hopefully it will once you’re on your way.
With all my love,
Carolena
Philippe and Elizabeth read the letter as well.
“Do you know what this means?” Elizabeth asked.
I shrugged.
Philippe stepped back. “Carolena has a way of posing riddles instead of just giving answers. She always told me that wisdom becomes our own when we reach for it, not when it’s handed to us.
“This really isn’t the time for riddles,” I said and stared at the Wentworth. I hoped we could do this.
Chapter 54
“Once we’re in, hang on to whatever you can,” Philippe said. “My hand, my belt…just don’t let go.”
“Okay, but, before we step in, how will this go, exactly? I mean, the entire trip. What should I expect?”
Philippe sat on the edge of the couch near Anya and pointed to the Wentworth. Elizabeth leaned forward from a nearby chair. A sun-kissed cityscape brightened behind her.
“We’ll enter the painting through the front here.” Philippe pointed at the Wentworth. “And we’ll travel through this scene until we reach the next painting, where we should be able to locate the red cord. This is the same red cord that Otto has always used to guide him from the present to the past and back again.
We’ll travel that painting from front to back until it ends. At that point there is fifty to one hundred feet or so of pure blackness. That’s where we literally leave this time and enter 1920. We have to be careful at any point within the painting. But we have to be particularly careful at this juncture.”
“Aside from the obvious…why, exactly?” Elizabeth asked.
“Because if we misstep in the blackened area, we could end up missing our intended time entirely.” Philippe’s tone was stern and serious.
“By a week or so?” I asked. I fiddled with my long-chained bag, which I’d stuffed with everything and anything I thought I might need.
“Try a decade or more. This process is very specific, and any disruption to our travel could throw us off our destination in ways we couldn't recover from. Even if we’re a minute off, Addie, we’ll miss Blake and your family entirely.”
“Blake is my family.” When I said it I realized that Blake was Philippe’s family, too. Even though he didn’t know it. I decided that now wasn’t the time to spill those beans.
I hugged Elizabeth and repeated the instructions about my townhome, its security, and the F. Scott Fitzgerald book. She promised she’d follow everything as directed. Then I hugged Anya.
“Bring them home safely,” she said. There was a softness to the way she looked at me now that hadn’t been there before.
“I will,” I promised, and hoped I was telling the truth.
“Ready?” Philippe asked.
“Yes,” I said and touched the small opening in the painting.
I expected the passage to be roughly the same as the last Wentworth I entered, but the entry point was different this time, and the middle of the cro
quet game was no place to sit still.
“Ow!” I yelled when the red wooden mallet cracked my rib.
There was genuine shock and surprise on the face of the man who hovered above me. He was tall and thin, and his full mustache and beard-tipped chin were slightly more red than the mostly brown hair that peeked out from his gray cap.
“I dare say,” he said with a British accent. “I was aiming for the ball… I’m not sure how I hit you! Where did you come from?”
Everyone in the croquet gathering backed away from me, except for the man with the red mallet who poked me again, as if he tried to see if I were real. The subtle brush strokes on his face moved and shifted as he did, the light playing the angles of his face. He appeared to be an odd representation of real.
Everything in front of me was ripe with meaning and history. The red jacket he wore with the gold buttons on his sleeve was his longtime favorite. The female in the blue sundress who stood behind him was his girlfriend and longed to marry him. Even though she knew he wasn’t ready yet. Every element had been created with a story and if I stared at it for too long I felt myself move in that direction.
“Sorry. Entirely my fault,” I said, and winced against the sharp pain in my side. I crawled upright and away from him. “I wasn’t watching where I was going.”
“An American, no less!” he huffed, and turned to the rest of the players.
No sooner was I completely upright than Philippe landed at the back of my legs and knocked me forward onto the ground. My face planted into the soft grass and I saw bits of white beneath it. Canvas, I guessed. Best not to look too close to that.
Philippe’s mouth fell open when he surveyed the small, sneering crowd.
“Sorry.” Philippe tipped his hat and took a firm hold on my arm, lifted me to my feet, and led me away.
“Indeed,” the croquet player said with a huff.
Philippe nodded toward the woods, and hand in hand we walked across the meadow, the sun’s heat cloying with Wentworth’s desperation over the loss of his wife and children. The air was meadow sweet and laced with the fragrance of wildflowers, an abrupt change from the icy New York winter we’d just left. I removed my winter coat, straightened my twisted dress, smoothed my hair, and tried to center myself. But the wind blew the trees in the distance and I felt the story that Wentworth created there, too.
Philippe quickly grabbed my wrist. “We have to hang on to one another,” he whispered. “And don’t focus on anything that you don’t want to go to.”
“Right,” I said, and sidled closer to him.
“Is it always this realistic?” I asked, still stunned from my encounter with the croquet player.
“I’ve never been in this way before. In the other painting we’ve never had to interact with anyone.” Worry painted the soft lines of Philippe’s forehead and I chose to ignore it. We were in this. We had to get through it.
At the edge of the first line of trees, woodsy noises of frogs and crickets started on cue, and soft breezes of crying and sadness blew through my heart.
“Where should the cord be?” I asked, and fought the urge to curl up and sob.
“The edge of those woods begins the next painting,” Philippe said. “The cord should be just beyond them, along a dirt path.”
We crossed over to the next painting, and there was a shift, as if we’d just walked into a different reality.
“It worked,” I said, and squeezed Philippe’s hand.
“It worked,” Philippe said with a laden sigh.
Once at the dirt path, I placed my left hand into the different footprints that were visible in the soil. The remnants of Otto’s energy still rang clear in his imprints, Carolena’s higher-heeled imprints sidled next to his. She was guarded and charming, and played her part to perfection.
I ran my hand through the dirt until I found Blake’s prints. Sometimes next to Otto’s imprints, and sometimes ahead of his. He was fearful but strong, worries of me carried on his every step. I studied their footprints mingled in the dirt, and noticed how, ironically, they gathered here as a family once again.
“Come on.” Philippe guided me to the edge of the path. “This is no place to hang out.”
I wiped the dirt from my hands onto my dress, immediately regretting doing so, then followed along.
“It’s not here,” he said. “If the cord were still in the painting it would be tied here, anchored to these trees.”
“What do you mean it’s not here?”
“I mean, it’s gone. Otto’s not coming back so he took it away.” Philippe shook his hair to the side and rubbed his forehead.
“Or he wants to make sure that no one else gets through,” I said.
“Either way our guide is gone, and we can’t do this.” Philippe paced back and forth and cracked his knuckles.
My heart pounded against my chest in three rapid beats as I felt the surrounding hopelessness that carried on the pine scent. I steeled my insides against it, but wondered if it was affecting Philippe more than he let on.
“I have to find Blake,” I said. “There isn’t another way.”
Philippe stared down the pathway and grabbed a shock of hair from the top of his head. “I don’t even know that I remember how to get there on my own. I’ve always had the cord.”
I watched him wilt in the onslaught of emotions from the painting. Then I blurted it out before I lost my nerve to say it. “I’ll go alone.”
Philippe’s eyes widened. He cast an eye back toward the meadow, then glanced down the path.
“Come with me or I’m moving on. Either way you’re going to have to strengthen yourself against Wentworth’s despair or it’s going to own you. Your only weapon is to know which emotions are yours and which are his.”
Philippe pressed his lips together and nodded once. Then, without a word, he took my hand again and we walked farther down the path. I used each step as an opportunity to bear down on my focus of finding Blake, which helped tune out some of Wentworth’s depression. When the path broke into three different directions, my concentration hiccuped. We stared for several seconds at all three options. No one breathed.
Philippe moved his hand in a slow drag across his forehead. “None of this is familiar. The path never divided into three different directions like this before.”
“Well, figure it out, because I can’t waste years of my life wandering around someone’s painting, for God’s sake.”
A small fire broke out in the brush near Philippe’s feet and he quickly stamped it out.
“Your anger. It’s affecting the painting,” he said.
“What are you talking about?” I barked.
Another small fire lit next to Philippe and he jumped to the side, then put that one out, too.
I watched the thin stream of smoke rise from the burnt patch.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” I said. “I think Wentworth must have been angry when he painted this section.” I swallowed hard and tried to stem the rage that built up inside of me. “It’s not mine,” I said with a deep breath.
I glanced at Carolena’s footprints. She had been able to do this without a cord. She had found her way to 1920 on many more than one occasion. I could do this.
I reached into my purse and unfolded her note:
It will be up to you and Philippe to find Blake and bring him home. Safely. As I know you can.
If you get lost, come back to what you know how to do.
“If you get lost come back to what you know how to do. I think she has to mean my gifts,” I said.
“Try it.” Philippe rubbed his hand across his neck and I knew he was getting fatigued.
I hesitated and bit the inside of my cheek. “Everything in this painting has a story. If I tune in to anything here I’m going to lead us off into some random story that has nothing to do with getting to Blake.”
Philippe sighed heavily and I watched his shoulders tense. “Whenever we took family trips through this painting, Carolena used to whisper hints
and directions to me along the way. It was like she wanted me to learn how to do this.”
“One of the things I remember is her telling me that you have to have a focus. Know what you want, then tune in to find your way.”
I nodded and digested Carolena’s guidance. “Okay,” I said, and closed my eyes. “Have a focus and come back to what I know how to do.”
Frogs from the nearby pond croaked loudly, and Philippe and I stood together against nature’s symphonic backdrop.
“Damn!”
“What?” Philippe jumped against me.
“Come back to what I know how to do. My God, I’m an idiot,” I smacked my hand against my forehead. “Reading art is what I know how to do!”
Philippe shrugged. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Okay, have a focus, right? I’ve always done that when I read art. And now I want to know which path Blake, Otto, and Carolena took. Which path leads us in the direction where they went.”
I placed my hands over the dirt paths and read the art I was in. This was a canvas after all, and I could read any canvas I wanted to.
The path that veered to the left all but reared up to touch my fingers.
“This way,” I said. “God, I hope I’m right about this.”
“Me, too,” he said.
“Show me the route Blake took to exit the painting,” I reaffirmed aloud. I could feel the energetic trail that Blake left behind, faint but present. We continued down that path and cut through the woods, across dense, mossy flooring, and under pine branches. I homed in on it and moved as fast as possible.
No more time to waste.
The energetic trail continued, but the dirt path led straight into a murky pond that reeked of apathy. On the far side, the path continued again.
“There was never a pond here before,” Philippe said and rubbed his face.
“We have to try to go around it.”
Somewhere in Time Page 27