With Philippe in tow, I dragged myself to the right of the pond. Every step felt harder than the last. The farther we walked the wider the pond became.
“This isn’t going to work.” Philippe refused to walk further.
We moved to the left side of the pond, but the same thing happened.
Touching the brown water, I felt Otto’s vibe coursing through it like a current. “It’s like he has the damn thing programmed!”
There was no response from Philippe. I twisted around in time to see him lunging toward me.
“Watch out!” he yelled, and yanked me away from the pond, just before an alligator crawled onto the muddy bank. He stared at the both of us, then slowly sank back into the pond, only his eyes above water.
“Can we…die in this painting?” I gasped and struggled to catch my balance and breath.
“Yes,” he answered, and held on to me. “We have to be more careful.”
I stared at the pond and the floating eyeballs. Wentworth’s apathy wound itself through my heart. The feeling that Blake and I were destined to be apart, that no matter how we tried we would never win this war, crushed me from the inside. The physical pain of emotional loss dripped through my insides and I barely held myself up.
“There has to be a way to undo what he’s done to this painting.”
Think, Addie.
“She said come back to what you know how to do. Okay, I read art, I read objects, I’m an empath, sometimes I see past lives… How does any of that help me here?”
I turned to Philippe for an answer but he wasn’t there. “Philippe! No!”
“I just need to lie down. I’m so tired,” Philippe said as he curled up at the base of a nearby tree.
“It’s Wentworth’s apathy you’re feeling—it’s not yours. Come on, we’ve got to get out of here.” I tugged hard at his arm.
“I can’t, Addie. This is just too hard,” he said. “Nothing is going to work out anyway, and it’s easier if we just stop trying.”
“This isn’t real, Philippe. You’re affected by it but it’s not real.” I studied the pond and the green animal who floated in it. “It’s…not real. It’s like a forgery—that’s it!”
“No.”
“Damn it, Philippe, come on!”
Philippe stumbled to his feet like a drunk. “I’ve never felt this bad in my life,” he moaned.
“Look at me,” I said and grabbed the sides of his face. “This is Otto’s work, like his forgeries.” I edged carefully to the mud at the bank and scooped some into my palm. “I think if he can manipulate it so can we. This isn’t real.”
The alligator swished his tail in front of us and water splashed across the pond and onto our clothes.
We both considered the damp spots of contrary evidence on his suit and my dress. “You’re sure about this?”
“Pretty sure,” I said with a wince of doubt.
Philippe lifted his eyebrows at me.
“It’s not like I’ve done this before,” I said. “It’s not like we have other options, either. So, come on. Help me.”
I took the mud and formed a step at the bottom of the bank, then added to it until it thickened and hardened. Philippe reluctantly joined me in the effort, and built a muddy ledge on top of mine and held it there until it was firm.
Wentworth’s depression made for heavy resistance while we pushed ahead with our arched bridge over the water. His despair was a call to every fear I’d ever known, that feeling that everything important would eventually collapse. His dark sadness and my fears danced with one another in perfect demonic step, and like all fear-based emotions, they worked hard to convince me that I was truly powerless.
The alligator swam beneath us, one pass beneath our mucky, caked bridge, and then another. Like Peter Pan’s Tick Tock, he waited for a tasty human treat.
“Argh!” Philippe yelled when we finally arrived at the other side. He let go of my hand and swatted at wasps that flew at us and stung our arms and faces. I shrieked and ducked but the wasps swarmed and stung my skin. Philippe grabbed my arm and we sprinted toward a black abyss.
Chapter 55
All that lay ahead of us was a pure blackness, and a subtle burnt scent filled the air.
“What is this?” I asked, out of breath. The pain from the wasp stings pierced my arms like a thousand needles.
“This I remember,” Philippe said. “This is the back of Wentworth’s canvas, in his time. So, we walked through the front side of the painting that exists in our time, we’ll exit the front image of the canvas that lives in his time. This black zone is where we leave our time, and enter another.”
“Just keep your focus—this is not the place where we want to get lost,” he said.
We stepped forward, my mind focused again on Blake’s trail. Though this section had appeared black to me, once in it, it was filled with the voices, the music, and the different environments that had surrounded the painting over the years.
Famous faces drifted in front of me—celebrities, presidents, and other artists perused the painting, stroked their chins, and commented while they stood in front of it. Too much interest on my part into any one scenario that drifted in front of me, and I knew we’d be anchored to the wrong place in time.
Stay focused.
I ignored them like they were meaningless gnats and directed my focus back to our path.
Blake. Where he exited the painting.
The backside of the woods we’d just left came into view and everything laid out ahead of us in reverse. The woods, the dirt path. Thankfully, there was no pond or wasp nest this time, and we sprinted ahead.
The front of the painting was strangely familiar in reverse, and Philippe and I glanced at one another when we heard the muffled sounds of men’s voices.
Cautiously, we moved ahead and clung to the edges of the painting until we could see the croquet game on the far side of the meadow, on the other side of the estate.
“We can exit from any painting, right?”
“Should be able to,” Philippe said.
The voices became clearer as we edged to the front end of the painting, and one in particular, sounded familiar to me.
“I love the realistic nature of the elements,” the voice said. “I can't get over how real the scenes feel—as if I could step right into the painting and begin life.”
“Everything in the painting is a character to me,” another voice said. “I imagine a history for each one.”
“Extraordinary,” the first voice said.
“I know that voice,” I whispered, my heart fluttering at the sound of it. From the lower left hand corner, I peered outward into what appeared to be an artist’s atelier. Two men stood in front of my canvas-based reality and shook hands.
“Thank you, Monsieur Wentworth. These are extraordinary pieces.”
His sandy-blond hair and blue eyes were just as I had always seen them, though this was the first time I had witnessed them outside of a dream or a reading.
It was Jack. The man Blake used to be when he lived in the 1920s, the man he was when we shared our last life together.
Still joined palm to palm, Philippe stiffened his arm and stopped me from moving ahead.
“Can they see us?” I whispered.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I’d prefer they didn’t.”
Chapter 56
When the dizziness and nausea finally faded, we bundled ourselves against the weather and walked down the sidewalk with all the other pedestrians.
No one hurried in 1920, not the way they did in the life we’d just left. Here, people looked you directly in the eye, interested to know more about you. Gentlemen tipped their hats. There were no headphones or cell phones or other weapons of mass distraction.
“Do you think he’ll be there?” Philippe asked. He ran his fingers through his hair and tried to smooth a few of the turbulent waves.
“I don’t know. That’s where their last photo was taken. They were searching the Met f
or another Wentworth.”
We weren’t far from the museum, but the walk felt an eternity. When the park benches came into view, it was plain to see how empty they were. I slowed my approach, and prayed with every step that Otto hadn’t had access enough to Blake to hurt him or kill him or throw him into the painting to be lost in time.
I felt a little bit of comfort in the fact that if he had, Carolena would have found the strength of ten men to snap Otto’s neck in half.
Philippe and I sat. And waited. We hoped we might find them exiting the museum. I felt oddly at home in 1920 and yet completely out of place.
“Should we try the hospitals instead?” I asked.
“Which ones? There are several in the city.”
The cold air burned the inside of my nose when I drew in a deep inhale. The pedestrian traffic had slowed significantly and there were very few prospects to consider. The adrenaline that pumped through my system on our journey here was now replaced by an empty ache.
He patted my hand. “We can try the hospitals tomorrow. Let’s get to The Plaza and get a hot meal and a warm bath. We might find them there.”
My head tilted to rest on Philippe’s shoulder and I stared down the empty street. “There really aren’t any guarantees in life, are there?”
He squeezed my hand. “Not a one. Come on, let’s get to the hotel. You’re freezing and we really should have eaten something by now.”
We hopped on the subway that was littered only with elegant clientele. Philippe marveled at the ceiling fans, leather seating, and drop-sash windows, while I searched for any energetic traces of Blake or my father or grandfather. We exited the train and entered The Plaza Hotel on Fifth Ave at 59th Street.
“Let’s hope they’ve already invented the Martini,” I said.
“The random pieces of information you have in your head.” Philippe shook his head in disbelief. “How about we try for a sandwich first.”
We were guided to the restaurant, away from the raucous cheering and music of the ballroom. I searched every face for one I might recognize. Far hungrier than I realized, I quickly ate a meal of roasted chicken, mashed potatoes, and several thick slices of hot, buttered bread.
“It makes you hungry, doesn’t it?” Philippe said.
“What…the travel?” I whispered the word travel as if someone might know what we were talking about.
Philippe nodded. “There’s something about it that just wipes you out.”
“I think I’m going to fall over,” I said, finally noticing the tired and dizzy that swirled within me.
“I’ll check us in. Separate rooms,” he said and winked at me.
I waited next to a potted palm in the wide lobby while Philippe spoke to the broadly mustached employee at the front desk. The hotel clerk glared at me like I was someone who had wandered in from the street. I decided to move.
A sign rested on a gold easel to the side of the room: The New Plaza Hotel—Light Comfortable Airy—Room with Bath and Shower—$3
I brought my purse closer to my body now that I realized just how far Philippe’s and my cash would last us at these prices.
Hot jazz floated out of the ballroom and ambled through the wide hallway where I slumped, pigeon-toed on a golden upholstered bench. I felt I’d run away from home. My physical appearance was irreparable, I decided, when I caught sight of myself in one of the tall hallway mirrors.
My dress was covered with mud, my neck and arms were splattered with wasp stings, and my hair had completely fallen out of the style Elizabeth had so kindly pinned together. My lips and nose were swollen where Otto punched me. A bluish green tint colored the areas. I turned away from the image. No wonder the clerk didn’t want to give us a room. I resembled a homeless person.
I guessed I was.
Music and couples swayed out of the dancehall, singing and holding glasses of champagne, their laughter floating above the din. They were the happiest drunks I’d ever seen. I tiptoed down the hall and peeked into the ballroom to see if my family was inside. They weren’t.
You could feel it in the air, that something was about to happen. The general vibe boasted an excitement of better things to come and it was a tune everyone wanted to sing. I walked toward the foyer and struggled to remember my history lessons. What was it about 1920 that set the stage for one of the most exciting and stylish decades of the century? The end of World War I, perhaps.
“I told him you were my sister.” Philippe handed me a large brass key. It was connected by a chain to a fob with The Plaza Hotel insignia on it and weighed at least a pound. “I don’t think he believed me.”
“Sir, sir!” the clerk called, and ran to where we stood. “You must sign the registry.” The clerk paused, studied me from top to bottom, then turned with his nose in the air as if he wished he hadn’t seen me.
I couldn’t blame him.
While I waited for Philippe to finish the registration, I stared out the gracious windows that framed Fifth Avenue. The street was moderately busy, not at all what it was like at home at this hour.
Time had fallen away in the place where I stood. Across the street were several tall buildings that didn’t appear much different than they had when I last saw them in my own time. Excepting the skyscraper background, of course.
A brilliant white building with double-story arched windows was home to a bank in my time, I seemed to remember. A copper-colored building with rectangle windows and an arched doorway occupied the opposite corner and seemed familiar, but I couldn’t remember what businesses lived there in current day. I tried to move my head to the next landmark, but my eyes got hung up on the large white sign that was suspended in the largest window:
Montgomery and Associates
Fine Art Appraisals and Dealers
My breath took off in a rapid pant and I headed toward the front door of the hotel, my eyes held tight to the sign.
“Where are you going?” Philippe called after me as I sprinted through the lobby.
“The sign!” I crashed into someone and ended up on all fours.
“Di Mi!” a woman squealed.
I moved several frizzy strands of hair from my eyes and saw an elegant blond woman in a long, white sequined dress who stabled herself against her suited date.
“Is this your tomato?” he asked.
I saw Philippe running in my direction.
“Yes, she’s mine,” Philippe said and helped me up. “Sorry about that.”
“Argh!” The woman gasped and picked bits of dried mud from her outfit.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” I said to the couple. “There’s a sign,” I said to Philippe, as if he knew what that meant, and I fled from the hotel with him quick on my heels.
“Addie! No!” Philippe yelled from the sidewalk.
I narrowly missed contact with the bus’s front bumper.The yellow double-decker bus’s squeaky brakes filled the night, and the driver’s panicked expression was far too clear.
I clung to the twenty-five-foot traffic tower that stood in the middle of the four lanes of Fifth Avenue. The bus driver yelled a mild “Watch it!” before he drove away.
I looked back at Philippe, who held both sides of his head.
“I’m okay,” I mouthed to him with a nod and a wave. “I’m okay,” I assured myself in a whisper.
“What in the hell are you doing?” Philippe fussed when he caught up with me.
I took a long, deep breath. “There’s a sign,” I pointed to the white placard that hung in front and to the right of us.
“Oh my God.” Philippe’s brown eyes widened at the sign and his jaw dipped to close to his chest. It took him several seconds to control his expression. “All right. Let’s not have a repeat of An Affair to Remember, though. Accidents only work out well in the movies.” Philippe took a firm grip on my hand and escorted me to the other side of the street.
Once in front of Montgomery & Associates, I peered through the larger than life corner window but found only the blackened insi
des of a gallery. I ran to the front door and banged on the center glass. No one appeared. I yanked on the frigid brass door handle and felt a twinge in my shoulder. The door was locked up tight.
“Is everything okay?” A deep, clear male voice asked.
“She’s fine,” Philippe tore me away from the front door and tucked me under his arm. “She just left something in there earlier today. We were hoping to retrieve it.” He gathered me closer with a harsh tug.
The policeman cleared his throat. He wore a double-breasted uniform jacket, blue with gold buttons, his billy club rested firm in his hand. His somber eyes narrowed when they surveyed my dress and face.
“Sorry.” I swallowed hard and leaned close to Philippe.
“Why don’t the two of you just move along for tonight?” The policeman waved his club at our muddy attire. “You can visit them tomorrow to get whatever it is that you left behind.” He extended his left hand as if to show us the way to go.
“Yes, officer.” Philippe tipped his hat and held me around the waist with a death grip. “You have to be more careful,” he scolded me in a low whisper.
“Okay,” I said.
Philippe turned us right at the corner and we strolled slowly past the other side of the gallery. I cut my eyes to the gallery for any movements through the glass, but dared not turn my head for fear that the policeman still watched us from Fifth Avenue.
After a few more steps, Philippe spun in front of me with a gentle dance, took both of my hands in his, and kissed me on the lips.
“What was that for?” I asked after he finally leaned away.
“Just making sure the policeman was gone and this was the only way I could think to do it without him noticing. Sorry, love.” He caressed my face.
“Is he gone?” I asked.
“He just passed that building.” Philippe gestured across the street. “Still, you’ve got to be more careful. In this world you have to be a subtle observer—you can’t rock any boats. Every ripple here could send a tidal wave back home.”
I stopped and scanned the building that was as secure as Fort Knox, then blew a hefty exhale with puffy cheeks. “I’m sorry. I thought he’d be inside.”
Somewhere in Time Page 28