“You liar! You killed her and you know it.” Her voice quavered. “Mandy wasn’t old or sick.”
“Now Hazel,” said the sister. “The poor old dog was hurting. She’s in heaven now. Do you understand?”
Hazel wanted to slap the sister’s round-cheeked face. The idiot woman wasn’t listening. The sister put her hand on Hazel’s shoulder, and she jerked away.
“Now, what’s that you have?” said her uncle. He had moved closer while she was focusing on the sister and he reached for the violin.
“Don’t you touch it,” Hazel hissed, backing up against the wall.
“You’ve been living on the streets, posing as a boy. It’s not good for you, dear,” he said. “Now give it to me.”
“Go to hell!”
“Now you just stop it!” said the sister. “You apologize to your uncle this instant.”
“I won’t. He can’t have it. It’s mine!”
“I apologize, Sister,” said Uncle Andrew. “Living on the street has clearly affected the poor girl’s mind. I’ll just take her home.”
“Of course,” said the sister. She opened the door to the front lobby, where large double doors led out to the street. Hazel took a step toward the door, and the violin jerked from her arms. She spun to see her uncle holding it up, examining it. He narrowed his eyes and plucked at a string. The little twang it made was high and short.
“You give that back!” Hazel screamed and leapt to grab it.
Before she knew what had happened, he shoved her away. It wasn’t hard enough to make her fall, only enough to make her lose her balance and take a few steps back. He dropped her violin to the floor and set his foot on it. With slow deliberation, he shifted his weight and crushed the place where the neck met the shoulders. Then he placed his foot on the rounded wooden belly and crushed it. The hollow wood splintered with a sickening crunch. The front panel split into pieces, and a huge and irreparable crack bisected it almost completely in half. The broken neck was only connected by loose strings, like tendons.
Hazel stared in horror at her violin. The sister and her uncle were speaking, but she did not hear what they said. She did not crouch to touch the violin pieces. The instrument had been a gift from her father. It was neither fine nor expensive, as her family had not been well-off. But her parents had scrimped for music lessons, and she had played it for both of them many times.
Her uncle took her by the upper arm and led her through the front doors of the hospital. A man at the front desk looked on in approval, and Hazel knew that he thought she was either mad or willful. Maybe he was right. She felt like a feral animal.
Uncle Andrew’s grip did not loosen for an instant, and Hazel knew she would have bruises on her upper arm. But the pain was nothing. Her violin was crushed on the hallway floor of the hospital. She could never get another.
Her uncle hailed a coach and it pulled to a stop. The speckled gray horse pulling it tossed its head and shifted its weight. It was livelier than most carriage horses that were grateful for a rest. It was ready to go.
Well, Hazel thought, perhaps I should take a page from the horse’s book. When her uncle shoved her into the coach, she saw that like some of its kind, it had one door on the right side, but none on the left. Very well. The door had to open some time. And if she could not get away then, then her uncle couldn’t keep her locked up forever. There would be opportunities.
She was wedged between the wall and her uncle’s body. His proximity and the scent of him made her feel like she couldn’t breathe. He kept hold of her arm until the coach was moving. “You’ve caused your aunt some great worry,” he said. “I fitted your bedroom door with a lock. Your new bedroom that is. It’s in the attic. It’s larger than your old one, but a little colder, I’m afraid.”
Hazel didn’t answer. The attic window would be too high to climb from, and she could not break a lock. She wished she had learned how to pick locks from one of the street boys.
“Living like a wild animal on the streets,” he shook his head. “If your father ever knew, he’d be so ashamed of you. Thank God he’s dead.”
“Better if he were alive and you dead. He was worth a hundred of you,” said Hazel, so low that she wasn’t sure if he heard her. He didn’t move or answer, but an instant later he struck her hard across the face. Once she blinked a few times and the interior of the cab became clear again, she noted that he had let go of her arm. Good.
“You are an insolent, unruly, disrespectful, ugly and worthless girl. You are lucky we took you in at all.”
“Then why did you come for me? Why not leave me?” She did not raise her hand to the place where he had struck her. She turned to look him in the eye. It was torture to do it, but she forced herself.
“Your aunt and I would never turn away a family member in need. Even one such as you.”
“You know, I remember everything.” There, she had said it. She looked away as she spoke, and now made herself look at him again.
“I’m not sure what you mean, child. We’ve given you a home, comforts, even a few luxuries. And you repay us by running off and shaming us. What do you think our neighbors said about that? And your teacher and friends?”
“I don’t know what they say, but they don’t know how you are. You came to my room at night. You killed Mandy.” Her heart was beating so hard that she was sure he must be able to hear it. Her body shook and she felt as tight and tense as an over-stretched catgut string.
“Now, that never happened. Maybe you dreamt it.” His voice was soft and gentle. Almost fatherly. He looked worried for her, as if she had truly lost her mind. “Your dog was old and sick.”
“I may be a bad girl. I may be a liar and I may live on the streets. But you know what else I’m not?”
“What’s that?” He had a small, patronizing smile.
“I’m not like you.”
She jumped up, stomped his foot as hard as she could and scrambled past him, flinging herself against the door. She turned the handle and clung to the door as it swung outward. Then she dropped into the street, falling face-down on the paving stones, scraping her knees and palms. She pushed herself forward, running blindly, turning down streets and into alleys. How many times had she run like this, terrified and disoriented? She was losing count. She would run as long as she could. She would run forever. Her vision blurred with tears, though she felt no sadness. It must be the tears that came with anger. Could one fear and hate someone so much that one would cry?
She spotted a cemetery across the street and hurried toward it. From there, she could hear anyone coming and still be able to hide. She hurried to a place somewhere near the center of the cemetery and listened. Nothing. No people, only the sound of a steam carriage rumbling past, the voices of its occupants raised in raucous laughter. Perhaps they had come from the Steamboat Festival. But no, the festival had ended with the explosion.
She felt nauseated and shaky. A minute of being still, and she thought she would be all right. She leaned her back against a tomb, a small, plain one. She was at the rear of the tomb, so there were no carved names, only a blank white surface. Someone had scratched words into it, but she did not read them.
Alive. She was alive. She could have died in the explosion, but she had not. She could be locked up in her aunt and uncle’s attic bedroom, but she was not. She was breathing, if hurt. She touched her face, and felt the skin from her eyebrow to her cheekbone was hot and swollen. It could be worse. Her thigh hurt, but obviously she could still run. She had a bandage on her head, and knew better than to take it off. Miss Sanchez could do that when she got home.
Home. The Professor said that she was to go to his house once she was well enough. Miss Sanchez and the sister had said so. She didn’t know what cemetery this was, or in what direction home might be. She looked up and found the big dipper, then the No
rth Star. Her father had shown it to her when she was a little girl. Polaris, it was called. Like a pole, around which the other stars rotated.
Would her father be ashamed of her? She was a street child, filthy, homeless and disobedient. She played violin, not in a proper parlor performance that suited a young lady, but for spare coins on the street. She ran wild. She had been so bad that it caused her uncle to do terrible things to her. If she had only been more obedient, more docile and had angered him and her aunt less, maybe things would have been different.
Polaris twinkled overhead, strong and bright. Hazel said a prayer, not to God, but to her parents. She asked them to show her the way to go to get to the Professor’s house. She knew from the catechism that you could pray to saints and ask for their intercession, but you were only supposed to pray to saints that the church had named. Praying to your grandmother or parents would be heathen ancestor worship. Hazel didn’t understand the difference. If her parents were in heaven, then they were saints. Seemed simple enough. Besides, she knew she had lied and disobeyed. She had even tried to kill her uncle by leading him to the Delphia Queen. It was the last thing she remembered before waking up in the hospital, though she had a niggling feeling that there was something else she should be remembering. Whatever she had forgotten, she knew that God didn’t listen to the prayers of those in a state of mortal sin, and she was sure she was neck-deep in it.
Without waiting to see if her parents answered her prayer, she stepped out onto the street and headed in what she thought was the direction of home.
Chapter 24
The next morning, just after dawn, Mr. Grey came to call on Seamus. He made Mr. Grey wait while he dressed.
“A bit early for a visit, isn’t it?” he asked as he met Mr. Grey at the bottom of the stairs.
“Is Henry all right?”
Seamus told him that Henry was a girl named Hazel, that she had come to the house the previous night and that she was asleep upstairs. Mr. Grey did not seem surprised.
“Good. Good. Now, I need you to come and meet with my colleague,” said Mr. Grey.
“On a Sunday? And at this hour?”
“It won’t take long, and it’s important.”
“I still don’t know why the engines are exploding. The police are going to be disappointed. I told you I couldn’t help.”
“Not those colleagues. I work for the police, but only temporarily as a consulting detective. I have another person I work with. And you’ll need to come along.”
Seamus knew something was wrong. He understood the concept of a consulting detective, especially when a previous police detective had been killed in the line of duty. Seamus hoped that Mr. Grey was being adequately compensated for such hazardous work. But even so, being dragged about to visit Mr. Grey’s colleague was taking up his valuable time.
“Tell me, who is it you work for, Mr. Grey? I’m not exactly in the frame of mind to be talking to one more higher-up who wants answers that I can’t give. Without one of those engines, I can’t figure anything out.”
“I got word that it was urgent and that you should come. Please, Mr. Connor.”
Seamus studied him and then made a decision. “Very well. Let’s get this over with then.”
Mr. Grey hailed a cab and spoke to the driver while Seamus climbed in. Seamus shoved his hands in his pockets and fingered the contents. A rubber stopper, a piece of yarn, three screws of varying sizes.
“It was a bit of a shock to find out she’s a girl, wasn’t it?” Mr. Grey said. “She’s one tough cookie.”
“That’s a strange way to put it, but yes.”
“And you’ll take her in, raise her, correct?”
“What concern is she of yours?” Seamus asked. “You don’t seem to be taking in every stray off the streets yourself.”
“I won’t be here long enough to, even if I were so inclined,” said Mr. Grey and looked out the window.
Seamus stared out the opposite window and looked over the Steamboat Festival lot as they passed. It was covered in paper wrappers, wax-lined paper cups and pieces of wood and metal from the explosion. A torn red pavilion flapped from one pole, abandoned after the commotion. Something in the distance caught his eye, some kind of movement. It was near the riverbank. No boats were there now, and there were no people about.
He squinted, scanning for movement. There it was, a rippling in space, like the wavering of air on a hot day. But this movement wasn’t limited to just the horizon, it seemed to move horizontally, at about the speed of a person walking. It was gone a moment later.
“Something’s wrong. Stop the cab,” Seamus ordered.
Mr. Grey rapped the roof. Mr. Grey had not waited for him to explain why and Seamus appreciated it. As soon as the cab slowed, Seamus jumped out and ran toward the riverbank, toward the spot where the Delphia Queen had been moored.
The driver shouted behind him, and he glanced over his shoulder to see Mr. Grey turn back from following him and give the driver his pay. Seamus went on without him and then slowed.
“Don’t go any closer,” said Mr. Grey. Seamus had not heard him run up behind him. The man seemed to be able to move almost silently.
“I’m not soft-headed. I know better than to go near. You saw it too then?”
“No.”
“It was a shimmer. It only appeared for a moment. I think we can get a little closer. I think it’s safe.”
They walked across the empty lot and Seamus kept his eyes forward, scanning the riverbank for another shimmering spot.
“You want to see if we can look through one, don’t you?” asked Mr. Grey.
“Do I want to look through a tear in time and space and see the other side? Dear God, yes,” said Seamus.
“I do too.”
“It is a bit marvelous, isn’t it?” Seamus said. “Something about the engines does it. I wish I knew what it was.”
“You’ll figure it out. I’m sure of it.”
“I thank you for your unwavering faith, but I fear it may be misplaced.”
“It isn’t.”
Both men stopped in their tracks at what they saw next. A shimmering spot appeared a few yards into the river. The doorway was only open for a few moments, but through it they saw all the way across the river. A rowboat floated halfway across, but instead of being made of wood, it was made of metal. A man sat at the back, his hand resting on a handle attached to some kind of engine that hung down into the water. He had a strange hat on, a tight cap with a brim only in the front. It was black and gold with what looked like a fleur de lis design on the front. The man and the shimmer disappeared.
“You saw that, didn’t you?” asked Seamus.
“Yes.” Mr. Grey was looking at him, not at the spot where the man had been.
“That man in that boat was from the future, wouldn’t you say?” Seamus asked.
“Yes.”
“I wonder how far in the future.”
Mr. Grey did not answer.
“Don’t talk my ear off, please,” said Seamus. “Wouldn’t want you to lose your voice.”
“I believe you do enough talking for us both.”
A pair of boys ran along the riverbank. The taller one knelt to pick something off the ground. He called to the younger boy who trotted over to have a look.
“Street children from the look of them,” said Seamus. “They ought not be there. It’s dangerous.” But he had not finished saying it when Mr. Grey called out to the boys and went to meet them. He pulled something from his pocket and held it up. The boys ran toward him. They took the proffered coin and took off back in the direction from which they had come.
“Told them to stay away for a few days,” said Mr. Grey when he returned.
“It wouldn’t be good for them to end up going through one of those hol
es like Miss Sanchez.”
“That was my thought also. Now, it’s only a few blocks to the place we need to go. We can walk.”
“So the engines, these engines can reliably tear holes in time,” Seamus said, letting Mr. Grey lead the way.
“I would not say, ‘reliably.’”
“Well, perhaps not. But somewhat predictably. And they can open and reopen.”
“That’s what worries me.”
“Have you seen something like this before?” Seamus asked. He glanced sideways to see if he could gather anything from Mr. Grey’s reaction. The man’s face was as placid as always.
“No,” Mr. Grey said.
Seamus tried repeatedly to get more information from him, but Mr. Grey was unmovable.
“The house is just down this street,” Mr. Grey said.
They turned down a street of unassuming houses in a solidly middle-class neighborhood. After turning another corner, Mr. Grey indicated a house with a stone path, a few modest flowerbeds and blue and white paint.
“Is this your house?” asked Seamus. It seemed like the sort of place Mr. Grey would live.
“No,” he said. He stopped on the front porch and turned to Seamus. “Please try to be polite.”
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
Mr. Grey didn’t answer but knocked on the door. A woman answered, and Seamus thought she must be a servant. She was a black woman in her late fifties or early sixties with a long, sharp face and silver-rimmed spectacles. Her hair was cut as short as a man’s and was mostly gray. This neighborhood was a white neighborhood, so although this woman was dressed as a middle-class resident, she surely had to be hired help.
“Ah, you brought Mr. Connor. I’m so glad,” she said. She held the door and they entered.
Mr. Grey made introductions. “Miss Wilde, this is Mr. Seamus Connor. Mr. Connor, Miss September Wilde.”
The Time Corps Chronicles (Complete Series) Page 18