The Time Corps Chronicles (Complete Series)

by Heather Blackwood

  “I have to make a living.”

  “I understand that. But the girl needs to understand the ways of the upper classes.”

  Seamus, through the patents of his inventions, his employment as a professor at Tulane University and with a little help at the riverboat gambling tables, had been able to bring the household into a financial position in the upper class. Hazel was his sole heir and if the patents were renewed and the investments carefully watched, the income would last Hazel a lifetime. But fortune-hunting men might find the girl easy prey. Though clever and street-smart, she was young and naïve in the ways of high society. Mrs. Washington, however much she loved Hazel and however good her intentions might be, was black and a housekeeper. She could not help Hazel navigate the treacherous waters of the wealthy white families of New Orleans.

  “What she needs is a mother,” said Seamus, and immediately regretted it. He knew that Mrs. Washington had done her best to provide feminine guidance for Hazel, but a kindly housekeeper couldn’t ever replace a mother.

  He thought of Felicia Sanchez again, and wondered if she would have been able to assist with the situation. She was too young to be Hazel’s mother, and she was from a time in which women wore masculine clothing and held men’s jobs. She was nothing like the coquettes and social darlings of the wealthy New Orleans set. No, she would not have been of any assistance.

  “But she doesn’t have a mother,” said Mrs. Washington. “What she has is you and me. And you need to get cleaned up and quit drinking in this wreck of a laboratory.”

  He opened his mouth to object, but she put up her finger.

  “And another thing. There’s a war on, and Miss Dubois takes a streetcar or a hansom cab home, sometimes after dark. There are Union soldiers who might think to have some sport.”

  “Our Hazel can take care of herself,” he said, but then thought better of it. Hazel had been a scrappy street urchin once, able to run and fight. And once she had moved into Seamus’s house in the Garden District, he made sure she knew how to throw a proper punch as well as fight dirty enough to disable any man who tried to harm her. But it wasn’t enough.

  He had seen enough violence done to women who couldn’t fight, both back home in Ireland and here in New Orleans. Women were vulnerable and he wouldn’t have Hazel harmed again. Not after all she had been through as a child. There was a reason she had lived on the streets, having fled from her uncle and aunt. If her uncle hadn’t died mysteriously on a train bound for New York, Seamus thought he might have liked to hunt the man down himself. Any man who preyed on children to slake his lust was vermin, and like vermin, he should be exterminated without mercy.

  “She’s a small girl,” said Mrs. Washington. “And if there were more than one soldier … it wouldn’t matter how well she could bite and kick.”

  “Maybe I should give her a handgun to carry in her bag.”

  “No, what you need to do is see that she gets home before dark and has someone with her when she goes to teach her music students.”

  “There’s no one who would go with her, unless that Mr. Ross would like to.”

  “I meant you.” Mrs. Washington wasn’t smiling.

  “I have to work. I have to keep food on the table.”

  “You only teach a few afternoons a week.”

  “But I also have to find a way to get to Miss Sanchez. I can’t stop working on these equations. For her sake. From my readings, I can tell she’s stranded in 1961. We’re fortunate that she’s in our universe. It makes it easier to find her.”

  “Miss Sanchez isn’t here now,” said Mrs. Washington. “And Miss Dubois is.”

  “But Miss Sanchez needs me too. I promised to get her home, and I intend to keep that promise.”

  Miss Washington held up a hand. “I’ve said what I came to say. Miss Dubois needs you to look after her and you need to get her a Christmas and a birthday gift. That’s all.”

  She turned and went downstairs, her head high and her posture stiff. Seamus cleared a place on his worktable for the tray and ate while he worked. Mrs. Washington went beyond herself in telling her employer what he should and should not do. It wasn’t as if he didn’t care for Hazel. He had given her a place to live, an education, and up until the war forced her back to New Orleans two years ago, he had paid for her to attend the Boston Women’s Conservatory to study violin. She had food, a place to live, and the sort of life most young women would envy. Besides, she knew where he was if she ever wanted to speak with him.

  And it wasn’t as if he would be of much use to her anyway. He was a poor Irish farm boy, an escaped convict who lived under an assumed last name. His knowledge of upper class society was most likely on par with Mrs. Washington’s. On further thought, he decided that he probably knew less. He had been to various functions and had held his own, but many of his rougher traits were forgiven because he was a wealthy bachelor who was known to be eccentric. Society would not be so kind to Hazel.

  Even with their money, there was no way that she would ever gain admittance to the higher echelons of the upper class. She had no family, no connections, and her money came from his inventions and occasional gambling trips. They had no land, aside from what was under their house, no plantation and no slaves.

  The last word stayed in his mind. Slaves. Miss Sanchez had told him that in her world, the Union won the war and the slaves were all freed. He had never owned a slave, nor would he, even if he could. Besides, there was no telling if the North would win the war here. Miss Sanchez came from another world in which a man named Jacob Lincoln was president.

  He finished his beef and vegetable soup, poured a cup of tea and eyed his bottle of whiskey. It was empty. He couldn’t remember having drunk it, but the bottle didn’t lie. In the wee hours of the night, he sometimes had a bit. Not too much. Now, how long had it been since he had purchased that bottle? Had it only been two days?

  His equations required his full attention. It was the only way he would ever work out how to get to Miss Sanchez. After a terrifying night six years ago, she and Oren McCullen, the man who had stolen Seamus’s peroxide engine designs, had both been swept through a rip in time that Seamus had created to stop McCullen’s monstrous machine from destroying New Orleans. He had taken readings at the site, so many readings, and he knew that they had gone to the year 1961. He had even narrowed it down to the middle part of June of that year.

  After nearly seven years, he had only managed to make a few time rips into years closer to his own. The farthest he had ever managed was 1939. He had not stepped through the rip, as that would have been foolish, but he took readings. Pages and pages of readings. Leather journals packed a bookshelf on one wall, and boxes filled with papers stood to one side.

  Oren McCullen had caused numerous tiny time rips throughout New Orleans. They were mostly stable. But every few weeks Seamus and Hazel made a circuit around the city with their equipment to ensure they were closed. When the rips passed a mathematical instability threshold which Seamus had determined, the two of them reclosed the doorways.

  He wondered how long it could continue. As long as he was alive, he could reclose the rips. And Hazel was highly intelligent and could already handle most of them on her own. But years from now when Hazel was dead, what then? Perhaps she could train an assistant. The safety of the city and the other versions of New Orleans in other worlds depended on it.

  He ran his hands through his black hair, not caring that the action would make it stick out even more than usual. The whole situation was impossible. The equations to take him farther into the future, toward 1961, were simply not solvable. Perhaps he should begin again and get a fresh perspective. Pulling out a sheet of paper, he licked the tip of his pencil and set to figuring.

  Chapter 2

  December 24, 1863

  New Orleans, Louisiana

  Hazel Dubois entered
Augustus’s Music Shop through the alleyway door, using the key Mr. Augustus himself had given her two years earlier. The place was warm, but she didn’t remove her shawl or bonnet, as she wouldn’t be staying long.

  “Mr. Augustus!” she called. Then she noticed the line of light under the door of the small office. It opened off the room that Mr. Augustus used for storing and repairing instruments. “It’s Hazel!”

  “Come on back!” Mr. Augustus called, and Hazel pushed open the office door.

  The man was bent over the desk, sorting through a stack of papers. He turned his slanted green eyes to her. His hair was still the same mixture of gray and orange that it had been when she had first met him and his snub-nose and round face gave him an elfin appearance. He was a stocky man with short fingers, but he could play every instrument in the shop well.

  “I apologize, Miss Dubois. But I won’t have your pay for another few days.”

  “I didn’t come for my pay,” said Hazel. She didn’t need the small salary that he paid her, and so did not mind that Mr. Augustus was late with it. It was not the first time.

  After she had been forced to return to New Orleans when the war had started, she had visited Mr. Augustus and through him, found employment teaching violin and viola to pupils whose parents could afford the lessons. It was not the first time she and Mr. Augustus had met. She was never sure if he had recognized that the young woman offering to teach lessons was the same boy who had represented Mr. Augustus’s music business at the steamboat festival or offered to sweep his shop and make deliveries. Mr. Augustus had never mentioned it, and she certainly never would.

  She enjoyed playing violin, and liked helping youngsters learn to love the instrument as much as she did. It kept her occupied, so the money was not critical. She also taught both alto and tenor viola and was fairly competent on the cello, though she did not enjoy it as much as she did the smaller stringed instruments.

  “If you didn’t come for your pay, why aren’t you at home? It’s Christmas Eve.”

  “I wanted to bring you your Christmas present,” she said and pulled a few papers from her handbag. They were the sheet music to two new musical pieces, “When Johnny Comes Marching Home” and “Oh My Darling, Clementine.” They weren’t classical, but Mr. Augustus loved all music, and Hazel was fairly sure that he had not heard these new pieces.

  Mr. Augustus took the pages. She knew that, like herself, he could hear the music in his mind as he read it, and she waited for him to finish.

  “Delightful,” he said, looking up from the pages. “Sad music for sad times.” But he did not look sad, but rather wistful.

  Hazel had not thought that “When Johnny Comes Marching Home” was a sad song. It was all about how Johnny’s town would celebrate his safe return at the end of the war. But then, there were many soldiers who would not return home, or would return maimed. For every Johnny who came home, how many others would not?

  “I have something for you as well,” said Mr. Augustus. “I got some new horsehair bowstrings. The Italian ones.”

  “They came?”

  “I only managed to get a few, but one of them is yours.”

  “I couldn’t. You need to sell it.”

  “I ordered an extra specifically for you, and I’m not even sure I can sell the other ones.”

  Hazel hesitated while Mr. Augustus went into the storage room. The shop was struggling, and she didn’t want to take inventory, even as a gift. But she also didn’t wish to insult Mr. Augustus. He was sensitive about rejected gifts. He returned with a length of horsehair and held it up for her inspection.

  “It’s beautiful,” she said. The mixture of hairs included both black and white, all of them straight and strong.

  “They’re from Mongolian stallions, and the dealer in Italy is reputable. I noticed that your current bow needs re-hairing. That violin of yours is so fine, and it deserves a bow that equals it.”

  A man named Neil Grey had given her a beautiful violin and matching bow when she was eleven. Her wicked uncle had destroyed the violin that her father had given her before he died, and she was distraught at its loss. Mr. Grey was a time traveler from a time close to that of Miss Sanchez and had only appeared around the same time she had, vanishing with as little fanfare as he had come. Mr. Grey had been confident that the Professor would figure out a way to make a functional device that would allow them to travel through time, but it had not happened yet and he had been working for six long years.

  She thought about Mr. Grey now and then. He had been in his forties, as near as she could guess, a man in a long black duster who was of medium height and build and who wasn’t physically remarkable in any way. But he was intelligent and resourceful, and he had taken a special interest in her. He had given her the violin because they would be good friends in her future and his past.

  “Thank you,” said Hazel, winding the horsehair into a loose circle and wrapping it in a piece tissue paper from a shelf above the worktable before putting it into her bag.

  “You’re more than welcome. Although, I don’t know how much you’ll get to play it once you’re a married woman.” Mr. Augustus chuckled when he caught her shocked look. “I’m not so old that I don’t know what a young man in love looks like. Your young man is going to ask you to marry him, mark my words.”

  “I’m not sure,” she muttered. “Well, Happy Christmas!” She hurried toward the door, decidedly uncomfortable with Mr. Augustus speculating about her marriage prospects.

  “Happy Christmas to you also!” called Mr. Augustus after her.

  Hazel hailed a hansom cab and gave the driver her home address on St. Charles Street. As the horse clopped down the street, she thought of Mr. Wesley Ross. They had been courting for six months, and she liked him. They had been friends, and then the friendship had changed into something more. He was the son of an ink manufacturer and his family’s fortune was new and was earned in trade. Economically and socially, they were a good match. He was kind, honest and earnest. She enjoyed his company. And yet, she was terrified that Mr. Augustus might be correct and that Mr. Ross might propose marriage. She would be eighteen in two weeks, old enough to marry, certainly. And though she liked Mr. Ross, how could she know if she should spend her life with him? Practically speaking, she supposed the wise course would be to marry him, but perhaps she ought to wait and think it over more. She wasn’t sure.

  The cab passed Jackson Square where St. Louis Cathedral stood white and magnificent against the pearl gray December sky. The cathedral would not have an automaton display on Christmas day as in years past. On some holy days, Ash Wednesday, Easter and Christmas, the cathedral became a gathering place for the citizens of New Orleans. The cutout doors on the front of the cathedral parted and life-sized automatons slid out on tracks to reenact religious scenes to the delight of the crowds. The Professor worked with one of the local monks to create the automatons, and when she was younger, he even let her assist them.

  Hazel hadn’t watched an automaton display since the Union army had begun their occupation of New Orleans in early May of 1862. The prevailing thought among the Union military was that any large gathering would give the residents of New Orleans a rallying place which might lead to disturbance and rebellion. They might be correct, but Hazel wished that they would allow a display this year. If nothing else, it would give the Professor something to occupy his time other than working on finding Miss Sanchez.

  The city had rebuilt itself after Oren McCullen’s six-legged machine had destroyed so many buildings. But though the Union occupation had left the city architecturally unharmed, the war had left its heart broken and its people hurting. Even now, she knew she should get home before dark, as soldiers and other men were likely to accost a young woman alone.

  This evening, there weren’t any steam carriages traveling the streets with her. Only the very wealthy cou
ld afford them, and those families were already at their homes, feasting on duck and pheasant and opening lavish gifts. The Professor could have built a steam carriage for the two of them to use, but it would require a driver. The only full-time employee they had was Mrs. Washington. They also had a gardener and a laundress who each came once a week and a girl who came to help Mrs. Washington clean the house. As a rule, the Professor liked privacy. He did not want to risk anyone but Mrs. Washington knowing about his time experiments, and if Hazel’s guess was right, he was never entirely comfortable hiring help at all.

  The Professor had grown up as a poor farmer’s son in Ireland and had killed his sister’s husband. The brute had it coming after beating the Professor’s older sister and killing the child she was carrying, but that didn’t matter to the law, and the Professor had been imprisoned. He was a young man then, and his cellmate was Oren McCullen, who was also mechanically inclined. The two of them worked together in the prison and later escaped while being transported to New Zealand. They had made a home in New Orleans and Seamus Doyle had become Seamus Connor. The pair of them obtained professorships at Tulane and while McCullen had pursued fortune and power, the Professor had sought a quieter life.

  Their friendship had come to an end when McCullen had stolen the Professor’s peroxide engine designs, had improved upon them and had sold machines with these new and powerful engines, making himself very wealthy. The only problem was that the engines were dangerous. They sometimes exploded. And perhaps even worse, they punctured holes between universes, using matter from other worlds as a catalyst to power themselves. Thus, New Orleans was dotted with time rips which required monitoring lest people like Miss Sanchez accidentally pass through. Other rips had been caused by the Professor, and those needed monitoring as well.

  Hazel maneuvered her hoop skirt to exit the cab and paid the driver. She pushed open the iron front gate and went up the brick walk of the house she shared with the Professor. Compared to the modest house where she had grown up outside of New Orleans, their Garden District home was grand. It was painted white with a dark green door and matching shutters. Two galleries ran along the front of the house, supported by white columns with tendrils of ivy winding up their sides.