He played until late, paid for a room, and in the morning he purchased a used traveling case, a pipe and tobacco, a hat and a set of clothing fit for an ordinary workman. He considered visiting the barber for a shave before deciding against it. A beard served as a disguise. He imagined Oren beside him, telling him to keep his head, to stay unobtrusive. He knew he was an excellent liar, but even so, he could not afford to get clumsy and lose this opportunity for a new life. Oren had paid such a steep price for his freedom.
And indeed, he was free. With a new name, he could go nearly anywhere. He couldn’t return to New Orleans or stay in Ireland. Even London would be a foolish choice. But he could go to New York or Boston or any other city far away and make a life for himself. As he was legally dead, he could do anything so long as he remained unrecognized.
Early the next morning, he took the train to Cork, then on to Belfast. Far away, his family was waiting, and he would go to see them. It had been twenty years, and he hadn’t even written them a letter. That was by necessity. He could never let them know where he was, lest he risk exposure. This time, it would be different. He was older, perhaps a tad wiser, and he knew the value of people who loved him.
He studied the land as he rode past on the train from Belfast to Ballygawley. It was as it had always been, green and overcast, with a feel so different from other places. Ah, but he had missed this. The great famine was over now, and though certain places reminded him of those dark times so filled with death and suffering, there were other memories as well. He got off in Ballygawley and hired a horse-drawn cab to take him to the edge of town, then paid a cart driver to ride along on the road south to Aughnacloy. The cart driver was glad for the company and relentlessly tried to engage him in conversation. He gave a false name, of course, but just to be on the safe side, he got off the cart two miles from home. There was no sense in giving the police or locals any cause to recognize him.
The wind was cool and rich with the scent of earth and autumn hay. His brothers and father would be bringing in part of the harvest, while his mother and sisters canned and dried a portion of it.
A pair of boys raced across the road, hopped a low rock wall and tore off across a field. So like he and his brothers, they were. And there was the farm of Abigail O’Riordan, the first girl he had ever kissed, and there was the road that led to his friend Peter’s house. The two of them had been whipped in school so often for daydreaming or talking that they had decided to run away together and become pirates, robbing the English. Seamus remembered the hundreds of tiny drawings of machines he had made on his slate instead of writing out his sums. For a poor farmer’s son with a fifth-grade education, he had not done so poorly for himself. Well, if he didn’t count the murder charge and being a hunted man. On the whole, he had avoided death and had made a good life for himself, using what wits he had to do it.
None of it would have happened without Oren. He thought of his friend, of his family in a world so far away. Oren would never reunite with his grieving mother or see his home again. His family would never even know of his death, only know that he had vanished without explanation.
He rounded a low hill, and there stood his house. It looked so much smaller now, from its gray stone walls to its slate roof. The low fence around a small vegetable garden was new and freshly whitewashed. He noted the pots of flowers out front, lovingly tended. He started up the path.
A man was smoking beside the house. He was tall, lean and dark-haired, like Seamus, but younger. Seamus knew him on sight and had to keep himself from rushing forward and crushing his youngest brother in an embrace.
“Good afternoon,” the man said, and Seamus read the wariness and suspicion in his tone. Since when did a man coming up the walk elicit such a cold greeting? Sure, he was no fine gentleman, but he was decently dressed in a proper hat, wool trousers and a decent coat.
“Bill, it’s me.”
He pulled off his hat so his brother could see and watched the blood drain from the man’s face. Bill looked him up and down, and unable to deny the evidence of his eyes, swore a colorful oath.
“Now, don’t you let Mother hear you, or you’ll have a taste of her lye soap.”
“They said you were dead.”
“And as you can see, they were mistaken. But we ought to go inside. No sense letting the neighbors see.”
“The neighbors can’t see this far.”
Of course they couldn’t. He was so used to city life and the constant scrutiny of the ever-present people that saw and remembered all. How refreshing to be far from all of them, back in the country air where a man could have some space to think and live free.
Bill hesitated, then gestured for Seamus to follow him inside.
“Ma!” Bill shouted. “You have to come now. There’s another visitor.”
“I’m up to my elbows in the dough,” cried a woman, and Seamus was startled at the intensity of pain and joy that rose within him at her voice, the voice that had sang to him at night and scolded him and called his name across the fields.
His mother rounded the corner, covered in flour, wiping her hands on a dish rag. She seemed shorter now, and she had certainly grown stouter. Her hair, which had once been as black as his own, was now streaked with gray, and the years showed on her face. She didn’t say a word, but her hand flew to her mouth and she shook her head, as if denying what she saw.
“It’s me, Ma. I didn’t die.”
Her look grew sharp then. “I can see that. I’m no fool.” Then her face softened, and she burst into tears. She embraced him for a long time, then pulled back to look up at him and take his face between her palms. She kissed him and again crushed him hard against her. “My boy,” she whispered. “My boy.”
Bill gathered the rest of the family. Only his father, mother, his sister Oonagh and Bill still lived on the farm. All the others had grown and moved out on their own.
His father embraced him and turned aside, his eyes wet. Seamus turned back to kiss his sister while his father collected himself. Seamus listened as his mother chronicled what had happened to each of his siblings, who had married, who had left for the city to find work. None had died since he left, thank God, though his brother’s wife had given birth to a stillborn child three years ago. And of course, his sister Branna and her unborn child had died before he had run. Her husband had beaten her, causing her to lose the child, and she had died of her injuries and blood loss soon after. Seamus had been eighteen when he murdered Branna’s husband.
“Bill, go to Darragh,” said his mother. “Tell him to send word to everyone.”
“No, no. I can’t be found,” said Seamus. “They’ll hang me for certain.”
He thought his mother might object, but she was a woman of sharp faculties. She hesitated, then nodded once and told Bill to fetch only Darragh, Cathleen and Thomas, the siblings who lived nearby.
His mother grasped Seamus’s face and kissed him again. “My angel.” She shook her head in disbelief and pulled off her apron, flinging it onto the kitchen table. Oonagh, who had been just a toddler when he had been taken to prison, put it on and set to preparing the evening meal. She was slender and graceful, with the dark hair and clear blue eyes that most of his siblings shared. He wondered if she had any young men who came around to see her, and he decided to ask later to make certain they weren’t the scoundrels he knew all young men to be.
“Ah! I forgot!” said his mother. “Bill, when you get to Darragh’s, tell him to send Thomas to go up the road to fetch Miss Dubois. She’ll be as surprised as we are, I dare say.”
“Hazel is here?”
“Of course she is. She came yesterday. Told us you were drowned at sea on that terrible ship. Traveled here from America all on her own, she said. She went out walking an hour ago. Fierce independent, that one. Said she wanted to walk because she loves the wind and wanted to see th
e world. I told her there was more to the world than our little slice of it, but she said it was good enough for her.”
Seamus took a chair in the front room, the finest one by the look of its shabby brethren, and his sister made a pot of tea while his mother made up a plate of cold beef and bread with mustard, gave it to him and insisted he eat. She took the seat opposite him.
“You’re too thin. Did they starve you on the ship?”
“I’ve always been like this, Ma.”
“That you have. Now, I ought to slit your throat with my sharpest kitchen knife for not telling us where you were these twenty years. Twenty years, Seamus.”
“I had to stay hidden.”
“Just a letter to say you were alive.”
“I’m sorry, Ma. Never again, I promise.”
“Well, you’ll not be leaving our sight. You’re staying here.”
“I can’t. I’ll be recognized for sure.”
“I don’t know about that,” said his father. “You’re older now. Grow out your beard, start talking like a sensible person instead of rattling on about machines like you used to, and we’ll say you’re a cousin from down south.”
“Someone will know. It only takes one person to recognize me, and then I’m back in irons. I killed a man, and someone will be sure I pay for it.”
“That was twenty years ago,” said Bill.
“And I escaped not once, but twice. That’s a hanging offense.”
His mother slapped her thighs and stood up. “We’ll think of something. For now, we’re just glad you’re alive.”
Ten minutes later, Hazel opened the door. Her cheeks were bright pink and she was out of breath.
“It’s true!” she cried, but stopped herself before embracing him. They were not family, only friends, and it would have been improper. Instead she beamed at him. “I should have known you’d live!”
One by one, his siblings arrived and the house filled with voices and laughing and tears. His sisters did not cease to grasp his hands and kiss his cheeks while his brothers pounded him on the back and put their arms around his shoulders. Amid the din of conversation, it seemed he was never without someone touching him, as if they thought he might evaporate into smoke if they ever let him go.
Nieces and nephews appeared later, after the adults decided upon the name James Doyle and the story that he was a cousin from Cork.
They ate and talked until it was late and the little ones had to go home to bed. Extracting promises from him that he’d stay at least a week, his visiting family left and the house grew quieter. He went outside to smoke, leaning up against the house. A few minutes later, Hazel joined him.
“They won’t let me help clean up,” she said.
“Of course not. You’re company.”
“They’re good people. You have a kind family.”
He heard the tiny hint of pain in her voice. As far as he knew, she had no family. How else did a girl end up living on the streets by age eleven?
“Oren died,” he said. “Shot by the English.”
“I figured it was something of that sort, but I didn’t want to ask in front of everyone.”
“He died saving me.”
“Which wouldn’t have been necessary if September Wilde hadn’t turned you over to the police.”
“We’re not sure it was her.”
“Who else could it be? Brother Joe? Mrs. Washington? I’ve known you for years, and I never knew you were anything other than what you claimed to be. It was her. And if she was afraid of the machines, then I want to know why. I brought some of your equipment from home.”
“Truly? Where? Upstairs?”
“Bill put it up in the attic. I wasn’t sure what all to bring, but Mrs. Washington and I made our best guess. But now that McCullen is gone, you’ll never be able to find that place he came through.”
“He told me where it was, more or less. It’s in Fintona. Only a few hours ride from here.”
“You grew up close to it then.”
“It appears so. But I’ve been thinking. I can’t get on a ship to America any time soon. My name and description are still fresh in the minds of the law. If you have my equipment, I think I’ll go to the cloister and see what I can learn.”
“I’ll go with you,” she said.
“Now why would you want to be doing that?”
“I have the dreams too, Professor. I want to know what they mean. And it isn’t as if I have a life of ease waiting for me back in New Orleans.”
An awkward silence passed. Seamus knew they were both thinking the same thing.
“I had your money,” she said. “I only took what I needed for a decent voyage. I gave the rest to your parents along with all the information on your patents and such. They didn’t care about it. They simply sat there like stone statues, like the life had been pulled right out of them.”
“It hasn’t been easy for them.”
“I suppose not. Still, it must have been good all these years knowing someone loved you.”
“Yes, I suppose it was.”
They stood for a few minutes before Hazel yawned. “I’m going up to bed.”
She was sharing a bed with Oonagh, while Seamus would bunk with Bill. After the dishes were washed, dried and put away, they sat up talking and one by one, went to bed until only Seamus and his mother remained.
“I’m afraid if I go to sleep, I’ll wake and this will just be a dream,” she said.
“I’m as real as you are. And I’ll be here in the morning.”
She sighed and took his hand across the table, pressing her lips together and nodding. The floor creaked upstairs.
“Now tell me about Miss Dubois,” she said. “She says she’s a friend of yours, but what friend would come all this way across the sea? There’s more to it, I’m sure.”
“We’re friends. Good friends, I suppose.”
She sat awhile, waiting for him to go on. When he didn’t, she said, “All right, if you want it like that. But if it matters to you, I like her. I sat up talking with her last night, like you and I are talking now. She’s a brave girl to come all this way. She’s got a bit of wits to her as well. A good mind. If a man wins a lass like that, especially a man like you with your quick brain, always running like a motor, I’d say he could do worse.”
Hazel was hardly wifely material, but if his family ever knew why, they would be scandalized. He would never commit so wicked a betrayal as to tell them. Whatever Hazel was, she was his friend. And with Oren gone, she was the only one outside his family who knew who he truly was.
Chapter 32
Neil froze as he saw a familiar shimmering at the edge of March’s property. But no sooner had it appeared than it was gone. This was the desert, and the air rippling in the heat was not unusual, but Neil knew what he had seen. It was a void wyrm, trying to come through and failing. March’s protective fail-safes around the house were working. He took down the box of paper coffee filters and set a pot of coffee to brew.
Void wyrm activity had increased tenfold. Unlike ordinary people, the golems could travel back and meet themselves, forming teams of ten or twenty copies. But even with all seven golems killing void wyrms, they hardly had time to eat or rest. He had only gotten a few hours of sleep. and he knew March would have a new assignment for him any moment now.
The drake on the island in the Mediterranean had escaped them, but he was now gone from the world, according to March. There were others, some in Dubai, a few in New York and some in Singapore. Some of the drakes were more reclusive, preferring isolated Russian mountains or South American jungles, but March would locate them. He had to. The drakes were creatures who could tear holes between worlds. They, and especially their young, the void wyrms, were brutal and hungry things, dangers to humanity and the stab
ility of the worlds.
March came in, still in his pajamas and robe. Neil told him about the void wyrm.
“Not surprising,” said March. “Things are getting worse. I had hoped to do better, to save more people. Instead, the void wyrms are still eating people.”
“Because they’re hungry. Perhaps if we find a way to feed them, they won’t come here.”
“I’ve thought of that, but there’s nothing we can feed them. I could shove truckfuls of material through a hole into the void, but it would do no good. The drakes will keep breeding, like vermin, and become stronger in number. The only answer is eradication. After breakfast I want to show you something.”
The other golems were somewhere near Johannesburg, seeking an old drake who March said had opened a new rip near the city. March finished a cup of black coffee, then took Neil in his car and drove out into the desert.
“I need your advice on something,” said March. “I love your brothers, but your mind works in a different way than theirs.”
Neil said nothing. March turned from the main highway onto a dirt road, then onto a narrower one and finally onto a path consisting of two worn tire tracks, almost invisible, stretching through the weeds. At last they reached a shed, the old concrete kind that looked like a bomb shelter or an abandoned utility building. March parked and instead of unlocking the padlocked door, took Neil’s arm. An instant later, they were in a dark, windowless hallway. Fluorescent lights flickered overhead. It was quiet and still, and Neil knew that they were underground.
“Why not take me here directly from our kitchen?” asked Neil. “Why drive?”
The Time Corps Chronicles (Complete Series) Page 133