“Two boys of good character,” he’d always said. “That’s all I need to know.”
“We’ll be careful, Mr. Springer,” Niklaus said. “Thanks for everything.”
“And tell Dorota we’re sorry we didn’t get to say goodbye,” Steven added with a wink.
Ron shook his head and smiled. “Will do.”
Ron’s two sons had both signed up for the Navy and neither had returned from the Pacific as yet, though telegraphs confirmed they were both alive and well. His daughter, Janey, had driven in from Louisiana a few days after the hurricane, and though she had at first balked at two strangers living with her dad, watching Steven and Niklaus work to put back together the house where she’d grown up had quickly won her over to their side. Still, she lived several states away and could only stay for a few days. This left Ron with only Steven and Niklaus to keep an eye on him. Though they’d only known each other a few weeks, Steven had grown quite fond of the “old codger” and took great pleasure in knowing that he’d found a friend in Dorota.
A friend, and maybe more.
“There’s someone for everyone,” Steven’s father had always said. “Believe it, son.”
The memory of his father’s kind words punctuated the thousandth return of Audrey’s freckled face to his mind’s eye, sending Steven’s intestines into knots.
God, let them both be all right.
“If you two are ever back in Homestead, you have a place to stay, understand?”
“Yes, sir.” Niklaus nodded.
Steven waved goodbye. “Take care, Ron.”
As the blue Ford pickup pulled away, Steven considered Ron Springer’s offer and recalled similar words from a pair of friends with even more years in their rearview mirror. As an image of Arthur Pedone’s face floated through his memory, Steven’s heart filled with conviction they were on the right path, though the old man he met the first night of his induction into the Game would be anything but old in 1945.
I just hope I recognize him. Steven chuckled. God knows he won’t recognize me.
“What are you grinning about?” Niklaus studied Steven from beneath a quizzically raised eyebrow.
“Oh, nothing.” Steven checked his watch. “Sign says the bus is pulling out in five. We’d better move.” He picked up his duffel bag and slung it over his shoulder. “Here goes everything.”
8
Love & War
The post-war mood in Manhattan was infectious. The war had catapulted New York City into the role of capital of the world and since the historic moment at 7:03 p.m., August 14, 1945, when the Times Tower zipper sign announced the Japanese surrender to Truman, all rules had been off. Fiorello La Guardia, in the middle of his twelfth and final year as mayor of the Big Apple, extended the national curfew of midnight by an hour. Clubs across the city were filled nightly with the soon-to-be parents of the baby boom generation as they jitterbugged and lindy hopped till the wee hours. The sidewalks of Broadway were filled every night as hits like Oklahoma and Carousel graced the stage. Leonard Bernstein commanded the New York City Symphony to greater and greater heights, securing his place in musical history. Not even the jubilant mood of the day, however, could save the Yankees from finishing their season at 81-71 and well behind the Detroit Tigers who went on to take the Series from the Chicago Cubs in a blowout Game 7.
With just over two months till Christmas, the city approached the holiday season for the first time in six years without the specter of world war. Soldiers had begun to trickle back to the U.S., though the majority of New York City’s 850,000 servicemen remained in Europe and the Pacific. Wives, daughters, and mothers, conversely, still held their positions in the factories, mills, and offices back home. Though a time of celebration for most, many would never see their husbands, fathers, and sons again, their lives sacrificed in a brutal war against a madman. Still, optimism seemed the rule of the day and change was in the air.
No more than a day had passed since Steven and Niklaus’ arrival to New York, yet Steven felt as if he’d fallen into one of those History Channel documentaries Archie always watched. Different people, different accents, different slang. Cars he’d only ever seen in movies. Times Square, devoid of the technological trappings that would define it in the next century. Broadway back in the day before every third musical represented a retread of a Disney movie. The thousand little things that defined a generation, all at odds with everything Steven ever knew.
It was terrifying.
It was wonderful.
He had no idea where or when the priest and the others had ended up, but he prayed they had landed in as fortunate a situation as he and Niklaus had.
That is, if having a room the size of a large walk-in closet could be considered fortunate.
Though the clerk at the hotel desk had referred to the space as a double, Steven slept so close to Niklaus that he felt more than heard the man’s deep snoring. Between the constant drone three feet from his ears and his own lumpy mattress, a decent night’s sleep had proven an impossibility. He’d finally nodded off for the hundredth time when a sliver of sunlight peeked through the lone window of their room and hit him square in the face. His back ached as if he’d taken a few punches to the kidneys, and his arm tingled as if covered in ants.
“Rise and shine, I guess.” He sat up in bed and noticed the soothing sound of running water from beneath the closed bathroom door. “Nik’s already up and at it.” He checked his watch. “Well, it is ten in the morning.”
That left the last bit of morning and the afternoon to look for work. The scant cash Ron had been able to spare was only going to last a few days. Though the fall in New York had proven relatively temperate, winter would be upon them long before their business in the Big Apple was complete, and finding a way to pay for more permanent lodging, not to mention food, remained at the top of the list.
Niklaus stepped out of the bathroom draped in nothing but a threadbare towel. After rummaging through the faded green duffel bag Ron had provided for their trip, he drew out a pair of boxers and some trousers he’d purchased the day before.
“Morning, Nik.” Steven rose from his bed and walked to the tiny window, flinging his forearm back and forth in an attempt to shake the feeling back into his hand. “How’d you sleep?” he asked, though he already knew the answer.
After two and a half months of almost constant contact, he knew Niklaus’ habits almost as well as he knew his own. The man slept like a stone—and a particularly loud stone at that—which struck Steven as fitting, considering his rocky alter ego.
“About average.” Niklaus slid into his trousers. “And you?”
“Not nearly as painful as our last trip to New York, so there’s that.” Steven stretched upward, his back popping with a sound like falling dominoes. “Ahh. That’s better.”
“So.” Niklaus crossed his arms. “We’ve made it to Manhattan almost three months before Grey and your friend are due to arrive. What would you suggest we do now?”
“We wait.” Steven pulled out the old wallet Ron had let him use and flipped through the few bills left inside. “In the meantime, we’re going to have to get out there and find jobs. Even in 1945, I’m guessing New York isn’t a cheap place to live, and it’ll be a long several weeks if we don’t eat.”
“Agreed.” Though Niklaus put up a good front, the doubt in his voice came through loud and clear. He’d scoffed initially at the thought of leaving sunny Florida for a New York winter and had only been convinced after Steven explained the plan a good dozen times.
A plan even Steven recognized as, at best, a long shot.
Still, it remained the only plan they had.
“You need the bathroom?” Niklaus thumbed in the direction of the closet-sized space that somehow held a sink, shower, and toilet.
“No, you finish getting cleaned up.” Steven slid by on his way to the door. “I’ll go scrounge us up some breakfast.”
As Steven headed up the sidewalk looking for whatever passed for a
n IHOP at the end of the Second World War, he reviewed the convoluted logic that brought him and Niklaus to New York in the first place. The epiphany had struck him weeks before as they stood at the center of Ed Leedskalnin’s Rock Gate Park.
The clipping. He meant for me to see it.
Long before Niklaus, Archie, Audrey, or even Emilio and Lena, the first individuals Steven had met after his induction into Grey’s insane Game were Arthur and Ruth Pedone, an elderly couple who lived on the coast of Maine almost sixty years in the future. His evening in the Pedone home remained as fresh in his memory as if it had occurred yesterday: Ruth’s warm smile, Arthur’s hearty laugh, their cozy little house in Old Port just a few blocks inland from the Atlantic, the couple’s kind hospitality.
Most importantly, he remembered an old newspaper clipping that hung in a prominent position on the wall of their living room. The clipping showed Arthur, barely out of his teens and a returning war hero, walking off a boat arm in arm with a slightly younger appearing version of Grey, Steven’s mysterious mentor.
The date on the paper? January 4, 1946. Two months and change in the future.
At the time, Steven thought Grey had shown him the clipping solely to prove his unbelievable claim of longevity. Now, he wasn’t so sure.
He must have known all of this was going to happen. Steven shook his head from side to side, trying to clear the cobwebs. And the only way he could possibly have known was if I told him. Or will tell him, if and when we find him.
The possibilities made Steven’s head throb. Working out the real-world practicalities of teleportation had been hard enough. Trying to wrap his brain around honest-to-God time travel stretched his mind even further. In the weeks since their fateful trip to Rock Gate Park, Steven had combed his memories for any hint about what he should do next, culling ideas from H.G. Wells’ Time Machine to The Terminator movies and everything in-between.
In his mind, he replayed the scene from Back to the Future where Marty McFly first confronts Doc Brown in 1955. The mental image of Grey sporting Christopher Lloyd’s shock of white hair all askew brought a smile to Steven’s face, though he hoped convincing Grey of his claims would prove easier than it did for Michael J. Fox’s squeaky-voiced time traveler.
One thing Steven marked as relatively certain: the Grey of 1945 would have neither a flux capacitor nor a silver DeLorean.
But he does have the pouch. Or at least knows where it is.
Steven’s entire plan banked on the supposition that the Grey of this era would somehow be able to use the Hvitr Kyll to send them back to the present just as its dark counterpart had forced them into the past. The logic seemed sound, though Steven, like Niklaus, had his doubts.
The smell of sizzling hash browns sent Steven’s stomach rumbling and brought him back to the situation at hand. A sign that stated simply “Breakfast” pointed to the door of a small diner just off the sidewalk. Steven fell in at the rear of the line and counted the money left in his wallet. Though he and Niklaus carried only the few dollars Ron Springer had forced them to accept as a thank you for all their help, the shockingly low prices on the menu posted by the door gave Steven hope they wouldn’t starve.
At least not today.
We have enough to last us a week or so. Steven laughed. These people would freak if they saw the prices at a Starbucks.
The sound of screeching tires rent the air. Steven leaped from the sidewalk’s edge and dropped into a low crouch, yanking the pawn icon from his pocket like a gunslinger of old drawing his weapon. Before he could take another breath, a pale green Studebaker ran up onto the curb where he’d been standing and crashed into a light pole just a few feet away. A quick scan of the road revealed the cause of the accident: a screaming toddler in a little blue sailor suit had somehow made his way out into the street. Steven was moving before he even fully registered the entire situation, but even his well-honed reflexes were no match for the child’s mother’s as she dove into the street and snatched her child to safety.
Kid’s safe. Steven turned his attention to the wrecked car. Better check on the driver.
Built of sterner stuff than the cars from Steven’s youth, the Studebaker remained for the most part intact other than the chrome front bumper and grill that wrapped around the crumpled light pole like a gripping fist. A thick plume of white steam spewed from beneath the rippled hood, obscuring Steven’s view of the driver.
“Are you all right in there?” Steven shouted as he drew close.
At first, no one answered, and then the driver’s side window rolled down and a long willowy arm reached out from within the vehicle.
“I’m okay.” A woman’s voice, colored with as New York an accent as Steven had ever heard. “At least, I think so.” The woman wrapped her lithe fingers around the door’s outside handle, but no matter how hard she tried to work the latch, the door refused to open. “Hey, mister, can you give me hand here?”
Steven rushed over, took the woman’s hand, and helped her climb out of the car’s open window. Despite the awkwardness of the situation, her egress hit him as strangely graceful. As Steven wrapped his arms around the young woman’s narrow waist and lowered her to the well-worn sidewalk, heat rose in his cheeks.
Holy. She’s a knockout.
Since their arrival in 1945, Steven couldn’t shake the feeling he’d been transported into one of those old black-and-white movies his mother had always loved so much. The style of clothing, the diction, even the way people walked brought a surreal sense of the passage of time. He’d considered how strange it would be to run into one of those old-school movie stars decades before the relentless march of time turned them into the senior citizens he knew almost exclusively from supermarket rags. Could this be his chance?
The woman standing before him would have given Lauren Bacall a run for her money in the looks department. Dressed conservatively in a white cardigan and a long black skirt, her shoulder-length blond hair curled inward to frame her face in the style of the day. Her full lips painted ruby red and her dark eyes the stuff of which poems were written, something about the sparkle in her gaze seemed undeniably, almost hauntingly, familiar.
“Are you all right, Miss…?”
“Matheson. And yeah, I’m okay. Ten fingers, ten toes, and all that.” Her smile sent Steven’s already speeding heart into the next gear. The image of Audrey’s face that played across his mind’s eye a moment later did nothing but stoke the guilty fire at his core.
“You’re sure?”
“Neck’s a little sore, but otherwise, I’m fine.” She stepped to the front of the car. “More than I can say for this thing.” Her eyes grew wide. “What happened to the kid that ran out in front of me? Is he—”
“He’s fine.” Steven pointed down the street. “His mother grabbed him up. None the worse for wear, as far as I could tell.” He smiled. “Kid’s lucky you have such good reflexes.”
“Thank God. I don’t know what I would’ve done if…” Emotion caught up with the woman and she fell into Steven, sobbing. After a few awkward seconds, he put an arm around her shoulder.
“Hey, don’t cry. Nobody got hurt and cars can be fixed.” He pulled her chin up to his and felt another pang of guilt as her doe-eyed gaze met his. “Everything’s going to be okay.”
Before either could speak again, a black-and-white police car pulled up, followed shortly by another. Steven stood by for a few minutes as the pair of officers took their time interviewing the beguiling Miss Matheson and arranging for her car to be towed. Amused and, strangely, a little jealous, he watched the beautiful young woman flirt her way out of anything resembling a ticket or charge.
And all the while, the nagging familiarity continued.
I know her. He racked his brain for answers. But how?
A few minutes passed before a tow-truck arrived to take the car away. One of the officers, an older man with a receding hairline and prodigious belly, took off while the younger of the two stayed behind to chat up the damsel in d
istress. The likely rookie policeman did his best to make the whole encounter seem official, but the dance was one Steven had seen a thousand times before. He was, as Walt Disney had coined, twitterpated, not that Steven blamed the young cop. After all, it wasn’t every day Venus came down from Olympus to chat with mere mortals.
Despite his best efforts, the officer seemed unable to convince the young woman to let him drive her home, and so, with a tip of his hat Steven had only seen in Westerns and on the occasional episode of The Andy Griffith Show, he bid her a good day.
As the cop pulled away, Miss Matheson picked up the large tote bag she had retrieved from her trunk and headed in his direction. The brightly colored tote appeared for all the world like an extra-large birthday present from six decades hence, though instead of crumpled tissue paper, pink tulle and scarlet muslin billowed from the top.
Tutu, maybe? As she drew close, Steven noted her size, poise, and grace. Yep. Definitely a dancer.
“I’m sorry.” She shot Steven a wink as she joined him back by the door to the diner. “I didn’t even ask your name.”
“It’s Steven. Steven Bauer.”
“Well, Steven Bauer, I hope you’ll at least let me buy you a cup of coffee. It’s the least I can do for my knight in shining armor.”
In the half hour since the accident, the remaining breakfast crowd had moved on as noon approached, allowing Steven and the lovely young woman he’d pulled from the wrecked car to walk right in and sit down at an empty booth at the back of the diner. No sooner had Steven slid into his seat than a middle-aged woman in a gingham dress appeared with two coffees and took their order.
“Who’s the other muffin for?” Miss Matheson asked as their waitress scurried away.
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