Trapped in Time

by Evangeline Anderson

  And how had she lost it all in a second because of the other mother’s greed and social climbing. How—

  Her thoughts cut off abruptly when she saw a soft shimmer in the air beside the tree. It was barely there—indeed, if her head had been tilted a different way, it would not have been visible. But she was looking in just the right direction at just the right time and she saw what was happening.

  The window! she thought, excitement replacing her despair. It’s the window generated by PORTAL! If I can get over there—if I can get through it—maybe I can wait until I’m over the drug and then come back and tell Richard everything that’s going on! Maybe I can make things right!

  But though the window back to her own universe was only a few feet away, it might as well have been up on the moon for all that she could reach it. She was still unable to speak or move without the express orders of the other mother. And who knew how long the window would be open? If she didn’t get there soon, it would be too late!

  Oh please, she prayed, although she didn’t exactly know who she was praying to. Please, let me get to that window somehow! Please let everything work out so Richard and I can be together and I don’t end up with that horrible Lord Harkens!

  Suddenly she heard a voice—but one that seemed to come from inside her head rather than outside it.

  Peace, child, it said. It was warm and feminine and powerful and Caroline felt strength flow into her as it spoke. Do not despair, it continued. It may not seem possible but I promise, all will be well.

  Then it was gone but at that moment the sun, which had been hidden behind the clouds during the entire annulment ceremony, suddenly came out and began to beam down brilliantly.

  “Oh my!” The other mother snapped open her fan and began to fan herself vigorously. “This heat, all of a sudden!” she exclaimed, looking at the judge. “Pray, your honor, let us go into the shade under the branches of that tree. It is so warm out here.”

  “Agreed, dear Lady.” The judge nodded and, as Richard ascended the platform, the other mother took Caroline by the arm and all of them moved towards the left side of the stage—right towards the shimmering window.

  * * * * *

  “Get ready,” Sylvan said, staring hard at PORTAL’s large brass frame, where the alternate universe was projected. “She’s almost in range. The minute she gets close enough, I’m going to try and bring her through. You three must be ready to catch her.”

  “We’re ready!” Liv and Sophie and Kat stood in position around the frame, waiting for their friend.

  They no longer feared getting sucked in themselves because Sylvan was certain he had found a way to focus only on Caroline. They were going to attempt to pull her back into her own world before the evil mother and horrible Lord Harkens could force her to leave Richard and trap her in a marriage she didn’t want to be in. Then, when things had died down, they were hopeful that they could return her to the other universe to live with Richard, if she wanted to go.

  That was the plan anyway—Liv just hoped it went off without a hitch.

  “Here they come,” she muttered. “Look, Richard’s joining them too. And Caroline’s so close!”

  They watched the window where the pompous-looking judge with the huge powdered wig perched on his head was handing Richard a long, scrolling document and a quill pen to sign it with.

  The Blood Kindred took both from his hands, looking numb. But just as he was about to sign his name, he looked up at Caroline.

  “How could you?” he asked softly, his deep voice hoarse with anguish. “You told me just last night that you love me—you swore you’d never leave me. I don’t understand, Caroline.”

  Caroline simply stared back at him mutely, though Liv thought she could see pain and sorrow in her big brown eyes. But of course she couldn’t say a thing because the other Caroline’s mother had told her not to. Instead, the mother spoke up, a sneer on her face.

  “Tell him, Caroline,” she said, nudging poor Caroline with an elbow. “Tell Dr. Vii how you never loved him—how everything you said to him was an act and you never had any intention of staying with him.”

  Caroline’s mouth worked for a moment, as though she was fighting the drugged compulsion as best she could, but in the end, the chemicals in her bloodstream won out.

  “I never loved you, Doctor Vii,” she said in a dry, cold voice. “Everything I said to you was an act and I never had any intention of staying with you.”

  “Indeed she did not,” Lord Harkens blustered, mounting the stage to stand beside Richard. “For it is me she wants.”

  “What?” Richard dropped the quill and glared down at the shorter man. “What is the meaning of this, Harkens?”

  “After all the trouble you gave me following my first wife’s death, you should know,” the Viscount spat, glaring up at him. “Imagine, involving the constabulary and trying to have me investigated! I swore then that I would have my vengeance and so I shall. The moment you sign those papers of annulment, I will have Caroline for my own, to do with exactly as I please.”

  Richard’s face grew pale and his eyes narrowed to red slits.

  “You dare,” he growled thickly and lunged for the shorter man.

  But the Viscount dodged him with surprising agility and then Richard was stumbling forward towards a strange shimmering in the air.

  “What in the Seven Hells?” he asked hoarsely and then he was falling…falling out of his own, familiar universe and into a whole new world.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  “Oh no—we brought the wrong one through!” a female voice wailed and Richard found himself on his knees on a cold metal floor, surrounded by women who were staring at him askance.

  As though they’d ordered poultry from the market and the house maid brought home fish instead, he thought dazedly. And then he realized one probable reason they were staring—he was stark nude.

  But his lack of clothing wasn’t the most immediate cause for concern. Where was Caroline? And her mother and the judge, with his great white wig and the papers of annulment? And where was that bastard, Harkens? For that matter, where was the park and the trees and grass and clouds? And why was everyone dressed so strangely here?

  “Why are you all wearing trousers as though you were men?” he asked, looking up at the three women who formed a loose ring around him. “And where am I? And where are my clothes? Good God—I am entirely indecent!”

  Instead of answering his question, one of the women, with long dark hair and green eyes, turned to a male who was standing in front of a complicated looking instrument panel.

  “Oh dear, Sylvan—quick, put him back!”

  “I’m trying.” The male grimaced as he worked at the strange controls. Richard saw that he was a Kindred—a Blood Kindred, actually—if the fangs were anything to go by. “The window seems to have shut down and PORTAL won’t generate another at the moment,” he said.

  “Well, try harder,” another woman said flatly. She was curvy with auburn hair. “He’s starting to ask questions.”

  “It’s no good.” The Blood Kindred shook his head. “For some reason the window isn’t responding. The PORTAL is showing no inclination to take him back to his own world.”

  “Well, why did it bring him instead of Caroline in the first place?” the third female—this one with blonde hair and silvery-gray eyes—demanded. “Wasn’t she just as close, right before he stumbled into it? Why bring him instead of her?”

  Richard still didn’t know what they were talking about but he did recognize his wife’s name.

  “What’s that about Caroline?” he demanded, jumping to his feet and glowering at the people surrounding him threateningly. He didn’t care if he was naked, he would kill them all if they’d harmed her! “What have you done with her? Where is she? By the Goddess, if you’ve hurt her—”

  “She’s still back in your universe, Richard,” the dark-haired girl said gently, as though breaking bad news to him. “I’m sorry, but it seems like she
’s stuck there and you’re stuck here. Um…maybe you’d better put this on.”

  She reached for a long white coat hanging from a peg on a nearby wall and handed it to him. Richard snatched it and pulled it on, glad to be covered but still completely confused.

  “Maybe not completely stuck,” the Blood Kindred said, frowning. “This eventuality bears out some of the theories I have been working on about how the time/space fabric of the different universes in the Multiverse correspond with each other.”

  Richard had had just about enough of this babble.

  “What in the Seven Hells are you all talking about?” he demanded. “Where am I and what is going on?”

  “I think I’d better take this one.” The blonde Blood Kindred stepped forward. “Doctor Vii, you don’t know me, but I and my mate and colleagues here…” He nodded at the three women. “Have been watching you via an inter-dimensional window generated by this machine which is called PORTAL for some days. It shows scenes from different worlds—and different times—than ours.”

  “What? Why?” Richard demanded. “And do you actually expect me to believe that you are able to open a magic window between one world and the next in order to spy upon the inhabitants of said world?”

  “I’m afraid if you don’t believe us, it will make explaining your situation extremely difficult,” the Blood Kindred said. “And it is not magic, but science. As a physician, you must be a man of reason. Will you allow me to briefly explain the technology to you?”

  “All right.” Richard didn’t see that he had much choice. He appeared to be stuck here but at least no one was trying to harm him. “By all means, proceed,” he told the other male.

  “Very well. I am not the inventor of PORTAL, so I only have a rudimentary knowledge of how it works, but basically…”

  The Blood Kindred went into a lengthy and very technical explanation which Richard did his best to follow. The machine was fascinating and the function it preformed even more so. Moreover, he had to take in the concept that there was not just one universe but multiple ones, layered over each other like the concentric skins of an onion.

  “All right,” he said at last, when he had grasped the concept. “Barring any other explanation I must accept what you are telling me is likely to be the truth. But I still do not understand why your machine—why PORTAL—brought me here.”

  “I have a theory but it might make you even more skeptical,” the blond Kindred told him. “It has to do with doubles and heredity. You see, when this technology was first introduced to us, we assumed that everyone has a double who looks like them in every universe.”

  Richard raised his eyebrows. “The idea that one is not unique but is, in fact, a copy that is repeated over and over and over again ad infinitum in various universes is disconcerting to say the least.”

  The other male nodded. “It is. However, I no longer believe that to be true of everyone. I think that only a few, rare individuals have a double in every world. And when they are missing from one of those worlds, it creates a vacuum which can draw another double from a different world into the world where their double has died or is not currently living. Hence the reason you were drawn from your own world into ours.”

  Richard stared at him blankly. “Are you saying, Sir, that my ‘double’ has died in your world?”

  “He did.” The Blood Kindred nodded. “Almost two hundred years ago. I know this because your double…” He drew a deep breath. “Was my ancestor—or so I believe. I am Dr. Sylvan Vii and you—or your double—was my many-times great grandfather.”

  “What?” Richard stared at him. “You think we are in some way related? Are you mad?”

  “Not at all,” the other said earnestly. “I know that it should be impossible since your mother was an Earth woman—or rather, a Terran woman—but I have an ancestor who looks exactly like you and has the name, Ri’chard Vii. He was a rare, black-haired Blood Kindred who was also a physician. He looked exactly like you. See?”

  Sylvan reached into an inner pocket and pulled out a small, flat device about the size of a coin. At a flick of his thumb, a hand-sized bust suddenly appeared, hovering over his palm like magic.

  “What witchery is this?” Richard demanded, recoiling from the image, which was not flat like a portrait but rounded and had all the contours and proportions of life about it.

  Sylvan frowned. “It is a three-dimensional likeness made with light—a hologram. Have you no holograms on your version of the Kindred Mother Ship?”

  Richard shook his head. “I do not know. I have never been there—nor am I allowed to visit unless I wish to face exile from Terra and stay aboard the Mother Ship forever.”

  “I suppose a hologram would look like magic to nineteenth century eyes,” the dark-haired woman said. “I mean, they barely had black and white photography. A hologram would seem really strange to them.”

  “Look at it again,” Sylvan urged. “Do you see the resemblance?”

  Indeed, the small bust—the hologram, Richard reminded himself—that he was holding, resembled Richard almost completely, right down to the way his hair was parted and the color of his eyes.

  “This is impossible,” he said flatly.

  “No, it’s not—it’s the only explanation for why you were pulled from your own world into ours,” Sylvan said earnestly. “Because our world sensed a vacuum caused by your doppelganger’s death and tried to fill it by dragging you here.”

  “That’s probably the same reason Caroline was dragged into his world in the first place,” the auburn-haired woman said. “Because when the other Caroline was struck by lightning and died, that world sensed a vacuum and pulled her over.”

  “What did you say?” Richard’s stomach clenched like a fist. He had a sudden vivid memory—the awful sight of his beloved’s face, ravaged by the violence of the lightning strike—her eyes popped and running like broken eggs and her tongue protruding from between blackened lips…

  No! The image was too horrible—he pushed it away. But he could not push away the questions that came with it.

  “What other Caroline?” he asked, looking at the auburn-haired woman. “What are you speaking of?”

  “Kat!” hissed the blonde-haired woman. “I can’t believe you told him like that! He still doesn’t know!”

  “I didn’t mean to—it just slipped out,” the redhead protested.

  “What slipped out? What don’t I know?” Richard demanded. When no one seemed inclined to answer, he rounded on Sylvan, who was looking distinctly uncomfortable. “If you are truly of my lineage, then I charge you by the blood we share to tell me the truth of this matter,” he said. “You must answer me—blood cannot lie to blood.”

  “Very well—though this was not the way I had hoped to tell you and it is not really my secret to tell.” Sylvan sighed. “Brace yourself please, Richard. The Caroline you have known for the past three days in your own world is not the Caroline you were married to. The woman you have been with ever since the lightning strike in the park is Doctor Caroline Lambert of our universe.”

  “So Caroline…is not the Caroline I knew?” Richard felt his stomach clench all the harder. “If that is so, then where is my Caroline? Good God, man—where is my wife?”

  Sylvan took a deep breath and there was sorrow and regret in his pale blue eyes, so much like Richard’s own.

  Richard knew that look. Had he not felt it often enough on his own face when he was forced to tell the loved one of a patient that they were gone forever? Once more the image of Caroline’s dear face, all blackened and ruined by lightning, flashed before his eyes and once more he tried to push it away… but this time it refused to leave.

  “She’s not…is she…is she dead?” The word came out in a low, hoarse whisper, as though his throat was reluctant to voice it. But Richard couldn’t stop himself from asking.

  “I’m afraid so.” Sylvan came forward and gripped his shoulder. “Forgive me, but she came to us that way. I tried to save her but the
re was nothing I could do. She was struck by lightning in your world and then her body was transported here and our Caroline—Dr. Lambert—was sent into your universe through the window created by PORTAL.”

  “I…I do not believe it. I cannot believe it,” he said but he saw in Sylvan’s eyes that he was telling the truth.

  “I hate to ask you this but…would you want to see her body?” the blonde haired woman asked. “Sometimes it’s easier to believe…and let go…when you can see the clear evidence in front of you.” She bit her lip. “I’m afraid it’s not in very good condition though—I mean, with the lightning strike and all…”

  “No.” Richard shook his head. “No, I…I saw her. For only a split second before the transfer took place. But then she appeared before me again, whole and well, and I convinced myself it was some kind of an evil dream.”

  “I’m afraid the woman you saw was our Caroline—Dr. Lambert—who had been pulled from our world into yours,” Sylvan told him gently.

  Richard ran a hand through his hair.

  “You keep calling her Doctor Lambert. Are women able to become physicians here in your world—as well as wearing trousers like men?” he asked, eyeing the three women gathered around him and Sylvan.

  “Oh no, she is not a medical doctor—although women most certainly can be physicians here. As my colleague and sister-in-law, Olivia proves.” He nodded at the blonde woman who had offered to show him Caroline’s body. “But Dr. Lambert has a doctorate in science. In fact, she is the one who designed and built PORTAL in the first place.” He swept a hand towards the complicated looking instruments attached to the large brass frame.

  “She…built that?” Richard stared with loathing at the thing which had dragged him out of his own world and into this strange, new one. “Why did she do it? So that she could kill my Caroline and take her place?”

  “Of course not!” Olivia spoke earnestly. “Caroline had no idea what she would see when she tested PORTAL for the first time. She had a theory that there were multiple universes but she told us that she just wanted to peel back the first layer and look at the universe closest to our own. In fact, she specifically thought that the odds of anyone looking into the window PORTAL generates and seeing their double were a trillion-to-one.”