by Wendy Nikel
Shipping records. Page after page of cargo manifests from fifty years prior. I skim the documents, trying to make sense of them. The cargo doesn’t seem out of the ordinary: clothing, food, munitions. I glance at the dates again. 1862. 1863. 1864. The harbors: Charleston. Beaufort. Mobile. All Confederate ports during the Civil War. And yet the owner of the ship listed on the manifests is none other than Madeline’s war hero husband.
My hands shake as I re-tie the string and move on to the next dossier. Another wedding photo, this time with a younger Madeline, going by a different name. Another death certificate. Another will. Another stack of financial records indicating the man’s wealth. Another pack of incriminating documents, this one involving the murder of a beautiful young dancer.
And a third dossier. And a fourth. Each heavy with secrets dark enough to ruin a man’s life.
I remember Madeline’s words: “There is more than one way to get a man’s attention.” And what was it she’d said about her marriage? “I tried to fight my way into the business world, but no one wanted to listen to a woman, regardless of her experience or expertise. So I found another way: I married.”
Fortunately, President Wilson is still married and therefore safe from that particular fate, but if there was any question in my mind what Madeline intends to do with the information I have about him, it’s gone now. At least if the trail of blackmail she’s laid out here is any indication.
My hands shake, and I set the dossiers back into the drawer, trying to leave them just as I found them. I should have known that Madeline wasn’t who she said she was. Or I at least should have found out more about her before leaving my position with the Harvey Girls to travel across the country with her. I’d been so drawn in by her poise and confidence, so relieved that someone believed me, that I let myself get carried away.
A shadow falls over me, though I hadn’t heard any footsteps approaching.
“Find anything interesting?”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“Madeline.” I stand and smooth my skirt, my mind racing to find a way to explain, to justify snooping around my hostess’s quarters. I can’t come up with anything, so I keep my mouth shut. Admit nothing.
“May I ask what you’re doing in my writing desk?” She floats toward me, and I fight to stand firm. I’ve done nothing wrong. Besides the snooping. But compared to what all those documents implied, that’s hardly anything. Madeline may be older, richer, more influential…
But no. I’m more than that. I’m a time traveler. I straighten my shoulders.
“I wanted to know what you intended to do with the information you requested about the president. And it seems rather clear to me that you have some experience using other people’s secrets for your personal gain. This isn’t what I agreed to. I want to make a difference. I want to make the world a better place.”
“Of course you do,” Madeline says, taking me by surprise. “As do I.”
I hesitate, not entirely trusting the serene look on my hostess’s face.
“Come now,” Madeline says, taking the chair that I’d been sitting on and settling herself down on it. “You wanted to know, so ask. I only came up here to freshen up before my guest of honor arrives, so you’ll have to forgive me for hurrying this discussion along.”
“Your husbands. You targeted old, dying men and blackmailed them into marrying you for their wealth. For your personal gain.”
“My dear girl,” Madeline says, taking a compact of scented powder from one of the desk compartments and using it to pat her face. “It’s not for my personal gain. I am a philanthropic woman. Everything I own, I use for the betterment of society. For suffragettes, for orphanages, for the downtrodden of the world.”
“And for parties with music and dancing and fancy dishes and ballgowns.”
“Yes,” she says with a smile. “Perhaps the world spins differently two hundred years into the future, but at this point in time, money is power. It is influence. And in order to make the world a better place, you need that power and influence.”
“That doesn’t make it right.”
“But is it really so wrong? To siphon that power and influence from corrupt men who don’t deserve it anyway?”
“That isn’t what I came here for.”
“No. You came here because you wanted an audience with the president, which I am about to give you. Do you really think I’d be able to accomplish that if I were a poor widow living on the streets? Goodness, never! But because I have money, because I have power and influence, I was able to align the stars so that tonight, he’ll be under this very roof.”
“You mean… the party tonight?”
“He is the guest of honor.” She practically beams with delight. “No thanks at all to the Secretary’s nephew or his wife’s cousin, twice removed. I should have never bothered with those awful people.”
“But how? Who did you blackmail to get him here?”
“No one at all. Though I must say, your information about the radio was quite useful; once he heard that I am now the majority stockholder of the DeForest Radio Telephone and Telegraph Company, he seemed quite eager to meet me.” She sets aside the compact and studies me. “Are you always so suspicious?”
“When I have reason to be. What do you intend to tell him when you get him here?”
“That depends on what information you provide me.” Madeline reaches for a small pot of bright red pigment, which she carefully paints onto her lips with a brush. “All men have secrets, and powerful men tend to have more than the average. Once he realizes that none of his are hidden from us, he’ll have no choice but to comply with our wishes. Suffrage for women, an end to the war… nothing we desire will be withheld.
“Now,” she says, taking my arm and guiding me out of the room. “Now that everything is laid out, can I count on you to assist me? I know not all of it is as lovely and cheery as you might have hoped—life in these times rarely is—but I think if you consider the situation carefully, you’ll see that what I’m doing is entirely justifiable and any unpleasantness is worth the price of a better future. That is what you wanted, isn’t it?”
I inhale deeply, trying to calm my racing heart and sort through my thoughts. It is what I wanted. It’s what I set out to do when I’d come here: to make the world a better place, to influence those in power to avoid the mistakes that, in my era’s past, they made. And if someone with my foreknowledge had the president’s ear, that might be enough to prevent at least some of the horrors and pain to come.
But at what cost?
“I can’t.” I pull away from her grasp. “I do want those things. I do. And I want to use my knowledge to help others. But I can’t just sit by while you turn the president into your puppet.”
I don’t trust her with that power.
Madeline’s smooth face turns stony and her eyes flash with something wild and dangerous. In that split second, I can see, beneath the refined surface, the true nature of the woman who’d filled those dossiers, who’d manipulated her way into a place of wealth and influence.
“I’m very sorry you feel that way,” she says, her voice low. She leans in and, before I can do anything, her hands are on my shoulders, shoving me with unexpected strength.
I teeter at the top of the stairs, arms flailing for one frozen moment, before gravity pulls my body downward, tumbling me head-first into the polished wooden steps. I throw out my hands to slow my fall, but the edge of the step finds my forehead, and—try as I might to fight against it—the world goes black.
***
I wake on a cot, much harder than the mattress I’ve grown used to. It takes a moment for my eyes to adjust to the dim light of my surroundings. My head throbs, and when I press my hand to my temple, the bruise there makes me wince. Pain radiates from my hip and shoulder, and I rub them as I slowly sit up.
I’m in a dark, cramped room with a door opposite the cot and a small, rectangular window near the ceiling, out of which I can only see the sky, now a deep,
dusky blue. From somewhere beyond comes the barely audible sound of music. I must still be on the estate somewhere, but the bare room and stone walls give no indication of where. An unused cellar? A shed on a far edge of the property? I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to stop the ringing in my ears, the dizziness, the pain.
My mouth is dry and my pulse thrums through my body, but I stand and brush myself off, determined to take inventory of my surroundings before panicking. There’ll be plenty of time later for that.
First, I try the door. Locked, as I suspected. The knob doesn’t give at all beneath my hand.
On the cot is a single blanket—thin, but well-made. Beside the door sits a crate, and on that, I find a few items obviously left by Madeline: a pen and inkwell and a stack of paper. The top sheet already has some writing on it, and I bring it over to where the pale evening sunlight falls across the wall to read it.
Just seeing Madeline’s wispy scrawls so infuriates me that my hand shakes.
Deep breath. First, read it. There’ll be plenty of time for anger later, too.
I regret that we were unable to become partners in this endeavor, the note reads. It was my wish that we two women could join for a common purpose and, together, rise above this oppressive society that refuses to take us at our word. Since you have decided, however, that you do not wish to participate freely in this pursuit, you force me to resort to less pleasant means of extracting the information I need.
The details outlined on the page within your stockings—
I reach for my leg and am horrified to discover that those hateful articles of clothing have again betrayed me. Somewhere between here and the third-floor staircase where I fell, they slipped from their proper place just above my knee and, in the process, gave up President Wilson’s secrets.
In fury, I aim a kick at the door. It thuds hollowly, making my toes ache. I wish now that I’d kept my shoes.
“My PVDs!” I reach down the front of my blouse and breathe a sign of relief when I discover the glasses, still tucked away and unbroken by my fall. Just the feel of their metallic frames fills me with relief and a renewed determination. She hasn’t gotten me beat yet.
The details outlined on the page within your stockings will be sufficient for the present, Madeline’s note says, but since we are no longer continuing in this operation as equals I must inform you that if, in the coming days and weeks, you wish for my continued hospitality in providing you with food to eat, water to drink, or clean garments to wear, these provisions will come at a cost.
I’m certain that, given enough time, you will find yourself quite adept at recalling useful information. At least I hope so. For your sake. When you are prepared to cooperate, ring the bell for Hugh. He will deliver your information to me, and I will evaluate its worth.
I grind my teeth and crumple the page into a ball. I won’t just sit idly by and feed her information about the upcoming months and years. I won’t.
I snap the pen in half and throw the inkwell against the wall. A dark stain spreads across the stone, shimmering like blood as it courses down the rough surface. I tear the papers in half and toss them in the air. They flutter downward, swirling in a weak draft that flows from the window high above.
I fix my eyes on that window and focus my ears on the distant orchestral songs. I have to get out. And I have to do it tonight, in time to save the president from Madeline’s manicured clutches.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
My first escape attempt involves turning the cot on its side and trying to balance on its rail-thin frame to reach the window above. It doesn’t work so well.
Using a broken piece of the inkwell, I pry loose some stones from the cellar walls and toss them up, where they rattle against the glass before falling back down on my head, but they don’t have either the force to break the window or the intensity to attract anyone’s attention.
It’ll have to be the door, then. I examine the heavy wooden door and the wall around it, as well as the brass doorknob. I try to wedge broken pieces of the pen into the jamb but only manage to break the pen into smaller bits. The gap beneath the door is large enough to see some light radiating from the other side, and I shout myself hoarse, hoping that someone might happen to wander past. Finally giving that up, I sit with my back against the door, silently fuming with my head in my hands.
None of this would have happened if I’d just listened to Dodge and gone about my new, early 20th century life without any regard for the future. If I hadn’t been so determined to fix the past. Maybe there was something to Dodge’s rules after all, his warnings about not making changes to the timeline. Maybe my current incarceration is history’s way of protecting itself, of making sure that Archduke Ferdinand’s assassination still happens, that the Great War still happens, that the temporal anomaly—me—is dealt with. I’m going to die here, and it’s all my fault.
But, no. I leap to my feet with sudden understanding. The only reason I was sent here is because I’m destined to be the ancestor of the time traveler who saved my father’s life. I don’t understand precisely how it all works, but if time or fate or destiny is trying to protect the established timeline—if all this happens to keep things on their pre-determined course—then I won’t die here. I can’t. I have to have children and grandchildren. I still have things to accomplish, a life to live.
Fresh determination rushes through me. Time is on my side, not Madeline’s.
When you are prepared to cooperate, ring the bell for Hugh.
A rope hangs near the doorway, its upper end disappearing through a hole in the floor. That must be the bell Madeline referred to. That’s my opportunity. I just have to be prepared to take it.
***
I ring the bell three times before I hear something like the sound of a door opening somewhere in the distance and footsteps falling on a staircase. Peering beneath the door, I can see the shadow of someone standing just outside, working a key in the lock.
Taking a deep breath and getting into position, I mentally work through the plan I’ve devised, clutching in my hand the largest remaining shard of glass from the broken inkwell.
The latch clicks noisily, and the door creaks open to reveal Hugh, standing there with a pistol leveled at me.
“I see you have recovered from your unfortunate tumble. The mistress will be pleased.”
My eyes dart from the thin, mustached man bearing the weapon to the heavy door he’d propped open behind him. Beyond is a staircase leading upward. To freedom.
“The door at the top of the stairs is locked,” he says, jangling the key on a chain around his neck.
“It doesn’t matter,” I say, holding my head high. “You can’t keep me here. There are plenty of people who know exactly where I am; they’ll come looking for me.”
“These people?” Hugh takes a stack of envelopes from an inner pocket of his jacket, and I recognize my own handwriting on the letters meant for Dodge and the Harvey Girls.
My heart sinks. “You… you…”
He nods toward his weapon and tucks the envelopes away. “You have information for Mrs. Barker?”
I hesitate. The shard of glass in my hand that had seemed so menacing before his arrival now seems small and pathetic when compared with his pistol. What had I thought—that I’d slice his throat? Even without the gun, he’d probably have just knocked it out of my hand before it got halfway to his neck. It’d been a stupid plan, not playing to my strengths at all. I wish that my parents had thought to make me enroll in self-defense classes rather than all those history courses.
“Well? The information?” Hugh repeats. He looks around to the scattered bits of paper and the ink stain on the wall. “Ah. I see. The mistress will not be pleased after all.”
“I’m not interested in pleasing the mistress.”
“You ought to be. She’s one of the cleverest women in this era and will soon be one of the most powerful. It was a mistake to take her kindness for granted.”
“Why? Because—” I
stop, mid-syllable. This era? “You know, don’t you? You know where I’m from?”
“The mistress trusts me in all matters,” he says smugly.
Something clicks in my head. “Then you realize what an awful position she put you in, don’t you? If tonight goes as your mistress plans, she’s going to have a whole team of time travelers descending on this estate faster than you can say ‘rip in the space-time continuum.’”
Hugh’s face remains blank. “Why would that be?”
“It just so happens that my brother is one of the top men in the business. He’s an expert—one who’s been up and down the timeline, with access to the past, present, and future. When he doesn’t hear from me, he’ll be looking. And a divergence like this? A new advisor to the president—a woman, who pops up out of nowhere and demands such massive, widespread changes? That’s surely going to catch his attention. They’ll raid the estate and find me here, and your mistress will be in bigger trouble than she’s ever imagined. And since you’re her main accomplice, I imagine they won’t go easy on you, either.”
“I don’t believe you,” Hugh says evenly. “Mrs. Barker has already informed me that you intended to prevent the war. Such a divergence, as you call it, would not have gone unnoticed.”
I shrug, feigning nonchalance, though inwardly, I’m cursing that I didn’t think of that when throwing together this haphazard story. “I told you: I’m the kid sister of a top-ranking official. The worst they’d do to me is return me to 2133. A slap on the wrist. The worst they’d to do Madeline? To you? Not only for altering the timeline, but also for kidnapping one of their own? I don’t think you want to know.”
Hugh’s mustache twitches, as if considering all I’ve said. He lowers his gun. “These cellar doors… They sometimes stick, leaving the latch not entirely engaged. If that were to happen after I leave you here…?”
I hold back a smile, amused to find that his sense of self-preservation outweighs his loyalty. “If that’s the case, then I’d have to pass that information on to my brother when he arrives. Let him know that you weren’t complicit with your mistress’s kidnapping schemes.”