by Wendy Nikel
“I would be out of a job,” he says. “Without references. Certainly this organization of your brother’s wouldn’t leave me destitute after all I’ve done for his sister?”
I scowl. What a weasel. You’d think his freedom would be reason enough to do the right thing. What else could I offer him? After this is all done, I’ll be out of a job without any references, too.
“Hmph,” Hugh says, obviously sensing my hesitation. He turns to the door. “Perhaps when I return tomorrow—”
“Fine,” I say through clenched teeth. I don’t have a lot in this era, but I do have one thing that’s very valuable. “I can’t guarantee you another job or references, but I can offer you information.”
“What sort of information?” He raises an eyebrow.
“About the future. You can ask one question.” I know as I say it that this is a bad idea, but what choice do I have?
“Horse races.”
“What?”
“I enjoy horse races, and if I must leave my mistress’s employ, I’d prefer to return to Montreal, where I was raised. They have a number of tracks there, and if I knew which horses would win on a particular day, I could make my wager and earn enough to live there comfortably.”
“You think I know off the top of my head which horses win races in Montreal in 1914?” I shake my head, unwilling to take out my PVD and tip my hand. “I’m a time traveler, not a walking almanac.”
“If you’re truly a time traveler, you’ll be able to acquire that information. I do not need it immediately, but when the travelers descend upon the mistress’s estate, can I trust you to not leave me destitute?”
It’s absurd. But it’s the only option I have, and I have nothing to lose by making the promise. It’s not like I really expect Dodge to show up and set Madeline straight, anyway. It was all just a bluff for Hugh.
“Fine,” I say. “We have a deal.”
“Excellent. Now, if anyone asks, I was never here, and I never saw you or spoke with you. You managed to jimmy the lock on your own. Agreed?”
“Fine.”
“Very good.” He tips his head as he turns to leave. “I expect to hear from you soon.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
I give him a five-minute head start before sneaking up the staircase. The door at the top sticks, and my heart leaps in my throat, thinking he must have lied, but when I give it a good shove, it bursts open out onto the side lawn, just out of sight of the lanterns and festivities in the yard.
I hesitate, gasping for air and wondering what I ought to do now and where I ought to go. First, I have to find the paper that Madeline stole from my stocking and destroy it. Without the details laid out on it— specific dates, times, quotations— Madeline’s information will be disregarded as mere rumor and speculation.
A side door opens into a corridor near the kitchens, and I duck into the shadows of a small alcove to wait out a stream of servants carrying dessert trays to the partygoers on the lawn.
“—you’d think he’d have better things to do with his time than come all the way out here for a party,” one of the servants mutters to another.
“The mistress can be very persuasive,” the second says with a nod.
“But he’s the president! And all this trouble with Mexico… and the miners in Colorado… I’m sure he has plenty to do in Washington.”
“Oh, give him a break,” a third server butts in. “His cousin just died in a motorcycle crash.”
“A distant cousin,” the first retorts. “I’ll bet he never even met the man—”
They disappear out onto the lawn and I breathe a sigh of relief; from the sound of it, the president hasn’t left. Hopefully Madeline hasn’t gotten her hands on him yet.
Inside the house is silent, with only the soft patter of my stocking feet on the hardwood floors as I dart in and out of the darkened rooms. I tiptoe up the stairs to the second-floor suite where I’d been staying and peer through a gap in the curtains to the garden below, searching for a sign of either Madeline or the president himself. Madeline will have to pull him aside at some point to blackmail him privately; as long as one or both of them are still among the partygoers, chances are, she hasn’t told him anything yet.
I spot him beside the buffet table, flanked by dark-suited guards and chatting with a small group of gentlemen. Madeline is across the lawn, playing the role of perfect hostess. She weaves in and out of the crowd, greeting others with a smile. Even from my place high above, though, I can see how her gaze keeps returning to the president. It’s getting late; she’ll have to make her move soon.
I grab my shoes and hurry down the stairs. Now that I know where the president is, I plot a course through the kitchens and across the lawn. I’ll need to blend in with the other guests if I want to intercept him before Madeline gets to him. I pause at the open kitchen door, waiting silently out of sight as servants carrying bottles of champagne exit out onto the lawn. Just as I’m about to slip my shoes on and follow, I hear my name.
“Miss Argent?”
I startle, spinning toward the voice, and my stockinged feet slip out from beneath me. An arm—stronger than I’d expected—grabs hold of mine and steadies me. I find myself staring up into a strangely familiar, freckled face.
“Oliver? Oliver McIntire?”
“At your service,” he says, releasing my arm. “You ought to put those shoes on so that you don’t hurt yourself.”
I absently slip the shoes onto my feet as I stare up at him. With his worn suit and bowler hat, he certainly doesn’t fit in with Madeline’s elegant and well-dressed guests.
“What are you doing here?” I ask.
“I… I was looking for you.”
“Me?”
“Yes, you see,” he says, removing his cap and looking flustered. “Mrs. Wallace was quite upset when you went missing from the California Limited. She thought you’d simply deserted, but—and forgive me if I’m being presumptuous—you didn’t seem to me the type of woman who’d simply break a contract without just cause.”
“But how did you find me? How’d you know I was here?”
“The other Harvey Girls were concerned about you as well, and they came to me—knowing, of course, that as an employee of Fred Harvey, I’d have an interest in your well-being—”
I raise my brows and he blushes, making it obvious that his interest in my well-being isn’t simply because I’m a Harvey Girl.
“Regardless,” he continues quickly, “the other young ladies told me that you’d been speaking with a certain Madeline Barker, and that she seemed to take a particular interest in you. I tried contacting her by telegram, but when she didn’t respond to my inquiries, I took it upon myself to visit her in person. Her butler kept turning me away at the door—”
“Hugh,” I mutter, as if it’s a curse.
“I had a feeling that the two were hiding something, and when I caught wind of all the hubbub around here and overheard the servants talking about a party, I thought I’d use it as an opportunity to sneak in while everyone else was preoccupied. I see now I was correct in thinking that there was some connection between her and your disappearance.”
It warms me inside to know that even here, centuries from home, there are people who care about me, who care enough to search for me.
“You seem to be… quite well, though,” Oliver says, looking me up and down. “Do you… That is… Do you need to be rescued?”
“I could use a ride back to the train station.”
“Were you in danger here?”
I hesitate. How can I explain all that transpired since leaving the California Limited? “Yes. Yes, I was. I was in danger of doing something incredibly stupid.”
Oliver furrows his brow, and I continue.
“Madeline Barker offered me an opportunity, and I convinced myself for a short while that I wanted to—that I had to go along with it. I see now that I shouldn’t have listened to her and shouldn’t have left like I did, but she was very persuasive, and
I didn’t realize the consequences.”
“What’s going on here, Mrs. Barker?” a deep voice rings out.
Standing before us are the elegant figures of Madeline and the president, her arm looped around his. Woodrow Wilson turns to his hostess, whose entire face is puckered up as if she’d just eaten a lemon.
“I thought we were going to discuss radio broadcasting,” he says. “Who are these people?”
Madeline sets her jaw and glares at me, as if daring me to say anything. When I don’t, she speaks up herself. “Mr. President, you should know that by the time two centuries have passed, man will have invented and perfected the impossible, and this girl is proof of it.”
“Oh?”
I step back, trying to look as ordinary and unimpressive as possible. Oliver sets a hand protectively on my shoulder. Anyone else, and I’d slap it away, but for some reason, I don’t mind.
“She is a time traveler,” Madeline continues. “She has confided in me some of the things which are to befall the country in the next few years. Things that are going on now, hidden from the public. Things that you may have an interest in. No, which I know that you will need to know.”
“You don’t really believe her, do you?” I ask.
He looks to me, then her. “No, I don’t believe such a thing is possible.”
“Then allow me to convince you.” Madeline pulls a piece of paper from her bodice. Not just any paper. The one from my stockings. The one with the power to tarnish his reputation.
The stern-faced man pushes his spectacles up farther onto his nose and takes the paper from Madeline. I hold my breath as he reads it, wishing I had never committed those words to paper. Wishing I could take them back.
“Well.” President Wilson’s face betrays nothing as he reads through the list. Calmly, he reaches toward a candelabra on the side table and passes the page into the flame.
“President Wilson!” Madeline gasps, lunging at him. Oliver steps forward and grabs her hand, holding her back. By the time she breaks his grip, there’s nothing left of the paper. Nothing but ash and the memories in my head. Memories that are once again mine to protect.
The older man turns to me. His eyes bore into me, stormy with emotion. “Well, then, miss. What else do you have to tell me about my future?”
I glance at Oliver, who’s staring, befuddled.
“I don’t know. I don’t know what she’s talking about.”
“You liar!” Madeline reaches toward me, hand raised, but Oliver steps in her way. Undaunted, she whirls around to face the president. “She does know. She’s told me everything. The Ludlow Massacre—she told me of that days before it happened. And radios and automobiles. And… and…”
“Now, now, Mrs. Barker,” he says.
“But your affair. Your health issues.”
“I don’t know what you’re speaking of.”
“They were all on that paper.”
“There was no paper,” he says evenly. He turns to Oliver and me. “Did you see one?”
“No, sir,” Oliver says.
I shake my head.
Madeline gapes. The president looks about and, spotting a maid bustling from the kitchen, calls out to her. “Excuse me? Excuse me, miss? Could you take your mistress up to her quarters? I’m afraid she’s had too much champagne.”
“Yes, Mr. President, sir,” the maid says, bobbing her head. She motions to another servant beyond, and together they lead Madeline up the steps. She protests the entire way, shouting curses at me.
“Thank you, Mr. President,” I say when the hostess’s voice fades away.
“No trouble at all,” he says, brushing a bit of ash from his fingers. “I haven’t the slightest idea what’s gotten into her, the poor woman. I assure you, though, I’ll be checking in on her frequently to ensure she doesn’t try to stir up any more trouble.”
“I’ll go get my carriage,” Oliver says, touching my arm. “If we leave now, we can catch the early morning train to Chicago. You’ll be back aboard the California Limited with the other Harvey Girls before you know it.”
If I’m lucky, before Dodge knows it, too.
“Thank you, Oliver.”
The president stands in the foyer with me as I wait for Oliver’s carriage. Just as I’m wondering if he’s about to allow the incident to pass so easily, he clears his throat.
“Mrs. Barker doesn’t have any other copies of that paper, does she?”
I shake my head.
“I thought not, based on her reaction to its destruction,” he says. “That’s quite a lovely watch you have there.”
My hand flies to my wrist and the silvery band there. I know, even without him saying it, that there’s more to his statement than mere admiration of the jewelry.
“You’ve seen one like it before?”
“I have. And I must say, I don’t know what Mrs. Barker’s intentions were, but if there was anything to what she said… any intelligence you feel you need to pass on before you depart—”
I open my mouth. Should I tell him? About Archduke Ferdinand’s assassination? The cost of the upcoming war? About—
“Don’t.”
I look up, startled. “Excuse me?”
“I’m going to ask that you don’t tell me a thing.”
“I don’t understand. Why?”
“Because,” he says, offering me his arm as Oliver’s carriage pulls up to the door. “I have taken an oath to uphold democracy, to lead according to the wisdom and will of my people. If I were to read the future like a crystal ball, to use my power to steer the events of the world, I’d be a dictator, not a president, depriving my people of their own thought, their own liberty. I would rather belong to a poor nation that was free than to a rich nation that had ceased to be in love with liberty. But we shall not be poor if we love liberty, because the nation that loves liberty truly sets every man free to do his best and be his best.”
I smile as he guides me out through the brisk night air and helps me into the carriage. “Thank you, Mr. President.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: June 28, 1914
“There’s someone to see you in the dining car,” Mrs. Wallace says, shooting me a familiar scowl. “You’d better make it quick. The passengers will be starting to arrive for dinner soon, and I’ll need you to take orders today, now that I’ve lost yet another girl to marriage.”
I set down the dishes I’d been washing and exchange a quick glance with Fanny, each of us trying unsuccessfully to hide our delight at Mary’s recent engagement to a man who not only adores her but also has been generous enough to adopt her younger siblings. Her family will be better off now that her brothers can focus on their farm work without also having to raise the little ones.
“Oliver again?” Fanny whispers as I dry my hands on a white terrycloth. I roll my eyes but can’t hide my smile. After escorting me back to Chicago to meet the train again, Oliver personally persuaded Mrs. Wallace to let me back under her wing, rather than transferring me to another position in the company where I wouldn’t know anyone. Every time the train passed through Chicago over the next weeks, he’d met me at the station—ostensibly to check up on me for my brother’s sake, even though Dodge likely wouldn’t have considered it necessary for him also to take me out for dinner and on walks in Jackson Park on my days off.
It’s a surprise, then, to walk into the dining car and see instead Dodge himself, looking exactly as I always remembered him, save for the early 20th century suit and bowler cap.
“Dodge!” I throw myself at him, biting back unexpected tears. “I’ve missed you.”
“Hey,” he says, pulling away to study me. “Are you all right?”
“Never better.” I drag my sleeve across my face and give him a genuine smile. “What are you doing here?”
“I thought I ought to check up on you,” he says, lowering his voice, “considering what date it is.”
“What date it—?” I cover my mouth. June 28. The date of the archduke’s assassination.
The beginning of the war. “I’d completely forgotten. I was so caught up in my training. Mrs. Wallace is incredibly strict, you see, and before that there was the whole thing with—”
I cut myself off.
“The whole thing with what?” Dodge asks.
“Never mind that.” I wrap my arms around him again. “I’m just glad that you’re here.”
“Well, I know how tempting it’d be to do something today, to try to change history. I must admit, I’m glad to hear that you’ve just been living your life. You’ll drive yourself mad worrying about the future like that.”
I think back on the past months and the people who have crossed my path—the Harvey Girls who may have unknowingly saved my life and who are eager to attend the next women’s suffrage march with me; the anonymous person who sent me a newspaper clipping about Madeline Barker’s arrest on charges of blackmail and extortion, in an envelope with a Washington, D.C. postmark; the soft-spoken clerk who’d promised to take me to the lake next time I’m in Chicago and has been trying to persuade Fred Harvey to increase his workers’ pay. None of them had needed knowledge of the future to make a difference in my life. And yet they have… so much.
“Do you think you’ll be all right here after all?” Dodge asks somberly.
“I think so,” I say, thinking of all the things that are to come in the next years. The world will need people like these: ordinary people who will do what’s right and speak for those who cannot. I may not be able to rely on my knowledge of the future to save the world from this dark time, but that doesn’t mean there’s nothing I can do. “It’s like you said: one ordinary person can make a world of difference.”
About the Author
Wendy Nikel is a speculative fiction author with a degree in elementary education, a fondness for road trips, and a terrible habit of forgetting where she’s left her cup of tea. Her short fiction has been published by Daily Science Fiction, Nature: Futures, and is forthcoming from Analog and Beneath Ceaseless Skies. For more info, visit wendynikel.com