A Conspiracy to Murder, 1865

by T. L. B. Wood

  “Stop it,” Kipp ordered. “You are only hurting yourself.”

  “We could go back and live there with him,” I replied defiantly. “I know I could make him understand,” I added, not sure that I really could. When we’d left him, he reluctantly understood that I was traveling through time. Still, he could only accept I managed such a remarkable feat through a machine of some sort like one out of the imagination of H.G. Wells. Would he feel love towards a non-human pretending to be a woman?

  “Any time you want to return, Petra, I am yours and will follow wherever you go. Always,” Kipp added, his amber gaze meeting mine. His eyes could be alarmingly intense and intimidating or soft with emotion…they were decidedly soft at that moment.

  I knew he would, without question or complaint, do exactly that. But he was young, much younger than I, and his heart was filled with excitement to travel and be, well, a symbiont. Despite all Kipp’s generous and well-intentioned protestations, he would not be content pretending to be my dog as I lingered at the side of a human man. Kipp was young, idealistic, and eager to stretch the boundaries of his enormous capabilities. I was imperfect and could be as selfish as any human on earth, but I wasn’t quite selfish enough to impose a life of inertia upon my best friend.

  “No, maybe one day, but not now,” I replied neutrally. Glancing at the clock resting on the dresser top, I saw that my lack of need to primp for guests had served me well. I’d managed to wash, comb my hair, and dress in less than fifteen minutes. Feeling satisfied at the economy of my actions, I stared at the pearls, which seemed to glow as if lit by some internal, magical spark of life. Reaching for them, my fingers hesitated as they hovered over the strand. Could I leave them behind, just this once?

  Kipp was staring at me from his comfortable spot on my bed. The sheets and quilt were tumbled, creating a soft nest for him. He always slept with me, his jaw resting comfortably upon my chest, my hand caught up in the heavy nap of fur encircling his thick neck. He’d introduced me to dream manipulation, a skill thought to be long extinct in our species. But I’d found I possessed the same talents in that area as did my Kipp. I often speculated, as did the small circle of friends who knew Kipp and I were privately stretching boundaries outside of the control of the governing body at Technicorps—also known as the Twelve—as to what our limits might be in terms of telepathic skills. That particular small, safe circle was about to congregate in my house for dinner, and it was a relief to not pretend to be something that Kipp and I were not. And we were definitely not a conventional duo of symbionts.

  “Wear the pearls, Petra,” Kipp said. “You’re not ready to leave them—or him—behind, and it’s okay.” Kipp sighed, the sound soft in the confines of the room. “You may never wish to leave him behind, and that’s okay, too.” He tilted his head, looking dog-like as he did so. “And you look really pretty when you wear them.”

  Kipp did not yet understand the nuance of love and how it could bind us to one another. Yes, his love for me was intense and boundless, but it was the love of a friend, companion, and sometimes that of a pup with his mother. I had no doubt he would die with me and for me just as I would for him. I’d tried to encourage him not to limit his love to just me. In fact, there was a lovely young female lupine, Elani, who would be arriving in just a few minutes. And there was no doubt that she was filled with the pining sort of love that caused one to ache interminably for my Kipp. In the symbiont world, he could join with her as a bonded couple, a marriage of lupines if you wish, and have a family, just as I’d once done. Smiling, I thought of Kipp with a room full of young pups biting at his legs and tugging at his large ears in rough play.

  “Okay, don’t go there,” Kipp admonished me. “I’m not ready for that, and you know it, Petra.”

  “I’m sorry, Kipp. You know I’m not pushing you at all. It was your fault, anyway, bringing up Harrow again.” I was seated at my dresser and staring at his reflection in the mirror. “I’m not ready to give up traveling, anyway, and I know you’re not.” Laughing, I remarked, “It’s just fun to think of a room full of your kids, tearing up the place.” Oddly, I felt like a potential grandmother, watching my adopted son, Kipp, create a family full of mischief and chaos, as I calmly imparted wisdom upon all. “And you will make a wonderful father one day.”

  “You’re not that old, Petra,” Kipp grumbled, tired of my bizarre musings. “And you’re not that wise, either,” he added, inserting a little mean spirited zing in the conversation.

  “My arm makes me feel old,” I replied, reaching up to gently touch the afflicted area. Yes, the cast was off, but it ached still, and often the throb intensified when the clouds were dark and heavy with moisture, and the rain was about to fall. I’d always attributed complaints about rainy weather affecting joints and such to an old wives’ tale or peculiar superstition among humans, but it was a fact, I’d found, which applied in equal measure to symbionts.

  “We need a vacation,” Kipp opined, jumping down from the bed to the worn braided rug that for years had served as a barrier between my bare feet and the worn wooden floor of the bedroom.

  Years, I thought. When would we be forced to leave this house, one which carried the imprint of my traveling as well as my persistently sentimental nature? I’d somehow managed to fill it with pieces of junk as well as some truly nice finds at flea markets and antique stores. There is no need to examine my propensity to select some little obscure object that would be overlooked by others…perhaps a cream pitcher with a chip in the porcelain that would make it an object to discard in favor of another which shone with perfection. And then there was the fact I’d also filled the house with fellow symbionts who mattered greatly to me—Fitzhugh and Juno—as well as one little cat who seemed to think that Kipp, much to his embarrassment, was her mother. My life with Tula had been more simple and carefree than now. But my life seemed to have more consequence, and I felt more content than ever.

  “Yes, we do need a vacation,” I replied. “How do you feel about a trip to the Smokies?”

  Kipp hesitated, and I knew without reading his thoughts that he had something else in mind but would defer to me, as usual, just because he loved me. That quality was one I appreciated but had to fight against. Kipp was an equal partner in the relationship, and his needs also mattered.

  “What were you considering?” I asked, trying to prompt him.

  “Well, I was reading about this haunted steamboat that appears in a river in Alabama,” he began.

  I was thankfully spared a reply because a familiar tingle in the back of my mind told me that guests had arrived.

  Two

  “What’s for dinner?” Philo asked, never one for polite moments of murmuring how delightful it was to see one another and similar endearments. He gently squeezed my uninjured arm, and that would be about all I could expect, although sometimes I got a reckless kiss on the top of my head. Of course, he could skid by with such behavior since I’d known him longer than anyone else in the room, and our relationship might best be compared to that of brother and sister. I could become angrier at him than anyone I knew but take his side against all who would oppose him. Reluctantly, he’d become the leader of our oversight group and was now my boss, which could be interesting since I had the unfortunate tendency to oppose authority. Despite my irritable reaction to anything smacking of control, I was reasonable enough to recognize you couldn’t have pairs of time travelers freewheeling in the past, meddling and manipulating history and changing the intended timeline of humanity. Some of my kind had done that sort of thing with disastrous results. We depended upon our elders and the careful recording of our history to keep us in check; Fitzhugh and his library was a critical part of that process.

  Tall, slender, with graying hair and dark eyes that looked more shadowed of late, Philo was a couple of hundred years older than me—and that counted minimally for symbionts—but stress had aged him. I no longer mentioned the fact that Claire, his wife, was not at his side for events. He only tal
ked about it rarely now, and I gave him the space needed. Philo was one of us who had never traveled, and he chose to bond early on with a humanoid symbiont. Their one son, Silas, had a history with Kipp and me, and I had no desire to discuss him. A shame, really, that Silas had failed to inherit his father’s wonderful qualities. I’d tried to like Silas, for Philo’s sake, but just couldn’t bring myself to overlook his lack of ethics and selfishness. Philo and I just didn’t “go there” anymore.

  But something I did appreciate was that Philo frequently went off the grid, so to speak, and would allow Kipp and me to be debriefed without the noxious meddling of the Twelve. Of course, this was a violation of his job responsibilities, but he was wise enough to give us room to perform. The majority of the Twelve had never traveled and had no idea of the impact of their arbitrary and ignorant controls on those of us who did. When your life is on the line, as mine has been on many an occasion, you can’t pause to reference the policy and procedure manual for the next step to be taken. There was a certain amount of going by the seat of one’s pants that was involved in time-shifting.

  It hadn’t been that long ago when Philo approached me with a new task…one which I almost flatly refused before I was reminded that I worked for Technicorps and to do as I was told. But that task had turned out to be one that enriched my life, and I couldn’t envision not having the young duo of Peter and Elani tagging along with the thought they’d one day be leading the way as I geared back to assume the role of wise elder. My only regret was that I lacked the ability to grow a long beard as did Fitzhugh; somehow, the hair threaded with gray cascading across his chest made him look the part. And what if I just grew older but failed to grow wiser? I tried not to linger on that disturbing notion.

  The history of our kind had been that once we could bond with natural ease and travel. But the consequences of a relatively small number of us working to create more symbionts seemed to negatively impact that once prevalent ability. Now, young pairs had to be carefully selected for compatibility, and Peter and Elani had made the grade. The other fact was that many of us just didn’t want to do something so dangerous as well as limiting the prospects for huddling around the hearth on a cold and blustery evening, reading bedtime stories to dewy-eyed youngsters. Traveling and family just didn’t mix well. Peter was young enough to not care about such things, and Elani was in love with Kipp, so anytime she could be hovering in his charismatic orbit, she was happy. Kipp, gruffly but kindly, kept his distance from her emotionally, so as to spare her feelings. And despite my telepathic connection with him, I had no idea how he really felt about her. That was obviously concealed deep in a layer of his brain inaccessible to me. I’d learned to not tease him about Elani’s feelings, an issue about which he had absolutely no sense of humor.

  Peter, with his boyish mop of dark hair and brown eyes that sometimes peered out from behind tortoiseshell-rimmed glasses, could play a variety of parts during travel. His earnest expressions and partially honest naivety caused humans to effortlessly fall for his deceptions. In short, he seemed well-intentioned, and people naturally gravitated towards him. With the addition of a mustache and beard as needed, he could also appear older than his years. I grudgingly admit that he was moving faster in his career of traveler at the young age of fifty than I had, but in all honesty, I always have been remarkably lazy and not particularly smacking of ambition. But I was managing to keep up with the youngsters, and it was only after landing from a time-shift that I really felt my age. After all, at over 350 years older than Peter, I had a right to grumble from time to time.

  At his side was Elani, one of the more lovely young lupines I’d ever seen. The colors in her coat, which was gray undershot with silver hairs, caused her to glow and shimmer when the lighting was just right. I could think, in my more speculative moments, that she was a creature based upon the imagination of a romantic author not bound by the usual rules of nature. Before Elani could stop herself, she glanced at Kipp, who was studiously examining a crack in the sheetrock of my ceiling. Yes, I’d seen that longing, aching heart expression before in my life…most recently staring back at me from my vanity mirror when deep in recollection about William Harrow…and I felt for the youngster. Kipp wasn’t ready for such romantic involvements and wanted to travel. A first crush is a difficult road to navigate.

  My small dinette table in the kitchen looked as if it had survived a natural disaster, what with the battered vinyl top complete with a burn mark where someone had thoughtlessly set a hot pan. I sighed. The set was just another Petra rescue of some discarded item shoved in a dusty corner of an easily overlooked and crowded store that had weekly auctions to manage the bulging inventory. Fitzhugh and I began our mornings, now, playing peek-a-boo at one another across the top of that table. I became aware Kipp was staring at me.

  “What?” I asked, using our private manner of communication that just included the two of us.

  “You are getting very sentimental these days,” he replied, pausing from his bowl of chicken and rice.

  Trying to ignore him, I chased some vegetables around the bowl of soup I’d ladled and reached for another piece of cornbread, which I aimlessly crumbled on my plate. Fitzhugh and Philo were engaged in a rather high spirited argument about a proposed change to Fitzhugh’s beloved library over which he felt ownership. I tried to ignore them, too. Glancing over at Juno, I saw she’d finished with her dinner, lacking the hearty appetite of the youngsters, Kipp and Elani. With a wink at me, she circled for a minute before plopping on the floor with a sigh and a soft thud. She had not eavesdropped on my dialog with Kipp, but I had a notion she sort of divined the issues that were left off the table. Juno was sensitive in that way, a gift of long life and gentle heart.

  “I think I’ve figured out why,” Kipp continued. I knew when he got like this the best action on my part was to not return fire. “You were alone, just you and Tula, for many years and got accustomed to that. Except for dealing with a few symbionts, you were isolated.” I rolled my eyes at him, wishing he’d stop. “Your relationship with Fitzhugh was combative, and Philo has always been comfortable, like an old shoe. Now, Fitzhugh is like your family, as is Juno, and Peter and Elani are like family, too.” Kipp tilted his head. “You enjoy this connectedness and sense of family even though you will deny it to the end.”

  “Why would I do that?” I replied.

  “Because you’re stubborn and sometimes kind of stupid.”

  “Are we boring you?” Philo took his turn staring at me. “I’m sure you and Kipp have some enormously important dialog in process. And as long as you’re not discussing my rapidly graying hair, the dark circles under my eyes, or my concave backside, then I really don’t care.”

  He, of course, was teasing me.

  After we finished eating, I walked out on the narrow back porch to watch Kipp and Elani frolic as darkness approached; a stiff, slow Juno followed, enjoying observing, without envy or grief over lost days, the youngsters engaged in their rough play. She had once done such herself, but that was a long time past. Peter and Fitzhugh had volunteered for clean up duty, and I rushed outside before either could change his mind. Philo followed in a moment, and we stood there together, watching the sky change colors as twilight descended. It was that wonderful moment of utter stillness that covers the land as the sun drops from sight beneath the far horizon.

  I knew I’d not been a good friend of late in terms of supporting him with his issues with Claire and the strain on their marriage. Quite honestly, after my return from a time-shift to the Titanic, I’d been so mired in processing my memories of that experience, that I’d not been very attentive to anyone. It was best for symbionts to limit their attachment to humans encountered in search of history’s moments, and I found I had managed that quite nicely when a young and callow youth. I could lie with ease as I assumed my make-believe role and not bat an eyelash. As I aged, I found it progressively more difficult to maintain an artificial relationship with people who believed they were
getting to know me. The fact was humans never got to know me, and I felt alone when in their presence. Kipp was right, I think. A convergence of events was softening me, and that was not a good thing for a symbiont. We were meant to be tough and analytical, if nothing else.

  “I enjoyed our walk in Duke Forest,” Philo began. It was obvious he was launching an opening meant to draw me in, and I would be forced to reply. With a sigh, he took a seat on the porch step. After a moment’s hesitation, I joined him, our shoulders lightly touching. From the darkness, we heard Elani bark excitedly as Kipp flashed past her and into the halo of the backyard light, before disappearing again. Juno looked at me, her jaw-dropping in a lupine smile. The energy and silliness of youth, she was thinking.

  “It was nice,” I replied, my voice bland. Since the Titanic, I’d been plagued with nightmares and would awaken each morning at the time the Titanic slid past the surface of the cold Atlantic. Kipp knew, of course, and wanted to go into my mind and manipulate my dreams to happy ones, but I had prohibited such things. It didn’t take a human analyst to tell me that I had issues I was working out. And Fitzhugh only had to look at the shadowed stains beneath my eyes each morning as we stared at one another across the dinette while sipping the morning brew of Earl Grey and waiting for a Pop-Tart to spring from the toaster.

  “I have to think,” Philo continued, undeterred, “that some of my best times have been spent with us walking along some overgrown path, the ferns and undergrowth brushing against my legs, as we try to get lost in the midst of someplace isolated and seldom trod.” A dreamy, philosophic smile crossed his face. “And in the fall, when the leaves are almost blindingly bright as the sun highlights all the beautiful colors…I feel grateful and speechless.” Philo’s smile faded. “And then we all are forced to return to reality when we realize the leaves are in their death spiral and will soon fall to earth.”