by Andy Gavin
“Late afternoon, March 15, 1725. London.”
Good God. Two-hundred and seventy years before I was born! Not to mention five-thousand miles away. I thought we were in Philadelphia at least.
She puts her palms up in front of her face. “The Ides of March are come!”
“Is that important?” I say.
“Make of it what you will. How far uptime you from?”
“Uptime?”
“The future.”
“2011.”
“You be lying! You ain’t old enough to travel that far.”
Her gaze is intent, and it’s focused on me. All on me. I’m not used to it. Not even Mom ever paid me that much attention.
“I’m fifteen, and I woke up this morning in Philadelphia, January 2011.”
“You sayin’ you traveled all that way in but one hop?” She takes my hand across the table — not much of a reach, the top being the size of a medium pizza.
I nod.
“Well, if you ain’t lying most awful rotten, you’re not goin’ nowhere soon. There always be some recovery time—”
“What’s your pleasure?” a serving wench asks.
I don’t normally think of women as wenches, but this woman looks every bit the part: big, busty, and dirty, with a huge mole on one cheek.
“Two pints porter, and stew.” Yvaine squeezes my hand. This is the first time a girl’s ever squeezed my hand. Even if she’s a thief with crooked teeth.
“Have you seen my dad and aunt?” I say.
She shakes her head as I describe them. I know the answer before she says it.
“I only seen two travelers together one time, an’ that was an old geezer and his bag. I crawled up from the highlands, maybe two centuries past.”
“Highlander is one of my favorite movies!” I blurt out.
She takes her hand back and does a really lame job trying to comb out her matted hair with her fingers.
“Yvaine’s a Scottish name?” I say to fend off the silence.
“Means evenin’ star. Ma was an Inverness lass, but Da was French.”
“Are they here with you?”
She bites her lip, then says. “Tick-Tocks got ‘em.” She used that word before, in the alley.
“The clockwork guy?”
She nods. “If they kill you, you be gone forever. Even if someone goes back before an’ changes things, you stays dead.”
“Why? What are they?”
She shrugs. “Da telled me about ‘em, but it was so long ago I dinna half remember. There was a war and the Tocks comed from far uptime. Engines built to dodge and twist around the laws.” She shrugs and half smiles at me. “’Tis them against us—”
The wench slams two big mugs and a bowl of brown stuff on the table.
“Tuppence,” she says.
Yvaine looks at me, so I take out the purse she stole — but I don’t know what a pence looks like.
Yvaine reaches over, takes three copper coins, gives two to the wench, and drops the third down her cleavage.
“Me tip,” she says.
I’m more interested in time travel and the clockwork guys. “Other people didn’t notice the Tick-Tock was all mechanical. Why’s that?”
“Same reason no one remembers us.” She reaches under the table and puts her hand on my knee. “If you give me a shilling I’ll tell you what I knows.”
“Are you crazy?”
“Life ain’t never done me no favors.”
Her Shrek-girl accent and grin just sell it. I sigh and take out the purse again.
“How do I know that isn’t like a pound?” I say when she takes a coin.
“Would I cheat one of me own?” She taps the ‘shilling’ against my forehead, then leans over and kisses the spot, which tingles. Then she takes a big swig from her mug and uses the single wooden spoon to shovel some brown goop into her mouth. It dribbles down her chin. She pushes a nasty-looking chunk of meat onto the spoon using her filthy hand and offers it to me.
I eye the lump of fat and gristle and find my stomach is growling. When in Rome.
The stuff is tough and tastes like something my food-snob dad wouldn’t eat if he were starving. I try to wash it down with the contents of the mug.
Which are about the same color as the stew and incredibly bitter.
Yvaine laughs so hard she sprays the table with stew-colored spit.
“Your face looks like a dog with a rod up its arse,” she manages in between guffaws.
“Is this beer?” I ask.
“Porter. This is an alehouse, aye?”
I take another sip. The stuff is bitter as hell.
“Can I get some water?”
“You has a death wish? That’s a one-way trip to jail fever, dinna you ken!”
Yvaine drains her own cup and pounds it on the table. The wench brings us two more and I pay again.
“What’s the mug made of?” It’s heavy.
“Pewter.”
“Doesn’t that have lead in it?”
“An’ what if it do?”
Dragging my brain back on track, I realize I half forgot about something huge.
“Back at the church,” I say, “that friend of yours, is he the Ben Franklin?”
“What of it?”
I might be new to this, but I guess if she’s from the past, there are also things I know that she doesn’t.
“He’s from America, right? A printer?”
Yvaine nods.
Did Dad know I might end up here? He gave me Ben Franklin’s book, made me read it twice, even quizzed me on it before he left, even pissed me off by calling my answers subpar.
Was this adventure some sort of final exam? That seems a stretch. He gave me books about everything from Archimedes to Zapata.
“Ben Franklin’s really important,” I say, “or at least he will be. He’s one of the founding fathers.”
Her blank stare reminds me she doesn’t know what the hell I’m talking about.
“When America revolts and becomes its own country, he’s like hugely famous,” I say. “He’s on the hundred-dollar bill. He discovers electricity.”
“The colonials revolt?” She smiles. “I always know how to pick ‘em. Actually, what am I talkin’ about? I got the eye for the downy rakes.”
This is too weird. “That Tick-Tock came from Ben’s house in Philly. Was he chasing him or us?”
“Nobblers!” She spits on the floor. “They kills travelers on sight an’ they’re always up to funny business, muckin’ with time an’ whatnot.”
“You said they try to get around the law? The one I saw pretended to be a police officer. Are they time cops?”
She laughs again. “I didna mean man’s laws. Tocks are fashioned t’dodge the Lord’s natural edicts. Like how folk dinna notice us, or we always speak the language wherever we goes.”
I wonder what language she’s speaking.
“How’s didna different than dinna?”
Listening as I talk, I realize I’m speaking with a British accent. The universe sure is crafty.
“Didna your mum teach you dinna tease a lady?” She winks at me.
“I was just asking.”
“Anyways, we live outside history, same as the Tick-Tocks.” Yvaine shrugs. “We dinna belong.” She winks again. “Regular folk, they find it hard to see us, we find it hard to change things — except each other. An’ if we bring somethin’ to a time where it dinna belong, that somethin’ changes.”
Like my phone or my wallet. It’s hard to get my head around all this — the spinning room and beer-addled brain aren’t helping.
“People see what they expect in us,” she continues, “but smart folks notice us more than others. That’s why I like Ben. He’s sharp as a barber’s blade. Still, even he dinna remember me name.”
She pauses for a second then says, “Charlie.” This time when she puts her hand under the table, it’s my thigh she touches.
Which is great except for one thing.
&
nbsp; “How do I get home?” I say.
She laughs. “That’ll be a trick. Boys only travel downtime.”
Panic wells inside me. “There must be a way.”
“If I could fan about as I please, do you think I’d be sleepin’ in the slummin’ rookery?”
“I don’t feel so good.” In more ways than one.
“Can’t hold your drink?” Yvaine just finished off her third pint.
Once or twice I sipped at Mom’s pinot grigio, but that’s it. Now I’ve gone and had a mug and a half. I look into the dark amber fluid. God, I really have to pee.
“Is there a men’s room?”
“Huh?”
“I have to go to the bathroom.”
“You want to take a bath?”
I’m pretty sure my face goes bright red. “I mean, I have to piss.”
“Why didna you say so? The alley be most convenient.”
I stand, spin away, and find myself face to chest with a burly dockworker dude.
“Watch where y’goin’!” Mr. Twice-My-Weight says.
Yvaine rises and slides between us.
“He didna mean any offense, good sir.”
The big guy looks at her and mumbles, “Then ‘ave ‘im keep outta me way.” But he moves on.
“Thanks,” I tell Yvaine. “Assuming I make it back from the alley, what’s the chance you’re still here?”
“Pretty good.” She smiles. “I dinna have all your money yet.”
It’s still drizzling outside, but lightly. I crouch in the space between a nearby pile of garbage and a wall and try to unbutton my pants. Between the beer and the long-instead-of-round buttons, this proves more difficult than I thought.
When I return, Yvaine’s where I left her. Thank God. I don’t bother to ask about washing my hands.
“Thomas feelin’ better, does he?” She eyes my belt.
“Who’s Thomas?”
Distant church bells ring, nine times. They remind me of the creepy clockwork guy — the Tick-Tock.
“Donnie be here soon,” Yvaine says. “You better hide your coinage.”
“First Ben, then Thomas, now Donnie?”
“Donnie deals with the money. I’ll tell him you’re me cousin from Scotland. You’re fast, an’ nobody never notices us much. Just dinna let on that you has cole, and give him what he do see.”
“What’s cole?”
“Rum cole, good money. Queer cole, bad money.”
I nod. “You just want me to keep it safe so you can steal it later.”
“I like me a fast learner.”
Chapter Four:
Donnie
London, Spring, 1725
WHEN YVAINE TURNS AWAY FROM ME, it feels as if the sun slides behind a cloud.
She watches six or so noisy boys clomp down the narrow stairway from the street. Most range from eight to sixteen years old, but their skinny leader could be nineteen, maybe older. Even with his hat tucked under an arm he’s tall, his height enhanced by his cherry-colored high heels and enormous wig of white curls falling onto a peacock-blue jacket offset by a lipstick-pink vest, canary-yellow pants, peach stockings, and the red shoes.
This has to be Donnie. He swaggers over and thunks his lime-colored cane onto our table. His fingers are half-hidden by grungy lace shirt cuffs.
“If it ain’t me sassy lassie,” he says.
The addition of his ridiculous lisp almost brings my throttled laughter to a boil, but Yvaine kicks my shin.
“Keepin’ your seat warm, Dancer,” she says.
He taps his walking stick on each of our half-dozen empty mugs.
“A profitable day at your trade, I hope. But who’s your friend?” He points the wand-o-green in my direction.
“Me cousin Charlie from Scotland, a runaway ‘prentice, maked his way south t’find me.”
The rest of the boys drag over a nearby table — hastily abandoned by its previous occupants. Donnie gestures at a teenager with absolutely no neck and an arm that ends in a buttoned cuff. He kicks a stool into place between Yvaine and me.
“Most gracious of you, Stump,” Donnie says as he sits and drapes one arm over my shoulders and the other over Yvaine’s. “I believe some drinking is in order. Sally!”
The wench rushes over with armfuls of mugs soon lifted to toast.
“To…” Donnie looks at me and blinks. “To a pair of new hands!” He slams his now empty mug in front of Stump. “Some of us be short in that there department.”
Stump’s red face makes a halfhearted attempt at a smile.
“T’was a bullet aimed at Donnie the Dancer that mangled me hand.”
“For which I’m eternally grateful.” Donnie reaches across the table to ruffle Stump’s patchy crewcut.
Whoever barbers this gang is either blind or suffers from a degenerative nervous disorder — which explains why their leader wears a wig. Several new kids join our group, including two other girls, one raggedy little one and another about Yvaine’s age, better dressed and with dark hair peeking from under her bonnet.
“How’d the burgling go?” Yvaine says.
“My dear.” Donnie runs a finger down her cheek and around her chin. “T’was before nine, so it was only thieving.”
A redheaded boy, perhaps twelve, chimes in. “We gots two silver candlesticks! I crawled in whilst Dancer keeped the servants busy, ain’t I?”
He stands next to our table, facing away, then bends his torso ninety degrees backward until he lies flat on top of the ale mugs and reaches his freckled hands toward Yvaine, who slaps them and does a bunch of handshakes and slaps that’d make a brother from the projects proud.
“Right proper.” She beams. “Carrot always bends to the occasion.”
“Indeed,” Donnie says, “Ginger here made a fine showing on his belly, more than some do on their backs.”
He points his cane at the dark-haired girl, who blushes.
“Which, my dear family,” he continues, “brings us to that paying of the piper and thusly rendering of proper and timely tribute. Moreover, to wit, rent be due.”
His eyes spar with the dark-haired girl until she pulls a handful of coins from her bodice.
Stump sweeps them from the table — Carrot has rolled off — into a leather purse. One by one Donnie cajoles each of his crew, using a creative mixture of compliments, bluster, and veiled threats to extract what he feels is the appropriate sum. This guy has serious style and I’m thinking Charles Dickens really did know something about the London underworld.
“And you?” Donnie plants a kiss on Yvaine’s cheek, which also plants a barb of jealousy in my heart.
She offers him a few coins — all of which came from me.
“Poke me in the peepers,” he says, “did me favorite have a skinny day?”
“Me cousin and I were conversatin’.”
Donnie squeezes our necks, perhaps a little too firmly for comfort.
“Far from me to discourage familial bonding and all. As I always says, family comes first, and what ain’t we, if not one happy family?”
He turns back to me and moves close, his nose not two inches from mine. His breath smells like the cafeteria dumpster. There’s a smile on his white-painted face but there’s also a hardness in his eyes.
I wrestle out my purse, which he plucks from my grasp. Fortunately, most of my money — thanks to Yvaine’s warning — is now in my stockings.
Donnie shakes out what remains and returns the empty purse.
“Still short, but I’ll cut you some slack, being your first day and all.”
He tousles my hair like he did Stump’s and thwacks me on the back for good measure.
“Sally!” he yells. “Another round of ale and some roast beef!”
I was having a much better time before he crashed the party.
As the group makes its way to the neighborhood where they apparently sleep, I question the wisdom of following a gang of thieves to their lair.
But to be fair, I’m royally d
runk.
Time moves like Mom’s old eight-millimeter films — the ones of when she was a kid — all flicker and choppy bursts. When the alley spins into hyperdrive, I find myself vomiting into a pile of rotting garbage.
Yvaine supports me during this little embarrassment — although I’m not the first of the gang making with the Technicolor-yawn. A younger boy ralphed five minutes ago. Afterward I feel better and she takes my hand. I’m grateful — even if she did steal my money, we time travelers ought to stick together.
We file through a ragged wooden gap into what you might call a townhouse, if you were as drunk as me. We step over sleeping bodies in cramped rooms that reek of piss and B.O. until we descend a staircase so badly built it’s a wonder we make it to the bottom without plunging through the half-rotten risers.
Below is a foul little cellar, just big enough for four filthy mattresses. It smells even worse than upstairs, like a whiff of shit has been added to the piss bouquet.
I’m not so sure about bunking with the homies. It’s not just the conditions — all of a sudden I’m really homesick. Before bed, Mom and I usually curl up on separate chairs in the library and read. I’m too drunk for that but I wouldn’t mind raiding the fridge for ice cream.
“Can you take someone uptime with you?” I ask Yvaine. It must be possible; Dad and Sophie go places and come back.
“One person.” She shrugs. “An’ they has to be our sort.”
Like me. I relax a little.
The nasty basement is wall-to-wall kids except for a woman maybe thirty going on sixty, thin as a nail and dressed in rags. She approaches Yvaine carrying a bundle.
“I has the chit — get comfortable, lass,” she says, then launches into a coughing fit that sounds none-too-wholesome.
Yvaine is already unbuttoning the jacket-like part of her dress. She throws it in a corner and sets to work on her bulky skirts.
“Charlie, can you unlace me stays?” She presents the row of knots that run down the back of the newly revealed stiff-looking top.
I glance around. Everyone else is half-undressed, even Donnie, who looks startlingly different without his wig — not to mention the outlandish jacket-and-vest combo. His real hair looks more or less like a marine buzz-cut.