Untimed: A Time Travel Adventure

by Andy Gavin

  “Me folks tried. The pages went blank. Girls start earlier, too. We travel at seven. For boys it’d be about fifteen.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “We be the superior sex.” She grins at me.

  As weird as things are for me right now, I try to imagine being a seven-year-old girl alone in the world — regardless of the when.

  “What was it like?”

  “You mean as an unprotected lass, findin’ food, shelter, and safety when the only thing I’m good for is me charm and wit?”

  “You don’t have to be alone anymore,” I say. “We can go uptime together.” The bizarre image of Yvaine sitting across the kitchen table from Mom invades my brain. “It’s better there.”

  She stops for a second, either because of what I said or to avoid being trampled by a passing six-horse carriage.

  “You beatin’ that nag again? I telled you, I canna never leave little William.”

  William — Billy. Oh my God! The solution was right there in Dad’s last batch of books. I was only kidding myself about Donnie taking the baby. But this, this is perfect.

  “Yvaine, Ben Franklin takes William! Raises him as his own!”

  She snorts again. “You saw what he thinks of me!”

  “I don’t know how, but it happens. I read his autobiography — the story of his life — he came to London from Philadelphia to learn the latest in the printing trade, but he only stays a year or two then goes back to start his own business.”

  “What’s that needs do with Billy?”

  “When Ben gets back to Pennsylvania he brings an illegitimate son named William home to his wife.”

  She looks shocked. “Bastard! He’s married?”

  “Engaged, I think. Debbie’s her name.”

  “Oh.”

  “That’s not the point,” I say. “He takes William back to America. Billy grows up to be governor of New Jersey and lives into the next century.”

  I don’t mention that he’s a traitor to his new country or that the older Franklin eventually disowns him. Every life has its ups and downs.

  “Guv’nor? You sure it be me William?”

  “Absolutely.” Well, ninety-nine percent sure. “All the details fit — Ben goes to his grave never saying who the mother was.”

  She’s facing me but not really looking at me.

  “Ben raises him right,” I say. “He becomes a lawyer, hobnobs with lords and ladies, marries, lives to be an old man. What better can anyone hope for?”

  Yvaine wipes at her eyes. “I dinna want to talk about this anymore. I needs think.”

  In general, 1720s London is far more chaotic than modern Philadelphia or even New York, which I saw on occasional family trips. But Covent Garden makes the rest of it look tame.

  Pedestrians, animals, carts, and carriages move in every conceivable direction. The road is paved but no space is sacred. We have to throw ourselves into a doorway to avoid a horseman using the side of the road as an express lane and are nearly clobbered by a pair of carpenters wielding timbers.

  Yvaine has us walking back and forth until she spots Carrot, then pulls us both into an alley. Dusk builds murky shadows as the redheaded boy shows off the coins he looted from an unfortunate street vendor.

  She nods, looking at me. “Meet back here if there be trouble and never keep anythin’ on you but the rum cole, that way if you’re caught by the crowd you can play the innocent.”

  “I imagine that’d be hard with three pocket watches in your shirt,” I say.

  Yvaine snickers. She seems to take real pleasure in teaching me her thieving arts. It’s hard to remember that only thirty-six hours ago my life was normal, if being a hard-to-remember baby time traveler counts as normal.

  Getting lost in history is easy, but the details can kill you, Dad used to say when he went into lecture mode.

  I guess he meant literally.

  “Look!” Yvaine pokes me in the chest. Her smile catches the fading light. “Carrot will draw out the mark. I’ll get the swag, then you play the stickman.”

  “What’s a stickman?” I say.

  “Sassy’ll pass you the goods,” Carrot says. “Just slip off into the crowd posthaste.”

  Yvaine nods. “Show time be the signal. When I says them words, it’s your turn.”

  She drags us down a street where marquees advertise theatrical performances. The road is jammed with carriages, elegantly dressed guests, uniformed footmen.

  “That one.” Yvaine nods at a lady whose green silk dress matches the interior of her gilded coach.

  Carrot pulls three wooden balls from his jacket and gives them to Yvaine. He rolls himself into a handstand and she tosses him back the balls, which he actually juggles with his toes while walking on his hands toward the rich woman.

  Nearby pedestrians stop and stare at this amazing little feat.

  “Stay close,” Yvaine whispers. She points at a theater and says, “Show time!”

  Show time indeed. I follow her through the crowd. She pretends to watch Carrot and stumbles into the mark.

  “Pardon, ma’am.”

  Something soft presses against my thigh. Looking down, I see Yvaine’s arm snaked in my direction, holding a fancy green handbag. I shove it into my rather loose trousers, where it bulges.

  “My purse!” the lady screams.

  “Grab her!” one of her footmen yells. He starts to pat down Yvaine, who raises her arms and looks indignant. Her eyes flick from me to the street.

  I toss myself headlong into traffic, which given a near collision with a pair of horses turns out to be a questionable choice.

  “That boy’s got it!” a voice yells behind me.

  A carriage passes. There’s a vertical bar running along the coach’s back corner. I grab it, swing hard, and scrabble to gain purchase on the little iron shelf above the bumper.

  Mostly this works just like in the movies. My coach cruises along and the green lady’s fancy one recedes behind me.

  Except for the footman clinging to the opposite corner.

  “Thief on me coach!” he screams. “Stop ‘im!” He kicks at me.

  “This must be my stop,” I say, swinging down to an open bit of street.

  Looks like I’m in the clear.

  “Thief!” a voice bellows from behind me.

  I glance over my shoulder to find six people giving chase. Who would’ve thought Londoners were such good Samaritans!

  I’m faster than my pursuers, and this time I keep my shoes on, but a couple storekeepers join in front and try to block a narrow alley. I hop up on a low wall and sprint right by them, leaping over someone’s clumsy attempt to grab my feet.

  I need to get out of sight so they’ll forget what I look like. Ahead is a building under construction, which gives me an idea.

  A glance back reveals the crowd is several dozen strong. I put on some speed and snatch up a long wooden pole from the construction site. There’s a wall up ahead, about twelve feet tall. I heft the pole into position. It isn’t as flexible as I’m used to, but twelve feet is nothing.

  I eye the ground, watching for the right distance to plant the pole—

  And totally don’t see the guy who trips me.

  I spill hard into the mud and taste the dirt and blood from where I smack my lip.

  The crowd is on me. I don’t even make it to my knees before someone kicks me in the gut and knocks the wind out of me for the second time today.

  I curl up like Sonic the Hedgehog. As Yvaine said, people see what they expect in us, in this case just a thief in need of a lesson. I just wish the lesson didn’t hurt so much.

  Then I hear a loud rattling sound and the beating stops. Blue-knickered legs stand beside me. I wipe the mud from my eyes.

  My rescuer’s face still has that little crack I gave him with the rock. His glass eyes stare down at me and he stops spinning the wooden noisemaker in his hand. As that sound fades I can hear the soft ticking of his clockwork heart.

  “Const
able!” a man says, out of breath, “this urchin ran off with a woman’s purse.”

  The Tick-Tock reaches down and grabs me by the arm. His grip is like iron. He drags me down the street.

  “Don’t let him take me!” I scream.

  “The magistrate’ll ’ave you dancing at Tyburn by Monday!” someone yells.

  “But, sir,” says another, “don’t we needs testify?”

  The Tick-Tock spins his head completely around and stops them with a glare.

  He’s moving fast. I drag my legs against the ground, then beat my free hand against him, which is like pummeling a parking meter.

  Soon he’s dragged me several blocks, leaving the crowd behind. We come to a square filled with vendors. He tosses me down into the mud and draws the sword from his stick.

  I scrabble backward like a crab as he raises it high….

  And points into the crowded market.

  I don’t stop to count my blessings. I just spring to my feet and run.

  Chapter Seven:

  Celebration

  London, Spring, 1725

  SOMEHOW I FIND MY WAY BACK TO OUR ALLEY. Yvaine’s waiting in the evening shadows.

  “You had me worried.” She wraps her arms around me. “I’ve lost too many folk already.”

  Two beatings in one day makes her hug painful, but I don’t care.

  “Where’s Carrot?” I ask.

  “He’ll be fine. He was already disappeared when they let me go.” She points at my bulging pants. “Is that the swag, or are you just happy to see me?”

  I have to unbutton to extract the purse. “One of those clockwork guys caught me. He was posing as a constable.”

  She freezes mid smirk. “How are you here?”

  “He stopped the mob and let me go.”

  “Tick-Tocks dinna do that. They kills us on sight.” She’s biting her lip.

  “If that’s true, we need to move on. To the future.”

  She scowls. “You can go downtime if it pleases you.”

  It doesn’t.

  “How common are they?” I ask.

  “I’ve only seen them thrice, four times if you count yesterday.”

  “He didn’t kill us on sight then,” I say. “We ran away and lost him.”

  “That was different, he had t’go. Once they starts ringin’, they dinna stop. Twenty-six seconds, thirteen chimes, and they be gone.”

  “Where?” I say.

  She shrugs. “Some other time. When I saw them before, they’d have killed me if I didna flee uptime.”

  Gulp.

  “How do I do that? Travel.”

  “Dinna go.” She takes my hand. “I didna mean what I said.”

  Is that a chink in her girly armor?

  “We be so rare, Charlie. It could be years before either of us meet another.”

  “If I go, I can only go backward — downtime?”

  She squeezes. “Even if I wasn’t trapped, I’d go forward. So stay.”

  I look into her big green eyes. She’s hardly the girl I imagined myself with, and she has two boyfriends already. But I want her, maybe more than I’ve ever wanted anything.

  “If you can’t go because of Billy, and I can’t go because of you, that leaves us pretty well stuck.”

  She leans toward me. “Here ain’t so bad.”

  Maybe it isn’t.

  “Even if I wanted to go, I don’t know how to travel.”

  She cocks her head. “Same as you did yesterday. You’ll ken when you’ve got your strength back.”

  “Yesterday I used the Tick-Tock’s hole.”

  She braces herself against the alley wall. “You what?”

  “The Tick-Tock was doing his chime thing, he hopped down into a hole, and I followed.”

  “You jumped in his time-hole?”

  “It brought me here.”

  Yvaine scratches her head. I think she might have lice.

  “Charlie, you’re either the dumbest or bravest cull I know.”

  “Go with bravest.” When she stops laughing I say, “You’re sure it’s dangerous?”

  “Every time I seen someone go near a Tock they ended up dead.” She squints, her eyes starting to tear. “Includin’ me folks.”

  “What if that Tick-Tock wanted me to follow?” I say. “You said we could bring one other traveler.”

  “You needs be touchin’ for it t’work. Besides, why would he do that? He tried t’kill you. That’s what they always do.”

  “I wish we could ask my dad. He knows all about this stuff.” At least I assume he does.

  “But he ain’t here, is he?” she says.

  “No.” I take her hand again, the one holding the green silk purse.

  “We needs ditch this.” She pulls out the money and throws the bag into the darkness. “Merciful Jesus.” She counts out the gold coins. “Fourteen guineas!”

  “Is that a lot?”

  “Half a year’s wages for a master tradesman!”

  Yvaine hugs me close and kisses me full on the lips. For a second, shock has me rigid as an I-beam. Then I try to kiss her back — not that my moves are anything but theoretical.

  She puts her head on my shoulder and I float upward in a bubble.

  “Oh, Charlie,” she whispers, “Donnie’s goin’ to love us to death.”

  Her words send me crashing back to the cobblestones.

  She pats me like a poodle and spirits two coins away to some inner recess of her person.

  “We’ll keep two yellow boys an’ gives the rest to Dancer.”

  We should keep it all and run to the country or, if we can get Ben to take Billy, the future.

  But instead the familiar old Charlie who asked Michelle about the Fourth of July kicks swashbuckling Charlie to the curb.

  “Do we need to give him that much?”

  She leans against the alley wall, presses herself against me, and tilts her head sideways so we knock temples.

  “I am crackin’ through your knob-skull.” She hands me another pair of coins. “Ten will still send him to heaven.”

  We find Donnie not far off in an alehouse called The Rose, where he’s shooting dice with Stump. The game involves a lot of gin.

  I punch holes in him with my eyes while Yvaine plops in his lap and counts ten guineas into his palm.

  His long face pulls into a creepy smile.

  “Charlie was brilliant,” she says. “Spinned the mark around six ways from Sunday an’ rode out on a coach like he owned it!”

  Donnie stands, letting Yvaine down to the floor. He turns to me and pops up into his boxing stance.

  I remain frozen like a deer, but he just gives me a couple quick taps, then pulls me in close and presses his lips to my head. Yvaine’s kiss was better.

  “You’re a right proper member of the gang now, Cuz!”

  He lets me go and points his cane into the air.

  “Leathercoat! A sip of gin for the house, and a private room for us lordships!”

  Gin is passed around while the doorman — who, true to local naming conventions, wears a long leather coat — arranges our room. But the celebration’s interrupted when a bowlegged gang member waddles into the alehouse.

  “Carrot’s been habbled,” he says.

  Donnie sets down his cup. “Where they holding him, Bandy?”

  “The King’s Head Inn, for lifting.”

  Yvaine grips my arm hard. Her face is pale.

  “Newgate prison be the worst,” she whispers. “He must’ve run another sneak after our lay.”

  Donnie sighs and offers Stump a single gold coin. “Go facilitate the ginger’s garnish and comforts. I’ll see to arrangements with Mr. Fusée.”

  “Dancer, can I go instead?” Yvaine asks.

  Their eyes meet and hold, but after a minute she looks away.

  Stump leaves and Bandy brings Donnie his jacket and hat, then helps him buckle on his sword. He grabs the gin bottle from Yvaine, drinks, and passes it to me. I can’t decide if I should wipe
it off because of his spit, or not, because of hers.

  “Who’s this Mr. Fussy?” I ask Yvaine while we wait.

  She snickers. “Mr. Fusée. He works for the Thief-taker General, Mr. Jonathan Wild, the most cunnin’ fox in London. That one has his hand in every theft, an’ every magistrate in his purse.”

  I hate to think about cheerful Carrot in Newgate. I’ve never read anything good about it, in any century.

  “How often is one of you arrested?”

  “Every couple weeks, but they mostly come back.”

  “Mostly?”

  “Donnie will see to Carrot, buy him an alibi. He takes care of his own.”

  Dancer and Stump return just as Leathercoat shows us to our room.

  The place must have been nice once, but after who-knows-how-many parties most of the paintings are torn, the mirror cracked, and the effort to sweep the last group’s trash from the floor lackluster at best.

  Stump takes a seat next to Donnie, who overturns the chair with a laugh.

  “Place of honor’s for Cuz tonight.” He presses a full gin bottle into my hand and massages my shoulders.

  There are only five of us paying customers: myself, Yvaine, Donnie, Stump, and Bandy, but we’re joined by a mysterious gaggle of elegantly — or at least boldly — clad young women.

  No one seems to mind. The one sharing my chair keeps pouring gin on her neck and trying to get me to lap it up.

  Food comes in plenty, and I tear into it. Roast beef, pies filled with meat, boiled vegetables, potatoes, pickled fish, oysters.

  Yvaine sits next to me, on Donnie’s knee. I tug my chair as close as I can.

  Donnie pours gin into his glass and mine, and we raise them in toast. He leans in, his face so close I can count nose hairs.

  “To whatever in the world you desire most dearly.”

  Him to disappear and me to bug out with his girl?

  “Dancer,” Yvaine says, “what’d the Thief-taker General’s man say about Carrot?”

  Donnie takes a puff from his long clay pipe and another swig of gin.

  “Boy’s good as free. Innocent as a babe. Mr. Fusée arranged a plumper to vouch for his whereabouts.”