by Andy Gavin
“I see’d to ’is residential comforts,” Stump says. “Bought ’is fetters off, gin and grub.” He deals a hand of cards.
One of our merry female companions makes territorial claim on Donnie’s far knee, causing Yvaine to scoot onto my lap. I pull her close and she shoves the girl with the wet neck onto the floor.
Yvaine stares down after her. “Why dinna you let Stump there give you a hand?”
Everyone laughs hard enough that gin splatters against the cards.
Stump holds up his shorter arm and unbuttons the cuff to reveal his namesake.
“Don’t mind if me do, lass.”
The girl on the floor, too drunk to stand, crawls around and he helps her up onto the table.
Donnie is making out with his wench, who I think might be stealing his watch.
Yvaine gulps some gin, grabs my cheeks, and pinches my jaw open. She leans over and lets the booze drool from her lips into my mouth. I watch the ruffled lace on the front of her dress heave.
Her mouth is so close. I want to pull her down and kiss her.
CHIME. I startle. Her eyes go wide.
CHIME. She topples off my chair.
CHIME. She’s laughing on the floor.
CHIME. Donnie lays off kissing the girl on his lap. “Sassy is a crazy mort.”
CHIME. I spot the source of Yvaine’s mirth — a grandfather clock against the wall.
CHIME. I wait till it rings eleven and stops. Tick-Tocks go to thirteen.
Yvaine rises and shoves Miss Friendly off Donnie. I reach for her arm but she peels off my fingers and shakes her head. After that, she won’t meet my gaze.
I’m the drunkest I’ve ever been but I gulp more gin and the recently evicted Miss F. takes the bottle and settles for me. Soon we’re kissing, but as I watch Yvaine toss Donnie’s wig into the corner and run her hands through his short hair, I wish the sword he threw on the table was a little closer.
“I’ll go with you if you like,” Miss Friendly whispers in my ear.
“If you can say my name,” I whisper back.
Leathercoat comes in with a huge silvery plate and a candle, both of which he sets on the table. One of the girls takes off most of her clothes and gets up there. I can’t even figure out what I’m seeing.
Stump points at Bandy, snoring in his chair.
“He always wanted t’see a posture-girl, but drink hath foiled many a man.”
Stump and I play cards and drink. I don’t know the rules, but we’re past caring. I distract myself from Yvaine kissing Donnie by counting Stump’s missing teeth.
I’ve held my bladder so long I think I might explode. Stump leads the way by sweeping aside the cards, standing on his chair, and pissing against the wall.
The room spins and spins. I crawl up on the table and lie down. The flickering chandelier moves in figure eights. It reminds me of last year when I had the flu, but Mom isn’t here to take my temperature and ply me with ginger ale.
The lights dim. I try not to listen to what Yvaine and Donnie are doing in the corner.
Chapter Eight:
Hangover
London, Spring, 1725
A HERD OF HIPPOS INVADES MY SKULL. Someone rocks the concrete pillow under my head.
I open my eyes and focus on a long, ugly face. It’s Leathercoat’s, and he’s pressing a mug into my hands.
“Breakfast time, young sir.”
I’m thirsty so I take a long pull… of beer.
The doorman moves on to try and wake Bandy, half upright in his chair. The effort doesn’t go well.
My second sip brings on a surge of nausea, followed by an agonizing stomach spasm. I stare down at the nasty puddle I’ve deposited on the floor.
“That’ll warrant extra tip,” Leathercoat says.
Sunlight creeps in through shuttered windows. The girls have vanished like wood fairies, except for Yvaine. She and Donnie are unconscious in the corner.
I have to get out of here.
On the street, the sun shines for the first time since I arrived. The weather is warm and I’m still drunk enough not to need my jacket. Still, the air clears my head.
Making out with that girl last night should have been a highlight of my young life, but instead the memory makes me shudder. What fun there was in this little travel adventure is gone. I’ve got to convince Yvaine to get us out of here, not just for me but for her, too. I think of her alone as a little girl, alone now as a young mother, and alone with Donnie looming over her in the basement. She needs me. Fate — or the Tick-Tock — threw us together, and together’s the only way we’re going to get out of this place.
And I need her. It’s more than just her big eyes and crooked smile. Yvaine not only remembers my name, she sees me.
I’ve been wandering aimlessly through the morning streets and come to a wall where a rickety stair leads down to the river and a row of boats. There’s a black iron cage mounted here. The wasted and rotting limbs of some poor fellow jut from the bars. Crows fight over the scraps of his flesh while flies crawl across flaps of skin.
I’m done with messing around and going native. This isn’t Michael J. Fox playing the prom, but just the same, I need to get back to the future, and I’m taking Yvaine with me.
My pounding head throbs its way into a plan — although I’d hardly call it a well-thought-out one. I stumble back to our cellar, where Nancy swallows hook-line-and-sinker my story about Yvaine needing me to take the baby. But finding the church with Ben Franklin’s print shop isn’t so easy.
Billy starts to cry as we wander about, but I soothe him with a finger. His little hands bat at my bigger one as he sucks. He’ll be better off with his father. Dad made me read those books for a reason. This is what history wants for Billy. Yvaine and I don’t belong, but he does. Anyway, if he stays in that basement he’ll probably just catch whatever nasty cough Nancy has and die.
I make my way to the alehouse where Yvaine and I first talked then try to retrace my steps. This leads me to the cloth seller’s street and finally the church. There’s only the one door, but it’s standing open.
The front room is filled with shelves of books and papers. It must be the shop, though I have no idea what it’s doing in a house of worship. There’s a curtain hiding a busy-sounding workroom.
“May I help you?” a middle-aged clerk asks.
“I need to see Ben Franklin.”
“Journeymen aren’t to receive visitors.”
“It’s really important.”
“Very well.” He parts the curtain and shouts, “Mr. Franklin!”
When Ben arrives, the eyes behind his thin round glasses squint at me.
“Do I know you?”
“I’m Yvaine’s… cousin. I’ve brought Billy, your son. You have to take him.”
Ben grabs my arm and drags me out into the churchyard.
“I don’t have a son.”
So much for my best-case scenario.
“His name’s William,” I say.
Ben Franklin looks at the baby, then wipes his glasses and puts them back on.
“I’ve seen you before, with that girl.”
“Yvaine. She asked for your help.”
He scratches his head. “I warned myself. No good comes from associating with women of low character.”
I kick at one of his boots. “She’s not of low character.”
He scoots back and I practice anger management.
“Look,” I say. “He’s just a baby. You’re his father. And there’s no way his mom can take care of him.”
“William.” He sighs. “The child looks the very image of my sister Jane as a baby, so I suppose the girl has the right of it. How about a quarter quid each month?”
The nasal way he says quarter makes him sound like Ben Affleck.
“Yvaine doesn’t need your money,” I say. “She needs you to take the baby.”
“Have you considered that as a young man just mastering his trade, I mightn’t make a most congenial fathe
r?”
“You’ll be fine. Listen to me, I’m from the future.”
“Is that a town?” He rubs his forehead. “What do you mean?”
“The future, as in next year and the years after that. You have a son named William, you bring him back to Debbie, and you raise him together. It’s what happens, so you have to do it.”
“How do you know about Miss Read? Has Ralph been talking to you?”
“Who’s Ralph?” I say.
“Someone else of low character.”
The words just spill out of me.
“I know what I’m talking about. You’re Ben Franklin. From Boston and Philadelphia. You love to swim. You do the whole kite and lightning bolt thing. You’re one of the founding fathers of the United States, the new country formed when the colonies fight the Brits and win. You’re even on the U.S. hundred dollar bill!”
He’s looking at me really intently.
“I do like to fly kites.”
“See!” I’m almost bouncing up and down. “You fly a kite in a storm, to prove lightning is electrical.”
“Electrical fluid can be generated by rubbing different surfaces together.” When he looks off into space, he reminds me of my dad. “I’ll have to devise an experiment.”
I hold Billy out to him. Time to get down and dirty personal — I did read his autobiography, after all.
“Take the baby. You can’t walk out on this the way you did with your brother.”
The color drains from his face. Ha! He skipped out on working for his brother and called it ‘the first errata’ of his life. I remember because I needed to look the word up on the Internet.
He slowly raises his arms toward the baby.
“How did—”
Billy is snatched out of my hands, but not by Ben.
Yvaine clutches him close to her chest, then kicks me in the balls. I hunch over in agony and rock back and forth.
“Damn you, Charlie! What were you thinking?”
“I was just trying—” But a wave of pain silences me.
“Me cousin’s crazy, Ben,” Yvaine says. “He shouldn’t never have taked the baby.”
“Is this Future in Scotland?” Ben asks. “Londoners use the word ‘Scot’ to mean someone rash and temperamental.”
I peer up through tears. Yvaine doesn’t look so great either. Her face is red and her eyes redder. And she seems mad as hell.
“You sorry stall-whimper!” she screams. “He is yours, you know.”
“William,” Ben says, as if in vague confirmation.
The commotion has brought Ben’s co-workers to the door. He glances over at them and slinks back into the building.
“What kind of fool by-blow are you?” Yvaine screams at me as I limp out of the courtyard after her.
“It almost worked.”
“What? Stealing me baby? That’s rich.”
“He’s supposed to be with Ben. History says so.”
“Yeah, well, history ain’t our friend.”
“What do you mean?”
“You can’t tell someone about travelin’. They’ll only hear what time wants ’em to hear.”
“How does time want anything?”
“Time certainly dinna want us,” she says. “Not here, not nowhere.”
“That’s why we need to stick together!”
She stops her headlong rush and jabs a finger at me.
“Go find your own history!” she says. “Jump downtime into some medieval dungeon for all I care.”
I chase after her again as she works her way back into the crowd.
“You told me I shouldn’t go.” It sounds so lame. Guess stealing her son really wasn’t the best approach. Mom would remind me that I act rashly!
“I changed me mind!” The way she shoos me off is more painful than the bruised gonads.
“You need me.”
“I dinna needs anyone.”
“What about Donnie? I saw what you two were doing!” The team of horses across the street couldn’t pull my mouth shut.
“Is that what this be about?”
“Do you love him?”
“I do what I needs do t’survive.”
We reach the rickety gap that leads to our cellar.
“Charlie, get out of here. I dinna want t’see you.”
I follow her anyway.
Donnie’s waiting in the lair. “Sassy,” he says, “I told you not to see that printer fellow again.”
“I see’d you in that there churchyard,” Stump says. He’s picking his teeth with his knife.
Yvaine turns on him. “You followed me?”
“Actually,” Stump says, “I followed your good-for-nothin’ cousin.”
Donnie slaps Yvaine hard across the face. “You know not to test me patience.” He punches her in the gut.
She doubles over gagging, nearly drops the baby, but Donnie takes Billy and hands him to someone else.
Something in me snaps. I leap at him as he punches Yvaine in the side.
“Not so fast.” Stump steps in front of me, his knife held low.
I don’t think, just strike out at his wrist. He drops the blade in surprise and I dive for it.
He kicks me in the ribs but I get my hands around the knife and roll away and into a crouch.
“Now there, Cuz,” Stump says, “gimme back me knife and I’ll go light on the beatin’ I owes you.”
In the background, Donnie is hammering the crap out of Yvaine. She’s on the ground now, but this doesn’t stop him. The way he’s going at her, he might even kill her.
I spring toward him, intending to do a kind of double jump and stab him.
But the oddest thing happens. During the first jump something — and I mean something I can’t see — turns me in the air. I land wrong, my ankle bends under me, and I drop to the mattress.
Stump grunts and throws himself at me. I twist and get the knife between us. He can’t stop himself and he comes down fast, blade pointed right at his heart. I feel an odd wrench of the handle and hear a metallic snap.
Surprise widens Stump’s already puffy face as he thumps into me. We’re face to face for a second, then he rolls off, clutching at his chest.
I glance down to find I’m holding the bone handle of the knife. The blade has broken off and slid into my lap.
What?
Stump can’t seem to believe it either, because he pats his vest.
“I guess you be just dumb unlucky.” He clocks me in the jaw.
Stars shoot across the cellar.
Donnie catches the next fist that comes at my face.
“You don’t need to drub a fellow for defending his family,” he tells Stump. “That’s just loyalty.”
Chapter Nine:
Nursemaid
London, Spring, 1725
IT TAKES YVAINE ALMOST A DAY TO REGAIN CONSCIOUSNESS. In the meantime, the gang leaves us to our own devices — and our own mattress. When I’m not checking on Yvaine, I keep an eye on Stump and Donnie, who like to return my glares with cheerful waves.
“Water,” is her first word back in the land of the living.
I squeeze some onto a rag, really grateful for what I take as a good sign. She just has to get better — not only because I need her to go home, but because my old life and new both feel like a blurry dream. Yvaine’s the only thing in focus.
I press the rag to her mouth, then use the damp cloth to wipe away a bit of dried blood I missed earlier.
“Billy?” she mumbles.
“He’s with Nancy,” I say. “Try not to speak.”
How could I have been so stupid as to take the baby? Jealousy and gin obviously make poor bunkmates.
“At least they didna throw us into the gutter,” she says.
I should apologize, but “It’ll all be better soon,” comes out instead.
“It won’t never be better.” Her face and arms are purple and yellow, but her eyes are clear. “These be the good years for my sort.”
“It doesn’t
have to be that way,” I say. “We can go somewhere safe.”
She moves her arm toward mine and winces.
“You’re sweet. I saw your mill with Stump. You shouldn’t never have used the knife.”
“What’s the knife have to do with anything?” I ask. Odd to think she was watching me while Donnie beat her.
“We—”
She starts coughing. It looks painful and I offer her a sip of water when she settles.
“We can’t never kill nobody,” she whispers. “Would change time too much.”
I think about the weird push I got in the air and Stump’s lucky break.
“That’s why the blade snapped?”
She nods and grimaces. “Time fights us.” Her tongue is red with blood. “Every step of the way.”
“I’m sorry,” I say. Finally.
“It dinna no longer matter for me,” she says. “Soon enough you’ll be lookin’ for a new girl to take you uptime.”
But Yvaine doesn’t die. By the next day she’s hobbling around and the day after that, while her bruises look even worse, they don’t seem to hurt as much. She stops calling me Charlie and christens me Lack-wit, Fool, Bite, Moron, Simkin, and Cully, which I take as further sign of her improved spirits.
No one offers us any food so I go out and buy some. I exchange one of my gold coins and hide most of the change.
When I get back, Stump stops me with his hand out.
I swallow my pride and give him some of my money. Yvaine suggested ‘pinching’ handkerchiefs and told me where to ‘bank’ them, but I’m done with stealing.
“Good thing Donnie likes you,” Stump says, fingering his new knife, “‘cause this ain’t but a part of what you owes me.”
“I’ll get you the rest soon.”
I’ve learned my lesson. Next time I act, I need a solid plan. Stump is hardly real anyway — if I take Yvaine back home, he’ll be just as dead as if I stuck the knife between his ribs.
“Wakey wakums.” A boot prods my side.
Donnie towers over Yvaine and me. She yawns and stretches stiffly.
“Where’s Billy?” she says.