Halley reached for her phone to text her mother and her friends, almost immediately reminding herself that the lines would be jammed with emergency personnel needing cell service. But then she began to worry whether her friends on the beach were safe. If the epicenter of the quake had been out to sea, it could bring a tsunami.
Her phone’s Internet connection lagged, but before too long she confirmed it had been an inland quake, with initial estimates of 6.1, centered in nearby Santa Ynez to the east. Although sobering, it was good news on two counts. It meant the siren wailing in the distance wasn’t a tsunami warning. It also meant Los Angeles and its environs would be practically untouched. It meant her dream was safe. Halley turned her phone off and took a cursory look around the guesthouse.
Halley had rarely been “home”—at her apartment—during the more than a dozen earthquakes she’d weathered. Her mother’s employment kept them living somewhere besides their apartment for at least half the year, and while Halley had lately been staying home by herself, she’d been with her mother for each of the last four quakes. And because Inga inevitably developed postearthquake stress migraines, Halley had been in charge of recent postearthquake checks on behalf of absent estate owners.
The pool water continued to slosh lazily from side to side, but there weren’t any obvious cracks in the pool or surrounding areas. Dutifully she crossed to the main house with the keys in hand, searching first for foundation cracks, then for plumbing leaks, gas leaks, and other damage that quakes left in their wake.
The siren was still making noise. Oddly, it didn’t seem like it was approaching. Or receding. Halley frowned. Could it be an on-property alarm? She opened the front door of the main house. The siren noise was more obviously an alarm now, and it was much louder inside.
A quick search revealed the sound was coming from none other than the forbidden basement.
“Of course,” she murmured. “The murder basement.”
Sighing heavily, Halley marched downstairs to the basement. The basement door, which Halley had seen locked an hour ago during her mother’s abbreviated tour, was now ajar, but the alarm didn’t seem to be tied to the door. The sound was coming from inside. She tried to peer inside, but the basement was dark except for a few flashing LEDs.
Halley settled her hands on her hips. She wasn’t supposed to enter the basement, but what if the alarm indicated something important? It might be a flood alarm or smoke alarm. What would a responsible house sitter do? She pulled out her phone and called her mother, but all she got was a message saying, “All lines are busy; please try your call later.” Halley’s fingers beat out a rhythm on her crossed arms. The alarm wailed its own frustration.
“Fine,” she said, entering the off-limits room.
Overhead, lights flickered on.
“Whoa . . .” She surveyed the room. It contained an odd mix of items, looking half like a garage for injured rockets and half like a museum of Egyptian artifacts, including, eerily, several sarcophagi. “Weird,” she murmured.
The alarm noise was coming from across the room, where a sort of podium stood between two large sideways-coiled structures, angled to face one another.
“Tesla coils,” she said softly.
DaVinci had worked something like this into a metal sculpture for her father’s birthday last year, calling it a “nondrivable Tesla.” So what was the professor doing down here? Building engines for some Tesla knock-off?
Halley snapped a few quick pictures for DaVinci and then crossed the room to address the alarm and determine whether it indicated something that would necessitate a call for further assistance. Not that she had phone service.
She continued across the room to where the sound seemed to originate—a wide podium that stood between the Tesla coils, or whatever they were. The podium held two items: a scrapbook, which was obviously not the source of the noise, and an inset computer screen, currently dark.
“Tesla coils and scrapbooking?” she muttered to the empty room.
She glanced at the open scrapbook page and did a double take. It was filled with pictures of people in historical costume. Beautiful costumes. Jacobean women’s gowns, supported with proper bum rolls and farthingale petticoats; starched white collars sewn into miniature pleats, the outer edges embroidered with black silk; porkpie caps sewn with jewels and thread-of-gold. And the men’s costumes were no less elegant . . . Halley tore her gaze away. She wasn’t here to admire costumes. And besides, the alarm was still blaring from the computer screen.
Not seeing a keyboard, she lifted her hand to touch the screen, which awoke, flashing bright red words against a black background.
Caution: Sequence Interrupted! Failsafe Protocol Initiated.
Reboot: Y/N?
Her mother had pointed out the systems reboot for the encased artifacts upstairs, saying, “In the event of a power interruption, it’s imperative you reboot to protect the climate of the cases. Understand?”
Her finger hovered over the Y for “Yes.” She should call her mother and make sure she was doing the right thing. Except . . . no service. Besides, her mother had made clear that she, Halley Mikkelsen, was responsible for this property. Her heart pounded fiercely. After a moment’s hesitation, Halley tapped the Y. It was what she would do for the system upstairs, so she hoped it was the right step in this case, too.
The alarm went silent and Halley let out the breath she’d been holding. The podium’s computer screen began flashing through long lines of uninteresting code. Halley’s eyes drifted to the scrapbook pictures once more. She flipped a few pages, seeing breathtaking costumes from every historical period in Western history, as well as some from Imperial China and Shogun-era Japan—it was an unbelievable collection. Oddly, in many pictures, those who wore the elaborate costumes stood beside a man wearing a very dull costume—sometimes monk’s robes, sometimes what looked more like graduation robes.
“The professor,” she murmured. He was snapping selfies next to . . . actors? Reenactors? She flipped through a few more pages while the podium screen hummed and blipped beside her. The level of detail in the costumes was unusual. These had to be professional actors. Did the professor work in the film industry? Maybe he could give her advice on getting work with Ethyl Meier.
In addition to the costumes, some of the background sets in the photographs were exquisitely detailed. Halley had only taken one set design class, but if she was any judge, these were expensive sets. They had to be from movies. The man she was house-sitting for had a Hollywood connection. A Hollywood connection! Hope fluttered inside her. This might turn out to be the most important day of her life.
She felt a pang of familiar hurt. Her mother had never thought to mention the professor’s interest in Hollywood. Her mother knew Halley hoped to work in the film industry, but she’d never once said anything. The pang didn’t last long—Halley had layers of emotional scar tissue that dulled most responses to this sort of repeated injury. It was just one more example in a long line of examples of her mother’s inability to care for any needs but her own. DaVinci, who insisted Halley’s mother had a narcissism disorder, would just call this additional proof. Halley didn’t like to think about the disorder. There were studies that suggested it was passed on genetically.
Halley closed her eyes and took a calming breath. Reminded herself she came from two sets of genes. Then she opened her eyes and flipped back to the first page of the scrapbook, hoping for a description of what movie or movies these came from.
The first page was unlike the rest. It had only one picture of the monk-robed professor, standing between the Tesla-coil-like devices. Standing, in fact, right where Halley now stood. The professor’s feet were placed inside the outline of twin footprints. Glancing down at her feet, Halley saw the same outlined footprints, although the paint was faded now. She looked back at the picture. The professor’s expression was serious, or even nervous. Not self-assured like in the other pictures. There was something written in very bad handwriting, but be
fore she could decipher it, the screen beside the scrapbook flashed brightly, demanding Halley’s attention.
Onscreen was a circle, a rapidly filling pie graph, with the percentage of completion expressed in numbers below it. It was nearly fixed, then. Good. She’d done the right thing. She knew she should leave and continue checking the rest of Dr. Khan’s property, but her eyes drifted back to the scrapbook, to the handwritten scrawl under the photograph: “My first use of the singularity to travel backward through time.”
Halley’s eyebrows rose. She frowned. And then she figured it out. The set she was standing on must have come from a movie about time travel. The professor must have bought (or been given) the set piece. Maybe he was a scientific consultant to the industry—her mom had said he was a scientist.
She really should get back upstairs and check the rest of the property. But these costumes . . . She flipped to the second page in the book. Just another minute.
On the second page, the professor was standing with someone in front of what looked like . . . a printing press? Halley examined the photograph more carefully. There, under the professor’s arm, was a book. She leaned in. It was a Gutenberg Bible. Was it the one she’d seen upstairs? The one he kept in the climate-controlled case? She looked at the caption.
“Johannes Gutenberg, Mainz, 1455.”
Halley flipped to the next page.
“Admiral Zheng He, Cathay, 1410.”
Here, the professor was holding a vase that looked like something Halley had seen downtown at the elegant Hong Kong Palace, her mother’s favorite Chinese restaurant. She flipped to another page, finding another vaguely piratey costume. The caption read: “Master Aspley, London, 1609.”
She leaned forward and read the words on the manuscript in the professor’s hands: “Shake-speares Sonnets, Neuer before Imprinted.” She’d seen that manuscript, too. Upstairs. In the case next to the Gutenberg Bible.
Halley released a single guttural laugh. The professor was a total poseur, keeping movie props in climate-controlled cases to impress people. Or maybe props made to this degree of historical accuracy required careful preservation. Or maybe the professor had an odd sense of humor and the cases were a private little joke.
The screen beside her turned black, catching her attention again. She sighed. She ought to get back upstairs. She closed the scrapbook. Then, frowning, she opened it again. She didn’t know what page it had been opened to. Really, though, it didn’t matter. She was going to have to confess to the professor she’d been down here to fix his alarm for his . . . whatever it was. But just as she was about to step away from the podium, she saw the computer screen flicker to life again.
The Curtain Theatre
Cheapside, London
AD 1598
That was . . . random.
It was her last thought before her muscles seized up as if she’d been tased.
4
• EDMUND •
Edmund Aldwych, grandson of Edward Aldwych, First Earl of Shaftesbury, wasn’t ready to take up the title of earl. It should have fallen to his father, but his father had left this world six months ago, never to inherit the earldom. Edmund’s grandfather, as if eager to follow his son to the grave, was dead as well—two days gone—leaving twenty-one-year-old Edmund—the second-born and oldest surviving male—the heir. Edmund was not ready to take up the title, but take it up he must.
When Edmund had been small, an ancient servant given to fortunetelling had prophesied Edmund would travel far and restore the family fortunes. Edmund, affectionately known as Ned, had grown up hearing the wise woman’s words repeated, and he believed them, first as a matter of course, and eventually as a matter of necessity. The wealth of the earldom had been much decimated by the honor of not one but two visits from Good Queen Bess during her famous “progresses” throughout the kingdom, at which time Edmund’s grandfather had added cupolas, turrets, and chimneys in imitation of the Lord Burghley’s great house. The cost had been enormous, and the family’s fortune had not yet seen fit to restore itself.
Having decided that “travel far” meant “travel to the New World,” young Ned had longed for the day when he would board a ship and see marvels. The prophesied riches, though necessary, were only of secondary interest to him: it was the siren call of adventure and discovery that wooed him and kept him burning costly candles late into the night as he poured over the latest reports of explorers newly returned. Because he was not the eldest son, Ned had been free to pursue this course, and he worked out by the age of nine that he would travel far and restore the family fortune, while his older brother, Robert, would inherit the title, and his younger brother, Geoffrey, would go a-soldiering. Ned was a great planner.
But when young Ned was twelve, his older brother, Robert, had died of a purulent fever, leaving Ned as his father’s heir apparent. Ned’s hopes of a voyage to the New World crushed, his education turned to husbandry of the estate, for which he had talent if not eagerness. Seemingly casting off his childhood ambitions with his childhood name, “Ned” became “Edmund,” who kept secret his dream of seeking the illusive Northwest Passage.
But then his father had died, and now his grandfather was dead. There would be no brave journeys across vast oceans. The funeral costs from the first loss were scarcely paid off, and now it was time to prepare a second feast. That honor would fall to Edmund’s mother, as Edmund had no wife himself, much to his mother’s disappointment. His lady mother’s constant refrain was that the sooner he found a wife and got her with child, the better it would be for all..
Staring at his grandfather’s waxy figure, lain in the bed wherein he’d died, Edmund felt as if the weight of the entire castle were pressing down upon him, determined to crush him by degrees. His surviving brother, Geoffrey, already a profligate at merely eighteen years of age, sat moping in the corner of the room, playing some unfathomable game with a cord dangling from their grandfather’s favorite tapestry, The Lady and the Lion.
“Cease that behavior,” murmured Edmund.
Geoffrey ceased. For an entire minute. Then began again. Until such time as Edmund fathered a son, Geoffrey was the next heir to the earldom. The thought filled Edmund with dread for the livelihoods of all those under the protection of his household. Friendly enough to servants and family, Geoffrey nonetheless failed to exhibit any sense of concern for their welfare. Only once had Edmund’s grandfather made the mistake of asking Geoffrey to pay the wages of a departing servant. Geoffrey was too much like their father, who had eaten and drunk his way to an untimely grave.
Eyeing the arc of the sun as it glanced off a high cupola outside, Geoffrey cleared his throat and asked Edmund the same question he’d already asked twice.
“Must I remain, Ned?”
Edmund’s pulse stuttered upon hearing his boyhood name. He must abandon “Ned,” and all of Ned’s boyish dreams. He must become Edmund, Second Earl of Shaftesbury.
“Must I?” repeated his brother.
“Thou must remain,” replied Edmund. “It is seemly.”
“Seemly,” repeated Geoffrey, harrumphing. “All must be seemly for his lordship the earl.”
“By the rood, Geoffrey—” Edmund broke off, grimacing. He ought not allow himself to be goaded. He had snapped at his brother because he was tired. Two nights ago he’d stayed up all night with his grandfather during his final hours of life, and he’d taken little rest since. This, Edmund did not resent; he had loved his grandfather. But worry over his inheritance and his lack of readiness had left Edmund very tired indeed.
Still, he ought to guard his temper. Geoffrey loved goading his brother even more than he loved spending his brother’s money. Edmund must begin his relationship with his brother on a new footing. A better footing. One that persuaded Geoffrey to become a model of behavior so gradually that even Geoffrey would not see it happening.
It certainly wasn’t going to happen without Edmund’s help.
Geoffrey was now winding the tapestry cord round and
round his arm, threatening to tug down the tapestry from where it hung.
“Get thee gone,” said Edmund at last. “I shall await the midwife. Only see that thou upset not the guests. ’Tis a day for solemnizing.”
“A day for sermonizing,” muttered Geoffrey, rising.
“Geoffrey,” Edmund began.
Geoffrey turned around.
“Help our mother,” he said. “Her grief is doubled, now.”
“Aye, very well,” replied Geoffrey, vanishing before Edmund could lay additional demands upon him.
Edmund rubbed his tired eyes, wondering what had delayed the midwife who would perform a final duty for Lord Shaftsbury, washing and shrouding his body. The linen lay neatly folded on the chair beside the bedstead. The linen winding cloth had cost more than Edmund had been wise to spend, but his mother had made such a fuss over the fineness of the linen for her husband’s burial cloth, and Edmund felt he could hardly choose cloth that was mean or coarse for his grandfather after burying his father in fine linen.
As it was, the earl—the former earl—was to have a nocturnal funeral to cut back on expense. Edmund’s mother put it about that the family, still mourning her husband, had no stomach for another great event. By burying the earl at night, they would cut the attendance to perhaps a quarter of what it might otherwise have been. The feast immediately after would be consequently less costly, although the family must still provide cakes and ale for the servants and gifts for close family and friends.
To remember his father, there had been heavy rings of gold, shaped into a pair of crossed bones, for those dear to his father, echoing the rings procured when Robert had died. Edmund was not sure they could afford rings of gold for his grandfather’s mourners, but as with the burial cloth, it would reflect badly on the family if they gave out remembrances of inferior quality.
A Thief in Time (Thief in Time Series Book 1) Page 3