Out of habit I reach to touch my lucky locket as I sink back to the floor. It’s not hanging around my neck. For a terrifying second I’m afraid I’ve lost it. I must have left it on my dresser. But something else isn’t right.
The neckline of my dress feels strange.
A wave of fear flows over me, and gooseflesh emerges on my forearms. I didn’t notice before, but now, looking down at myself, I see that my entire wardrobe is wrong. First of all, I’m wearing trousers. Trousers? I once saw a picture in a book of a woman wearing trousers, but it’s not proper. It’s indecent. I feel the fabric. Denim? The only people I’ve ever seen wearing denim are the cowboys in the Wild West show that Father took me to when I was ten, and those men were dusty and dirty. This denim is light blue and soft. My blouse is soft too, with words written on it. It says, Well-Behaved Women Seldom Make History.
I rub my eyes. “How hard did I hit my head?”
Chapter Seven
Hannah
I SIT UP ON THE floor. Whoa. I don’t remember falling off the stepladder, but I must have kicked it out of the way as I crashed, since there’s zip, zero ladder in sight. I rub my eyes. The early-evening sun is still strong because it’s summertime, and it streams through the windows. Wait. What happened to the velvet cording that ropes off the furniture in the middle of the room so that none of the visitors try to plop their butts onto priceless antiques?
“There you are, young lady.”
I turn my head to see a woman bustling into the room. Her hair is drawn up away from her face in a super-elaborate arrangement of curls, and the long skirts on her fancy dress swish as she glides toward me. As far as I can tell, it’s a spot-on, early-twentieth-century Edwardian-period costume. I rub my eyes again. We have character actors in the mansion only a few times a year, and I’m one thousand percent sure there are no events like that scheduled for months. What the heck is going on?
“We’re waiting for you,” the lady says, stopping right in front of me with her hands on her hips.
“Well?” she asks when I don’t answer.
She drops down to her knees. “Are you feeling unwell, my dear?” She reaches out to touch my forehead. “You look a bit flushed. Did you have a fainting spell?”
A what? Who has fainting spells anymore? Who is this woman? She looks an awful lot like pictures I’ve seen of—but no. Not possible.
“I . . . I was trying to get a closer look at that . . .” I gesture to where Maggie’s portrait usually hangs. “I thought I saw . . .” I shake my head at the memory. “And then I fell.”
“Goodness, what were you thinking?” the woman asks. “Did you use Mr. Birch’s stool to—Now, I know for a fact that you’ve been raised to conduct yourself in a manner more becoming of a lady. Climbing is for monkeys and little boys! Whatever possessed you?”
“I . . . Huh?”
“Come now.” The woman stands up and holds out her hand to help me up. “We mustn’t dawdle. We have an appointment that I, for one, am quite eager to keep. We’ll discuss this behavior later.”
I grasp her hand and wobble to my feet. It’s only then that I realize that I’m wearing a sea-foam-green calf-length taffeta dress with more ruffles than the bed skirt in the Rose Room on the second floor. My feet are covered from my toes to past my ankles in dainty leather boots. In July.
And they don’t feel like my feet. My hands don’t even look like my hands. Since when have I been able to grow actual fingernails without biting them down to stubs? Since never, that’s when. And I swear I got shorter.
Say what?
What is happening here?
Chapter Eight
Maggie
I HAVE ONLY BEGUN TO ponder the strangeness of my situation, when my hip bone buzzes. It’s like an electric shock of some kind! I stumble into the grand ballroom as I scramble to find the source of the buzzing. There’s a small device in the pocket of my trousers, unlike anything I’ve ever seen. I turn it over in my hand. A picture of a man and the word “DAD” appear on the glass. I shiver. My uncle has all kinds of new electronic thingamajigs in this house. But I’ve never seen someone’s likeness reproduced in vivid color—and mounted on glass like this. It’s as though I could almost reach into the device and touch the man’s face, it looks so real.
The device buzzes in my hand, until I drop it and it slides under the gilded grand piano in the corner, where it continues to vibrate.
I must be in some sort of fugue state where I changed my clothing and don’t remember. It’s the only explanation. But it doesn’t explain the strange device. And how am I aware of it? If I were in a fugue state, I wouldn’t think I’d be alert enough to know.
I turn in a circle. The ballroom has not yet been set for the ball, but it looks the way it often does for summer entertaining—with chairs set in several groupings for casual conversations. I take in the elaborate mirrors that dominate the room, the Louis XV–style paneling my aunt loves so much, the full-size portrait of Lady Elizabeth Drexel Lehr and one of her dogs. . . .
Wait. I don’t remember that portrait. I step closer. It is most definitely a glamorous portrait of Elizabeth Lehr, the mistress of the cottage across the street from The Elms. Why would Aunt put that in such a prominent location? A placard on the ornate table beneath it proclaims the artist to be Giovanni Boldini. Aunt loves to showcase her art collection, but I’ve never known her to advertise the artist in that manner.
I stumble away from the portrait and shuffle out of the ballroom, through the drawing room, and cross into the conservatory. (On top of everything else, I’m not even wearing shoes. Aunt Herminie will be scandalized when she sees me!)
I marvel at thick velvet ropes that seem to delineate a walking path through the rooms. That’s strange. I don’t recall them being there before; maybe Aunt has just added them to remind the servants not to walk on the carpet?
Ignoring one of the ropes, I flounce onto the cushion of a chaise longue. Flouncing works so much better in my regular clothes. I close my eyes, hoping this is some sort of dream from which I’ll awaken. Mademoiselle Cassatt is nowhere to be seen. She is usually set up and tapping her foot, waiting for me.
A few minutes later I crack open one of my eyes. It’s no good; no matter how I try, I’m still lying on a chaise in the conservatory. The white marble floor gleams. All the cherub statues are in their places, and yet there’s something not quite right. A card game is set out on a glass-topped table. Aunt Herminie would be horrified; she hates it when guests set up bridge games in such a public spot in the house.
And I’m still extremely aware of wearing trousers. This isn’t a fugue state. As much as I don’t want Aunt Herminie to see me in bare feet and trousers, there’s something very wrong with me and I need to find her. I push myself off the chair to go in search of help.
“Aunt?” I call, walking back through the large rooms of the mansion, recalling that the last time I saw her, she was in the breakfast room, instructing Mr. Birch on the proper care of a new tea set.
I have to pass through the dining room, and as I do—ignoring the fact that it is not yet set for dinner and there are no servants in sight—I notice a small device on the ceiling flashing a red light. More of Uncle E. J.’s fascination with electricity, but I’ve never noticed that before. Incredible. This new century is certainly a time of rapid technological developments.
Up till now I have managed not to panic. Aunt will know what is happening to me. I just need to find her. But as I feared, she is not in the breakfast room. I dash into the pantry and then back through the dining room and out into the foyer.
I stand there, absolutely still. There is no sound. The house is silent.
“Aunt Herminie?” I run up the grand staircase, marveling—even through my growing panic—at how easy it is to move in trousers. Aunt insists that proper young ladies do not run; she never minds when visiting children run on the grounds, but even so, she says I’m “getting to an age.” Right now I don’t care. I just want to fin
d her so she can tell me this is all a nightmare.
There’s no one. Anywhere. There are a half dozen guests staying here this weekend and several more in the guesthouses on the other side of the estate. And at least forty servants preparing for the ball tomorrow night. But all the bedrooms are empty. And they all have that strange rope across their entrances. And the smell. Or really, no smell. Instead of the fragrant hint of Aunt’s favorite roses, there is a distinct lack of smell. Like these rooms are not occupied at all.
Taking a deep breath to stall the hysteria bubbling up inside me, I resist the idea of going to bed in my own room. This horrible nightmare started in the drawing room when I looked at the mirror behind the seascape, so I decide to go back downstairs. I scratch at the spot on my head where a bump the size of an egg has blossomed.
That’s it.
I hit my head when I fell, and this is just a dream. Clearly that is what is happening. I must be dreaming. Maybe if I go back downstairs, I’ll wake up and all will be right. I need to see that mirror again.
Chapter Nine
Hannah
SOMETHING THAT FREAKY FRIDAY MOVIE I watched at my best friend Tara’s sleepover last winter neglected to hammer home: walking around in someone else’s body feels super-weird.
That’s about the extent of what I’ve been able to piece together about this crazy-whoa-I-don’t-know-what that’s happening right now, but it’s the only explanation that makes any sense. Because how else could I explain why I’m suddenly shorter and paler, with hair that’s way curlier than mine has ever been? Speaking of eyes, whoever belongs to this body should probably see an optometrist about this nearsighted thing she’s got going on. Plus, she must have had a whole lot of water to drink recently, since I’m getting pretty uncomfortable here. I’m trying to hold it, because using the bathroom in someone else’s body feels like it would be a huge violation of her privacy, but . . .
Like I said, it’s all pretty weird.
Something else I’ve figured out all on my own: corsets = barbaric torture devices. No wonder no one is smiling in old-timey pictures.
My brain is working overtime as I trail the lady in the long dress into the conservatory, where another woman is hovering over a framed painting propped against an easel. It’s turned around so that the back of the picture is facing us.
“Ah, c’est bon! You have arrived! I am so eager for you to see the finished result. I pray you will be more than satisfied. This young lady was a wonderful subject!”
She lays a whopper of a smile on me, and the other lady pats my arm gently, before saying, “We’re thrilled that you accepted our commission. It will be quite the honor to have your work hanging in our home.”
If it weren’t for the whole “I think I’m in someone else’s body” thing, I would easily be able to convince myself that I somehow got mixed up in a TV show filming here at the house. Maybe one of those Downton Abbey rip-offs. It would make perfect sense. The Elms has been used as the setting for bunches of Hollywood stuff. Once they even shot a Victoria’s Secret commercial in our boiler rooms, only Dad wouldn’t let me hang around the set because all the models were in their underwear and he didn’t think it was “appropriate.”
But there are no video cameras and no directors, and these people don’t seem like they’re acting. And of course, there’s the whole “not my own body” thing. Which puts a wrinkle in every theory I have, except for the super-weird ones. For now I’ll play along as best I can until I can figure out what the heck is going on.
So I curtsy. The dress I’m wearing seems like one someone should curtsy in.
Both women smile, and the lady next to the easel picks up the frame and carefully turns it to face us.
I gasp!
It’s the portrait of Margaret Dunlap!
And everything about it matches the one I’ve visited every day of my life, except for the color of the dress. Which is not daffodil yellow but sea-foam green. The same sea-foam green of the dress I’m wearing right now. The same dress entirely as the one I have on now.
Does that mean . . .
“Oh, Mademoiselle Cassatt! It’s breathtaking!” the lady next to me exclaims.
Mademoiselle Cassatt? As in Mary Cassatt?!? As in the artist who painted Maggie’s portrait?
“Maggie, pet? Are you going to gape with your mouth open, or do you have some words for Mademoiselle Cassatt about your portrait? Do you simply adore it, as I do?” The woman nudges my arm, gently at first, and then with more force when I don’t respond immediately.
“Um, yes. It’s, er, wowza!” I manage to sputter, because my brain is tripping over thoughts now.
The woman by my side scrunches her forehead and whispers, “Wowza? What in the heavens kind of expression is that, Margaret, and whomever did you pick it up from?”
I open and close my mouth like a fish, thoughts still whirring.
Finally one clear thought floats out of my brain muck: You’re Maggie Dunlap.
I’m Maggie Dunlap?
I’M MAGGIE DUNLAP!
Chapter Ten
Maggie
WHEN I GET BACK TO the drawing room, the first thing I notice is a small stepladder next to the sideboard. Disregarding the fact that it is not made of wood, as it should be, I climb up to where the seascape is supposed to hang. But instead it’s that portrait of me—which isn’t to have been unveiled yet—off its moorings, leaning against the mirror it should be hanging in front of.
I crawl onto the sideboard to get a better look, and almost fall off the edge again at the sight of a girl staring back at me from the glass. She’s got my face and she’s wearing the clothes I remember putting on this morning.
But she’s not me.
“There you are!” she exclaims. She seems to be trying for a whisper, but it comes out a good bit louder. “OMG . . . finally! I’ve been crossing fingers supertight that you’d come back to the mirror! You can hear me, right?”
I sit up straighter. “Of course I can hear you. This is my dream, is it not?”
“What?” she asks with a nervous titter. But then she looks around with a panicked expression. When she turns back, she seems relieved, but she’s no longer laughing. “Quickly, before your aunt comes back. You are Maggie Dunlap, right?”
I nod. “No one except Aunt Herminie and Father calls me Maggie. But yes. And who, pray tell, are you? And why are you talking with my face?”
“This is so whackadoodle.” The odd girl shakes her head. She looks as bemused as I feel. “You’re talking with my face. Did you know?” When I don’t answer, she continues. “The only thing I can figure out is that somehow we’ve traded places. I live at The Elms with my father—in the twenty-first century. We’re the caretakers, and it’s a historical museum maintained by the Newport Antiquities Society.”
“That’s preposterous.” Although, with all the strange happenings, this is an explanation that makes as much sense as anything else I’ve thought of.
“I know, right? But I think we, like, time traveled. You’ve zoomed forward. I’ve jumped backward.” The girl with my face looks around again as though she’s nervous about being caught.
I perk up at the mention of something I recognize. “You mean like that wonderful story by H. G. Wells? The Time Machine is one of my favorite books. But that’s just made up.”
“Believe me, I thought the same exact thing. But how else can we explain how I’m here and you’re there?” She lowers her voice. “I dunno how it happened; I just touched that black spot on the mirror, and presto bingo, I ended up here.”
“I remember now!” I shout at her, and then instantly cover my mouth with my hand before saying more quietly, “I thought I saw something flicker in the mirror behind the seascape, so I moved it to see better—then I saw you looking back at me! I tried to touch you, but then I fell!”
The girl nods. “Yep, same for me. Okay, your aunt will be back in a sec, so listen up. I don’t know about you, but I’ve dreamed my whole life of seeing t
his place when it was actually lived in. I was even wishing it right before we switched. So, I mean, when fate delivers, you gotta embrace that, right?”
I can barely process her words. What is she suggesting?
“I—” I begin, but she talks right over me, as if she’s never had an etiquette lesson in her life.
“I’m just saying, this had to have happened for a reason, so I say we go with it for a day before we swap back, ya know? You can totally explore the future and I can see if your time is everything I imagined. Perfect, right?”
I’m not feeling perfect about this at all, but I’m so taken aback, I can only nod.
She grins. “Okay, so from here on out, you have to be me and I have to be you, so no one suspects a thing. My dad will probs be calling you for dinner soon. Then we usually watch TV till we crash. Just go with the flow. Let’s meet up here at . . .” She pats at the pockets of her—no, my—dress. “Man, it sucks not having my phone.”
Did she just call me a man? She gazes over at what I’m sure is the clock on the mantel on her side of the mirror. “Meet me here at seven a.m. It’s gotta be before the house opens for visitors.” She smiles. “You look like me, but you sure don’t talk like me. Just try to keep your head down and stay out of trouble until we can chat again.”
Just then she gasps, says “Gotta go,” and jumps off the sideboard.
She’s gone. I don’t even know her name.
She said to keep my head down? How is that going to help? And what in heaven’s name is TeeVee?
I slide off the sideboard and spin around in a circle, taking in the antique Chinese vase, the crystal chandelier, the expansive parquet floor, the marble-topped sideboards, the winged cherubs on the ceiling, the seventeenth-century furniture. It looks exactly as it should, so my first impulse is to believe that I am still having that same dream and the girl in the mirror is just some sort of figment of my imagination. She said it was the twenty-first century. One hundred years into the future. Can it be true? As much as I love Mr. Wells’s book about time travel, I can’t believe it. It’s just foolishness. Maybe the clams in Chef’s chowder at lunch didn’t agree with me.
The Art of the Swap Page 3