by Susana Ellis
The gypsy woman chuckled. "Not Star Trek crap. No indeed." She leaned in looked Helena directly in the eye. "This is the real thing, Helena. My senses tell me that you've been out of sync with the world nearly all of your life. Homeless. Without roots. A wanderer in search of the life she was born to, but lost. Does any of this ring true to you?"
It did indeed. A lump developed in her throat and she felt like sobbing. But this woman could be nothing but a clever con-artist, and her "unusual power" was probably just an ability to read people's non-verbal body language.
The woman patted her hand. "I understand," she said in a soothing tone. "You have no reason to trust me. Those of my race have not always conducted themselves honorably, and for that, we must all bear the stigma."
She pulled away from the table and made as if to leave. But Helena suddenly realized she wanted her to stay.
"Wait."
Helena offered her hand to the other woman. "I'm sorry I've been so rude to you. Please stay and tell me more about your–er special powers."
Mrs. Herne smiled and accepted Helena's hand. "No need to apologize." She looked pointedly at Helena's food. "Is that a turkey sandwich? It looks delicious."
Helena's hand touched her throat. She'd forgotten all about eating. "Turkey-bacon-mustard. It's okay. Nothing special."
The gypsy eyed the sandwich with interest.
"Oh." The woman was hungry. "Can I get you something to eat?" How could she eat her own meal while her table companion had nothing?
Mrs. Herne's face lit up. "How kind of you to offer, Helena dear. I'd love an egg sandwich, but I left my handbag at home, you see…"
For the next half-hour, while they chatted, Mrs. Herne had a sandwich, potato crisps, lemonade, and a pastry. And when they parted, Helena had an invitation to visit Mrs. Herne's shop on Gracechurch Street.
Which she was inclined to do, oddly enough. Mrs. Herne might be a con-artist or merely a kook, but she'd certainly caught Helena's attention. What the heck? She had nothing better to do.
* * *
The sign painted on the window read “Genuine Gipsy Fortune Telling” in large red letters with “Palm Reading • Tarot Cards” in smaller print underneath with the bottom line proclaiming “Séances Scheduled at Your Convenience”. A mannequin dressed flamboyantly in a red peasant blouse and gold skirt stood in the window with outstretched arms, no doubt meant to lure the bystander inside. Although an attempt had been made to give her a gypsy appearance—black wig tied back under a bright red headscarf, and glittery gold dripping from every possible place—her expression was the typical bland stare associated with mannequins.
It was cheesy. The sort of place an educated person would never deign to enter. Certainly not Helena, who had never believed in psychics or fortune telling, let alone "auras" and "temporal glitches".
“I might be able to help you find your proper place,” the gypsy had said cautiously after finishing the meal Helena had bought her. “The time you were born in. Come to my shop”—she'd pushed a card toward Helena—“and we can discuss it.”
Helena’s eyes had narrowed. “Why not now? Here?” she asked, indicating the busy sandwich shop. “Why must I come to your shop? Do you need your crystal ball or something?”
Mrs. Herne had simply smiled and excused herself, leaving Helena to decide whether to ignore her or investigate further her incredible assertions.
Oddly enough, she wanted to believe. The gypsy’s words struck a nerve. Helena had never fit in anywhere, no matter how much she’d tried. Perhaps there was a reason for it. Something that could be done to remedy the situation. But—travel through time? That sort of thing happened only in science fiction. As Dr. McCoy explained in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home: “Sure, you slingshot around the Sun, pick up enough speed—you’re in time warp. If you don’t, you’re fried.”
Star Trek. Outlander. Fiction. Nobody with any sense believed there was any truth in either story, but they did appeal to the imagination. What if people could travel through time? What would they do? How would they live? How would the future be affected by one's actions in the past? She shook her head. It was all nonsense, of course.
But here she was, standing outside Mrs. Herne’s fortune-telling shop, gathering up the courage to go inside. Well, she’d come this far. Might as well go for broke. She rang the bell and stepped inside.
The foyer was covered in red damask sprinkled with gold medallions. On a table between two gold satin wingback chairs was an vintage Ouiji board. On the adjacent wall was a showcase with a magnificent crystal ball in the center and zodiac plates on the side.
But what really drew Helena’s attention was the familiar-looking Zoltar fortune-telling machine in the corner. The gold-turbaned gypsy male figure had a narrow black beard and a thick mustache that turned up at the ends like a villain’s. He wore a black leather vest over a gold shirt, hoop earrings, and his eyes seemed to be laughing at her. The case of the machine was of made of elaborately carved wood painted in black and gold, and the front of the glass box said “Zoltar” in gold-outlined red at the top, and “Speaks” on the bottom. His right hand hovered over a crystal ball, and the left one seemed to beckon her to come closer. Now where had she seen that before?
“It was the movie Big,”
Mrs. Herne pushed aside some of the strands of colorful beads that obscured the interior of her shop as she approached Helena.
“They had one exactly like this, but mine is the original. I purchased it from Patty Astley herself when her husband refused to have it anywhere near his amphitheatre. She was a good friend of mine, was Patty. Quite the horsewoman, too. But then, Philip was an excellent teacher.”
Astley? Of Astley’s Amphitheatre? From upwards of two hundred years ago?
“How old are you, Mrs. Herne?” She certainly did not have the look of a senior citizen, let alone someone who'd lived centuries. Weirder and weirder.
Mrs. Herne threw back her head and laughed loudly.
“How old do I look?” she asked finally.
“Oh well, maybe forty-five?” Helena hedged, trying to be diplomatic. She actually figured the woman for about a decade older.
“Right you are, Miss Helena. I stopped aging on my fifty-fifth birthday.” She smiled at Helena’s startled reaction. “You were trying to be kind, of course. To a young person, fifty years seems a long time. In reality, fifty is the best age. You know yourself well by then, and aren’t always trying to become someone else. And you don’t take things so seriously. Life is meant to be enjoyed, after all.” Her eyes twinkled at Helena. “After all, fifty is the new forty, or so they say.”
She took Helena's arm and pulled her into the shop. "I'm so glad you decided to come. Have a seat and I'll fetch you some tea."
Over tea, Mrs. Herne succeeded in drawing out the details of Helena's life, listening intently without comment until Helena mentioned the antique locket her mother—if the woman with her was her mother—had been wearing at the time of the accident in Florida. At that point, her face brightened.
"A locket? That could be a valuable clue to the date of the temporal glitch."
Helena unfastened the chain and reluctantly placed the necklace in the gypsy's hand. She was beginning to regret having come in the first place. Mrs. Herne could be a homicidal maniac for all Helena knew.
The woman looked at her and shook her head. Oops, Helena had forgotten about Mrs. Herne's uncanny ability to hear her thoughts.
"Sorry," she mumbled.
Mrs. Herne's attention returned to the locket, made of gold and inscribed with "Helena" in lovely script on the outside.
"We don't know that was my name," Helena volunteered. "It could be the name of the woman inside. But that's what the workers at Child Services decided to call me."
Mrs. Herne opened the locket, exposing tiny miniatures of a blond man and a flame-haired woman. "I suppose they could be your parents," she said with a glance at Helena's red-blonde hair.
"They could be," Helena agreed, "but
the authorities assumed the woman killed in the accident was my mother. She was struck by a car, and somehow I ended up on the side of the road. In the grass." She sighed. "These days they could run a DNA test, but the technology hadn't evolved back then. In any case, I was always told that she was my mother, and that was all anyone could tell me."
Mrs. Herne smiled. "The thought that a couple who lived two hundred years ago might be your parents would never have occurred to them." She looked up from the locket to Helena's face. "I have a business associate who can likely track down the date this piece was made, if you can trust me with it overnight."
Helena frowned. "I'd rather not. Why can't we take it to him now?"
"Because his shop will be closed by the time we could get there."
"I really can't—" she started to say. That locket was the only clue she had to her family identity. She couldn't risk losing it.
Mrs. Herne let out a loud breath. "I have no intention of stealing it, you silly girl." She gave a half-hearted shrug. "But I do understand your concern." She dropped the necklace into Helena's hand. "Come back tomorrow, and we will visit my associate together. The locket will be crucial in determining the approximate date when the temporal glitch occurred."
Helena re-clasped the chain around her neck. Why not? She had nothing better to do, after all. "One thing," she added. "What exactly do you mean by a temporal glitch? Do you think I was born in some other time or something? How is that possible? It sounds like a bunch of malarkey, really."
"I'm sure it does," responded the gypsy. "A temporal glitch is a rare occurrence. Sometimes it is caused by misaligned planets, or even strong electrical storms that thrust their victims into temporal holes that leave them stranded somewhere in the spectrum of time. I've only encountered a handful of those, however, and it is fairly simple to return the victims, as long as they retain their memories. In your case, though…"
"…I was too young," Helena finished. "So my locket could help us determine the time. And then you can return me?" She asked, running her hand through her hair. "People really do travel through time? On purpose?"
"They do indeed. A sort of temporal holiday, as it were."
Helena stared down at her palms. It was all so overwhelming.
"Yes, it is," agreed Mrs. Herne. "I have an idea. Why don't you say with me tonight, since you have nowhere else to go. I can make a decent omelette for the two of us, and you'll need a good night's sleep after all of today's surprises."
"Well…," Helena began. Mrs. Herne really was a stranger, after all.
Mrs. Herne rolled her eyes. "The guest bedroom has a key," she offered. "Just in case you're worried about me being an axe-murderer."
Helena chuckled at the thought of the affable gypsy brandishing an axe. "All right. Fine. And thank you," she added, feeling rather ungrateful.
But she did lock her door that night. One could never be completely sure about people, not these days.
* * *
By noon the next day, Helena and Mrs. Herne had determined a plan of action. Mrs. Herne and her associate judged the locket to have been created in the late 1780's, at the renowned jeweler, Rundell & Bridge, the miniatures painted sometime later.
"So if I was born around 1790, I should be the age I am now in 1817," mused Helena. "And that is where I should go to find out where I came from."
"Yes. And how fortunate that my good friend Lady Pendleton will be there to assist you!" Mrs. Herne exclaimed. "I happen to know that she was in Town that year. Truly, my dear, you could not have a better person to help you with your investigations."
"Mrs. Pendleton."
"A time traveling friend of mine. From the Regency."
Mrs. Herne paid little attention to Helena's qualms. Seating herself at a small writing-desk, she pulled out paper and pen and began making a list of things for Helena to do to prepare for the journey, including the best choice of safe places to "appear", preferably not in the middle of a busy street where she could be run over by a vehicle, as had happened with her own mother.
Not a very reassuring thought.
"There is an element of danger," Mrs. Herne said absently. "But that's true whether you stay or go. Stay and you may get flattened by a lorry, or a plane might fall on you. Go, and you may just find out what you've wanted to know all your life. C'est la vie."
Easy enough to say for a woman who seemed to be immortal.
By the time she left Mrs. Herne's and checked into a hotel—the agency, alas, having no room for her after all—her head was spinning. Was she really considering making an attempt to travel through time? To beg assistance from some time-traveling woman called Lady Pendleton who didn't know her from Adam? But then, Mrs. Herne was pretty much an enigma too. Was she a fool to trust either one of them? Perhaps, but it wasn’t like she had to jump off a cliff or otherwise risk her life to do it. All she had to do was to clasp a certain gold-flecked black stone tightly in her hands and concentrate on thinking about where she wanted to travel.
“But you must truly wish it,” Mrs. Herne cautioned. “Reflect on your desire to be reunited with your true family and live the life you were meant to live.”
And how to return if things didn’t work out in the nineteenth century?
Mrs. Herne waved her hand in the air. "Simple. It's the same procedure. If you should lose the stone, though, Agatha will help you. Lady Pendleton. Or you can drop by my shop on Gracechurch Street. But you might not find me there right away. I believe I was traveling a great deal that summer. You have a better chance with Lady Pendleton. She knows the drill.”
And what if she couldn’t find Lady Pendleton?
“Oh well, you’re a bright girl. Smart, educated, and used to getting around on your own. Keep your wits about you and learn from your surroundings. You’ll be fine.”
Would she? Helena recalled Claire Fraser being branded a witch in Outlander and briefly wondered if they burned witches at the stake in the early 1800's. Or had they been planning to dunk her, before Jamie came to the rescue?
Mrs. Herne was frowning. “That was a work of fiction, nothing more. That Gabaldon woman never time-traveled herself or she would know how it's really done."
It was eerie how easily the gypsy lady read her thoughts.
“If this is where you belong, you’ll adapt. In time.”
Helena didn’t like the sound of “if.”
But in the end, she couldn’t resist. The past was pulling at her, drawing her, and she finally let it take her into its mysterious lair.
* * *
The Elizabethan Arms
Hackney
East London
That evening
People can't really travel through time. And if they could, the world would be really screwed up, with people going back and changing things without understanding the consequences. Except that Jamie and Claire had tried and failed to prevent the tragedy at Culloden. So maybe it doesn't really the work that way. The whole time-space continuum couldn't be as simple as that, or the world would have self-destructed long ago.
“More coffee?”
The waitress paused next to her with the coffeepot poised above her cup.
Helena caught her breath. Goodness! She was actually thinking as though time travel and Outlander were real. Had she lost her mind?
"Yes, please." It would be her fourth cup, but massive doses of caffeine had certainly worked to clear her head during college all-nighters. And a clear head was just what she needed right now.
“Scotch whisky for me."
Helena froze as her former employer—the loathsome Richard—slid into the chair opposite and grinned at her.
“I had the devil of a time trying to find you, my dear. The agency claimed to have no knowledge of your whereabouts, so I had to go to the trouble of hiring a detective bloke to find you."
Helena's mouth fell open. "You're stalking me?" Her body tensed. Who did he think he was—God's gift to nannies? What he needed was a good ass-kicking!
Leaning across the bar table, he reached out and stroked her arm. Which she quickly pulled away.
"Now, now, Helena, there's no need to be coy. I admit it was a bit of a tricky situation while you were still living with us, but really, my dear, you should have contacted me sooner. I could have set you up at a finer hotel than this one. The Ritz, perhaps? I could even get you the Royal Suite, which comes with a butler and a Rolls Royce. And a chauffeur, of course, if you don't fancy driving on the left side of the road.” His grin was pure saccharine.
She glared at him. “I'm. Not. Interested. Go back to your wife, Mr. Earskine.”
“You Americans are so puritanical,” he said as he set his clasped hands on the table surface. “Lucille and I have gone our separate ways for years now. A modern marriage, you know.”
Helena felt a sour taste in her mouth. His youngest daughter was only two years old!
The attractive blonde barista set his drink down in front of him. “Ah, thank you, my dear,” he said, with an appreciative smile that was instantly returned. Helena stood up.
“Now, now, don’t be jealous, Helena. Can’t a man appreciate a pretty girl without his inamorata feeling betrayed?”
He sprung out of his chair and tried to take her into his arms. She wrenched away.
“Don't touch me! I’m not your inamorata! Go. Away!”
A couple at a nearby table glanced at them with interest. Tricky Dickie narrowed his eyes.
“Keep your voice down, Helena. We are attracting attention. Let’s go upstairs to your room and discuss it in private.”
Helena was beyond caring. “No!” she said clearly and firmly. “I’m going up to my room, Mr. Earskine. Alone. And if you follow me, I’m calling the police.”
There was a gasp from someone in the coffee bar, and suddenly another man—the manager, she guessed—appeared.
“May I be of service, Miss Lloyd? Is this gentleman accosting you?” He was shorter than Richard Earskine, but was solid and had an air of authority that gave Helena a sense of relief.