Spark

by Catherine Friend

  The servants would be gone, so all I had to do was walk into the house, find Amy, and push her down the stairs. Then history’s timeline would continue on as it should. Too bad I was shaking so hard I couldn’t walk a straight line.

  And too bad that never, in one thousand years, would I push an ill, feeble woman down the stairs. In fact, I would never push anyone down any stairs. I needed a Plan B. I stopped in the middle of the road. Why was I even going to this house if I knew I couldn’t do it?

  I took a few backward steps then turned and huffed my way back to where Holmes had left me. I searched in vain for some sign of the carriage, but I was alone. My lungs struggled against the stupid stomacher, which I hated even more than Lord Winston. I blew out a few massive breaths to calm myself. No, I was here. I needed to find Amy Dudley and help her somehow.

  The edge of a white, square building came into view, then the entire building. The estate was an odd mix of differently styled buildings connected to one another, all covered in thick ivy. At one point in our plotting, Winston had mentioned Cumnor Place used to be a monastery taken over when Elizabeth’s father, King Henry VIII, changed the country’s religion and took possession of Catholic cathedrals and monasteries. That explained the pointed arches on all the doorways and windows.

  Squaring my shoulders, I approached as if I had reason to be there. I walked through a wide arch in one corner and found myself standing in a huge courtyard. Grass had grown up through the cobblestones, enough that seven black-faced sheep grazed there. One looked up and bleated, but otherwise they ignored me.

  Which building was Amy’s? Feeling faint, I rested my palms on my knees for a second. What the hell was I going to do? I retraced my steps out of the courtyard and looked for an entrance. A studded oak door with slender windows on each side seemed to be the main entrance, so I stepped up. Without knocking, I pushed open the heavy door, grateful it didn’t creak. I stood inside an airy vestibule, listening for any movement, any voices. Nothing.

  I began walking through the rooms. To the right was a parlor of sorts, to the left a dining room. The home wasn’t elegant, but it was clean and filled with solid furniture. The stone floor shone in the sun. I was relieved that at least Dudley had ensured his wife lived in relative comfort.

  When I reached the farthest room, one that looked out over a smallish lake, my legs refused to work anymore. Even though I had no idea what I would say should Amy Dudley appear, I sank into the nearest chair and squinted against the sunlight pouring through the leaded windows. A rock pathway lined with dense, trimmed boxwood led to a short dock, faded gray and listing to the left. An empty rowboat bobbed alongside the dock.

  While I listened for any sound in the house, my brain spun. How could I kill Amy Dudley without really killing her? She had to disappear for about…I quickly did the math. Sir Robert Dudley would die of malaria and stomach cancer in 1688, so Amy needed to hide out for a mere twenty-eight years.

  Hell’s gate, how would that even work? I stared at the lake. Okay, there it was, right in front of me. First, I would hide Amy in the woods, then wait for the servants to return. When they did, I would run toward them, crying that Amy had fallen into the lake. In the confusion I would slip away, retrieve Amy, and we’d walk to safety.

  I clenched my jaw. What a fire trucking idiot. Amy was too ill to walk anywhere. And I couldn’t hide her until 1688. Once again without a Plan B, I rose and finished searching the main floor, ending up at a wide but shallow staircase. It rose for seven steps, turned ninety degrees, then rose another ten steps. God’s bones. This was the staircase. One Tudor fan website had described it in detail. How could someone die on such a short staircase? Surely Amy Dudley had been murdered, and that man could show up at any time.

  Then I heard a floor creak upstairs. “Amy? Mrs. Dudley? Hello?”

  Nothing.

  Lifting my skirts, I ascended the stone steps and hesitated at the top. Had the sound come from the room at the top of the stairs? I knocked softly and let myself in. Clutching my chest, I struggled to calm down. The room was empty but for a tall-backed chair facing the open window. “Amy?” I took a few steps.

  My pulse raced so fast that all sound faded. All I could hear was my heart trying to pound its way out of my chest. Calm down.

  When I looked over the chair back, I blew out a huge breath. Nothing there but an embroidery hoop holding a silk handkerchief. Okay, Amy must be farther down the hallway.

  I rubbed my face for courage, smoothed out my skirt, and stepped out of the sitting room onto the landing.

  “Oh!” A painfully thin woman at the top of the stairs whirled around in surprise at my rustling skirts.

  “Oh!” I echoed stupidly.

  The startled woman took a step back.

  “Don’t be frightened!” I reached toward her. “I mean no harm.” But she took another step back onto nothing, and began windmilling her arms.

  “No!” I cried as she did two awkward backward somersaults, arms and legs flopping like a doll’s. She made no sound except for a soft moan and landed in a crumpled heap at the bottom of the stairs.

  No, no, no! I stared down at her for a second, willing her to move. She didn’t.

  I scrambled down the steps. Judging by the fine dress, it had to be her. I knelt and felt her neck for a pulse. Nothing. I felt both wrists. Still nothing. I sank back onto the floor. How could someone die so incredibly fast? One second staring at me, the next second dead.

  “Amy, Amy, I’m so sorry.” Her eyes were wide and unseeing. Hell’s gate. I’d killed her by mistake. I curled over, hugging myself. What had I done? Ensured history’s continuity? Or just killed a woman in my multiple-personality-induced fantasy? I squeezed my sides. I’d never seen a dead body before.

  Shaken, I forced myself to stand and straighten poor Amy’s body out so she looked more dignified. I replaced the pale green headpiece that had come undone in her fall.

  I wiped my eyes and looked around. No one else was here. Did that mean that Amy Dudley really had fallen by accident, that there was no murderer lurking in the house? (Except, of course, for me.) I took in the white vase of lilies on a nearby table, a heavy basket on the floor filled with fresh marigolds. The perfect blossoms were so plump and alive it hurt to look at them. Birds chirped outside. It did not escape me that I was the only witness to an event that would confuse and confound people for centuries.

  Taking a shaky breath, I smoothed the hair back from Amy’s pale face, kissed her cooling forehead, then left Cumnor Place as quietly as I’d entered it.

  I took two steps outside and threw up. When I was done gagging, I kicked the dirt to cover my mess, then looked back at the house. It would be demolished 250 years from now because Amy’s ghost would give the locals so much trouble.

  Holmes and the carriage awaited me at the end of the drive. I climbed inside and cried for a long, long time.

  Chapter Thirty

  I have little memory of the wild ride back to London. Holmes wanted to stop at the inn again, saying it wasn’t safe to travel at night because of thieves and that the road could be dangerous for the horses, but I refused to get out of the carriage.

  “Keep going,” I insisted, even though my ass burned from bouncing over the rough road and my empty stomach ached. I’d just killed a woman. Comfort and food were not something I deserved.

  So, armed with a sword by his side, Holmes had the driver keep the horses to a walk so they wouldn’t injure themselves in an unseen pothole, and we pressed on all night. I felt no desire to curl up on the velvet seats and sleep. It was as if I’d consumed a twelve-pack of Pepsi or a gallon of coffee. I wondered if I would ever sleep again.

  * * *

  The rising sun had just begun to lighten the dark sky when Holmes stopped the carriage beside one of the side entrances to Whitehall. My legs protested as I climbed down, waving off Holmes’s help.

  The palace was in an uproar. As I hurried to my room, chattering servants and scandalized courti
ers buzzed with the news of Amy Dudley’s death. A messenger must have ridden at breakneck speed and taken shortcuts not available to carriages.

  Lady Mary sat on a stool in the Queen’s outer chamber. She looked up when I walked in. “Where have you been?” she snapped.

  “Visiting a cousin in Cheapside,” I said. “I’ve been gone since yesterday.”

  Mary’s face crumpled. “Something horrid has happened.” I sank to my knees at her side, desperate to divert attention from my absence. “My sister-in-law Amy has been found dead in her home.”

  I held Mary’s hand, stunned. “You are Robert Dudley’s sister?”

  She nodded.

  “Tell me what happened.”

  Mary took a shuddering breath. “We know not. Amy was found dead yesterday. Did she fall and break her neck? Was she…?” Mary didn’t finish. “My brother is frantic and the Queen is frightened.”

  “I will go to her,” I said.

  The Queen was in one of her private chambers, a long, narrow room with a window at the far end that overlooked the Thames. Tapestries with hunting scenes lined the walls, muffling all sound. Elizabeth was surrounded by women as she dabbed her eyes with a snow-white handkerchief. Everyone looked up when I entered. “I was visiting my cousin in Cheapside,” I said before anyone could scold me. Sun reflected off the water, creating ripples of light across the ceiling above us. How could such a lovely day follow such an ugly one?

  “Ah, our Spark,” Elizabeth said weakly. She wasn’t dressed for court but instead wore an open-necked pale tan gown that turned her skin an unhealthy gray. Free from corset or hoops, she slumped in her chair. “The world has tumbled around our shoulders and become a burden too great to bear.”

  “Ma’am.” I sank into a deep curtsey. “Surely it cannot be as bad as all that.”

  Elizabeth’s skin was pale and eerily beautiful, but her dull eyes and worried lips told another story. She waved everyone away. I turned to leave, but she stopped me. “Spark, you stay.”

  Ignoring the daggers the other women aimed at me, I waited until the room was empty save myself and the Queen. I returned to her side, sinking onto the nearest stool, and let her clutch my hand to her chest. “What are we to do?” she moaned.

  I kissed her hand with much love and respect. “Ma’am, let us talk this through, shall we?”

  She nodded, her headpiece in danger of coming unpinned. I took a moment to reattach it, then sat back down.

  “Yesterday, I was talking with Ambassador de Quadra,” Elizabeth stammered. “He made mention that Robert seemed unhappy, and I replied that he was doubtlessly thinking of his wife. Then I said she was dead, or nearly so. Why did I say such a thing? I only meant that she was quite ill. I never meant to imply that I had any foreknowledge of her fate.” She moaned again. She had forgotten, in her anguish, to be the royal “we.” She was just Elizabeth, the woman. “My people love me. They trust me. If I were to lose that, I would lose all my strength.”

  “Those who know your majesty could never believe you had anything to do with this tragedy.”

  “Yes, but what about my Robin? The pall of murder now covers him like a shroud. What am I to do? How could I ever choose him as a suitable husband when people suspect he did great harm to his wife in order to be free to consort with me?” Her head dropped so heavily against her chest that she looked like a very old woman. I was hit with pangs of regret that I knew her future.

  Elizabeth would die an old, sick woman with most of her friends and contemporaries in the grave well before her. She would have no one but a few young men who flirted with her in hopes of currying favor. Many of her subjects would be ready for her to go so new blood could lead the country. For a brief moment, I considered staying. I could be her friend through the end of her life.

  Elizabeth blew her nose. “Robin is in the presence chamber, insisting on an audience with me. I have commanded the guards to keep him out, which slices my soul to ribbons. All is in ruins. I do not know where to turn.”

  My heart broke at her confusion, and I had a flash of insight into how hard it must have been for Elizabeth to grow up, emotionally isolated from everyone but Kat Ashley, with the entire country knowing her father had beheaded her mother. Elizabeth had been raised by servants, away from court, and, for a while, by one of Henry’s later wives, but she really had been alone, the child of a woman believed to be an adulterer who’d betrayed Henry. What a terrible burden to bear, and one that likely made all other problems in her life feel ten times heavier.

  “My Queen, here is an idea. Why not give Robert an order to retire from court for a few months? It would be better if you weren’t seen together. Send him to his palace in Kew. Tell him to remain there until his innocence has been determined. Treat him as you would treat any other courtier suspected of murdering his wife.”

  “But it will worry Robin so. He will think I no longer care for him.”

  I stood and took Elizabeth by the shoulders, a rare experience for her, I was sure. “Your Majesty, what matters right now is the safety of your subjects. If the French or Scottish were to suspect a great weakness in England, one of them might pounce. To keep your country safe, you must push Dudley away. Show everyone that you are not so swayed by him that you would condone murder.”

  “But how will I get through the day without him?” Elizabeth moaned.

  I pulled the Queen to her feet. “Ma’am, you must not give up hope. Hope is your future. It is the light that will guide you for many years. I am not a fortune-teller, but I know you. I know your strength and your determination. You are going to hold yourself above all this marriage folderol. You are going to live a long and rich life. You are going to be the greatest queen, nay, the greatest ruler, this country has ever seen or will ever see again. Your wants as a woman will come second, or third, or even last. You are a Tudor, so ruling is in your blood. You will put aside, for now, your love of Robert Dudley. You will do what needs to be done.”

  I could see that she was almost there, but not quite. Then I remembered one of her more memorable quotes about being the daughter of King Henry VIII. “Ma’am, you may not be a lion, but you are a lion’s cub, and you have a lion’s heart.”

  With those words, the transformation took place before my eyes. Elizabeth straightened. She met my gaze with a fire that I hadn’t seen in days, released my hands, and smoothed down her skirts. She readjusted her heavy pearl necklace and touched one slender hand to her hair, then let out a long and tremulous breath. “Blanche Nottingham, you are wise beyond your years. Please accompany us to the presence chamber. We will receive Robert Dudley and banish him to Kew until the truth be known.” Her voice was strong and royal. The Queen was back.

  * * *

  I managed to find Meg at the laundry and pull her away. “Where have you been?” she whispered. I led her to the middle of the bowling green and sank to the ground. The grass tickled my ankles, but I ignored it because no one could eavesdrop on us out here. We were in a fishbowl, but a secure one.

  I told her what had happened at Cumnor Place and the role I’d played for the sake of ensuring that events stayed true to the historical timeline. Talking about it brought some relief, but not enough. My chest still ached when I replayed the scene with poor Amy at the bottom of the stairs.

  Meg clutched my hand. “I don’t understand,” she said. “Was someone else supposed to have killed Amy and you stepped in and caused an accident? Or were you the person who caused her death all along?”

  I swallowed hard. “No idea. What if the reason Amy’s death has been shrouded in mystery for centuries is because a woman from the future caused it then disappeared?”

  Meg gave me a weak smile. “Now my head hurts.”

  I tried not to think about Chris and Dr. Kroll, but they were with me almost all the time. According to them I was making all this up for my own entertainment. “I don’t know what’s real anymore,” I said. “Chris would say I’d even created you so I wouldn’t feel so alone in my
psychotically-induced Elizabethan fantasy.”

  Meg stroked my cheek then quickly dropped her hand. “Bollocks. Of course I’m real. I am Meghan Warren, chief researcher at the British Library. I was born in Haworth, home of the Brontë sisters, and attended Oxford. I moved to London ten years ago. You haven’t made me up.”

  “I could have created you in my head to say that very thing.”

  Meg’s smile lit up her small, round face. “Here’s the bloody truth, my friend. I’m so amazing that you couldn’t make me up. No one has that much creativity.”

  The world stopped for a second as we appreciated the delicious arrogance of her words, then we both broke up laughing. “Can you believe I said that?” Meg managed to get out between laughs.

  An idea flashed through me. She was right about some things being too magnificent to make up. What if I could find a creative way to prove that this world was real? I clutched both her hands. “Tell me something about yourself that no one knows.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “If we both make it back—”

  “When.”

  “When we both make it back, I’ll find you and tell you what you said. If you, Meg in the future, have no idea what I’m talking about, then I’ve fantasized this entire experience.”

  Meg’s cheeks flushed. We watched a group of men in colorful tights and puffy velvet pants pass through the lower end of the green, neither of us wanting to speak until we were totally alone again.

  “I don’t like it. Then I’m participating in Chris’s stupid fantasy theory.”

  “Humor me.”

  She looked off into the park and smiled. “Okay, here’s one that nobody knows but my parents and my sister. My mum has a wicked sense of humor so she does this thing to my dad that cracks him up every time. She throws her arms around him and says, ‘God, I love you… What was your name again?’”