The food arrived, and when Ashley left, Lucy asked, “You told Ashley that Isaac and I had a falling out. Why?”
Pierce smiled sympathetically and reached across the table for her hand. “He’s gone, darling. The young man you know and cared for has returned to his own time.”
“You mean the 1800s?” she whispered, keeping her voice low so others wouldn’t hear their bizarre conversation. “Why couldn’t he stay here?”
He released her hand. Already, she missed it.
He sat back with a crestfallen sigh. “That’s a terribly long story. To find out, you’ll have to travel to La Ciotat.”
“France? I’ll have to wait that long? I still have so much money to save up for.”
“Not really.” He lifted his teacup. “You’ll be leaving come spring. There’s a first-class plane ticket and a bundle of cash waiting for you at the New York City Bank. I put it all in yesterday.” He sipped his drink and added, “I bought the cottage in your grandfather’s picture.”
Her eyes widened and her jaw moved up and down before any words came out. “Wait, did you say . . . ?”
Pierce reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a key. He slid it over the table toward her.
“That key goes to Security Box 7. Inside, you’ll have everything you’ll need to start you off. You can also exchange the money for francs right there at the bank.”
She picked the tiny key up and stared at it. “You did all this?”
“We both did. Isaac and me. All the cash in the box was his. He’d been stashing loot away for a while.” Pierce snorted. “Idiot should have mentioned it to you sooner but he wanted to surprise you on your birthday.”
Tears formed in her eyes. “He . . . he did that? For me?”
“Aye. That he did.”
“And you bought the cottage?”
“Just before I left Europe for New York.”
They ate quietly. Lucy was thankful the elf hadn’t broken her dominant hand.
After a while, she asked, “So, you came to New York just for me?”
“Well, yes, and because I needed to save my own arse,” he answered, wiping his mouth with his napkin. “Otherwise, Kayden would’ve jabbed a blade in me.”
“That day at the park . . . you knew I’d be there?”
“When you slipped on the ice, you badly fractured your elbow. I needed to bring you to hospital. Erm, Isaac did, I mean. Frank gave us a lift. I thought I’d save you the distress and catch you from falling.” He grinned. “And I wanted to see you again, Luce.”
Her cheeks burned from blushing.
“Oh. Um, thank you for saving me from falling.”
Her eyes went to her cast.
“Unfortunately, I couldn’t prevent your other wound, love. If I had stepped in too soon, Kayden might have done both me and Isaac in on the spot. I remember the bloodlust in those eyes of hers when she had me at your flat. The rush of nabbing her prey. If I’d interfered before letting that rush subside, I don’t believe it would have turned out well in our favor.”
“But you’re here as an elderly man,” she pointed out. “Wouldn’t Isaac have lived even if you hadn’t come?”
“I’m alive because I’m came here. If the actions I took today hadn’t worked, and she’d killed me, I wouldn’t be sittin’ here and you would have fallen in the park.”
Lucy tried to wrap her head around that one. She rubbed her forehead. “This is all so confusing.”
“Trust me, I’ve had my fill of puzzling conversations.”
She eyed him. “What happens now? I go to France and then what?”
Pierce shrugged. “I haven’t the foggiest. Ever since my younger self went back, I have no earthly idea what the future will bring.”
“Wait. What does that mean? Will Isaac . . . ever return?”
He again reached over and grasped her hand. His touch told her everything.
“I’m afraid I have. Just not as the youth you remember.”
He drove her home and parked in front of her building.
“Are you going to take the cottage?” he asked hopefully.
Strangely, Lucy was thinking little about the cottage or France.
“The woman, the one in the photograph in the book, is she who you were taken from?”
She shifted her gaze over to study him as he answered. After a few steady but painful heartbeats, he said, “All the answers are at the cottage.”
“Oh,” she whispered somberly. “All right.”
His warm hand enveloped hers. “I want to tell you something. After I returned to my own era, I remembered very little about what happened to me here. Moments appeared only in fragments, you see, but significant enough for me to recall them. I saw you, Lucy Neil. More than once, you came to me during those years of forgetfulness. That’s how important you were to me. When I regained my memories, I eventually learned that there was this special person whom I’d had the pleasure of sharing incredible times with.” His grip tightened. “You were never truly forgotten because of how much I care for you.”
Lucy burst into tears and he held her in his arms. They embraced each other tightly and with great affection.
“The moments we shared with each other were the best of my life,” she sobbed in his ear.
He drew back and gently took hold of her necklace, rubbing a pearl between his fingers.
“Moments are but tiny beads in one’s existence, darling. String them together and you get a lifetime.”
He wiped her tears away with his thumb. “Go to France, love.”
“Will I . . . ever see you again?”
He shook his head slowly. “I’m afraid this is where we part ways for good, lass. It wouldn’t be fair for either of us.”
She understood. The man before her wasn’t the boy she’d fallen for. This man had lived another life and had lived it without her.
“Goodbye, Luce.”
She bit her lip and more tears threatened to fall, especially after seeing Pierce’s eyes gloss over.
“Goodbye, Pierce Landcross.”
She got out of the car and stood on the sidewalk, watching with her heart weighing heavily in her chest as he drove off. She cracked a smile and let out a laugh.
“At least he finally learned how to drive.”
In the spring, Lucy made it to La Ciotat, France. She found the cottage, the same one her grandfather had snapped a picture of in his days as a traveling photographer. It looked as beautiful as the picture. Blooming trees and new spring grass surrounded it. Birds sang and bees and butterflies flew around all the flowers. The pure sight of the cottage set in its colorful surroundings made her heart swoon.
After paying the taxi that had driven her there, Lucy went to the front porch. Pierce had instructed her while he brought her home that day to look inside a birdhouse. She found it hanging from a hook. It appeared to be very old. It was a square hut with small stones fastened to the walls. A little balcony hovered beneath the round bird entrance. Pierce told her it was a special birdhouse and to take very good care of it. Lucy handled it with care as she got it down off the hook. There was a strip of cloth nailed over the small door, preventing any birds from entering. Lucy pulled away the cloth and reached in. Cold metal touched her fingertips.
The key! Just as Pierce had promised.
She used it to unlock the front door of the cottage, and the moment she was inside, she knew she was home. On the floor, under the mail slot in the door, was an envelope addressed to her. It was from Pierce, postmarked a few weeks ago. She picked it up and studied it before admiring the cottage.
The place was already furnished and equipped with modern appliances. When Pierce had bought the cottage, he’d fixed it up for her. On the kitchen table was a stack of novels.
The Adventures of Pierce Landcross.
The entire series was there, waiting for her, and every book was in perfect condition.
She opened the envelope and began reading the letter inside. Pierce hadn’t wr
itten it. Instead, it had been written by the man he had been pretending to be.
Dear Lucy,
If you’re reading this, it means that I was unable to join you on your journey to France. Just know that for whatever the reason, it was most likely something dire.
Kayden, she thought, looking down at her hand, now fully healed and in perfect working order again.
Luce, whatever happened between us, I can’t express enough how much you lifted my soul and kept me sane through those hectic weeks. You were the best discovery I ever made. I hope to see you again, but if not, it pains me to tell you adieu.
Forever yours,
Isaac
Lucy lowered the letter and looked at the books. Regardless of who the other woman was to Pierce Landcross, Lucy was Isaac’s girl, and he’d loved her as she had loved him. That was something that could never be taken from her.
Epilogue
After dropping Lucy off, Pierce returned to his hotel on Greenwich Street. His outing had taken a lot out of him. At sixty-six, his body couldn’t handle the strain anymore. He missed spending his golden years in the tropics where he had first grown old with his beloved wife, Taisia. Being separated from her had put him through agonizing turmoil for decades. If only she was still in the In-Between, they could again be reunited.
Seeing Lucy again had eased some of his longing, but it was bittersweet. Lucy was no Taisia. No one was. Pierce had to accept that.
Now that he’d helped Lucy fulfill her dream and had saved his foolish younger self, Pierce only wanted a quiet death. He would reenter the In-Between and then pass right through it, begin a new life, and hopefully forget everything.
On a cold spring day, 1888, Professor Duncan Hackett, who was known as the Soul Thief, drew Pierce Landcross back to this world and into his own body. The scientist had perfected the experiment begun by Professor Raphael Brooke. When Pierce had seen Professor Brooke at the Great Cosmas Circus in 1843, trying to convince the crowd that he could bring a dead lamb back to the living, Pierce thought it was all a cheap parlor trick. Now, the man’s words rang constantly in Pierce’s mind.
“The world as we know it is standing on the pivotal edge of change! An evolution is taking shape. This is the climb, my friends! The climb toward the peak of the Industrial Revolution! I say unto thee, we must contribute to thrive. Contribute to the Age of the Machine!”
Where Professor Brooke had failed, Hackett had succeeded. Using cryo chambers and ancient magic, Professor Hackett had managed to bring the dead back using only their skeletal remains. Pierce eventually escaped the professor and ended up in a fight he could not have imagined. Now, it was over. Everything he was ever meant to do was at an end.
He shut the hotel door and slowly removed his black dapper coat from his aching shoulders. He went over to the dresser where kept his stash—the whiskey bottle he’d taken from the Train Way.
He poured himself a glass and just as the stinging taste touched his lips, a deep voice said from behind him, “Pierce Landcross.”
He would never forget that familiar tone no matter how many lifetimes he lived through.
“’Ello, old geezer,” Pierce said, turning to the masked figure.
It had been over eighty years since he’d seen the likes of him, but there he stood. Funny, Pierce had always expected he would see him again. The tosser had stated it himself ages ago.
“We have some things to discuss, you and I,” said none other than the Teller of Forgotten Tales.
Watch out for the next series:
The Age of the Machine
Coming Soon!
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Michelle E. Lowe is the author of The Warning, Atlantic Pyramid, Cherished Thief, and the Legacy series. She has also written children’s books, including Poe’s Haunted House Tour and The Hex Hunt. Her work in progress is her next series, The Age of the Machine. Currently, she lives in Lake Forest, California, with her husband Ben and their two daughters.
Website: www.michellelowe.net
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