by Rysa Walker
“What about your mom? Is she still . . . with them?”
“My mom died about eighteen months ago. A little after I left Estero.”
I put my hand on his arm. “I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, well—she’d been sick for a while,” he says, not looking at me. “So it wasn’t really a surprise.” He claps his hands once and turns to me with a crisp, businesslike smile, clearly intent on changing the subject. “You said you needed to ask me about two jumps. Earlier, when you arrived?”
“Um . . . yeah. 1938?”
“Thought so.”
“It’s just . . .” I pause, then start over. “I think I have a handle on the other two, pretty much. I mean, we haven’t found the guy in Russia yet, and I’m not saying that either of them is straightforward, but I don’t get the sense that those jumps are—I don’t know, destined to go wrong?”
“We never got the Russian key.”
“Okay, but still, knowing what I know about the other timeline, it’s pretty hard not to see the 1938 jump to Georgia as a sort of Waterloo, since it’s right after that when . . . your Kate disappears.”
He nods, but doesn’t respond.
“Anyway, I think the Cyrists must currently hold at least one of those keys. Probably all three. She barely enters anything in the diary by that point, and when she does, it’s all cryptic. Something about London, and then she’s talking about Georgia again, something about the Federal Writers’ Project. And then she goes off on a rant about racial injustice, and I’m not clear how all that connects.”
“Kate was driving herself pretty hard by the end,” Kiernan says. “I mean—don’t take this the wrong way, okay? I loved her more than you can ever know, but there were moments she reminded me a bit of Pru that last night we were together. There was a death in 1938. One of the historians was murdered. And she felt responsible. Not like she caused it, but more like she could have stopped it. Should have stopped it. And I’m pretty sure she would have gone back and stopped it if she’d gotten the chance.”
“Did she get their keys?”
“Yeah, she did.” Kiernan leans forward, staring down at the floor with his elbows on his knees and his hands clasped behind his head. “I was there for that part. They didn’t give them over voluntarily. I was along as muscle, in case she needed it, but the knockout drug Katherine gave her worked just fine on the three of them. Then Kate found out later that Katherine . . . she knew all along one of them was gonna die a few days later. And she didn’t tell Kate.”
“Ouch. Not that I’m exactly surprised, but . . .”
“Kate was so . . . I’ve never seen her that angry. I convinced her to wait here until I got back from the audition for this job so I could go with her. She needed to calm down before confronting Katherine.” He tilts his head to the side and looks at me. “That’s the one thing, maybe the only thing, that seems a bit different to me. Between the two of you. She had a harder time reining in her temper.”
“Hmph. Well, she’d been with Katherine, what—a little over two years? My own temper is probably on a shorter fuse now than it was a few months ago. I mean, it’s partly dealing with Katherine, but I’m guessing the other Kate probably had trouble sleeping, too—”
“Dreams,” he says, nodding. “It was rare she slept the full night through. Are they bothering you, too?”
“Yes,” I say, and he looks guilty. That look always tugs at my heart, but I have to admit it doesn’t tug quite as hard this time, given that what he’s just shown me will almost certainly make the nightmares worse. Maybe a little bit of guilt will discourage him from dragging me off on another grisly field trip.
But, deep down, I know he was right to take me. As much as I would like to unsee what happened in Estero, it’s one thing to know that there are people out there who believe so strongly in something that they are willing to die for it. It’s another thing entirely to know you’re up against people who will slit their own throats from ear to ear and continue to smile as their lives drain away, confident that the sacrifice was worth it.
∞7∞
I’ve just printed out five copies of a tentative schedule when the doorbell rings, triggering not only the chimes but also a round of Daphne barks from the backyard. I head down the hallway to grab the copies from the printer in the library, assuming someone is downstairs to open the door, until the bell rings again.
I peek out over the railing and through the living room window, where I see two cars parked at the curb. One is the blue van, again, and I get the creepy feeling, again, even though I can see there’s no one inside—well, at least not in the front.
The other car is a red sedan with a Valenzia’s Pizza sign on top. I make it downstairs to open the door just as the deliveryman is reaching out to ring for a third time.
“Someone here definitely ordered that,” I say with an apologetic smile, “but he didn’t tell me. Hold on, and I’ll find some cash.”
“No, no, no,” the guy says in an accent that is Indian or maybe Pakistani. “He already pay it. Just sign slip.” He taps the square of paper and shoves a pen in my direction.
I glance at the receipt and see it’s in Connor’s name, so I scrawl something that might pass for his signature, add a four-dollar tip, and take the boxes and the bag, which I’m really hoping contains their Greek salad.
Connor comes down the stairs and takes the boxes from me. It’s possible that he’s just being a gentleman, but I suspect it’s more an issue of staking his claim on the pizzas.
“Sorry. Had the headphones on, so I didn’t hear the doorbell. I thought we’d order out and give Harry the night off, since he’s back at work now.” He holds out a small stack of papers. “I’m guessing these are yours?”
I take the papers and put them on the kitchen island. “Not a bad idea. Meetings always go better with pizza.”
I let Daphne in from the backyard, and I’m sitting down at the kitchen island, glancing back through the papers for that one typo or omitted word you never find until you’re reading a print copy, when it occurs to me that Connor is acting a bit odd. For one thing, he’s in the same room as pizza, but the box is still closed. He’s usually on his second slice by now. Instead, he’s putting away a few pots and pans that were drying on the rack, something I’ve never seen Connor do. In fact, it might be more accurate to say he’s trying to put them away, because he’s on his third cabinet door before he finally finds the right place for the large pasta bowl.
“You feeling all right, Connor?”
“Yeah, sure. Why?”
“No particular reason. You’re just acting a little strange . . .”
He tosses the dish towel down and leans back against the counter before pacing back over to the cabinet to pull out some plates. “Well, this whole situation is strange. I didn’t really think about it until a few hours ago, but I’m about to meet my great-grandfather. I’ve spent the past several years blaming him for the role he played in screwing up my life, cursing him on a daily basis I might add, and then it turns out he might not be quite the bastard I thought. And then to add to the weirdness, the two of you were—” He shudders.
I give him an annoyed look. “No. We were not. That was the other Kate. I can’t be held responsible for her actions, you know. And you were the one who said I should pull Kiernan into this—”
“And it was still the right thing to do,” he says. “I just hadn’t thought through the details. I mean, how do you react to a twenty-year-old great-grandfather?”
“Welcome to my world. At least you don’t have to worry about interrupting him while he’s making out with your great-grandmother in a parking lot.”
“I guess that’s some consolation,” he says.
Connor goes off to tell Katherine and Dad the pizza has arrived. I’m tossing the contents of the three Styrofoam containers into a big wooden salad bowl, when Daphne lets out a little yelp and cowers under the table.
“What’s wrong, girl?”
When I tu
rn around, Kiernan is standing a few steps away from the “Katherine’s Kitchen” stable point that I transferred to his key the last time I saw him. He’s wearing a plain white shirt and a pair of jeans. If you ignore the CHRONOS key around his neck, he could pass for a typical twenty-first-century guy.
He gives me a smile when my eyes work their way up to his. “Levi Strauss, best friend of time travelers since 1876. Or maybe earlier, I don’t know for sure. 1876 is when I got these.”
“Lucky you. But I’m pretty sure that Katherine would say it’s inappropriate for a female time traveler to wear jeans to any time before the 1960s.”
I slip down to the floor and reach under the table to give Daphne a hug. “It’s okay, Daph. I’m sorry. I forgot Kiernan would be coming in with the key. You want to go back outside? I’ll save you my pizza crusts.”
Her tail starts wagging, and she heads to the door, giving Kiernan a wide berth.
“Daphne usually loves visitors,” I say as I close the door behind her. “But she’s not a big fan of the medallions.”
“I’ve yet to meet a dog that is. Cats just stare at you when you use the key. Some of them will even come over to check it out. Dogs want nothing to do with the bloody things, which makes them the wiser of the two creatures, in my view.” He glances around, his nostrils flaring just a bit as he sniffs.
“Are you hungry?”
He sniffs again. “Pizza? Pepperoni, if I’m not mistaken.”
“Pepperoni and bacon, to be precise. Your great-grandson’s pizza of choice.”
“I’m glad to hear that the little tyke has good taste.”
We grab a few slices, and I convince him to try some of the salad, which he eyes with suspicion. “What’s all the white stuff?”
“The white stuff,” I say, grabbing two sodas out of the fridge, “is feta. Greek cheese. The black stuff is olives. Those are also Greek. And that green stuff—”
“You’re very funny, Kate,” he says as we squeeze into the breakfast nook. “I lived on a farm most of my life, you know, and believe it or not, we grew that green stuff.”
We both look up as Katherine, Connor, and Dad enter the kitchen. Kiernan tries to be polite and stand, but I’m on the outside of the bench, and the table has him wedged in, so the most he can manage is a half crouch, which looks terribly uncomfortable.
I grab the back of his shirt and tug him back down to the bench. “Dad, Connor, this is Kiernan. Katherine, you’ve already met.”
“He’s changed quite a bit in the past thirteen years, however,” she says. “And I suspect that I’ve changed even more in the past five decades.”
Kiernan returns her smile. “It’s good to see you again.”
Dad steps forward and shakes Kiernan’s hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
“My privilege, Mr. Keller.”
“It’s Harry, please. You saved my daughter’s life, so I think we can dispense with the formalities.”
I’ve rarely seen Kiernan blush, but he does now, and then he nods. “Harry, then. Pleased to make your acquaintance.”
Connor follows Dad’s lead and steps forward to take Kiernan’s hand. “I’m Connor Dunne. And you can call me Mr. Dunne.”
There’s a slight twinkle in Connor’s eye, so I think he’s joking. But whether he meant it that way or not, Kiernan laughs.
“The hell I will, sonny boy. You need to show your elders the proper respect, or I’ll take you behind the barn and give you a good strapping.”
Connor snorts. “No barn, and I’d love to see you try.”
I just shake my head at the two of them and take a few more bites of my pizza and salad while Katherine, Connor, and Dad get their food.
When the chomping dies down a bit, I pass the handouts around. “Take a couple of minutes to look things over while you finish eating, and then we’ll discuss, okay?”
The paper is basically a three-page summary of everything I’ve managed to glean from Other-Kate’s diary, Katherine’s recollections of the CHRONOS historians’ itineraries, and several additional, torturous hours of observing jump locations in the Log of Stable Points. At least with the diary entries, someone’s talking. The stable points are like silent movies—if silent movies also carried the risk that you’d jump into the middle of them if you accidentally blinked too hard. If I start getting any sensory input other than the visual when I’m watching those, I have to look away really fast. During training, there were several occasions where I was so close to there that Katherine said I seemed to fade, like I was half- in and half-out of the location.
Katherine looks up first. “You really think you’re ready for the Australia jump now?”
I nod. “I’d like a day to look back over everything and get ready, but Adrienne didn’t put up any resistance according to the diary. I’ll just need you to record a video explaining things to her. Maybe toss in something that only you would know, so she’ll believe you’re you?”
Her mouth twists. “I think I can come up with something.”
I wait a second to see if she’s going to fill us in on that, but apparently she’s not.
Dad says, “Don’t you have that”—his eyes shift for a split second over to Kiernan, like he’s not sure how much to say in front of him—“barbecue thing for school that day?”
“Yes, but it’s in the evening.” At least, I assume Trey and I are still on for that. Other than a brief text message two days ago, I haven’t spoken to him. I finally called him last night but had to leave a message—again. And, of course, I’m now imagining him on the beach with two girls rubbing suntan oil onto his back.
“And we have everything you need for Australia?” Connor asks.
“We have the 1940s’ swimsuit. I can’t think of anything else. Although I’d feel much better if I could disremember that crocodile.”
“Crocodile?” Kiernan’s eyes are wide. Everyone else was around to hear my views on the wicked-looking creature that strolls past the stable point around dawn on the morning I’ll be going.
Dad nods. “Big one. But that’s hours before she arrives. They usually stay away from the beach later in the day, at least from what we were reading.” He sounds like he’s trying to reassure himself as much as Kiernan and me.
“Yeah,” I say. “I’m just hoping Mr. Croc reads the same articles we do. Anyway, counting Timothy and Evelyn’s keys, and also the two that Kiernan has, we now have fourteen, correct?”
Connor and Katherine nod, and I continue. “Then that means there are ten more out there. Three of those are in the possession of Saul, Prudence, and Simon, and I think we’d all agree those should be the last ones we attempt to retrieve, both because it will tip them off to what we’re doing, assuming always that they don’t already know, and also because it’s probably going to require force, maybe even lethal force. That’s not a discussion we necessarily need to have right now, but at some point I . . .”
I take a sip of my soda, partly to disguise how rattled I am at even having to contemplate killing anyone, but I also want to gauge their reactions. I doubt anyone at the table has qualms about killing Saul. Connor would do it with his bare hands if we had a way to push him far enough into the future that he could confront Saul one-on-one. The consensus on Simon is pretty much the same, although I wonder about Kiernan—from what he’s told me, they were once friends. I’m probably the one who’s the least okay with the idea of killing either of them, but then I’m almost certainly the one who’ll get stuck doing it. Some things sound a lot easier in the abstract.
Prudence is a different matter. She’s Katherine’s daughter, Mom’s sister, my aunt. I don’t even like to think about the possibility that the only way to end all of this is to end her, and I suspect Kiernan has similar views.
And that’s only stating the three most obvious people who might have to be killed in order to stop the Cyrists. How many others might we have to go through to get to them if or, more likely, when our cover is blown? From what Kiernan showed me
at Estero, we could face quite a few who are willing to risk their lives for their beliefs. I take a deep breath, trying to forestall an anxiety spiral.
Katherine is at the opposite side of the table, her mouth pressed in a tight line. “As you said, we can cross that particular bridge when we come to it. Saul, Simon, and Prudence will be the final keys.”
Kiernan’s hand is beneath the table, and he gives my knee a brief squeeze before he speaks. “And when we do reach that bridge, you will not be on your own.” He looks over at Katherine. “I don’t know how much Kate’s told you about my relationship with your daughter. All I can say is Prudence was a very troubled young girl when I knew her, and that’s only gotten worse now that she’s older. Despite the role she played in all of this, it’s hard for me to wish her ill. She’s battling her own set of demons. Some of her own making, and others Saul created for her. But Kate knows—and I want to be certain all of you know—where my loyalties lie. Leaving aside everything they’ve taken from me, I don’t want the future they’re planning.”
Katherine nods and then says, “It’s good to know we now have two people who can use the keys on our side. Even as historians, when we were simply out there to observe, CHRONOS generally advised us to travel in pairs for the first few years. I’ve never liked the idea of Kate traveling without backup, no matter how capable she claims to be.”
I’m not sure if there was a subtle emphasis on the word claims or if I just imagined it. I flash Katherine a tight smile and look back down at the list. “So that leaves seven keys we need to find first.”
“Six,” Katherine says. “Marcus—the one who was studying the Nazis? He destroyed his key.”
“And you’re sure that he actually destroyed it?” Dad asks. “For that matter, how do you destroy the things? What are they even made of?”
“They’re made of something called trinium,” Connor says. “A superstrong alloy that hasn’t been invented yet.”