Time's Edge

by Rysa Walker

  “Because I couldn’t find it in your—”

  “Could we stop with the time travel conundrums?” Abel says. “I have questions. First, why are rank amateurs rescuing us instead of a trained extraction team? And second—”

  I pull my phone out of my pocket and start the video I played for Delia and Grant earlier in the day. Abel’s face falls when Katherine introduces herself.

  Kiernan keeps glancing over at me, but I don’t look back. I’m hoping he gave written directions to Grant, because I’m thoroughly lost. He’s taken three turns so far, and we’ve passed about a dozen farms—all dark, so either they’re early-to-bed types or else they drove into town for the excitement.

  Abel clicks to replay the video, and just as it starts up the second time, Kiernan turns the truck onto a narrow side road. About a hundred feet in, we come to a metal gate. A large lock connects the two ends of a chain looped between the fence and the gate.

  “This doesn’t look like the road to your cabin,” I say.

  Kiernan doesn’t answer, just gets out and pulls a key from his pocket.

  “Is this another of the properties you purchased with your sports investments?” I ask when he gets back into the truck.

  “Not exactly.”

  I look at him questioningly, but he seems to be giving me the silent treatment.

  He gets out again and locks the gate behind him, then pulls out the CHRONOS medallion, probably setting a stable point. Katherine’s voice drones in the video as we keep driving, first through trees and then through an open field with a farmhouse in the distance.

  As we get closer, I see several rooms are faintly lit by a yellow glow. Probably lantern light—I doubt electricity has made it this far out of town.

  “Abel?” Kiernan says as he stops the truck outside the house.

  Abel turns off the video and looks up. His eyes are filled with the same dull shock I’ve seen each time the historians start to realize they won’t be going home. “Yes?”

  Kiernan nods toward the house. “The lady may have some odd comments about me and Kate . . . and maybe angels. Just roll with it, okay?”

  “Martha?” My heart sinks. “Do we really have to get her involved?”

  “I thought of going to the cabin, but the lawyer listed my address when he bailed me out.”

  “This will mean she’s housing fugitives. She has kids, right?”

  The door to the house opens, and a light-haired woman about my mom’s age steps out onto the front porch. She’s smiling, but she looks nervous.

  “Her kids are all grown and gone, Kate. Martha understands the risk. So does her husband. We won’t be here long. Just until things quiet down—maybe get some rest and a bite to eat. Take some time to map out a plan.”

  Abel drops my phone in my lap and opens the door. “What a novel idea. A plan.” He slams the door behind him.

  “You know, other than being twice her size, a different race, a different gender, and maybe thirty years younger, Abel reminds me an awful lot of Katherine.”

  That gets a half chuckle from Kiernan, and he says, “Kate, I’m sorry about—”

  “Let’s talk about it inside. Someone needs to introdu—” But when I glance outside the truck, I see that Martha has taken over. She’s taken Abel by the arm and is leading him up to the porch, where a guy who must be her husband is now waiting.

  “What did you tell her about all of this?” I ask.

  “I just said it was her chance to play angel.”

  Abel and Kiernan are still in the kitchen with Martha’s husband, Joe. If he has any reservations about Martha taking in fugitives, you’d never know it—we were welcomed warmly, and he’s done his best to make all three of us comfortable. I’ve just finished eggs, bacon, and biscuits. Kiernan and Abel are still eating. It’s a relief to discover that Abel is a little less combative with food in his stomach.

  I’ve moved to the sofa in the living room so that I can watch the front gate through the key. Grant and Delia should arrive any minute now, and I’ll need to jump over and unlock it. What I’d really like is to stretch out on this sofa and sleep for a week. The last sleep I had was the four-hour nap I squeezed in before my dinner with Trey. The last time I got a full eight hours was before we rescued Martha from God’s Hollow.

  A few minutes later, Martha comes in with my coffee cup, which she’s refilled.

  “Wow. You must be psychic.”

  “No.” She smiles as she hands me the cup and then sits on the couch next to me. “I just saw you yawnin’ when I looked in here a little while ago. You know, you’re welcome to do whatever it is you’re doin’ with that thing in the kitchen with the rest of us. I told Joe it was like prayer beads. He ain’t ever met but two Catholics in his life, so he might stare a little, but I hate for you to be off all by your lonesome.”

  “Thanks, Martha, but I think the other car is going to show up pretty soon, and I’m going to have to disappear for a few seconds. That might make Joe do a little more than stare.”

  She laughs and tucks a stray piece of hair, as much gray as blond now, back behind her ear. “It might at that. I told him a little about what happened, but I ain’t ever mentioned the disappearin’ part. He already thinks I’m a little crazy.”

  “It’s really good of you to do this, Martha. Both of you.”

  “Not at all,” she says. “Joe and I both have people in our lives who are gone now, people who treated us kindly and taught us right from wrong. I can’t pay Sister Elba back for takin’ me and my cousins in, but it’s like this book I read a few years back, written by a lady down in Augusta—she says you’re s’posed to pay it forward. Sister Elba would have taken these people in, so now I’m doin’ it for her.”

  “And Kiernan told you about Grant?”

  “The guy that was at God’s Hollow? It’s okay. I know he wasn’t part of it. He was tricked by that devil, same as me and all those who died.”

  Martha leans over and puts her hand on my knee. It’s a very maternal gesture, and something about it reminds me how much time has passed for her, even more than the lines on her face. “And I know he wasn’t a real devil, just like you ain’t a real angel. I figured that out while I was stayin’ with the Owenses. I don’t know what that circle thing is, but it keeps you the same age or maybe lets you move around time, like in that Mark Twain book. That’s why you look just the same. Except I didn’t know about the hair, ’cause it was all tucked under your hat before. You should wear it down more often.”

  “I tell her that all the time,” Kiernan says from the doorway. I’m not sure how long he’s been standing there.

  Abel is behind him, wearing a bathrobe of some sort over his pants, because there were no shirts that would fit him. He looks at Martha and says, “If it isn’t any trouble, ma’am, I’d like to take you up on the offer of a hot bath before Delia arrives. Maybe it won’t frighten her quite as much if I get a bit more of the blood off of me.”

  Martha helps him upstairs, and I turn to Kiernan. “I’m more worried about how Abel is going to react when he sees Delia’s face. They should be here soon, right?”

  “Yeah. I’d guess in the next five or ten minutes.” He sits down next to me. “Kate, it was Simon across the street, okay? I figured as much, but I had to check it out. You getting involved would’ve made things twice as difficult. But I shouldn’t have lied to you. It just complicated matters.”

  “What happened? Why does he think you’re here?”

  He shrugs. “I told him the truth, sort of. That I’m keeping an eye on you for Prudence. Keeping you from poking around in their business in the future.”

  “Do you think he knows you’re helping, not just watching?”

  “I don’t know. Probably not, since he said I’m backing a losing horse when it comes to Pru. Said not to let loyalty to her make me stupid.”

  “But—why is he here? I thought they didn’t need the keys.”

  Kiernan leans back, rubbing his temples. “I don
’t know that for certain, Kate. Maybe with the split between Saul and Pru, they want a few more on hand. But I think it’s simpler than that. Simon, he’s like . . . I don’t know. My Kate called him an adrenaline junkie. Simon tends to think of time as his own private amusement park. Who needs your video games or movies when you can jump in and out of the real thing? He nearly got both of us killed in Cincinnati back in 1884. And a few days before I found you on the Metro, he blinked out in the middle of a raid on a speakeasy, in full view of the police. When I saw him tonight, he said I should stick around—” He leans forward, lowering his voice. “That things were about to get good. He’s here because he wants to see a lynching.”

  ∞22∞

  OCONEE COUNTY, GEORGIA

  August 11, 1938, 12:05 a.m.

  “You two barely manage to get me out of jail, and you wonder why I don’t believe you can take down an organization with millions of members? Some of whom can time travel?”

  “Please keep it down,” I warn him. Again.

  Martha and Joe went up to bed an hour ago, right after Kiernan and I got back from abandoning the Buick on a back road about five miles away. We’d planned to do the same with Kiernan’s truck, but it took him three tries to jump back to Martha’s yard after the Buick, so I think he’s tapped out with the key for a while. His truck is hidden in the barn, and the plan is for Delia, Abel, and Grant to lie low here for a few days, until the fuss dies down, and then head north in the truck.

  On that much, it seems, we all agree. But none of them have agreed to hand over their keys.

  “Yes,” I say. “I know the odds are stacked against our side. But what should we do? Quit? If we can’t bring the Cyrists down, they win.”

  I decide not to add that I still have some niggling doubts about Kiernan’s commitment to our side. Keeping secrets, lying, and disappearing when needed aren’t traits you generally want in a partner, especially when the stakes are high. But if he’s not on our side, then Abel’s assessment is even more dead-on.

  Delia is curled up on the couch next to Abel. “What about other allies, then? People in power who oppose the Cyrists? Who don’t trust them?”

  “In power? Maybe. But, at least in my time, they have trouble staying in power if they’re open with those views. Cyrists have friends in high places,” I say, borrowing a line from Trey’s dad. “I’ve met very few people who’ll openly say they’re against them.”

  “Without allies, you’re going to fail,” Delia says. “So you might want to start looking.”

  We’ve told the three of them everything we know in the past hour, even Kiernan’s theory about Pru getting the other twelve keys in 2305. Personally, I’m not convinced on that front. Katherine tried to blink into that black void over and over after Prudence disappeared. Abel also dismissed the idea, saying he tried to do the same thing when they locked him in the cell. But I suppose it’s possible there was a fail-safe that didn’t work on Prudence, since her genetic code wasn’t locked into the system. Or maybe, as Kiernan noted earlier, it’s just a very unstable stable point.

  Grant has barely spoken. When they came in, he sank down into the same chair he’s in now, on the other side of the room, and started looking at something in his diary. Maybe he’s gone back into trainee mode, since Delia seems closer to her usual self now that Abel is here and they’re clearly back in charge. Delia finally asked him to take over what I was doing—monitoring the stable points at the gate and the jail—so I could join in their discussion about the Cyrists. He seemed glad to have something to do at first, but I think he’s discovered it’s a pretty boring chore. The crowd outside the jail gradually thinned out a little after eleven, and aside from the one car that drove past shortly after I let the Buick through the front gate and another that passed by around midnight, the road has been quiet.

  “What about the internal division you mentioned before?” Abel asks. “Between Saul and Katherine’s daughter. What you really need is a fifth column. Maybe that group—”

  “I’m working on that,” Kiernan says. “But both sides . . . agree on certain points, like the need for the Culling. Different reasons, maybe—but same result. Neither like the future they think we’re headed toward, and they’re willing to take drastic steps to prevent it, so I’m not sure that’s going to work.”

  Delia sniffs. “I can sympathize a bit after today. I’ve met several people I’d happily ‘cull,’ given the chance.”

  “Yes,” I say, “but the crowd outside that jail isn’t the type Saul would remove.”

  Kiernan and Abel are discussing Cyrist motives when Grant gets up and goes into the kitchen. He’s sitting at the table with the medallion active and doesn’t notice when I walk in. At first, I think he’s still watching the gate, because the display is dark. But as I get closer, I see it’s the black hole that’s probably CHRONOS headquarters.

  Grant blinks very purposively, twice, but each time he opens his eyes, he’s still in the chair.

  “I don’t think it will work, Grant.”

  “It might.”

  “But it looks like . . . nothingness. You can’t even set a time. What if you blink and arrive in the middle of the explosion?”

  “I don’t think I would. But even if I did, it’s better than staying here.”

  I’m pretty sure this isn’t about his new identity—he has credentials to get him into law school, and that shouldn’t be too awful for a legal historian. It must be about the girl waiting back in 2305. I want to tell him he’ll meet someone else, he’ll be able to start over, and things won’t seem so bad in a few years. But the advice rings a little hollow for me right now, and judging from Grant’s expression, he’s not to the point where he’d listen anyway.

  “Where did you leave off with watching the gate?” I ask. “I’ll take over.”

  He gives me an odd look. “I stopped when I came in here.”

  “No, what time were you watching? Like I said when you started, I’d watched both stable points until 12:45, jumping ahead a minute or so at a time.”

  “I just . . . I was watching the current time. The lot outside the jail is pretty empty, and—”

  I sigh. “The point was to build up a buffer, so we’d have some advance notice.”

  “I’m sorry,” he says, tilting his head back and staring at the ceiling. “I didn’t hear that part. I’m not used to using the key that way.”

  His jaw is clenched, and I can tell he’s trying really hard to hold it together.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Not really,” he says. “But there’s nothing you can do to make it better.”

  I pour the last of the coffee into my cup and leave Grant to himself, taking up the armchair he vacated. The point outside the jail is fairly empty between 12:46 a.m. and 12:56 a.m. Everyone has left, except for one man in a police car, talking to someone standing outside.

  I’m about to check on the gate when I see Delia standing next to me. “I thought Grant was handling that?”

  “It’s okay,” I say. “He seems a bit upset about the new reality. There’s a girl back—”

  “No.” She shakes her head, giving me a sad smile. “Not a girl. Which is the problem. I think Abel and I will find somewhere we’ll be okay, even in this era. By the time we have grandkids, it won’t be too strange that Grandpa’s black and Grandma’s white. But even if Grant finds somebody else to love, marriage and family are no longer in his future. That may take a while to accept.”

  Delia goes into the kitchen. Hopefully, she’ll be better at consoling Grant. I’m really glad I resisted giving that chin-up-you’ll-find-someone-new speech.

  I keep an ear on Kiernan and Abel’s discussion about Cyrist organizational structure as I watch the front gate through the key. All clear until 1:00 a.m. Back to the jail—clear to 1:15 a.m. Back to the gate.

  I’m thinking I may need more coffee when I skip from 1:05 a.m. to 1:06 a.m. and see two sets of headlights at the gate. Suddenly, I’m wide-awake. I skip to 1:
09 a.m., and there are a couple of cars across the street and two very familiar trucks. The men aren’t wearing their masks now, and I spot Willis, along with his two nephews and several others from the fight. At 1:10 a.m., one of them has an ax and is chopping through the boards in the fence near the gate.

  “We’re going to have company in about twenty minutes.”

  I run upstairs to let Martha know. She must not have been sleeping, because she’s at the door in her dressing gown as soon as I knock. Joe takes a bit longer, and once we all get downstairs, I realize that’s because he stopped to grab a couple of shotguns. He hands one to Kiernan and props the other one up beside the china cabinet.

  “The root cellar will hold all of you,” Martha says. “I’d go down and get you settled in myself, but I don’t like cellars much since . . . not since I was girl.”

  Joe gives her shoulders a brief squeeze and says, “I’ll get them settled. Y’all grab your stuff. We got water and blankets down there in case we have to go down for a tornado or what have ya, but there ain’t no outhouse, so y’all might want to take care of that before we go.”

  A few minutes later, Kiernan and I are outside, waiting for the others.

  “How do you think they found us?” I ask.

  “I don’t know. Maybe the car you saw was following them and they went back to get reinforcements? Did they see you unlock the gate?”

  “I don’t think so, but I can’t be sure. Whoever it was, they were well behind the Buick.”

  I walk around and set a few stable points so that we’ll be able to see what’s going on while we’re below ground.

  Delia steps onto the porch. “Is Grant out here?”

  I shake my head. “Last I saw him was in the kitchen.”

  “Can you look around out here?” she asks, darting back into the house.

  Four minutes later, we still haven’t found him, and I watch through my key as the first truck drives through the gap in the fence.

  “Gotta get y’all underground,” Joe says. He unlocks the padlock and swings the cellar door open. “You’ll hear a loud bell clangin’ soon as those trucks arrive. That’ll be Martha. My brother lives the next farm over, and he’s got a telephone. If Billy hears that bell five times, he’ll call the sheriff and get over here with his gun.”