Wishing Cross Station
Page 13
He nodded. “What time was it that he came from?”
“The twentieth century. He couldn’t have been more than thirty-five or forty at the time. Though he had a wife and family back in his time from the age of thirty, so I don’t understand what he planned to do, exactly; how he intended to work everything out. I guess he figured if he managed to bring Aurelia Belle and Marigold with him, he’d deal with the rest as it happened.”
A long moment of silence passed between us as we pondered Fox’s intentions.
“So, you must take the Aurelia Belle back to your own time…again, I wonder, dare I ask how you even found your way here?” Mr. Best looked up at me over his spectacles in his usual fashion.
Again, Seymour’s voice echoed in my mind, whispering desperately: Don’t stay a moment longer than you have to. Don’t say too much. Don’t pollute the timeline.
“I think the less said about that, the better, sir. If you’ll forgive me. I mean no disrespect, especially after all the kindnesses you’ve shown me. It’s just…I’m not sure what could, what will happen, if I tell you.”
He nodded his understanding. “What of the book?”
“I haven’t decided yet. I still don’t know how I’m supposed to get back to my time without it. But I do know this much…at some point, I’m going to have to show it to Marigold.”
“Are you certain that’s wise?”
“No. But I don’t know if there’s any other way to convince her of the truth,” I whispered. “And it is a truth she has every right in the world to know.”
He called after me once more as I turned to go. “Mr. Wainwright?”
I waited.
“Can you at least tell me the year you’ve come from?”
In for a penny…
“2015,” I replied.
“2015…” he repeated, awed. “What must the world look like in 2015?”
“A lot harsher than you can imagine,” I said softly, thinking of home. “There are still good people, but they are so much fewer and farther between. I’m grateful to have met you, Mr. Best.”
I thought about Lila’s family, how fortunate I was to have them in my life. Still they were so far away, all that could matter to me now was what was happening right before my eyes.
He raised his teacup to me as if to toast. “And I you, Mr. Wainwright.”
I nodded to him, raising my hand to salute him respectfully.
“Thank you, again, for everything you’ve done for me.” I paused, adding, “And for Marigold.”
***
Once I’d settled into bed, I flipped open the dangerous book again.
I reread the passages I’d already finished, afraid to move forward. I was almost at the end. What if its final pages left me with questions I’d never find answers to?
It turned out worse than I’d imagined. The final pages would leave me with nothing, because there were no more notes of any kind.
There was only a drawing of a small symbol. It appeared to be a W with a higher point in the middle than on the sides, overlaid with straight lines forming a cross.
I’d seen that symbol before. Immediately, I realized it was the symbol Marigold wore around her neck on a chain day in and out. Suddenly the pieces fell into place, and I wondered, was there any way she knew what it meant? That it symbolized Wishing Cross itself to J. Howard Fox, the man who designed it and had it made especially for her mother?
I searched and searched the book for more, but after the drawing of the symbol, it all just came to a stop—nothing but blank pages. Vast amounts of empty space, which spoke louder than words ever could.
It all ended as abruptly, I was sure, as the forbidden romance between John Fox and Aurelia Belle had.
Only it didn’t truly end, because Marigold still existed.
Marigold…
As I closed my eyes and attempted to sleep, my last thoughts were of her. Her soft, pale skin, her round full lips, the curves accentuated by the tailoring of her dress and her coat when it was buttoned around her.
I couldn’t allow myself to make the same mistake J. Howard Fox made and get attached to Wishing Cross—or anyone in Wishing Cross.
I couldn’t let myself fall in love with this angel, out of place and out of time.
I hated to admit to myself as I drifted into dreaming that it was too late.
I already had.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
THE NEXT MORNING, Marigold stood outside the door to the jewelry store with a basket in hand.
“I baked cookies last night, and Miss Finch said I should bring some to Mr. Best to thank him for his kindness.” She held the basket out toward Best and smiled gently. “I only wish I had more to offer to show my gratitude to you, sir.”
“Your gratitude is more than enough, Miss Sutton. But I am fond of cookies. Thank you.” He snatched one from the basket and took a bite. “Delicious. Would you care for one, Mr. Wainwright?”
“Yes, please.”
Marigold tilted the basket toward me, again looking at the floor shyly.
“Wonderful,” I said after swallowing my first bite. “Thank you, Miss Sutton.”
She nodded and then moved to put the basket in the stockroom. She reemerged a moment later without her coat and with her apron on, ready to go to work.
“I meant to commend you last night, Miss Sutton; the store looks much more festive with your redecorating efforts. Well done.”
“My pleasure, sir.” She looked about her small wrapping table in the corner of the shop, seeking the ribbon she’d requested the day before. She clapped her hands happily as she saw two spools each of red and green ribbon, satin, and velvet, both. “Oh, thank you, Mr. Best. Now I will be able to make beautiful Christmas packages for your customers.”
“I will hold you to that,” he said. “Perhaps we will be known for our pretty presents, and word will spread around town.”
“One thing you can count on is word spreading in this town,” Marigold mumbled, almost to herself.
“I’m sorry, what did you say?” Mr. Best asked, standing too far away to make it out.
I, on the other hand, heard her quite clearly.
“Nothing, sir. I am only anxious to get to work.”
“As are we all.” He looked at me. “Mr. Wainwright, please, open the door.”
I looked out of the window first. “They’re waiting for us.”
“Then the day will go by quickly,” Best replied. “The best sort of work day, if you ask me.”
***
The day did go by quickly, once again. I counted down. I had so little time left. Christmas was the day after next. I had until New Year’s Eve if the Aurelia Belle and the wormhole were running on time.
How was I ever going to say goodbye to this place…to Marigold?
I walked her home once again. Neither of us seemed to be in the mood to talk. I was preoccupied, contemplating the time I had left to revel in her light. Her silence, I could only attribute to the fact she must be missing her family.
We reached the porch. She took out the key Miss Finch had entrusted her with, and prepared to unlock the door, speaking at last, “Oh! I almost forgot. Miss Finch has agreed you and Mr. Best should come around for Christmas Eve dinner tomorrow night. Then she and I will be going to midnight church services…I don’t suppose you’ll be attending?”
“I don’t think it would be wise,” I answered slowly, imagining her family, the entire town in one place, and me showing up. Public enemy number one. “Are you sure you’ll be okay? I mean, your family…”
“Father always makes sure they sit in the front row, arrive early and stay late,” she answered. “Miss Finch and I will sneak in late, stay at the back, and leave just after prayers.”
“What about Christmas Day?”
She sighed. “It’s not going to feel like Christmas this year…not really.”
“I wish there was something I could do.”
“You’ve done enough.”
The
pained expression on my face seemed to take her by surprise. Coming from the twenty-first century, I took her words immediately as a shot, but I soon learned they were anything but.
“Oh, Mr. Wainwright, no, please don’t trouble yourself. I didn’t mean it that way at all.” She looked at me now, straight in the eyes, for perhaps the first time. “Now the shock is wearing off, and I find I’m not begging on the corner for spare change or freezing to death in the gutter, where my father predicted I’d be, I am beginning to realize the world is opening up to me. A whole other life may be possible now, one I never dared dream of before, because I never imagined I’d have the will to defy my father. Now, with everything that’s happened…now God or life or whomever it may be has intervened to remove me from that place, from my family…”
She leaned closer to me, and I could smell the faint floral fragrance of her hair. It made me dizzy, and I ached to touch her…to feel her touch me.
“Now I am beginning to see life for the first time, and I have you to thank.”
I felt uneasy, uncertain I’d done her the favor she believed I had. Maybe this was the life she was meant to have after all. Maybe she was supposed to escape her father and live with old Miss Finch. I didn’t know. I just knew my being here had already changed things for her, and I hoped to Hell it was for the better, long term.
It started snowing again, tumbling down in gusts from heavily clouded skies. She looked up. Flakes gathered on her lashes.
Suddenly she smiled at me and grabbed the sleeve of my coat. “Come on!”
“What? Wait, what?” I said, as she pulled me toward the front lawn. “Miss Sutton, what are you doing?”
“We’re going to make snow angels,” she said, looking left and right to be sure no one knew we were there. “At least, I am. Come on, Mr. Wainwright! Join me if you dare!”
She stood still, arms at her sides, and then fell back into the snow with a muted thud. She laughed—the most beautiful sound I had ever heard in my life—as she began to swish her arms at her sides up and down in the snow. She reached up and tugged at my coat. For an instant she forgot herself.
“Come on!” she called up to me, eyes sparkling as she opened her mouth and caught a few stray snowflakes on her tongue.
Oh. My. God, I thought, my mind traveling places it really shouldn’t. God, how I want to kiss her.
“Okay, okay.” I braced myself for the chill, and then fell back into the bank beside her.
I moved my arms up and down to make the requested shape in the snow. Marigold turned and smiled at me. She kept moving her arms up and down, mirroring mine, until the tips of our gloves touched, mid-motion. The world seemed to slow down, almost stop, for a moment. I wanted to stay here with her forever, to make her mine, to keep her safe.
I knew I’d be able to do none of those things, though. I couldn’t offer her the future I desperately wished I could. With a start, I rose to my feet. Without a word, I offered her my hand. She accepted it and stood as well.
“What is it?” she asked, though I was certain she must have an idea.
“It’s just…I’m…not going to be here much longer.”
She looked away.
“I keep trying to forget,” she whispered, her words nearly lost in a world silenced by the insulation of freshly fallen snow.
“That’s why I can’t…I can’t…don’t you understand?” I was close to breaking now, and my eyes searched hers to see if she did understand. To see if our time spent together, as busy as it had been, had affected her at all.
“I understand.” She stared down into the snow, at our shapes in it, side by side, her voice quivering with emotion. “I…I shall be sorry to see you leave Wishing Cross. Ever so sorry.”
Slowly, I removed one glove. I couldn’t stop myself from touching her cheek, just lightly, with bare fingertips. Then I turned my hand over and caressed her face with it. She sighed softly, leaning closer, and then we both jumped as we saw a candle light in the window. Miss Finch knew we were there, and she was watching.
“I’m sorry, I have to go,” Marigold blurted, then rushed off.
With my eyes clamped shut against her words, I heard the key in the lock, then the door shutting between us, just as the door between our worlds would separate us sooner than I wanted to imagine.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
MARIGOLD SAID NOTHING about our snow angels the next day; in fact, she avoided me as much as she could, even in the small, cramped store full of last-minute shoppers.
Mr. Best eyed me warily, and then pulled me aside. “Is everything all right?”
“Fine, sir,” I lied. “Looking forward to getting the day over with, and eating a hearty Christmas Eve meal at Miss Finch’s.”
“She’s even brought in the woman next door to help her prepare the meal since Miss Sutton had to work today,” Mr. Best said. “Prudence must really be enjoying Miss Sutton’s company in order for such a change to take place in her. You really have no idea how extraordinary it is she invited us. We haven’t had Christmas Eve dinner together since Sarah was alive.”
“Maybe Marigold is magic,” I whispered, to myself more than him. “Just as she is.”
“Indeed,” he replied, gently patting me on the back. “Just as she is.”
A few moments later I saw Marigold disappear into the stockroom. Mr. Best was busy with a customer, and I with a second, though I could stall mine off while he browsed the gems in the showcase. I followed Marigold.
“Are you ever going to talk to me?” I asked. “Tell me what I did wrong?”
“You didn’t do anything wrong,” she answered curtly. “It’s just you were right. You’re leaving soon. You can’t afford to let anyone or anything here matter to you.”
“Who said nothing and no one here matters to me?” I tried to stop the motions of her hands as she searched for something on a shelf, taking hold. “You matter to me, Marigold, and it scares me to death.”
“We have to get back to work,” she whispered, quickly withdrawing her hands and disappearing from the stockroom in a swirl of velvet and lace.
“I love you,” I whispered, banging my forehead against the shelf in front of me. “I love you, and I don’t want to think about what is going to happen soon.”
“Don’t think about it,” Mr. Best said softly, appearing at my side without warning. Damn him and his humble, kind ways. My eyes burned. “Tonight is for celebrating. So tonight, let’s just celebrate where we are, and the company we’re in.”
I nodded, and he clapped a hand against my back. “Good lad. Now, help me, I need the ladder to get a clock down from the wall.”
I held the ladder steady for him as he retrieved the clock for someone to purchase. My eyes never left its face, as I watched second after second tick away, never to be repeated.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
THE STORE was an absolute disaster by the end of the day, but Mr. Best told us not to worry about it. We’d clean up after the holidays were over.
“The shop will be closed between the holiday and the New Year, anyway. Closest thing I get to a vacation.” He was silent for a moment as the two of us walked the distance to Miss Finch’s. He’d let Marigold go early so she could help with final dinner preparations. “I’m going to have to look into hiring a permanent shop assistant soon. I’ve become quite accustomed to having you here, Mr. Wainwright. I will be sorry to see you go.”
“I’ll be sorry to go, sir,” I said, and I meant it.
We arrived at Miss Finch’s to find, much to our surprise, the house had been decorated just a little bit here and there…a garland over the mantle, candles above it. In the corner sat the tiniest live Christmas tree I’d ever seen in my life, trimmed with ribbon and bows instead of ornaments of glass.
It had Marigold’s touch all over it.
“Merry Christmas!” she said, smiling, taking our coats as we removed our boots. “Welcome! I hope you’re hungry. There is enough food to feed half of Wishing Cross!”
“We are grateful for your hospitality, Miss Finch,” I said, and she nodded to me without saying a word.
She turned to Mr. Best. “William, come and sit at the piano. We have a few more minutes before the turkey is done. Play us a tune.”
“No…I couldn’t.”
“Oh, please, Mr. Best!” Marigold asked gently, lifting the key case on the piano. “It would be so lovely.”
“Only if you will sing along with me,” Mr. Best challenged as twin circles appeared, illuminating Marigold’s cheeks. “I’ve heard you sing in church. I know you have a beautiful voice.”
“I’ve been told I have my mother’s voice,” Marigold replied modestly. “She used to sing to me, when I was small. I hardly remember.”
I watched the scene unfold from the far corner of the room, taking it all in, not wanting to disrupt the magic I hoped was about to happen.
I recognized the song from the first few notes. I’d been taken to church often enough as a child, to enough weddings and masses and funerals to know it well; it was Ave Maria.
As Marigold sang, something changed inside of me. It wasn’t a subtle, slight difference; it was a massive, life-altering shock. It broke me down into nothing, burnt the rubble to ash, and rebuilt me into someone completely different.
The sound of her voice, with just the piano and Mr. Best’s heartfelt playing, transformed me from the boy I’d been when I arrived here with delusions of manhood and made me into a fully realized human being, a grown man, desperately in love.
A man without a heart of his own, because his would forever belong to the girl with the golden hair and the voice to match.
She’d reached inside of me and stolen my soul. Tears stung my eyes, but my resolve kept them at bay.