“Uh-huh.”
“Ain’t no ‘uh-huh’ about it, girl. You need to meet up with some manners. That woman lives up to her name.” He opened a gate so my horse could move into the large pen. He took off the bridle and gave her a pat on her neck. She needed no further prompting, and ran into the yard with several other horses.
“Good Pie,” he said.
“Pie?”
“Girl, are you stupid? That’s your horse’s name.”
“Who would name a horse Pie?”
“She’s Award Winning Pie, and you named her when you were ten,” he said, frowning. “I am running out of patience with you. Act like you know your own story.”
“How do you know my story, then?”
He sighed and waved at me to follow him into the storm cellar next to his house. I had no horse now and he wanted me to follow him into the ground?
“Jacqueline, I am only going to say this once. I am Jackson Hartle. In seventeen years my wife will bring Katherine Hartle, your mother, into the world. I have been waiting for years until I could talk to you about your time travel ability.”
I was related to Darling. Distant cousins. This man was my grandfather, Jack’s grandfather, who I’d never met as Jack. But who knew me here. Before I even knew. Holy Christ. And he KNEW about my time travel?
It was too much for me. I fainted.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
I CAME TO IN A DARK ROOM, smelling cedar. Great, I was in a hamster’s cage or something. I rubbed my eyes and pushed aside heavy blankets. There was some geometric pattern on them—handmade quilts. The mattress was lumpy and scratchy.
I sat up. Once again, I resided in a different body. I pulled back the waist of my pants. Boy body. Well, isn’t this just peachy?
I moved around the room in short darts because I’d expected my limbs to require more energy. Running fast was probably the sole advantage this kid had. Looking over the objects in the room, I guessed at the story of this person. Two toys—a beat-up metal soldier and a caboose of a wooden train that was missing two wheels, caddy-corner from each other so it couldn’t stand up on its own. On the nightstand was a small black bible with faded red edges. I picked it up and saw that someone had filled it with notes, scribbled in the margins; words circled, more in the first half than the second. A small cabinet with a few worn clothes, but patched and mended.
After I’d assessed my surroundings, I thought about what I’d just learned from Jackson Hartle. My namesake. I’d found him and now I was somewhere else. And he knew about me. Finally someone with answers in this freaking world! I couldn’t believe that once again I was stuck on my own.
I needed to find out where I’d gotten to this time.
The window, on the far side of the room. I walked on the balls of my feet so I could be quiet, and pressed my face to the glass. I was only able to look out of the lowest pane. That would make me what, five or six?
Outside, I saw a city in summer. Smokestacks in the distance puffed out gray and black plumes, but the city streets were lined with trees. Not a car in sight, but plenty of horses and maybe mules or donkeys, most of them hitched to dark carriages. There seemed to be two kinds of women—ones who looked like Jacqueline’s mother in their faded house dresses, doing some kind of heavy-duty outdoor work, and others in much nicer clothes. Most of the rich-looking women wore wide-brimmed hats, some with bits of lace trailing around the sides. There were few men to be found, and no children anywhere I could see.
My bedroom door burst open, and a large woman came in, wearing a dirty apron over the bottom half of her dress. Her dark blond hair was braided in the back, the top of her head covered with a tight linen cap. She skittered across the room like a waterbug and had clamped onto my ear before I could blink. Note to self: ears are sensitive little body parts.
“Edgar, why are you standing about? You know I need your help today!”
“My apologies, ma’am.”
Apparently this was the wrong thing to say.
“Ma’am? Ma’am? I’m your mother, and don’t you forget it!” I need to stop making this same mistake.
I wasn’t sure I could handle another mother. Three is a charm or something, right? Especially one who would pull me across a room by part of my head. It hurt like whoa.
“I’m sorry, Mother! Stop, please.”
She released me, and I fell down with a thud on the thin area rug. This was when I noticed that my ass was particularly bony.
She wiped a tear off the side of her face. “You are aware how important this party is, and I need you to help us prep in the kitchen. It’s not every day a young lady turns sixteen.”
Sweet cheeks, where am I?
“You’re right, of course. What should I wear?” I didn’t want to make any more grievous errors.
She beckoned me to stand up and come to her, to see if I was feverish. “You do have a quick pulse,” she said, her hand clamped around my wrist. I stood and waited for her to speak again. First she put her fingers under my chin and lifted my head to look at her.
“Don’t bring your illness on anyone today, Edgar. If you are weak of stomach, come up here and manage it by yourself.”
“Yes, Mother.”
“Now prepare yourself and put on your work clothes,” she said, pulling out a nondescript pair of short trousers and a cotton shirt from the wardrobe and laying them on the bed. “And wash behind your ears, do you hear me?”
“Yes, Mother.” She nodded at me and shut the door behind her. Whatever was downstairs, I figured today was going to suck ass.
I dressed, finding a basin and a water pitcher in the hallway outside my room. The door to the next room was open a crack, so I peeked inside. A carefully made, small bed was pushed close to the one window. There was another open wardrobe like the one in my room, with a few housedresses and one black dress fringed with white lace hanging from hooks. A chest sat at the foot of the bed with no padlock. In high snooping mode, I slipped into the room, tiptoed to the check, and opened the creaky lid to see what was in there. Shoes, lye soap, nothing valuable. A yellow envelope, discolored at the edges.
I checked the hallway again. I wonder how long Edgar takes to wash behind his ears, I thought as I slipped my fingers under the flap. Inside, there were two birth certificates—Janet MacComb, whose mother was Frances Hammond and father was Peter MacComb. And there was mine; Janet was my mother, but a big “UNKNOWN” sat on the page for my father.
What the hell does this mean? Great, now I have a new mystery to unravel? No more mysteries, universe!
Stairs down the hall squeaked that someone was coming, so I stuffed the papers back in the envelope and shut the locker. I made it just to the other side of the door when I saw a boy, maybe ten or eleven, jump onto the landing. He wore black shorts and a jacket, with a crisply ironed shirt and a thin black tie that crossed under the middle of his collar. He stood broad-chested and squat, looking like a junior wrestler who’d somehow gotten his pants cut off while managing to keep his legs intact. He seemed like a total asshole.
“MacComb, get downstairs already. Why do you dawdle?”
“I’m coming,” I said, rushing to the stairs and letting the lid slam shut.
Before I could get to the stairs, he punched me in the nose. I landed back on the floor for the second time that morning.
“That’s not how you talk to me, you stupid dog. Now get to the kitchen, runt.”
I scrambled to my feet, pinching my nose to stop it from gushing, even while I tasted metal in my mouth from my blood. I was around him and down the stairs as fast as my tiny legs could carry me. His laughter chased after me. Yup, he’s an asshole.
The stairwell ended at a short corridor lined with doors, and from there I smelled the kitchen. Chopping and clanging cutlery banged all around the room, each implement handled by a chef or assistant, in a blur of activity. It was quite a contrast with how food prep happened in our kitchen at home. We’re a bit more complicated than toaster ovens here, I tho
ught, eyeing the large room. Three women worked diligently: my mother, chopping a huge pile of onions, more tears streaming down her cheeks, a very large woman who stood as tall and wide as a Christmas tree, mixing some sort of batter in a bowl, and an older woman who stood over the large brick fireplace, where two kettles boiled away, steaming up the windows even though they were twenty feet away. The scents of the food traveled past my nostrils and my stomach rumbled in response. They noticed me as I entered, and my mother gasped when she saw me. She dropped her knife and came over to me, crouching down to examine me.
“Child, what became of you?” So much for getting any concern out of her.
“I . . . ran into the door upstairs,” I said.
“Hardly likely,” said the old woman at the hearth, but she kept stirring. “Master Traver at it again.”
Traver?
“We shall talk about this later. Now go kill three chickens for us from the coop.”
“What?” I knew I wouldn’t like her response, but I wasn’t ready to process her command just yet. Was that jackass on the landing Melvyn Traver?
“You heard me. Three. No daydreaming, Edgar.”
How was I freaking supposed to kill a chicken? She stood up and pushed me toward a back door, telling me the axe was outside. Sure, because we just leave implements of murder hanging around for anyone to use. Before the door shut behind me I heard the old lady mutter, “Those chickens will peck him to death before he catches a one of them.” She and Christmas Tree laughed, but I caught the eyes of my so-called mother through the glass in the door, and she wasn’t smiling.
I took stock; there were chickens picking whatever they could find out of the ground, clucking quietly, and just outside their wire fence, an axe half-buried in an old tree stump. As I got closer I could see that the stump was stained dark brown. This must be the final destination for the birds. I yanked hard to get the axe out of the stump, stumbling backward a few paces once I freed it of the wood. Jack or Jacqueline’s body would have been much better for this, but I had to work with what I had.
So much for gathering information on Master Traver over there. I couldn’t get back to anything until I’d satisfied the cooks. Catching a chicken turned out to be next to impossible. Once their guards were up, they stayed the hell away from me, fluttering around, clucking and crowding together so that I couldn’t tell what I was grabbing for. It was also apparently a stupid way of collecting dirty feathers. At one point I cornered a bird and got ahold of its wing, but it just banged against me with its other wing until I let go. Stupid reflexes. I cursed a lot, and wound up with a checkerboard of scratches on my arms. No wonder this kid had holes in his clothes.
Master Traver stood behind me outside the fence laughing his ass off at me. I thought about throwing the axe at him but didn’t want to give him a weapon, as my own blood was just starting to dry in my nose.
“You have to catch their feet, you stupid bastard,” he said, continuing to giggle at me.
“Isn’t there something else you should be doing, Master Traver?” I asked, diving for another fowl. Finally I had a decent hold of it. I let it hang from its neck and kept my grip tight. It flapped its wings and screamed. Who knew chickens could scream?
“Everything else around here is boring,” he said. He clapped at the bird’s capture.
“At long last, you have one.”
“I’d thank you but I don’t think you’re sincere.”
“You better watch how you speak to me,” he said in a growl.
“Why, or you’ll punch me again? I might drop this chicken and then you’ll have to explain why your sister’s party didn’t go the way it was planned.”
“Well, I’ll just blame that on you, you little prat.”
“Blame me, I don’t care,” I said, and I perched the bird on the stump. I’m sorry, birdie, I thought. If not you, me. The axe dropped through the air and made a dull thunk onto the wood as the chicken’s head rolled off, freed from the rest of the body. The wings kept fluttering and in my shock, I let go. It ran, headless, in a curving arc, over toward Traver, thick blood still pumping out of its neck to where its brain ought to have been. He was a terrible mess almost instantly.
“You did that on purpose!” He ran toward the house.
“You should have stayed inside, bored,” I said, to his retreating figure.
The fight seemed to have gone out of the chickens when I re-entered the coop; I caught and killed two more in short order, and brought them all into the kitchen.
“Well, look at him,” said the boiler. “He managed quite well. Miss MacComb, I told you he was ready to begin helping.”
“So he is,” my mother said. “But you’re a right mess. Go wash yourself upstairs and then come back here. Get those feathers out of your hair.”
Christmas Tree chuckled. “He looks like a Thanksgiving turkey.”
***
I squeezed many thoughts into the time I had while cleaning up. Chickens smelled worse than wet dogs. I missed my family and friends from Ohio, and now also from Jacqueline’s time. But first I needed to learn whatever there was to learn about the infamous someday Dr. Traver.
Back downstairs, my mother put me to work peeling potatoes. I saw one chicken simmering in a boiling pot, while the old lady plucked another clean of feathers, depositing them in a burlap sack on the floor.
Christmas Tree came up to me and bent over. She extended a finger, and I saw that she’d dipped it into white frosting. “I know I shouldn’t, but here, you can take a taste.”
I glanced at my mother. If she were as horrified as I was, she didn’t show it. I opened my mouth and the baker rammed her finger in my mouth, giggling as I licked off the frosting while trying not to gag. I pulled back, attempting a smile, and while the frosting tasted delicious, it had mixed with her own scent—something between sour and salty milk. I thanked her and asked to be excused. My mother gave me a knowing look, nodding. “Two minutes, Edgar. There’s a lot left to prepare.”
I clomped back up the servant steps, throwing open the door to my room. I was crestfallen to see Melvyn Traver on my bed, sprawled out in a new outfit, claiming my space because after all it was his to let me use or not. I didn’t have anything to myself here, not even a half-inch of space in front of my nose.
“Haven’t you harassed me enough today?”
“Oh you’re rich,” he said, sitting up, gripping the edge of the bed. Now looking at me straight on, I could see that his right eye was bruised. “You think you can tell me what to do? You’re the servant!”
I stood there, for the moment taller than him because he remained seated. He could yell but I could tell he had no energy for another fight. He must have gotten in real trouble for dirtying his suit.
“I’m sorry you got hit,” I said.
“What business is it of yours? Don’t pretend to care. I’m sure you’ll run downstairs and tell your whore mother all about it.”
“Can you stand not to be mean for one minute?” I reckoned I could run faster than him if he lunged for me, but he continued to sit there, defeated.
“Just because my father produced you with a housemaid does not mean you can address me this way!”
Terrific, we’re half-brothers! Of course that would be why I had no listed father on my birth record. It would have been a scandal or something.
Other than the bruise, which was growing redder around the edges as I watched him, he was perfect-looking: incredibly strong for his age, with piercing blue eyes and ruddy blond hair. Then it hit me.
Blue eyes. Dr. Traver didn’t have blue eyes.
I bolted back out to the hall, stood in front of the basin and mirror that hung over the vanity.
Traver bounded up after me, hulking over me from the doorway of my room.
“What on earth is wrong with you today, Edgar?”
I trembled as I looked at my reflection. Those hazel, almond-shaped eyes. I knew those eyes.
I was Dr. Traver.
CHAPTER TWENTY
MELVYN—OR WHOEVER HE WAS—shouted after me as I ran down the stairs. I flew through the front of the house, like I was blowing past the evil bus driver again. I ran past two servants hanging decorations in the front living room. The front door, made of carved wood, was large and heavy but I pushed it open and made it into the street. I hoped I could lose myself in all of the activity outside. I was at the top of a long slope, and I could see that the street several blocks down had plenty of people and carriages; I’d just burst out of the biggest house around. At the bottom of the hill homes didn’t have so much as a small front yard, but up here vast plots of land were dedicated to each home.
Melvyn stood in the doorway, calling out after me as I huffed down the hill. His voice grew fainter with each step.
“Leave! Nobody wants you, Edgar! Not even your good-for-nothing whore mother!” He really got all gravely on the word “whore,” like it could be the last insult he could hurl my way. Whatever, little monster, fuck off. I don’t know where I’m going, but I can run my ass away from you.
I let gravity give me a little extra speed, but this turned out to be to my disadvantage, because it made stopping more difficult. I careened broadside into a peanut truck, spilling nuts all over the street. The vendor was not happy with me.
“Lookee what you did there, son,” he said, pulling his cart upright and scrambling after his indigo umbrella that was rolling away from him in the breeze. I helped him reinsert it into the cart.
“That’s a lot of product you just ruined.” He rubbed a handkerchief over his forehead.
“I’m sorry, sir,” I said, picking up peanuts and realizing they were covered with road dirt. Nutty and delicious!
“Apologies don’t earn me any money, you know,” he said, puffing. He looked down at me and I was reminded again how small I was.
“You need to pay for all of this damage.”
“I don’t have any money.” I felt in my pockets just in case but I already knew I wouldn’t find anything in there.
The Unintentional Time Traveler (Time Guardians Book 1) Page 19