Alice Payne Arrives

by Kate Heartfield

  “Hidden to all but God,” he says, his eyes twinkling.

  “Well, yes. Naturally.”

  That face changes again, and he goes serious. “No. I believe that we have a duty to learn what we can. Justice is not only about finding criminals and hanging them. Justice, I think, is another word for truth itself. Even a very old truth can still teach us something, help us make this world a less imperfect place.”

  She nods, and looks from him to Jane and back again. “Thank you, Captain Auden. You have settled my mind about something.”

  He is gone.

  Jane and Alice stand looking at the door for a long moment, time slipping by.

  “You did not even tell me you were using the device,” Jane says at last, her voice small and thin.

  “I thought— I did not consider—”

  “You did not consider me because you never do,” Jane says, whirling on her. Her cheeks are red, blotched around her freckles. “Alice, my love, you act alone, always. You have not given yourself over to me.”

  “Given myself over? I don’t know what you mean. How can I? What ceremony can we perform, Jane? What token can I give you? Have you given yourself over to me?”

  Jane stands very still, the time-wheel in her hand.

  “Perhaps not,” she answers. Alice can’t breathe; her ribs are too tight around her heart.

  Voices outside the door, loud and urgent. Damn Auden—did he change his mind about the ten minutes?

  Jane looks at the time-wheel. “We must use it, now, and get away from here,” she whispers.

  “Captain Auden, have you seen Miss Payne?” It is Satterthwaite’s voice, outside the door, and he is alarmed.

  Jane and Alice look at each other, step closer to the door to listen.

  “It is the colonel,” says Satterthwaite. “He’s gone wandering again. Mr. Brown—the groom, begging your pardon—saw him walking on the rocks by the river, and tried to persuade him to come away. There is moss there, and the rocks are wet. But the colonel would not be persuaded, or even make any sign he hears at all. Mr. Brown has gone straight back to watch in case he falls in, but he couldn’t make him come home.”

  Jane whispers, “Your father will only listen to you when he is like this.”

  Alice nods. She glances to the window. There’s a bit of stonework on the outside she can climb down.

  “I’ll go,” she says.

  “It’s not safe. They’ll find you. You can save him now, but what about the next time he goes wandering? When you are hanged and in the ground, who will help him home then?”

  “I don’t intend to hang. Not this year, anyway. I have it on good authority that there are some new fashions coming and I would hate to miss them.”

  “Alice, stop. Stop! Stop sending me away from you. Sometimes, I swear, you risk your life just to keep me at bay. For now, this once, let me be by your side. Your life is at stake. If we are to escape, we must do it now.”

  “Jane, we are going to escape. But I only have an hour.”

  “Ten minutes, you mean.”

  “An hour, before the device in your hands becomes useless. And there is something I must ask you.”

  Jane makes a little sigh of exasperation. “Another salon conversation topic? Really, Alice?”

  “I have learned that the woman I saw, the woman who dropped the time-wheel, is going to put an end to time travel once and for all. She has been fighting a war for history, and the consequences are awful. Awful, Jane. I’ve seen some of them. And I don’t know what to do about it.”

  “She is going to destroy the time devices? But I haven’t had a chance—I haven’t had time . . .”

  “You want a chance to try,” says Alice, coming closer to her. “You believe that it’s worth trying. That even where humanity has failed, and failed, and failed, that you might succeed. That you can make things better.”

  Jane’s face clouds. She nods. “I have to believe that, yes.”

  She takes Jane’s hands and smiles, truly smiles. “Then you are going to save me, Jane. I know you will. I have been to the future, and I have learned one thing. Would you like to hear it?”

  “Five minutes,” calls Auden, from outside. “Hurry, please. I need you to come with me, Miss Payne, as quickly as you can.”

  He wants her to come get Father too, bless him. She doesn’t need to climb down the stonework. Jane will save her, or she will hang.

  She takes Jane’s hands.

  “I know that if I were given the chance to live my life over a million times, I would love you in every one.”

  Jane shakes her head. A tear has welled in one of her eyes and rolls down her cheek. Alice has never seen her cry before, not even when the news came that her sister died in childbirth, when Jane had the letter in one hand and her half-knit baby’s cap in the other.

  She puts her hands on Jane’s shoulders and kisses the tear away, tasting the salt on her tongue, and then puts her forehead to Jane’s.

  “I am not sending you away,” Alice whispers. “I am asking you to save my life, and to change my life. I am giving myself over to you.”

  Jane kisses her, hard.

  There is a pile of papers on Jane’s desk, scribblings and drawings. Alice finds a bit of blank space and writes with Jane’s pen, as much as she can manage in the few minutes they have. She folds the paper, hands it to Jane along with the beacon-kill device.

  She is out of time, and still in her highwayman clothing. Captain Auden will have questions. Let him wonder.

  “Father needs me now. If we meet again, Jane, everything will be different. Here is what you must do, before the sun sets.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY: In Which Some People Vanish

  2070

  THEY EACH STAND BEFORE the retina scanner and Helmut gives the command.

  Prudence touches the button at her waist to open the shimmer for Alice.

  And then, a few things happen within the space of ten seconds.

  Helmut and Rati are no longer in the room. They belong in 2070, so the destruction of the time beacon should not make them disappear, unless they are random collateral damage from the changing of history. More likely, they have been caught up in Helmut’s own algorithm and sent to 2555 with all the Misguideds.

  Prudence expected that possibility. At the extreme, radical ends, the scanner can’t tell the difference between the Misguided and a Farmer. Helmut and Rati were radicals. They knew it was a possibility too.

  But Prudence has not disappeared. She is not living in blissful ignorance of time travel in the twenty-second century. She is still standing in the brown-and-beige basement in 2070, when a shimmer opens, and General Almo stands there, a stun weapon in his hand.

  “Shit,” Prudence says.

  Alice didn’t do it. Either she was always lying about her intentions, or she got cold feet.

  It doesn’t matter. Prudence knew this could happen. Time to go to plan B.

  Prudence touches her belt to open a shimmer but nothing happens. She hits it, hard. Nothing.

  “We’ve disabled your belt remotely,” says Almo. “New technology. Isn’t it useful? Anyway, I don’t think you want to do that. We have Grace, down in 2555.”

  She has trouble swallowing, trouble getting her breath.

  “Grace?”

  “She went down with the other billions of Misguideds. Might have been a false positive, although she had tendencies. We have agents holding her there, to make sure you don’t do anything else foolish. She is comfortable.”

  “What about her husband?”

  Almo shakes his head. “Alexei Komorov is still here in 2070.”

  Prudence shakes her head. “But if you can still shimmer—if—but why didn’t you come five minutes ago?”

  Almo sighs. “It was deemed convenient, your attack on the Misguideds. Not my call. We have chosen not to undo it. It takes the Misguideds years to get involved in teleosophy. The Farmers have the upper hand now, even despite the Misguided counterattack that sends h
alf of us downstream a century from now. It’s all officially ‘worth it.’ But I’m afraid we can’t officially condone what you did. And we certainly can’t let you do what you were about to do.”

  To go back to 1788 herself, and kill the beacon.

  Plan C. She is standing on a trapdoor, over an open shimmer to a village in Greece in 1779. It’ll take them some effort to find her then and there, and in the meantime, she can work on killing the beacon. Again.

  But Grace. They have Grace, in 2555. Separated from Alexei. In custody. Paying for her sister’s sins.

  “You are my fucking responsibility,” says Almo, low, sad and soft as if he were reading a bedtime story. The tone he always used with disappointing recruits. “I made you. I let you run obsessed too long on the Rudolf Project. And now I have to fix my mistakes. Take you downstream and out of the mix, where you can’t do any more damage.”

  Grace wanted to have a child. She wanted a normal life. She deserves a normal life. A life in a real house with real work to feed her real family. A life without a sister always looking at her funny, wondering whether this would be the moment where she winks out of existence.

  She will have time—she can make time. Between 1779 and 1788, Prudence will have time to figure out a way to get to 2555 undetected and save Grace. But she is certainly not going to go there in cuffs, now.

  She kicks the lever of the old reclining chair, to open the trapdoor, to slide into the past.

  The lever slides down, the chair bounces into its upright position.

  It is not connected to the trapdoor.

  Perhaps there is no trapdoor. Not now.

  “We have Helmut Kauffmann and Rati Kapoor too,” says Almo. “Do you have a plan D? If you do, now would be the time to try it, because in five seconds, I stun you and drag you back through this shimmer.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE: Concerning a Rescue and What Comes Before

  1788

  THE HIGHWAYMAN KNOWN AS the Holy Ghost lurks behind the ruined church wall. Lurking has a different quality to waiting, she reflects, having time for reflection.

  Havoc raises his head and his nostrils flare. A horse comes down the road, from the top of Gibbet Hill: a horse he recognizes. Alice pulls him back a step, then she recognizes the horse and rider herself.

  “Jane,” she hisses. Could something be wrong at home? Is Father wandering again?

  But Jane holds out her hand, the palm toward Alice. What in the Devil’s name can she be thinking?

  Ah! There it is. A carriage comes rattling around the corner, the horses’ gait slowing as the slope rises toward Gibbet Hill. That will be Lord Ludderworth, and Jane is about to sour the whole plan.

  What a gaudy contraption the Earl of Ludderworth uses to get around the country, half-painted in gold as if he were Marie Antoinette, its four lamps lit although the sun is still bloodying the forest. Four horses, plumed. That dark bulk on the seat is the coachman and footman, both liveried like dancing monkeys, no doubt.

  The carriage rattles to a stop and the coachman calls out, “Make way.”

  “I come from Fleance Hall with a message for Lord Ludderworth,” Jane shouts.

  The carriage window opens, and Lord Ludderworth’s head appears there. “Miss Hodgson, is it?”

  Jane walks her horse closer to the carriage door.

  “My lord. Forgive this ill welcome. I have bad news. Miss Payne is stricken with smallpox. She is strong and stubborn and the doctors say she has a good chance to live, but we are to have no visitors.”

  “Miss Payne! Surely I can be of some help to her father in this time. I’ve had smallpox, you see, as a child.”

  So has Alice. What can Jane be doing? It isn’t her way to pull a private joke; that’s more Alice’s province.

  Lord Ludderworth doesn’t ask whether his coachman or footman have had smallpox, nor his manservant, who must be in the other seat in the carriage.

  “It’s very kind of you, my lord,” says Jane. “Very Christian indeed. Even if Miss Payne lives, she is very likely to be disfigured.”

  “Ah, I see. Well then. What a bloody shame. I say, Brown, Greenleaf, have you both had smallpox?”

  “I haven’t, my lord,” says the coachman.

  “Oh dear. Well, that does it. We’ll have to turn around. Please send my compliments, Miss Hodgson, and I will send . . . what shall I send? Oranges? Yes, oranges. Before the week is out. Grigson!”

  A man comes riding around the corner, just behind the carriage. Ah. His manservant was riding behind—to chase a highwayman, should one appear? Perhaps Jane got wind of that, and is saving Alice from it. As though Alice could not have handled it perfectly well.

  She snorts in frustration as the carriage disappears back the way it came. Havoc stamps.

  Jane rides to her, stops alongside.

  “You are going to have to trust me a little, now,” says Jane. “Can you give yourself over to me, just for a few minutes? Some things have happened. I will tell you what I can, but we must go now. Up the hill.”

  “Is it Father? Wandering again?”

  “He is in good hands. We are going somewhere else. We are going to meet a woman named Prudence Zuniga, and we are going to convince her not to make a terrible mistake. It might take a few tries. She is very set upon it, I’m told.”

  She turns her horse and rides up the hill and Alice, speechless, follows.

  Jane pauses at the old milestone. She pulls a brass device out of her saddlebag, some instrument with wheels on wheels.

  “I hope I can remember the correct setting—you’ve been mucking about with this.”

  “I haven’t. I never play with your toys, unless you ask me to.”

  “Shush. Keep still and let me do my work.”

  Alice looks up and down the road. It is getting dark, under the trees. It is unlikely anyone will pass this way before morning, now, but all the same they should dismantle the automaton. All that work she had setting it up, all for naught.

  Something is fluttering on the side of the milestone. A moth? She dismounts and ties Havoc to a tree. It takes a bit of work to winkle the paper out from the crack without tearing it.

  “What is it?” Jane asks, looking up from her device.

  “A note, or something. A lovers’ assignation? How marvellous!”

  She peers at it in the dying light. “Very odd penmanship. Very odd message, come to that. Wait, it’s meant for me! I think.”

  Jane is on foot now too, and comes to her side. “What does it say?”

  Alice reads:

  Plan D

  If you have been clever enough to return to this time, Alice, it means you have changed your mind, and you are going to try to change mine.

  I left the time-wheel you found in your possession so that if you changed your mind, this would be how you changed it.

  If you get this note, it means that I have not been able to return to kill the beacon myself—because if I do that, I will be there an hour before the beacon-kill to make sure you can’t shimmer back to this time.

  If you get this note, it means that something goes wrong. I would like you to bring it to me, so that I know that too. It means that I have chosen to leave this here for you to find. Bring it to me, please.

  And have patience. I can be a little stubborn.

  PZ

  She turns to Jane. “I can’t make head or tails of it. What have you been hiding from me, Jane? What is going on?”

  “PZ stands for Prudence Zuniga. The woman we have to find, now, and persuade.”

  “Persuade to do what?”

  Jane shakes her head. “To change her mind. Beyond that, I don’t know much. I do know we’ll do it together, this time. Everything is going to be different. Kiss me, and then take my hand, because I don’t know what happens next.”

  The Most Recent Draft of History

  1756: Alice Payne is born in Kingston, Jamaica

  1759: Alice and her father come to England; he buys Fleance Hall

  1
778: Alice’s father goes to America to fight (Alice is 22)

  1783: Alice’s father returns, wounded

  1784: Wray Auden buys New House

  1788: The Earl of Ludderworth goes through a time portal

  1889: Crown Prince Rudolf dies in the Mayerling Incident

  1913: Franz Ferdinand narrowly escapes death while hunting in England

  1914: Franz Ferdinand is assassinated and the First World War begins

  1916: The Battle of the Somme

  2038: Discovery of time travel

  2040: Prudence and Grace Zuniga arrive in Toronto as child refugees from the future

  2070: Prudence, Helmut and Rati set up Project Shipwreck

  2071: Teleosophy begins

  2091: The Berlin Convention on Organ Manufacture

  2092: The History War begins

  2131: Grace is born

  2132: Prudence is born

  2135: Invention of wireless remote EEG scanning

  2139: The Anarchy begins

  2140: Prudence and Grace are sent back in time by their parents

  2145: Teleosophic Core Command

  Acknowledgments

  I thank, first, the many real women whose lives or work inspired elements of this book.

  To my family, all my gratitude for their constancy, and especially to Brent and Xavier, who are forever patiently waiting for me to “just finish this thought.”

  My thanks to Jennie Goloboy and everyone at the Donald Maass Literary Agency, to my editor, Lee Harris, and the whole wonderful team at Tor.com.

  I thank David Thomas Moore for his encouragement and support.

  To the Zuniga family, who offered me food, shelter, friendship and lessons in life and Creole many years ago, my thanks.

  Thanks to Aidan Doyle, Megan Chaudhuri and Em Dupre for reading an early draft in whole or in part and providing their feedback and encouragement. I am grateful for my writing community, and I thank in particular the members of Codex for help with the research and brainstorming for this book.