One night in the middle of November, Emily read them “The Green Knight” out of The Violet Fairy Book before sending the girls to bed. Josie waited until Cassie’s breathing grew slow and even before tiptoeing out of bed with her notebook and blanket.
She ventured into the reading room, switched on the electric lamp, laid the rolled-up blanket at the foot of the door to block the light, and pulled out the talking board. “Alec?” she whispered. “Are you there?” The glass piece moved to HELLO, then spelled out her name.
you left suddenly last time—did you get in trouble?
“Merritt found us and we had to put away the board. I told you about Merritt in the letter, didn’t I? I wrote it the day after you told us about it.”
you told me a little—hes your mothers bodyguard?
“Yes. He’s a very strange man. The kind of person who makes the gooseflesh rise up and down your arms whenever he comes into the room.”
hes probably good at his job then isnt he?
“I suppose he is.” She sighed. “Emily can’t use the board with me again. I couldn’t bear the thought of my mother sending her away. Oh, there are so many things I wish to ask you, Alec! I have so many questions! How am I to know beyond all doubt that you’re speaking to me from the future? How will I know for certain this is not a trick?”
if its a trick then somebodys playing it on me too—have you put the letter in the file yet?
“I haven’t yet, no. I’m not permitted to go into Mother’s study.”
oh well—i guess you have plenty of time—youll figure out a way or else i wouldnt have found it—
She mulled this over. Of course Alec was right. It was as if there were a secret equilibrium which governed all the universe, and which every living creature must do their part to preserve.
i wish i could show you all the things ive found—the newspaper and magazine articles about your mother—the old pictures of you and your family—the letters from all the people who went to see her—
Her own experience supported what he was telling her. Her mother received so many letters from grateful one-time clients that Josie could never remember a time when she’d actually responded.
i know youve probably seen all that stuff yourself—but if you could see how old everything is—these papers have been sitting in a box for 1-0-0 years—
A hundred years! It was beyond imagining, like setting out for the moon on foot.
theres something else too—danny and i were up in the attic and found words scratched into the windowsill—it said hello alec—
“Your name, scratched into the attic windowsill! Who could have done that?”
you—maybe?
“Why, when I could say hello to you right now?” she laughed. “How about this. You say you have access to archives. Is the New York Times still printing?” The pointer moved to YES. “Could you read the front page—say, two weeks from now?”
sure—i can do that—
“Today’s date is November 14th, 1915, so perhaps you could look for the newspaper from the 28th. The next time we speak, tell me what each of the front-page headlines will be. If I find all that you have told me on the morning of the 28th, then I shall be convinced.”
thats a good idea josie—i can do it right now—hold on a sec—
For two minutes she waited with the fingers of one hand resting on the pointer, the other tightly grasping her pencil. How could he recover a century-old newspaper in the middle of the night?
found it—here goes—greece delays pledge to the allies who now have landed 125000 men—serbs advancing retake krushevo—kitchener arranges for more aid by italy—london will accept new temperance law—submission to drastic order significant of the war spirit now prevailing—oh heres a good one—he fell 10000 feet and landed safely—colonel maitland proved his aeroplane parachutes efficacy in his own person—
“Ten thousand feet!” she breathed. “How could you find the newspaper so quickly?”
its called the times machine—on an ipad—a sort of computer—i know those words dont mean anything to you—sorry its hard to explain—
“Please try!”
imagine you could read any newspaper from anywhere in the world—from any date—you can do a search for it and it shows up on the screen—
“Screen?”
like a blank page that fills up with whatever you want to look at—
“Magic,” she murmured, and when the pointer spun she knew he was laughing.
its just technology—
“Well, in the meantime we may as well speak as if all this is true.”
if you could see these things youd know no one could have invented it all just for a laugh—i know you dont really believe your mother is psychic—
“I did write you that, didn’t I?” Swiftly the pointer headed for YES.
but if your mother was cheating dont you think youd have caught her?
This was the troubling part of Josie’s conviction. The children of other so-called mediums concealed themselves in spirit boxes and under tables, appearing as wraiths or glowing hands at the very moment their gullible sitters were expecting it. Lavinia Clifford could have easily used her own children to perpetrate her fraud, but she had never done so. Josie admitted this to her friend, who replied: then you cant say for sure shes faking it can you?
She rolled her eyes at the empty room. “I suppose not.”
it must be weird—all those sad people coming in and out all the time—and your mom saying she gets taken over by some dude from a lost continent—
Dude. What a funny word. “It isn’t strange when we’ve always lived this way.”
i guess its the same as danny asking if its weird that i havent seen my dad in two months—
“Oh,” she said. “Your friend Danny, he isn’t with you?”
The pointer moved to NO.
“Is he a friend from school?” Then she reminded herself that Alec might be a good deal older than she imagined. “You are in school, aren’t you?”
yup i am—he says his mom always makes him go home just when the really interesting stuff starts to happen—
“Tell me about your life, Alec. The future is much more interesting than the present.”
i feel the same way about the past—
“Nonsense,” she laughed. “Now, what is the year, exactly?”
2-0-1-5—
“Marvelous!” she whispered. “A century, precisely!”
you know whats funny josie—we are 100 years apart but not exactly—you said its november 14 but its still the beginning of november here—when 2 people are talking on a computer but there are a few seconds between sending and receiving something its called a lag—this is the longest lag ever—
“You must tell me everything. Have you been to Mars? Do you have your own airship?”
The pointer began to whirl. Josie frowned. “Why are you laughing? We have aeroplanes in 1915, you know. It isn’t a silly question.”
yes of course we have airplanes—like the wright brothers right?—but only very rich people have their own and they dont usually fly the planes themselves—
“How long would it take you to get to London?”
about 6 hours—
“Six hours! Then I suppose you go to Europe all the time!” She heaved a sigh of envy. “Before we were born Mother traveled to all the great cities—London, Paris, Rome, Vienna—but we’ve never been.”
we went to scotland last year but we dont go all the time—plane trips are expensive and my dad cant take the time off work—hes a lawyer—
“Ah, yes. I imagine he must work long hours.” Then another question occurred to her. “How old are you, Alec?”
The pointer moved down to the numbers. One, two.
“Me too! I’m almost twelve!”
w
hen is your birthday?
“The 26th of January.”
then im older than you are—
“Older! How do you reckon?”
you just said you wont be 1-2 til january and im already 1-2—
“And I was born in 1904!”
all right—all right—you win—
Then Josie laughed, too, and the pointer spun on both ends. But her heart gave a nasty thud as she strung together the message that came next:
alec what are you doing sweets—i have to go—
“Oh,” she said. “Well, goodnight then, Alec.”
It was clear the first part of the message had come from someone else—his mother, she supposed—and that there was no point waiting for the glass to move again.
Tell Me Everything
14.
“Alec? What are you doing, sweets?” His mother was standing in the doorway, squinting against the light from the chandelier.
“I have to go,” he whispered, and straightened up to face her. “Nothing—I’m just—”
“Who are you talking to?” His mom came into the room, hugging herself in her oversized cardigan, and stared down at the talking board on the dining table. “Is that . . . a Ouija board? Where did you get that?”
He pointed to the massive mahogany cabinet, where he’d left the drawer a few inches ajar. “It came with the house.”
Alec watched the fog of sleep receding. Her eyes grew bright, and he could almost see the gears clicking into motion inside her brain. “You found this, and you never told me?”
“I was going to! It just seemed like such a neat little secret that . . . that . . . I wanted to keep it for a little while.”
“A secret, huh?” She folded her arms. “You were playing with this when Danny and Harold stayed over, weren’t you?”
He nodded, his eyes on the table. He didn’t want to talk about Harold, and he certainly didn’t want to tell her what was happening with the board.
“Why are you being so secretive, Alec? You’ve never kept things from me before.”
“I don’t mean to be,” he said in a small voice. “I never meant to keep it from you.” I only hid it because you wouldn’t believe me if I told you everything.
She sighed. “Put it away and get up to bed. You can use it, but not too often, and not this late at night. Okay?”
When Alec came down for breakfast the next morning he knew by the way his mother stirred the oatmeal that he was in for a Talk. “I know it’s been a rough few months,” she began as she handed him a bowl. “It feels so weird for me to not be talking about your dad. It feels so wrong that it’s just the two of us now.”
He reached across the table and patted her hand. “I know, Mom.”
She tried to smile. “And I can’t talk to you about certain things,” she went on, “because I want to do the right thing. I don’t want to say anything I might regret.” She took a slow sip of coffee, and it occurred to him that this conversation wasn’t any easier for her than it was for him. “Maybe that doesn’t make sense to you right now, but I think it will someday. Your dad . . .” She broke off and looked out the window, cradling her coffee mug with both hands, and her eyes were bright with tears. “Your dad . . . he hurt me very badly. It’s the first time I’m saying that, but I haven’t had to say it. I know you know.”
Alec nodded.
“And you know why we’re talking about it now, right?”
Suddenly he couldn’t look her in the eye. “Because of last night?”
“Yes.” She sighed. “More than anything else right now, I need you to be honest with me. Even when it’s hard. Especially when it’s hard. I need you to be straight with me, Alec, and not only because it’s the right thing to do. Do you understand what I’m trying to say?”
He’d lied to her before, of course—that first time she tried to bake a vegan chocolate cake, the cake was dry and the icing was runny, but he told her it was delicious; or the time she wanted to wear an ugly orange blouse to his fourth-grade graduation ceremony and he told her she looked great—but this time was different. He had to tell her the truth, even if he got in trouble for it. Even if she thought he was insane.
Alec took a deep breath before he spoke. “What if I told you the truth, but it sounded totally impossible. Like I had to be making it up, even though I wasn’t?”
She reached for his hand and squeezed it. “Tell me everything, and I promise I’ll try my best to believe you.”
Alec glanced through the living room doorway where Josie’s portrait still sat looking out over the mantel. Mrs. Frost looked at him questioningly, and he hurried to retrieve the photo. He handed it to her, then ran up the back stairs to get Josie’s letter from his desk.
Alec said nothing as he handed her the letter, and she said nothing as she looked at his name on the envelope. There was a strangely blank look on her face as she read the letter, and for once Alec had no idea how she might respond.
When she looked up from the page her eyes were troubled. “It’s real,” Alec said hurriedly. “It’s a hundred years old. She’s alive, and she’s going to write me more letters and leave them in a place I haven’t looked in yet . . .”
Mrs. Frost was shaking her head. “Alec . . .”
“Danny knows about it too! He’s read the letter. We found it in the archive at the library. His dad can tell you that letter is really a hundred years old!”
She regarded him sadly. “I know, sweets. I can tell how old it is.”
“Then say something, Mom. Tell me you believe me.” Tell me I’m not crazy, he thought.
But she stared through the bottom of her mug and didn’t answer.
“Can I still use the board?” he asked in a small voice. Please, please, please say yes!
His mother shook her head, and let the letter fall softly to the table as if it contained bad news. “I . . . I don’t think . . .” She drew a deep breath. “I need to think about this. Can you give me some time?”
Alec nodded, avoiding her eye as he slid the letter back into the envelope. What was there to think about?
A Miserable Feast
15.
The week before Thanksgiving Mrs. Clifford announced at breakfast that they would be entertaining a scientist. “What sort of scientist?” Josie asked.
“His name is Dr. Henry Jennings, and he will be here to study me over a period of months,” their mother said as she sipped her tea. “A thorough investigation, he calls it. He is a psychical researcher from the city, and when he is here he will stay at the hotel.”
“Why is he studying you, Mama?” Cass asked. “Is it so no one can call you a phony ever again?”
“Where did you hear that word?” Mrs. Clifford looked at Emily and raised an eyebrow, as if the schoolroom were the only place it was possible to learn anything. “It is a nasty little slang word, Cassandra. You must not use it again.”
Dr. Jennings was the tallest man Josie had ever seen apart from Merritt, and broad too, with a neatly trimmed black beard, ruddy cheeks, and a striding carriage that reminded her of a lumberjack in a storybook. He was a very learned man though, with an English accent that occasionally sent Cassie into wildly inappropriate fits of giggling during his introductory visit.
It was decided that Dr. Jennings would conduct his first experiment the following day, and Josie had no intention of keeping to the nursery. Emily relented only when Josie promised to spend her afternoon free time on an additional history composition. “You do know, don’t you, that I have utterly failed you on the matter of discipline?” she sighed. “Heaven help me if she catches you.”
Josie waited on the back stairs while Mrs. Pike shut out the daylight. Then she crept down the darkened hallway and knelt at the reading-room keyhole. The doorbell rang and the housekeeper showed the doctor and his secretary into the room. Clad in gray silk, the secretar
y—the doctor called her Miss Whipple—carried a small leather briefcase, which she opened on the reading table. When Mrs. Clifford entered, the doctor explained that they must have natural light, for it was the secretary’s job to transcribe all that was said during the session—that is, if Mrs. Clifford had no objections?
There was a slight pause. Under any other circumstances Josie knew her mother would not want such a definitive record of what she had or hadn’t said, in case the sitter ever used it against her, and the lantern-light added to “the effect.” It would not do to refuse Dr. Jennings, however.
“Of course,” said Mrs. Clifford. “I have no objections.”
Miss Whipple pushed back the curtains. It was odd to see the reading room in the afternoon light, so devoid of mystery.
“Let us begin,” said the doctor. There was a brief silence, and, as usual, the air in the room grew heavy. “Is there an entity who has assumed command of Mrs. Clifford’s physical body?” Dr. Jennings asked, and his secretary began to write quite rapidly.
“There is,” Mrs. Clifford intoned.
“Please identify yourself.”
“I am Baldassare, the poet of Volterra. It has been nearly four centuries since the end of my last incarnation on the Earth-plane.”
“Ah! Buongiorno, Signore,” the doctor replied jovially, and went on speaking in Italian for a short while. Josie listened with admiration.
The “poet” replied in English. “I have spoken through Mrs. Clifford many times, and will do so on many occasions in the future.”
“Notice,” said the doctor to his secretary, “that he will not reply in what he claims is his native language.”
“I am well aware of your travels in Italy, Doctor,” replied Mrs. Clifford with a sniff of disdain. “I know of your research in the Vatican library, and of the unfortunate theft in the Piazza San Marco . . . and of that charming signorina in Trieste.” There followed an uncomfortable pause. Josie heard the doctor and his secretary shifting in their seats, and sensed that the “poet of Volterra” had taken Dr. Jennings down a peg. “I have no patience for such petty appraisals,” Mrs. Clifford went on. “We shall converse in your native language.”
The Boy from Tomorrow Page 7