by Gloria Gay
She felt a strange connection to the journal, as though she was meant to read it and again wondered why her mother had not left it to her and Stacy instead of to her friend, Emmy.
She opened it to the first page and began to read. After a few minutes, she breathed out a long sigh, for she felt like she had stopped breathing while she read.
CHAPTER 4
Kate’s thoughts, as she waited for Lanquest to return, continued on in uneasy reminiscence to that fateful day when she had gone to the psychic’s place. A day that was to change her life.
On that day, she had risen from sleep with a strange feeling of premonition. She had stayed up reading the novels that helped her get to sleep. But while she read, in the back of her mind, was the psychic’s place, the place her mom had gone to that changed her life.
Emmy had told her exactly where her mother had gotten off the bus. She would take the bus rather than go there in her car because she wanted to do everything in the same way her mother had done it.
Would the psychic’s place still be there, and if it was, would it still be there for her?
She smiled and nodded with determination. For some reason, she had a feeling that the psychic’s place her mother had visited would still be there.
She would call Stacey and tell her all about it when she came back.
She walked into a deli on Surfers Drive and bought a corned beef sandwich, a small salad and a bottle of orange juice for her supper. She didn’t know if she would get a meal in that magic place beyond the golden canopy so it was better not to go there on an empty stomach.
After her shower, Kate brushed her hair and put on mascara, blush and tangerine gloss. She put on jeans and a marine blue sweater and tied on her sneakers. She decided against taking a purse. Instead she chose a pair of jeans that had zippered back pockets. She put her money, credit card and ID in one of the back pockets and zipped it shut. In the other back pocket, she put her smartphone and zipped the pocket shut. On second thought, she put on the emerald ring she had inherited from her godmother inside the zippered pocket.
Kate’s hair was a rich chestnut, like her mother’s. And it was long, straight and silky. People often admired it. Even strangers on the street. Everyone else in her family was fair-haired, including her Dad and Stacy. Even Aunt Martha had been a blond in her youth.
But admiring glances from men meant nothing to Kate. She was certain she would never trust another man again.
***
Kate boarded the bus on the route Emmy had told her to and sat back on the plastic covered blue seat with a deep feeling of premonition.
The bus was almost empty but it began to pick up more and more passengers as it rumbled heavily through the streets.
Kate remembered her mother saying that the smell of exhaust fumes from large buses and the swishing sound they made as they came to a heavy lumbering stop always reminded her of that day.
She began to get a bit unnerved as the bus neared the place. Emmy had told her to take a seat on the right-hand side of the bus and to look out the window so she would not miss the psychic’s sign.
***
Kate’s thoughts were interrupted by a commotion inside the bus. A woman had dropped her purse and the contents had spilled on the middle aisle of the bus. Several people were helping her to gather her belongings.
The woman who had dropped her purse finished gathering her stuff and closed her red, black-fringed purse…
Deep in her troubling thoughts and only half aware of this, Kate stared at the purse and then at the woman. She looked vaguely familiar, with pale skin that contrasted with black dyed hair and heavily made up large dark eyes. She was good-looking in an exotic way and was wearing a long black skirt and a green and red flowered blouse and there was a scarf around her head where part of her black hair was exposed.
Kate remembered that when she had described the psychic, her mother had said that the woman had put the money she had paid her for the reading of her hand into a red black-fringed purse.
A tremor shook Kate’s body. This was the psychic woman her mother had described in her journal!
Suddenly the woman was right beside Kate’s seat. She pointed at the window of the bus and yelled at Kate: “You’re going to miss your stop—pull the cord!”
Kate saw a sign that said, “Psychic.” She quickly stood up and pulled the cord with a trembling hand.
The woman—how had she known?
Kate turned around to look at the woman again but she was not anywhere in the bus now. How could she have gotten off the bus while the bus was rushing through the street with its doors closed?
Feeling strange and apprehensive Kate got off the bus when it came to its stop.
She looked down the street and was amazed that the same woman she had seen in the bus aisle and who had ordered her to pull the cord was walking briskly down the street ahead of Kate and toward the place with the “Psychic” sign.
Kate was certain she had not seen her get off the bus and yet, there she was ahead, as if leading the way!
The woman stopped suddenly, turned and waited for Kate to catch up with her.
“You almost missed the stop,” she scolded.
“Sorry,” Kate said.
Here she was apologizing to a woman she had never seen in her life before and yet…she had known about her.
“Are you Madame Xalia?”
“No, miss. Xalia is my twin sister. She’s ill at this time and I’m taking her place. I’m Madame Enlia.”
She took a business card from her fringed purse and handed it to Kate. Kate looked down at the card and saw that it was blank. She flipped it over and saw that the back was blank, as well. She shook her head and put it in her jean’s front pocket.
After their brisk walk they reached the same shabby storefront Kate’s mom had described in detail. And by the door was an old man. The same old man her mom had written about!
Madame Enlia said nothing to the old man as she dug out a huge old-fashioned key from her fringed purse and opened the door.
A thrill shot through Kate.
She was here.
She was inside the weird room her mother had described in her journal!
The neon beer sign was there, casting an eerie blue light on the small room that contained a bookcase with ancient leather-bound books, a small heavily carved dark table and two ancient high-backed chairs. There was a thick candle sputtering in the middle of the small table and another one by a table near a bookcase.
“We haven’t much time,” Madame Enlia said in her scolding voice. She shook her head as she lit yet another candle by the bookcase and consulted an ancient book.
She came back to where Kate was. “You look a little like your mother. Why did she name you the same as she? I don’t believe in naming children the same as the mother. Too silly and confusing.”
“You should have come sooner,” she added when Kate just stared at her. “There will be a time difference in the portal of exactly six hours.
“You must listen carefully,” she added.
“You must touch the monkey tattoo once reflected on the mirror and once without reflection. The second contact will take you back to your time. It is important that you follow the directions carefully. You understand?
“Why are you staring at me? We only have a few minutes before midnight and you’re wasting time.”
“But it’s only six—”
“Hush!” the woman whispered. “It’s another time frame in the golden canopy that leads to the portal.”
“Oh.” Kate realized that everything the strange woman had said had gone over her head as she stared at her painted huge eyes. She was strangely attractive in a brash hypnotic way.
“Come, let’s go.”
“Where?”
“You mustn’t speak. Just do as I say!”
“Ah—all right,” Kate mumbled, so that it wouldn’t be classified as ‘speaking.’
She followed Madame Enlia down the street, be
coming more apprehensive with each step. What was she getting into? Was this woman taking her to the same place her sister, Madame Xalia had taken Kate’s mother?
Although it was only six, Kate was startled as she glanced up and found that the sky was now pitch black. The street was completely empty of people. It was an area comprised mostly of factory clothes outlets and small business fronts, there was also a tire repair shop, a beauty parlor and a small Mexican restaurant. They were all closed and Kate felt that it was because it was not six but almost midnight in Madame Enlia’s world.
They reached a boarded-up storefront where the woman stopped. She reached into her purse and took out another ancient key with which she opened the door.
A blaze of light, strong and sudden from inside the place made Kate pull back in shock.
Madame Enlia reached for Kate’s hand and dragged her in so that Kate almost fell backward.
“There miss, look at it—the magical golden canopy!”
Kate stared at the impossibly beautiful golden canopy. “What does it mean, the magical golden canopy?” Kate asked, mesmerized by its beauty.
“What does it mean? Well, you must go under it in order to enter the time portal,” Madame Enlia said. “We barely made it in time! Now listen carefully. Remember my instructions so that you will be able to return.”
“Return?” Kate asked, as a shiver of fear froze her body. Return from where? Her mother had returned. Why was it now not a certain thing she, Kate, would return?
“Who are you? Do you make this magic?”
Madame Enlia laughed. “What a thing to say! My family has been keepers of the golden canopy and the portal for endless generations. I believe my mother and my grandmother before her meant to keep the knowledge from my sister and me because at one time they wanted to end their family’s commitment, but they changed their minds. They had hesitated because they believed it to be dangerous and wanted us twins to have a normal life. But they realized we cannot judge.
“Our ancestors were chosen to guard the portal and we’re servants only. Keeping the gate is our family’s life-long obligation, because now and then there’s some who want to go through and should not. We make the judgment of who is allowed. We guard history, and our little shop hides the portal.”
Kate stared at her, as if the woman had just told her she was a space alien.
Maybe she should just turn around…
“I can’t talk anymore,” Madame Enlia added. “Decide quickly because I have to go.
“Do you want to go forward or do we return?”
Kate hesitated for a second or two, pulled by the hypnotic look in Madame’s large black-fringed eyes. She remembered how much she wanted this, how intrigued she was with it. And although her mother never mentioned a “portal” in her diary, Kate was eager to see this new addition. Her mother had obtained the youth potion, that was all. There was no mention of the “portal” in her journal. There was only mention of the golden canopy.
“I want to go forward,” she heard herself say.
Madame Enlia pushed Kate in, letting go of her hand as she did so.
Kate found herself suddenly under the beautiful incredible golden canopy her mother had mentioned and she began to walk slowly forward—pulled forward, rather, without any effort on her part as her feet barely touched ground.
Madame Enlia was now nowhere in sight.
Kate shuddered. What was going to happen to her? Where was she going? Would she be all right? Was this what her mother had gone through to get the youth potion? Questions without answers swirled in her mind.
She continued walking under the golden canopy as if driven. She tried to force herself to stop and found she couldn’t. She had no control over her feet!
Her breath caught at her throat when her last step felt as though she had stepped off a cliff.
Kate swirled through air as if she was inside a beater.
Was she going to die? No one can survive a fall off a cliff like that!
Then suddenly her feet struck ground—or something, for her free fall came to a sudden unexpected stop.
She felt movement under her and a rumble—the rumble of the bus! She felt the bus seat underneath her. She was back on the bus!
What was going on?
Had this been just a dream? Yet everything was in too vivid detail for it to have been a dream. Something strange happened. Apparently, she was not allowed to experience what her mother had gone through and this was the way Madame Xalia and Madame Enlia were telling her.
Maybe both women were one and the same.
She was getting a headache from this tangle in her head.
When she reached home, Kate called Stacy.
***
“What happened, Kate, did you go?” Stacy’s voice trembled with excitement.
“I did. I went under the magical golden canopy! Oh, Stace, you can’t imagine what an experience that is. It’s indescribable! But the strangest thing happened. I have an idea that Madame Enlia didn’t want me to do what Mom did—get the youth potion, that is. I was given the strangest run around!”
She told Stacy about how she felt that she was falling through space and ended up again inside the bus.
“If she contacts you again, call me,” Stacy almost shouted.
Kate hung up, but not without first promising Stacy a few times that if she was contacted by either of the ‘madames’ she would call her at once.
***
A few days later, Kate called Stacy again.
“They called?” Stacy could not mask her excitement, she practically screamed so that Kate put her cell phone away from her ear.
“Hey, quiet down,” Kate said with a laugh. “I called for another reason. First of all, I have not been contacted again by either of the weasels. What I’m calling about is that I’ve been offered a wonderful opportunity to visit France! You know that I just haven’t taken my vacation for fear of not having a job when I came back, the way the economy is. Part-time eager employees are buzzing around, waiting for just such a chance to grab your job. That happened to my friend Angie so I’m not just blowing hot air.”
“Oh, I can believe it,” Stacy said. “Just stay put. I’m dying to see you but not if you’re going to lose your job in the process.”
“Well, listen, Stace,” Kate went on, “Two of the agents came down with something so I was offered a chance to do tour agent work on a tour of some cities of France. I was just stunned when Leo offered it to me. What do you think?”
“What I think of it? What a break! You’re going to see France! Paris is in my bucket list, you know! When do you leave?”
“In two days! I only have two days to get ready. Good thing I renewed my passport for the honeymoon in Mexico.”
CHAPTER 5
Lost in thoughts of her recent past, Kate didn’t realize Michael—or Lanquest, as he called himself, had returned until the sound of the horse startled her.
“Easy, Blue,” she heard him say to his horse, who seemed to be nervous in Kate’s presence.
Maybe the horse could tell she was not from his time.
“I didn’t bring the—uh— stays, Miss Shallot,” the man said when his horse had calmed, “because you would need another person to lace it, so I brought a shawl for you to put over the gown, to disguise the lack of the other garment. Once you get to the house, one of the housemaids will help you to dress with all the garments that are necessary for you to look properly attired.”
He seemed very conscious of comportment and how a lady’s reputation should be protected at all costs. In her time in the future, that would have been the last thing anyone thought of.
He dismounted and handed her a bundle of clothes. Kate excused herself and went behind the bushes to dress.
What a relief she felt to be able to cover herself again with real clothes rather than leaves, even though she felt she was dressing for a costume party.
It took her a while to slip into what looked like different layers that m
ade up the outfit. She slipped into an embroidered slip and chemisette with sleeves and pantaloons made of fine lace, then the petticoat and gown and then a blue shawl.
Lanquest had thought of everything. She was unable to button the buttons because they were in the back but she did put on the stockings and shoes.
When she emerged from behind the wide bush “dressing room” she smiled at him gratefully as she approached him. How on earth was she ever to repay such kindness?
He was waiting for her with his arm resting on the pommel of his saddle. Blue, his blue-black horse who was aptly named, nickered and moved its head, eager to get going.
Guardedly she examined Lanquest more carefully. He was a tall, athletic looking man with dark hair that fell in unruly waves to his shoulders and dark blue eyes that smiled back at her. He looked like a storybook prince.
It must have been a relief for him to have her fully clothed now. It was endearing at how conscious he was about protecting Kate’s reputation or any appearance of impropriety.
“I couldn’t manage the buttons in back. Could you help me, my—uh, my lord?” Kate knew from the novels she read the correct way to address the aristocracy.
Once he finished buttoning up her dress he helped her up and she sat on the horse side saddle, arranging the frock around the leg that she had placed around the pommel. She didn’t want to alarm him by insisting on riding astride.
She arranged the shawl over her shoulders and realized she had goosebumps all over from the chilly day and the flimsy leaf dress she had worn.
He got on the saddle behind her and they took off along the trail where he had come from.
“My widowed aunt, Lady Donney, is looking forward to meeting you, Miss Shallot.”
“I have explained your predicament to her and we hastily cooked up a plan to explain your appearance at the house. You are to masquerade as the daughter of my aunt’s friend from the Colonies who has come to visit us. She and I could see no other way to help you until you are able to figure out what happened to you and how it is you suddenly appeared here. Aunt Amy has agreed to my request without any questioning. I explained a little of your circumstances and she is eager to help.”