A Tale of Two Centuries msssc-2

by Rachel Harris

  Willing myself not to cry again, I crush his fingers in my grasp and whisper, “She came to take me home.”

  Austin bounds off the bed and paces the length of the room. He stops, starts again, and then pulls me up with him. Gathering me to his chest, he curls his shoulders around me as if he can protect me—as if he can stop fate just because he wills things to be different—and says, “That’s not happening.”

  His voice is sharp, with a determined edge of steel, and if I weren’t so heartbroken, I would kiss him.

  Instead, I lay my hand on his cheek. “It’s all right. Reyna granted me a forty-eight-hour reprieve. I have until after opening night.” I swallow hard, pushing my emotions back down my thickened throat. “But—but then I’ll have to leave you.”

  Austin takes my hand and walks back to the bed, placing me on his lap as he sits down. “Baby, I just found you…you really think I’m gonna let her take you away from me? We’ll figure something out, I promise you that.”

  “But how?”

  I startle from Cat’s sudden appearance in the bathroom’s doorway and look up to meet her troubled gaze.

  “I mean, Austin, this isn’t politics. You can’t just argue your point here. This is fate. Destiny.” She wiggles her fingers in the air. “Magic.” She shrugs. “It’s kinda hard to fight.”

  “No, Austin’s right.” Lucas glides past her and sits in the rolling desk chair. “The two of you aren’t alone this time. There’s four of us now and only one of her. We’ll start with that ancestry search Cat was talking about; maybe we can find something there. That was Reyna’s big argument, right?” he asks me. “That you’d change history if you stayed?” I nod, and he grins. “Then there you go. Let’s find out who’s in your lineage and what great things we’d be changing if you stayed. There has to be a loophole.”

  Austin clasps his arms around my waist from behind. “I’m great at finding loopholes.”

  It is tempting to let go and be swept away by their excitement, but the boys do not understand the magic we are dealing with. I look at Cat, who gives me a gentle smile but voices the question we’re both thinking. “And if we don’t? If there’s not a loose thread to pick, or a flaw in her logic?”

  Austin’s fingers sink into my skin. “Then I’ll go back with her.”

  I must have heard that wrong.

  I twist my head around, certain there’s no way he would be willing to give up this world that I desperately want to stay in, all for a girl he just met. But the emotion in his eyes tells me that he is, and that my ears are working just fine.

  Austin resettles me on his lap, clasping his arms around my back so I will not fall, and once he is sure I am comfortable, asks, “What does this century have for me that yours won’t? Electricity? My dear devoted dad? My superior academic record?” He gives me a droll look, and even with the trauma of the day, I find my smile.

  “And Jamie?” I ask, knowing how close the two siblings are.

  As anticipated, sadness rolls across his face, but it is quickly replaced by resolve. “Yeah, you’re right. If I leave—and I don’t think I’ll have to, but if I do—I’ll miss her. But my sister’s a fighter, Princess. And she’s all grown up. More importantly, she’s not you.”

  I hear the bathroom door creak behind me, and I picture my cousin’s mouth hanging ajar. But nothing, not even Reyna, could get me to look away. Austin bends his head so close to mine and lowers his voice to just above a whisper as he says, “I don’t think you’re getting it. I told you I’m not letting them take you away, so you better get used to this face. One way or another, Alessandra, I’m yours until you get rid of me.”

  My heart swells, and I cling to his words like the lifeline they are. “Well, you better get used to mine,” I tell him, “because I’m never getting rid of you.” Then I seal my promise with a kiss.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  The ancestry search had to wait until morning. Shortly after absorbing Austin’s words, Jenna arrived home from touring potential sweet sixteen venues with Lucas’s mom and sister in tow, and as eager as we all were to fight fate, we decided it best we start fresh in the morning. So at nine o’clock in the morning on the day before I am to leave the twenty-first century forever, I join my boyfriend, cousin, and friend at the Beverly Hills public library to research their past—and my future—in an attempt to find a fatal flaw in Reyna’s divine logic.

  To admit my hopes are pinned on a very slim chance would not be an overstatement.

  “Slumming it with the rest of us lowlife, school ditchers, huh?” Austin teases Cat, grabbing the seat across from her. “I didn’t think you had it in you.”

  She lifts her head out of a book. “What can I say? My early ancestors set a horrible example.”

  I jab her in the ribs with my elbow, and she winks, though the gesture seems a tad…strange.

  I knew last night that she was worried, feeling guilty for keeping my marriage a secret for so long, but I told her I understood. I can’t imagine what it must have been like, knowing what my future held and watching me fall more and more for Austin. No wonder she fought against us so much. But I thought that we had moved past that.

  Frowning, I shake off the lingering sense of unease. I’ve been overly anxious all morning, imagining conflict where there is none. I guess fighting fate will do that to a girl.

  The library is deserted and quiet, and we’ve received more than a few inquisitive looks, wondering why we are not in school. Austin, a professional at making excuses for such things, explains we are gathering research for a class project. Luckily, the woman behind the desk seems to accept his explanation without question. After all, as he told me when I expressed my disbelief earlier, “Why would anyone believe we’d skip here?”

  I take a thick volume I found on Lorenzo’s life from the top of my stack of books, hoping it will contain a clue about the painting he did of me. It is still strange to think about how well-known he has become in the last five hundred years. If things do not go the way I wish and Reyna sends me home tomorrow night, I’m unsure if I should ever tell him the extent of his fame…he could grow quite insufferable. I smile, thinking of my friend, and crack the spine of the tome.

  A half hour and no huge discovery later, I glance up, eyes weary from strain. Austin does the same and shifts his gaze between Cat and me. “I can’t believe I didn’t notice how much you two look alike.”

  “You didn’t know to look for it,” I suggest, sitting straighter in my chair.

  I’ve long thought Cat and I shared certain attributes—it is one of the reasons I so easily believed she was my father’s niece, Patience, when she first arrived two years ago—but I have yet to hear anyone else say the same. Turning in my seat, I beam at my cousin and observe the deep etches on her forehead.

  She nods. “Yeah, I see it, too.”

  The difference between my thoughts and her statement is that Cat’s voice catches with sadness as she says it, and instead of smiling at me with equal delight, her gaze flits back to her open book.

  Realizing my previous concern was not paranoia, I ask, more than a little hurt by her disappointment in resembling me, “Cousin, are you all right?”

  She closes her eyes tight and snaps, “I’m fine.”

  Obviously not, but I dare not say so and risk her ire again.

  When Cat opens her eyes, she tosses me a quick smile. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to jump on you. I guess I’m just a little stressed that we’re not gonna find anything, but that’s all it is.” Then she looks back at her book, effectively shutting me out.

  I have not known my cousin long—nine days during her journey, fifteen now for mine—but during that time she has never lied to me. Well, if not counting the numerous times she claimed to be Patience, but even then, she was never very good at it. Cat never needed to lie about anything important because I have always accepted and loved her unconditionally…which makes her insincerity now even more surprising. And disconcerting. Call it intuition,
a familial bond, or just keen observation, but something is definitely bothering her. And it is something she doesn’t want me to know about. Another secret.

  Lucas looks at me over Cat’s bowed head and shrugs, then reaches for his chirping cell phone. He’s been calling and e-mailing his contacts back in Milan all morning for assistance. He gets up from our table and rushes down the aisle, past the frowning librarian, to accept the call outside. Austin lifts his chin in Cat’s direction, urging me on.

  I close my hand around the wooden seat of my chair and scoot closer. The screech of the legs against the floor brings another scowl from the woman behind the desk. Despite Austin’s assurances, I am beginning to think she has her doubts about our alibi.

  “Cat?” I ask, wincing at the slight waver in my voice.

  “Yeah?”

  She turns another page and lifts the book up. What she doesn’t lift is her eyes.

  Not a good sign.

  I shove my hair behind my ear, then rub my hands along the rough denim of my jeans. In all the questions I assumed I’d be asking today—and I imagined a lot—I never expected I’d have to ask this…or that I’d ever dread the answer.

  Feet bouncing beneath my chair, I gather my strength and blurt out, “Do you not wish for me to stay?”

  Austin stops writing. Cat drops the book from her hands. And I wait in fear.

  The same doubts I had when I first walked up to her door come creeping back. Could she have been pretending this whole time? I think back to her excited greeting and the way she welcomed me so readily into her home, and doubt that can be true. But if she did miss me, and did want me here, could it be that I pushed too hard about Lucas?

  I frown, thinking back over the last week. The two of them have seemed so happy now, especially once she settled his fears about his ancestor lookalike.

  Finally Cat looks up, stopping my runaway assumptions and ponderings. “Of course I want you to stay, Less.”

  Relieved breath rushes out of my lungs, even though I hear a distinct but left unsaid.

  She puts her elbows on the tabletop and massages her temples with her fingers. “Of course I want you to stay,” Cat repeats, “but I can’t help being scared. Last night Reyna said that if you stayed here, you’d be changing history. Basically you’d be wiping out a whole line, right? So what does that mean for me? What if we find out today that I’m part of your line, Less? Does it mean that if you don’t go back, then I’ll just…cease to exist?”

  Silence follows her speech.

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  I don’t know why I never thought of this before.

  No wonder Cat has been so on edge all morning.

  I stare at her steepled hands, the long, slender fingers so much like my own, and wonder how I could have missed the signs. From the first moment I saw Cat step out of the carriage that brought her to my home two years ago, I have felt a strong connection with her. Everyone loved her, of course—Mama, Father, Cipriano—but it was the two of us who bonded so quickly and so well. I teased her that we were blood relations and I could decipher her thoughts as well as my own, and perhaps this is why. She comes from my own blood.

  For the past twelve hours, my only concern has been myself…well, myself and Austin. Not once did I stop and truly think about how my decisions would affect those who come after me. Cat is right. My actions tomorrow night could erase an entire lineage, including the descendant sitting beside me whom I’ve grown to love as a sister.

  “Oh, Cat, I am so sorry,” I tell her, reaching a hand out and then hesitating and drawing it back. “I-I didn’t know… I didn’t think—”

  “Princess, it’s all right.”

  Austin’s words hang in the air. Astonished he could dismiss the subject so lightly, I gasp. Cat blinks—I only assume as baffled as I am—and we both turn our attention toward him.

  “Excuse me?” she asks, dropping one of her hands to the table. It lands with a smack. “You did not just say it’s all right. I mean, I’m sorry for getting all heavy and freaked about my own demise, Mr. Laidback, but you know, some people actually value their lives.”

  Austin shrugs, letting the insult and her sharp tone roll off his shoulders. “But you’re not part of Alessandra’s line. No demise to freak about.”

  With an incredulous look, Cat’s head falls into her other hand, as if the day has already exhausted her, and it isn’t even lunchtime. Feeling similarly drained, I rest my elbows on the table. “And how can you sound so sure?”

  “It’s easy. She’s related through her mom, right, because of the name?” he asks calmly, already knowing the answer. On the ride here this morning, we filled the boys in on all we knew, including how her birth mother’s last name of Angeli is the Americanized version of my real last name D’Angeli. I nod and Austin continues. “But your descendants would have your last name. The last name of whatever guy you married.”

  Austin’s lip curls around the last word as he says it.

  As Cat stares blankly ahead, obviously absorbing the information, I search my mind for any holes in his reasoning. But it makes perfect sense. My body sags under the enormous relief, and my head falls onto the tabletop. “Oh, thank heavens.”

  Cat releases a shaky laugh. “You can say that again.”

  “Oh, thank heavens.”

  She laughs again, only this time for real. “Now you’re learning.” I hear her sigh and then feel the weight of her head press against my shoulder blade. “Girl, I’m sorry I’ve been such a bitch all morning. I was just scared, but I wanted to help, and I didn’t know what to do.”

  “You could have begun with telling me,” I say, my voice muffled by the tabletop. I lift my head, and Cat sits up; I turn so I can look in her eyes. “You do know that as much as I want to stay here, I would never even think about doing so if it meant hurting you, right?”

  “Of course I know that,” she says. “That’s why I didn’t tell you. I wanted to find out for myself if it were true, and then only tell you if I absolutely had to.” She grins. “We only needed one family member hyperventilating in the bathroom this morning.”

  I cringe, envisioning her doing just that while I grabbed a bowl of those delicious multi-colored circles for breakfast. “From now on,” I tell her, holding my little finger out as she’d showed me once. “We are a team. No more secrets.”

  “No more secrets,” she repeats, hooking her finger with mine. As we tug, the tension between us drains away.

  Austin nudges my foot under the table, attesting to that fact that while I may not have all the answers yet, I at least have the people I love in my corner, helping me.

  One disaster averted, I think, nudging him back. Then I dive back into my book, my thoughts remaining on the rest of my possible descendants.

  A few minutes later, Lucas returns with a broad smile. “I’ve got intel.”

  He flips a chair around and sits down, setting his phone and an open notebook in front of him. “That was a friend of mine back in Milan. Figured they may have better resources on Italian history there, so I asked him to check things out for me. Basically I had him focus his search on any future world leaders, scientists, or Nobel Prize winners that were in your line. I thought that could be our loophole for Reyna—if no one affected history in a big way and you choose to stay, you can argue that any children you have here have the potential to do more for humanity.”

  Lucas shrugs and sort of rolls his eyes, as if his idea is nothing more than a shot in the wind. But right now his theory is our best—and only—option.

  “No, that could work,” I say, leaning forward in my chair with renewed optimism. “What did your friend find?”

  “It turns out we got lucky. Records from the sixteenth century aren’t that easy to find for just everyday, regular people, but the guy you married was in government, so my friend was able to find a trail.”

  Out of everything Lucas just said, one detail stands out from the rest as if it were lined with the many-hued lights that
illuminated the streets of West Hollywood. It appears Austin agrees for he asks, “Wait, you know who she marries?”

  I flinch at his use of the word marries.

  Whenever the topic of my potential spouse has arisen so far, Austin has always been very careful to use the past tense, as if we were discussing something that happened long ago and has no effect on us now. And in a way, he is right. For him, these things are history, and depending on what we discover today, we may have the chance to change any of these things from happening.

  But everything we are learning are also things yet to come for me. My possible future. And the fact that Austin didn’t just ask who I married makes me think that for him, things are now getting real in a way they hadn’t before.

  Lucas hesitates before picking up his notebook and narrowing his eyes to read his tight scrawl on the page. “Domenico Bencini,” he reads before lifting his eyes to me. “Ring a bell?”

  My stomach clenches, but whether it is from surprise or fear, I do not know.

  In my mind’s eye, the image of a tall man enters, his dark brown hair shot with gray. The premature color makes him appear older than his thirty-two years, but from the air in which he carries himself, the proud angle of his jaw, this man revels in that fact.

  The D’Angeli and Bencini families have long been a part of the same social circles, attending the same dinner parties and events, so of course I know Domenico. I recall even being subjected to a dance with him at a recent ball. (Luckily, my feet recovered with time.) And although the two of us never really held a conversation other than the most basic of pleasantries, I have always thought him…amiable enough. Quiet. Reserved like Father. Only where Father is kind and has a wonderful sense of humor, Domenico is, well, boring.

  Could it have been a love match that brought us together?

  I try to picture myself kissing him and shiver in disgust.